The French parliament has passed legislation toughening France’s immigration policy after months of political wrangling. The amended bill was backed by both President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN). Leftists accused Mr Macron of making concessions to the far-right. However, so wide was the majority in the lower [R...

Far-right libertarian outsider Javier Milei has won Argentina’s presidential run-off poll, according to provisional results. Milei’s rival, economy minister Sergio Massa, called him to concede. Former US President Donald Trump congratulated  Milei on his victory, saying he would “Make Argentina Great Again!”. The election comes at a difficult time for Argentina with rising ...

US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are to meet next week in the San Francisco Bay area, two senior administration officials said. The encounter on 15 November will be only their second face-to-face meeting during the Biden presidency. It will be wide-ranging, US officials said, with the Israel-Hamas war, Taiwan, war in […]

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By Sanjeewa Jayaweera The English cricketer Moeen Ali, who incidentally is also the vice-captain of the team, posted on his Instagram page a thought-provoking quote: “If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing”. The quote is attributed […]

This week, China is throwing a huge party to celebrate one of its biggest experiments in engaging with the world: its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Officials and leaders from all over the globe are in Beijing to attend a high-level summit marking the BRI’s 10th anniversary. Participants expected to show up range from Vladimir […]

By Zinara Rathnayake When I was five years old, I would love to sit beside my loku amma, solving riddles while she worked in the kitchen making kalu dodol. Loku amma was married to my paternal uncle, my father’s older brother. As a young girl, I loved my chatty, always laughing, childlike loku amma for […]

The lower house of the Indian parliament has passed a bill guaranteeing a third of seats for women in the parliament and state assemblies. First proposed in 1996, the bill had been pending for decades amid opposition from some political parties. On Wednesday, the Lok Sabha passed it with near unanimity after hours of fierce […]

‘Ram and Nagulan responsible for over 600 killings roaming free’ By Shamindra Ferdinando Sri Lanka Republican Front leader Patali Champika Ranawaka, MP, has questioned the circumstances under which the Rajapaksas granted amnesty to 12,600 LTTE cadres following the successful conclusion of the war in May 2009. However, some of them were released during the Yahapalana administration (2015-2019) [...

Singaporeans have chosen Tharman Shanmugaratnam as their next president – but many would have let out a small sigh of disappointment as they did so. On Friday, the former top minister won a record 70.4% of the votes, comfortably beating two other candidates in the country’s first contested presidential election in more than a decade. […]

By Jayantha Somasundaram (This articlecontinued from yesterday (25) is based on reporting by the international media on the events in Sri Lanka forty years ago.) “For day after day Tamils were beaten, hacked or burned to death in the streets, on buses, on trains – sometimes in the sight of horrified foreign tourists. Their homes […]

(Excerpted from volume ii of the Sarath Amunugama autobiography) During one of my visits to Colombo I got a call to see the President at ‘Breamar’. Gamini Dissanayake had told him of my friendship with Parathasarathy and he wanted me to help him repair the damage done to their friendship due to the abuse heaped […]

Udeni Kaluthantri, a 54-year-old port worker, became an overnight sensation last year for reasons that had nothing to do with his job. Days after protesters stormed the presidential palace in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, a video surfaced of Mr Kaluthantri lounging on a bed draped with the presidential flag. Pictures of young men jumping […]

The muted, panicked voice came through the phone of a friend who croaked she was very confidentially warning Cassandra and advising her. Yours truly was immediately panic infected. With deep emphasis and concern the friend took her time to advise that Cass withdraws all money from banks. Cass was for once glad she was poor […]

This last week has seen two very white, very important politicians having to slide down the pallang, certainly not to obscurity but to real shame and huge setbacks. Yes, they are the yellow haired charlatan reprobates who think they know it all from the US of America and the UK. Ex-President Donald Trump has been […]