Message Invalid character found in the request target The valid characters are defined in RFC 7230 and RFC 3986 Description The server cannot or will not process the request due to something that is perceived to be a client error (e.g. Note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the server logs while South Africa sits in second place with 0 points The match was monitored by a distinguished panel of officials Anna Harris and Dedunu Silva served as the on-field umpires Lyndon Hannibal took charge as the third umpire while Vanessa de Silva was the match referee both the top and middle-order batters contributed well Most of them managed to reach double figures They also managed to hit several boundaries Opener Pratika Rawal led the scoring with a composed 78 runs off 91 balls She was dismissed in the 30.4th over by Nonkululeko Mlaba Kashvee Gautam and Deepti Sharma contributed minimally and Nallapureddy Charani were not required to bat Kaur and Kashvee Gautam then formed a 17-run partnership helping India finish their innings at 276 despite the consistent pressure from South Africa’s bowlers Captain Laura Wolvaardt opened South Africa’s innings and scored 43 runs from 75 deliveries Tazmin Brits followed with a brilliant century Sneh Rana was the standout performer for India claiming 5 wickets for 43 runs in her full quota of 10 overs Pratika Rawal was set to bowl the final over but didn’t pick up the last wicket South Africa’s innings came to an end at 261 when Deepti Sharma ran out Nonkululeko Mlaba there have been many stories of piracy in the waters off Kerala used the term to describe the Kunjali Marakkars the naval commanders who served the Zamorin of Calicut Once the British established control of the seas surrounding the Indian peninsula they clamped down on pirates with a fair degree of success the waters off Cochin began to become a hotbed of piracy once again the Straits Times correspondent in Cochin wrote a report about an incident that took place near Palliport (Pallippuram) “There was a case of piracy there a few days ago when about eight Moplahs (Mappilas or Muslims) boarded a pattama going to Bombay from Cochin and threatened and assaulted the crew and stole money and goods,” the paper said “The pirates went out in two canoes and remained at sea with the booty till nightfall when they got safely ashore.” The “pattama” mentioned in the article was a dhow used to transport rice and other commodities along the Indian West Coast and to Sri Lanka The word is derived from the Portuguese word “patamar.” a bizarre incident off the coast of Cochin caused quite a stir in the international media a dhow named after a palace in Srirangapatna was carrying cargo in the Arabian Sea when it was allegedly approached by a pirate vessel "The pirates ordered the Indian ship to stand by and deliver its money and cargo but before the robbers boarded it the besieged ship sent a distress signal to the German liner Nordmark,” a wired report that was used by many Western newspapers said “The latter sped alongside and drove off the pirates The Nordmark then towed the Indian ship safely to harbour with the pirates following and then standing watch outside.” The report added that the pirates took to the open sea at night For someone reading this story a hundred years later the final sequence of events seems highly implausible What is the likelihood of pirates following a large German ship all the way to the Cochin harbour and taking the risk of getting caught by the authorities Captain von Schwegen of the Nordmark was approached by journalists as soon as his ship called on Colombo he spoke of the dangerous pirate vessel that he called a “small craft of British design” that was combing the nearby seas The story was initially accepted as the gospel truth and set off a wave of panic among shipping companies operating on the Bombay to Cochin and Colombo routes Major Caulfield sent a wireless warning to ships sailing south from Bombay which had left Bombay before Caulfield’s warning were on high alert as they sailed for Ceylon The only thing they ended up reporting on the journey was “unfavourable weather.” Caulfield asked the Port Officer of Cochin to investigate the incident the authorities in Cochin and Colombo discredited the whole story “Regarding the alleged piracy in the Indian Ocean said this morning that the master of the dhow had made no complaint to the Cochin authorities and that he had omitted to hand to the Port Officer the report which the captain of the Nordmark stated he had given him to be delivered,” the Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle reported in December 1925 “The enquiry does not reveal sufficient evidence to prove that the brigantine had any piratical intention neither does the dariadowlet appear to have boarded or molested in any way,” the paper added “The master of the dariadowlet stated in the course of the enquiry that the only conversation that took place between him and the master of the brigantine was an enquiry on the part of the latter as to whether the dariadowlet had any cargo on board.” This question apparently made the crew of the dhow nervous prompting them to ask the Nordmark for help The two interpretations of the incident seemed to be the result of a misunderstanding caused by a language barrier the towing of the dhow to Cochin cost the Nordmark what was then a princely sum of Rs 500 something its owners tried to recover from the Borneo Company The story was recycled in the Western press for a few years without mentioning that the colonial authorities had discredited it The press continued to sensationalise the incident with one report claiming that it was “probably the first case of genuine piracy on the high seas in nearly a century in Indian waters.” peppering its action with so many references and homages to classic films that it’s surprising each entry isn’t preceded by the Criterion Collection logo An auteurist spirit guides this intensely entertaining Peacock affair it hits even more highs than during its maiden run providing an assortment of homicidal stories that are as idiosyncratic as its heroine a “human lie detector” whose ability to tell when people aren’t being honest is its sleuthing hook Old-school television is rarely as fresh and funny—and cinematic—as this episodic thriller Poker Face isn’t a whodunit but a “howcatchem,” with installments beginning with prologues that reveal the identity of their killer before flashing back to detail how Charlie Cale (Lyonne)—a drifter with a gift for deducing who’s being truthful and who instinctively calls “bullshit” when someone isn’t—unravels the conspiracy Cruising the country in her 1969 Plymouth Barracuda, and with “a voice like a rusty trombone,” she’s a nomadic millennial Hercule Poirot and if her acuity is a fantastical superpower that occasionally feels like a too-easy cheat allowing her to solve crimes simply by hearing a culprit tell a fib it’s nonetheless creatively employed throughout each of its twelve chapters Lyonne is the sun around which everything in Poker Face revolves and she’s brighter than ever in its sophomore run sarcastically rambling from one state—and community and culture—to another with wry take-it-as-it-comes nonchalance and good humor it abandons its tried-and-true template of presenting a murder and then rewinding to depict amateur gumshoe Charlie cracking the case In each of its mini-dramas, Poker Face grants its guest stars plentiful chances to shine, all as it keeps its focus on Charlie and her preternatural skill at detecting falsehoods and coming up with the perfect one-liner to cut a person (or situation) down to size. confidently imagining a wide range of American milieus and their wacko inhabitants the best takes place in the most unlikely of locales: a suburban preparatory school where Charlie working as the Sloppy Joe-ladling lunch lady is pitted against a conniving elementary school striver whose hunger for classroom gold stars leads her to sabotage the talent-show performance of her rival—a saga that hilariously involves death and quite a few psychotically intimidating adolescent threats The series doesn’t boast a bad turn from its illustrious cast and its mysteries are consistently inventive They’re also embellished with copious shout-outs to celluloid favorites whether via rat-a-tat-tat quips (such as Charlie quoting Linda Manz from Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue) or a confidence-game plot that playfully echoes David Mamet’s House of Games spinning tangled yarns in which homicide is the inevitable byproduct of jealousy it freely moves between venues without losing a hint of its unique personality it’s a rollicking road trip which proves that there’s still plenty of life left in time-honored big- and small-screen formulas Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article Angered by the FBI’s harassment of him and his family, he began protesting publicly and helped found the Italian-American Civil Rights League in 1970; his son Andrew was its vice president. On June 28, 1971, Colombo, speaking at an Italian-American rally in Columbus Circle, was shot by a young black man, who was himself immediately slain. Colombo was probably the target of the followers of Joseph Gallo with whom Colombo had fought gang wars for a decade A major search operation was launched at Colombo's Bandaranaike International Airport earlier today after India tipped off Sri Lankan authorities about six individuals