Tag: Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka rebel lawmaker dies in car crash
Feb 09, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan rebel lawmaker Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi who broke away from the ruling party of President Mahinda Rajapakse last year, died in a car crash Saturday, police said. Police spokesman DIG NK Illangakoon said the car had crashed near the north-central town of Galgamuwa. His two police guards were also killed, […]
Sri Lanka under pressure to de-politicize price index
Feb 09, 2008 (LBO) – Pressure is mounting to de-politicize Sri Lanka’s new price index, which the authorities are already using as a guide for monetary policy and are pushing trade unions to accept for indexing wages. The new Colombo Consumer Price Index or CCPI (N) has come under fire for excluding alcohol in an […]
Sri Lanka says 39 Tamil Tigers killed in fresh fighting
Feb 8, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan troops smashed bunkers of Tamil Tiger rebels in the island’s embattled north and kept up attacks elsewhere leaving 39 guerrillas dead, the island’s defence ministry said Friday. In the clashes along the front lines in Vavuniya district, security forces killed 22 guerrillas while destroying three of their bunkers […]
Last Sri Lankans freed as Australia dismantles Pacific detention centres
SYDNEY, Feb 8, 2008 (AFP) – Australia’s widely criticised “Pacific Solution” policy of holding asylum seekers on remote islands ended Friday when the last detainees flew out of Nauru, the government said.The 21 Sri Lankans who had been held on the tiny island in the South Pacific for nearly a year would be resettled in […]
Slow Going
Feb 08, 2008 (LBO) – A multi-million dollar project to build a new container port in Colombo is on track despite lengthy delays, a Sri Lankan government minister has assured the island’s shipping community. The government plans to build a new deep-water port next to Colombo, called the Colombo South Port, as well as build […]
” to end Sri Lanka bloodshed
Feb 7, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s former colonial ruler Britain has called for a “political process” to end Sri Lanka’s spiralling violence and condemned the latest wave of bombings against civilians.British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement released here said that the Sri Lankan government’s unilateral withdrawal from a ceasefire with separatist rebels […]
Sri Lanka media working under fear: Amnesty
Feb 7, 2008 (AFP) – Dozens of unsolved murders, abductions, and disappearances of journalists have cast a pall on open reporting in Sri Lanka as an ethnic civil war intensifies, a rights group said Thursday.At least 10 media workers have been killed over the past two years, while others have been abducted, tortured, or illegally […]
Sri Lanka says 37 Tamil Tigers killed, carries out air strikes
Feb 6, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan war planes Wednesday bombed targets inside Tamil Tiger-held territory in the north as ground forces clashed with the rebels, leaving 37 guerrillas and five soldiers dead, the defence ministry said.War planes hit a location near Iranamadu on Wednesday morning after government forces destroyed some 30 bunkers of the […]
Sri Lanka inflation to remain high in 2008 first half?
Feb 05, 2008 (LBO) — Sri Lanka’s central bank has warned that inflation may remain high around 16 to 20 percent in the first half of 2008 and blamed “low supply” of domestic foods for the sudden price jump of 3.0 percent in January. Eighty percent of the price increases was due to food, the […]
Overlooked
Feb 05, 2008 (LBO) – None of the world’s major petroleum companies has bid for the offshore exploration blocks offered by the Sri Lankan government in the Mannar Basin, despite initial interest, officials said. “We knew from the beginning that the opportunity in Sri Lanka in relative terms was small – considering that globally they […]
Seven Sri Lankan sailors missing after sea battle: military
Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) – Seven Sri Lankan sailors and their craft were missing on Tuesday following a sea battle with suspected Tamil Tiger guerrillas off the island’s northwest coast, military officials said. The clashes erupted when two navy speedboats moved to push back a fleet of poaching fishermen from neighbouring India, a military official […]
Sri Lanka stages mass funerals after Freedom Day bloodshed
Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka staged mass funerals for bomb blast victims on Tuesday after independence day festivities were marred by a string of attacks blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels.Scores of civilians have also died during the same period, according to both sides. No independent verification of the tolls is possible as the […]