Month: April 2022

Rome: The Ukrainian crisis overshadowed Pope Francis’ “Way of the Cross” prayer event at Rome’s Colosseum on Friday.

Due to the COVID epidemic, the Roman monument has not hosted the annual Good Friday celebration since 2019.

It’s also two days before Easter, the Christian main holiday.

The pope hoped that “adversaries would clasp hands” and “experience mutual forgiveness” after repeatedly condemning the Ukrainian war.

“Disarm the raised hand of brother against brother,” he said.

“I have lived in Rome for more than 30 years but today it seemed very important to come,” said Stefania Cutolo, 52, an Italian teacher.

“The message tonight, after two years of closure due to the pandemic, is doubly important. In this context where nationalism is returning to Europe, we must act,” she added.

In front of 10,000 faithful, the Pope launched this Holy Week highlight at 9pm (1900 GMT).

The Way of the Cross has been held at Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican for the last two years, with minimal attendance due to the health crisis.

“We meet the whole world here, we hear all languages. It’s marvelous,” Marie-Agnes Bethouart, 71, arrived with her husband and two grandsons on Friday.

Among the candles, a yellow and blue flag stood out. These are Ukraine’s colours.

Two women, one Russian and the other Ukrainian, were among the families entrusted with bearing the crucifix at each of the 14 stations of the cross.

The women carried the cross throughout one of the 14 stations of Jesus’ suffering and death, from his sentencing until his burial.

According to copies of their income tax forms revealed on Friday, Kamala Harris and her husband made more than twice as much as Joe Biden and his wife last year.

Harris and the ostensibly second guy, Doug Emhoff, reported a federal adjusted gross income of around $1.7 million in 2021, which was almost the same amount they claimed to make the previous year.

Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, claimed an income of roughly $611,000, about $4,000 more than they earned in 2020, according to the White House-released tax filings.

Additionally, the vice president and her spouse reported paying $523,371 in income taxes, a rate of 31.6 percent. For their part, the Bidens reported paying $150,439 in taxes on their income, implying that the president’s family paid a 24.6 percent tax rate.

Nearly $772,000 of Harris and Emhoff’s income was derived from the sale of a condominium in San Francisco and compensation received as a writer, according to tax papers. The pair gave $22,100 to charity last year, while the Bidens gave $17,394.

The Bidens’ highest philanthropic contribution — $5,000 – was made to the Beau Biden Foundation, a public charity committed to protecting children from abuse. Nine other organisations divided the remainder of their charity contributions.

Harris and Emhoff, for their part, disclosed $5,000 contributions to three institutions that they attended: California State University, Northridge; Howard University; and the University of Southern California.

The White House statement accompanying Friday’s document release made a point of stating that Joe Biden has now released 24 years’ worth of tax returns with the public, proving “his continued commitment to being honest with the American people regarding the commander in chief’s finances.”

Meanwhile, the White House highlighted that Harris had disclosed 18 years’ worth of tax returns.

Biden’s predecessor as president, whom he beat in the 2020 election, Donald Trump, never published his tax records.

However, a newspaper acquired and published on decades of Trump’s

tax returns last year. This research revealed, among other things, that Trump did not pay income taxes for 11 of the 18 years analysed by the Times.

Harris made her tax records public only hours after meeting Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan. Biden had announced intentions to visit the Pacific Northwest in the wake of declining popularity ratings in the run-up to November’s midterm elections.

Online access to the president’s and vice president’s complete tax returns is accessible.

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s former World Cup captain Arjuna Ranatunga, and fellow ex-skipper Sanath Jayasuriya have joined public protests calling for the president to resign over the country’s economic crisis.

They urged other ex-players to help them oust President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The island nation is suffering from its greatest economic crisis since 1948, with significant shortages of key products and frequent outages.

On Friday, Ranatunga spoke in front of the president’s office in Colombo, surrounded by protesters who had been calling for his resignation since last week.

Our fans are on the streets today because they can no longer bear the hardships. We must be with our fans when they need us most. Sports stars must physically join the protests. “

Hours later, fellow ex-captain Sanath Jayasuriya climbed the barricades in front of Rajapaksa’s colonial-era headquarters.

“Your message is loud and clear,” he told the tens of thousands of protesters. “I hope the authorities will listen and ensure a brighter future for all of us.”

The crowd chants, “Gota go home, go home Gota!”

Former captains are the first to get up in person, but other celebrities have expressed support.

Former captain Mahela Jayawardena has welcomed the protests and urged Rajapaksa to step down, but former captain Kumar Sangakkara has been more reserved.

Former Test player and International Cricket Council match referee Roshan Mahanama compared the country’s condition to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

When I used to go to Zimbabwe many years ago, I saw the economic hardships people suffered there, Mahanama told AFP.

My driver had to stand in a queue for hours to get diesel. I thought this would never happen in my country. But today we are in the same boat.

The state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), which accounts for two-thirds of the retail fuel market, said it would limit the quantities drivers can buy, and banned pumping into cans altogether to prevent motorists stocking up on petrol or diesel in fear of further rationing.

