Category: Local News

The Ministry of Health has issued an Extraordinary Gazette notification declaring the maximum retail price of 500mg tablets of Paracetamol with effect from February 28, 2022.

With the forex crisis getting worse by the day, a gazette notification is to be issued, discouraging 600 non-essential imports to save foreign reserves, Minister of Energy Udaya Gammanpila said yesterday (March 02).

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday (March 02) instructed Foreign Minister Professor G.L. Peiris and the Sri Lankan Embassy in Moscow to take necessary measures to ensure security of Sri Lankan students pursuing higher education in Belarus in the face of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, the Prime Minister’s Media Division said.

Sri Lanka will suffer no more power cuts after March 05, the president’s office said in a statement on Wednesday, following days of outages caused by a lack of funds to buy enough fuel to fire power plants.

Sri Lanka has settled the payment of USD 31 million to the Singaporean company for the shipment of 37,300 metric tonnes of diesel that arrived in the country today (March 02).

Sri Lanka’s public transport was crippled Wednesday as buses ran out of diesel, officials said as the country’s foreign exchange crisis worsened with no dollars to import fuel.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has assured the public that all necessary action will be taken immediately to avert the power crisis in the country.

Health workers have launched an island-wide strike over several demands that resumed at 8:00 am today (March 02) and will continue till 8:00 am Friday.

Economic hardships posed a graver threat to the country than LTTE terrorism, Minister of Energy Udaya Gammanpila yesterday told the media, adding that there were diesel stocks for four days in the country and a ship carrying diesel would arrive today.

Sri Lanka on Tuesday announced nationwide seven-and-a-half hour daily power cuts, the longest in more than a quarter of a century, as its foreign exchange crisis leaves it unable to import oil.

The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) says the interruptions to the power supply would be extended to 07 hours and 30 minutes tomorrow (March 02).

Due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers has approved the proposal made by the Minister of Tourism to extend the visa period of Russian and Ukrainian tourists for a period of two-months free of charge.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s directive to the Finance Ministry to release US dollars to pay for fuel shipments has not yet been a reality, Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila said yesterday (February 28).

The government’s efforts to provide an uninterrupted fuel supply at CEYPETCO pumping stations has suffered a debilitating setback due to the unprecedented heavy demand caused by sharp differences in prices at the CPC-owned and the Lanka India Oil Company (LIOC) managed service stations.

The Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has met Pope Francis at the St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican today (February 28), at 3:00 PM Sri Lanka time, the Bishop’s House confirmed.

Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa was acquitted and released on Monday (28) from a case filed with Kaduwela Magistrate’s Court on charges of misappropriation of ‘Divineguma’ public funds.