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Aaron Rodgers has no chance of getting the Jets back into the playoff hunt and as such, this could be the end of the experiment. Aaron Rodgers is rapidly approaching the end of his NFL career. While the exact time he calls it is unknown, the New York Jets quarterback has much less ahead of him than behind. Still, with roughly half a dozen other teams potentially needing a starting quarterback next season, the former Green Bay Packers quarterback might have a market brewing. While seas of analysts have given negative reviews on Rodgers , he only needs one team to accept him to extend his career. The question is whether it will be the Jets. If not, the second question regarding Rodgers is who his successor will be in New York. Two possible replacements for Rodgers One NFL analyst appears to have some ideas. Speaking on a December 24 edition of “First Take,” NFL analyst and Peyton Manning’s former center Jeff Saturday offered up two potential names. He said: “When you think about Aaron Rodgers, I don’t know that there’s anybody out there, maybe Kirk Cousins, because I’m sure he’s not going to be in Atlanta long. Maybe Sam Darnold going back would be a shock,” he said. While he called a Sam Darnold return a shock, he didn’t appear to write off the possibility considering Darnold’s prowess and positive reviews put on display this season. At this point, the Jets are heading for what could be a semi-complete reset. While stars like Garrett Wilson are seemingly bolted to the team, the head coach and quarterback both could look quite different next season. Jets’ Aaron Rodgers succession plan could hinge on the next two games If the Jets quarterback moves on, the Jets will be one of many teams in pursuit of a quarterback. Perhaps the most obvious option aside from Kirk Cousins would be a rookie quarterback. According to Tankathon, the Jets currently have the eighth overall pick, tied with two other teams at 4-11. If the Jets were to hold pat at four wins this year, they’d need five teams to win the last two games to get the Jets into the top two. While that seemingly is impossible, two more losses could jump the team realistically into the top five, which could give them a shot at a premium rookie. Ironically, Rodgers must be the one to put the team in position to draft his replacement. Otherwise, a turn to the free market could be the Jets’ only option, as most of the quarterback choices go in the first few picks. Will Aaron Rodgers give the Jets the ability to move on from him? This article first appeared on NFL Analysis Network and was syndicated with permission.
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No. 23 Alabama women beat Alabama State 83-33 at Emerald Coast ClassicDaraa was dubbed "the cradle of the revolution" early in Syria's civil war, after activists accused the government of detaining and torturing a group of boys for scribbling anti-Assad graffiti on their school walls in 2011. While Aleppo and Hama, the two other main cities taken from government control in recent days, fell to an Islamist-led rebel alliance, Daraa fell to local armed groups, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city... they now control more than 90 percent of the province, as regime forces successively pulled out," the Britain-based Observatory said late Friday, which relies on a network of sources around Syria. Daraa province borders Jordan. Despite a truce brokered by Assad ally Russia, it has been plagued by unrest in recent years, with frequent attacks, clashes and assassinations. Syria's civil war, which began with Assad's crackdown on democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000 people and forced more than half the population to flee their homes. Never in the war had Assad's forces lost control of so many key cities in such a short space of time. Since a rebel alliance led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched its offensive on November 27, the government has lost second city Aleppo and subsequently Hama in central Syria. The rebels were on Friday at the gates of Homs, Syria's third city, as the government pulled out its troops from Deir Ezzor in the east to redeploy towards to the centre. In an interview published on Friday, the leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said the aim of the offensive was to overthrow Assad. "When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal," Jolani told CNN. HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years. According to Fabrice Balanche, a lecturer at France's Lumiere Lyon 2 university, HTS now controls 20,000 square kilometres (more than 7,700 square miles) of territory, nearly seven times as much as it did before the offensive started. As the army and its Iran-backed militia allies pulled out of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, Kurdish-led forces said they crossed the Euphrates and took control of the territory that had been vacated. The Observatory said government troops and their allies withdrew "suddenly" from the east and headed towards the oasis town of Palmyra on the desert road to Homs. