Tag: politics

Nov 27, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran Tuesday accused the international community of abandoning its efforts to find a peaceful solution to the island’s ethnic problem and vowed to hit back at government forces. Prabhakaran, in his annual policy speech, maintained his demand for a separate state for minority Tamils […]

Nov 27, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government has marked the birthday of Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran with a vow to kill him.The island’s powerful defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, said Colombo now had the upper hand in the long-running conflict, with the elusive guerrilla chief limited in both his movements and ability to score […]

Nov 27, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government on Tuesday slapped restrictions on the United Nations children’s fund over allegations the organisation has been helping Tamil Tiger guerrillas.Seventeen Sri Lankan employees of the French charity Action Against Hunger were murdered near Trincomalee in August 2006. The island’s foreign minister told parliament that UNICEF supplies being […]

Nov 26, 2007 (AFP) – The leader of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers will give his annual policy speech from a jungle hideout this week, with observers predicting a rallying call to arms as the island slides back into all-out war.The reclusive Velupillai Prabhakaran will be speaking at the end of a difficult year for his […]

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 […]