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Sri Lanka could have avoided its current economic turmoil if it had gone to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout sooner, the country's central bank governor says, BBC reported.

P Nandalal Weerasinghe told BBC Newsnight that the delay in seeking outside help was a mistake.

The country has said it needs $5bn this year in support from the international community, including the IMF.

Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt for the time in its history last month.

"If we had taken the decision to go to the IMF earlier, if we started the debt resettlement process one year before, we could have managed the situation without this kind of suffering in this country," he said.

His comments came as he is attempting to restore order to Sri Lanka's economy, which is experiencing extreme fuel shortages, soaring food prices and a lack of medicines, according to BBC.

A recent survey by the United Nations World Food Programme found that around two thirds of Sri Lankan households have been forced to reduce their food intake.

Mr Weerasinghe said Sri Lanka was experiencing its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1948.

A team from the IMF is due to arrive in Colombo for talks on Monday and Mr Weerasinghe will be a key participant in those meetings.

Yet there is uncertainty about whether Mr Weerasinghe, who replaced previous governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal in April, will be reappointed for a full six year term at the end of this month.

"I have expressed my desire to continue," he said.

"I don't think when I took over I had the expectation I would be serving only for two months and go back. If that was the situation, I would not [have] come in… This is not something that can be addressed within two months. It will get worse before it getting better."

A complication in the IMF negotiations is Sri Lanka's substantial borrowing from China, which Mr Weerasinghe said accounts for 15% of the country's total external debt, BBC reported.

The fund has a policy of not bailing out countries unless all its other creditors have first agreed to write down their loans.

"I'm sure China as a good friend of Sri Lanka [will] offer similar relief that will be offered by other creditors as well," said Mr Weerasinghe.

Former Sri Lanka central bank staff have written an open letter to the embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa urging him to keep Mr Weerasinghe in the post.

"If anyone is contemplating to remove him from his position as the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, we see it as a highly unpatriotic move with entirely ulterior motives," they wrote.

The World Bank has warned that as many as 12 other developing countries are at risk of default over the coming year.

Analysts say states such as the Maldives, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Senegal are also all on the financial brink.

Egypt, Ghana and Pakistan are also seen as intensely vulnerable, according to BBC.

The head of NATO said on Sunday (Jun 19) that the war in Ukraine could last years and Ukrainian forces faced intensified Russian assaults after the EU executive recommended that Kyiv should be granted the status of a candidate to join the bloc, Reuters reported.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was cited by Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper as saying the supply of state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukrainian troops would increase the chance of liberating the eastern Donbas region from Russian control.

"We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine," he said. "Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who visited Kyiv on Friday, made similar comments about the need to prepare for a long war in an op-ed for London's Sunday Times newspaper.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday he stressed the need to avoid "Ukraine fatigue" and with Russian forces "grinding forward inch by inch", for allies to show the Ukrainians they were there to support them for a long time, according to Reuters.

In the op-ed, he said this meant ensuring "Ukraine receives weapons, equipment, ammunition and training more rapidly than the invader".

"Time is the vital factor," Johnson said. "Everything will depend on whether Ukraine can strengthen its ability to defend its soil faster than Russia can renew its capacity to attack."

Ukraine received a significant boost on Friday when the European Commission recommended that it be granted EU candidate status - something European Union countries are expected to endorse at a summit this week.

This would put Ukraine on course to realise an aspiration seen as out of reach before Russia's Feb 24 invasion, even if actual membership could take years, Reuters reported.

France votes on Sunday in a high-stakes parliamentary election that could deprive centrist President Emmanuel Macron of the absolute majority he needs to govern with a free hand, Reuters reported.

Voting starts at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT), with initial projections expected at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) in an election that could change the face of French politics.

Pollsters predict Macron's camp will end up with the biggest number of seats, but say it is in no way guaranteed to reach the 289 threshold for an absolute majority. 

Opinion polls also see the far right likely to score its biggest parliamentary success in decades, while a broad left-green alliance could become the largest opposition group and the conservatives find themselves as kingmakers.

If Macron's camp does fall short of an outright majority, that would open a period of uncertainty that could be solved by a degree of power-sharing among parties unheard of in France over the past decades - or result in protracted paralysis and repeat parliamentary elections down the line. 

Macron, who wants to push up the retirement age, pursue his pro-business agenda and further European Union integration, won a second term in April.

After electing a president, French voters have traditionally used legislative polls that follow a few weeks later to hand him a comfortable parliamentary majority - with Francois Mitterand in 1988 a rare exception, according to Reuters.

Macron and his allies could still achieve that. 

But the rejuvenated left is putting up a tough challenge, as rampant inflation that drives up the cost of living sends shockwaves through the French political landscape. 

If Macron and his allies miss an absolute majority by just a few seats, they may be tempted to poach MPs from the centre-right or conservatives, officials in those parties said.