allegedly involved in the Pahalgam terror attack These suspects were reported to have arrived in Sri Lanka on a flight from Chennai The SriLankan Airlines flight UL122 Indian authorities had alerted them about the presence of the six suspects on this particular flight The suspects are believed to have travelled to Colombo via this airline Local reports indicate that the Sri Lanka Police and airport security teams carried out a joint search operation Sri Lankan Airlines confirmed that it had received an alert from the Chennai Area Control Centre the aircraft was thoroughly inspected and cleared for further operations India has taken quick action against Pakistan by suspending the Indus Waters Treaty which means India can stop or redirect water from the Indus River system that normally flows to Pakistan impacting a major water source for the country MyIndMakers is a New Age Media Company established in 2015 to enable the exchange of Global Ideas and Solutions Join our mailing list to stay up to date and get notices about our new releases © 2025 MyIndMakers - All Rights Reserved (APSEZ) has begun operations at its new Colombo West International Terminal (CWIT) located at Sri Lanka’s Port of Colombo The terminal has been under construction since 2022 almost a year after the Adani Group signed the port deal CWIT was developed by a consortium consisting of APSEZ the Sri Lankan conglomerate John Keells Holdings and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) under a 35-year Build The $800 million CWIT project features a 1,400-meter quay length and 20-meter depth allowing the terminal to handle approximately 3.2 million TEU annually This capacity will elevate the status of Colombo port as a key transshipment hub in South Asia CWIT is the first deep-water terminal to be fully automated in Colombo improving cargo handling and vessel turnaround time “The commencement of operations at CWIT marks a momentous milestone in regional cooperation between India and Sri Lanka The opening is also a proud moment for Sri Lanka placing it firmly on the global maritime map,” said Gautam Adani the CWIT project was subjected to scrutiny after U.S prosecutors indicted Gautam Adani for an alleged bribery scheme but some countries - including Kenya - had to cancel deals associated with his companies it proceeded without a $500 million loan guarantee from the U.S government the U.S International Development Finance Corporation announced a loan providing support for the CWIT project The financing had not been processed by the time Adani Group withdrew from the loan deal in December Adani Group said it would finance the terminal through the company’s internal accruals and capital management plan it has to compete for cargo business with other major terminals in Colombo The China-backed Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT) controls the largest share of containers passing through the port Two of SLPA’s controlled terminals - Jaye Container Terminal and the deep-water East Container Terminal - handled 2.4 million TEU South Asia Gateway Terminal (SAGT) operated by John Keells Holdings handled 2 million TEU A Sri Lankan flight that arrived in Colombo from Tamil Nadu's Chennai was subjected to a “comprehensive security search” upon arrival following a support regarding a suspect wanted in India a press statement from the carrier stated on Saturday SriLankan Airlines said the flight – UL 122 – arrived in Colombo from Chennai at 11:59 am (local time) on Sunday (Pixabay/Representative) While there was no immediate official information on the wanted suspect in India that cops searched the a flight arriving from Chennai after being tipped-off that a suspect linked to the April 22 terrorist attack of Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam could be on board The search comes amid extensive probe of the Pahalgam terrorist attack and a massive manhunt launched to nab the suspects SriLankan Airlines said the flight – UL 122 – arrived in Colombo from Chennai at 11:59 am (local time) on Sunday “SriLankan Airlines wishes to inform the public that Flight UL 122 which arrived in Colombo from Chennai at 11:59 hrs today (3 May) was subjected to a comprehensive security search upon arrival This was carried out in coordination with local authorities following an alert from the Chennai Area Control Centre regarding a suspect wanted in India who was believed to be on board,” the airliner said The aircraft was thoroughly inspected and subsequently cleared for further operations It added that as a result of the mandatory security procedure gunmen opened fire at people in the Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam town Sketches were released later of the suspects of the Pahalgam terrorist attack Underscoring the "cross-border linkages" of the Pahalgam terror attack India on April 23 downgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan as it announced five major measures that also included suspension of the Indus Water Treaty and expulsion of Pakistani military attaches In a latest development in the India-Pakistan tensions India imposed a complete ban on imports of all goods from Pakistan with immediate effect on the grounds of national security and public policy following last month's terror attack in Pahalgam There is an unknown connection issue between Cloudflare and the origin web server There is an issue between Cloudflare's cache and your origin web server. Cloudflare monitors for these errors and automatically investigates the cause. To help support the investigation, you can pull the corresponding error log from your web server and submit it our support team. Please include the Ray ID (which is at the bottom of this error page). Additional troubleshooting resources. When you visit Italian artist and writer Paolo Colombo in Athens you might be invited on a vigorous walk through the city where he has lived full-time since 2007 but has loved since his first stay in 1977 This is not a tour of the glorious ruins atop the Acropolis it is a winding exploration of the scruffy metropolis where ancient and modern rub shoulders at every turn You might stop at a tiny eight-hundred-year-old Orthodox church built of fragments of even older pre-Christian buildings a flea-market stall selling old wood-block type a hole-in-the-wall record store specializing in rebetika music: a kind of raw street-level amalgam of Hellenic and Anatolian song traditions that evolved after refugees from the Ottoman Empire flooded into Greece after the Greco-Turkish wars ended in 1922 These are some of the things Colombo loves and only a few of the myriad inspirations for his drawings Turin-born artist began working as a painter and drawer and writer in the early 1970s but stopped in 1986 to begin a twenty-one-year career as a curator of contemporary art in the United States including at the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo in Rome from 2001–07 and the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva (where his work is currently on view) from 1989–2000 intimate images and word-image hybrids bridge worlds and times They are sparked both by the formal and philosophical innovations of the modernist avant-garde and by the wonders of history especially of literature and the ancient world Installation view: Paolo Colombo: The Second Time Toby Kamps (Rail:): Tell us about The Second Time your solo exhibition at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva Paolo Colombo: The exhibition comprises work from 1971 to 1986 and after that work from 2007 to March 2024 The gap is because I stopped working as an artist during that time so I started working as a curator in small university art galleries My first job was a ten-month stint with Northern Illinois University and then my second job was at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia—my predecessor there was Ann Jarmusch it was “stranger than paradise” that I owe my curatorial career to the Jarmusch family Rail: The title of the show reflects your return to making art It also references your very early exhibition at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in 1978 as well as your stint as director there from 1990 to 2001 It was a pleasure to work with the director of the Centre Rail: Talk about some of the work that’s on view which is mostly watercolor paintings on paper Colombo: The exhibition begins with the “Skin and Fog Drawings” from the early 1970s I call them that because they look like fog and the pores of skin although the background is slightly greenish I began with a neutral color wash on a 15 by 24 centimeter sheet of paper and covered it with maybe one thousand dots You have to understand that I’m self-taught When I bought my first box of Winsor & Newton watercolors around 1970 it came with a booklet containing instructions on how to paint including how to depict dirty sheep in a landscape That’s totally appropriate advice for English landscape painters It also turned out to be very good advice for me because I was looking for an unusual neutral color Rail: Can you say where these abstract images came from Colombo: When I decided that I was going to work as an artist I decided to start from the very beginning—the first point of contact the pencil has with the surface of a piece of paper A dot can extend into a line and eventually into every conceivable form I moved to small squares arranged to resemble mosaic tesserae Basically I was learning the grammar and the phonemes of painting which