Sri Lanka News Archives

At least 52 civilians were killed by shelling in Sri Lankana s northern war zone, the United Nations said on Wednesday, while a crowded hospital was hit again and Britain and the United States urged a ceasefire.

Sri Lankaa s presidential election next year will allow voters to go to the polls in the northern region formerly controlled by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said.

Tamils look over a fence as they stand inside a camp in Vavuniya. Sri Lanka has been criticised for actions that earlier this year led to thousands being displaced without proper humanitarean access.

Sat, Nov 28, 2009, 10:43 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 28, Colombo: Sri Lanka expressed its concern to the Canadian government on the arson attack of the Sri Lankan Buddhist Temple in Toronto on Friday morning.

WGC has decided to present its request directly to Sri Lanka President, Mahinda Rajapakse when he visits Jaffna 8 December.

With Sri Lanka's main opposition making former Army chief General Sarath Fonseka as their common candidate in the forthcoming presidential election, President Mahinda Rajapakse has appointed a strong committee to kick off his re-election campaign, officials close to the president said on Saturday.

A Thursday night fire at a Buddhist temple in east end Toronto frequented by people of Sri Lankan origin was deliberately set, police say.

Port-of-Spain, Nov 28 : The Canadian Government has followed the United Kingdom in announcing that it will oppose Sri Lanka's bid to host the next summit of 53 Commonwealth countries in 2011.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says he has discussed the flow of refugees to Australia with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama.

Thu, Nov 26, 2009, 09:21 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. "Mahinda Chintanaya is a continuing concept and my manifesto is the same this time" Nov 26, Colombo: Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that the triumph over terrorism could be achieved only with the help of all personnel including three military commanders and the ...

Wickremabahu Karunaratne, leader of the New Left Front , Wednesday announced his candidature for the forthcoming Presidential election.

Canadian immigration officials arrested an Indian man in Toronto on Thursday after he gave a fiery speech at an event where the flag of the outlawed Tamil Tigers rebels was flown.

Gordon Brown has vowed to block Sri Lanka's bid to host the next summit of Commonwealth leaders, in retaliation for the Colombo government's handling of its military campaign against the Tamil Tigers earlier this year.

Thu, Nov 26, 2009, 09:48 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 26, Colombo: Sri Lanka's main opposition , United National Party declared today that it has decided to support the retired military commander General Sarath Fonseka as the common candidate at the upcoming presidential polls to contest against incumbent, President Mahinda ...

The U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes called Sri Lanka's decision to release Tamil refugees confined to government camps since the end of the country's 25-year civil war "good news" but said the United Nations is concerned about how they are being returned home.

SHAKING the rain out of his hair, Ravi Chandran boarded a state-run bus for Jaffna in the north and looked around.

UNP is the main constituent of the newly formed United National Front . The peoples' wing of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party , led by rebel SLFP parliamentarian Mangala Samaraweera, former Foreign Minister in the President Mahinda Rajapakse's government also endorsed General Sarath Fonseka as their common presidential candidate.

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's navy has detained at least 100 people trying to sail illegally to Australia, an official said yesterday, days after a boatload of asylum-seekers triggered a diplomatic standoff between Australia and Indonesia.

The arrested youth had been produced in the court for the killing of the SP but had been released for want of evidence.

Serving the Sri Lankan community globally since 2000 * Sri Lanka President will win election with a majority of 2.8 million votes - Minister Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 09:23 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's ex-military chief will challenge President Mahinda Rajapakse in upcoming elections, an opposition party said yesterday, after the pair engineered the defeat of a bloody Tamil Tiger revolt.

An influential Sri Lankan opposition party says it has invited former military chief Gen Sarath Fonseka to be its presidential candidate.

The youth had come a few days ago to Koa'laa to work as labourer in road renovation, the sources added.

A French court on Monday jailed 21 Tamil Tiger militants convicted of extorting millions of euros from the Tamil diaspora in France to fund their armed campaign in Sri Lanka.

COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government has failed to make adequate welfare provision for the 136,000 Tamil civilians it plans to release from internment camps, rights activists and opposition parties said on Sunday.

Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said injury to their right-arm pacer Dammika Prasad could force them to go with three spinners in the second cricket Test against India here Tuesday.

President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa with Pope Benedict XVI in April 2007. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka a ' Sri Lanka's president signed a decree Monday calling for early elections, hoping to take advantage of his popularity after ending the country's 25-year civil war to win a new six-year term.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has decided to opt for a presidential election two years ahead of schedule, government sources said Monday.

General Sarath Fonseka has been confirmed as the United National Front's common Presidential candidate, United National Party Deputy General Secretary Lakshman Seneviratne told Adaderana a short while ago.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to hold the Presidential election first, Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa told Adaderana a short while ago.

Monday, November 23, 2009 By Salman Siddiqui COLOMBO: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake has offered help, assistance and expertise to Pakistan for eliminating terrorism.

The condition of Ooththuchcheanai-Vadamunai road, filled with pock marks and pot-holes due to persisting rains, was the cause of the accident, the sources said.

SEVEN Afghan and Sri Lankans have been injured in a massed brawl on Christmas Island involving 150 detainees.

There seems no difference between the Colombo Hindu College Ratmalana and any other school, except for the armed police officers guarding the gate.

Sri Lanka will release next month the remaining 136,000 Tamil refugees still in the squalid and overrun government camps where they've been detained since the country's civil war ended six months ago, a top official said Saturday.

KARACHI: The countrya s electronic goods retain a good demand in the Sri Lankan market which has a dearth of cheap and good quality electronic items, said Sri Lankan Consul General VS Sidath Kumar in a meeting held recently with the members of Karachi Electronic Dealers Association.

Via ColomboPage.com: Sri Lanka Health Ministry orders H1N1 vaccine amid rising death toll .

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith will sound out his Commonwealth counterparts on ways to help stem the flow of refugees from Sri Lanka.

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes arrived here Tuesday on a four-day visit, diplomatic officials said.

Sun, Nov 15, 2009, 12:14 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 15, Colombo: A sudden fire inside a medicine storage unit has engulfed the Ampara base hospital in Eastern Sri Lanka, police sources said.

Sri Lankan refugees are helped to board an Australian Customs Service patrol ship, to transport to an Australian-funded detention center in Tanjung Pinang, on the Indonesian Island of Bintan, Indonesia on Nov.

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes has confirmed that more than half the Tamils who were in refugee camps in northern Sri Lanka have now left them.

External Affairs Minister SM Krishna has said the government is in talks with Sri Lanka to bring back the Indian prisoners languishing in jails in that country.

Chief Minister M KarA unanidhi. CHENNAI: Observing that the decisions taken by the LTTE at crucial junctures of their struggle were done without a political vision for future, Chief Minister M KarA unanidhi on Tuesday charged that the Tigersa call for boycotting the 2005 presA idential elections in Sri Lanka had resulted in the present crisis.

The Director General of the Sri Lankan Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, Priyantha Kariyapperuma and Professor Sir Martin Sweeting of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited , signed a landmark agreement today.

Dozens of Sri Lankan asylum seekers on Wednesday left an Australian customs vessel anchored off Indonesia after they were promised they would be resettled, ending a monthlong standoff.

Tue, Nov 17, 2009, 08:33 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 17, Colombo: Two prison guards of the Anuradhapura prison in Sri Lanka have been injured in an attack carried out by a group of prisoners this morning.

These persons do not provide receipts to their relatives when they remove heads of their families, complained Mr.

But ask about Mr. Rajaratnam on the island of his birth and few will say anything about the man considered to be Sri Lanka's richest, now accused in the largest hedge-fund related insider trading case in U.S. history.

Outgoing Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka salutes as he pays tribute to fallen soldiers at the War Memorial in Colombo yesterday Sri Lanka's top general bid farewell to his uniform yesterday and said he will announce a decision on entering politics within two to three days, amid speculation he may seek the presidency.

