SL mulls loan from Beijing to repay Chinese banks

Stock trading halted again Head of HRW to resign after 3 nearly decades

Sri Lanka's government said on Tuesday it is discussing obtaining another loan from Beijing to repay some of its debt to Chinese banks after China told the nearly bankrupt island nation it was not in favour of restructuring existing loans.

Sri Lanka has nearly $7 billion in foreign debt due for repayment this year and will need to repay $25 billion over the next five years. A severe shortage of foreign exchange means the country lacks money to buy imported goods, leading to shortages of food, fuel and other essentials.

The economic crisis has brought weeks of protests across the country calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation.

COLOMBO:

SL stocks plummeted shortly after opening for trading on Tuesday, leading the stock market to close early for the second day in a row. The All Share Price Index fell by 8.1% while the S&P Sri Lanka 20 fell by 9.87% at the close of trading, Xinhua News Agency reported. According to the news agency, the total turnover was just over 800 million rupees (2.35 million US dollars).

NEW YORK: The longtime leader of Human Rights Watch announced on Tuesday he will step down this summer as executive director after nearly three decades at the helm of one of the world's leading advocacy organisations.

Kenneth Roth ran the New York-based group as it shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for its efforts to ban anti-personnel land mines.

The group also pushed to establish the International Criminal Court for prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He became executive director in 1993, when the group had a staff of about 60.

As thousands of Indian riders continue to suffer from paying cancellation fees sans their faults, the ridehailing major has admitted that it made false or misleading statements in cancellation warning messages and taxi fare estimates, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said on Tuesday.

For almost four years between December 2017 and September 2021, the Uber rideshare app displayed a cancellation warning to consumers who sought to cancel a ride.

More than two million

Australian consumers were shown the misleading cancellation warning.

In India, as cab-hailing platforms grow in sheer size and number in India, local residents are facing similar troubles as of late, the drivers have been forcing people to cancel their rides when drivers do not want to ferry them or find the travel fare less.