Greece says blocks hundreds of migrants from crossing Aegean

COLOMBO: Lengthy queues snaked round gasoline stations in Sri Lanka’s business capital and its outskirts on Monday despite the fact that the island nation’s authorities was scrambling to ship gas provides and douse any unrest because it battles a devastating financial disaster.
Kanchana Wijesekera, Sri Lanka’s minister for energy and vitality, mentioned provides of 95-octane gasoline, principally utilized in vehicles, had been acquired and have been being distributed throughout the nation of twenty-two million folks that has been combating gas shortages for months.
“With the two cargo vessels unloaded, petrol shares can be obtainable for the subsequent 6 weeks comfortably,” Wijesekera mentioned in a tweet.
One other 40,000 metric tons of petrol provided by India had additionally reached Sri Lanka on Monday, the Indian Excessive Fee (Embassy) mentioned, two days after New Delhi delivered 40,000 tons of diesel to its southern neighbor.
Sri Lanka is within the throes of its worst financial disaster since independence, as a dire scarcity of overseas alternate has stalled imports and left the nation wanting gas, medicines and hit by rolling energy cuts.
The monetary hassle has come from the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic battering the tourism-reliant financial system, rising oil costs and populist tax cuts by the federal government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, Mahinda, who resigned as prime minister this month.
M. Sudeera, an auto-rickshaw driver, was ready in a two-kilometer (1.5-mile) -long queue at Kumbuke, on the outskirts of Colombo, to fill his automobile, a well-liked type of public transport within the metropolis and its suburbs.
“Final time, I spent two days in line for 3,000 rupees ($8.46) price of gas. With that I did a number of hires but it surely’s barely sufficient to cowl prices,” Sudeera mentioned, standing beside parallel queues of auto-rickshaws, vehicles and bikes.
“Often we run through the day and spent the night time in line for gas,” he mentioned. “I’ve by no means seen something like this.”
Veteran politician Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over as prime minister earlier this month, has warned of hardship worsening over the approaching months, together with meals shortages.
Protests in opposition to the federal government’s dealing with of the disaster have continued for weeks, and erupted into violence earlier this month wherein 9 folks have been killed and over 300 injured. However the protests have been peaceable since then, though anger in opposition to the federal government is excessive.
Inflation within the island nation rose to 33.8 p.c in April, in comparison with 21.5 p.c in March, in line with authorities knowledge launched on Monday.
Wickremesinghe’s cupboard was expanded on Monday, with eight new ministers sworn in for portfolios together with agriculture, fisheries, industries, transport and highways, water provide and irrigation.