Responding to a young journalism student this week, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd maintained that his Government's actions on the Oceanic Viking abided by the letter of the Refugee Convention.

Hailed as a hero for ending decades of civil war, Sri Lanka's most decorated general appears likely to stand for the presidency - something that analysts view with deep foreboding.

Standoff...Sri Lankan asylum seekers on board their boat in the port of Merak. They have been staging a sit-in for more than a month.

New Delhi, Nov 10 : Test batsman VVS Laxman said India was 'unlucky' to have lost the ongoing one-day series against Australia and was confident that the home team will prove its mettle against the Sri Lankans.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse today asked his supporters for more time to announce dates for snap elections as he faced an unexpected challenge from his erstwhile military chief.

The Sri Lankan government on Sunday formally accepted the resignation of General Sarath Fonseka as the chief of defence staff and asked him to retire with immediate effect, rejecting his plea to serve till December 1. The top general, who as army chief was the architect of the annihilation of the rebel Tamil Tigers in a military offensive in May, ...

By M.R. Narayan Swamy, New Delhi, Nov 15 : On top of revelations that the United Liberation Front of Asom bought arms from the Tamil Tigers, a former ULFA leader now says the Assamese separatist group also got military training from the Sri Lankan rebels.

INDONESIA is planning to deport Sri Lankan asylum seekers at Merak back to their homeland, including ''Alex'', the spokesman for the group that has spent more than a month at the Javanese port refusing to leave their wooden vessel.

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 12 -- Four Sri Lankans were charged with kidnapping a 16 year-old Sri Lankan boy in the Magistrate's Court here Thursday.

New Delhi, Nov. 14 : Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday asked the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to ask the Sri Lanka Government during his scheduled visit for early rehabilitation of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the future resettlement of Sri Lankan asylum seekers now in a detention center in Indonesia lies with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The spat with the ruling party hierarchy, which has been publicly aired, has lifted the opposition from its subordinate position.

About 60 Muslim fishermen and their families congregated in a community hall on Sri Lankaa s east coast to pray for Raj Rajaratnam after he was arrested for alleged insider trading at his New York hedge fund.

MYANMAR junta leader General Than Shwe was treated for a mild stomach bug hours after his arrival in Sri Lanka, a doctor from the hospital that treated him said Friday.

Sri Lanka on Friday accepted the resignation of its top general, who delivered a scathing departure letter accusing the president he may challenge at polls next year of unjustly sidelining him over unfounded coup fears.

UP to 20 of the 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking could leave the ship and enter an Indonesian detention centre as early as today.

AUSTRALIAN negotiators have only one more week to persuade 78 Sri Lankans aboard the Oceanic Viking to step onto Indonesian soil and accept a deal that will see them resettled in Australia or another country.

A FLEET charity has staged a dog show with a difference. Hundreds of Sri Lankan people of all ages turned up for the annual show put on by Home and Abroad Animal Welfare .

Sri Lanka's armed forces chief Gen Sarath Fonseka has resigned from his post just months after helping secure the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels.

At the end of today's general audience, the Pope remarked upon the current situation in Sri Lanka, six months after the end of the conflict that bloodied the country.

A Sri Lankan sailor, centre, stands on a boat anchored at the fishing harbour of Negombo recently where many have used similar craft to leave the island illegally and travel to Europe, Australia or New Zealand in search of jobs For 50 young Sri Lankans who had paid up to $1,500 each for the chance of a new life, a five-week voyage in the hold of a ...

Wed, Nov 11, 2009, 09:56 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 11, Colombo: The Head of State of Myanmar, Senior General Than Shwe and First Lady Daw Kyaing Kyaing will arrive in Sri Lanka tomorrow on an official visit from 12th to 14th of November, government sources said.

Similar invasion of ministers to Jaffna had also taken place prior to the recent Jaffna Municipal Council election but having won it the ministers have not stepped in Jaffna since then, the sources observed.

NEW Zealand has declined a bid by the Rudd Government to resettle there some of the 78 asylum seekers aboard the Australian Customs vessel Oceanic Viking .

