Tag: politics

November 9, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka pledged in talks with Australia Monday to step up intelligence sharing and arrest people traffickers, President Mahinda Rajapakse’s office said.Seventy-eight Sri Lankans were rescued from a sinking boat in Indonesian waters last month.They have insisted on remaining on the Australian customs ship that picked them up, refusing to […]

JAKARTA, November 6, 2009 (AFP) – Indonesia extended by a week on Friday a deadline for an Australian customs ship loaded with 78 protesting Sri Lankan asylum seekers to leave its territory.The extension would allow the Oceanic Viking, which has been moored on Bintan island since last month, to stay while a solution is found […]

GENEVA, November 6, 2009 (AFP) – About a third of those displaced during the conflict between Sri Lanka government and the Tamil Tigers have returned home over the past three months, the UN refugee agency said Friday.“Some 90,000 internally displaced people have returned to their villages in Sri Lanka’s north and east over the past […]

November 6, 2009 (AFP) – The leader of a boat of Sri Lankan asylum seekers held in Indonesia is a known people smuggler previously deported from Canada, the government said Friday, a charge he has strongly denied.Alex, who emerged as the spokesman for the 255 Sri Lankans whose boat was detained last month en route […]

WASHINGTON, November 4, 2009 (AFP) – The US House of Representatives urged Sri Lanka’s government Wednesday to guarantee the safety and quick release of some 300,000 Tamils and other war-displaced people currently held in camps.By an overwhelming 421-1 vote, lawmakers approved a non-binding resolution that calls on the authorities in Colombo to help the populations […]

November 3, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s main opposition on Tuesday formed an alliance with minority Tamil and Muslim parties and a breakaway faction of the ruling coalition to contest possible snap elections.The next presidential poll, which was due by November 2011, will now be held before April 2010, according to the government. Opposition leader […]

SYDNEY, November 2, 2009 (AFP) – About 15 people were feared dead on Monday after a boat carrying 39 sank in rough seas far off northwest Australia despite frantic rescue attempts by a passing merchant ship and fishing vessel.Defence chief Angus Houston said the unidentified boat capsized and then sank after the LNG Pioneer ship […]

LUXEMBOURG, October 27, 2009 (AFP) – The European Union boosted pressure on Sri Lanka Tuesday over human rights and called for those committing abuses on the island to be investigated. Sri Lanka has said it needs to screen the civilians for former fighters. The EU statement comes a week after the bloc threatened to withdraw […]

October 27, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka may consider joining the global treaty banning landmines following the government’s defeat of separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, the army chief said on Tuesday. Sri Lanka had previously refused to sign up to the 1997 Ottawa Convention against landmines, arguing that the military could not unilaterally abandon mines in […]

October 26, 2009 (AFP) – The Sri Lankan government on Monday said it would investigate war crimes allegations made against its troops in a US State Department report.Among the claims detailed in the report was the accusation that Tiger leaders reached a surrender agreement with government forces but were then executed.Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe […]

SYDNEY, October 23, 2009 (AFP) – Australian border guards intercepted a boat carrying 29 suspected asylum-seekers off the country’s northwest on Friday, the home minister said, as debate raged over a sharp rise in arrivals. Home Minister Brendan O’Connor said the 29, along with four crew, were stopped near Ashmore Island, off Australia’s northwest coast. […]

October 22, 2009 (AFP) – Fear of persecution and a lack of jobs at home are driving thousands of Sri Lankans to risk perilous boat rides to developed countries, according to officials and politicians.Two separate boats carrying a total of over 300 illegal immigrants believed to be members of Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil community were […]