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the United States, expressed readiness for dialogue with both Turkey and the rebels, saying the offensive heralded a "new" political reality for Syria. The rebels launched their offensive the same day a ceasefire took effect in neighbouring Lebanon in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Lebanese militant group has been an important Assad ally, alongside Russia and Iran. Turkey, which has backed the opposition, said it would hold talks with Russia and Iran in Qatar this weekend. Ahead of the talks, the top diplomats of Iran, Iraq and Syria met in Baghdad, where Syria's Bassam al-Sabbagh accused the government's enemies of seeking to "redraw the political map". Iran's Abbas Araghchi pledged to provide Assad's government with "whatever (support) is needed". In Homs, scene of some of the war's deadliest violence, tens of thousands of members of Assad's Alawite minority were fleeing, fearing the rebels' advance, residents and the Britain-based Observatory said. Syrians who were forced out of the country years ago by the initial crackdown on the revolt were glued to their phones as they watched current developments unfold. "We've been dreaming of this for more than a decade," said Yazan, a 39-year-old former activist who now lives in France. Asked whether he was worried about HTS's Islamist agenda, he said: "It doesn't matter to me who is conducting this. The devil himself could be behind it. What people care about is who is going to liberate the country." On the other side of the sectarian divide, Haidar, 37, who lives in an Alawite-majority neighbourhood, told AFP by telephone that "fear is the umbrella that covers Homs now". The army shelled the advancing rebels as Syrian and Russian aircraft struck from the skies. At least 20 civilians, including five children, were killed in the bombardment, the war monitor added. At least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week, according to the Observatory's figures, while the United Nations said the violence has displaced 280,000 people. Many of the scenes witnessed in recent days would have been unimaginable earlier in the war. In Hama, an AFP photographer saw residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall. "Our joy is indescribable, and we wish this for every honourable Syrian to experience these happy moments that we have been deprived of since birth," said Hama resident Ghiath Suleiman. Online footage verified by AFP showed residents toppling a statue of Assad's father Hafez, under whose brutal rule the army carried out a massacre in the city in the 1980s. Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank, called the loss of Hama "a massive, massive blow to the Syrian government". Should Assad lose Homs, it wouldn't mean the end of his rule, Lund said, but "with no secure route from Damascus to the coast, I'd say it's over as a credible state entity". bur-ser/rsc
No. 23 Alabama women beat Alabama State 83-33 at Emerald Coast Classic
K emi Badenoch, British politician and Leader of the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom, has a lot of problems with Nigeria, or so it seems, as seen in her often critical comments about the country. Kemi, a British citizen of Yoruba heritage, who spent some time living in Nigeria in the 1980s and 1990s during a period of the trials and tribulations of corrupt military dictatorship, often depicts the country of her ancestors as everything a normal country should not be. According to Kemi, Great Britain is her country and she doesn’t “want it to become like a place I ran away from. I grew up in Nigeria, and I saw first-hand what happens when politicians are in it for themselves, when they use public money as their private piggy banks, when they pollute the whole political atmosphere with their failure to serve others. Kemi “I saw what socialism is for millions. I saw poverty and broken dreams. I came to Britain to make my way in a country where hard work and honest endeavour can take you anywhere. You cannot understand it unless you have lived it. Triple-checking that all doors and windows are locked, waking up in the night at every sound, listening as you hear your neighbours scream as they are being burgled and beaten, wondering if your home is next.’’ The Leader of the Conservative Party had so much more to talk about her nightmarish experience in Nigeria. But her position on Nigeria can be summed up into how a corrupt political leadership has reduced the giant of Africa to a waddling dwarf that is pauperized, traumatized and terrorised on all fronts. Interestingly, some leading members of Nigeria’s intellectual community and influential media personalities, who have dedicated their entire adult lives to writing and speaking against the ills of the Nigerian system she often talks about, have turned their pens and voices against Kemi in the most adversarial manner, accusing her of denigrating Nigeria as a short cut up the heights of British politics. For speaking the truth of her reality, as a British resident of Nigeria during the darkest ages of brutal and corrupt military dictatorship, whose guns those maligning her deployed their pens to defeat, Kemi has become the object of ridicule and hate in certain quarters. The on-going spat between some concerned members of Nigeria’s