The Royal Borough of Kingston in the United Kingdom has officially twinned with Jaffna, after a signing ceremony in London on Tuesday. Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister C V Wigneswaran said the event was a "historic" occasion, as he addressed the ceremony attended by hundreds of locals. His comments were echoed by Councillor Kevin Davis, who spoke of how Kingston has twinned with other cities around the world, such as in Korea and Germany, that have also suffered the "tragic loss" of war. "One aspect is key... How can we support the reconstruction of Jaffna into a new democratic...
A Sri Lankan army major who was convicted of shooting dead a handcuffed LTTE cadre in 1998, was ordered to pay Rs 2 million in compensation to the family after a High Court ruling, the Colombo Page reported. The now retired army major, Wimal Wickramage, who shot handcuffed Robert Velinthan who was under army custody at the time, as was also given a suspended sentence of two years.
The UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues Rita Izsák-Ndiaye met with the leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), R Sampanthan on Wednesday in the parliament complex in Colombo.
The President of the European Council has backed the return of the GSP+ trade concessions for Sri Lanka, said Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Following a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Mr Wickremesinghe tweeted that Mr Tusk “greatly admired the sacrifices made by the government of Sri Lanka… to make Sri Lanka a democratic state, despite undergoing dictatorships, corruption and terror in the past”. He went on to state that Mr Tusk “would give his fullest support to help Sri Lanka revive the GSP+ relief once more”. Since Sri Lanka was stripped...
Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has praised the current Sri Lankan president for speaking out against corrupt investigations into former military personnel. “I am happy that the truth has finally dawned on the President about these things,” said Mr Rajapaksa in an interview to BBC Sinhala last week. Mr Sirisena slammed government commissions investigating former military figures on charges of corruption as political stating "military commanders who led the successful campaign to crush separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009 should not be humiliated in such a way". “Now...
The Director General of Sri Lanka’s Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption has told Sri Lanka’s president that she intends to resign reports the New Indian Express. Ms Dirukshi Wickremesinghe’s resignation comes as Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena , last week, accused the Bribery Commission of following a political agenda. The president’s criticism of the Bribery Commission came after the commission started investigating former high ranking Navy Chiefs and the former defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Sri Lankan authorities ruled that the use of ‘Sinhale’ flags was not illegal and have returned all seized items to their owners, reports The Island. The Sri Lankan police had initially seized ‘Sinhale’ flags from an event in Colombo earlier this year. After ruling that the use of these flags, which depict a lion holding a sword, was not illegal, the flags have since been returned to the Swarnahansa Foundation, which organised the event. ‘Sinhale’, which means “lions’ blood” in Sinhala, has been part of a racist campaign, which has seen the slogan appear on public buses, police motorbikes and...
Photograph: ColomboPage The head of Myanmar’s government Aung San Suu Kyi met with Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday, where she praised the “democratic transformation” on the island according to the official President’s Media Division . Ms Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prizne winning State Counsellor of Myanmar and leader of the National League for Democracy, met with the Sri Lankan president on the side lines of the BRICS Outreach Summit, currently underway in Goa, India. She also reportedly “expressed her satisfaction over the political journey of President Sirisena” and called for a strengthening of...
The mass rally in Jaffna last month that drew tens of thousands of protestors, was a move by the people of the North-East to “show their resistance” to acts such as Sinhala Buddhist colonisation to the international community, said Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian Gnanamuttu Srinesan. In an interview with Ceylon Today, Mr Srinesan said the change of government last year had led to the people of the North-East hoping the Sri Lankan state would “fulfil their demands”. “They expected the government of good governance to release the political prisoners,” he said. “The...
Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council C V Wigneswaran revealed details of plans to assassinate both him and Tamil National Alliance leader R Sampanthan, reports Ceylon Today . Justice Wigneswaran said he received an email in Sinhala and a phone call from a man in Balapitiya, who detailed an assassination plot to hire a contract killer to assassinate Mr Sampanthan for a sum of Rs 25 million. The LTTE was to be blamed for the killing. "I told him that I will look into it and send a complaint to IGP with a copy of the email and would also give the President a copy of what I send the...