Category: Politics

May 12, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s opposition said Monday it planned to mount a legal challenge to the government’s weekend win in key local elections in the east of the island.The opposition said President Mahinda Rajapakse’s party and his allies — including Tamil Tiger rebel defectors — used “terror” tactics to bully voters and […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, May 11, 2008 (AFP) – Vote counting was underway in eastern Sri Lanka Sunday after an election marred by Tamil Tiger attacks and allegations of intimidation by allies of the island’s hawkish government. . The elections for a provincial council in the tense eastern coastal area, which was until last year partly […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, May 11, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government Sunday claimed victory in key provincial elections in the ethnically-mixed east of the island, saying the win is a major boost for its war against the Tamil Tigers.Election officials confirmed the government and its allies were on track to win control over a 35-member […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, May 11, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition was Sunday declared the winner of key elections in the east of the island, and hailed its victory as a major boost for the war against Tamil rebels.Election officials confirmed the governing United People’s Freedom Alliance party (UPFA) and its allies had won […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, May 9, 2008 (AFP) – A heavy security blanket was thrown over eastern Sri Lanka ahead of Saturday’s local polls, seen as a key test for the hawkish government as it escalates the war against Tamil rebels. President Mahinda Rajapakse is hoping the east’s first provincial council elections in 20 years will […]

May 9, 2008 (AFP) – A former leader of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebel splinter group, jailed in Britain since January, has been released and transferred to an immigration detention centre, officials said Friday.Vinayagmoorthy Muralitharan, also known as Colonel Karuna, was released Thursday following his imprisonment for possessing false documents, the British High Commission (embassy) […]

VIENNA, May 8, 2008 (AFP) – Ninety-three journalists were killed in 2007, almost half of them in Iraq, the International Press Institute media watchdog said in its annual press freedom review published Thursday.The figure was the second highest in a decade after 2006, which saw 100 journalists’ deaths, according to IPI figures. Forty-two journalists died […]

UNITED NATIONS , May 6, 2008 (AFP) – Gabon, Bahrain, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zambia do not deserve a seat on the Human Rights Council, the United Nations’ top rights body, two non-governmental organizations said Tuesday.In a joint report, UN Watch and Freedom House, which champion human rights worldwide, lamented that Gabon and Zambia were […]

May 06, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is planning to send a team of medical doctors and nurses to Myanmar, the foreign ministry said. Media reports said around 22,000 people are believed to have been killed by a cyclone that raged through the country last week. The government was also making a donation of 25,000 […]

COLOMBO, May 5, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s main media rights group on Monday voiced alarm after the island’s hawkish defence chief reportedly branded some journalists “traitors” and called for sweeping censorship. The Free Media Movement said Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who has long demanded strict controls on how news organisations are allowed to cover the war […]

May 03, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Free Media Movement (FMM) has said media freedom in the island remains under threat by both parties to the internal conflict, the government and the Tamil Tigers. In a World Press freedom day statement, the media watchdog urged an immediately halt to all threats, harassment, abductions and attacks […]

UNITED NATIONS, April 30, 2008 (AFP) – India, the Philippines, Mexico and Colombia — all democracies — were cited Wednesday among 13 countries with the poorest records of prosecuting murders of journalists, in a list released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The CPJ noted that while Iraq, Sierra Leone and Somalia, all four […]