Author: Mel Gunasekera
Maldives offers to take two Guantanamo Bay prisoners
May 16, 2010 (AFP) – The Maldives has offered to take two detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, in what it described as a humanitarian gesture, the foreign minister said Sunday. US President Barack Obama, who has vowed to close the “war on terror” camp, has asked […]
Sri Lanka war wounded face long fight to recovery
RAGAMA, April 18, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s leaders have hailed the end of the island’s long civil war as the start of a new era, but for soldiers injured in battle, the future is far from rosy. In a hospital outside the capital Colombo, Manju Lakshman, 32, lies on a bed staring at the […]
Family fears for missing Sri Lankan cartoonist – Focus
March 11, 2010 (AFP) – Six weeks ago Sri Lankan political writer and cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda went missing, and his fate has raised further concerns about the island’s culture of violence against the media. Eknaligoda, who contributed to the pro-opposition Lankaenews. com website, did not return home after work on January 24, two days before […]
‘s legendary doorman turns 90
Feb 13, 2010 (AFP) – In 70 years of greeting guests to Sri Lanka’s venerable Galle Face Hotel, doorman K. Chattu Kuttan has hobnobbed with everyone from royal heads of state to Bond girls and Soviet cosmonauts. In recent years, Kuttan has embraced his role as a living Galle Face institution. His distinctive neat white […]
‘s Tamils trudge to polls in post-war vote – Scene
VAVUNIYA, January 26, 2010 (AFP) – Kandaswamy Wellarayanam, 73, walked six kilometres to vote in Sri Lanka’s election from a state camp where displaced Tamils were locked up after the country’s war last year. Now able to move freely, he said he and his wife, daughter and two grandchildren were eager to take part, even […]
‘s Tamils wary of election spotlight
JAFFNA, January 17, 2010 (AFP) – Scarred by decades of war and official indifference, Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils are now being courted as political kingmakers — a shift that many of them view with bitter scepticism. With a presidential election just two weeks away, the two main candidates have been desperately wooing Tamil voters, offering […]
Sri Lanka back on investment radar
December 6, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka is back on the global investment radar after government forces in May ended a nearly four-decade separatist war with Tamil guerrillas, fund managers and analysts say. Sri Lanka’s small stock exchange has become one of the world’s top performing bourses, climbing over 96 percent this year as it […]
‘s African families fade away
SIRAMBIADIYA, November 15, 2009 (AFP) – In a village deep in west Sri Lanka, one of the island’s few remaining communities of African descent breaks into song — a poignant elegy to a disappearing culture. The music starts with a slow, gentle rhythm played on a tambourine, spoons and coconut shells, before it builds to […]
Seven dead, scores hurt in Sri Lanka train bombing: military
May 26, 2008 (AFP) – At least seven people were killed and scores more wounded Monday in the bombing of a packed commuter train in the suburbs of the Sri Lankan capital by suspected Tamil rebels, officials said.The island’s military spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, said seven people, including a pregnant woman, were killed and another […]
Nine dead, scores wounded in Sri Lanka suicide blast
May 16, 2008 (AFP) – At least nine people were killed and 95 others wounded Friday in a Tamil Tiger suicide bombing near the official residence of Sri Lanka’s president in the capital Colombo, officials said. Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said seven police officers and two other people — plus the attacker — died […]
Sri Lankans pray for miracles as civilians pay high price
KAHAPOLA, Sri Lanka, April 27, 2008 (AFP) – With both hands clasped, Pat Amarasinghe prays before a Buddha statue seeking divine help for the impossible — to bring back her son, Ishara, who died in a bus blast in Sri Lanka. Ishara and his fiancee, Geethika, both 24, were among 26 people killed when suspected […]
Sci-fi visionary Arthur C. Clarke buried in Sri Lanka
March 22, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Saturday buried visionary British sci-fi writer Arthur C.Clarke amid tears and tributes from family and fans as the government ordered a minute’s silence across the island.The 90-year-old author, who died at the age of 90 on Wednesday following a brief illness, was buried in a plot owned […]