Category: Politics

May 20, 2007 (AFP) – Six people were killed and 10 others were wounded as government troops traded fire with Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka’s war-torn north, the defence ministry said Sunday.Security forces beat back an attempt by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to break through the frontline at Muhamalai in Jaffna […]

May 20, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s separatist Tamil rebels on Sunday vowed never to return to peace negotiations unless the government halts a military campaign against them. . The leader of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), S. P. Thamilselvan, said attacks by government forces would not force them […]

COLOMBO, May 19, 2007 (AFP) – Five family members, including two boys aged four and eight, were hacked to death on Saturday in a town just outside the Sri Lankan capital in what police said may have been a family feud. Unidentified attackers killed K. W. Tillakaratne, 36, his wife, their two children and the […]

May 17, 2007 (AFP) – Security forces shot dead at least 20 Tamil Tiger rebels in northern Sri Lanka in a fresh outbreak of fighting, the defence ministry said Thursday.More than 4,800 people have been killed in the latest upsurge of fighting that began in December 2005.Troops on Thursday recovered bodies of six of the […]

COLOMBO, May 17, 2007 (AFP) – A trawler suspected of smuggling weapons, possibly for Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, has been sunk by the coastguard of the Maldives, the latter’s foreign minister said Thursday.“Five people in the trawler jumped overboard when it was attacked and we are going to question them,” Maldivian Foreign Minister Ahamed […]

May 16, 2007 (LBO) — Sri Lanka Wednesday appointed Chamal Rajapakse, brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, as the new minister of ports and aviation filling a post held by sacked minister Mangala Samaraweera, officials said.President Rajapakse had sworn in the new minister early Wednesday, prior to meeting the heads of newspaper editors at his heavily […]

May 16, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president vowed on Wednesday not to depend on foreign aid after Britain said it would suspend debt relief to its former colony until Colombo improves its human rights record. President Mahinda Rajapakse said he would accept “genuine aid,” but will not depend on it, his office quoted him […]

May 16, 2007 (LBO) – Police has questioned a newspaper editor over reporting of the activities of the Goldquest scheme in Sri Lanka, and a subsequent controversial investigation by the country’s Central Bank. “Ms. Samarasinghe’s right to publish information as she sees fit in her capacity as a professional journalist, is no exception to the […]

COLOMBO, May 14, 2007 (AFP) – Eight Tamil Tiger rebels have been killed in fresh clashes in Sri Lanka’s embattled northern and eastern regions, the defence ministry said Monday.Security forces killed seven rebels in the northern district of Vavuniya late Sunday in a gunbattle along their defence lines, the ministry said. In a separate confrontation […]

May 13, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s failure to share power with minority Tamils and put an end to extra-judicial killings have raised prospects of more aid cuts to the embattled island, officials and diplomats say. A top US envoy left Colombo on Thursday after castigating the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse for not delivering […]

May 13, 2007 (AFP) – Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Buddhist monk in eastern Sri Lanka Sunday as security forces killed five Tamil Tiger rebels elsewhere, officials said. Monk Sandungamuwe Nandaratana was shot dead at a temple about 260 kilometres (162 miles) northeast of Colombo, military officials said, adding that the attackers had escaped. The […]

May 12, 2007 (AFP) – The Sri Lankan unit of Royal Dutch Shell suffered damages of at least 700,000 dollars in an air attack by Tamil Tiger rebels last month, the company said on Saturday. Two bombs exploded at the Anglo-Dutch company’s storage facility on the outskirts of Colombo, damaging one of its four storage […]