Tag: lbo

WASHINGTON, May 28, 2010 (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday the Sri Lankan postwar reconciliation panel “holds promise” as she pressed for it to have enough powers to pursue claims of wartime atrocities. “I think this commission holds promise and we hope and expect that it will fulfill that promise,” Clinton […]

May 28, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse has rejected international calls for a war crimes probe into the final offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels last year. Sri Lanka has been under pressure to submit to an international investigation after the United Nations reported that at least 7,000 civilians perished in the final […]

WASHINGTON, May 26, 2010 (AFP) – New Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris on Tuesday urged Washington to seize business and other opportunities in post-war Sri Lanka rather than focus only on alleged human rights abuses there. Visiting Washington after Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s party won parliamentary elections last month, Peiris parried criticism […]

May 24, 2010 (LBO) – Application fees for US non-immigrant visas will increase on June 4, 2010, the US embassy in Colombo said in a statement. Application fees for the business (B1), tourist (B2), student (F), and exchange visitor (J) visas, those most often applied for by travelers, will have a “modest increase” to 140 […]

May 21, 2010 (AFP) – A global human rights monitor said Friday it had fresh evidence of possible war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the final phase of the government’s war against Tamil Tiger rebels. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it had examined over 200 photos taken on the front lines […]

TOKYO, May 20, 2010 (AFP) – Scores of foreigners in a Japanese immigration detention centre have been on hunger strike for more than a week, demanding to be released and protesting the mysterious death of an African deportee. Some 70 detainees — many of them Sri Lankans and Pakistanis — have refused food since May […]

May 20, 2010 (AFP) – The detained Sri Lankan general who led soldiers to victory over Tamil Tiger rebels one year ago accused the government Thursday of failing to convert his success into a new era of peace. Sarath Fonseka, a key architect of the strategy that finally defeated the Tigers after decades of bloody […]

May 17, 2010 (AFP) – The Sri Lankan government killed thousands of its civilians by shelling “no-fire zones” in the last months of the country’s decades-long civil war that ended a year ago, an independent group said Monday. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group urged the United Nations and Sri Lanka’s aid donors to press for […]