COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lanka shipped out to Britain on Monday the last of several hundred containers filled with thousands of tonnes of illegally imported waste, officials said. Several Asian countries have in recent years been pushing back against an onslaught of refuse from wealthier nations and have started turning back unwanted shipments. The waste from Britain arrived in Sri Lanka between 2017 and 2019 and was listed as “used mattresses, carpets and rugs”. But in reality it also contained biowaste from hospitals including body parts from mortuaries, according to customs officials. The containers were not chilled and some of them gave off a powerful stench. The 45 containers loaded onto a ship at a Colombo port on Monday were the final batch of 263 containers holding around 3,000 tonnes of waste. “There could be fresh attempts to import such hazardous cargo, but we will be vigilant and ensure that this does not happen again,” customs chief Vijitha Ravipriya said.

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LONDON (AFP) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was set Monday to announce an end to all pandemic legal curbs in England, insisting it was time to move on despite political opposition and unease from the UN’s health agency. Two years after Covid-19 sparked the worst health crisis in generations, Johnson would address parliament to outline his plan, pressing ahead despite news on Sunday that Queen Elizabeth II had tested positive for the first time. Opposition parties accuse Johnson of seeking to distract public attention, with his premiership in peril as police investigate a series of lockdown-breaching parties in Downing Street. He is also accused of wanting to appease his own Conservative MPs unhappy at what they see as curbs on public freedoms. Robert West, a health psychologist at University College London and member of one of the government’s independent scientific advisory groups, said they were “irresponsible”.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- India’s home minister said he favored students wearing uniforms in school rather than any religious attire, but that his position might change once a court decides on the merits of a ban on the hijab in schools in the state of Karnataka. The ban imposed by Karnataka on Feb. 5 has sparked protests by Muslim students and parents, and counterprotests by extremist Hindu students, forcing authorities to close schools there earlier this month. Muslims, who form about 13% of India’s 1.35 billion population, have denounced the curbs on the hijab - traditional attire worn by Muslim women which covers the hair and neck - as another sign of their marginalization in the mainly Hindu country. Home Minister Amit Shah told the Network18 Group in an interview to be aired on Monday night that he would accept any court verdict on the matter.
“It is my personal belief that people of all religions should accept the school’s dress code,” he said.

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BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union foreign ministers on Monday discussed ways to ease tensions in Bosnia and prevent the possible breakup up of the ethnically divided Balkan country as the peace agreement brokered over 25 years ago continues to unravel. The United States last month announced new sanctions against Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who has for years been advocating that the Serb-run part of Bosnia should leave the rest of the country and unite with neighboring Serbia. The U.S. accused him of “corrupt activities” that threaten to destabilize the region and undermine the U.S.-brokered Dayton Peace Accord. The agreement in 1995 ended the war in Bosnia, which killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless. The accord established two separate governing entities in Bosnia — Republika Srpska run by Bosnia’s Serbs, and another other dominated by Bosniaks, an ethnic group that is primarily Muslim, and Croats.

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BERLIN (AP) — A huge fire broke out in an apartment building in the western German city of Essen early Monday, and three people were taken to a hospital after inhaling smoke, authorities said. The fire service said that about 100 people were evacuated from the building, roughly the number of people who lived there, news agency dpa reported. About 150 officers were dispatched to fight the fire. The cause wasn’t immediately clear, but the fire appeared to have spread quickly after it broke out in the early hours, fueled by gusts from the latest of a series of storms that have hit northern Europe in recent days.

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CORFU, Greece (AP) — Fire service rescuers expanded a search Monday inside a burning ferry anchored off the Greek island of Corfu where 10 people remain missing. The fire on the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia is burning for a fourth day but rescuers have gained more expanded access inside the 183-meter (600 foot) vessel after containing the blaze. The body of a Greek man was discovered inside the ship Sunday. A total of 281 people were rescued. They included two men who were airlifted by rescuers off the ferry and a third man who managed to free himself and reach the deck of the vessel after being trapped for more than two days.