Sources: BBC
Former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa returns to Colombo, Sri Lanka, after seven weeks of exile. 2022-09-2
Sri Lanka announces a week-long holiday amid fuel and food shortages caused by a worsening economic crisis. 2022-07-4
A court in the Holy See indicts ten people, including Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, on embezzlement, money laundering, fraud, extortion and abuse of office. Pope Francis personally approved the indictments. 2021-07-3
Sri Lanka holds parliamentary elections after the parliament was dissolved by president Gotabaya Rajapaksa in March. Originally scheduled to be held in April, the election was postponed twice due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 2020-08-5
Father Bernardo Buil, a friar from Aragon, celebrates the first Mass in the New World at La Isabela in Puerto Plata on January 6, 1494. To commemorate this 525-year event Pope Francis appoints Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez of El Salvador as his representative for the anniversary Mass. Father Buil accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage. 2019-01-7
Off the northern coast of Somalia, Somali pirates hijack the "Aris 13", a United Arab Emirates-owned oil tanker, kidnapping eight Sri Lankan crew members. This is the first hijacking of a large commercial vessel in five years. 2017-03-14
Cuba announces it will release more than 3,500 prisoners in a goodwill gesture ahead of next week's visit by Pope Francis. 2015-09-11
Pope Francis begans his tri-nation visit to Latin America arriving in Ecuador. Next he travels to Bolivia from July 8–10 and Paraguay from July 10–12, and returning to Rome on July 13. 2015-07-5
Sri Lanka's former army chief Sarath Fonseka is freed from prison with a pardon from President Mahinda Rajapaksa. 2012-05-21
Protesters try to enter the United Nations compound in Colombo, Sri Lanka, calling for the United Nations to abandon an inquiry into alleged human rights abuses in the final stages of the civil war between the government and Tamil rebels that ended last year. Staff are unable to leave until being assisted by Sri Lankan police. 2010-07-6