This offer will run till the end of July 2021 and will enable shoppers to enjoy discounts up to a maximum of Rs 1,500. Furthermore, Commercial Bank is also offering a 20% discount, subject to a maximum of Rs 2,000, on the entire bill between 10am and 6pm, every Wednesday to Credit Card holders shopping online at Glomark. Commercial Bank Credit and Debit Cards offer year-round promotions covering a wide variety of services. The Bank was also a pioneer in extending promotional discount offers which were traditionally only offered for Credit Cards to its Debit Cards. Commercial Bank cards are the fastest growing cards in Sri Lanka and enjoy market leadership in Credit and Debit Card cumulative point-of-sale usage.

Colombo, June 16, 2021: Sampath Bank recently announced the launch of its new Sampath Corporate Visa Credit Card in partnership with Visa, the leader in digital payments, to facilitate better financial management for corporates. Enabling businesses to gain complete control over their corporate expenses, this card helps them minimize administrative costs and avoid the hassle of unnecessary paperwork. Along with this, Sampath Bank is also offering free e-statements and SMS Alert facilities for the card. To give them more control over their finances, we are delighted to extend our partnership with Sampath Bank to offer corporate credit cards to all eligible businesses. Sampath Bank is a 100% local bank that has deeply rooted itself in the lives of the people of Sri Lanka.

Shaking hands in front of a grand Geneva villa, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday began their first summit since Biden took office, with deep disagreements likely and expectations of solving them low. Putin and Biden exchanged a few words before going inside. They sank further in March when Biden said he thought Putin was a “killer”, prompting Russia to recall its ambassador to Washington for consultations. The United States recalled its ambassador in April. In contrast to Trump, whose 2018 summit with Putin in Helsinki included a meeting accompanied only by interpreters, Biden and Putin are not expected to have any solo dealings.

Meanwhile, England's Covid vaccination drive has opened to people aged 21 and 22, as ministers race to get every adult jabbed by the country's new 'Freedom Day' on July 19. Jabs for care home staff WILL be compulsory Care home staff will be forced to have Covid vaccinations, ministers will announce this week. Ministers are concerned about low take-up of the coronavirus vaccine among care workers, who include care home staff plus home helps. Latest figures show that, as of June 6, 89 per cent of NHS staff had had their first dose of Covid vaccine and 82 per cent had had both. If the UK Government does push on for a vaccine roll-out for children, it will most likely use the Pfizer vaccine.

June 16, 2021 04:13 pmAs many as 1,667 more novel coronavirus patients were discharged from medical care within the last 24 hours as they have returned to health, the Ministry of Health says. This brings the total number of recoveries from COVID-19 in the country to 194,145. Sri Lanka has so far reported 228,256 positive cases of COVID-19 and 31,851 of them are still being treated at designated hospitals and treatment centres. The death toll from the outbreak of the pandemic meanwhile stands at 2,315.

The UK is unprepared for the devastating consequences of global warming in the coming years, the Government's climate advisers warned last night. Our planning for such events has been 'genuinely poor', the Climate Change Committee warns today in a damning 1,500-page report exposing the risks of global warning to Britain. The committee calls for action within the next two years from Government in eight key areas, including guarding against power failures. Baroness Brown, chairwoman of the Adaptation Committee, said the Government's national action plan that followed the committee's last risk assessment was inadequate. A Government spokesman said: 'We welcome this report and will consider its recommendations closely as we continue to demonstrate global leadership on climate change ahead of Cop26 in November.'

The Ministry of Finance has reportedly approved for the public to purchase liquor through an online procedure, Commissioner of Excise Kapila Kumarasinghe stated. However, this decision will only be implemented with the approval of the National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak (NOCPCO). There had been a number of requests to the Department of Excise regarding the possibility of purchasing liquor online through supermarkets. Accordingly, the Excise Department made recommendations and observations regarding the relevant requests to the Finance Ministry, Media Spokesman of the Excise Department Kapila Kumarasinghe said.

Sri Lanka shows significant progress in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) according to the 2021 Global Sustainable Development Report, the Director General (DG) of the Sustainable Development Council of Sri Lanka stated. Accordingly, Sri Lanka has improved its global rank by 7 positions and is placed at 87th place out of 165 countries in 2021. It was also revealed by the DG that Sri Lanka’s Overall Country Score has increased to 68.1, which is well above the regional average. In 2019 and 2020, Sri Lanka ranked at 93rd and 94th place respectively with scores of 65.8 and 66.9 respectively. The Global Sustainable Development Report is compiled by Jeffrey Sachs, Christian Kroll, Guillaume Lafortune, Grayson Fuller and Finn Woelm and published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the Bertelsmann Stiftung and the Cambridge University Press.