intellectual community [home and abroad] and Kemi Badenoch over her often critical comments about Nigeria assumed a diplomatic dimension when Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima made his rather unexpected intervention. While stating that “we are proud of her in spite of her effort to denigrate her country of origin,” Shettima said “she is entitled to her own opinions; she has even every right to remove Kemi from her name but that does not underscore the fact that the greatest black nation on earth is the nation called Nigeria’’. And with the Vice President weighing in on the side of her traducers, Kemi has become a person of national interest to the Nigerian government. However, Shettima’s admonition to Badenoch to remove the ‘Kemi’ in her name, if she is not proud of her Nigerian heritage, is an unfortunate statement just as the applause it got from the adversarial section of Nigeria’s intellectual community is a reminder of the democratic citizenship mis-education that is widespread in Nigeria even among the highly educated and highly placed. And the bemused reaction from the same quarters to Kemi’s response, to the effect that she is “Yoruba and British, not Nigerian,” reveals the depth of democratic citizenship ‘illiteracy’ among Nigeria’s otherwise sophisticated intellectual class that is supposed to be the light of the nation. Thanks to the high level of integration and seamless assimilation in the British society [something that is lacking in Nigeria], it has become perfectly possible to be Yoruba and not be Nigerian but British. It is called democratic citizenship. To ask an individual to drop her Yoruba name [Kemi] as a sign of her rejection of her Nigerian ancestry is to suggest that to be Yoruba must necessarily translate to being Nigerian. To many a Nigerian nativist intellectuals, being Yoruba and British is impossible in the same way a White supremacist considers being Yoruba and British incompatible. Otherwise, if her Nigerian traducers had understood Kemi Badenoch to be as British as any other Euro-White citizen of United Kingdom, they would not have judged her assessment of Nigeria with a different criteria from David Cameron who similarly described Nigeria as a “fantastically corrupt” country. And it is this same nativist mentality that has prevented Nigeria from evolving into the Shettima’s “greatest black nation” where it is possible to be Yoruba and Kano, Hausa and Anambra, Igbo and Lagos, Kanuri and Bayelsa, Ijaw and Borno, etc. Like every other British citizen and institution, Kemi Badenoch has a right to her opinion on Nigeria without her personality and ethnic heritage coming under attack. At best, Shettima should have aimed a shot at the flaws in [Britain] her country’s system and pointed out cases of corruption, embezzlement of public funds by Kemi and other British politicians, broken healthcare system, millions of out-of-school children, Boko Haram insurgency, banditry and sea piracy to her. There is nothing Kemi has said about Nigeria that is not the reality of Africa’s most populous country. Fela, afrobeats legend and great pan-Africanist rose to global fame singing about the issues Kemi experienced while living in Nigeria, yet nobody accused him of denigrating Nigeria for speaking the truth. Some sections of the Nigerian media that have made it a pastime to chew on Kemi’s personality have been reporting and analysing Kemi’s truth about Nigeria since forever. And most importantly, Vice President Shettima, who once lamented that Boko Haram insurgents are better armed than Nigerian security forces, supported his APC party to defeat then ruling PDP on three key camping promises of tackling “insecurity, corruption and economic woes”. The campaign that brought the APC to power and which made it possible for Shettima to be Nigeria’s Vice President today was firmly hinged on Kemi’s truth about Nigeria. Kemi Badenoch is British citizen and patriot who is openly appreciative of Britain, her country, having experienced Nigeria in the past. She embodies the new spirit of British Conservative values just as she is passionate about conserving the best of Great Britain and her fellow country folks trust her enough to position her to be the first Black British Prime Minister. Her Nigerian traducers will not be able to derail her because Kemi is “bad enough” to stand up to them as seen in the way she redirected Shettima’s attention to the problem of Islamism and Boko Haram in his native region of Northern Nigeria.Santa Clarita Scouting America hosted its Bill Hart’s Scout Expo Sunday afternoon at Bridgeport Park to invite newcomers into local Scouting units. Laura Schmeizer, the Bill Hart district executive, said that the event had members from their packs, troops and crews. Packs consist of elementary school kids, troops consist of high schoolers, and crews are for the older members up to 21 years old. The event was to show how impactful being a Scout is, from their community service to the values the Scouts instill in their members. “Being kind, being trustworthy, being honest are the many things that encompass what being a Scout is,” said Schmeizer. “Whether it’s you know acts of service that we do, or in community projects or in the events