• As long as you don't campaign against us' - UPFA bids farewell to SLMC

    Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the island’s main Muslim party said it will be contesting independently at the eastern provincial councils.

    The announcement comes as a U-turn, only a few days after the SLMC had declared it would be running under the UPFA banner - the ruling coalition.

  • SL central bank invests in Greek bonds, despite losses

    Sri Lanka's Central Bank has invested reserve money into Greek bonds this year, despite a US$ 6.6 million loss made on Greek bonds last year.

    According to the Central Bank, the loss is offset by higher returns from other investments.

  • Diaspora groups seek to work with Australia on asylum seekers deaths

    Tamil diaspora organisations from Australia, the US and Europe, have submitted a proposal to the Australian government's expert panel on asylum seekers, to work collaboratively to tackle the abuse and exploitation of Tamil asylum seekers.

  • UPFA politicians involved in child rape

    Amid rising incidents of child rape, the BBC reports 'several cases' involve politicians from Sri Lanka's ruling UPFA coalition.

    In one case, a 13-year-old victim has identified on local government politician as one of four men who gang-raped her last month.

  • Sri Lanka envoy must be recalled' - Canberra Times

    Extracts from opinion, by Bruce Haigh writing for the Canberra Times, on the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia and New Zealand and the dropping of a case against him:

  • Indian proscriptions and Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis: a policy of failure

    The intemperate attacks against the Tamil Diaspora that accompanied India’s predictable decision to re-proscribe the LTTE earlier this month reflects more than anything the dismal failure of India’s attempts to shape a political solution to the island’s ongoing and escalating ethnic conflict.

    Indian approaches to the Tamil crisis in Sri Lanka have long been driven by the belief that the LTTE and particularly its senior leadership remained the singular obstacles to an equitable political solution to the conflict. To this end the Indian political and military establishment provided unqualified support for Sri Lanka’s military efforts to crush the Tamil struggle.

    However, three years after the end of the war and the military destruction of the LTTE, amidst Sri Lanka’s horrifying slaughter of Tamil civilians, the prospects of a political solution to the ongoing ethnic conflict are by all accounts remote.

  • Australian senator calls for SL envoy expulsion

    Australian senator of the Greens party, Lee Rhiannon, called for the expulsion of Sri Lanka's High Commissioner Thisara Samarasinghe.

    Accusing him of boasting about how Sri Lanka caught Tamil asylum seekers trying to flee the civil war, Rhiannon stated he was a war criminal.

  • Tamil organisers of protests attacked

    The homes of Tamil political figures who organised recent and upcoming protests were attacked with crude oil on Tuesday, reports TamilNet.

  • Sri Lankan defence personnel forced to cut short training in Tamil Nadu

    Two senior defence officials were forced to cut short their training programme in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu after strong protests by political parties in the state.

    Air Vice Marshal Jegath Julanga Diaz of the Sri Lankan Air Force and Rear Admiral S Ranasinghe of the Navy left to an undisclosed location during the early hours of Tuesday.

  • Manufacturing 'integration'

    The week of July 16th to the 22nd has been declared as ‘Social Integration Week’ in Sri Lanka. It was launched ceremonially by President Mahinda Rajapakse at Temple Trees on Monday.

  • Tamils risk death to seek asylum by boat - Australian NGO

    An Australian NGO working with Tamil asylum seekers and detainees in Australia, the Australian Refugee Action Coalition, said they expected more Tamil asylum seekers to risk their lives, as the situation in Sri Lanka deteriorated.

  • 2 SL military officers face protests in Tamil Nadu

    Tamils protested against the presence of two Sri Lankan military officials at Gateway Hotel, at the Coonoor hill station in Tamil Nadu on Sunday, reports NDTV.

  • Asylum seekers recount their ordeal

    Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, young Tamil asylum seekers who made the perilious journey to Christmas Island, recounted their ordeal.

    A 17-year-old school boy said he left fearing arrest by the Sri Lankan Navy or police if he was found.

  • Jayalalitha slams Delhi over SL training as Karunanidhi changes stance again

    Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha has criticised the Indian government for allowing two Sri Lankan officers to receive training in the southern state’s Nilgiris district, while Karunanidhi has dropped the demand for an independent Tamil Eelam from a conference, after pressure from the home minister.

    In a strongly worded letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Jayalalitha said the people of Tamil Nadu “are frustrated and outraged” by the “callous and adamant attitude” of India in giving training to Sri lankan armed forces personnel.

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