Speaker Karu Jayasuriya questioned the president's decision to suspend parliament till November 16, saying it will have "serious and undesirable" consequences on the country.
The blockade of Facebook and WhatsApp has been imposed from mid-night following violent incidents between the minority Muslim and majority Sinhalese communities, officials said.
On July 9, protesters occupied President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's presidential palace and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's private house. The Prime Minister's Office was overrun on Wednesday.
Sri Lanka's former Army Chief Sarath Fonseka, who had dared to challenge the country's powerful President in the 2010 electoral battle, will now form his own political party.
The results of the recent presidential elections in Sri Lanka are likely to have stunned groups in Tamil Nadu that have been giving moral and material support to Tamils in the north and east of the island for decades. Tamil Nadu-based groups had asked Sri Lanka Tamils to protest against the election and boycott voting.
President Maithripala Sirisena said Friday that over 130 suspects linked to the Islamic State terror group have been operating in the country.
MDMK chief Vaiko today charged the UPA Government with helping Sri Lanka by giving arms, which enabled that country's army to capture the "deserted" Killinochi and said the LTTE will win the war ultimately.
'What we have heard from the Sri Lankans is their desire to have a foreign policy that allows Sri Lanka to best advance its own interests rather than a foreign policy that relied solely on one relationship.' 'We think this is an attitude that makes a lot of sense. India and Sri Lanka have many areas of shared interests, and it's certainly welcomed by us to see that deepening of those ties.'
A protest has begun in front of the Trincomalee Naval Base after reports Mahinda Rajapaksa and some of his family members are there after leaving Temple Trees, the official residence of prime minister.
The President had been moved out of his residence on Friday, in anticipation of Saturday's protests.
'That it was the LTTE was known in three weeks's time.'
If India is to follow a smart cultural diplomacy, it has unmatched advantages over both China and Pakistan, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Sri Lankan authorities are questioning 37 persons, including a brigadier, a colonel and some army deserters, detained for their alleged role in a plot to assassinate President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Two years after the decisive battle in which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were vanquished, Sri Lankan security forces made their biggest-ever haul recovering 6,250 kg of hidden explosives belonging to the outfit.
The Sri Lankan government has slapped a fresh case on detained former army chief Sarath Fonseka for allegedly employing military deserters during the presidential campaign earlier this year, the poll which he contested unsuccessfully against President Mahinda Rajapakse. The attorney general's department filed a fresh case against Fonseka, who is now an opposition lawmaker. He is accused of employing 10 army deserters in the run-up to the January presidential poll.
Bruce Fein, a former US deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan Administration, has filed a 12-count indictment against Sri Lanka's defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and the country's army commander Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, for perpetrating genocide against Tamil civilians with US Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice.
Since the US and India broadly share similar interests in Sri Lanka, they should coordinate closely to ensure that the country preserves its democratic institutions, says Lisa Curtis
Proclaiming that prospects of a 'change' in the island nation were in the offing, Sri Lanka's presidential challenger Sarath Fonseka on Thursday vowed to restore democracy and eradicate corruption from the country.
The Sri Lankan government hit back at defeated opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka on Thursday alleging that he had attempted to "assassinate" President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his former army chief Sarath Fonseka were responsible for alleged war crimes and killing of Tamil civilians during the last phase of the 30-year-old civil war, according to a secret United States cable made public by WikiLeaks.
The Sri Lankan army on Wednesday surrounded the Colombo hotel occupied by former army chief General Sarath Fonseka, who is the main opponent of President Mahinda Rajapakse in the presidential poll, counting for which began on Tuesday night.Heavily armed Lankan troops were deployed around the building following information that army deserters were among the 400 people present inside the lake-front luxury hotel in central Colombo.
Lankan Speaker told the party leaders that Parliament will meet on July 20 to elect a new president.
Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Karuna, who was the eastern commander of the LTTE before he fell out with Prabhakaran in 2004, and Daya Master, who surrendered to the army recently, were taken by the government to Puthumatalan to identify Prabhakaran's bullet-ridden body. "The body is of Prabhakaran's, there is no doubt about this," said Karuna, now a federal minister
Accusing Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse of abdicating his responsibility to save civilians in the restive north, Tamil Americans have asked United States President Barack Obama to send his forces to the strife-torn nation to save the lives of innocent people. "This is pure and simple genocide. We are asking the Obama administration to intervene to save the Tamils of Sri Lanka by sending its army there," they said.
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was captured alive and 'tortured' by the army before being shot dead in northern Wanni, a Jaffna-based human rights group has alleged in a report that has been dismissed as 'ridiculous' by the Sri Lankan government and military.
Defence and strategic experts on Monday said that China's posturing in the Indian Ocean will disturb stability and peace in the region.
Several homes, businesses and mosques in the hilly Kandy district have been damaged in anti-Muslim riots.
The government keeps an eye on Chinese presence in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and has asked China to "cease such activities" there, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley informed Lok Sabha on Friday.
Whether it is Sri Lanka, Maldives, or Nepal, quietly but steadily, India has been reclaiming some of the ground it had lost to China, observes Aditi Phadnis.
While 18 rebels were killed on Thursday, 20 LTTE cadre were shot dead yesterday, the defence ministry said, adding that seven soldiers were also injured during the operations.
'It's like looking at your own child. Quite large numbers of the dead are under 16. They grab them from their parents and they try to pull them back they get shot. These children have the dog tags and cyanide capsules. The younger children (captured) go for rehabilitation programme,' Brig Priyantha, who commands an artillery division in the north, told British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.
The SHO said that Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act had been included in the FIR, adding that the Chinese national would be presented before a court in Abbottabad.
Rajapaksa, his wife Loma and their two security officers were expected to leave for Singapore on board SQ437 from Male on Wednesday night but did not board the aircraft due to security concerns, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported.
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres, who escaped the final assault by the Lankan army in May, could give a new lease of life to the now vanquished outfit and are even trying to launch fresh attacks in Sri Lanka, according to a report.
During the 13-minute special session, Dhammika Dassanayake, ecretary general of Parliament, announced the vacancy for the post of president.
'Sri Lanka has a large military presence in the north and east, where it is very difficult for the war-affected civilian population to move forward.' 'Right now the military is doing jobs that should be for the civilians. I would like to see Sirisena consider demilitarisation.'
Sri Lanka's newly elected president Mithripala Sirisena waves at media as he leaves the election commission in Colombo. Photograph: Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Reuters
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused by the Opposition of inciting the ruling party mobs to attack peaceful protesters by making a defiant speech while addressing several thousands of his supporters to deflect calls for his resignation.
The United States has said the Sri Lankan government must respect the rights of detained former army chief Sarath Fonseka as it underlined the need for 'greater transparency' in the court martial proceedings against the top general. "We haven't seen the specifics of the charges (of court martials), but we have consistently stressed that it is important that General Fonseka's rights be respected and that he be accorded a full due process," said Robert Blake.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa today declared that the war against the LTTE was over as he reached out to the Tamil population, saying their protection was the responsibility of his government.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances