Week-18-2026

The police have arrested Chinese scammers for over a decade. But as South-East Asian governments crackdown, Sri Lanka is an increasingly popular destination for scam operations. Human trafficking risks follow.

Nearly two decades after the war ended, there are still two commemorations. Though the Lankadeepa is the most read newspaper on the island, it ignores the Mullivaikkal commemorations. But how the frontpage remembers the war has changed since 2009.

The LTTE’s defeat in May 2009 is almost always portrayed as a government win. Peter Stafford Roberts argues that it was actually an LTTE loss. After Balasingham’s death, Prabhakaran, the LTTE supremo, started making serious mistakes.

This evening Vimukthi Jayasundere’s Forsaken Land and the vivacious Fabienne Francotte’s forever exhibition at Saskia’s. There’s a Jaffna Food Festival, but you’re almost certainly better off at the outstanding Olai.