in my case plays the role of the tile in Byzantine mosaics These compositional elements and their mosaic structures appear in the watercolors I first showed at Mario Tazzoli Gallery in Milan in 1974 Rail: From the start your poetry figured large in your drawings and watercolors I did not know whether I was going to be a painter or a writer so I introjected my verses into my pencil drawings as one would have a footnote on the margin of a text I intended the watercolors to be the objective correlatives to the texts who used the term in connection with “The Waste Land.” In brief I intended to use the literary technique of evoking an emotion by means of symbols that would refer to it One of those watercolors was Posthumous Glory (1983) which is a title inspired by Italo Calvino Then the poetry began to have an urgency of its own I had sent a couple of poems to magazines cold One of them was the Literary Review in Scotland wrote back saying that what I was doing had some merit So I felt a kind of permission to introject them again in my work like the “Skin and Fog” pencil and watercolor works are composed of hundreds and thousands of dots which coalesce to make the letters of the poems which are extremely concise and plainspoken appear in the spaces where there are no dots The wall is painted in two different colors and right over the vertical line where they touch each completely abstract and each containing maybe a hundred thousand tesserae but I use the term tessera to point to Byzantine mosaics reimagining the colors of the sea and the sand which reminds me of the night and the dawn I began it in 1979 and finished it when I started painting again in 2007 This is the work around which the whole exhibition pivots and my dissertation was on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood a movement that connected literature and art I imagine that is how the first seeds were sown Rail: The Geneva show was one of your very first outings as a visual artist Colombo: I showed a project to Moma PS1 in 1977 in their second-ever show which was illuminated by a twenty-five-watt bulb because I wanted a small space that would engulf you The work was an outline in dots of French traveler Jacques Carrey’s drawings of the Parthenon in the late seventeenth century which meticulously record the state of the structure before the Venetian bombardment of 1687 destroyed so much of it Stepping into the closet was basically entering a lost world I ran into the director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain I opened a portfolio on the floor of the JFK terminal to show her my drawings “Let’s have a show.” Those were times when things happened in the blink of an eye and people didn’t feel like you had to be art aristocracy or have a big market Rail: Different work from what you showed at PS1 I showed the poem drawings for the first time there I began them in 1975 when I was living in the United States and in graduate school at Yale I knew I didn’t really want to become a scholar even though I had a generous Harkness Fellowship for American studies but I decided I needed to go back to Europe So I moved to Athens in 1977 and lived here for four and a half years when you started working again as a full-time artist The newer works are painted much more thickly I’ve only made watercolors and drawings since the beginning which was on top of a Swiss mountain where there was only the school and a farmhouse I brought along canvases and oil paints and spent this time painting When it was time to leave to start university That is when I bought my first box of watercolors I hope each one is different in concept and in nature I make maybe five or six paintings maximum on a theme before moving on Rail: This is when elements from ancient art begin to appear the next series of paintings in the exhibition don’t have specific titles I refer to them by the name of their main color They’re made between 2023–24 and are inspired by mosaics Some are invented and some derived from Greek and Roman originals They appear as if seen behind a sheet of tulle or organdy representing a fabric that is torn and reveals underneath it layers of history this series of paintings actually was translated into fabric through an organization called ITERARTE Tamara is a curator with whom I cooperated on two Iraqi pavilions at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and 2019 ITERARTE puts together artists with craftsmen from the Eastern Mediterranean all the way to India to make embroideries and other fabric-related works I was introduced to an Indian workshop to make embroideries from my watercolors These are in the Geneva exhibition in a room featuring a carpet knotted at 150 knots per square centimeter featuring an abstract design which I titled Clouds (2018) That was made by another Indian laboratory that was introduced to me by the carpet designer Federica Tondato Rail: Tell us about the new poem paintings there are two large poetry pieces from 2021 the written part appears as if it were embroidered in an organdy or tulle fabric the background is a dark watercolour wash like a sea at night “on land: / short aphoristic bursts / in infinite regress // at sea: / let the mermaids flirt with me.” In the same room are two vitrines that contain materials illustrating the context in which I’ve developed my work One of them deals with the manuscripts for Braillegrams Western Union had a service with this name and I used it to send several of my poems to my galleries in braille I spent hours dictating the poems to patient Western Union employees who would transmit them Another vitrine contains objects that deal with my inspirations and the place where I live There’s my first 45 RPM record of Greek music There are photographs of my favorite singers I also had a big collection of plastic artifacts made in Greece mostly bread baskets and objects for the table I gave most of these to the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture And there are two packs of English Ovals non-filter cigarettes I used to write poetry for cigarette boxes I would hide them inside cigarette packages as something that you could keep in your shirt pocket Rail: Would it be underneath the cellophane Ovals cigarettes used to come with pictures The idea of my work has always been to do the utmost with very little part of a series I call “Stone Theater.” I make them with my telephone and stones that I find I found one that looked like a skull and I thought “This is Hamlet finding Yorick’s skull,” and I made fifty seconds of Hamlet’s monologue poor Yorick!” I have one of a Greek children’s song which is very cheeky and meant to be sung during Carnival Rail: I’m beginning to think there’s a third meaning to your title The Second Time You’re making seconds-long videos with ancient stones You’re spending hours and hours piling up tiny tesserae of watercolor and weaving veils of lines You’ve said that you’re very much okay with somebody in an exhibition spending only a few moments with something it took you ages to make You have to imagine that after every four or five dots It’s a gesture that’s repeated over and over again for the large drawings about six hundred thousand times The marks in these drawings look ephemeral as if you could blow on them and make them disappear I think the magic of painting is that it can compress time in a way that no other form of art does and that the sense of time can be embedded in the meaning of the work The fact that they’re on separate sheets of paper arranged in a frame with a cross of empty space between them allows me to have a sense of both ordered and fragmentary time Rail: I imagine that time feels different in Athens like everything that draws you to something when you’re eighteen or nineteen And then it got completed by the discovery of two poets In Greece I felt the first sense of freedom and therefore forever remembered it as one would remember the first love I was drawn also to the simplicity of the architecture and so I was a bit like a fish out of water in Rome I love the directness of the Greek language and I’ve been faithful to this love ever since Rail: I’m so grateful that you introduced me to Cavafy and Seferis and will never forget you saying how much you appreciated the fact that Cavafy rarely used adjectives Colombo: Cavafy writes in an austere and spare way and therefore I would always look to him as an example of clarity and worked as an administrator for the Suez Company but had this semi-secret life of loving men He wrote erotic poems along with historical poetry You couldn’t say I’m even remotely comparable to him I’m not interested in representations of an actual space the first layer might be a kind of painted or drawn embroidery the second might be a fabric in which the letters seem to be embroidered and the third might be a representation of the night behind the fabric I’ve always felt comfortable with Byzantine art and with its clear and essential forms of representation painting was traditionally a window into another world Byzantine icons have another purpose: if a painting is a window The issue of light is directly connected with the religious function of Byzantine icons It is something that I try to achieve in my work but that this something also has to come back to you in the form of image and light Rail: The Italian sculptor and writer Fausto Melotti was a mentor to you Colombo: I met him when I was twenty-one through my gallery in Turin which showed Melotti