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The Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has fled to the Maldives on a military jet hours before he was due to resign on Wednesday, following days of extraordinary scenes including his presidential palace and office being taken over by anti-government protesters, The Guardian reported.

Following his departure, the prime minister’s office said a state of emergency had been declared as protesters continued to try to storm government offices.

The airforce confirmed that Rajapaksa, his wife and two security guards boarded a military aircraft in the early hours of Wednesday morning, after he invoked executive powers to enable his escape.

“Under the provisions of the constitution and on a request by the government, the Sri Lanka air force provided a plane early today to fly the president, his wife and two security officials to the Maldives,” a statement said.

On their arrival in the Maldives capital of Malé at 3am, they were greeted at the airport by the president, Mohammad Nasheed, and his wife. At the time of his departure on Wednesday morning, the president still had not submitted a letter of resignation.

Protesters, activists and lawyers have called for the president to be prosecuted, along with various Rajapaksa family members, over alleged corruption and human rights abuses.

However, while he is still president, Rajapaksa enjoys immunity from arrest. It is believed that Rajapaksa will not officially resign until he reaches his final destination of the United Arab Emirates, which has long been a haven for disgraced leaders.

As news of his departure to the Maldives broke on Wednesday morning, protests broke out across the city of Colombo as people demanded he step down immediately, according to the Guardian.

There was a heavy security presence outside the office of the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and teargas and water cannon were deployed by police as the crowds gathered to demand the prime minister also step down.

Rajapaksa’s escape to the Maldives followed a dramatic 24 hours in which he unsuccessfully tried various means of leaving the country. He was blocked from boarding a commercial flight to Dubai on Monday night after airport staff refused to stamp his passport in the VIP area of the airport. India also refused to give permission for a military airport transporting him to land on its soil.

The president’s younger brother Basil Rajapaksa, who served as finance minister, was also prevented from boarding a flight to Dubai en route to the US where he is a dual citizen. Basil was also reported to have left the country on Tuesday night.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was elected in 2019, has been resisting calls for his resignation for months, as Sri Lanka has sunk deeper and deeper into a financial crisis for which he is widely blamed.

Rajapaksa and five family members who held senior government posts stand accused of widespread corruption and economic mismanagement which left the country without any foreign currency to import food, fuel and medicines, and pushed inflation to record levels. According to the UN, the island of 22 million people is facing a humanitarian crisis, The Guardian reported.

Several Chinese cities broke new records for high temperatures on Tuesday (Jul 12) as scorching heat and contrasting relentless rains wreaked havoc, with local forecasters expecting the weather extremes to linger for days, Reuters reported.

Red alerts, the highest in a three-tier warning system, were dispersed throughout the country on Tuesday and cities took measures to protect citizens from the scorching heat, which broke records for the month of July in parts of eastern Jiangsu province and the neighbouring city of Shanghai.

Temperatures in the city of Yixing in Jiangsu rose as high as 41.3 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, a new historic peak, the China Meteorological Administration said on Wednesday.

The hashtag #Heatstroke was trending on social media with 2.45 million views on the Weibo social platform of discussions ranging from people being admitted to hospital and the detrimental effects of long-term heat exposure.

"This year's weather is really hot and abnormal, it has been more than 30 degrees Celsius for two months!", wrote a Weibo user.

Experts blame global climate change for the unusual weather.

On Tuesday, maximum temperatures soared to 37-39 degrees Celsius in parts of Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei and Anhui provinces, and the cities of Chongqing and Shanghai.

In particular, the cities of Luzhou and Yibin in Sichuan and Zhaotong in Yunnan, as well as Shaoxing, Ningbo, Jiaxing and Huzhou in Zhejiang, and Changzhou and Wuxi in Jiangsu, hit temperatures around 40 to 42 degrees Celsius, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, heavy rain battered parts of Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang provinces and the Inner Mongolia region.

Forecasters expect the intense heat and rain to continue over the next several days.

Eight-time European champions Germany defeated Spain to secure top spot in Group B and avoid a Euro 2022 quarter-final tie with hosts England, BBC reported.