The maximum for motorcycles was set at four litres of petrol, with three-wheelers allowed five litres, the CPC said. Private cars, vans and SUVs were allowed up to 19.5 litres of either petrol or diesel.

Most pumping stations were already out of petrol, while the few that remained open saw long queues. At least eight people have died while waiting in fuel lines since last month.

Energy ministry officials said they expected the country’s other fuel retailer, Lanka IOC — the local unit of Indian Oil Corporation — to follow suit.

There was no immediate comment from the Lanka IOC, which accounts for the remaining one third of the market.

The island nation is in the grip of its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, with severe shortages of essential goods and regular blackouts causing widespread misery.

The country’s main cooking gas retailer Litro Gas said it was completely out of stock, but hoped to get new supplies by Monday to resume distribution.

The state-owned firm said its chairman, Theshara Jayasinghe, a strong ally of Rajapaksa, had resigned on Thursday over the “prevailing situation” in the country.

Tens of thousands of people kept up a protest outside Rajapaksa’s office for a seventh straight day Friday demanding he quit over the economic hardships suffered by the country’s 22 million residents.

Sri Lanka’s economic meltdown began after the coronavirus pandemic torpedoed vital revenue from tourism and remittances.

The government has urged citizens abroad to donate foreign exchange to help pay for desperately needed essentials after announcing a default on its entire external debt.

It has announced it will open negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to seek a bailout.

SriLankan Airlines

Meanwhile, a plan by Sri Lanka’s state-owned national airline to lease nearly two dozen aircraft has sparked public criticism and opposition condemnation as the country struggles with its worst financial crisis in decades.

Tender notices for the lease of 42 aircraft were published on the airline’s website on Thursday.

SriLankan Airlines has been struggling with a fall in tourism because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic crisis.

In 2019/20, SriLankan Airlines reported a loss of 44.14 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($140.90 million) against 41.70 billion Sri Lankan rupees in the previous year.

“This must be a joke?!,” a member of parliament from the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) alliance, Harsha de Silva, said in a post on Twitter.

The hack was one of the biggest to hit the crypto world, raising huge questions about security in an industry that only recently burst into the mainstream thanks to celebrity promotions and promises of untold wealth.

Last month’s theft from the makers of Axie Infinity, a game where players can earn crypto through game play or trading their avatars, came just weeks after thieves made off with around $320 million in a similar attack.

“Through our investigations we were able to confirm Lazarus Group and APT38, cyber actors associated with (North Korea), are responsible for the theft,” the FBI said in a statement.

Lazarus Group gained notoriety in 2014 when it was accused of hacking into Sony Pictures Entertainment as revenge for “The Interview,” a satirical film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea’s cyber-program dates back to at least the mid-1990s, but has since grown to a 6,000-strong cyber-warfare unit, known as Bureau 121, that operates from several countries including Belarus, China, India, Malaysia and Russia, according to a 2020 US military report.

John Bambenek, a threat analyst with digital security firm Netenrich, said North Korea is “unique” in employing groups dedicated to cryptocurrency theft.

“As North Korea is highly-sanctioned, cryptocurrency thefts are also a national security interest for them,” he said.

North Korean hackers stole around $400 million-worth of cryptocurrency through cyberattacks on digital currency outlets last year, blockchain data platform Chainalysis said in January.

In the case of the Axie Infinity heist, attackers exploited weaknesses in the set-up put in place by the Vietnam-based firm behind the game, Sky Mavis.

The company had to solve a problem: the ethereum blockchain, where transactions in the ether cryptocurrency are logged, is relatively slow and expensive to use.

To allow Axie Infinity players to buy and sell at speed, the firm created an in-game currency and a sidechain with a bridge to the main ethereum blockchain.

The result was faster and cheaper — but ultimately less secure.

The attack targeting its blockchain netted 173,600 ether and $25.5 million-worth of stablecoin, a digital asset pegged to the US dollar.

Most of the Palestinian injuries were incurred by rubber bullets, stun grenades and beatings with police batons, the Palestine Red Crescent said, at the most sensitive site in the generations-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli security forces have been on high alert after a series of deadly Arab street attacks throughout the country over the past two weeks. Confrontations at the Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City pose the risk of sparking a slide back into a broader conflagration like last year’s Gaza war.

The Al Aqsa compound sits atop the Old City plateau of East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, and is known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, or The Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews as Temple Mount.

In a statement, Israeli police said hundreds of Palestinians hurled firecrackers and stones at their forces and toward the nearby Jewish prayer area of the Western Wall in the Old City after Ramazan morning prayers.

It said police then entered the Al Aqsa compound to “disperse and push back (the crowd and) enable the rest of the worshippers to leave the place safely”, adding that three officers were injured in the clashes.

Police detained hundreds of Palestinians, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a tweet.

The Palestinian foreign ministry, referring to the Al Aqsa violence, said it “holds Israel fully and directly responsible for this crime and its consequences”.

Immediate intervention by the international community is needed to stop Israeli aggression against Al Aqsa mosque and prevent things from going out of control, said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who governs self-ruled areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, said Israel “bears responsibility for the consequences”.

Jordan condemned the Israeli police raid into the compound as “a flagrant violation”.