Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, former President of Guyana, will lead the Observer Group, which follows a formal invitation from Sri Lanka’s Commissioner of Elections, Mahinda Deshapriya. Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma reiterated the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, to which the Commonwealth is a signatory. He …
At least 30 people died and six are missing due to floods and landslides caused by the incessant rains that lashed the country for the past few days. The Disaster Management Center (DMC), reports that the severe weather continued to submerge most parts of the …
In a blow to President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s re-election bid, Sri Lanka’s largest Muslim party quit the government on Sunday to support common presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauff Hakeem said that the party’s decision to support the opposition candidate …
Ten years after a towering wave hurled the Sri Lankan train Samudra Devi off its tracks and killed more than 1,000 people, passenger Shanthi Gallage still carries a faint hope of finding her missing husband and daughter. Samudra Devi, or “Ocean Queen”, made a special …
The Tamil National Alliance is expected to announce its support to the Common Opposition Candidate Maithripala Sirisena, at his first meeting, scheduled to be held in Jaffna on Tuesday, 30 December. According to sources, Sirisena will address his first Jaffna meeting at Muththirai Chanthi in …
The scheduled visit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) team to Colombo to prepare for its secretary-general’s visit has been postponed on account of the Presidential elections. Secretary General of the OIC, Iyad Ameen Madani was to visit Sri Lanka early next year on an …
Pope Francis is due to make a three-day visit to Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka with the highlight of the visit being the canonization of Joseph Vaz, an Indian born 17th century Catholic missionary who spent most of his life in Sri Lanka to help Catholics persecuted …
Southeast Asia’s fastest growing economy goes to the polls next month and Sri Lanka’s vote looks set to set to be a close race for the first time in nearly a decade. In November, President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the country would go to the …
In the days after Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan president, was betrayed by a group of his longtime aides, comparisons were made to Judas Iscariot and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, but nothing expressed the depth of the president’s hurt and bewilderment like …
On the morning of 26 December 2004, Mohideen Ajeemal, a fish distributor from Sainathimaruthu, a village on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast, hurriedly climbed a coconut tree to escape rapidly rising seawater. As he did so he saw his young daughter and son struggling to save …