Tag: politics

August 2, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lankan security forces shot dead one protestor and wounded dozens more when they fired on villagers at a demonstration over contaminated drinking water, police and residents said Friday.Military spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said the army had been called in on Thursday night to assist the police when a mob […]

Aug 02, 2013 (LBO) – President Mahinda Rajapaksa had invited Pope Francis I, the head of the Roman Catholic Church to visit Sri Lanka, his media office said. “On behalf of the Government and the people of Sri Lanka, I consider it a great privilege and an honour to extend to Your Holiness an invitation […]

August 1, 2013 (AFP) – Residents of Sri Lanka’s former war zone will go to the polls in September in a regional election expected to hand limited autonomy to minority Tamils, it was announced Thursday.The voting will be held on September 21 during a nine-hour period, a spokesman for the Election Commissioner told AFP. It […]

July 24, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s military said Wednesday it will dismantle over a dozen army camps in the former rebel stronghold of Jaffna, weeks ahead of key council elections in the embattled region.Sri Lanka adopted a de facto federal system in 1987 but never held elections in the Tamil-dominated north, which continued to […]

SYDNEY, July 20, 2013 (AFP) – Buildings were torched as hundreds of asylum-seekers escaped detention during riots at an Australian refugee facility on Nauru, witnesses said Saturday, following the unveiling of a hardline immigration policy.The programme was ramped up Friday with an announcement that Australia was effectively closed to asylum-seekers arriving by boat in a […]

COLOMBO, July 17, 2013 (AFP) – Hundreds of government supporters protested outside the French embassy in Colombo Wednesday over a film festival which included a local movie considered by Sri Lanka’s military to be insulting. Demonstrators chanted anti-French slogans, denouncing the Sinhalese-language movie “Flying Fish” and the embassy for showing it at the French film […]

July 9, 2013 (AFP) – India urged Sri Lanka Tuesday to honour international pledges and share political power with ethnic Tamils after Colombo signalled it will dilute an Indian-brokered devolution plan.India’s National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon ended a two-day trip to Colombo urging an “early political settlement and national reconciliation”, the Indian High Commission (embassy) […]

July 05, 2013 (LBO) – Australia has returned 15 more Sri Lankan boat people taking the total sent back so far to 1,285, an Australian government statement said.Of those returned 1,072 were sent back involuntarily. The statement said the sending back boat people sent a “powerful message” and they were wasting money to travel to […]

June 27, 2013 (LBO) – President Mahinda Rajapaksa has left of Tanzania and Seychelles on the first by a Sri Lankan president to the countries, where he will meet national leaders and attend business forums, his office in Colombo said. Seychelles’ James Alix Michel had visited Sri Lanka last year. President Rajapaksa will attend the […]

LONDON, June 23, 2013 (AFP) – Britain is planning to force visitors from India, Pakistan, Nigeria and other countries whose nationals are deemed to pose a “high risk” of immigration abuse to provide a cash bond before they can enter the country, a report said Sunday. The Sunday Times newspaper said that from November, a […]

June 20, 2013 (AFP) – International rights groups on Thursday condemned moves by Sri Lanka’s government to introduce a code of ethics for journalists, saying it would further undermine press freedom.Local journalists have already criticised the planned media code, which is set to be adopted shortly by lawmakers, as being too sweeping and now international […]

June 18, 2013 (LBO) – Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha, a 32 year veteran in India’s foreign ministry will be the new envoy to Colombo, the Indian High Commission (embassy) in Colombo said.Before coming to Sri Lanka, he was Additional Secretary in the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division at the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi. Sinha had arrived in […]