- Gas Station Owners’ Assn President Shelton Fernando says although stocks in fuel stations are sufficient, sales have decreased: also says due to the decrease in fuel sales & increase in electricity bills, many fuel stations are now closed by 10pm: previously, fuel stations were kept open until 2am during the festive season.
- Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa praises the operation launched to net drug traffickers: claims it’s a progressive move by the Govt: says drugs have ruined the young generation.
- President Ranil Wickremesinghe has reportedly said that he is not saying he is coming or not coming forward at the Presidential election 2024.
- Robocash, a leading “online lender” says there has been a substantial increase in the user base for online loan applications from 10,600 in Aug’21 to 1,300,000 by Nov’23: an exponential 125-fold surge in just over 2 years, at an average monthly growth rate of 19.5%.
- Senior officer at Kalutara prison says the CCTV system at the prison had been disabled for a year due to financial issues: investigations into the recent death of a prison inmate reveals that due to this shortcoming, efforts to determine the cause of the assault have been hindered.
- Pastor Jerome Fernando who was previously arrested in connection with a controversial sermon on 30th April’23, further remanded till 3rd Jan’24 by the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court: investigations against Pastor Jerome Fernando are based on complaints that he has insulted other religions during his sermons.
- Chief custodian of the Kataragama Devalaya Somipala T Ratnayake who was arrested by the Colombo Crimes Division, released on bail by Tissamaharama Magistrate: Ratnayake is the main suspect in the disappearance of a gold tray consisting of 38 gold sovereigns donated to the Kataragama Devalaya by a devotee.
- “Smartwings” from Budapest, Hungary commences direct charter flights to SL: first charter flight arrives at BIA with 183 passengers: the charter to operate every Wednesday from 27th Dec’23 to 3rd Apr’24.
- Emergency ambulance service 1990 Suwa Seriya partners with health technology provider Mediwave from Singapore to integrate its emergency response solutions: Mediwave’s Emergency Response Suite digitises emergency service processes, including the creation of Patients’ electronic health records using an AI-powered speech-to-text transcriber.
- Public Security Minister Tiran Alles says a special operation has been launched to arrest and repatriate 30 criminals engaged in drug trafficking and underworld activities from overseas: also says the Govt has received intelligence reports on 29 underworld members operating in Dubai and 1 in France.
