Tag: news

Nov 25, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lankan war planes bombed the Tamil Tiger-held north Sunday, with the government claiming it destroyed a satellite communications centre but the rebels saying only civilians were killed.The air strike hit an area just outside the rebels’ political capital of Kilinochchi that was “also a clandestine meeting place for LTTE […]

KAMPALA, Nov 23, 2007 (AFP) – The Commonwealth defended its decision to suspend Pakistan on Friday as leaders from 53-nation grouping opened a summit in Uganda and shifted the focus to climate change and other issues.Islamabad reacted angrily to Thursday’s suspension, describing the decision as “unreasonable and unjustified” and threatened to pull out from the […]

Nov 24, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels have begun commemorating nearly 20,000 of their men and women killed fighting for an independent homeland, the guerrillas said Saturday.There was no immediate reaction from the military to the Tiger losses.The military has admitted losing over 15,000 security personnel in the conflict. The Liberation Tigers […]

Nov 23, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lankan forces killed at least 17 Tamil Tiger rebels on Friday repulsing a guerrilla attack on a police post in the northwest, the defence ministry said. . The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) despatched seven boats to attack the Pesalai police post on the coast of Mannar district, […]

Nov 23, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lankan has demanded the withdrawal of members of the international staff of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Colombo who had taken part in a public demonstration. A Foreign Ministry statement said Friday the demand was made at a meeting with UNICEF’s Country Representative at which it expressed […]

Nov 23, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka Friday strongly objected to the Commonwealth’s decision to suspend emergency-ruled Pakistan despite having earlier supported the move.President Mahinda Rajapakse expressed “strong objections of Sri Lanka at the decision taken to suspend Pakistan from membership of the Commonwealth at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting,” his office said in […]

Nov 22, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government is to outlaw a charity believed to be a front organisation for separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, media minister Anura Yapa said Thursday.Ministers met Wednesday and decided to proscribe the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) whose bank accounts were frozen by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka last year, […]

Nov 21, 2007 (LBO) – An armed group wearing masks that entered the premises of an independent Sri Lankan newspaper house has set on fire and destroyed its printing press early Wednesday morning.“FMM urges civil society and political society who uphold freedom of expression to come forward at this time in defence of people’s right […]

COLOMBO, Nov 21, 2007 (AFP) – Unidentified gunmen stormed a pro-opposition newspaper office in Sri Lanka on Wednesday and set fire to the printing presses, police said.More than a dozen armed men started the blaze after breaking into the Sunday Leader newspaper building — which is within a high-security air force complex on the edge […]

Nov 20, 2007 (AFP) – A media rights group on Tuesday asked the government to help find a Sri Lankan Tamil journalist based in embattled Jaffna who it believed was kidnapped by paramilitary forces. Vadivel Nimalarajah, a proof reader with the Jaffna-based Uthayan newspaper, was “abducted by an unidentified group” in the state-controlled northern town […]

Nov 19, 2007 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government won a crucial vote in parliament to pass its budget for 2008 on Monday afternoon after days of speculation. The decision came after much speculation about the fate of the government if it failed to muster enough votes to have the budget passed by parliament. If […]

Nov 18, 2007 (AFP) – A Tamil guerrilla leader accused of involvement in war crimes is becoming a major embarrassment to Sri Lanka’s government following his arrest in Britain.Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, the leader of a breakaway faction of the Tamil Tigers rebel group, was detained in London earlier this month on a charge of entering the […]