Category: Politics

VATICAN CITY, February 8, 2014 (AFP) – Pope Francis on Saturday turned his focus to Asia, announcing a possible trip to Sri Lanka and approving the beatification of 124 Korean martyrs. Asia has repeatedly been tipped as a destination for possible papal trips as Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI did not travel there during his eight-year […]

Feb 05, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa called upon foreign nations to support an effort to build unity and reconciliation in a message marking an anniversary of gaining independence from British rule.Western nations, led by the US are expected to move a UN resolution calling on accountability for alleged war crimes citing […]

COLOMBO, February 1, 2014 (AFP) – Democracy is under threat in Sri Lanka and its rights record has deteriorated in the five years since the end of a bloody ethnic war, a top US envoy said Saturday.Nisha Biswal, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said Colombo had failed to ensure reconciliation, justice […]

COLOMBO, February 2, 2014 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Sunday rejected “patently unfair” allegations by the United States that its rights record had deteriorated in the five years since the end of a bloody separatist war.Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris said remarks by Nisha Biswal, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, […]

COLOMBO, January 17, 2014 (AFP) – Forensic experts have discovered more bodies in an unmarked mass grave in Sri Lanka’s former war zone, raising the total to 36, an official said Friday. A team led by judicial medical officer Dhananjaya Waidyaratne found four more skeletons Thursday in the first mass grave uncovered since troops defeated […]

COLOMBO, January 12, 2014 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Sunday called snap local elections seen as a gauge of President Mahinda Rajapakse’s popularity ahead of national polls expected to be held later this year, officials said.The southern and western provincial councils, the highest level of local government, have been dissolved, clearing the way for local […]

COLOMBO, January 10, 2014 (AFP) – Sri Lanka said Friday it would protest to the United States over its allegations that army shelling killed hundreds of families during the final days of the island’s ethnic civil war. Sri Lanka maintains that not a single civilian was killed by troops and in November ordered a census […]

COLOMBO, January 9, 2014 (AFP) – A top US official investigating war crimes has visited a former Sri Lankan battleground where hundreds of families were killed in army shelling, the US embassy said Thursday, triggering an angry response from Colombo. The US Ambassador for Global Criminal Justice Stephen Rapp spent Wednesday and Thursday travelling in […]

COLOMBO, January 5, 2014 (AFP) – A top US envoy will travel to Sri Lanka on Monday to discuss allegations of war crimes ahead of a UN review of Colombo’s human rights record, officials said.US Ambassador for Global Criminal Justice Stephen Rapp will spend five days in Sri Lanka discussing rights and reconciliation following the […]

COLOMBO, December 28, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Saturday deported an Indian journalist arrested on a charge of working in the island’s former war zone without media credentials, police said. The 24-year-old, who was working for a magazine based in the Indian city of Chennai, was arrested on Christmas Day for photographing military installations […]

VATICAN CITY, December 25, 2013 (AFP) – Thousands of Christians are killed every year because of their faith and the persecution is becoming more widespread, Catholic observers said as Christmas celebrations are increasingly marred by attacks in at-risk countries.Experts have pointed to three main types of anti-Christian violence — the main one being religious radicalism […]

COLOMBO, December 11, 2013 (AFP) – The Catholic church Wednesday warned Sri Lanka’s government of foreign intervention unless it worked towards reconciliation and addressed allegations of war crimes during the war against Tamil separatists.Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, said he was urging President Mahinda Rajapakse and the main ethnic Tamil party to hammer out […]