October 2026

By Asela Kuruluwansha KANDY, Sri Lanka, Oct. 16 — Sri Lanka’s prison authorities told the country’s two most senior Buddhist prelates on Friday that monks serving prison sentences will be allowed to wear their robes when taken outside prison. The change follows weeks of objections from the clergy over the treatment of Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera, the nationalist monk who was returned to prison this month. Senaka Palletenna, a spokesman for the Department of Prisons, described the changes a

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Saudi Arabia executed a Bangladeshi man and woman on Wednesday for what the authorities called an immoral act inside a mosque in Mecca. One day earlier, the kingdom’s Supreme Court had lifted the death sentence of a Sri Lankan Tamil migrant worker convicted of blasphemy over a comment he posted on Facebook. The worker, Anojan Sivarasa, is still in a Saudi jail. The ruling cancelled both his death sentence and an earlier five-year prison term, said Faiszer Musthapha, a Presi

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The United States will spend $17 million to digitize operations at the Port of Colombo, the U.S. Embassy announced on Friday. The project is meant to reduce paperwork and delays at one of South Asia's busiest transshipment hubs. The money will go toward two linked computer systems, a Maritime Single Window and a Port Community System, which will be developed with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority. The systems are intended to let shipping lines, customs and immigration officials

By Asela Kuruluwansha KANDY, Sri Lanka — Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya accused political opponents on Thursday of giving her special prominence in an effort to portray a split within the governing National People's Power, and said she would not be drawn in. "Our opponents are giving me special prominence not because they have any affection for me or because they appreciate our policies," she told reporters in Sinhala. "They want to bring an individual into the spotlight and create the impr

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: A court in Colombo on Friday ordered 55 people, including the Buddhist monk Ulapane Sumangala Thera, to leave the premises of the Presidential Secretariat, where monks who marched from Kandy this week have been staging a sit-in to demand the release of the hard-line nationalist monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera. The Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court issued the order a day after the marchers reached the secretariat, which houses the president’s office, at the end of a six-da

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Buddhist monks who ended a six-day march from Kandy with a sit-in outside the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo said on Thursday night that they would not leave until the government agreed to free Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera, the hard-line nationalist monk who was returned to prison this month after the Supreme Court struck down his presidential pardon. The marchers reached the secretariat on Thursday evening and sat down on the road outside. The president’s secretary,