Sri Lanka leader slams critics

Full-bore tribute: An army cannon firing as part of a gun salute for Sirisena during the island’s 69th Independence Day celebrations in Colombo. — AFP

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena slammed critics of his ethnic reconciliation plan as the country emerges from a decades long ethnic war that claimed over 100,000 lives.

Sirisena marked the Indian Ocean island’s 69th anniversary of independence from Britain with a promise of ethnic unity despite opposition from hardline nationalists.