Category Archives: Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka: 50 injured as protesters try to storm president’s house amid economic crisis

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Curfew lifted a day after 45 people were arrested when an angry crowd demanded the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Nearly 50 people were injured after authorities used teargas and water cannon to drive back a crowd that stormed the home of Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, amid anger over the government’s handling of the nation’s deepening economic crisis.

The crisis, the worst in living memory, has caused massive discontent, with people unable to find gas for cooking, medicines, fuel and basic items of food such as milk powder because the country has run out of foreign currency to pay for imported goods.

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Federal police blame ‘oversight’ for delay in Australian review of Sri Lankan war crime allegations

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AFP not aware of ‘administrative oversight’ until letter from justice groups seeking update on 2019 complaint about Jagath Jayasuriya

Federal police blamed an “administrative oversight” for huge delays in reviewing war crime allegations against a Sri Lankan man as he travelled to and from Australia, documents show.

In 2019, human rights groups wrote to the Australian federal police warning that Jagath Jayasuriya, a retired Sri Lankan general, “has entered Australia and may still be in the jurisdiction”.

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Tamils fear prison and torture in Sri Lanka, 13 years after civil war ended

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The threat of a bullet in the leg or having his fingernails ripped off was the ordeal faced by one man

The sun had barely risen the morning that the military turned up for Vijay*. Grabbing him from his home in a village in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka while his pregnant wife and baby lay asleep next to him, they blindfolded him and drove him deep into a jungle.

For the next 12 hours, in a small dark shack away from prying eyes, they interrogated Vijay. Pliers were repeatedly brandished, with threats that his finger nails would be removed if he did not give the army officers the information they wanted.

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Sri Lanka cancels school exams over paper shortage as financial crisis bites

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Colombo unable to fund import of printing paper, leaving millions of students unable to take part in term assessments

Sri Lanka has cancelled school exams for millions of students after running out of printing paper, as the country contends with its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948.

Education authorities said on Saturday the term tests, scheduled a week from Monday, were postponed indefinitely due to an acute paper shortage, with Colombo short on funds to finance imports.

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Sri Lanka to hold state funeral for beloved sacred elephant Raja

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Raja, who will be stuffed for posterity, was considered so important that when he travelled he had his own security detail

Sri Lanka is in mourning after the death of the country’s most sacred elephant, who is to be given a state funeral and his remains to be preserved and stuffed “for future generations” on orders of the president.

Nadungamuwa Vijaya Raja, popularly known as Raja, was considered to be the largest tamed elephant in Asia and as a young calf he had been among those “chosen” as the elite elephants who carried sacred Buddhist relics during an annual parade in Sri Lanka.

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‘When I surf I feel so strong’: Sri Lankan women’s quiet surfing revolution

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Women and girls have challenged conservative attitudes in the hallowed surf spot of Arugam Bay

Growing up in a small fishing village along the east coast of Sri Lanka, Shamali Sanjaya would often sit on the beach and look out at the boisterous waves. She would watch in envy as others, including her father and brother, grabbed surfboards, paddled out into the sea and then rode those waves smoothly back to shore. “I longed for it in my heart,” she said.

But as a local woman, surfing was strictly out of bounds for her. In Sri Lanka’s conservative society, the place for women was at the home and it was only the men, or female tourists, who were allowed to ride the hallowed waves in Arugam Bay, considered Sri Lanka’s best surf spot.

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Reparations to the Caribbean could break the cycle of corruption – and China’s grip | Kenneth Mohammed

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The belt and road initiative is ensnaring vulnerable countries in debt via corrupt infrastructure projects. Slavery reparations from former colonial powers could help turn the tide

As Transparency International (TI) publishes their annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) this week, it will be interesting to see where certain countries land: 2021 has been a bumper year for corruption.

In Britain, corruption has been on the minds of journalists, academics and practitioners alike, as Boris Johnson tries to get himself run out, the only hope of him continuing his innings lying with Sue Gray.

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Sri Lanka appeals to China to ease debt burden amid economic crisis

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President urges rescheduling of payments amid food and electricity rationing after pandemic hit tourism sector

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka has sought to reschedule its huge Chinese debt burden in talks with visiting foreign minister Wang Yi, the president’s office said.

“The president pointed out that it would be a great relief if debt payments could be rescheduled in view of the economic crisis following the pandemic,” President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

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‘There is no money left’: Covid crisis leaves Sri Lanka on brink of bankruptcy

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Half a million people have sunk into poverty since the pandemic struck, with rising costs forcing many to cut back on food

Sri Lanka is facing a deepening financial and humanitarian crisis with fears it could go bankrupt in 2022 as inflation rises to record levels, food prices rocket and its coffers run dry.

The meltdown faced by the government, led by the strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is in part caused by the immediate impact of the Covid crisis and the loss of tourism but is compounded by high government spending and tax cuts eroding state revenues, vast debt repayments to China and foreign exchange reserves at their lowest levels in a decade. Inflation has meanwhile been spurred by the government printing money to pay off domestic loans and foreign bonds.

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Top toddy: Sri Lanka’s tree tapping trade reaches new heights

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‘Toddy tappers’ who collect sap used in everything from palm wine to ice-cream are enjoying a boost to business that has revived the traditional skill and improved their quality of life

The palmyra palm tree with its wide fan leaves is a distinctive and common sight across Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, thriving in the arid conditions.

