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Colombo, Jan 13 (DPA) Fresh election-related clashes erupted in north-central Sri Lanka Wednesday, leaving at least 10 people injured, police said.
Supporters of both the ruling party and the main opposition candidate clashed in Polonnaurwa, 180 km north-east of Colombo, prompting police to open fire and use tear gas to disperse the crowds.
A female journalist working [...]
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Colombo, Jan 12 (DPA) Sri Lanka plans to invest $4 billion to develop infrastructure in the war-torn northern part of the country, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said Tuesday.
Rajapaksa said electric power projects, road development and restoration of the railway line to Jaffna, 396 km north of the capital, were high priorities.
‘We are getting foreign aid from [...]
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Colombo, Jan 10 (DPA) The first visit by a president of Sri Lanka to Jaffna, the former war-torn northern capital of the country, in nearly 30 years took place Sunday, officials said.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited the Jaffna peninsula, 400 km north of the capital, and met government troops, civilians and the clergy amidst tight [...]
Chennai, Jan 1 (ANI): The Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) founder, V Gopalswamy (Vaiko), condemned the Union Government for inviting Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and giving a preferential treatment to him at the famous Tirupati temple.
Addressing the media here, [...]
Colombo, Dec 17 (DPA) Nominations for Sri Lanka’s Jan 26 presidential elections closed Thursday with the incumbent putting his hat into the ring against his former army commander.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, 64, handed in his nomination from the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance while General Sarath Fonseka, 58, is contesting the presidency with the backing of [...]
Toronto, Dec 14 (IANS) Sri Lankan Tamils in Canada have called for an international trial of the Sri Lankan president for allegedly ordering the killing of surrendering LTTE leaders during the ethnic war that ended in May.
Former Sri Lankan army chief and opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka has alleged that Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered [...]
Colombo, Dec 11 (DPA) Months after ending a 26-year civil war in Sri Lanka that claimed over 100,000 lives, fresh hopes have been raised about building ethnic unity, although scars remain.
Government forces inched their way into the rebel-held territories in the northern part of the country in the final phase of the offensive in January [...]
New Delhi, Dec 10 (IANS) Sri Lanka Thursday assured India that it will resettle around 300,000 internally displaced Tamil civilians before the end of January 2010 and reiterated its commitment to a political process that can lead to ‘lasting peace and reconciliation’ in the island nation.
A high-level Sri Lankan team led by Basil Rajapaksa, member [...]
Colombo, Dec.7 (ANI): A Marxist group of Tamil militants with connections to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Cuba is reportedly preparing to mount a new insurgency in Sri Lanka six months after the Government declared an end to the 26-year-old war there.
According to a report in The Times, The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was founded [...]
Colombo, Nov 29 (DPA) Former Sri Lankan army commander, General (Retd) Sarath Fonseka, who led the military victory over separatist Tamil rebels this year, officially announced his candidacy for president Sunday.
General Fonseka, who survived a rebel suicide bomb attack in 2006 and commanded the army to victory in May, will challenge the incumbent President Mahinda [...]
Colombo, Nov.29 (ANI): Sri Lanka’s former Chief of Defence Staff and army chief General (retired) Sarath Fonseka on Sunday announced that he will be the opposition contestant in the January 26, 2010 presidential polls.
“I am joining the race for Presidency,” [...]
Colombo, Nov.29 (ANI): Sri Lanka’s former Chief of Defence Staff and army chief General (retired) Sarath Fonseka on Sunday announced that he will be the opposition contestant in the January 26, 2010 presidential polls.
“I am joining the race for Presidency,” 58-year-old Fonseka told a packed press conference here.
Fonseka will be the joint candidate of [...]
Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), Nov 28 (ANI): The Police here on Friday arrested more than 20 Tamil activists, who were protesting for a separate state for the Tamilians displaced by the war in Sri Lanka.
Holding photographs and banners of slain LTTE chief V. Prabhakaran, scores of protestors from various Tamil organizations gathered in Coimbatore city and [...]
London, Nov 27 (IANS) Amid a sharp downturn in relations, Britain has decided to block Sri Lanka’s bid to host the next Commonwealth summit, saying Colombo had breached Commonwealth values in the way it conducted a war against Tamil separatists earlier this year.
The decision is to be conveyed by British Premier Gordon Brown on the [...]
Colombo, Nov 26 (DPA) Sri Lanka’s main opposition party Thursday decided to back in the next presidential elections a former army chief who spearheaded the military campaign against Tamil rebels.
