Sri Lanka

Colombo, May 29 (PTI) Sri Lanka has signed a deal with India and Japan to develop a deep-sea container terminal here amid increasing forays by China which has taken a strategic port on a 99-year lease that has worried New Delhi.

The three countries will jointly build the East Container Terminal at the Port of Colombo.

27 May 2019; AFP: Sri Lanka's military has detained nearly 100 suspects during four days of search operations against remnants of an Islamist group blamed for the Easter attacks that killed 258, officials said Sunday.

Some 3,000 military personnel were deployed in and around the capital as well as other key towns for cordon-and-search activities that began on Thursday, a military official said.

22 May 2019; AFP: Sri Lankan social networks saw a surge in fake news after the Easter suicide bombings a month ago despite an official social media blackout, highlighting the inability of governments to contain disinformation, experts said.

A nine-day ban on platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp was introduced following the Islamic State-claimed attacks on churches and hotels on April 21 which killed 258 people and wounded nearly 500.

COLOMBO, May 21 (Xinhua) -- A heat wave will sweep through Sri Lanka in the coming days and the public have been warned to take precautionary steps, the Meteorology Department said in its latest weather update here on Tuesday.

The department said the heat levels may reach "caution levels" and temperatures were likely to reach as high as 45 degrees centigrade in some provinces.

People in Polonnaruwa in the north central province, Trincomalee in the east and Vavuniya and Mullaitivu in the north were urged to remain extra cautious.

COLOMBO, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has called on countries to join hands in sharing intelligence to deal with international terror threats, local media reported on Monday.

The call came after the recent terror attacks which killed about 250 people in the island country last month.

Colombo, May 14; PTI/GANASHAKTI: A Muslim man has been killed in northwestern Sri Lanka as majority Sinhalese mobs set fire to shops and vehicles as communal violence broke out in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks, a Cabinet minister said Tuesday.

The government on Tuesday relaxed nationwide night curfew in all areas except the northwestern province where the Muslim man was killed by a mob on Monday, Rauff Hakeem, a Cabinet minister and leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, said.

Colombo, May 13 (PTI) The Sri Lankan government Monday blocked social media following rising tensions between the minority Muslims and majority Sinhalese in the wake of the Easter Sunday bombings which killed nearly 260 people.

The blockade comes a day after Sri Lankan police imposed curfew in the country's western coastal town of Chilaw where a mob attacked a mosque and some shops owned by Muslims in a dispute that started on a Facebook post by a Muslim shop owner.

MOSCOW, May 8. /TASS/: Sri Lanka’s police arrested seven members of the terrorist organization National Thawheed Jama'ath who were preparing to become suicide attackers, Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror reported on Wednesday.

COLOMBO, May 7 (Xinhua): Sri Lankan security forces have arrested all those directly linked to the Easter terror explosions on April 21, Acting Police Chief Chandana Wickramaratne said in a special statement here on Tuesday.

Wickramaratne said the police had identified all those involved in the terror attacks and many of them had committed suicide when security forces had attempted to arrest them.

He said the two bomb experts involved in the terrorist attacks had also been killed and forces had seized all the explosives and bombs which had been stored for future attacks.

Colombo, May 6 (PTI) Sri Lankan authorities Monday lifted an overnight curfew in the western coastal town of Negombo where violence erupted between groups of people over the weekend, days after the Easter bombings by Islamist extremists that killed more than 250 people in the island nation.

The curfew was imposed on Sunday after a group of miscreants carrying swords attacked some people travelling on a three-wheeler in Porathota area of the town. The vehicle was set on fire.