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Presidential election in Sri Lanka: outgoing president Mahinda Rajapakse admits defeat
During the campaign he was accused of corruption and of failing to seal national reconciliation. It was his former Minister of Health, Maithripala Sirisena, who had gone to the opposition, who therefore won the election.
Sri Lankan government declares at least 48-hour ceasefire with Tamil rebels
A symbolic gesture in Sri Lanka. President Mahinda Rajapakse has declared a ceasefire of at least 48 hours with the rebellion on the occasion of the Tamil New Year celebrations which begin tomorrow. In 2002, a similar truce was quickly shattered. This announcement comes as the government army has been trying for several months to…
Sri Lanka: churches remained empty on Sunday
Like all churches in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, St Theresa, remained desperately empty on Sunday … While the threat remains high in Sri Lanka after the attack on hotels and churches that claimed the lives of 253 people on Sunday last, the authorities did not want to take any risks. It is therefore in…
Sri Lanka: Buddhist monks against inter-religious violence
In Sri Lanka, hundreds of monks demonstrated on Thursday in front of the Bangladeshi embassy in Colombo. A peaceful mobilization to denounce the violence perpetrated last weekend by radical Islamists against Buddhist temples in Bangladesh. At the origin of these inter-religious tensions, the publication on a social network of a photo deemed blasphemous with regard…
Signal, Telegram, Threema – Eight alternatives to WhatsApp
WhatsApp has changed its terms and conditions. If you don’t want to agree, you have to find another messenger. But who does it better in terms of data protection? Messenger is now almost a dime a dozen. The questions that WhatsApp users ask themselves when they do not want to accept the new general terms…
Sri Lanka: new explosion during a demining operation
Three bombs were discovered in a Sri Lanka: new explosion during a demining operation The vehicle was parked near the Saint-Anthony Church, hit the day before by a deadly attack. The series of bombings this Easter Sunday killed at least 290 people, and left nearly 500 injured.
A dozen dead in a bombing in Sri Lanka
The attack blamed on the Tamil rebels killed several police officers and injured more than 85 in Colombo, the country’s capital. According to the army spokesman, “the target was a police bus. A motorcycle crashed into the vehicle ”. The explosion occurred in a commercial district of the capital near the Hilton hotel, and in…
Sri Lanka: the leader of the attacks died in one of the suicide attacks
Tension remains high in Sri Lanka where the hunt for suspects continues. The leader of the attacks died on Sunday while perpetrating one of them. The security forces have arrested nearly 75 people since Sunday in connection with this bloodbath. The human toll of these deadly attacks was revised sharply down Thursday evening. A significantly…
Sri Lanka: Tamil rebels accuse army of killing 2,000 civilians
The Tamil Tigers today accused the army of killing more than 2,000 civilians in bombings in the “last 24 hours”. Government forces quickly denied and labeled the accusations propaganda. The army also said today that it had discovered a device that could have served as an underwater cache for the leader of the Tamil Tigers….
Sri Lanka: ex-strongman Rajapakse tries to return to legislative elections
In Sri Lanka, polling stations closed on Monday at 4 p.m. local time, after legislative elections placed under enhanced protection. 74,000 police and gendarmes monitored the ballot. With these elections, the country’s former strongman, Mahinda Rajapakse, president for nearly ten years until his failure in the January presidential election, is trying to return to center…
Sri Lanka bans full face veil
Sri Lanka is now banning veils that hide the face, and therefore, without naming them, the niqab or the burqa, eight days after the attacks claimed by the Islamic State group which have plagued the country. Measures taken to strengthen national security, according to the presidency, but which do not fail to react. According to…
Sri Lanka: ammunition shipment explodes, 27 dead
In Sri Lanka, the death toll has been revised downwards. At least 27 people were killed in the accidental explosion of several shipments of ammunition. For security reasons, the explosives were stored in a police station. They jumped out as the police handed them over to Chinese contractors. The builders wanted to use the charges…
Sri Lanka: victory of outgoing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in the legislative elections
Tams tams and applause fed to the proclamation of the results of the legislative elections in Sri Lanka. The United National Party, in power since January, won the legislative ballot with 106 seats, only seven seats away from the absolute majority. Outgoing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is therefore almost guaranteed to stay in his post….
Colombo exhibits the remains of the Tamil chief
The Sri Lankan army confirms the death of the leader of the Tamil separatists. Public television continuously broadcasts the video of a body presented as that of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The army has been claiming this feat of arms since yesterday, but the rebellion’s official website maintains that…
Sri Lanka: law enforcement assault on targets linked to Easter attack
Sri Lankan police and soldiers are still present on the scene, the assault is still fresh. We are in Sainthamaruthu, 45 km south of the site of the attack on Easter, which marked Sri Lanka. 15 dead On the night of Friday to Saturday, Sri Lankan authorities clashed with jihadists suspected of being linked to…
Explosion of anti-Muslim violence
In Sri Lanka, calm returned on Thursday after a new wave of violence against the Muslim minority. Violence perpetrated by radicalized Buddhists. Despite the curfew decreed since Monday, three people were killed and a dozen residents were injured in Kandy, a city in the center of the island. In a few days a hundred businesses…
Secret emails revealed: Facebook wants to play down data leaks rather than fix them
According to an internal e-mail, Facebook does not want to actively tackle the problem of data leaks and thus better protect users, but instead declare it to be a problem that is common in the industry. The mail was accidentally opened on a Belgian magazine. After a data leak with 533 million people affected, Facebook…
Pope begins two-day visit to Sri Lanka
Pope Francis has started a two-day visit to Sri Lanka, a country which remains deeply marked by three decades of war between the government, dominated by the Sinhala majority, and the Tamil rebels, the ethnic minority. Welcomed at Colombo airport by the new president Maithripala Sirisena, the Holy Father launched an appeal for reconciliation and…
Agency with Russia connection – Youtubers and Influencer paid for vaccine criticism?
Youtubers and influencers have announced in several countries that a British agency has offered them money to criticize the Biotech vaccine. Traces lead to Russia. Mistrust of vaccines is a global problem in the fight against the corona pandemic. In several EU countries, including Germany, it has now been announced that a London PR agency…
Great market power – Cartel Office investigates Apple
The iOS platform alone supports more than 250,000 workstations in Germany – says Apple. But is the group abusing its market power? The Federal Cartel Office is now examining this. The Bundeskartellamt is now using its new options for proceeding against large digital platforms for investigations against Apple. “We will now check whether Apple has…