If they miss it by a wider margin, they could either seek an alliance with the conservatives or run a minority government that will have to negotiate laws on a case-by-case basis with other parties.

Even if Macron's camp does win the 289 seats or more it needs to avoid sharing power, it is likely to be thanks to his former prime minister Edouard Philippe, who will be demanding more of a say on what the government does.

So after five years of undisputed control, Macron, known for his top-down approach to power, is looking at a new mandate where he will need to strike more compromises.

No poll has shown the leftwing Nupes led by hard left Jean-Luc Melenchon winning a ruling majority - a scenario that could plunge the euro zone's second largest economy into an unstable period of cohabitation between a president and prime minister from different political groups, Reuters reported.

British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were shot dead with hunting ammunition, Brazilian police have said,   BBC reported.

A day after police identified Mr Phillips' remains, the second set of remains were confirmed as those of Mr Pereira on Saturday.

A third suspect in the murders has been taken into custody, police added.

The two went missing while on a reporting trip in the Ulvare Valley, in Brazil's Amazonas state on 5 June.

Ten days later, human remains were found after a suspect confessed to burying their bodies and led police to the spot where the remains were found, police said.

The suspect, a fisherman named by police as Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, was the first person arrested, according to BBC.

His brother, Oseney da Costa, was also arrested earlier this week - he denies any involvement in the murders. 

A third suspect was arrested on Saturday. Jeferson da Silva Lima, also known as Pelado da Dinha, turned himself into a police station in the city of Atalaia do Norte, according to police.

Mr Phillips, 57, had been living in Brazil for more than a decade and was a long-time contributor to the Guardian newspaper - he was in the area researching a book.

Mr Pereira, 41, who was on leave from his post with the government's indigenous affairs agency Funai, was an expert on isolated tribes in the Amazon.

Mr Pereira had received death threats prior to taking the trip, indigenous rights groups said.

The area in which they were travelling has become known for illegal fishing, mining, logging and drug-trafficking activities, according to BBC.

The region is known for violent conflicts between these various criminal groups, government agents and indigenous people. It was these conflicts that Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira were documenting.

Nepal reported 34 new Covid-19 cases on Friday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 2, 234 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 24 returned positive. Likewise, 1, 376 people underwent antigen tests, of which 10 were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 15 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 104 active cases in the country.

The government is all set to start a campaign to administer Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to the children from June 22.

According to the Family Welfare Division under the Health Service Department, the government has decided to start the campaign targeting the 5-9 age group.

The campaign will be school-centric.

The vaccine will be administered on the basis of school identity card and self-declaration of parents among others.

The children, who received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine 21 days ago, will be eligible for the second dose.

The vaccination campaign will be conducted in 27 districts from June 23-29 in the first phase and from August 21- 27 in the second phase.

Thailand announced on Friday it would abandon its much-criticized pre-registration process for foreign visitors and no longer require face masks to be worn in public, responding to a slower COVID-19 spread, Reuters reported.

The “Thailand Pass” system, where foreign tourists must seek prior approval from Thai authorities, will be halted from July 1, Tourism Minister Pipat Ratchakitprakan told reporters, removing one of the country’s last remaining travel curbs.

Thailand is one of the world’s most popular travel destinations, but tourism businesses have long complained its requirement for foreigners to submit multiple documents - from vaccine and swab test certificates to medical insurance and hotel bookings - was impeding the sector’s recovery.

Thailand was visited by nearly 40 million people in 2019, but received less than 1 percent of that number last year, despite easing its quarantine requirements, according to Reuters.

Though tourism has picked up in recent months, the industry is far from recovering, with huge jobs and businesses losses in a sector that typically accounts for about 12 percent of Thai gross domestic product.

The coronavirus task force on Friday also said use of face masks would from next month be voluntary, but advised people to wear them if in crowded settings or if suffering from health conditions.

Thailand has suffered more than 30,000 COVID-19 deaths overall, but has largely contained its outbreaks, helped by a vaccination rate of more than 80 percent, Reuters reported.

Police have arrested a man in possession of a pistol and pharmaceutical drugs from Sunsari.

The detainee has been identified as Rohit Rai (19) of Itahari Sub-Metropolitan City-3.

SP Sanjay Singh Thapa, Chief at the District Police Office, Sunsari, said that Rai was detained with the pistol and drugs from Koshi Rural Municipality-2, Sunsari.

Acting on a tip-off, a police team deployed from the District Police Office, Sunsari, nabbed Rai with the pistol and 10 ampules each of Diazepam and Nitrosun and three ampules of Lupigesic and 3, 375 pieces of Tramadol, Thapa said.

Police suspect that Rai may have brought the weapon and the drugs from India.

Further investigation into the incident is underway, police said.