The socialist government of Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe charged student protesters on Monday with violating the “Prevention of Terrorism Act” by holding a peaceful march, the latest in a string of actions supporters of the nation’s anti-government protest movement say are a “witch hunt” against legitimate complaints against corruption and incompetence.
Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled his country in July after protesters stormed his official residence and threw a four-day house party, is applying for a U.S. green card and looking to settle in America, Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror reported on Thursday.
The armed forces of Sri Lanka executed a violent raid on the peaceful “Occupy Galle Face” protest camp located in the heart of the national capital Colombo on Friday, the first major order by newly-minted President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the face of months of calls for the entire Sri Lankan government to resign.
Acting President of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe won Wednesday’s presidential vote – to serve out fleeing former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s term – with 134 votes in an “election” by parliamentary elites immediately rejected by the nation’s mass protest movement.
The Sri Lankan Ministry of Health announced on Sunday that daily coronavirus infections have risen from ten to 25. The ministry advised residents to resume masking, social distancing, and getting vaccination boosters.
The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is hoping to take out yet another billion-dollar loan, open a separate $1.5 billion credit line, and activate a $1.5 billion currency swap with communist China, Sri Lanka’s envoy to Beijing told Bloomberg News on Friday.
The political crisis triggered by months of socialist economic collapse in Sri Lanka continued on Wednesday with violent clashes between protesters and soldiers, resulting in upwards of 80 people hospitalized in one day and the military announcing soldiers were “empowered” to attack civilians if deemed necessary.
Now-former President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country, reportedly taking a military jet to the Maldives, on Wednesday shortly before he had agreed to resign from office.
What appeared to be throngs of hundreds of protesters remained at the home of the president of Sri Lanka as of Tuesday after occupying the residence and sending President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing to an undisclosed location this weekend.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka officially confirmed his intention to resign on Monday following a national wave of vandalism and mob protests that culminated with apparently thousands of people storming his house and bathing in his pool.
(AFP) – Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled his official residence on Saturday shortly before protesters, angered by an unprecedented economic crisis, overran the compound and stormed his nearby office.
Embattled socialist President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka revealed on Wednesday that he had called Russian strongman Vladimir Putin seeking help to purchase oil amid what the nation’s prime minister has called the “complete collapse” of Sri Lanka’s economy.
The seemingly ceaseless economic crisis that has left most of Sri Lanka with no food, fuel, medicine, or basic goods and has severely compromised the nation’s power supply has prompted a growing wave of child malnutrition, the BBC observed in a report on Monday citing mothers in the country desperate to keep their children nourished.
The prime minister of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe, declared in remarks to the nation’s parliament on Wednesday that its economy had “completely collapsed.”
Soldiers in Sri Lanka opened fire this weekend in response to at least two situations in which mobs formed around gasoline stations, either seeking to buy fuel or protesting the shortages.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Saturday that his country might increase its purchases of discounted oil from Russia, and accept more financial assistance from China, as the island nation spirals deeper into an economic crisis.
The Minister of Power and Energy of Sri Lanka announced on Thursday that the socialist government would implement the use of a mobile phone app to monitor how much gasoline, diesel, and other fuel citizens purchase to prevent hoarding.
Officials in socialist Sri Lanka boasted on Thursday of having arrested 137 people for “hoarding” gasoline, diesel, and kerosene as the government struggles to purchase sufficient supplies or distribute the little it has efficiently — a crisis worsened by severe shortages of medicine and basic items like powdered milk.
The disintegrating government of Sri Lanka on Wednesday announced a 10-hour “water cut” for parts of the commercial capital of Colombo, beginning Saturday at 10:00 p.m. The water cut will be piled atop daily power outages and fuel shortages as the corrupt socialist government defaults on its debts.
The Sri Lankan Defense Ministry on Tuesday ordered its forces to “shoot all those who plunder public property or cause personal harm” as riots swept across the island, causing at least eight deaths and leaving more than a hundred houses burned.
Local news outlets in Sri Lanka documented the destruction of over 50 homes and other properties belonging to government ministers and members of Parliament – including at least four tied to the ruling Rajapaksa family – between Monday night and Tuesday morning, a major escalation in violence in less than 24 hours after over a month of mostly peaceful protests.
Local media outlets reported on Monday night local time that over 150 people had been hospitalized and several found dead, including a member of Parliament, in Sri Lanka following a violent mob attack on a protester encampment in the capital, Colombo.
Former President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that his successor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had agreed to remove his brother Mahinda from the prime minister seat after a meeting with opposition parties.
The government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka on Thursday announced “the lifting of the mandatory requirement to wear face masks outdoors is temporarily suspended, considering the large public gatherings currently taking place in the country.”
The president of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa admitted in remarks on Monday that his controversial decision to ban the use of chemical fertilizers was a “mistake,” contributing to the nation’s worst economic crisis in its history.
Actor Jehan Appuhami announced that he would carry a cross on a three-day trek to the presidential offices in Sri Lanka demanding justice for the victims of the 2019 Easter bombings.
Sunday in Sri Lanka will mark the third Easter since Islamic State-affiliated jihadists bombed three churches and three Christian-frequented hotels on the holiest holiday in Christianity, killing over 200 people and injuring hundreds of others.
China’s state-run propaganda newspaper Global Times on Wednesday blamed American sanctions on Russia due to the war in Ukraine for Sri Lanka’s increasingly dire economic disaster – a disaster greatly exacerbated by the country taking out predatory loans from China.
The collapse of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has no brakes. Soaring costs of living, rolling power blackouts, food and medicine shortages, corruption, and gross mismanagement of its government have given forth to a massive wave of protests against the Southeast Asian nation’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Protesters in Los Angeles, California, and Staten Island, New York, joined hundreds at home in Sri Lanka this week to demand that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, resign amid catastrophic shortages of most basic goods.
Hundreds of protesters – reportedly armed with clubs, iron rods, stones, and other rudimentary weapons – attempted to storm President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s house in the Mirihana district of Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Thursday night, demanding his government address the chronic shortages of fuel, food, medicine, and electricity the country is experiencing.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed China for operating as a regional “predator” during an official visit to the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.
Port workers in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo staged a protest Tuesday, complaining that Chinese workers are allowed to work while locals are told that Chinese coronavirus restrictions make it impossible for them to do so.
Christians in Sri Lanka were forced to celebrate Easter on Sunday at home, leaving churches empty the first year after a series of jihadist suicide bombings killed and dismembered 253 people in six different locations.
