Sri Lanka
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A Sri Lankan passenger train derailed on Thursday (Feb 20) after smashing into a family of elephants, with no passengers injured but six animals killed in the island’s worst such wildlife accident, police said. The express train was travelling near a wildlife reserve at Habarana, some 180km east of the capital Colombo, when it hit…
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Sri Lankan cabinet has endorsed the national digital strategy 2030, featuring six key points with the aim of a connecting digital government, State Minister for Technology Kanaka Herath said on Thursday. The official told the media that the initial focus is on infrastructure, connectivity, access, skills, literacy, industries and jobs. He said emphasis is placed…
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The Sri Lankan government will draft a national cyber security act in May, State Minister for Technology Kanaka Herath said Thursday. During a press conference at the Presidential Media Center, he added that Sri Lankans maintain 74 million accounts across all social media platforms. This increased the need for a national cyber security act, he…
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After large numbers of countries placed restrictions on Russian nationals following the invasion of Ukraine two years ago, many flocked to Sri Lanka when it effectively offered near-indefinite stays. Indeed, nearly 200,000 Russians and 5,000 Ukrainians visited the country last year, according to Sri Lanka’s tourism department. However, a Sri Lankan government official announced today that the…
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The island nation of Sri Lanka is in the midst of one of the worst economic crises it’s ever seen. Sri Lanka has just defaulted on its foreign debts for the first time since its independence, and the country’s 22 million people are facing crippling 12-hour power cuts, and an extreme scarcity of food, fuel and other essential…
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Twitter is relishing a video in which legendary American singer and dancer Michael Jackson shakes his leg with a Sri Lankan dancer performing India’s classical form, known as Odissi. Tweeples are going gaga over a video of Sri Lankan dancer Yamuna Sangarasivam, who performed the classical Indian dance Odissi with the ‘King of Pop’ Michael…
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The U.S. government on Friday issued a travel ban Sri Lanka’s army chief, saying there is “credible information of his involvement” in human rights violations during the final phase of the island nation’s civil war that ended 11 years ago, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said. The army chief, Shavendra Silva, and his immediate…
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For 26 years, the Tamil Tigers militants from Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil ethnic community fought for independence from the Buddhist, ethnically Sinhalese-majority state. Military forces under Rajapaksa’s brother, then-Secretary of Defense Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, brutally crushed them in 2009. The current state minister of defense, Ruwan Wijewardene, said “weakness” within Sri Lanka’s security apparatus led…
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The leader of the Islamic State group has praised the attack in Sri Lanka and called it revenge for the fall of Baghouz, Syria, the last territory the extremist group held there or in Iraq. The U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said the acknowledgement of the Sri Lanka attack by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi came during his first…
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While monitoring the usual channels, Indian police stumbled upon something extraordinary: a detailed plot for what would become the bloodiest attack linked to the Islamic State group in South Asia. Police were investigating suspected sympathizers of the withered caliphate in southern India when a name they had no record of surfaced — National Towheed Jamaat,…
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Authorities in Sri Lanka have implicated a small extremist group called National Thowfeek Jamaath for the Easter weekend bombings. But how could a small group pull off a coordinated attack of such sophistication? The answer might have arrived via the Islamic State’s Amaq news agency, reports the New York Times. ISIS has claimed credit for organizing the…
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More than 200 have been killed and hundreds injured by a series of explosions inside churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, as Christians gathered for services to celebrate Easter. In a statement, UN chief António Guterres said he was “outraged by the terror attacks” and called for the perpetrators to be “swiftly brought to justice”. According to…
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At least 138 people were killed and nearly 500 hospitalized from injuries in near simultaneous blasts that rocked three churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, the state-run Daily News reports. A security official tells the AP that two of the blasts are suspected to have been carried out by suicide bombers. St. Anthony’s Shrine and…
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