Latest Colombo News
Sri Lanka conservationists fight elephant smuggling in court
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Environmentalists in Sri Lanka are challenging a court order issued earlier this month that would allow the return of 14 illegally captured wild elephants to people accused of buying them from traffickers. Rights groups and lawyers say the...
Sri Lankan prison minister resigns over prisoner threats
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A Sri Lankan minister in charge of prisons submitted his resignation on Wednesday following a public outcry after he allegedly threatened to kill two ethnic minority prisoners. Lohan Ratwatte, state minister of Prison Management and...
Sunil Perera, outspoken Sri Lankan singer, dies at age 68
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Singer and musician Sunil Perera entertained generations of Sri Lankans with captivating songs, but won their minds and hearts with his outspoken comments against social injustice, corruption, racism and suppression of democracy. Perera, a...
New Zealand attacker radicalized by neighbors, mother says
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The mother of an Islamic State-inspired extremist who stabbed shoppers in a New Zealand supermarket said her son was radicalized by neighbors from Syria and Iraq who helped him recover from an injury. The attacker, Ahamed Samsudeen, was a...
Church: Talks on Sri Lankan blasts require gov't credibility
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A Sri Lankan Roman Catholic leader has said the government must win back the confidence of the church before the two sides can hold talks on the church's criticisms of inquiries into 2019 Easter Sunday bomb blasts that killed 269 people. ...
With black flags, Sri Lanka Christians protest bombing probe
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s Christian community hoisted black flags at churches and homes on Saturday to express anger over the government’s investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks, which killed 269 people. Twenty-five people were charged...
Sri Lanka banks on vaccination to see it through delta surge
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Manjula Wijesuriya had COVID-19, but his friends and family say that's not what killed him. When the 51-year-old tutor suffered a heart attack in late July, his loved ones rushed him to a nearby hospital in a suburb of Sri Lanka’s capital,...
Sri Lanka Catholic Church faults government's bombing probe
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church said Friday that 25 people charged this week in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed 269 people could be “smaller fish,” and accused the government of still not taking steps to identify the true...
Sri Lanka files charges against 25 Easter bombing suspects
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka has filed 23,270 charges against 25 people in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks on churches and hotels that killed 269 people, the president’s office said Wednesday. The charges filed Tuesday under the...
Sri Lanka says it is probing allegations against spy agency
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has ordered an investigation of allegations that some members of state intelligence agencies knew and met with people who carried out Easter Sunday bombings in 2019 that killed more than 260 people, a government official...
