True heroes of Covid War
Sri Lanka can truly claim to be a front runner in the war against the coronavirus pandemic with 2,984 infected cases reported and only 12 deaths while the pandemic is raging across the world with 24,662,073cases and 836,346 deaths by August 28. The world’s most powerful country, the United States, has recorded 6,048,404 cases and [...]
August 17 blackout: A question on interlock
I was motivated to write this article because 41 years ago, while working as a Shift-Charge-Engineer at the then oil-fired Kelanitissa Power Station (KPS), I was responsible for a similar incident which, fortunately, did not lead to a blackout. However, it nearly led to the incineration of the Switchboard Operator. It was prevented in the [...]
Turning the tide on unsustainable fishing
There is a widely held belief that because Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ = 517,000 km2) is eight times the island’s land area (65,610 km2), the seas around Sri Lanka are full of fish. Unfortunately this is simply not true. Coastal fisheries surpassed the estimated annual maximum sustainable yield (MSY) for coastal fish production [...]
Could Princess Diana have survived the crash?
Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed departed from the rear entrance of the Ritz Hotel around 12:20 am on August 31, 1997, heading for Dodi’s apartment in Rue Arsène Houssaye in Paris. They were the rear passengers. Trevor Rees-Jones, a member of the Fayed family’s personal protection team, was in the right front [...]
Virtual competition to save the ocean
Hilton Sri Lanka is joining hands with Big Spark by Gateway, SOS Children’s Villages, A+Plus Kids, YES101 and Funday Times in launching a three-month campaign from this month in keeping with its policy of driving responsible tourism by incorporating sustainable practices to reduce the environmental footprint. The Save the Ocean team set to free turtles [...]
Kayts St. Anthony’s Church celebrates 200 years
Tracing its origins to 1820, St. Anthony’s Church, Kayts is one of the oldest churches in the Jaffna Peninsula and 2020 is its bicentennial year. Having been damaged and abandoned during the hostilities in the North for many years, the church building underwent extensive renovations, thanks to the generous donations from community members in Colombo [...]
Why all countries should contribute to ending global poverty
LONDON – Trillions of dollars have already been spent on the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and no one knows what the final bill will be. Is it possible to respond to a much longer crisis – global poverty – with even a fraction of these resources? Richer countries are currently committed to spending [...]