Germany were gifted an early goal when Spanish goalkeeper Sandra Panos' clearance fell straight to Klara Buhl and she scored with a low strike.

Lucia Garcia had a chance to level, but could only shoot into the side netting.

Alexandra Popp, who only returned to action in March after 10 months out with a knee injury, headed in a second.

The Wolfsburg striker had missed both Euro 2013 and Euro 2017 with ankle injuries, but claimed her second goal at these Euros after scoring as a substitute in the 4-0 win over Denmark on Friday.

Pre-tournament favourites Spain play the Danes on Saturday and the winners will finish second and face England in the last eight, while the losers will be eliminated on the head-to-head rule, which is used if teams finish level on points, according to BBC.

If the game ends in a draw, Spain will finish second thanks to a better overall goal difference.

England, aiming to win the tournament for the first time, recorded the biggest victory in the competition's history with an 8-0 thrashing of Norway on Monday to finish top of Group A.

Twitter sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday, trying to force him to complete his $44 billion takeover of the social media company by accusing him of “outlandish” and “bad faith” actions that have caused the platform irreparable harm and “wreaked havoc” on its stock price, Associated Press reported.

Back in April, Musk pledged to pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, which agreed to those terms after reversing its initial opposition to the deal. But the two sides have been bracing for a legal fight since the billionaire said Friday that he was backing away from his agreement to buy the company.

Twitter’s lawsuit opens with a sharply-worded accusation: “Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”

“Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away,” the suit stated.

Twitter filed its lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which frequently handles business disputes among the many corporations, including Twitter, that are incorporated there.

As part of the April deal, Musk and Twitter had agreed to pay each other a $1 billion breakup fee if either was responsible for the deal falling through. The company could have pushed Musk to pay the hefty fee but is going farther than that, trying to force him to complete the full $44 billion purchase approved by the company’s board.

“Oh the irony lol,” Musk tweeted after Twitter filed the lawsuit, without explanation.

The arguments and evidence laid out by Twitter are compelling and likely to get a receptive ear in the Delaware court, which doesn’t look kindly on sophisticated buyers with highly-paid legal advisers backing off of deals, said Brian Quinn, a law professor at Boston College.

“They make a very strong argument that this is just buyer’s remorse,” Quinn said. “You have to eat your mistakes in the Delaware Chancery Court. That’s going to work very favorably for Twitter.”

Musk alleged Friday that Twitter has failed to provide enough information about the number of fake accounts on its service. Twitter said last month that it was making available to Musk a ″fire hose” of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets, according to Associated Press.

The company has said for years in regulatory filings that it believes about 5% of the accounts on the platform are fake. Musk is also alleging that Twitter broke the acquisition agreement when it fired two top managers and laid off a third of its talent-acquisition team.

Twitter’s suit repeatedly emphasizes Musk’s contemplation of starting a Twitter competitor -- an alternative option he sometimes aired publicly and sometimes privately to Twitter’s executives and board members. While the company has said it cooperated in providing the data he requested on fake “spam bot” accounts, the lawsuit suggests Twitter was concerned that disclosing too much “highly sensitive information” could expose the company to competitive harm if shared.

The biggest surprise for Quinn was how much evidence Twitter has -- for instance, communications with Musk about whether to retain or lay off employees, as well as the billionaire’s own public tweets -- to reject his arguments for backing out.

“They are marshaling many of Musk’s own tweets to hoist him on his own petard,” he said.

In a joint press release announcing the acquisition deal, Musk pledged to “unlock” the social media company’s potential by loosening restrictions on speech and rooting out fake accounts. Among his most attention-grabbing promises was to let former President Donald Trump back onto the platform. Musk argued that Twitter’s ban of Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol was “morally bad” and “foolish in the extreme.”

But his confidence didn’t last long. Tesla’s stock — Musk’s primary source of wealth — plummeted amid a broader stock market selloff in May, and Musk soon seemed less enthusiastic about owning Twitter.

