Rs. 5,000 for a Rs. 400 Ride: Tamil Travelers Warn of Airport Tuk-Tuk Fares

Rs. 5,000 for a Rs. 400 Ride: Tamil Travelers Warn of Airport Tuk-Tuk Fares

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —Travelers from Sri Lanka's Tamil-majority north say tuk-tuk drivers near the country's main international airport are charging thousands of rupees for a few-kilometer ride from a bus stop to the terminal. The complaints center on the 18th Mile Post junction, known in Sinhala as Dahata Kanuwa, near Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake. Long-distance buses drop passengers at or near the junction, and travelers must find their own transportation for the rest of the


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Jaffna Man Loses Three Limbs After Being Struck by Train While Listening to Music on Headphones

Jaffna Man Loses Three Limbs After Being Struck by Train While Listening to Music on Headphones

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A man was critically injured on Saturday night when he was struck by a train near his home in the Inuvil-Karaikal area of Jaffna, the police said. According to preliminary police information, the man was lying on the railway track and listening to music on headphones at the time. The train severed both of his legs and one arm. He was taken to the emergency treatment unit at Jaffna Teaching Hospital, where he remained in critical condition, according to the police. The Chun


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Police Arrest Gnanasara Thero at Forest Monastery After Court No-Shows

Police Arrest Gnanasara Thero at Forest Monastery After Court No-Shows

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan police on Saturday arrested Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, the general secretary of the Buddhist nationalist group Bodu Bala Sena, at a forest monastery in the Thiniyawala area of Kalutara District. Two courts issued warrants for his arrest this week after he failed to appear. The Colombo Crimes Division made the arrest on an outstanding court warrant, the police media spokesperson said. The monk had not been seen in public for most of the past weeks. After the


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Inside the Terrifying Moments Passengers Fought to Save Flight 1073
Yaniv Hayun, a passenger who helped overpower the co-pilot and briefly took the controls of Flydubai Flight 1073, arrives at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel after the flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia.

Inside the Terrifying Moments Passengers Fought to Save Flight 1073

Yaniv Hayun had just helped drag the co-pilot out of the cockpit. Then he went back in. The captain was on the floor, bleeding from wounds to his head and hands. The Boeing 737 MAX 8, carrying more than 170 people from Dubai to Tel Aviv, was still losing altitude over the Saudi desert. Mr. Hayun, a plumber, grabbed the control column and pulled back. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later asked him how he knew to do that. "Yes, I watch 'Air Crash Investigation,'" Mr. Hayun said. Th


Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor

Iranian Tankers Stranded Off Sri Lanka as U.S. Sanctions Squeeze Supplies

Iranian Tankers Stranded Off Sri Lanka as U.S. Sanctions Squeeze Supplies

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said this week that American warnings against servicing sanctioned Iranian tankers anchored off the island apply to every country, after The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington had pressed the government to cut off food, fuel and water to the ships. The Journal reported on Sept. 30 that about 20 empty Iranian oil tankers were drifting roughly 15 miles off Sri Lanka's southwest coast with their engines idled, and that their food, fuel and fresh wate


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Judges Judging Their Own Tenure: The Constitutional Questions Raised by 22A

Judges Judging Their Own Tenure: The Constitutional Questions Raised by 22A

By Professor G. L. Peiris D. Phil. (Oxford), Ph. D. (Sri Lanka); Former Minister of Justice, Constitutional Affairs and National Integration; Quondam Visiting Fellow of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London; Former Vice-Chancellor and Emeritus Professor of Law of the University of Colombo. There is widespread interest in the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka in this country as well as abroad. This is especially so after the widely disseminated comments by Ms Margaret S


Professor G. L. Peiris

Professor G. L. Peiris

Pazha Nedumaran's Son, Who Became a Buddhist Monk, Dies in Melbourne at 57

Pazha Nedumaran's Son, Who Became a Buddhist Monk, Dies in Melbourne at 57

MELBOURNE, Australia — Manickam Nedumaran, the younger son of Pazha Nedumaran, the veteran Tamil nationalist leader and longtime supporter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, died in Melbourne on Thursday after treatment for cancer, according to people close to the family. He was 57. Mr. Manickam had lived and worked in Melbourne for several years. He had converted to Buddhism and was living as a monk. He died at about 8:45 a.m. Indian time on Oct. 1, after about a month of treatment. His


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Court of Appeal Dismisses Gotabaya Rajapaksa's Petition Seeking Protection From PTA Arrest

Court of Appeal Dismisses Gotabaya Rajapaksa's Petition Seeking Protection From PTA Arrest

COLOMBO: The Court of Appeal on Thursday (October 1) dismissed, without taking it up for hearing, a writ petition filed by former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seeking an order preventing his arrest and detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in connection with investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks. The order was delivered by a two-judge bench comprising Court of Appeal President Justice Rohantha Abeysuriya and Justice Sarath Dissanayake after considering submissions m


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