Big blow for Indians looking to return to Oman via Sri Lanka
By: Times News Service
Sri Lanka’s Civil Aviation Authority has decided to stop issuing visit visas to passengers arriving from India.
Muscat: Indian nationals looking to return to Oman and other countries of residence can no longer travel through Sri Lanka, after the island country stopped issuing visas to them, thereby preventing them from completing their quarantine processes there before flying to their destination.
Since Oman had banned passengers flying directly from India, as well as Bangladesh and Pakistan, into the country, an alternative route had been set up, through which people could spend a 14-day quarantine period in Sri Lanka, and then leave for the Sultanate, where they would need to quarantine again.
As the Syrian conflict completes 10 years, new diplomatic initiatives are taking shape
Talmiz Ahmad
April 09, 2021 22:46
A Kurdish Syrian woman walks with her child past the ruins of the town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, March 25, 2015. (AFP)
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The 10-year commemoration of Syria’s bloody civil conflict in March has evoked expressions of anguish and some new diplomatic initiatives.
Nearly half-a-million people have been killed and several million more displaced since the conflict started on March 15, 2011.
The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, described the Syrian situation as a “living nightmare” and recalled the “atrocities” and “greatest crimes” that have been inflicted on its people. He noted that 60 percent of the population could suffer hunger this year.
The East African
Monday February 15 2021
Women protest against the Somali President Mohamed Abdulahi Farmaajo in Mogadishu on December 15, 2020, over interference in electoral process. PHOTO | FILE | NMG
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Apprehension is building over the future of Somalia, after a missed presidential election on February 8. A three-day meeting between the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS), and the five Federal Member States of Somalia (FMS), to try to stave off a constitutional crisis earlier this month, did not yield tangible outcome beyond an agreement to defer talks to February 15.
Considering the fragile situation in the country, the fears are not unfounded. But focusing attention exclusively on interclan tensions, the international and regional community might be missing a point. Somalia is in peril, but the solution is not in Mogadishu.
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