COLOMBO: As Sri Lankans flocked to a jubilant street party celebrating their president’s ouster, retired accountant Milton Perera sat at home pondering whether his family could afford to eat the next morning.

Before his dramatic toppling last year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was blamed for an economic crisis that brought food and fuel shortages, blackouts and runaway inflation to the island nation.

But Perera told AFP at the time that with the once-loved leader out of office, the hardships his country had endured to that point would get worse.

A year later, with millions of his compatriots struggling to put enough food on the table, the 75-year-old says his prediction has proved correct.

“Last year we had money, but no goods,” Perera told AFP inside his rundown government flat, a short distance from the seafront protest site where Rajapaksa’s toppling was orchestrated last year.

“Now there are goods, but we don’t have money.”

His home in Slave Island — a working-class pocket of Colombo where the Portuguese housed African slaves during the colonial period — is damp from a leaking water main.

Municipal authorities have not come around to repair it because they no longer have money for maintenance.

With sunken cheeks and veins protruding from his gaunt limbs, Perera wheezes as he moves gingerly around his kitchen, the product of his chronic asthma.

Before the crisis, medication to treat his condition was provided free by public hospitals — a government programme that has now been scrapped.

Two months ago Perera’s welfare payments were stopped as part of other spending cuts, meaning he is no longer able to afford an inhaler to treat his symptoms.

His family’s water and electricity bills have doubled thanks to the removal of government utility subsidies.

The economic crisis had already forced Perera, his wife, his two children and their extended families to regularly skip meals when AFP first visited their home.

A year later, supermarkets are again fully stocked with the kitchen staples that disappeared from the shelves during last year’s chronic shortages — but Perera’s family can’t buy them.

“We can’t afford meat, fish and eggs,” B. M. Pushpalatha, Perera’s wife, told AFP as the couple shared an unadorned meal of rice and lentils. “They are too expensive.”

Sri Lanka defaulted on its $46 billion foreign debt in April 2022 as its economy went into a tailspin unprecedented in its history as an independent nation.

Petrol queues at pumping stations stretched for miles and motorists — several of whom died in queue — spent days waiting to top up their tanks.

Families had no gas to cook food, farm yields fell dramatically due to a ban on fertiliser imports, and hospitals were empty of life-saving pharmaceuticals.

Months of angry protests culminated in the July 9 storming of Rajapaksa’s presidential palace, a short walk from Perera’s home, with its occupant forced into a brief but humiliating exile.

Rajapaksa’s departure did not conclude Sri Lanka’s economic woes, with inflation peaking at 70 percent in September. Petrol rationing also remains in force.

His successor Ranil Wickremesinghe secured a $2.9 billion IMF bailout in March by agreeing on a tough austerity regimen to plug the country’s black hole of debt.

“Many of the decisions I have been compelled to take since assuming the presidency have been unpopular,” Wickremesinghe said in a February address to the nation.

“However, because of those decisions, today no citizen of this country will die of dehydration in oil queues. You won’t starve without gas or fertiliser.”

But the steep cuts to government spending and welfare programmes have exacerbated hardship across the country.

An additional four million Sri Lankans had fallen below the poverty line since the crisis began, said Dhananath Fernando, chief executive of the Colombo-based Advocata Institute think-tank.

“That means about seven million people in a country of 22 million are earning less than 14,000 rupees ($46) a month,” he told AFP.

Of those, nearly four million Sri Lankans did not have the means to adequately feed themselves, the United Nations said in June.

Fernando said the figures showed a sharp deterioration in living standards across the country in the past year with no prospect of a quick recovery.

Unless the austerity measures began to bear fruit, the island risked a return to the sustained social unrest that broke out last year, he added.

“If we really fail to take Sri Lanka to a growth trajectory in the future, I’m not completely ruling it out,” Fernando said.

MANILA:  A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck the Philippines on Thursday, the US Geological Survey said, as local authorities warned of aftershocks and possible damage.

The earthquake struck at a depth of 124 kilometres (77 miles) at around 10:00 am (0200 GMT) in waters about three hours’ drive from the capital Manila.

Calatagan municipality police chief Emil Mendoza said he and his staff rushed outside following the tremor, which was also felt over the country’s heavily populated heartland, including Manila

“It was a bit strong. We had to run outside

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, but disaster authorities have been deployed to assess the impact of the tremor, Mendoza said.

Calatagan disaster officer Ronald Torres said the quake lasted between 30 seconds and a minute.

The earthquake sent people rushing out of buildings in the capital.

Diego Mariano, information officer at the civil defence office, said authorities were assessing the impact of the quake.

“As of now, no major damage or casualties as of reporting time. Assessment is still ongoing,” Mariano told reporters in a message.

