Better air connectivity was needed to boost tourism and the Eastern Province economy, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday, predicting that the East will soon get a new domestic air service.

A driver and a security guard of a private company had been arrested over a robbery, in which more than Rs. 10 million cash was stolen when it was being transported in Bulathsinhala, the Police said.

Last Monday, 23 July 2018, Senior Colonel Xu Jianwei, Military, Naval & Air Attaché of Embassy of China in Sri Lanka, hosted a reception at the Shangri-la Hotel to celebrate the 91st founding anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Sri Lanka is a key component of China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road with Hambantota Port and Colombo Port City as the two flagship projects of cooperation between China and Sri Lanka under the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan said.

The national issue could be resolved 50 per cent by teaching Sinhala and Tamil to students, National Integration, Reconciliation and Official Languages Minister Mano Ganesan yesterday said.

Wartime Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on Thursday (July 26) told Colombo-based senior Tamil print and electronic journalists that countrywide economic empowerment was the key to post-war stability.

Sri Lanka’s proposed deal with India over the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport will “unnecessarily” embroil the island national in India-China “regional power games”, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa said.

Five officials of the Customs Department including a woman were hospitalized today after they were allegedly assaulted by a Kuwaiti couple at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) when they were requested to quarantine their pet dog.

Dubai police say they’ve recovered a rare $20 million blue diamond that was stolen from a city company’s vault and smuggled to Sri Lanka inside a pair of sneakers in a shoebox.

India’s Civil Aviation Ministry has said there is no proposal under consideration for the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to buy a controlling stake in Sri Lanka’s Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport.

Justice Minister Thalatha Atukorale has ordered the immediate disbanding of the Welikada Prisons Intelligence Unit, the Ministry said in a statement released last evening.

Railway Trade Unions yesterday conducted a two-hour long unannounced strike affecting rail services after they were not allowed to erect a fence dividing a plot of land from the Trace Expert City premises, to construct a nine-storey building for a railway control centre.

Minister of Sustainable Development, Wildlife and Regional Development Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka says that he will not support a common candidate at an upcoming Presidential Election.

Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera, who was to leave for England, has been asked to disembark the flight this morning over an issue in the travel ban date on the court order.

Amongst the two categories prevalent in most developing countries of the world, certain nations successfully keep moving on an upward line, while certain others move towards a downward trend. The basic difference behind this situation is the attitude that the people of a particular nation display towards the growth of Science and Technology.

Co-cabinet spokesperson, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said the Government would forge ahead with the death penalty directive given by President Maithripala Sirisena even if it leads to the loss of GSP Plus.