in the different units themselves.” Each unit set up a booth featuring an activity specific to the unit. Most participants were at the rubber chicken slingshot at Troop 609’s booth, mini pinewood car derby at Pack 494’s booth, and stomp rockets at Pack 48’s booth. Denise Marroquin brought her son Lenny Marroquin, 4, after a friend had sent her an invitation about the expo. She originally thought it was an event with fun activities for families to do and was surprised to see that Scouting America was hosting it. “We didn’t know it was actually part of the Cub Scouts,” said Marroquin. “So, we’re excited that it was because we had thought about it, but we hadn’t looked into it yet.” Marroquin said to her the most appealing thing about joining Scouts was that her son would get the chance to learn more hands-on skills and wouldn’t be inside wanting screen time. “We’re trying to get him outside in nature and making things and creating things,” said Marroquin. She said from attending a few booths it was evident that the Scouts focused on building a relationship with community service and outdoor activities. She was excited when she saw how son was running around playing with other Cub Scouts racing cars. Schmeizer said that her sons were Boy Scouts when they were younger and grew up in the program and still have values they learned in the program. Troop 583 Scoutmaster Mark Hughes said he has been a part of the organization for 17 years after his three sons joined and grew up through the different levels. He said what originally drew them to the organization was the opportunities they have. “It was the camping, it’s being outdoors. It was getting them [the kids] away from video games and sitting in front of the TV,” said Hughes. “They’re out being active and doing things and learning life skills that they’re less likely to learn in other organizations.” Even after his sons moved on from Scouts, Hughes said he stayed because they also had an impact on him. He said he was able to see and be a part of his children’s growth in the organization and now he is a mentor to the other youth as they go through. Matthew Soto, president of Crew 314, said he has been in the organization for almost 16 years. He said when he first joined the organization at 3 years old, he did not enjoy it. He felt like it was taking time away from hanging out with other friends and his weekends. “I was a little kid; I didn’t fully grasp it quite well,” said Soto. “But having grown up and doing this for so long, it taught me a lot of practical skills.” He said being with this organization for so long and taking on a leadership role has taught him a lot and allowed him to grow into the person he is today.
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Syrian government forces have lost control of Daraa city, a war monitor said, in another stunning blow for President Bashar al-Assad's rule after rebels wrested other key cities from his grip. Daraa was dubbed "the cradle of the revolution" early in Syria's civil war, after activists accused the government of detaining and torturing a group of boys for scribbling anti-Assad graffiti on their school walls in 2011. While Aleppo and Hama, the two other main cities taken from government control in recent days, fell to an Islamist-led rebel alliance, Daraa fell to local armed groups, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city... they now control more than 90 percent of the province, as regime forces successively pulled out," the Britain-based Observatory said late Friday, which relies on a network of sources around Syria. Daraa province borders Jordan. Despite a truce brokered by Assad ally Russia, it has been plagued by unrest in recent years, with frequent attacks, clashes and assassinations. Syria's civil war, which began with Assad's crackdown on democracy protests, has killed more than 500,000 people and forced more than half the population to flee their homes. Never in the war had Assad's forces lost control of so many key cities in such a short space of time. Since a rebel alliance led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched its offensive on November 27, the government has lost second city Aleppo and subsequently Hama in central Syria. The rebels were on Friday at the gates of Homs, Syria's third city, as the government pulled out its troops from Deir Ezzor in the east to redeploy towards to the centre. In an interview published on Friday, the leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said the aim of the offensive was to overthrow Assad. "When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal," Jolani told CNN. HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years. According to Fabrice Balanche, a lecturer at France's Lumiere Lyon 2 university, HTS now controls 20,000 square kilometres (more than 7,700 square miles) of territory, nearly seven times as much as it did before the offensive started. As the army and its Iran-backed militia allies pulled out of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, Kurdish-led forces said they crossed the Euphrates and took control of the territory that had been vacated. The Observatory said government troops and their allies withdrew "suddenly" from the east and headed towards the oasis town of Palmyra on the desert road to Homs. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the United States, expressed readiness for dialogue with both Turkey and the rebels, saying the offensive heralded a "new" political reality for Syria. The rebels launched their offensive the same day a ceasefire took effect in neighbouring Lebanon in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Lebanese militant group has been an important Assad ally, alongside Russia and Iran. Turkey, which has backed the opposition, said it would hold talks with Russia and Iran in Qatar this weekend. Ahead of the talks, the top diplomats of Iran, Iraq and Syria met in Baghdad, where Syria's Bassam al-Sabbagh accused the government's enemies of seeking to "redraw the political map". Iran's Abbas Araghchi pledged to provide Assad's government with "whatever (support) is needed". In Homs, scene of some of the war's deadliest violence, tens of thousands of members of Assad's Alawite minority were fleeing, fearing the rebels' advance, residents and the Britain-based Observatory said. Syrians who were forced out of the country years ago by the initial crackdown on the revolt were glued to their phones as they watched current developments unfold. "We've been dreaming of this for more than a decade," said Yazan, a 39-year-old former activist who now lives in France. Asked whether he was worried about HTS's Islamist agenda, he said: "It doesn't matter to me who is conducting this. The devil himself could be behind it. What people care about is who is going to liberate the country." On the other side of the sectarian divide, Haidar, 37, who lives in an Alawite-majority neighbourhood, told AFP by telephone that "fear is the umbrella that covers Homs now". The army shelled the advancing rebels as Syrian and Russian aircraft struck from the skies. At least 20 civilians, including five children, were killed in the bombardment, the war monitor added. At least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed since the offensive began last week, according to the Observatory's figures, while the United Nations said the violence has displaced 280,000 people. Many of the scenes witnessed in recent days would have been unimaginable earlier in the war. In Hama, an AFP photographer saw residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall. "Our joy is indescribable, and we wish this for every honourable Syrian to experience these happy moments that we have been deprived of since birth," said Hama resident Ghiath Suleiman. Online footage verified by AFP showed residents toppling a statue of Assad's father Hafez, under whose brutal rule the army carried out a massacre in the city in the 1980s. Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank, called the loss of Hama "a massive, massive blow to the Syrian government". Should Assad lose Homs, it wouldn't mean the end of his rule, Lund said, but "with no secure route from Damascus to the coast, I'd say it's over as a credible state entity". bur-ser/rscBills defense out to prove against high-scoring Lions that it's better than its dud vs. Rams'Which one of those two is going to win?': Poilievre prods Trudeau, Freeland over spending tensionChristmas updates: Pope appeals for peace in world conflicts
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In a call for bipartisan cooperation, President Anura Kumara Dissan-ayake yesterday urged Parliament to rally behind a shared mission of driving the nation’s economic and social transformation. Delivering the Government’s policy statement at the inaugural session of the 10th Parliament, Dissanayake emphasised the collective responsibility of building a better future for the country, appealing for support across political divides. Acknowledging past divisions shaped by regional, ethnic, and religious lines, the President stressed the importance of democracy as a system that thrives on diverse ideologies. “Democracy is not about uniting all people under a single party or ideology. It is about coexistence,” he said, reaffirming his Government’s commitment to represent and serve all citizens, including those who did not vote for them. The President highlighted the unity displayed during the elections as a powerful step toward national harmony. However, he firmly rejected the resurgence of divisive politics, vowing, “We will not allow nationalist or religious rhetoric to gain political power. This nation has suffered enough from ethnic conflicts.” Reflecting on his 24 years in Parliament, the President lamented its gradual decline in public trust and respect. He noted how the institution has become synonymous with disillusionment, calling for a collective effort to restore its dignity and relevance. “The primary mission of this Parliament must be to uphold the people’s sovereignty, regain their trust, and re-establish itself as a body that truly represents them,” Dissanayake stated. The President also underscored the public’s mandate for a political culture free of corruption. “This mandate reflects the people’s aspiration to transform the corrupt political culture that has taken root over many years,” he said. Disanayake pledged that his Government would prioritise accountability