COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sivarasa Anojan, the Sri Lankan migrant worker sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia over a Facebook comment about the Prophet Muhammad, has told Saudi authorities that he is willing to convert to Islam in an effort to avoid execution, a Tamil-language newspaper in Jaffna reported on Friday. The report could not be independently verified, and Tamil politicians involved in efforts to save Mr. Anojan’s life said they could not confirm it. Neither the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A former head of the Jaffna District Fisheries Federation accused an associate of Fisheries Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar on Thursday of pressuring officials to grant land for a sea cucumber hatchery to a local leader of the governing National People's Power's Praja Shakthi programme on one of the islands off Jaffna. Annalingam Annarasa, the federation's former chairman, made the allegation at a news conference in Jaffna. He said he knew the associate's identity and had e

STOCKHOLM: Anne Carson, the Canadian poet, essayist and translator whose books fold ancient Greek literature into verse novels, essays, performance pieces and comics, won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy cited Ms. Carson "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature." The prize, awarded for a writer's entire body of work, carries 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 mill