and many artists I admired Visiting his gallery in the 1960s and ’70s was a lesson in quality: Francis Bacon We started a conversation that was very instructive He told me an artist should never repeat himself I also try to avoid patterns of squares that are too regular in life we are already in a grid that we cannot escape although they are part of my phonemes and grammar Melotti encouraged me to see things through a different framework with the rise of the Red Brigades and of the strife between the right-wing fascists and the left-wing extremists was a place of strong political engagement which seemed to be required of every artist I was interested in poetry and did not have a political inclination Fausto Melotti was very lyrical in his work the Italian art of any relevance was Arte Povera with its connections to the student movement and politics in general but he stopped making art to support a family by opening a tile factory I followed these tracks because I did other jobs for years to support my family Rail: Melotti’s work is very different from yours He was a sculptor and made delicate metal works featuring abstract forms derived from the real world What was your biggest takeaway from these conversations Colombo: That I should never be afraid of the lyrical impulse That writing was significant and could accompany an art-making practice Rail: You also spoke with Melotti about the idea of lightness Colombo: He said not to be afraid of lightness Rail: Your poetry is filled with characters I might call urban angels This includes “the blind women of Athens,” or the watch repairman who keeps late hours in his shop You can say certain things in poetry that you cannot in any other way Kenneth Koch said poetry is image and song Let me take one of the examples you just mentioned “At night the blind women of Athens / mend clothes and speak of angels.” We know that blind women cannot thread a needle They cannot know exactly where the eye of the needle is what the colors of the threads and the clothes to be mended are and of a covenant of gentle old souls talking which is what I wish my poetry and also my art would have The shortest poem I ever wrote that became a painting is composed of four words and fourteen letters altogether although they’re arranged to take up a lot of space Let me describe the painting: it is composed of four sheets there is a very dark wash made of many blues “wax / wane / ebb / neap,” each word in a corner on its own sheet and what you have is a great contraction of time because they allude to the phases of the moon is to say as much as possible with as little as possible I thought about how to represent space in the flattest possible way I really have very little three-dimensional sense And while we’re talking about a kind of flatness I must say I’ve always loved Greek shadow theater in which an image is cast onto a sheet by a light behind a cutout form the player in shadow theater is the person who would create and move all the silhouettes himself and do all the voices Players would travel from village to village and set up their little theaters I feel I don’t need an assistant—other than for the embroideries which are done in a workshop in India because I just don’t have the technique Rail: Could Plato have gotten his idea of the cave from seeing one of these shadow theaters Shadow theater comes from Indonesia and arrived in Egypt via the Red Sea you find the first mention of shadow theater in Greece where it took on its own very particular style It was lively until the 1970s and was really a hands-on thing another way to do something with very little One of the things I like about shadow theater is that the hand of the maker always touches the material always touches the surface of what they’re making I am here at my table as we speak with my hands on my work That’s probably one of the reasons why images of hands occasionally appear in my watercolors They are often the hands of someone I love But I also draw the hand because it is the first thing I see before the pencil and the paper It is therefore natural that hands appear in my watercolors as an image Rail: Your work is very much in the modernist tradition It’s spare and pared-back like your poetry and very much concentrated on the interplay of form and image on the picture plane it’s engaged with history and the timeless mysteries of life—on both individual and cultural scales Rail: How do you reconcile your interests in modern art—the play between flatness and pictorial space aspects of collage and fragmentation—with what I might call the human-scale epic tradition like a bridge between the present and possibly a future If I may add another memory from my studies of literature reconsidered passion.” Painting is a way to keep a diary of feelings very short poem that appears in the book of poetry that accompanied your 2014 exhibition at Qbox Gallery in Athens Colombo: “After the ecstasy / we were lost in metaphors.” You are very much in touch with your past selves and the emotional highlights of your life You recall the sense of being nineteen and in love and in Greece for the first time I mention that the archive of the living includes “open doors / sparkling rubies / and nights so lonely.” Beauty and longing and that one cannot express emotions except through metaphors Rail: I’ve always thought of you as a “soul curator.” You’ve always taken an artist and heart-led approach to organizing exhibitions Is there a connection between your work as a curator and your work as an artist Colombo: I’ve learned from working with artists I always worked for institutions that had little funding So I worked with artists at the very beginnings of their careers some who have gone on to become extremely well known So I bounced from emerging artist to emerging artist and together we had to come up with ideas for how to make shows with very little money So I learned huge amounts: how to hang work And everybody had different needs and different approaches So it is not entirely right that I’m self-taught All the artists I worked with were the best teachers Rail: You haven’t entirely given up curating You’ve co-curated the Iraqi pavilions at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and 2019 Colombo: I organized those projects with Tamara Chalabi of ITERARTE Some were exiled so it was easy for me to go see them one woman artist’s husband didn’t want her to paint We also had restrictions because it was in Venice empty nineteenth-century library at Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti We were not allowed to put a pin in the wall We devised a theme that would be appropriate to the history of Iraq: archaic We decided to focus on issues which were central to the life of Mesopotamia in ancient times and still are today in modern-day Iraq: music we were able to borrow forty artifacts from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad and place them in freestanding vitrines that we had built to create an exhibition space The Iraqi artists each showed their work in their own vitrines the glass panes of which reflected the sky visible through the windows overlooking the Grand Canal but Tamara was able to embed Francis Alÿs in the attack of Mosul where he worked as a war illustrator/reporter It was a very peculiar show that I enjoyed doing but I haven’t curated an exhibition in about six or seven years now Rail: When I was in the studio in September last year I saw some new work which had a diorama aspect Colombo: I’m trying to work with all the things that I love Among the things that I love is Greek music traditional music from the twenties to the fifties with a portrait and a representation of one of these tablecloths painted on the table One might also find another small object painted on the table music by that singer comes from underneath it I’m also making large individual portraits of musicians It’s of Vassilis Tsitsanis painted in four sheets It represents a large curtain of ochre organdy and in the lower left corner there is an opening with a pencil portrait of Tsitsanis playing the bouzouki Rail: You’ve introduced me to rebetika music which comes in part from what the Greeks call the Catastrophe during and after World War I when one million refugees from the Ottoman Empire moved into the country What is it about the music that appeals to you you bring with yourself a horrible tradition of embellishment Colombo: A horrible tradition of embellishing everything So it’s part of separating myself from my background the way the music is constructed—not harmonically You become a good rebetiko singer after you’ve smoked five hundred cigarettes a day and your voice has finally broken There are moments in life when everything comes together going to yet another country for graduate school—everything is like a rain of wonderful meteors from the sky This makes you establish loyalties that are unbreakable Rail: Many people may have these loyalties and passions but few have done what you’ve done with them which is to transform them into transporting art and poetry I had very little sense of myself until I was fourteen I refused to read books until I was fourteen but everything came in very cohesive and very concentrated form Toby Kamps is Head of the Collection of Modern Paintings at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany. Home , opens new tab.Sri Lankan conglomerate John Keells Holdings owns 34% of the terminal and the rest is held by the state-run Sri Lanka Ports Authority.Last month authorities accused Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani and seven others of being part of a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials investors while raising funds there.The ports-to-power conglomerate has termed the allegations "baseless" and said it would seek "all possible legal recourse".Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab , opens new tab Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. , opens new tabScreen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved Six members of the Under-19 Rugby team of a Colombo school have been arrested over the alleged sexual abuse of a fellow team member the group was arrested by the Special Police Investigation Unit of the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) The group is accused of having sexually abused a 15-year-old boy between 12-24 April during a sports camp in the North An investigation had been launched into the incident following a complaint filed at the NCPA The investigations had led to the arrest of the under-19 Rugby team members window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.defineSlot('/22035953837/E-Desktop-Inner-A-300x250' 'div-gpt-ad-1595349768859-0').addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.enableServices(); }); window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []};googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.defineSlot('/22035953837/E-Desktop-Inner-B-300x250' 'div-gpt-ad-1595349813159-0').addService(googletag.pubads()); 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googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.enableServices(); }); IFC is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in developing countries creates jobs and improves the lives of people IFC advances economic development and improves the lives of people by encouraging the growth of the private sector in developing countries We achieve this by investing in impactful projects As the largest global development institution focused on the private sector IFC operates in more than 100 countries around the globe We apply lessons learned in one region to solve problems in another IFC brings a clear set of advantages to the world’s most challenging markets and a determination to achieve measurable development impact Owned by 186 member countries and consistently rated AAA/Aaa IFC aims to achieve our mission of promoting development by providing debt and equity to the private sector through a range of benchmark and bespoke products Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 10, 2025 -Marking a decade of collaboration the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – a member of the World Bank Group – partnered with the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) and global partners to ring the opening bell reaffirming their commitment to advancing women's economic empowerment and leadership in Sri Lanka champions women’s economic participation to drive sustainable development the number of women board directors in CSE-listed boards increased significantly from 8.7 percent in 2024 to 13.4 percent in 2025 reflecting the commitment to increase women's representation in management and board positions across Sri Lanka This milestone was largely driven by CSE’s mandate for boards to have at least five members which led to the appointment of Independent Directors – many drawn from the Chartered Accountants sector “We are very happy to witness a remarkable increase of over 54 percent in the representation of women on the boards of CSE-listed companies raising overall representation to 13.4 percent compared to last year This underscores a clear and encouraging trend signaling that progress is gaining momentum and we are moving in the right direction we are proud to have women represent 46.7 percent of our staff and 47 percent of our management team reflecting our ongoing commitment to gender-balanced leadership We remain dedicated to advocating for greater female representation in leadership roles fostering sustainable economic growth and advancing a more equitable future.” While there have been positive strides in women’s board leadership in Sri Lanka progress requires business to collaborate and commit to eliminate key barriers that prevent women from employment “Sri Lanka has made commendable progress in women's board leadership we must prioritize their advancement to leadership roles across all business areas,” said Gevorg Sargsyan “When businesses empower women economically and fully respect their rights they create a ripple effect: fostering social progress This critical step ensures women and girls have access to spaces where they can make a significant impact which is essential for the stability and growth of Sri Lanka's economy.” rejoice the steps we have taken and look forward to the impact we continue to create It is time to set decisive targets and actions around the percentage increase we want in women’s workforce participation to unlock and drive economic growth rather than focusing on the fact that we only have around 32% of women in the workforce.” She added we have increased female representation in our workforce to 46% and within our sales force Notably 43% of our Top 100 High Performing Wealth Planners are women We believe barriers can be addressed and overcome by conscious efforts and strategic initiatives Equal opportunities enable women to be bold tenacious and persevering in unlocking their full potential.” This year's International Women's Day theme of For ALL Women and Girls: Rights Empowerment calls for action to unlock opportunities for women and girls to lead and innovate Stock exchanges are uniquely positioned to influence this by helping connect companies and policymakers to play a crucial role in rallying the private sector to increase women’s participation in business and economic development Stay Connected with IFC on social media Sign up to have customizable news & updates sent to you Metrics details Periodicity of dengue and rainfall variations Amplitudes are highest for 26 weeks in both (a) dengue (amplitude is 8133.34) and (b) rainfall (amplitude is 33192.65) Schematic diagram of transmission of the dengue virus between human (host) and mosquito (vector) populations and recovered host populations respectively \(S_v\) and \(I_v\) are the susceptible and infected vector populations respectively where, for the \(i^{th}\) season, \(\textbf{E}_i\) is the reported weekly total rainfall, \(a_i\) is the rainfall coefficient, and \(\textbf{z}_i\) is the per-capita vector density. The simulation of model (1) for a season requires estimating \(\textbf{z}\) using rainfall We infer this parameter a for each season in an iterative process The estimation procedure in Bayesian framework yields Next we demonstrate the parameter estimation setup for a season and for brevity we eliminated the subscript i, which denotes seasons. The parameters and data applied to the model in (3) yields where \(\mathscr {I}\) denotes any background information according to the standard Bayesian setup using inverse gamma distribution and it is explained in the next section There is no existing knowledge for the rainfall coefficient or the rainfall and thus we assume uniform priors for \(p\left( a|\textbf{E} \mathscr {I}\right)\) and \(P(\textbf{E}|\sigma ,\mathscr {I})\) assuming errors in observed data follows Gaussian distribution yields where \(||.||^2\) denotes the L2 norm of the errors and \(\hat{\textbf{I}}=\displaystyle \int \dfrac{d\textbf{I}}{dt}dt\) Finally the log posterior distribution yields We then encapsulated this Bayesian posterior simulation process into the Alg. 1 showcasing the iterative procedure of parameter estimation for s number of seasons. The optimization problem is a \(\text {Min}_{a\in \mathbb {R}} \log p\left( a | \mathbf {I_{obs}},\textbf{E}, \textbf{P},\mathbf {Y_0},\sigma , \mathscr {I}\right)\). Sensitivity of the parameters allow us to better understand the variability and reliability of our seasonal estimations and predictions The model validation can be captured via estimates of dengue incidences during specific seasons for example outbreak periods or festive seasons Marginal distribution simulations of rainfall coefficients. Histograms of the marginal distribution obtained for 4 seasons(a) 2017 January-April (b) 2021 April-July, (c) 2009 July-October, (d) 2017 April-July are given. The red vertical lines indicate the means of marginal distributions. The black dashed lines indicate the 95% credible intervals of each marginal distribution. Dengue infection density estimates of first two seasons in (a) \(s_1\) and (b) \(s_2\) The black circles indicate the reported dengue infected human population density and the red line indicates the estimated line The fitted curve in (a) is obtained by taking the actual initial values at the beginning of the time period The fitted curve in (b) is obtained by taking the final values of the fitted curve in (a) as the initial values for season in (b) In outbreak years the uncertainties are minimal underscoring the precision of the estimates and the model’s ability to capture extreme cases when supported by evidence These relatively narrow uncertainties in outbreak seasons compared to other seasons suggest rainfall is likely one of the primary factors contributing to these outbreaks Our results effectively capture both the trends and seasonality in dengue incidences revealing a strong correlation between dengue