The Indian Coast Guard is uncertain about getting back two warships that it leased out to the Sri Lankan Navy in 2007 on an annually renewable contract.

Sri Lankan health authorities on Sunday confirmed the island nation's first death from the H1N1 flu virus.

Merak , Nov.9 : Ten women among a group of almost 250 Sri Lankan asylum seekers refusing to leave their boat in Indonesia have begun another hunger strike.

New Zealand is unlikely to offer refuge to 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers plucked from a stricken boat, Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman said today.

New Zealand ruled out Tuesday taking any of the 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on board the Australian Customs ship Oceanic Viking off Indonesia.

When a migrant smuggling ship bound for Australia was seized in Indonesian waters last month, a 27-year-old with a thick beard stepped forward to speak for the boat people.

Australia and Sri Lanka on Monday entered into an co-operation agreement to stem the smuggling of Sri Lankans into Australia.

Bring them in...demonstrators outside the Immigration Department's offices yesterday voice their support for taking refugees Photo: Dean Sewell KEVIN RUDD has vowed there will be no backdown on asylum seeker policy as a new poll showed Australian attitudes towards immigration levels has not changed since the febrile days of 2001 and the MV Tampa.

Myanmar top leader Senior-General Than Shwe will pay an official visit to Sri Lanka soon, an official announcement from Nay Pyi Taw said on Monday, without giving the specific date of his visit.

Sydney, Nov 7: The Sri Lankan Government has said that the leader of a boatload of asylum-seekers held in Indonesia on their way to Australia, Alex, is a known people-smuggler, who had been previously deported from Canada.

Colombo - A 16-year-old Sri Lankan boy became the first victim in the country of influenza A , or swine flu, doctors said Sunday.

Sri Lanka's sidelined military chief, General Sarath Fonseka, will stand against President Mahinda Rajapakse in elections to beheld before April, a press report said yesterday.

The Tamil Tigers are finished as a military outfit but a small group of their feared suicide bombers still remain in Colombo, a top Sri Lankan official visiting India said.

Sunday, November 08, 2009 COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's central bank on Saturday said it has been buying gold to diversify its reserves amid volatile currency markets, days after India announced it had purchased 200 tonnes of the precious metal.

AN Australian customs ship holding 78 asylum seekers off Indonesia should be sent to Sri Lanka, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says.

A man who jumped into the Indian ocean to escape arrest drowned after being badly beaten by Sri Lankan police in the water in front of a large crowd and television cameras, police said Saturday.

AN international syndicate, believed to be headed by expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils, are targeting their countrymen in Malaysia to make a fast buck.

About 90,000 Sri Lankans displaced by the conflict in Sri Lanka have returned to their homes in the past three months, and the pace of returns has begun to accelerate, the United Nations refugee agency reported.

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.

Sat, Nov 7, 2009, 12:02 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 07, Colombo: The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR said some 90,000 of Sri Lanka's Internally Displaced Persons have returned to their homes in the past three months under the Sri Lankan government's resettlement program.

INDONESIA extended by a week from today a deadline for an Australian customs ship loaded with 78 protesting Sri Lankan asylum seekers to leave its territory.

Colombo, Nov 5 : The Sri Lankan government has stepped up clearing mines in former rebel-controlled areas aimed at resettling 159,000 war refugees before the end of January, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said Thursday.

The spokesman for the 255 Sri Lankan asylum seekers staying on an Australian boat in Indonesia is a 27-year-old people smuggler known as 'Alex' alias Kulaendrarajah Sanjeev once belonged to 'Kannan Gang' involved in street fights and was deported from Canada in 2003, after being arrested for trouble making.

"International law is not as half as dumb as many people think. Any civilian facility including hospitals is open to attack if terrorist use them to launch attacks. If hospitals were given unconditional immunity, they will become the favourite hang outs for terrorists and the end of western civilization will start from hospitals! Article 31(1) ..."

