JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka Cricket will build a cricket ground in this northern city, but has abandoned the international stadium it once promised, saying it cannot afford a venue of international standard. The retreat scales back what had been billed as a landmark for the country’s war-scarred north, where cricket commands the same devotion as in the rest of the island but where world-class facilities have never existed. The governing body has concluded that the project it originally appro

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The governor of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province has removed two elected local officials from office by executive order, an extraordinary use of administrative power that has reignited a constitutional dispute over how far an unelected official may go in unseating elected representatives in the country’s Tamil-majority north. In a notification published in the government’s official Gazette, Governor Nagalingam Vethanayahan declared that Sundaralingam Kandeepan, elected mayor of

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan Army has installed a signboard formally designating a military agricultural farm on privately owned Tamil land within the Valikamam North High Security Zone, underscoring the military's continued presence despite repeated government assurances that private land would be returned to its displaced owners. The signboard appeared as the Ministry of Defence prepared to discuss land release in Valikamam North at a high-level meeting expected on Thursday. Many landow