Category: Other
Police Probe
July 5, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s police arrested 12 commandos in connection with the execution-style killing of five students during the island’s Tamil separatist war, an official said Friday.An inspector and 11 constables from the elite Police Special Task Force (STF) were taken before a magistrate in the port town of Trincomalee on Thursday, […]
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NEW DELHI, 2013 (AFP) – India’s state-run banks will open 10,000 branches this year as part of a drive to extend formal financial services to the estimated 40 percent of the country without them, a minister said Wednesday.Spreading banking services is a key part of the government’s new cash transfer programme, that sees welfare beneficiaries […]
Sri Lanka state dairy firm financed by HSBC
July 04, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-run Milco (Pvt) Ltd, a dairy products firm, is modernizing it factories with a 5.5 billion rupee credit structured by UK’s HSBC banking group, a finance ministry report showed. Milco markets and sells ‘Highland’ branded milk powder, liquid milk, ice cream and cheese. HSBC has previously helped channel […]
Magazine Block
July 2, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lanka has banned the July 1 issue of Time magazine because its cover story on Myanmar’s Buddhist-Muslim clashes could hurt religious sentiment on the island, an official said Tuesday.Customs department spokesman Leslie Gamini said the issue carrying a photo of a prominent Myanmar monk under the headline: “The Face […]
Sri Lanka to farm Asian sea bass
July 01, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has approved a 2.5 million US dollar project to farm Barramundi or Asian Sea Bass off the coast of Trincomalee in North Eastern Sri Lanka, the state investment promotion agency said. Oceanpick, a Sri Lankan firm will partner with a Scottish firm to farm the fish in cages, […]
Sri Lanka to count sloth bears
July 01, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s wild life conservation authorities and a biodiversity organization, with funding from private business will count and estimate a sloth bear population in a national park in the North West of the island.The chamber said in a statement that the sloth bear sighting have declined in recent years and […]
British PM backs Taliban peace talks on Afghan visit
KABUL, June 29, 2013 (AFP) – British Prime Minister David Cameron made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Saturday, backing talks with the Taliban after his top general said the West missed a chance to strike a peace deal 10 years ago. “The attack that was organised near the presidential palace will not deter us […]
Fashionista
June 28, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s military has released a woman leader of the Tamil Tiger militant group from four years of detention after she completed training in “bridal dressing”, the president’s office said Friday.The Tigers were known for their spectacular suicide bomb attacks and controlled a third of Sri Lanka’s territory at the […]
New flame-headed bird species found in Cambodia capital
PHNOM PENH, June 26, 2013 (AFP) – A new species of bird with a distinctive orange-red coloured tuft of feathers on its head has been found in Cambodia’s populous capital city, conservationists said on Wednesday. The remarkable discovery of the Cambodian tailorbird, or orthotomus chaktomuk, in Phnom Penh — and several other locations including a […]
Media Policy
June 23, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president has scrapped a contentious code of conduct for journalists after editors and rights groups condemned it as a further blow to press freedom, government and media sources said Sunday.President Mahinda Rajapakse ordered his information ministry not to proceed with the proposed code of conduct bill, but instead […]
Bond Deterrent
June 24, 2013 (LBO) – A pilot scheme to charge a 3,000 sterling immigration bond from visitors in five countries including Sri Lanka will only apply to the “highest risk applicants”, the British High Commission in Colombo said. The pilot will be evaluated to make it permanent, the statement said. Children under 18-year will be […]
”s Agadez among new UNESCO sites
PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Japan’s Mount Fuji, a series of ancient terraced rice paddies China, and the desert city of Agardaz in Niger were among the cultural jewels granted World Heritage status by UNESCO at its annual meeting on Saturday. On Saturday, UNESCO also inscribed the landscapes of terraced rice fields of Honghe Hani, south […]