incidence patterns This highlights the significant impact of monsoon rainfall and its seasonality on the spread of dengue in the Colombo district seasonal variations in monsoon rainfall are likely to forecast corresponding seasonal variations in dengue incidences Especially during the festive seasons in April and December disease transmission elevates due to the increasing human mobility and population gatherings The moderately high uncertainties are observed in seasons \(7,8,11,12,14-16,22,24,28,32,36,38,42,45,47,48\) and 53 (width of the credible interval between 3 and 6) unexpected above-average rainfall incidences also may have an impact in the differences shown in the marginal distributions and rainfall data specific to a particular season the algorithm consistently forecasted dengue cases Estimated dengue infected human population density in the CMC area The red line shows the estimated results (\(\mathbf {\hat{I}}\)) (see Supplementary Material) The gray circles show the reported infected human population density values calculated from the reported patient count data obtained from the NDCU (\(\mathbf {I_{obs}}\)) Uncertainties of results at 95% level are shown by the shaded gray color bands Forecast of dengue emergence for one upcoming season is given in the green box The forecast was obtained in two different ways The inner band (solid line) in the forecast shows the uncertainty of the forecast based on the end point of the estimated dengue density in the previous season The outer band (dash line) shows the uncertainty of the forecast based on the end points of the uncertainties (lower and upper) of the dengue estimates in the previous season Given the ongoing challenges in dengue eradication particularly due to the absence of a cure or widely available vaccine understanding the emergence patterns and timing of dengue outbreaks becomes a cornerstone of effective control and prevention strategies The insights gained from this study in understanding the dengue emergence patterns are indispensable for enabling public health authorities to implement timely interventions such as fogging with insecticides or the release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes both of which play crucial roles in reducing vector populations and interrupting the transmission cycle of the virus understanding the timing and intensity of rainfall is pivotal in issuing early warnings to the public empowering households to take necessary actions to eliminate potential vector breeding sites This is especially critical in areas like the CMC where high human mobility and dense populations create a fertile environment for rapid dengue transmission the interplay between rainfall conditions and vector activity becomes a vital factor in forecasting dengue outbreaks thus enabling timely decision-making and the deployment of targeted control measures The implications of these findings underscore the need for a nuanced context-specific approach to dengue control one that integrates environmental monitoring with public health strategies to mitigate the impact of this persistent threat The findings of this study provide a foundation for developing a comprehensive early warning system for dengue emergence in the hotspots of Sri Lanka By leveraging the observed correlations between rainfall patterns and vector population dynamics an automated system could be designed to predict periods of increased vector activity and This system would analyze rainfall data in real-time using predictive models to forecast vector emergence and potential dengue outbreaks Such a proactive approach would allow public health authorities to issue timely warnings and implement preventive measures well in advance significantly mitigating the threat of dengue our study’s findings could inform the development of an efficient vector control system by determining the optimal timing for cleaning and insecticide application in relation to rainfall patterns By anticipating risk and acting before the disease spreads this system could play a crucial role in reducing the incidence of dengue and protecting vulnerable communities across the country This study operates under several key assumptions regarding the emergence of dengue fever within the CMC area this study and its findings are specific to the Colombo district in Sri Lanka and therefore have limitations when generalizing to other regions globally this study presents a methodology that can be adapted to areas with unique weather patterns we outline the inherent limitations of this study It is assumed the primary vectors responsible for dengue transmission are homogeneously distributed throughout the region Due to the lack of these data in Colombo district our estimates may not be accurate and possibly represent in the estimated uncertainties Further our estimates do not represent the intensities of cases due to species type or the virus serotype The emergence of dengue in this area is hypothesized to be predominantly driven by rainfall are consistently favorable for the breeding and survival of these vector species any dengue incidences caused by unexpected fluctuations in environmental conditions other than rainfall are not reflected in our results both human and vector populations are assumed to be within a closed system where the total number of humans and vectors remains constant throughout the study with no significant external migration or population shifts This assumption could influence our results especially given Colombo’s status as a commercial hub with high human mobility we were able to account for this during the Christmas/New Year period through the uncertainties the study assumes that parameters like transmission rates without considering potential seasonal variations Another limitation of our study is the lack of experimental data for the model parameters Using actual values reflecting dengue transmission in the Colombo district could improve the accuracy of our results these type of errors are usually captured by the uncertainty of results and therefore our estimates account for the possible errors in the chosen parameter values while we have configured our model using fixed parameter values it would be advantageous to employ dynamic parameters for factors such as transmission rates While outbreaks exhibited low uncertainty indicating accurate predictions and the model’s capacity to capture extreme cases when supported by evidence some seasons displayed large uncertainties suggesting the influence of undisclosed external factors apart from rainfall Upon careful observation the inferred high uncertainties are recorded in many of the seasons following Christmas/New Year times Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) area being the commercial city of the country Christmas and New year makes it the busiest and the most crowded city during these festive times Due to the high population density with their frequent inbound and outbound mobility during the festivities the city’s environmental pollution expected to elevate significantly the impact of rainfall is overpowered verifying the marginal distribution with high uncertainty Other seasons with large uncertainties are reported following the seasons having above-average rainfall the external factors may dominate the impact of rainfall and may produce uncertainties in the forecast the iterative algorithm introduced in this study aims to estimate seasonal per-capita vector density and dengue cases using a probabilistic and dynamic modeling approach By validating against real data and quantifying uncertainty our approach demonstrates its effectiveness in precisely identifying outbreak years the uncertainty quantification reveals further insights into the elevated risk of dengue emphasizing the necessity for continued exploration in future studies The data that support the findings of this study are available from the National Dengue Control Unit (NDCU) but restrictions apply to the availability of these data which were used under license for the current study Data are however available from the author Piyumi Chathurangika upon reasonable request and with permission of the National Dengue Control Unit (NDCU) Halstead, S. 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Statistics and computing 16, 339–354. