Sri Lanka's new government raised nearly a billion dollars through its first overseas bond issue after parliament shot down plans to increase local borrowings, the country's central bank said Friday.

Six years after the end of Sri Lanka’s long and bloody civil war, a “silent” conflict is being waged across the island, with tens of thousands of government troops continuing to occupy the north and east and the army expanding its property developments on land belonging to displaced Tamils, a new report claims.

Horticultural coir supplier Botanicoir's directors Samantha and Kalum Balasuriya recently took key soft-fruit customers to visit the factory in Sri Lanka to see the coir-producing process from start to finish.