Aanya Wipulasena

Pow­er and en­er­gy min­is­ter ‘re­spect­ful­ly’ ad­vis­es against form­ing queues, say­ing there are no suf­fi­cient petrol stocks.

Wick­remesinghe re­turns for a sixth term as Sri Lan­ka PM with the coun­try mired in po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic crises.

As of­fi­cials brace for pos­si­ble oil spill af­ter ship sinks, anx­ious res­i­dents say tragedy a ‘dou­ble wham­my’ af­ter COVID.

Is­land na­tion com­mem­o­rates at­tacks that saw six church­es and ho­tels bombed, killing more than 265 peo­ple.

Re­sults of the vote, held amid height­ened re­li­gious ten­sions and stut­ter­ing econ­o­my, ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced on Sun­day.

Short­ly be­fore polls open, gun­men fire on bus­es car­ry­ing main­ly Mus­lim vot­ers but no ca­su­al­ties are re­port­ed.

At least 139 vi­o­la­tions, in­clud­ing two cas­es of as­sault and 41 of in­tim­i­da­tion, re­port­ed by mid­day on Sat­ur­day.

For­mer de­fence chief Ra­japak­sa’s sup­port­ers stir eth­nic ten­sions as he takes on the rul­ing par­ty’s Pre­madasa.