“For Musk, the best case is he pays the $1 billion breakup fee but that appears very unlikely,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. “The irony is that Twitter as a fiduciary is clearly looking to enforce a deal that Musk doesn’t want to get done. It’s like buying a house you don’t want.”

The president of Sri Lanka fled the country early Wednesday, days after protesters stormed his home and office and the official residence of his prime minister amid a devastating economic crisisthat has triggered severe shortages of food and fuel, Associated Press reported.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards left aboard a Sri Lankan Air Force plane bound for the city of Male, the capital of the Maldives, according to an immigration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Rajapaksa had agreed to step down under pressure. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he would leave once a new government was in place.

The president’s departure followed months of demonstrations that have all but dismantled the political dynasty that ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades.

But there was no end to the crisis in sight, and protesters vowed to occupy the official buildings until the top leaders are gone. For days, people have flocked to the presidential palace almost as if it were a tourist attraction— swimming in the pool, marveling at the paintings and lounging on the beds piled high with pillows. At one point, they also burned the prime minister’s private home.

At dawn, protesters began chanting against the president and prime minister, taking a break at one point as the Sri Lankan national anthem blared from speakers. Demonstrators stood still, with their backs straight, and in silence. A few waved the flag.

“I am not happy he has fled. He should be in jail,” said Malik D’ Silva, a 25-year-old protester occupying the president’s office who has taken part in protests for the past 97 days.

Rajapaksa “ruined this country and stole our money. We will not stop until we have a new president and prime minister,” D’ Silva said. He said he voted for Rajapaksa in 2019 believing his military background would keep the country safe after Islamic State-inspired bomb attacks earlier that year killed more than 260 people, according to Associated Press.

Nearby, 28-year-old Sithara Sedaraliyanage and her 49-year-old mother wore black banners around their foreheads that read “Gota Go Home,” the rallying cry of the demonstrations.

The two said they hardly slept overnight, chanting alongside hundreds of protesters for hours, until the sun came up.

“We expected him to be behind bars — not escape to a tropical island! What kind of justice is that?” Sithara exclaimed. “This is the first time people in Sri Lanka have risen like this against a president. We want some accountability.”

The air force said in a statement that it provided an aircraft for the president and his wife to travel to the Maldives with the defense ministry’s approval. It said all immigration and customs laws were followed.

A spokesman for the main opposition party in the Maldives’ Parliament said it was regrettable that the archipelago’s government allowed Rajapaksa to land.

“Why should we be a safe haven for anyone is beyond me,” said Mohamed Shareef, a spokesman for the Progressive Congress Coalition. He said the decision was against the sentiments of both Sri Lankans and Maldivians.

Sri Lankan lawmakers agreed to elect a new president next week but struggled Tuesday to decide on the makeup of a new government to lift the bankrupt country out of economic and political collapse. And they have not yet decided who will take over as prime minister and fill the Cabinet, Associated Press reported.

The new president will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024 — and could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament.

The prime minister is to serve as president until a replacement is chosen — an arrangement that is sure to further anger protesters who want Wickremesinghe out immediately.

Sri Lankan presidents are protected from arrest while in power, and it is likely Rajapaksa planned his escape while he still had constitutional immunity. A corruption lawsuit against him in his former role as a defense official was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019.

Corruption and mismanagement have left the island nation laden with debt and unable to pay for imports of basic necessities. The shortages have sown despair among the country’s 22 million people. Sri Lankans are skipping meals and lining up for hours to try to buy scarce fuel. 

Until the latest crisis deepened, the Sri Lankan economy had been expanding and growing a comfortable middle class.

Sithara said the people want new leaders who are young, educated and capable of running the economy.

“We don’t know who will come next, but we have hope they will do a better job of fixing the problems,” she said. “Sri Lanka used to be a prosperous country.”

As a restaurant manager in a hotel in Colombo, she used to have a steady income. But with no tourists coming in, the hotel closed, she said. Her mother, Manjula Sedaraliyanage, used to work in Kuwait but came back to Sri Lanka a few years ago after she suffered a stroke. Now the daily medication she needs has become harder to find and more expensive, Sithara said.

