{"id":14276,"date":"2022-07-10T13:25:56","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T05:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=14276"},"modified":"2022-07-10T13:25:57","modified_gmt":"2022-07-10T05:25:57","slug":"protesters-set-sri-lankan-pms-residence-ablaze-as-unrest-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=14276","title":{"rendered":"Protesters set Sri Lankan PM’s residence ablaze as unrest grows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEW DELHI, July 10<\/strong> — Anti-government protesters set Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s residence on fire in Colombo on Saturday as unrest grew in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A group of protesters broke into his private residence after a standoff between the protesters and security forces, local media reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colombo witnessed massive public fury on Saturday as crowds earlier stormed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Videos posted online showed some protesters swimming in the presidential house’s pool while others taking selfies on Gotabaya’s bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"protesters\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The president had moved to a safe location, according to reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parliamentary speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said Gotabaya told him he would resign on Wednesday, Sri Lankan media reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaders of political parties in parliament in a meeting decided to request Gotabaya and Wickremesinghe to resign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wickremesinghe, who became prime minister after Gotabaya\u2019s elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned in May, said he was ready to quit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To ensure the continuation of the government including the safety of all citizens I accept the best recommendation of the party leaders today, to make way for an all-party government. To facilitate this I will resign as prime minister,”<\/em> Wickremesinghe said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka’s economy has crumbled and the nation of 22 million is facing an acute shortage of fuel, medicines and food items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many blame the Rajapaksa family for the country’s unprecedented economic crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMT<\/a> as reported by Bernama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI, July 10 — Anti-government protesters set Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s residence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-world"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM.png",1178,660,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM-300x168.png",300,168,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM-768x430.png",640,358,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM-1024x574.png",640,359,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM.png",1178,660,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM.png",1178,660,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM.png",1178,660,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM.png",1024,574,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-10-at-1.23.16-PM.png",720,403,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Politics<\/a> World<\/a>","tag_info":"World","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14278,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14276\/revisions\/14278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}