Quakes are a daily occurrence in the Philippines, which sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic as well as volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

In October 2013, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Bohol Island in the central Philippines, triggering landslides and killing more than 200 people.

Old churches in the birthplace of Catholicism in the Philippines were badly damaged. Nearly 400,000 were displaced and tens of thousands of houses were damaged due to the quake.

TOKYO: Japan’s age of consent was raised from 13, among the world’s lowest, to 16 years old on Friday as lawmakers passed key reforms to sex crime legislation.

The reforms, which also clarify rape prosecution requirements and criminalise voyeurism, cleared parliament’s upper house in a unanimous vote.

Campaigners welcomed the reforms, with the Tokyo-based group Human Rights Now calling them “a big step forward”.

The lifting of the age of consent in particular will “send a message to society that sexual violence by adults against children is unacceptable”, the group said in a statement.

The age of consent — below which sexual activity is considered statutory rape — is 16 in Britain, 15 in France, and 14 in Germany and China.

Japan’s had been unchanged since 1907, with children aged 13 and above deemed capable of consent.

In practice however, across many parts of the country regional ordinances banning “lewd” acts with minors were sometimes seen as effectively raising the age of consent to 18.

Under the new law, teen couples no more than five years apart in age will be exempt from prosecution if both partners are over 13.

Japan last revised its criminal code on sexual offences in 2017, for the first time in more than a century, but campaigners said the reforms were insufficient.

And in 2019, a string of acquittals in rape cases triggered nationwide rallies.

Under the previous law, prosecutors had to prove victims were incapacitated due to violence and intimidation.

Critics argued that requirement effectively blamed victims for not resisting enough.

Criminalising voyeurism

The bill that passed Friday contains a list of examples under which rape prosecutions can be made.

These include victims being under the influence of alcohol or drugs, being frightened and perpetrators taking advantage of social status.

A justice ministry official told AFP earlier this year that the clarifications were not “meant to make it easier or harder” to secure rape convictions, but “will hopefully make court verdicts more consistent”.

The bill also contains a new “visitation request offence”, according to the justice ministry.

It means that people who use intimidation, seduction or money to coerce children under 16 to meet for sexual purposes will face a prison sentence of up to a year or a fine of 500,000 yen ($3,500).

The reforms also include language that for the first time criminalises voyeurism, which had only been regulated by regional ordinances before.

A penalty of up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to three million yen will be imposed for secretly filming private body parts, underwear or indecent acts without a justifiable reason.

Tokyo resident Sohei Ikeda, 39, welcomed the reforms but said he felt “Japan is quite late”.

But Natsuki Sunaga, a 22-year-old student, said she was skeptical that the reforms would stop people secretly filming others.

“I wonder even with a law against voyeurism whether it will end,” she said.

BEIJING: China launched military drills around Taiwan on Saturday, in what it called a “stern warning” to the self-ruled island’s government following.

Dubbed “United Sharp Sword”, the three-day operation will run until Monday, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen Tsai immediately denounced the drills, pledging to work with “the US and other like-minded countries” in the face of “continued authoritarian expansionism”.

China’s war games will send planes, ships and personnel into “the maritime areas and air space of the Taiwan Strait, off the northern and southern coasts of the island, and to the island’s east”, said Shi Yin, a PLA spokesman.

Exercises on Monday will include live-fire drills off the coast of China’s Fujian province, which faces Taiwan, the local maritime authority said.

A meeting between President Tsai Beijing and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.

China views democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.

“These operations serve as a stern warning against the collusion between separatist forces seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ and external forces and against their provocative activities,” the PLA’s Shi said.

“The operations are necessary for safeguarding China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Taiwan’s defence ministry said eight Chinese warships and 42 fighter jets were detected around the island on Saturday.

The ministry expressed “solemn condemnation of such irrational actions”, adding the detections — which included 29 jets crossing Taiwan’s median line, the largest number yet this year — took place between 6 and 11 am local time (2200 GMT to 0300 GMT).

China was using Tsai’s US visit as an “excuse to conduct military exercises, which has seriously undermined peace, stability and security in the region”, the ministry said.

The drills also follow the departure from Beijing of French President Emmanuel Macron and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, who were in China to urge Xi Jinping to help bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

Last August, China deployed warships, missiles and fighter jets around Taiwan in its largest show of force in years, following a trip to the island by McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi.

McCarthy, who is second in line to the US presidency, had originally planned to go to Taiwan himself.

The decision to meet in California instead was viewed as a compromise that would underscore support for Taiwan but avoid inflaming tensions with Beijing.

On Saturday, there were no immediate signs of heightened military activity on Pingtan, a southwestern Chinese island that is the closest point on the mainland to Taiwan.