Kutty, who goes by only one name, is a “toddy tapper”. Climbing the palms with his clay pot, he collects sap from the flower heads at the top of the great trees, which can grow to more than 30 metres (90ft). The sap is fermented to make toddy, an alcoholic drink also known as palm wine.

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Man tortured and killed in Pakistan over alleged blasphemy

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Government accused of having emboldened extremists after lynching of Sri Lankan in Sialkot

A mob in Pakistan tortured, killed and then set on fire a Sri Lankan man who was accused of blasphemy over some posters he had allegedly taken down.

Priyantha Diyawadana, a Sri Lankan national who worked as general manager of a factory of the industrial engineering company Rajco Industries in Sialkot, Punjab, was set upon by a violent crowd on Friday.

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Nurdles: the worst toxic waste you’ve probably never heard of

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Billions of these tiny plastic pellets are floating in the ocean, causing as much damage as oil spills, yet they are still not classified as hazardous

When the X-Press Pearl container ship caught fire and sank in the Indian Ocean in May, Sri Lanka was terrified that the vessel’s 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil would spill into the ocean, causing an environmental disaster for the country’s pristine coral reefs and fishing industry.

Classified by the UN as Sri Lanka’s “worst maritime disaster”, the biggest impact was not caused by the heavy fuel oil. Nor was it the hazardous chemicals on board, which included nitric acid, caustic soda and methanol. The most “significant” harm, according to the UN, came from the spillage of 87 containers full of lentil-sized plastic pellets: nurdles.

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‘Monsters at the door’: migrant workers trapped in UN Afghan compound

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Security contractors among hundreds from the Philippines, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka stuck without clear plans for evacuation

When Taliban fighters started to kick at the door of a UN compound in a northern province 250 miles (400km) from the Afghan capital, Kabul, Rajesh* was certain he was going to be killed.

The Taliban had taken control of the area on that day. Rajesh, a UN security contractor from India, hurried with his colleagues into an emergency steel-doored room. Before they sealed themselves in, they saw a group of seven or eight heavily armed men.

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Top fashion brands face legal challenge over garment workers’ rights in Asia

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Pan-Asian labour rights group launches groundbreaking attempt to hold global labels accountable for alleged rights violations during pandemic

Legal complaints are being filed against some of the world’s largest fashion brands in major garment-producing countries across Asia in a groundbreaking attempt to hold the global fashion industry legally accountable for human rights violations in the countries where their clothing is made.

The Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), a pan-Asian labour rights group, says it is using legal challenges to argue that global clothing brands should be considered joint employers, along with their suppliers, under national laws and be held accountable for alleged wage violations during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Hundreds of dead turtles wash ashore in Sri Lanka after cargo ship wreck

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Environmental experts say the case is the country’s worst man-made environmental disaster

Hundreds of turtles have washed ashore after a ship caught fire and sank off the west coast of Sri Lanka in June in the country’s worst-ever marine disaster, a court in the capital Colombo has heard.

A fire erupted on the Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl on 20 May, carrying 1,486 containers, including 25 tonnes of nitric acid along with other chemicals and cosmetics. It sank on 2 June as a salvage crew tried to tow the vessel away from the coast.

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Coalition says community detention not a pathway to resettlement for Biloela family

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Campaigners say minister’s decision must be ‘first step’ in returning Murugappans to Queensland

The immigration minister, Alex Hawke, says the government’s decision to allow the Murugappan family to live in community detention in Perth will not provide a pathway to permanent resettlement in Australia.

Lawyers for the family welcomed the government’s announcement on Tuesday that they will be removed from Christmas Island, but insisted it must be a “first step” to returning them to the Queensland town of Biloela.

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Biloela family to reunite on Australian mainland but visa status expected to remain unchanged

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The immigration minister, Alex Hawke, is set to announce the Murugappan family will be released from detention on Christmas Island

The immigration minister, Alex Hawke, is set to announce on Tuesday that the Murugappan family will be released from detention on Christmas Island and allowed to reunite on the Australian mainland.

Hawke will use his ministerial discretion to allow the family to return but the government is not expected to make any substantive changes to their visa status which is still being argued in the courts.

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Cargo ship carrying tonnes of chemicals sinks off Sri Lanka

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Government suspends fishing along 50-mile coastline after explosion and fire

A cargo ship carrying tonnes of chemicals has sunk off Sri Lanka’s west coast, and tonnes of plastic pellets have fouled the country’s rich fishing waters in one of its worst marine disasters.

The government on Wednesday suspended fishing along a 50-mile stretch of the island’s coastline, affecting 5,600 fishing boats, and hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to clean affected beaches.

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Sri Lanka faces environmental disaster as cargo ship burns for days – video

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Aerial footage shows a cargo ship carrying chemicals on fire off the Sri Lankan coast. The fire on MV X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-registered ship, broke out on 20 May and has been burning ever since, spilling microplastics across Sri Lanka’s beaches and killing marine life in what could be the worst environmental disaster in its history. The Sri Lankan navy and Indian coastguard have been trying to reduce the flames for more than 10 days

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