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia: Larita Delacruz sits on the concrete base of a bridge pylon, rubs her swollen belly and explains her predicament: she is five months pregnant with twins, and wants to go home to give birth.

CHRISTMAS ISLAND, Australia - Deep in the jungle on this small island lost in the Indian Ocean, Australia's new $370 million refugee detention center reaches its full power after its lights come on at dusk.

SRI Lanka's president has announced an immediate salary increase for all members of the country's armed forces amid plans to boost the strength of the security services.

COLOMBO: A top Sri Lankan official today said the rebel LTTE may have had links with the Maoists in India, days after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said that the left wing extremists were acquiring arms from abroad.

Nearly 2000 fishermen in Puthukkoaddai in Tamil Nadu are boycotting fishing demanding the immediate release of their fellow fishermen, sources in Tamil Nadu said.

Hurricane Katrina victims are still living in temporary shelters. Further most of these countries did not have a problem of land mines or security problems about their IDPs. Tiny Sri Lanka had set a world record by resettling a larger number of IDPs within few months

RIYADH: Two Sri Lankans, one of them a woman, and an Indian were beheaded by the sword in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Wednesday for theft and murder, the Saudi interior ministry said.

Wed, Nov 4, 2009, 07:48 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 04, Colombo: Sri Lanka government today said that the Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka has left the United States this morning to return to Colombo.

Adjusting to new lives...Sri Lankan Tamil refugees speak to Reverend John Jegasothy of the Dulwich Hill Uniting Church Photo: Quentin Jones THE Federal Government has refused to take the 78 asylum seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking to Christmas Island, saying the deal between Jakarta and Australia to disembark the Sri Lankans in Indonesia needed to ...

Sat, Oct 31, 2009, 08:09 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Oct 31, Colombo: The wife of Late Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, Dr Sudharshini Fernandopulle will enter politics to contest at the upcoming General Election next year.

Judges and magistrates from Sri Lanka will begin arriving in Fiji tomorrow to assist the local judiciary and bring it back to full capacity.

A SINGAPORE businessman, accused of committing terrorism-related conspiracy offences overseas, will be extradited to the United States.

Tue, Nov 3, 2009, 08:22 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 03, Colombo: A trainee police officer at the Police Training School in Kaladi, Batticaloa was killed due to an explosion that took place inside the school.

Government officials believe the freighter sailing under the name Ocean Lady and carrying 76 Sri Lankan refugees is actually the Princess Easwary.

New York, October 28, 2009 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned by ongoing threats to Sri Lanka's journalists and media organizations.

Sun, Nov 1, 2009, 08:59 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 01, Colombo: The National Building Research Institute of Sri Lanka has issued a warning to the residents that landslides may occur in various parts of the central hill country due to the prevailing rainy weather.

Sri Lanka today strongly protested US plans to question Chief of Defence Staff Gen Sarath Fonseka over alleged human rights violations in the last phase of the civil war, saying he has no authority to share any information relating to national security with third parties.

The police rescued two more abducted Sri Lankans from a house in Setapak here with the help of the French police and Interpol.

More than 20 people were feared dead on Monday after a boat carrying about 40 sank in rough seas far off northwest Australia during a rescue attempt by a passing merchant ship and fishing vessel.

The ethnic Tamils, who are refusing to leave the Oceanic Viking, have reportedly been living in Indonesia for years.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has admitted he does not know the status of 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers aboard an Australian customs vessel in Indonesian waters.

Colombo, Nov 1 : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has been urged by a Tamil politician here to intervene and help secure the Tamils a political framework on the lines of Indian federalism.

Sri Lanka has called on US authorities to drop plans to interview the island's military commander over allegations of war crimes against ethnic Tamil rebels, an official said Sunday.

THE federal government concedes plans to almost double the capacity to house asylum seekers on Christmas Island will take a toll on the local community.

IT'S been revealed that most of the Sri Lankan asylum seekers in a standoff with Australian authorities off Indonesia's Bintan Island have admitted living in Indonesia for years, providing the Rudd Government with leverage to convince Indonesia to take them back.