A handful of cargo ships cruised through the waters near the coastline, while tourists in sunglasses and baseball caps snapped selfies on the viewing platforms.

But Fujian’s provincial maritime authority has warned vessels not to enter waters near the live-fire drills on Monday.

Tsai returned to Taiwan on Friday after visiting her island’s dwindling band of official diplomatic allies in Latin America, with two US stopovers that included meetings with McCarthy and other lawmakers.

Hours before her meeting with McCarthy on Wednesday, China sent its Shandong aircraft carrier through Taiwan’s southeastern waters on its way to the western Pacific.

Beijing said Friday that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China”, after repeatedly warning against the Tsai-McCarthy meeting.

“China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity will never be divided,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.

“The future of Taiwan lies in reunification with the motherland.”

Chinese military commentator Song Zhongping said the exercises were intended to demonstrate that the Chinese army will be ready if “provocation intensifies” to “solve the Taiwan issue once and for all”.

SEOUL: North Korea on Saturday claimed it tested this week a second known type of nuclear-capable underwater attack drone designed to destroy naval vessels and ports, adding to a flurry of weapons demonstrations this year that have heightened tensions with rivals.

The report of the four-day test came a day after the nuclear envoys of the United States, South Korea and Japan met in Seoul to discuss the growing North Korean nuclear threat and called for stronger international efforts to crack down on illicit North Korean activities funding its weapons program.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the drone, named “Haeil-2” after a Korean word meaning tsunamis or tidal waves, travelled underwater for more than 71 hours before successfully detonating a mock warhead in waters near the eastern port city of Tanchon on Friday. KCNA said the test proved that the weapon could strike targets 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) away with “fatal attack ability.”

North Korean state media last month reported two tests of another drone, named “Haeil-1,” and described the weapon as capable of setting off a “radioactive tsunami” to destroy enemy vessels and ports.

Analysts, however, are sceptical about whether such a device would add a meaningful new threat to North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal built around missiles and whether it’s reasonable for the North to pursue such capabilities considering its still-limited supplies of nuclear bomb fuel. South Korea’s military has said it believes North Korean claims about Haeil-1 were likely “exaggerated or fabricated.”

On Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden’s special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, met with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Seoul where they issued a joint statement calling for stronger international support to stem North Korean efforts to evade U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons ambitions.

The envoys expressed particular concern about North Korea’s cybercrimes and illicit labour exports, which Seoul says could possibly expand as it further reopens its borders as COVID-19 fears to ease.

North Korea in 2023 alone fired around 30 missiles in 11 different launch events, including an intercontinental ballistic missile that demonstrated potential range to reach the U.S. mainland and several shorter-range weapons designed to deliver nuclear strikes on South Korean targets.

NEW DELHI:  King of Bhutan, Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, will be on a three-day state visit to New Delhi from Monday and he will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Droupadi Murmu and External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar.

The King’s visit comes at a time when India appears miffed with Bhutan Prime Minister Lotay Tshering’s comment in an interview to Belgian newspaper Le Libre that China is an equal stakeholder in the boundary issue. “Prime Minister Tshering also denied China encroaching any territory of Bhutan, refuting earlier reports that China had constructed villages inside Bhutan. He also suggested that India, Bhutan and China collectively resolve the border dispute. This hasn’t gone down well in India,’’ said a source.

“A lot of information is circulating about Chinese facilities in Bhutan. However, we are not making a big deal about it as they are not in Bhutan. This is an international border and we know exactly what belongs to us,’’ Tshering said in the interview. Eyebrows are raised in India over the China-Bhutan talks over the status of the Doklam trijunction.

Bhutan and China are engaged in talks to settle the dispute. The Doklam plateau is at a trijunction of India, Bhutan and China. It may be recalled that in 2017 the Chinese Army began building a road in the area which led to a response from the Indian Army and an extended stand-off between the two nations. If Bhutan was to cede their area in Doklam to China, it would have China literally staring at India.

After Doklam, India’s relations with China have been at a low. Then the Galwan incident happened in 2020 and senior leaders have not minced their words to share their disapproval, be it External Affairs Minister Jaishankar or NSA Ajit Doval. Two days back at the SCO (Shanghai Corporation Organisation), National Security Advisor (NSA) Meet, NSA Ajit Doval had stated: “It is my view that the goals and vision of the SCO as enshrined in its Charter, calls upon member states to have mutual respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity of states and inviolability of state borders – non-use of force or threat international relations and seeking no unilateral military superiortiy in adjacent areas.’’ The comment is viewed as an obvious reference to China. Sources said during the course of interaction the King will have with the senior leadership in India this issue could be brought up for discussion.