Sri Lanka PM offers protesters talks as opposition eyes no-confidence vote

Colombo, 13/4:Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister offered talks on Wednesday with protesters calling for the government to step down over its handing of an economic crisis as the opposition threatened to bring a no-confidence motion against it in parliament

The island nation of 22 million people is in the throes of its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948, with a foreign currency shortage stalling imports of fuel and medicines and bringing hours of power cuts a day.

 

Thousands of people have taken to the streets, many staging a sit-in in the commercial capital, Colombo, to denounce the government led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.