and serve the people with integrity. Noting that the 10th Parliament consists of a significant number of new members, he said this offers an opportunity to instil good practices swiftly and effectively. He also expressed hope to further open up the Parliament for the public. “This Parliament will no longer remain a hidden chamber concealed from the public. Today, Parliament operates in alignment with advancements in modern technology and media, making every daily occurrence open to the public. It will no longer serve as a secretive or inaccessible centre shielded from public scrutiny. Instead, we are striving to transform this Parliament into a transparent and accessible institution for all citizens,” he pointed out. The President also highlighted that the Government firmly believes that progress cannot be made without a functional and responsive public sector. “Globally, the success of major transformations is often driven by a strong public service capable of implementing ambitious political goals. The focus remains on rebuilding a competent, people-centric State service that prioritises the well-being of citizens, with the full support of public servants themselves, ensuring the success of this critical reform,” he said, recalling that an unprecedented number of public servants cast their votes in support of the new Government. The President opined that many within the State service express frustration and a sense of unfulfillment in their professional roles similar to the people’s dissatisfaction with the public services. “This has led to a dual challenge: an unhappy public and a discontented public sector workforce. The Government’s responsibility now lies in creating a State service that meets the needs of both citizens and the public servants themselves,” he added. The President also stressed the critical importance of restoring public trust in the rule of law, stressing that enacting laws alone is insufficient without effective implementation. The public’s confidence in the legal system has been eroded, and the President called for a collective effort to rebuild this trust. He asserted that no individual, politician, or authority should be above the law and vowed to address controversial crimes, ensuring perpetrators are held accountable. This commitment, he said, is essential to establishing a just and prosperous state. The President also acknowledged the severe economic challenges facing Sri Lanka, which has been caught in a deep recession. “This economy cannot withstand drastic shocks and immediately upon taking power, our focus turned to ensuring economic stability and reaffirming trust with the relevant economic stakeholders. We understood that even the smallest error could have significant repercussions due to the scale of the crisis. Any disruption would only further harm the already delicate economic system,” he said, adding that the economic crisis has left the country with no room for mistakes. Therefore, Dissanayake insisted the lawmakers that everyone must carefully consider every aspect, thoughtfully analyse all factors, engage in dialogue, and make well-informed decisions. He also outlined the Government’s cautious approach to stabilising the economy, noting the importance of adhering to the parameters set with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the IMF’s third review had been delayed due to the elections, the President expressed optimism that an agreement would be reached by Saturday (23), marking a crucial step in the country’s economic recovery. Dissanayake also disclosed that the country is making crucial strides in its debt restructuring program with the IMF aiming to conclude the process by the end of the year. “The Government has reached a common understanding on bilateral debt and is preparing to formalise agreements with individual countries. Preliminary agreements have also been made regarding international sovereign bonds and commercial market debt, with completion expected by December,” he added. The President highlighted that the ongoing debt restructuring discussions, which had been in progress for nearly two years, are now in their final stages. Despite challenges, he emphasised that debating the merits of the restructuring plan is no longer productive, as it is essential for moving the economy forward. As the IMF’s restructuring framework is seen as key to managing the financial crisis, the President acknowledged that it is not enough to address the deep-rooted economic issues facing the nation. “To overcome this, the Government plans to adopt a new economic strategy to rebuild and strengthen the country’s economic structure,” he noted. The President outlined that Sri Lanka’s new economic strategy is based on three core principles aimed at revitalising the country’s economy. The first pillar includes rapid growth and expansion in the production of goods and services, with an emphasis on broadening this growth beyond the Western Province to other regions. The second focus is on making the economy inclusive. The Government stresses that economic success cannot be achieved if people are excluded from participating. Instead, every citizen should play an active role in the economy to ensure the benefits reach all. Finally, the