The political impasse added fuel to the economic crisis since the absence of an alternative unity government threatened to delay a hoped-for bailout from the International Monetary Fund. The government must submit a plan on debt sustainability to the IMF in August before reaching an agreement.

In the meantime, the country is relying on aid from neighboring India and from China.

Asked whether China was in talks with Sri Lanka about possible loans, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official gave no indication whether such discussions were happening.

“China will continue to offer assistance as our capability allows for Sri Lanka’s social development and economic recovery,” said the spokesman, Wang Wenbin, according to Associated Press.

After the storming of the government buildings, “it was clear there is a consensus in the country that the government leadership should change,” said Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, a think tank.

The protesters accuse the president and his relatives of siphoning money from government coffers for years and Rajapaksa’s administration of hastening the country’s collapse by mismanaging the economy. The family has denied the corruption allegations, but Rajakpaksa acknowledged some of his policies contributed to the meltdown.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday announced certain measures to settle international trades in rupee, in order to promote global trade with emphasis on exports from India, The Times of India reported.

In an official release, the RBI said: "In order to promote growth of global trade with emphasis on exports from India and to support the increasing interest of global trading community in rupee, it has been decided to put in place an additional arrangement for invoicing, payment, and settlement of exports/imports in rupee."

In other words, all exports and imports under this arrangement may be denominated and invoiced in rupee.

However, for putting this mechanism in place, banks will require prior approval from the foreign exchange department of RBI, the circular said.

The new mechanism will also address issues related to invoicing, exchange rate as well as settlement.

Besides, the exchange rate between 2 currencies may be determined by the market.

For settlement of trade transactions, the concerned banks will require Special Rupee Vostro Accounts of correspondent bank/s of the partner trading country.

The circular further noted that, the rupee surplus balance held can be used for permissible capital and current account transactions in accordance with mutual agreement.

The balance in special vostro accounts can be used for payments for projects and investments; export/import advance flow management; and investment in government bonds, it added, according to The Times of India.

Exporters, undertaking overseas shipments of goods and services through this mechanism, will be paid the export proceeds in Indian rupees from the balances in the designated Special Vostro account.

It may also enable Indian exporters to receive advance payment against exports from overseas importers in rupees.

However, before allowing such receipt of advance payment against exports, banks shall ensure that available funds in these accounts are first used towards payment obligations arising out of already executed export orders/export payments in the pipeline.

"Indian importers undertaking imports through this mechanism shall make payment in INR which shall be credited into the Special Vostro account of the correspondent bank of the partner country, against the invoices for the supply of goods or services from the overseas seller /supplier," it said.

CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Nepal said that they are clear on Tibetan and Taiwan issues.

During a meeting with Chief of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China Liu Jianchao at the Baneshwor-based Hotel Everest on Tuesday, Nepal said that they are clear on One-China policy.

“We have clearly stated our policy towards China. Nepal is committed to One-China policy. Nepal is not in favor of interfering in the internal affairs of China,” he said, adding, “We have said that the issues of Tibet and Taiwan are the internal matters of China.”

He said that the meeting dwelt on strengthening ties between the two countries and further expanding the relations between the two parties.

Saying that Nepal and China have good relations, he said that China wanted to make relations stronger with various political parties.

He said that China has kept Nepal in the top priority.

The Chinese leader said that all the Nepalis should work together for the development of the country.

The Ministry of Home Affairs reshuffled Chief District Officers (CDOs) of three districts.

Hari Prasad Ghimire has been transferred to Bhojpur, Surya Sedhai to Khotang and Gopal Aryal Kanchanpur.

According to the Home Ministry, the CDO of Bhojpur Basu Koirala has been transferred to the Tribhuvan International Airport-based Immigration Office and CDO of Khotang Phanindra to the Home Ministry.

Ram Prasad Pandey of Kanchanpur has been removed from the Home Ministry. He was transferred to the Ministry of General Administration.

The Home Ministry has decided to transfer the CDOs on Friday. The Ministry implemented the decision on Sunday.