Sri Lanka's national television broadcast suspended
Sri Lanka's national television channel Rupavihini has suspended its telecast.
Officials say engineers shut the channel down as throngs of protesters entered the state television office, reports BBC.
After Rupavahini, another Sri Lankan broadcaster ITN has suspended its telecast amid protests across the country, Lankan media reported.
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President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has authorised the prime minister to carry out presidential duties after the president fled to the Maldives amid protests on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has declared a state of emergency as the acting president.
The island nation's tourism-dependent economy was hammered first by the Covid-19 pandemic and then suffered from a fall in remittances from overseas Sri Lankans. A ban on chemical fertilisers hit output although the ban was later reversed.
The Rajapaksas implemented populist tax cuts in 2019 that affected government finances while shrinking foreign reserves curtailed imports of fuel, food and medicines.
Petrol has been severely rationed and long lines have formed in front of shops selling cooking gas. Headline inflation hit 54.6% last month and the central bank has warned that it could rise to 70% in the coming months.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president's elder brother, resigned as prime minister in May after protests against the family turned violent. He remained in hiding at a military base in the east of the country for some days before returning to Colombo.
In May, the Rajapaksa government-appointed Mohammed Nasheed, the speaker of the Maldives parliament and a former president, to help coordinate foreign assistance for crisis-hit Sri Lanka.
The same month, Nasheed publicly denied allegations that he was helping Mahinda Rajapaksa secure safe haven in the Maldives.
On Tuesday, Sri Lankan immigration officials prevented Basil Rajapaksa from flying out of the country.
It was not clear where Basil Rajapaksa, who also holds US citizenship, was trying to go. He resigned as finance minister in early April amid heavy street protests and quit his seat in parliament in June.
