There is no way Sri Lanka's government will be able to crush its Tamil Tiger foes, and giving wide political autonomy to Tamils is the only answer, a leading European counter-terrorism expert says.

 

With near daily land and sea clashes, ambushes, bombings and air raids amid a new chapter in a two-decade civil war that has killed around 70,000 people, the government is now taking the war to the Tigers with offensives to drive them from territory they control.

Sri Lankan leader, Basil Rajapaksa, had asked the visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, to emulate India and stop "policing" Sri Lanka, The Nation reported on Sunday.

 

The second most important man in Sri Lanka after President Mahinda Rajapaksa, told the ranking UN official, that India was not acting as the policeman of the South Asian region, but was helping Sri Lanka solve its problems.

Almost half a million civilians are still displaced by Sri Lanka’s war between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to a report released in late September by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

Despite gross human right volations committed against the Tamil population, the ‘Pearl of the Orient’ continues to attract growing tourist numbers as Europeans flock i

In the wake of persistent allegations of high-level corruptions in military procurements, media watchdogs rang alarm bells last week over moves by the Sri Lankan government to ban reporting on defence purchases.

 

Meanwhile, the government forced three journalists, including two Britons, to leave the north of the country, denying them access to areas affected by the war.

 

The Free Media Movement (FMM), local media watchdog said last wee

A Dutch journalist, Jon Bottis, learned a lesson about Sri Lankan policing when he made a complaint about the theft of his personal belongings from his apartment in the holiday town of Hikkaduwa recently. One policeman called him outside the station and asked him whether he needed a woman to have sex with.

The former commaner has allegedly been sacked for misappropriation of funds raised by the TMVP

Karuna

A petrified woman scrambles to hide at the sight of a van, fearing the return of her husband's killers. A 20-year-old man won't leave his home, in case the militants who tried to abduct him are lying in wait. Gangs of gunmen demand exorbitant “taxes” from businessmen.