Category: Politics

March 8, 2010 (AFP) – Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao urged Sri Lanka’s leaders to open a new era of stability after the island’s civil war by bringing minority Tamils into mainstream society, officials said Monday. Rao, on a visit to Colombo, told President Mahinda Rajapakse that the defeat of Tamil Tiger separatist rebels last […]

March 9, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s outgoing parliament Tuesday approved the extension of a state of emergency until after next month’s legislative elections, giving sweeping powers to police and troops. Parliament voted strongly to extend the laws enacted by President Mahinda Rajapakse earlier this month to deal with anti-government elements after the crushing of […]

March 7, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s former army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka has threatened to go on a hunger strike to protest against his detention, his wife said Sunday. However, he later fell out with Rajapakse and mounted a failed bid to unseat the president in elections. Fonseka will begin his […]

March 6, 2010 (AFP) – India’s foreign secretary Nirupama Rao will hold talks with Sri Lanka’s president on resolving the grievances of the island’s Tamil minority this weekend, an official source said Saturday. India sent troops to supervise a 1987 Indo-Lanka peace pact and ended up fighting separatist Tamil rebels. After its troop withdrawal in […]

March 2, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lankan police are to question dozens of military intelligence officers in connection with the internationally condemned assassination of a senior editor, a spokesman said Tuesday. Investigations into the January 2009 slaying of Lasantha Wickrematunga, chief editor of the anti-establishment Sunday Leader, had led them to military personnel, said police […]

March 2, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president has used his executive powers to extend a state of emergency that gives sweeping authority to police and troops ahead of next month’s parliamentary polls, an official said Tuesday. The president on Monday night signed a proclamation extending the tough laws by a further month, an official […]

March 01, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s NDB Bank said its chief executive Eran Wickremaratne is on the so-called ‘national list’ of the main opposition United National Front for elections in April. The bank said in a stock exchange filing that more disclosures would be made in the future. The ‘national list’ gives a chance […]

March 1, 2010 (AFP) – Hundreds of Sri Lankan ruling party activists demonstrated outside the British High Commission in Colombo on Monday, denouncing what they called London’s support for Tamil separatists abroad. The protestors handed in a petition protesting against British Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s attendance last week at a meeting of expatriate Tamils whom […]

February 25, 2010 (AFP) – In the afterglow of his thumping re-election last month, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse promised to build a strong and unified country that would consign its 37-year civil war to the past. Instead, his government launched a sweeping crackdown that has seen the man he defeated at the polls, former […]

Feb 26, 2010 (LBO) – Top Sri Lanka economist Harsha de Silva has been nominated as a candidate from the main opposition United National Party for parliamentary polls to be held in April. De Silva has been a firm critic of deficit spending, high inflation and weak macro-economic management and had managed to generate a […]

Feb 24, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Civil Rights Movement (CRM) said recent attacks on peaceful anti-government protestors by government supporters indicated an ‘alarming slide’ towards curbs on democracy. The CRM said previous attempt to violently suppress peaceful protest had given rise to violent rebellions. The Tamil Tiger separatist insurgency began in the late 1970s […]

February 23, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court refused Tuesday to order the release of detained opposition leader and former army chief Sarath Fonseka as it deliberates a petition challenging his arrest by the military. As the battlefield architect of the victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels last May, Fonseka had been hailed as […]