strategy emphasises fair distribution of wealth. The Government warns against the concentration of national wealth in the hands of a few, as this can lead to instability. Instead, it advocates for equitable distribution, ensuring that the wealth generated from the country’s natural resources benefits all citizens, promoting social and economic stability. Dissanayake said the Government has identified several key areas for short-term growth aimed at revitalising the economy. These include tourism, IT, maritime and agriculture. The tourism sector, he said is a top priority, with plans to attract 4 million tourists and generate an $ 8 billion industry within the next 3-4 years, a significant increase from the 2.3 million visitors and $ 4.3 billion recorded in the benchmark year of 2018. The President identified IT sector also holds strong growth potential. “Currently, there are 85,000 IT professionals, with plans to increase this number to 200,000 over the next five years. The goal is to raise IT export income from $ 1.2 billion to $ 5 billion by enhancing education and skills in the sector,” he pointed out. Leveraging Sri Lanka’s strategic location, Dissanayake said the Government aims to transform the country into a global maritime and trade hub, enhancing the efficiency of the Port of Colombo and tapping into the full economic potential of its geographic advantage. In addition, he outlined that the agricultural sector is another area of focus. “Despite significant investments in irrigation and research, farmers remain burdened by debt. The Government plans to revive agriculture through innovation, including seed research and extension services, and increase subsidies for fertilisers to support the industry’s growth, he said, adding the fisheries industry, with vast untapped resources in Sri Lanka’s seas. “The sector is set to receive a boost with a fuel subsidy to get more boats back into operation, signalling a positive economic shift,” he opined. President Dissanayake also announced that a comprehensive Budget will not be immediately presented, citing that an Interim Budget is set to be submitted by early December to allocate funds for the next four months. He said a comprehensive Budget proposal is expected by early February, with the goal of securing parliamentary approval by mid-March. “This upcoming Budget will serve as the practical foundation for implementing the nation’s vision, with its structure aligned to the strategies discussed,” he said. Moreover, the President disclosed plans to overhaul its diplomatic services, with a renewed focus on not only strengthening international relations but also supporting local industries in accessing global markets. “The country’s diplomatic missions will be realigned to better serve this dual purpose,” he added. In addition, he said the Government aims to expand the construction industry’s reach beyond Sri Lanka, recognising the sector’s technical expertise and resources as key assets for international growth. He also stated that Sri Lanka’s unique indigenous products will also be targeted for global markets by adding value and establishing a modern industrial framework. Dissanayake also acknowledged the importance of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) and stressed that their growth should align with national development goals. “To support this, clear plans have been devised to foster the sector’s expansion and integrate it into the country’s broader economic vision,” he stated. The President also announced plans to launch the “Cleaning Sri Lanka” program — a major initiative aimed at transforming the country’s environment and societal attitudes. He said a Presidential task force will lead the effort, which goes beyond environmental issues to focus on fostering good citizenship, positive behaviour, and responsible actions among citizens. “The program aims to change perceptions about public property and social responsibility, emphasising the need for accountability and respect for resources and one another. The initiative also addresses essential issues such as access to clean sanitation facilities, particularly for women in rural areas, and seeks to improve societal attitudes toward shared public spaces. The Government aspires to create a more humane and empathetic society, one marked by kindness, tolerance, and understanding,” he explained. In addition to societal transformation, Dissanayake said the Government is committed to eradicating poverty, with plans to increase welfare allowances, support schoolchildren from disadvantaged families, and raise pensions and public sector wages in the upcoming budget. “These efforts aim to ensure that every citizen has access to a fair meal, quality education, a decent home, and stable income opportunities,” he added. Ending his speech on a note of hope, the President asserted the shared responsibility of ensuring a better future for Sri Lanka’s next generations. “Our foremost responsibility is to prevent the repetition of past tragedies and to create a nation where suffering is replaced by unity and progress,” he affirmed.Breaking Through With Strength, Leading The Future: Engineai Launches The PM01 Humanoid Robot
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