Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Tamil prisoners on hunger strike



BBC Sinhala
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At least 65 Tamil prisoners in Anuradhapura are on a hunger strike seeking proper protection.

The prisoners have launched a protest after being assaulted by the prison officials on Sunday, former Jaffna district parliamentarian MK Sivajilingam told BBC Sandeshaya.


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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Rebellion, Repression and the Struggle for Justice in Sri Lanka: The Lionel Bopage story



By Professor Sisira Jayasuriya | Groundviews
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This is a book that documents the life story of Lionel Bopage, who was one of the highest ranking leaders of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP- the Peoples’ Liberation Front) and a major figure in the JVP led youth insurrection of 1971 in Sri Lanka, drawing on a series of personal interviews with him. After migrating to Australia two decades ago, he has remained active not only in Sri Lanka related political activities but in the broader Australian political movements for social justice. The book tracks Lionel’s personal and political evolution over the subsequent four decades, placed in the wider socio-political context of this tumultuous period in Sri Lanka.

In many ways this is a deeply personal and richly detailed memoir, as Lionel looks back over the years and attempts to analyse how and why the party to which he committed himself, and under whose banner thousands of heroic youth fought and died, ended up in as the ardent supporter of a reactionary war against a national minority in alliance with the state machinery and its armed forces – the same armed forces who had butchered its own members and supporters only a few years earlier.


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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Sri Lanka storm kills 19, damages 5,700 homes



Agence France-Press (AFP)
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A storm packing heavy rain and gusty winds lashed southern Sri Lanka over the weekend, killing at least 19 and leaving 43 fishermen missing, the island's disaster management centre said Sunday.

More than 53,000 people were also forced out of their damaged homes in the southern areas of the country following two days of heavy winds and rain, the centre said in a statement.


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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Freedom of Expression on the Internet in Sri Lanka



Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA)
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The Centre for Policy Alternatives is pleased to release a new report examining the freedom of expression on the Internet in Sri Lanka. Since 2007, the freedom of expression on the Internet has faced considerable restrictions on account of the arbitrary blocking of websites and pronouncements by the government for greater regulation and monitoring of online content. There have also been concerns about the transfer of technology from countries such as China that may strengthen a surveillance regime and lead to further restrictions on web content. These issues along with a repressive legal framework have a chilling effect on freedom of expression on the Internet.

In line with the need to emphasise a rights-based framework when addressing online freedom of expression, the report examines the specific cases and practices that restrict freedom of expression on the Internet with respect to regulation, legislation and arbitrary action. In consideration of international freedom of expression standards, CPA’s report examines the government’s compliance with the broader international best practices and recommendations detailed in the report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, which was submitted at the Seventeenth session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).


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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The Sri Lankan editor trapped in his office for the last five years



By Andrew Buncombe | The Independent
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It is not simply dedication to his job that has led newspaper editor MV Kaanamyl-nathan to not leave his office for five-and-a-half years. In the spring of 2006, gunmen stormed into the building and sprayed automatic fire that killed two employees and left bullet holes in the walls and the table in the conference room that remain to this day.

Since then, two police officers have been assigned to permanent duty outside the building and Mr Kaanamylnathan and his wife have left their three-bedroom home in the city and moved into a small space next to the newsroom. "I don't go out. The only exception is to go and see my doctor, a heart-specialist, once every three months," Mr Kaanamylnathan said. "For that, I have to make to make special arrangements.


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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Tracing Sri Lanka's missing children


Photo courtesy: AFP

By Mel Gunasekera | Agence France-Press (AFP)
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Two and a half years after the end of Sri Lanka's bloody ethnic conflict, hundreds of families displaced by the war are still engaged in a fraught, exhausting search for missing children.

Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians were caught up in the chaos of the military's ferocious final assault on cornered Tamil Tiger rebels in the jungles of northeast Sri Lanka in April and May 2009.


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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

China, Sri Lanka's top lender



Lanka Business Online
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China has emerged as the top lender to Sri Lanka in the nine months to September 2011, in terms of money actually disbursed and loans committed for new projects, finance ministry data shows.

Up to September 2011, China has disbursed 599.9 million US dollars out of a total of 1,573.9 billion US dollars.


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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Sri Lanka devalues currency, ups defence budget


Courtesy: Daily Mirror

By Amal Jayasinghe | AFP
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Sri Lanka announced Monday a surprise three percent depreciation of the rupee against a basket of currencies in a move to boost exports, as it released a 2012 budget that boosts defence spending.

Sri Lanka's central bank has said the rupee has been steadily appreciating against other currencies since the end of the island's decades-long Tamil separatist war in May 2009.


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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Sri Lanka mulls police 'cash for big families' plan



By Charles Haviland | BBC News
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The government of Sri Lanka appears to want military and police families to have more children.

Presenting the annual budget speech on Monday, President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced that any police officer parenting a third child would be given a one-off cash grant of one hundred thousand Sri Lankan rupees.


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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

What a shootout between two politicians says about a nation



By Edward Mortimer | Huffington Post
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Since the end of its civil war against the ruthless Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in 2009, the Sri Lankan regime's own reputation for ruthlessness has grown. At its heart are the three Rajapaksa brothers - President Mahinda, defence secretary Gotabhaya ("Gota") and Economic Development Minister Basil - controlling a formidable military force that has quashed all resistance and committed many grave human rights abuses. For the Tamil and Muslim minorities, the end of the war has been marked by further discrimination and alienation. But for many who belong to the country's majority Sinhalese community, government restrictions on personal freedoms and the relentless militarisation of the island have seemed like a small price to pay for the prospect of national security and an end to the LTTE's brutal campaign for a separate state... until a disturbing incident last month provoked unease and dissent even in conservative Sinhalese circles.

On 8 October, in the Kolonnawa district of Sri Lanka's commercial capital, Colombo, Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, an adviser on trade union affairs to the Sri Lankan president, was killed in broad daylight during a shoot-out with a group led by another parliamentarian, Duminda Silva, a Colombo district MP who had worked closely with Gota Rajapaksa. (Silva's website states he was the Ministry of Defence's monitoring officer - something the MoD is now struggling to deny.)


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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Unruly govt. MPs try to manhandle opposition members during budget



By Kelum Bandara and Yohan Perera | Daily Mirror
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Parliamentary business was relegated to rowdy levels today during the budget speech of President Mahinda Rajapaksa with some unruly government MPs trying to manhandle and rough up UNP members who held aloft placards critical of the 2012 budget.

In the middle of the President’s budgetary speech, UNP MPs started shouting slogans against the budgetary proposals. They also rose on their feet holding aloft placards which said ‘Shame’ in all the three languages.


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Monday, November 21, 2011

Sri Lanka tipped to raise defence spending



Agence France-Presse (AFP)
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Sri Lanka's president is expected to raise defence spending when he unveils his 2012 budget Monday, officials said, even though the country's bloody civil war came to an end two-and-a-half years ago.

As the island nation's export-dependent economy is hit by a downturn in key US and European markets, Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also finance minister, is expected to outline plans to cut the country's deficit and raise new revenues.


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Monday, November 21, 2011

Sri Lanka war probe report delivered to president



By Ranga Sirilal | Reuters
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The Sri Lankan panel investigating the end of a quarter-century war with Tamil Tiger separatists delivered its report to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Sunday (20), a step awaited by Western nations urging investigations into war crimes allegations.

Rajapaksa has said he will make public the findings of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), Sri Lanka's answer to calls from some Western governments, overseas Tamil Tiger supporters and rights groups for an independent investigation.


