Tag: politics

September 2, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Wednesday rejected international criticism of the sentencing of a journalist to 20 years of hard labour over his alleged links to Tamil Tiger separatist rebels.The foreign ministry in Colombo said the widespread condemnation, led by the United States and media rights groups, was an attempt at “undermining […]

LONDON, August 31, 2009 (AFP) – More than 400 children were being held in British immigration detention centres with their families, a report said Monday, citing official figures. The Home Office said: “The UK Border Agency fully recognises its responsibilities towards children but these responsibilities have to be exercised alongside our duty to enforce the […]

August 26, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Wednesday freed nearly 600 Hindu and Catholic priests who were held in internment camps with ethnic Tamils displaced by fighting between troops and separatist rebels, officials said.The clergy were allowed to leave the camps in the northern district of Vavuniya, where 300,000 inmates are detained under tight […]

August 24, 2009 (AFP) – A Sri Lankan magistrate on Monday bailed four doctors held for allegedly spreading rebel propaganda before the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. The doctors were arrested in May after they left an area where security forces fought the final battle against the separatist rebels. “They have been asked to post […]

August 23, 2009 (AFP) – Tamil civilians who lived through the vicious final battle of Sri Lanka’s separatist war are now locked in another struggle for survival with heavy rains bringing misery to the camps they call home.Nearly 300,000 people displaced by the fighting between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels are held in what […]

WASHINGTON, August 19, 2009 (AFP) – The United States on Wednesday renewed its call for Sri Lanka to release more than 250,000 Tamil war refugees from their camps, warning of the potential for disease.Heavy rains this week flooded nearly 2,000 makeshift shelters in the camps, where people displaced by war have been detained since the […]

Aug 19, 2009 (LBO) – The United States said it is giving more aid to Sri Lanka to support civilians displaced by the ethnic war and to clear land mines so they could return home soon. The US embassy said in a statement it is giving two million dollars to support the needs of refugees […]

August 17, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka risks further damage to its image by failing to improve conditions for tens of thousands of war-displaced people held in squalor, the island’s main opposition leader said on Monday.Opposition leader and former premier Ranil Wickremesinghe warned that the spread of diseases in the camps during the current rains […]

August 18, 2009 (AFP) – Heavy rains flooded nearly 2,000 makeshift shelters housing Sri Lankan Tamil war refugees detained by the government, the United Nations said Tuesday, raising concerns about their health. The strong rains last weekend lashed the northern Vavuniya district where over 250,000 people displaced during the final stages of the ethnic conflict […]

August 16, 2009 (AFP) – Heavy rains flooded camps housing some of Sri Lanka’s 300,000 war refugees, officials said Sunday, raising fears for the welfare of the detainees.She said a section of the Manik Farm camp was the worst hit by the floods as the drainage system was only half built. The privately-run Sunday Times […]

Aug 11, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka should cap election spending to prevent honest politicians being crowded out and criminal elements entering the parliament, a breakaway ruling party politician has said. “One of the proposals I have submitted for consideration for the next manifesto is to have some form of a cap for election spending […]

Aug 10, 2009 (LBO) – The United States said it had donated another 15 million dollars of food to help resettle people displaced by Sri Lanka’s ethnic war whose early return to their homes Washington is pressing for. The US embassy said in a statement the aid through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), […]