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Sri Lankan aid workers were shot dead: French charity
PARIS, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Seventeen employees of a French charity found dead in northeastern Sri Lanka at the weekend were all executed by gunfire, the group confirmed Tuesday, demanding that those responsible be severely punished. Following the massacre, the charity suspended its local mission to Sri Lanka, whose 15 expatriate and 224 local […]
ICRC seeking urgent access to stranded Sri Lankan town
GENEVA, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – The International Committee of the Red Cross is trying to negotiate urgent access to the area around the northeastern Sri Lankan town of Muttur, where at least 4,000 people are thought to be stranded by fighting, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.Shelter equipment and clothing for the displaced were being distributed […]
Three dead in Sri Lanka bomb attack
Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Three people were killed Tuesday in a bomb attack aimed at a Sri Lanka politician opposed to Tamil Tiger rebels who have been fighting a separatist insurgency here for decades, police said.The blast, which exploded in front of a girls’ school in a crowded area of the island nation’s capital […]
After aid killings, Sri Lanka fighting goes on
TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka troops launched fresh artillery attacks against Tamil Tigers from bases in this port city Tuesday, as grieving relatives prepared to bury aid workers killed in the conflict.An estimated 60,000 people have been killed since the Tamil insurgency began in 1972. The bodies of 17 employees […]
Families of Sri Lankan massacre victims cry for justice
TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Slumped on the ground outside the hospital in this strife-torn Sri Lankan port town, Khanthasami Sivapaka cries for justice for his favourite daughter — one of 17 aid workers mown down by gunmen.Beside him are freshly painted maroon coffins, delivered to the Trincomalee General Hospital’s gloomy mortuary […]
Toll of aid workers killed in Sri Lanka rises to 17
TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Police have recovered the bodies of 17 aid workers employed by the Paris-based Charity Action Against Hunger (ACF) and autopsies were underway Tuesday, officials said.The aid agency and authorities had initially thought that 15 ACF staff were shot dead at work in the nearby coastal town of […]
Grief-stricken Sri Lankan refugees haunted by conflict
TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Grief-stricken men, women and children trudge to a refugee camp after fleeing deadly fighting through ghost towns and past decomposing bodies, haunted by what they have seen.They are escaping from Sri Lanka’s troubled northeast and many do not talk, instead simply gesturing for food and water. Stunned […]
Sri Lanka sells 3-year bonds at 11.05%
August 7, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank sold three-year treasury bonds at yields of 11.05 percent on Monday, after rejecting all bids at a similar auction last week.The bank offered a billion rupees worth of bonds to the market but accepted only 850 million rupees worth of bids. Current Auction Maturity June 2009 […]
Friendship Bridge
August 7, 2006 (LBO) – The United States government Monday kicked off a project to build a 10.6 million dollar high-tech bridge at Arugam Bay, to replace the original one that was damaged during the tsunami. Dispensed through the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID, the bridge is the single largest infrastructure project in […]
Good Money
August 7, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has picked up 12 million rupees to date from taxing foreign movies, dramas and sitcoms aired on local television stations, President Mahinda Rajapakse said. Rajapakse, who is also the island’s finance minister, introduced the tax late July, to raise funds to boost the ailing local film industry. “We […]