Category: Politics

NEW DELHI, May 7 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera has arrived in India to discuss his country’s peace process which is under strain after a surge in violence, officials said Sunday.During his two-day stay, the minister is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and foreign secretary Shyam Saran. Ahead of the […]

May 6, 2006 (AFP) – A Japanese peace envoy was to arrive in Sri Lanka for talks Saturday as Scandinavian monitors said violence between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels was out of control.Tokyo’s special peace envoy Yasushi Akashi was to hold talks with President Mahinda Rajapakse and would also try to meet leaders of […]

May 6, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka is seeking foreign forensic help to establish whether a female suicide bomber who tried to kill the country’s army chief was indeed pregnant as she claimed, investigators said Saturday. Tests by local laboratories proved negative and the investigators are now trying to secure the help of forensic experts […]

May 5 – (AFP) – A Sri Lankan navy gunboat attacked Tamil Tiger boats off the island’s northwestern waters Friday and destroyed at least one craft, military officials here said.More than 200 people have died in the last month in a series of tit-for-tat attacks between Sri Lankan government and rebel forces despite a ceasefire […]

COLOMBO, May 5 (AFP) – Diplomats prepared to talk peace but on the ground Friday violence escalated in Sri Lanka as military officials reported fresh air and naval clashes with separatist rebels.The clashes followed the shooting deaths of seven civilians in the northern Jaffna peninsula Thursday after a grenade attack wounded three soldiers in the […]

May 4 (AFP) – Two policemen and six others were killed Thursday in separate clashes in northern Sri Lanka where a fragmentation mine also exploded but caused no casualties, officials said.Six men travelling in two three-wheeler taxis were shot dead by security forces when they tried to attack a military sentry point at Nelliyadi in […]

May 03(AFP) – Gunmen stormed a Tamil newspaper office in Sri Lanka’s Jaffna peninsula killing two people and further raising the toll in the bloodiest month since a 2002 truce took effect, officials said Wednesday.More than 60,000 people have been killed in the island’s drawn out Tamil separatist conflict in the past three decades. -Ian […]

May 3 (AFP) – The bullet-riddled bodies of three men were found at a village in northern Sri Lanka Wednesday as tensions mount in the region, police said. The victims were dumped at Chettikulam in the Vavuniya district where government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels clashed in recent weeks. “We don’t know who these people […]

May 3 (AFP) – Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse marked international press freedom day Wednesday vowing to punish killers of two newspaper workers at a pro-rebel Tamil daily.Gunmen stormed the offices of the Uthayan newspaper in Jaffna, 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of the capital Colombo, Tuesday night, killing a manager and another employee, journalists […]

May 2 (AFP) – Sri Lanka has stepped up moves to revive talks with Tamil Tiger rebels as eight more guerrillas were reported killed Tuesday after the bloodiest month since a truce took effect in 2002, officials said.A breakaway faction of the Tamil Tigers attacked a base of the mainstream guerrillas in the northeastern port […]

May 2 (AFP) – Scandinavian truce monitors on Tuesday climbed down from an allegation that Sri Lankan government forces may have been responsible for extrajudicial killings. “The Sri Lankan government has conveyed to us that they are not aware of any such activities within their ranks,” the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said in a […]

May 1 (AFP) – At least 200 people have been killed in the bloodiest month in Sri Lanka since peacebroker Norway arranged a truce four years ago, but the warring parties say their ceasefire is still holding.Sri Lanka’s government said it was committed to upholding the hugely strained ceasefire even as seven more people were […]