Senior journalist Amal Jayasinghe, who heads the Agence France-Presse (AFP) operations in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, will be the keynote speaker at the meeting of the Rotary Club Colombo West on Wednesday, January 30.
The presentation will be on the topic ‘Aftermath of the recent political crisis’ followed by a Q and A session.
Jayasinghe is AFP Bureau Chief for Sri Lanka and the Maldives having joined the agency in August 1987 after working for over five years as a reporter for the ‘Daily News’.
He has been on special reporting assignments for AFP in war-torn areas of the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq. The 1988 coup in the Maldives, the 1993 assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa and the May 2009 killing of Vellupillai Prabakaran were some of his world scoops.
His reporting on Sri Lanka’s drawn out Tamil separatist conflict earned him accusations of bias by both sides of the ethnic divide.
He also received a medal and title, Chevalier, Order National du Merite (Knight of the National Order of Higher Merit), from the Government of France in 2005.