A quarter of a million people and an elephant marched into Sri Lanka's capital yesterday to protest high prices and the government's failure to end ethnic tension with Tamil Tiger rebels.
The elephant served as the mascot of the main opposition United National Party and led the march while supporters along the route waved green hats and flags -- the party color -- and held up posters of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, saying "Let's make Ranil president."
At least 3,000 policemen, anti-riot officers and soldiers were deployed in the city to deter violence and patrols were boosted at the president's house, the prime minister's residence and other key sites, said Pujitha Jayasundere, senior superintendent of police.
Cars and other vehicles were diverted from the march route -- Colombo's major traffic artery, traffic chief Lucky Peiris said.
The 10-day march began on July 2 from Sri Lanka's southernmost point of Dondra, about 150km south of Colombo, gathering thousands along the coast.
Organizers said 1 million protesters were expected to take part in a massive demonstration to be held later yesterday in the city center where Wickremesinghe was to make a speech.
The UNP accuses the government of failing to bring down the cost of living and solving the ethnic tension that has battered the country for decades. They also want an end to President Chandrika Kumaratunga's term and are calling for new elections before the end of this year.
Kumaratunga's shaky coalition government was reduced to a minority in parliament last month after the Marxist party quit over a deal to share tsunami-aid with Tamil Tiger rebels. Two other constituent parties have also threatened to quit over the deal.
Critics argue the agreement raises the rebels' legitimacy, threatens national security and undermines the country's sovereignty.
During a similar march in 2001 by the UNP, two people were killed and 70 others were injured when police fired rubber bullets to block thousands of opposition-led demonstrators from marching into Colombo to protest the suspension of parliament by Kumaratunga after she lost majority support.
Meanwhile, the Tigers said yesterday they were losing patience with the government and may resume their bloody civil war following the killing of two senior members in an attack they blame on military intelligence agents.
The warning came after the rebels and two civilians were killed by unidentified assailants on Sunday in Trincomalee -- a town controlled by the government with pockets around it held by the Tamil Tigers.
"We cannot exercise patience while our cadres and civilians are being killed, maimed and threatened by the military intelligence wing in the military-controlled areas," S.P. Thamilselvan, the rebel's political head, said in a letter to the ceasefire monitoring chief.
The military has denied any responsibility for the killings.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.