Category: Politics

November 26, 2010 (AFP) – India has no worries about rival China’s expanding ties with Sri Lanka, India’s foreign minister said on Friday, a week after Colombo unveiled a 1. 5-billion-dollar Chinese-funded port. S.M. Krishna, who met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse earlier in the day, said Colombo’s ties with Beijing and other capitals would […]

November 27, 2010 (AFP) – India’s foreign minister visited Sri Lanka’s former war zone on Saturday after urging Colombo to share political power with minority Tamils following last year’s end to the ethnic conflict. Analysts have said New Delhi is concerned that a new port funded by Beijing is part of a Chinese policy to […]

November 25, 2010 (AFP) – Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna was due in Sri Lanka Thursday to shore up bilateral relations amid growing Chinese influence on the island. Krishna is due to call on President Mahinda Rajapakse and also open two Indian consulates in the southern and northernmost parts of the island before leaving […]

Nov 22, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appointed 59 ministers in addition to the prime minister and 31 deputy ministers Tuesday ahead of a budget for 2011 to run the administration during his second term in office. Among the large group of ministers was also a minister for productivity development. Rajapaksa’s […]

November 21, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government has ordered the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to close its offices in the island’s former war zone, the Geneva-based humanitarian agency said Sunday. The conflict ended when the rebels were wiped out in a military offensive that has since triggered allegations of war crimes. […]

November 17, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s former military chief Sarath Fonseka, who is serving a 30-month jail sentence, was admitted to hospital after suffering breathing problems, his party said Wednesday. The ex-army chief has said the government is seeking revenge for his decision to stand against the president. The former general was unwell due […]

November 18, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse kicks off a second term Friday, promising economic rebirth for the war-ravaged island with the help of nations who have snubbed Western calls for a war crimes probe. Rajapakse, who turned 65 Thursday, begins his fresh, six-year mandate from an unprecedented position of strength following […]

PARIS, November 12, 2010 (AFP) – Easy-money policy by the United States is pumping up the oil price to about 90 dollars, but medium-term growth of oil demand should slow and contain the price, the IEA said on Friday. “Physical market developments through October have stoked expectations of inexorably higher prices even though the framework […]

November 10, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government said Wednesday it had ordered foreign and local aid workers to register with the defence ministry in a move to put them under greater state control. The government information department said there were 250 international and some 1,000 domestic aid agencies working in Sri Lanka, which would […]

November 5, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has postponed a planned visit to Britain, due to a busy schedule rather than fears of a arrest over alleged war crimes, a foreign ministry official said Friday. Rajapakse had planned to address the Oxford Union during his tour later this month. But the Times […]

SYDNEY, October 29, 2010 (AFP) – Australia’s human rights agency Friday urged the government to stop locking up asylum seekers on remote Christmas Island, its main detention centre, saying it was overcrowded and inadequate. Thousands of boatpeople have been brought to the small Indian Ocean island this year, forcing some to sleep in tents and […]

October 29, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court rejected Friday a challenge to the re-election of President Mahinda Rajapakse filed by his defeated — now jailed — opponent, former army chief Sarath Fonseka. The five-judge bench dismissed the petition after accepting a defence argument that there was insufficient grounds to proceed with the case, […]