The opposition United National Party (UNP) led by former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told a news conference in Colombo that the party will support ex-army commander [...]
New Delhi, Nov. 14 (ANI): 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.
“We have got [...]
New Delhi, Nov 13 (IANS) Now that the Tamil Tigers have been defeated, it is ‘very important’ to have a political settlement to end Tamil grievances, a senior Sri Lankan minister said here. Home Affairs and Public Administration Minister Sarath Amunagama also said in an interview that Sri Lanka considered itself ‘closest to India’ despite [...]
Colombo,Nov.13 (ANI): General Sarath Fonseka, Sri Lanka’s ceremonial Chief of Defence Staff and former Army Chief, who oversaw a successful military operation to crush the rebel Tamil Tigers in May this year, has resigned from his post to challenge the country’s powerful President, Mahinda Rajapaksa in presidential elections scheduled for April next year.
General Fonseka confirmed [...]
Colombo, Nov 12 (DPA) Sri Lanka’s military chief, General Sarath Fonseka, who helped the government forces secure victory over Tamil rebels, resigned from his post Thursday amidst reports he was considering running in the upcoming presidential elections.
Officials said Fonseka’s resignation as head of the armed forces was accepted by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who also doubles [...]
Sydney, Nov 7(ANI): 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.
Alex is the spokesman for 255 Sri Lankans, whose boat was detained last month and they remain moored at [...]
Hyderabad, Oct 31 (IANS) Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa Saturday offered prayers at the famous Lord Venkateshwara temple at Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh.
Rajapaksa arrived in a special aircraft from Nepal, where he was on a pilgrimage, and after a ‘darshan’ at the temple atop Tirumala Hills left for Sri Lanka, officials said.
Accompanied by his wife [...]
New Delhi, Oct 19 (IANS) MPs from Tamil Nadu who visited Colombo said Monday that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was unaware of Indian prisoners in Sri Lankan jails when they raised the subject with him.
DMK MP T.K.S. Elangovan said both Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother-cum-senior adviser Basil Rajapaksa expressed ignorance when the MPs brought up the [...]
Chennai, Oct 15 (ANI): The resettlement of Tamil refugees would begin soon, Sri Lanka has assured an Indian parliamentary delegation.
The ten-member delegation, led by former Union Minister T R Baalu, includes MPs from the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK), the Congress and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK returned on Wednesday after their four-day visit to [...]
Chennai, Oct 14 (IANS) A 10-member team of Tamil Nadu MPs from the DMK, Congress and VCK returned here Wednesday after a five-day tour of Sri Lanka during which they visited Tamil refugee camps and met President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi received them at the Chennai airport. The MPs had gone to Sri Lanka [...]
Colombo, Oct.14 (ANI): Sri Lanka will hold both presidential and parliamentary elections before April 2010, the BBC quoted its state radio, as saying.
The holding of the presidential poll nearly two years ahead of schedule reflects the government’s popularity and the announcement comes five months after its military victory over Tamil Tiger rebels.
The move [...]
Colombo, Oct 13 (DPA) Sri Lanka is to hold presidential elections nearly two years before scheduled, an official said Tuesday.
‘The presidential elections will be held before April next year,’ Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said.
The announcement came two days after President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) recorded a convincing victory in a [...]
Kathmandu, Oct 5 (IANS) Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had to cut short his visit to Nepal this spring after an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan, is expected to arrive in the Himalayan republic once more this month to complete his itinerary.
Rajapaksa, who had arrived in Kathmandu on a three-day [...]
Colombo, Sep 17 (IANS) US ambassador Patricia Butenis, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, presented her credentials to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa Thursday.
Butenis was nominated by President Barack Obama as the US envoy to Sri Lanka and the Maldives May 27. She was confirmed by the Senate Aug 4 and sworn in [...]
Lahore, Sep 14 (ANI): Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik will lead a high-level investigation team to Sri Lanka at the end of September to look into links that the Liberty attackers may have had with Tamil Tigers.
A private TV channel reported on Sunday that the team would meet the Sri Lankan leadership and top [...]
London, Sep 12 (ANI): The United Nations has strongly warned Sri Lanka that the world body cannot continue funding indefinitely the huge refugee camps in the north of the country, and asked the authorities to allow the hundreds of Tamil civilians to leave.
The senior UN official in the country hardened their stand when they said [...]
