International Affairs

President Joe Biden said Wednesday he has directed the US intelligence community to redouble their efforts in investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and report back to him in 90 days.

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a summit next month in Geneva, the first face-to-face meeting of the two leaders at a time when the two countries are at odds on several contentious issues.

GENEVA (Reuters): The GAVI Vaccine Alliance has signed an advanced purchase agreement with Johnson & Johnson for 200 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine for the COVAX vaccine-sharing program, it said in a statement on Friday.

GENEVA - The U.N. Children’s Fund is calling for urgent action to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in South Asia who are missing out on routine life-saving vaccinations because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

චීන රජය විසින් ප්‍රදානය කරන සයිනොෆාම් එන්නත් මාත්‍රා ලක්ෂ 05 ක් අද දිනයේ ශ්‍රි ලංකාවට රැගෙන ඒමට නියමිතව තිබෙනවා. එම එන්නත් මාත්‍රා හෙට සිට එන්නත්කරණ වැඩසටහනට යොදා ගන්නා බවයි ඖෂධ නිෂ්පාදන, සැපයීම් හා නියාමන රාජ්‍ය අමාත්‍ය මහාචාර්ය චන්න ජයසුමන නෙත් නිවුස් වෙත ප්‍රකාශ කළේ. එම එන්නත් මාත්‍රා කොළඹ, කළුතර, ගම්පහ, ගාල්ල, මාතර, රත්නපුර සහ කුරුණෑගල යන දිස්ත්‍රික්කවල ජනතාවට ලබා දීමට කටයුතු කරන බව අමාත්‍යවරයා කියා සිටියා.

State Minister of Money, Capital Markets and Public Enterprises Reform Nivard Cabraal yesterday described China as a “true friend” for its further support via donation of the Sinopharm vaccine.

New research provides encouraging signs that COVID-19 vaccines may continue to provide protection even as the coronavirus mutates into variants.

Americans have been advised against visiting Sri Lanka because of the coronavirus situation.

GENEVA - Ending the COVID-19 pandemic and preventing future pandemics is expected to dominate discussions during this week’s 74th World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization. The session will also address other pressing global health issues.

Repatriated Kuwaitis from Amman, wearing protective face masks, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), are seen after arriving at Kuwait Airport - Reuters

www.newagebd.net: The Bangladesh Bank board on Sunday approved in principle a draft $ 200 million currency swap deal with Sri Lanka, which has been struggling to maintain a moderate foreign exchange reserve.

India is nearing 300,000 recorded deaths from the coronavirus, after adding more than 3,700 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The situation in pandemic-ravaged South Asia is “unlike anything our region has seen before,” the regional director of UNICEF said Tuesday.

The World Health Organization chief opened the agency’s annual World Health Assembly in Geneva Monday by paying tribute to the 115,000 health care workers around the world who lost their lives fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

ROME - Leaders of the Group of 20 industrial and emerging-market nations made a commitment at a global health summit in Rome to speed up the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PARIS - The European Union pledged to deliver at least 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries by year's end, and develop vaccine production capacity in poorer nations, as it wrapped up a two-day summit in Brussels.

මෙම වසරේදී ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ පැවැත්වීමට සැලසුම් කර තිබූ ආසියානු කුසලාන ක්‍රිකට් තරගාවලිය කල් දැමීමට ආසියානු ක්‍රිකට් කවුන්සිලය තීරණය කර තිබෙනවාග ඒල මෙම වසරේදී එම තරගාවලිය පැවැත්වීම සදහා සුදුසු කාලයක් යොදා ගැනීමට නොහැකිවීම හේතුවෙන්.

Two doses of the COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca are about as effective against the coronavirus variant first found in India as they are against the variant first found in England, according to a study by Public Health England announced Saturday.