Tag: lankabusinessonline

by Mel Gunasekera COLOMBO, April 7, 2007 (AFP) – Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels detonated a roadside bomb on Saturday, killing eight passengers on a bus and wounding 25, the Sri Lankan government said, marking the latest violence on the island. Security has also been intensified across the island’s northern and eastern regions in a bid […]

WASHINGTON, April 5, 2007 (AFP) – US authorities said Thursday they had busted an arms-trafficking gang, arresting six Asians who had been trying to smuggle weapons from the United States to Tamil Tiger rebels.Singapore man Haniffa Bin Osman, 55, was the latest person to plead guilty in the investigation which saw undercover agents track the […]

COLOMBO, April 6, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s navy and Tamil Tiger rebels fought a sea battle off the island’s northwestern coast on Friday with both claiming heavy losses for the other side.Naval patrol craft engaged five boats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) off the coastal district of Puttalam and one was […]

COLOMBO, April 5, 2007 (AFP) – Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels shot dead four civilians in eastern Sri Lanka on Thursday, the defence ministry said, as the military reported killing three guerrillas. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) gunmen opened fire on farmers in Polonnaruwa district as they travelled to sell their rice crops, the ministry […]

April 5, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lankan security forces on Thursday found a powerful landmine in a shop along the main road to the island’s only international airport, police said.Over 60,000 people have since been killed in the Tamil separatist conflict and diplomatic attempts to bring the warring factions to the negotiating table have ended […]

COLOMBO, April 4, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lankan troops have shot dead six Tamil Tiger rebels in clashes in the island’s embattled northern and eastern regions, the defence ministry said Wednesday. More than 4,000 people have been killed in the latest upsurge of fighting that began in December 2005 despite a truce arranged in 2002. […]

COLOMBO, April 4, 2007 (AFP) – A court sentenced Sri Lanka’s former cricket chief Thilanga Sumathipala to two years in jail Wednesday for breaking the island’s immigration laws, officials said. Sumathipala was charged with taking an alleged underworld leader named Dhammika Amarasinghe to England on forged travel documents to watch the 1999 cricket world cup. […]

April 4, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Parliament Wednesday witnessed an uproar over President Mahinda Rajapakse’s proposal for a single currency for SAARC nations. However, amidst differences over trade, the region continues to clock an average of eight percent economic growth. Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe demanded a Parliamentary debate over Rajapakse’s statement at the SAARC […]

April 04, 2007 (LBO) – A rebel parliamentarian who re-joined Sri Lanka’s opposition after a brief stint as a deputy minister, told parliament Wednesday that he was receiving death threats, while his former fellow rebels labeled the move as childish. œIf he joined the government only for the glory of a position and the attached […]

NEW DELHI, April 3, 2007 (AFP) – South Asian nations must “root out terrorism” to turn around the fortunes of their underperforming trading bloc, the countries’ leaders told a regional summit here on Tuesday. Economic progress in the troubled region, home to nearly 1.5 billion people or one-fifth of humanity, is impossible without overcoming security […]

April 3, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lankan security forces have killed at least 23 Tamil Tiger rebels in fresh fighting in the island’s east following a deadly bus bombing, the defence ministry said Tuesday.“In the limited humanitarian operation on the west and south of Batticaloa, we have found 10 bodies of the LTTE cadres,” spokesman […]