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11222-006-9438-0 (2006) The MathWorks, Inc 2024a, https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html Download references Dengue data for this study were kindly provided by Dr the Director of the National Dengue Control Unit Research & Development Centre for Mathematical Modeling All authors read and approved the final manuscript The authors declare no competing interests Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76176-5 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing: AI and Robotics newsletter — what matters in AI and robotics research The page you are looking for might have been removed Thanks for visiting The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here A comprehensive security search of a Sri Lankan Airlines flight, which travelled to Colombo from Chennai, was undertaken on Saturday following a tip-off from India that it was carrying six suspects believed to be involved in the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 that left 26 people dead Sri Lankan Airlines said that Flight UL 122 arrived in Colombo from Chennai at 11:59 hrs today underwent a comprehensive security inspection upon arrival according to a report by Daily Mirror Online Sri Lankan Airlines flight UL122 was searched after it arrived in Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport Security measures were initiated after Chennai airport authorities received an email claiming that five Lashkar operatives were on board a Sri Lankan Airlines flight was received by the Chief Security Officer at 11.05 am “Five South Indian males on UL 122 (9.55 am) are Lashkar operatives local security authorities conducted the search operation of the flight no suspicious person or activity was found on the flight No suspicious individuals or activities were found as the message later turned out to be a hoax The flight was cleared for further operation after the inspection was thoroughly performed Pahalgam’s scenic Baisaran meadow echoed with the sounds of gunshots when terrorists shot dead 26 men in one of the deadliest terror attacks on civilians in the country Survivors said the gunmen asked some victims about their religion and demanded they recite Islamic verses Those who failed or hesitated were shot in the head Security officials said at least five terrorists split into smaller groups and attacked three zones in the meadow including 25 tourists and a local pony operator and an Indian Air Force (IAF) corporal — all were on vacation with their families — were among the deceased The massacre triggered nationwide outrage and escalated India-Pakistan tensions as New Delhi vowed to avenge the killings Andrea Colombo joined the Inter-American Dialogue in 2022 as an intern for the Office of the President after obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan Colombo’s thesis focused on Chile’s neoliberal multiculturalism model and the Mapuche population He has covered the role of External Relations Officer for the Student Movement for the International Organisations of Milan and writes for the Latin America section of an Italian online media outlet He has also volunteered for an NGO in Santiago Atitlán and visited Mexico as part of an exchange program He is now a Master’s student in the Erasmus Mundus Latin American Studies program The Dialogue is a hemispheric organization that builds networks of cooperation and action to advance democratic resilience and sustainable development across the Americas and enhance collaboration to unlock meaningful change in the Western Hemisphere Inter-American Dialogue1155 15th Street NW | Suite 800Washington, DC 20005P: +1-202-822-9002F: +1-202-822-9553 We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze how you use this website and provide the content and advertisements that are relevant to you These cookies will only be stored in your browser with your prior consent You can choose to enable or disable some or all of these cookies but disabling some of them may affect your browsing experience Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns SriLankan Airlines confirmed that UL122 underwent an extensive security check after it arrived at Bandaranaike International Airport at 11:59am the plane was thoroughly examined before it was released for further service The National Investigation Agency (NIA) India has also banned imports and incoming parcels from Pakistan and canceled visas for Pakistani nationals in India The Abdali is a land-based tactical ballistic missile that is currently operational with Pakistan's strategic forces Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is contesting the local government elections in Sri Lanka to be held on May 6 fielding 13 and 21 candidates respectively for the Karainagar Divisional Council in the northern war-ravaged Jaffna district and Kolonnawa Urban Council in the suburbs of Colombo The SEP has held a series of election meetings on April 27 in Oori village Karainagar; on April 26 in Matara in southern Sri Lanka; on April 9 in Colombo; and on April 7 in Jaffna Our final event—an open-air meeting near Bank of Ceylon premises—is scheduled for Saturday Kolonnawa is one of the densely populated local council areas located near Colombo city center it has an estimated population of 204,484 or over 8 percent of the Colombo District’s total population of 2.46 million small traders and other impoverished people It has many industrial and commercial buildings tea-packaging factories and state-owned electricity and petroleum facilities Karainagar is one of the small islands surrounding the predominantly-Tamil Jaffna Peninsula It was devastated by the 26-year long communal war waged from 1983 against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) its population has dropped precipitously to 10,500 from around 80,000 in the 1970s Members and supporters of the SEP and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) have campaigned in recent weeks across Sri Lanka for a socialist program against imperialist war people have repeatedly complained about the impact of the government’s austerity measures dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) The ruling Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/National People’s Power (JVP/NPP) government has broken the promises during last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections to improve living conditions said: “My daily earnings are not steady—sometimes I earn 2,500 rupees [$US8.40] and some days nothing.” He noted that the JVP/NPP also “is going by the IMF program but they earlier said they would not accept the IMF.” The JVP/NPP had dumped its posturing as a party of the poor and was now working “to defend the capitalist property system,” he said “There must be a system to solve these problems A youth from Meethotamulla spoke about his frustration at the lack of jobs He is currently taking a course related to the hotel industry and aims to migrate to Germany Campaigners explained what it was like in Germany: cuts on social welfare huge government spending on the military and the growing threat of a third world war Our parents and relatives are here,” he explained adding that life in other countries was not rosy “I thought about leaving because of the economic situation in our country and because of the job problems… [In Meethotamulla] no way to get an education and no money to pay for courses The SEP has campaigned at the Sanhinda Sevana flats near the Kolonnawa city center Sanhinda Sevana is an 11-storey building with 240 flats These have been provided for poor families from Colombo city forced out of their homes to make way for urban development to attract wealthy investors The Urban Development Authority (UDA) is responsible for these flats but does not maintain them adequately: waste disposal is not done properly the lifts always break down and noise levels are high due to poor design Many people said they lost their jobs after being compelled to move Colombo port worker Asgar criticised the JVP/NPP: “Before coming to power it spoke on the side of the poor people and joined the protests it is on the other side [the rich] acting against those poor people.” The worker opposed the police arrest and detention of Mohamed Rusdi for pasting a sticker at a shopping center opposing Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza He condemned the US role in the Gaza genocide Palestinians suffer at the hand of Israel who does not care about lives of the people It is clear that an anti-war movement is essential.” Asgar also expressed concern over the growing threat of war in the region “[India] is trying to become the regional power with the support of America many people [in Pakistan] will lose electricity and water which will cause great destruction,” he said India withdrew from the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan following the April 22 terror attack in Indian-held Kashmir “Despite the fact that America has caused so many disasters the Sri Lankan [JVP/NPP] government has embraced American imperialism,” he added The SEP has also campaigned among plantation workers in the Hatton and Maskeliya areas in central Sri Lanka where skyrocketing prices have created intolerable living conditions Many workers said that they voted for the JVP/NPP in last year’s general elections The workers were hostile to the traditional parties and also the plantation unions Up-Country People’s Front (UPF) and National Union of Workers (NUW) a female plantation worker from the Brunswick estate Maskeliya said: “[We] find it very difficult to live with a 1,350 rupee daily wage under this cost of living we have to fulfill our target of plucking 18kg tea leaves per day Another worker recalled the fascistic terror campaign waged by the JVP during 1987–1990 “Many tea and rubber factories were burned by the JVP,” he said “During the daytime we cooked meals at the house and after dinner we went into hiding among tea bushes and bunkers that were made by our parents.” He did not vote for the JVP/NPP explained that her family was affected by the war when the government launched a massive military operation in 1991 to capture the area our family fled and stayed in the village of Moolai was 18-years-old then and was studying at a technical college He left Moolai to bring his elder uncle and aunt from Karainagar Sellamuthu’s family found through a message from the Red Cross that the military arrested their son along with many other young men we have been searching for him in many places “We had three daughters and only one son [who is missing].” She said many young men were simply shot by the military Error 404: Page Not FoundWe're sorry, the