Colombo (AFP), Apr 25 – Sri Lanka’s stock market halted trading after a nearly 13 percent plunge Monday as the island nation’s beleaguered government faces new pressure to resign from influential Buddhist leaders over a crippling economic crisis. “The country is fast becoming a failed state,” senior monk Medagama Dhammananda told reporters in the central city of Kandy. Dhammananda said he and fellow Buddhist leaders had jointly petitioned President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to establish an interim government “to pull the country out of this crisis”. Such a move would require the resignation of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa — the president’s brother and head of Sri Lanka’s powerful ruling family. Monday’s rebuke from the Buddhist clergy is the latest public departure by formerly steadfast allies of the Rajapaksa clan.

Source: Daily Nation April 26, 2022 00:38 UTC