Category: Politics

PARIS, October 12, 2009 (AFP) – Twenty-two suspected Tamil Tiger rebels went on trial Monday for running an extortion racket among Paris’s ethnic Tamil diaspora to fund their separatist struggle in Sri Lanka.The defendants include Nadaraja Matinthiran, the alleged leader in France of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is accused of extorting […]

October 13, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka will hold presidential and parliamentary elections before April next year, state radio announced Tuesday, in the wake of the military’s defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels in May. The presidential poll, which was due by November 2011, will now be held before April 2010, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting […]

October 11, 2009 (AFP) – A quarter of a million Tamil civilians detained in state-run camps since the end of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict are in an increasingly “tense and ugly” situation, a rights group said Sunday. Deteriorating conditions, drinking water shortages and the imminent monsoon have raised tensions among the detainees and sparked clashes […]

October 10, 2009 (AFP) – Vote counting got under way in southern Sri Lanka Saturday after nine hours of polling for the final local council before national elections due next year, officials said.Nearly two thirds of the 1.7 million eligible voters turned out to elect the 55-member Southern Provincial Council, a stronghold of President Mahinda […]

October 10, 2009 (AFP) – Voting got underway in southern Sri Lanka Saturday in the final local council poll before national elections due next year, officials said.Some 1.7 million people are eligible to vote for the 55 members of the Southern Provincial Council, a stronghold of President Mahinda Rajapakse’s United People’s Freedom Alliance. “Voting started […]

WASHINGTON, October 9, 2009 (AFP) – The United States on Friday called on the Sri Lankan government to allow Tamil refugees displaced by recent fighting to move freely around the country.Assistant US Secretary of State Robert Blake, who is focussed on US relations with central and southern Asia, “emphasized the importance of the government allowing […]

October 6, 2009 (AFP) – Britain on Tuesday expressed disappointment with Sri Lanka’s handling of war-displaced civilians and demanded that they be given the freedom to leave state-run camps. “Freedom of movement is critical if a humanitarian crisis is to be averted,” visiting British Development Minister Mike Foster said after touring the camps, where over […]

WASHINGTON, October 4, 2009 (AFP) – The United States, responding to protests from Sri Lanka over remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said it had no recent evidence of women being raped while in Sri Lankan government custody.Colombo faced condemnation for its handling of the final stages of the war against Tiger rebels and […]

October 5, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka will tap foreign donors to raise more cash to look after over 250,000 people displaced by its offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels, a minister said Monday.“We are drawing up a fresh appeal to meet our running costs next year that will include funds for livelihood support and resettlement […]