Mahinda Rajapaksa
Hundreds of Sri Lankans have rallied against a government crackdown and the use of emergency laws against peaceful protesters demanding answers to the country’s worst economic crisis.
With one brother president, another prime minister and three more family members cabinet ministers, it appeared that the Rajapaksa clan had consolidated its grip on power in Sri Lanka after decades in and out of government.
Sri Lanka’s president is promising to appoint a new prime minister, empower the Parliament and abolish the all-powerful executive presidential system as reforms to stabilize the country engulfed in a political crisis and violence triggered by the worst economic crises in memory.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Cricket Australia on Thursday said its all-formats tour of Sri Lanka is still going ahead despite a heightening of tension due to civil unrest in the south Asian island nation.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The South Asian nation of Sri Lanka is experiencing an unprecedented economic collapse that has pushed the government into a deep crisis.
Sri Lanka’s defense ministry has ordered security forces to shoot anyone causing injury to people or property to contain widespread arson and mob violence targeting government supporters.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has resigned following weeks of protests demanding that he and his brother, the president, step down over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Sri Lanka’s main opposition party is demanding a no-confidence vote aimed at ousting the Rajapaksa-led government.
A prominent lawmaker says Sri Lanka’s president has agreed to replace his older brother as prime minister in a proposed interim government to solve a political impasse caused by the country’s economic crisis.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa offered Wednesday to meet with protesters occupying the entrance to the president’s office, saying he would listen to their ideas for resolving the economic, social and political crisis facing the country.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa appealed for protesters to end the weeks of mass demonstrations that have called for the government to resign over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Sri Lanka’s sports minister and the president’s nephew, Namal Rajapaksa, has resigned from his position amid growing public outrage over the country’s economic crisis and shortages of food, fuel and medicines.
The president of debt-ridden Sri Lanka has asked China for the restructuring of its loans and access to preferential credit for imports of essential goods, as the island nation struggles in the throes of its worst economic crisis.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan arrived in Sri Lanka on Tuesday as Muslims protested near the president’s office demanding that the government allow people who die of COVID-19 to be buried instead of cremated.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in as the prime minister for the fourth time Sunday after his party secured a landslide victory in parliamentary elections that cemented his family’s hold on power.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has decided not to seek reelection next month after failing to fulfill many of the promises of his first term.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s disputed prime minister announced Saturday that he would step aside, paving the way for his sacked predecessor to regain the position and apparently ending a political impasse that has paralyzed the government for nearly two months.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Supporters say disputed Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to resign in an attempt to end the country’s political crisis.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A Sri Lankan court on Monday ordered disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his ministers to refrain from carrying out their duties as it hears an appeal against them.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s president on Sunday assured non-interference in ongoing investigations into abductions, killings of journalists and other crimes allegedly committed by those connected to the new prime minister and his Cabinet.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Lawmakers in Sri Lanka’s Parliament supporting disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa threw books, chairs and chili powder mixed with water to try to block the proceedings on Friday, a day after a fierce brawl between rival lawmakers worsened political turmoil in the isl
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — As Sri Lanka’s president met with opposition lawmakers over a no-confidence vote against his newly appointed prime minister, thousands rallied in support of the prime minister he ousted, burning coffins representing what they called the death of democracy in the Indian Ocea
NEW DELHI (AP) — Sri Lanka is in the midst of a political crisis set off by the president’s decisions to remove the South Asian island nation’s prime minister, dissolve Parliament and call snap elections.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s president has dissolved Parliament and called for elections on Jan. 5 in a bid to stave off a deepening political crisis over his dismissal of the prime minister that opponents say is unconstitutional.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s president has summoned Parliament to meet next week as pressure grows for him to resolve the turmoil set off when he sacked the Cabinet last week, his chosen prime minister said Thursday.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka is in a constitutional stalemate, torn between two leaders who both claim to be its legitimate prime minister.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena dissolved his Cabinet, replacing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa and plunging the South Asia island nation into a constitutional crisis.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s main ethnic Tamil political party said Tuesday that it will support the chief opposition candidate in January’s presidential election, in the latest blow to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s bid for a third term in office.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Thousands of protesters from opposition parties, human rights groups, trade unions and media groups marched Tuesday in Sri Lanka’s capital in a rare show of dissent against the government.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — When Shirani Bandaranayake was appointed Sri Lanka’s chief justice, rights campaigners assailed her as a puppet of a government that was steamrolling opponents and consolidating power.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — When Hamilton Wanasinghe was Sri Lanka’s military chief in the early 1990s, he tried to buy desperately needed weapons from Russia to fight the Tamil Tiger rebels.