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- Ukrainian actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy has won the second round of a presidential election against incumbent Petro Poroshenko by a landslide.
- According to a national exit poll showed on Sunday, the political newcomer, who dominated the first round of voting three weeks ago, got more than 70% support.
- Polls gave Poroshenko, who has been in power since 2014, 25% of the vote.
- If polls are correct, he will be elected for a five-year term. Official results are expected to come later today.
- Zelensky challenged incumbent president Petro Poroshenko who has admitted defeat.
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- Sri Lankan police has arrested 24 local suspects for involvement in serial blasts across the country on Sunday. Death toll rises to 290 with around 500 injured.
- At least 32 foreign nationals including five Indians are among the victims. Over 500 people are injured and hospitalized following the attacks targeting three five-star hotels in capital Colombo and three churches across the country.
- Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka’s government was aware of information regarding a possible attack adding they will look into why adequate precautions were not taken.
- Sri Lankan PM Wickremesinghe said the names that have come up are local, but investigators will look into whether the attackers had any overseas links.
- Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has announced appointment of a special committee led by retired Supreme Court judge to investigate the attacks and submit its report within two weeks.
- Sri Lankan police has confirmed involvement of suicide bombers at four locations in the country.
- Meanwhile, police curfew imposed across the country on 21st April has been lifted. The government has imposed ban on social media platforms like Whatsapp and facebook to avoid rumours.
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- Twitter India on 22th April appointed Manish Maheshwari, former CEO of Network18 Digital, as Managing Director for the country operations nearly eight months after its Country Director Taranjeet Singh quit.
- Balaji Krish, who has been leading Twitter India’s team in the interim, will return to Twitter’s global headquarters in San Francisco to resume his role as Global Head of Revenue Strategy and Operations at Twitter.
- Reporting to Maya Hari, Twitter’s Vice President and Managing Director of Asia Pacific, Maheshwari will be responsible for driving an integrated business strategy to accelerate Twitter’s audience and revenue growth in the country, the company said in a statement.
- Based out of Delhi, he will oversee Twitter India’s teams in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, starting from April 29.
- “India is one of our fastest growing audience markets for Twitter in the world and our purpose is to serve the public conversation in India. We are thrilled to have Manish join us at this important time to take our Indian business to the next level,” said Hari.
- Prior to Network18, Maheshwari held various positions at Flipkart, txtWeb, Intuit, McKinsey and P&G.
- “With premium Indian content on the rise in multiple regions across the country, I believe we are scratching the surface of what’s possible with Twitter in India,” said Maheshwari
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- Sri Lanka declares a state of emergency from 22nd April midnight following the deadly Easter Sunday attacks; Police arrest 24 suspects; Death toll rises to 290, 8 Indians among those killed.
- Sri Lanka will enforce a state of emergency from midnight on 22nd April in the wake of the deadly Easter blasts that killed 290 people and wounded more than 500 others, enhancing the counter terrorism powers of the security forces.
- The decision was made during a meeting of the National Security Council chaired by President Maithripala Sirisena.
- The NSC has announced plans to impose a conditional state of emergency from midnight. A statement from the president's office said the measures would target terrorism and would not limit freedom of expression.
- Meanwhile, as many as 87 bomb detonators were found on Monday at a bus station in Colombo. The bomb detonators were found at the Central Colombo bus station in Pettah area.The police initially found 12 bomb detonators scattered on the ground. A further search revealed 75 more.
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- The US announced on 22nd April it is ending the waiver given to India to buy Iranian oil and has threatened sanctions if it did not comply with the embargo.
- Announcing the end of the waivers, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: “Trump has decided not to reissue Significant Reduction Exceptions (SREs) when they expire in early May.
- This decision is intended to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero, denying the regime its principal source of revenue.”
- When the US imposed sanctions on Iran in November, India and seven other countries were given exemptions that will expire May 2.
- US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later told reporters that countries that do not abide by the embargo will face sanctions. They will encounter sanctions that will affect their international financial transactions, he said.
- The US was increasing oil production and was working with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to ensure that there will be no disruptions in oil supplies as a result of the ending of the waivers, according to Pompeo.
- In May 2018, Trump withdrew from the 2105 international agreement with Iran on de-nuclearisation that had ended sanctions on that country.
- In November, Trump re-imposed tough sanctions on Iran but gave India, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece six-month temporary waivers to continue buying oil.
- India was reportedly importing about 1.25 million tonnes of oil per month from Iran.
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- Iran and Pakistan will set up a joint border "reaction force" following deadly attacks on their frontier, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced 22 April after talks with visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
- "We agreed to create a joint rapid reaction force at the borders for combatting terrorism," Rouhani told a joint news conference, following months of increased tensions over attacks on both sides of the frontier.
- The border skirts the volatile southeastern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan which has been the scene of frequent attacks on Iran's security forces.
- Khan's visit to Iran, the first since he took office last year, comes after gunmen who Islamabad says were based in Iran killed 14 members of Pakistan's security forces last week in its own Balochistan province.
- "The security chief will sit down with his counterpart here and discuss (security) cooperation," Khan said, although no details were given on the joint force.
- "We trust that both countries will not have terrorist activities from their soil We will not allow any damage to your country from our soil," said the Pakistani premier who started a two-day visit on 21st April.
- In March, Rouhani demanded Pakistan act "decisively against anti-Iranian terrorists", following a February 13 attack that killed 27 members of the elite Revolutionary Guards in Sistan-Baluchistan.
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- Malawi will on 23rd April spearhead large scale pilot tests for the world's most advanced experimental malaria vaccine in a bid to prevent the disease that kills hundreds of thousands across Africa each year.
- After more than three decades in development and almost $1 billion in investment, the cutting-edge trial will be rolled out in Malawi's capital Lilongwe this week and then in Kenya and Ghana next week.
- It aims to immunise 120,000 children aged two years and under to assess the effectiveness of the pilot vaccine and whether the delivery process is feasible.
- Four successive doses must be administered on a strict timetable for it to work.
- Trade-named Mosquirix, the drug has been developed by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
- It passed previous scientific testing including five years of clinical trials on 15,000 people in seven countries and was approved for the pilot programme in 2015. Malaria episodes reduced by 40 per cent in the trials.
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