JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Oct. 27, 2026 — Long-distance buses began leaving Jaffna’s new long-distance bus terminal on Tuesday morning, nearly five years after the 134-million-rupee facility was completed and left unused. The services started under a court order signed by a High Court judge who was removed from Jaffna three days after he issued it. Northern Province Governor N. Vethanayahan, Member of Parliament K. Ilankumaran and Local Government Commissioner Sutharsan inaugurated the services at the

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