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Monday, November 21, 2011

Sri Lanka: Student union office sealed



By Dasun Edirisinghe | The Island
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Undergraduates of Sri Jayewardenepura University Saturday (19) night claimed that the university administration has sealed the Student Union office and damaged the photographs of the fallen student leaders in that room.

"The university administration threatened they would remove the statue of student hero opposite the university’s Sumangala building," IUSF Convener Sanjeewa Bandara told The Island.


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Monday, November 21, 2011

Tissainayagam denies former Attorney General's claims



By Raisa Wickrematunge | The Sunday Leader
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Senior Tamil journalist J. S Tissainayagam denied allegations that he “admitted his complicity” to an offence in order to gain a Presidential pardon.

The allegation was made on November 9, when a delegation led by Presidential Counsel and Senior Legal Adviser to the Cabinet Mohan Pieris answered questions raised by the Committee Against Torture on whether the Convention Against Torture was being properly implemented.


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Monday, November 21, 2011

The Indian Ocean, maritime security and regional undercurrents



By Lasanda Kurukulasuriya | The Sunday Times
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The past week saw a number of discussions, in different forums, that turned the spotlight on the Indian Ocean and its strategic importance for countries in the region as well as outside. Coincidentally, it appears. Here in Sri Lanka there was the 'Galle Dialogue,' a two-day international conference on maritime security organised by the Ministry of Defence and the Sri Lanka Navy.

A talk held in Colombo on Thursday at the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies as part of the India-Sri Lanka Foundation's inaugural lecture series, also dealt with related issues. On the topic of "India and Sri Lanka and the Asian resurgence," the speaker, former Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran drew attention to the shift in the centre of gravity in the global economy towards India and the Pacific.


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Friday, November 18, 2011

Sri Lanka: Ex Army chief found guilty



Sri Lanka Mirror
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Former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka was found guilty and given a three year prison sentence with hard labour after the verdict was given on the ‘White Flag’ by the Colombo High Court today (18).

the court also imposed a fine of five thousand rupees or six months in jail for default.


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Friday, November 18, 2011

Indian investment into Sri Lanka zooms



By T E Narasimhan | Business Standard
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The Sri Lankan government has set a target of $3 billion (around Rs 13,500 crore) FDI inflow into the country by 2015, of which 15-20 per cent is expected from India. The trade between the two countries is expected to touch $900 million, said Sam Wijesekara, counsellor (Commercial), Sri Lanka Deputy High Commission in Chennai.

The country has attracted FDI worth $516 million from various countries.


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Friday, November 18, 2011

Sri Lanka: Verdict due in Sarath Fonseka case



By Charles Haviland | BBC News
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The verdict is due in the third and most serious case brought by Sri Lankan authorities against former army chief Sarath Fonseka.

He is charged with "spreading disaffection" after he gave a newspaper interview apparently giving credence to allegations that the defence secretary ordered war crimes.


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Thursday, November 17, 2011

661 Days: Where is Prageeth?



Sri Lanka Guardian
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There was a media Conference called by wife of Pragith Ekneligoda, Mrs. Sandya Ekneligoda at the Centre For Society and Religion Auditorium, Colombo, today (17).

It was pointed out that during the 2nd day of the 47th Session on Sri Lanka at the CAT Committee in Geneva, Sri Lanka's ex Attorney General Mr. Mohan Peiris,made some references on the issue of the forced disappearance of Pragith Ekneligoda, claiming that according to reliable information that he could vouch for, Mr. Ekneligoda has taken refuge in a foreign country and that the campaign against his disappearance is a hoax.


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Thursday, November 17, 2011

Murdered Sri Lanka politician's family hail MP's arrest



BBC News
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The daughter of a Sri Lankan politician shot dead last month has welcomed a court move to arrest an MP in connection with his killing.

Speaking to the BBC from an undisclosed location outside Sri Lanka, Hirunika Premachandra said that the news had restored her faith in the judiciary.

Her father Bharatha Lakshman was allegedly killed by MP Duminda Silva.


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