UN UNABLE TO SEND OBSERVERS FOR SRI LANKAN ELECTIONS

The United Nations said it is unable to meet a request by Sri Lankato send observers for the Jan. 26 presidential election because of time constraints.

“In the light of the limited lead time available, and since, as per practice, the United Nations election observation requires a mandate from the General Assembly” the UN won’t provide observers, Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon said in New York.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa called the election two years before his mandate expires as he bids to capitalize on his government defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May, ending a 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland. The U.K.last month said Sri Lankamust ensure the ballot covers all communities, including Tamils in the north and east.

The leading challenger to 64-year-old Rajapaksa is opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka, the former army chief who led the battle against the Tigers. Fonseka, 59, this week won backing from the Tamil National Alliance, which holds 22 seats in the 225-member parliament.

Sri Lanka’s first election in recent history to be held in a unitary state will be free and fair, Cabinet spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said last month. Parliamentary elections will follow some time before April.

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STUDENTS SURROUND ADMINISTRATIVE BUILDING AT J’PURA

A tense situation has broken out at the Jayawardenapura University after a group of students surrounded an administrative building. The students have reportedly surrounded Vice Chancellor N.L.A. Karunaratna ’ s office building following an announcement that he will not be issuing Mahapola scholarships.

Ukrainians injured as police dismantle Kiev 'tent city'

At least 10 demonstrators have been injured in clashes with Ukrainian police and another 100 detained in the capital Kiev after authorities began dismantling a makeshift "tent city" protesting against corruption. The tent city was set up in October by supporters of Mikheil Saakashvili, a former president of Georgia who has become an opposition politician in Ukraine. Saakashvili, a critic of corruption in Ukraine, was deported to Poland in February. He said he was "kidnapped" by Ukrainian authorities and removed from the country against his will. Andriy Kryshchneko, police chief of police, said at the camp on Saturday that "two court decisions" allowed authorities to search and dismantle the camp. Police said that explosives and other weapons were found at the scene

Last year's iPhones are destroying Samsung's new Galaxy S9 flagship smartphone - Bench Mark Results

Samsung announced the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, the latest entries in its flagship line of smartphones, at Barcelona's Mobile World Congress — but benchmark results are awkwardly showing the devices scoring significantly lower than many of their competitors. Benchmarks are synthetic tests that give numeric, quantifiable results. They are generally applications programmed to make the devices' systems-on-a-chip (SoC) run a series of tasks and determine how long it takes them to complete. AnandTech is a site that specialises in running rigorous tests like these, and its early findings on Samsung's latest devices are curious to say the least— particularly compared to the latest iPhones, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 — which will power most of the Android flagships this year — and even Samsung's own Galaxy S8 from last year. In a number of tests — such as web browsing, writing, data manipulation, and photo editing — the Galaxy S9's Exynos 9810 consistently deliv...

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