Tag: Sri Lanka
Power Plan
Oct 09, 2007 (LBO) – Fresh legislation to regulate the power sector is being readied after Sri Lanka’s highest court said an earlier plan to break up the utility was unconstitutional, officials said. Although the state electricity monopoly Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) won’t be ‘unbundled’ or broken up in to generating, long distance transmitting and […]
Sri Lanka accused of stage-managing UN rights mission
Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) – The head of a prominent Sri Lankan human rights group on Monday accused the island’s government of seeking to “stage-manage” a visit by a top United Nations official.Minority Tamil legislator Mano Ganeshan said Colombo was tightly controlling the five-day visit of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, […]
Sri Lankan military forces journalists out of Jaffna
COLOMBO, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s military has forced three people making a documentary about the decades-long Tamil separatist conflict to leave the embattled northern Jaffna peninsula, a media rights group said Monday.The team from Quick Silver Media was forced to leave last week despite having prior permission from defence authorities in the […]
Sri Lanka navy says last rebel ship sunk
Oct 7, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s navy attacked a suspected Tamil Tiger ship in international waters, virtually destroying the sea transport capability of the guerrillas, military officials said Sunday.More than 5,400 people have been killed in a new wave of fighting since December 2005 when a Norwegian-brokered truce began to unravel. Naval vessels engaged […]
Rocketing Sri Lanka prices prompt calls for inflation targeting
Oct 06, 2007 (LBO) – The overshooting of a self-declared Central Bank 10 percent inflation target for 2007 is strengthening the case for reforming the institution and bringing legislated inflation targeting to Sri Lanka. . In January 2007 the Central Bank issued a monetary policy road map promising to debauch the internal value of the […]
” in Sri Lanka
Oct 6, 2007 (AFP) – Three men were shot dead in execution-style killings in Sri Lanka, police said Saturday, amid heightened international attention on the island’s deteriorating human rights record.Two blindfolded men whose hands had been tied behind their backs were found shot through the head in the northwestern Chilaw area while another body was […]
Sri Lankan troops, Tigers swap bodies
COLOMBO, Oct 6, 2007 (AFP) – Government forces and Tamil Tiger guerrillas swapped on Saturday the bodies of combatants killed in recent fighting in northern Sri Lanka, doctors said.Government troops sent four bodies of Tamil Tiger rebels to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) through the International Red Cross, a doctor at the Vavuniya […]
‘s Sri Lanka lending hit by shifting policies and conflict
Oct 05, 2007 (LBO) – Asian Development Bank (ADB), the second largest lender to Sri Lanka, says two decades of aid has mixed results and the relevance of its current 5-year lending program has ‘diminished’ due to conflict and shifting government policy. Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) policy supporting loans, conflict assistance and agriculture sector lending […]
Sri Lanka to start victim and witness protection
Oct 05, 2007 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan government announced Thursday it will soon introduce regulations to protect and compensate victims and witnesses of crimes with the aim of improving the efficacy of the criminal justice system. Policy guidelines have already been prepared by the Attorney General that will help formulate a legal framework to […]
Sri Lanka calls for expulsion of Icelandic diplomat
Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Tuesday called for the expulsion of an Icelandic diplomat who made a clandestine visit to the Tamil Tiger-held north of the island. Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said it asked Reykjavik to recall Bjarni Vestmann, a minister-counsellor at Iceland’s foreign ministry, after he entered the country on a […]
Sri Lanka bars UN officials from rebel territory
Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka said Thursday it would not allow the United Nation’s human rights envoy to visit rebel-held areas in the island’s north.The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, is due in Sri Lanka next week to assess the island’s deteriorating rights record, while the UN’s top torture investigator, […]
Sri Lanka flirts with flour price controls as inflation rages
Oct 03, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka consumer affairs ministry said it was amending laws to bring a Singapore-owned flour mill under its control as rising global wheat prices drove bread prices in the island to record levels. Consumer Affairs Minister Bandula Gunewardene said the law governing the country’s consumer protection authority has a specific […]