Sri Lankan Monk Accused of Sexually Abusing Minor Girl

Sri Lanka’s Buddhist hierarchy has suspended a prominent senior monk accused of sexually abusing a child, in the religiously conservative nation’s highest-profile case involving a local clergyman. In rare disciplinary action, 71-year-old Pallegama Hemarathana was stripped of his responsibilities on Saturday as the chief custodian of a highly venerated Ficus plant grown from a sapling of a tree believed to have sheltered the Buddha.