page you’re looking for doesn't existWatch these videos instead IPL V PSL: Ricky Ponting Blames PSL for Punjab's Woes | First Sports With Rupha Ramani | N18G India's Crackdown On Pak Continues, Bans Nadeem's Instagram | First Sports With Rupha Ramani | N18G United Accused Of Re-Selling Tickets For Shocking Rates | First Sports With Rupha Ramani | N18G Terrorism Surges in Nigeria; Boko Haram, ISWAP Regain Strength | Firstpost Africa | N18G Somalia Bans Entry of Taiwanese Citizens To Please China: Taipei | Firstpost Africa | N18G Kenya Faces Alarming Need For Antivenom Amid Surge In Snake Bite Cases | Firstpost Africa | N18G Kenya Battles Snakebite Rampage | Firstpost Africa | N18G Trump 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Upgrade your browser today or install Google Chrome Frame to better experience this site only 10 days to go until the start of the ASBC Asian U22 & Youth Boxing Championships in Sri Lanka’s busy capital city The event period of the ASBC Asian U22 & Youth Boxing Championships in the city of Colombo the Technical Meeting and the Official Draw will take place in the Cinnamon Red Hotel in Colombo The first competition day of the ASBC Asian U22 & Youth Boxing Championships will take place in Colombo on May 12 while the finals are scheduled to be held in two last sessions on May 22 and 23 we can underline the upcoming ASBC Asian U22 & Youth Boxing Championships will be a remarkable event in Colombo furthermore the officials have been already appointed to the championships There will be ITO Course also during the competition period of the ASBC Asian U22 & Youth Boxing Championships on May 12-15 and the deadline for the application to the educational program is April 23 The President of the International Boxing Association Umar Kremlev will support the ASBC Asian U22 & Youth Boxing Championships with prize money in the amount of 100 000 USD Umar Kremlev confirmed that to the management of the Asian Boxing Confederation that the gold medallists will earn 1,000 USD while all boxers will get 250 USD for the bronze The competition venue will be the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo which has all facilities to make the event into a memorable one in the history of the events 2005 and in 2006 will be eligible to participate in the U22 age group in Colombo The boxers who are members of the 2007 and 2008 age groups will have the right to compete in the youth part of the busy championships The schedule of the ASBC Asian U22 & Youth Boxing Championships May 10 – Sport Entries Check Day1 in the Cinnamon Red Colombo Hotel May 11 – Sport Entries Check Day2 in the Cinnamon Red Colombo Hotel May 20 – Day8 competition with the semi-finals May 21 – Day9 competition with the semi-finals May 22 – Day10 competition with the finals May 23 – Day11 competition with the finals May 24 – Departures of the delegations  Don’t forget you can keep up with all of the action results and photos by following ASBC on Facebook and Instagram ASBC website: www.asbcnews.org  ASBC Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ASBC.Official/ ASBC Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/asbc_official/ ASBC Twitter page: https://twitter.com/ASBC_official Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port has had the highest growth rate in container volumes among leading global hubs this year thanks to incremental gains from Red Sea-linked vessel diversions Colombo logged a throughput increase of 23.6% year on year in H1 24 which reported a 23.3% rise in the same period Transporting finished vehicles appears to have become a new growth bet for cash-rich mega-container lines .. A nagging capacity strain at Sri Lanka’s Colombo port which caused considerable congestion issues in .. reportedly the worst maritime disaster in Sri Lanka Foreign-flagged container shipping lines facing the heat from Indian tax authorities have been lobbying the .. The unusually strong transhipment cargo gains by Sri Lanka’s Colombo port this year Containership fires are still a heightened source of concern for the industry – the latest .. touted as India’s “hub counter” to Colombo in Sri Lanka Major container lines have devised new strategies to serve customers in the Indian subcontinent region Major container lines are boosting their coverage of the India trades to tap into anticipated .. email: [email protected] email: [email protected] email: [email protected] email: [email protected] email: [email protected] the suspects had reportedly arrived in Sri Lanka aboard Sri Lankan Airlines flight UL122 from Chennai Sri Lankan authorities conducted a thorough inspection of the aircraft and initiated a joint operation involving the Sri Lanka Police “The search was carried out in coordination with local authorities following an alert from the Chennai Area Control Centre regarding a suspect wanted in India who was believed to be on board” in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22 Indian authorities have identified five terrorists — including three Pakistani nationals — behind the massacre in Pahalgam Sri Lankan Airlines stated that it had received the alert through the Chennai Area Control Centre The aircraft reportedly underwent detailed checks upon arrival and was later cleared for further operations Such comments are punishable under cyber laws The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of readers and not that of Mathrubhumi A SriLankan Airlines flight from Chennai was subjected to a full security check upon arrival in Colombo on Saturday after authorities were alerted about a suspect believed to be on board landed at 11:59 am on Saturday and was immediately searched in coordination with local authorities The alert had been issued by the Chennai Area Control Centre The airline confirmed that the aircraft was thoroughly inspected and later cleared for further operations The airlines added that it prioritises the safety and security of passengers and crew while upholding standards of safety Privacy Policy | Copyright © 2025 News On Air Last Updated: 5th May 2025  |  Visitors: 1480625 Heavy downpours over the weekend have wreaked havoc in many parts of the country while some 134,000 people have been affected by flooding according to the country’s Disaster Management Centre A man wades through his flooded neighborhood in Colombo A man pushes his motorbike along a flooded road in Colombo A boy plays with a makeshift raft at a flooded neighborhood in Colombo A man sits on a catamaran next to a damaged house in a flooded area in Colombo A man stands by his flooded house in Colombo A man buys groceries in his flooded neighborhood in Colombo Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka closed schools in the capital and its suburbs on Monday as heavy rains triggered floods in many parts of the island nation according to the country’s Disaster Management Center The center said rains and floods have damaged 240 houses and nearly 7,000 people have been evacuated Authorities have cut electricity in some areas as a precaution Navy and army troops have been deployed to rescue victims and provide food and other essentials Local television channels showed flooded towns in the suburbs of Colombo waters reached the roofs of houses and shops Sri Lanka has been grappling with severe weather conditions since May 16 people died due to floods and mudslides Colombo [Sri Lanka]: A SriLankan Airlines flight arriving from Chennai was subjected to a comprehensive security check at Colombo on Friday following a security alert regarding a wanted suspect issued by Indian authorities which arrived in Colombo from Chennai at 11:59 hrs on 3 May The search was conducted in coordination with local authorities following an alert from the Chennai Area Control Centre regarding a suspect wanted in India who was believed to be on board While no threat was found during the search the mandatory security measures led to a delay in the airline’s next scheduled service SriLankan Airlines assured passengers that their safety and security remain the airlines highest priority “we strive to ensure that the highest standards of safety are consistently maintained,” they said This report is auto-generated from ANI news service ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp columnists and editors – is doing just that Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here Support Our Journalism Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value" This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Indian women go down fighting as Sri Lankan women chased down the target of 276 in their second round-robin game played at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo losing seven wickets with five balls to spare the Indian side put on a formidable 275 runs for the loss of 9 wickets in the allotted 50 overs Richa Ghosh top-scored with 58 runs with able support from the rest of the side Chamari Athapaththu and Sugandika Kumari took three wickets each Although wickets fell at regular intervals fifties from Harshitha Samarawickrama and Nilakshi Silva helped the hosts stay ahead in the chase Shree Charani and Pratika Rawal took one wicket each Privacy Policy | Copyright © 2025 News On Air. All rights reserved A suspect has been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of SLPP Local Council candidate Dan Priyasad the 52-year-old suspect is believed to be the gunman responsible for Priyasad’s killing He is also reportedly linked to the murder of Priyasad’s brother