COLOMBO, Oct. 27 – Passport applicants in Jaffna, Vavuniya, Kandy, Kurunegala and Matara will need an advance online appointment to be served at their regional passport office from Thursday, Oct. 29, the Department of Immigration and Emigration has announced. The requirement covers both the one-day and the regular passport service at all five regional offices. Applicants must reserve a date and time on the department’s official website, www.immigration.gov.lk, before visiting. Those without a b

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The leader of one of Sri Lanka’s main Muslim political parties has accused the country’s opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, of breaking promises to his coalition partners and moving away from the inclusive politics he championed in the 2024 presidential election, exposing strains in an opposition already heavily outnumbered in Parliament. “We are not slaves of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya,” Rishad Bathiudeen, the leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, said on Monday at a

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Oct. 26, 2026 — On the night of Sept. 13, 1989, six armed men entered the Colombo home of a television announcer’s parents and waited for her to return. When she arrived, they forced her to leave with them. Her body was found the next morning on a beach at Ratmalana, south of the capital. Investigators told United Press International at the time that she had been raped and stabbed to death. The announcer, Sagarika Gomes, worked for the state-run Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporati

By Asela Kuruluwansa COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Buddhist monks who had occupied a park in Sri Lanka’s capital for 10 days to demand a presidential pardon for a jailed hard-line cleric suspended their protest on Sunday, after the country’s most senior Buddhist prelates said they had intervened with the government and cautioned that the demonstration was being used to tarnish the reputation of the clergy. In a joint letter dated Sunday, the four chief prelates of Sri Lanka’s three main monastic orders