The United National Party (UNP) has informed the Election Commission regarding their National Seat in the parliament. Party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was previously nominated for the vacancy. Accordingly, a letter stating the former Prime Minister is named to occupy the National Sea vacancy was handed into the Commission today.

The International Nitrogen Management Systems (INMS) jointly with the United Nations Environmental Program (MNEP) has planned to implement a multi-purpose research proposal based in the Asian region including Sri Lanka, with regard to the utilisation of fertilizer with Nitrogen in various cultivation fields. This project is planned in view of the huge environmental impact and destruction due to non-management of chemical fertilizer varieties containing a high Nitrogen percentage in Asian countries. In Sri Lanka it has been planned to perform the collection of data relating to Nitrogen damage and release of greenhouse gases in the cultivation fields in the country selected for the particular research study such as vegetables Nuwara Eliya and Kalpitiya as well Anuradhapura concerning rice. In this context it is learnt that there is a proposal to enter into a partnership agreement among the University of Peradeniya and the United Kingdom Research and Innovation Institute, Global Challenges Research Fund and the South Asian Nitrogen Hub for the implementation of the proposed research project.

“We have shown our interest in hosting two global events in the coming cycle. “The ICC had asked for EoIs (Expression of Interest) from its member countries to host events coming up in the next cycle. The ICC events in next cycleIn the women’s circuit, there will be World Cups (in 50 overs) in 2025 and 2029. The World Cup and the T20 World Cup have both been expanded to consist of a maximum number of ten and 12 countries respectively. Pakistan has reportedly held talks with the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) to jointly host some of the ICC events that are coming up.

United States President Joe Biden has nominated foreign service woman diplomat Julie Chung to be the country’s next ambassador to Sri Lanka. Fluent in Korean, Japanese, Spanish and Khmer, Seoul-born Chung was previously Director of the Office of Japanese Affairs at the State Department. Chung was also the Chief of Staff to the Transition Coordinator at the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Biden announced a slate of ambassador nominations on Tuesday that included Morgan Stanley Vice Chairman Thomas Nides as the top diplomat to Israel and former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as envoy to Mexico. Thirteen of the selections are career diplomats, including his picks of Julie Chung to Sri Lanka, Sharon Cromer to Gambia, Troy Fitrell to Guinea and Marc Ostfield to Paraguay.

The youngest son of Buchi Babu Naidu, the great patriarch of Madras cricket, Cotah Ramaswami was a fine left-handed batsman who had a 27-year first-class cricket career. Tall and sturdily built, Ramaswami played some excellent strokes off the front foot on both sides of the wicket. Early daysRamaswami came from a family of cricketers: other than being the son of Naidu, he had two brothers playing first-class cricket; his son played first-class cricket too, as did four of his nephews and a grand-nephew. Ramaswami played only in the doubles (partnering Dr. Hassan-Ali Fyzee) and won the match 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 against Nicolae Misu and Misu Stern. Post-retirementAfter he quit first-class cricket, Ramaswami remained a significant and respected name in the Madras cricket circuit.

The Juventus keeper’s unfortunate error left Poland behind in the first half of Monday’s clash with Slovakia. Denmark’s Group B clash against Finland in Copenhagen on Saturday (12) was initially suspended after 41 minutes following Eriksen’s on-field collapse. They (the Denmark players) were left with three options; one was to play immediately (after the 41-minute stoppage) and get the last 50 minutes played. According to The Telegraph, Manchester City are now open to offer Raheem Sterling a new contract after Euro 2020 is concluded. Sterling had been rumoured to be out of Pep Guardiola’s plans but that has perhaps been an overstated narrative.

By Revatha S. Silva(From left) Newly-appointed SLC Director of Cricket Tom Moody, Technical Committee Chairman Aravinda de Silva, SLC President Shammi Silva, Secretary Mohan de Silva, and Technical Committee member Muttiah Muralitharan address the media in Colombo on 25 MarchOne of the highly-placed officials of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has shown his concern, and agitation, over the present SLC Technical Committee’s (TC) alleged intervention on the national cricket affairs, The Morning Sports reliably learnt. I would say the issue (TC’s involvement in cricket affairs above SLC ex-co) was a concern at that meeting. Meanwhile another leading SLC official said: “At the moment there is no such opposition to the Technical Committee within the ex-co. We all work as a unit. Therefore there should be a better understanding between the TC and SLC in future. If things go wrong, it is the SLC ex-co which will have to take the entire responsibility,” he said.