Category: Politics

UNITED NATIONS, January 7, 2010 (AFP) – A UN envoy concluded Thursday that video footage allegedly showing Sri Lankan troops executing Tamil Tiger rebels last year was authentic and urged Colombo to accept an impartial probe. The video, aired on Britain’s Channel 4 in August, “is authentic,” Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, […]

January 8, 2010 (AFP) – International media rights groups criticised Sri Lanka on Friday for failing to identify the assassins of a top anti-establishment editor who was killed exactly a year ago. The Paris-based RSF (Reporters Without Borders) said the authorities had failed to make any headway in solving the killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge, the […]

January 7, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s former army chief on Thursday launched his manifesto for the January 26 presidential elections, promising greater press freedom and a battle against rampant corruption. Sarath Fonseka, 59, the main opposition challenger to President Mahinda Rajapakse, said he would scrap the press council which is empowered to shut down […]

January 6, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s former army chief received a boost to his presidential ambitions Wednesday when minority Tamil parties said they would back him against incumbent Mahinda Rajapakse in polls later this month. Fonseka and Rajapakse have been at loggerheads since the end of the conflict. Fonseka quit after accusing the government […]

January 4, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s main minority Tamil party on Monday backed the main opposition presidential candidate, Sarath Fonseka, who as army chief led the offensive that crushed Tamil rebels last year, officials said. Fonseka, a former four-star general who quit in November following differences with his political boss President Mahinda Rajapakse, pledged […]

January 5, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s main opposition vowed on Tuesday to immediately end the state of emergency that has been in place on the island for 27 years if its presidential candidate wins this month’s election. The opposition’s candidate, Sarath Fonseka, will scrap the tough laws that have been in effect almost continuously […]

January 2, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s former military chief Sarath Fonseka took his presidential campaign Saturday to the ethnic heartland of the Tamil Tiger rebellion he helped crush last year. The retired four-star general, who is seen as the main challenger to President Mahinda Rajapakse in polls slated for January 26, visited the northern […]

December 31, 2009 (AFP) – Anti-graft campaign group Transparency International accused Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Thursday of using state property and public cash to illegally finance his re-election bid.The Sri Lanka branch of the Berlin-based watchdog said armed forces, police and public servants were being deployed to campaign for the ruling party in […]

PARIS, December 29, 2009 (AFP) – The number of journalists killed because of their work rose to 76 this year from 60 in 2008, the media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday. “The authorities in these countries have understood that by encouraging journalists to leave, they considerably reduced the pluralism of ideas and the […]

December 28, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president has given legal experts four more months to study a US State Department report cataloging alleged war crimes on the island, the presidency said in a statement Monday.President Mahinda Rajapakse extended the December 31 deadline of the panel he appointed in November to formulate a response to […]

JAKARTA, December 27, 2009 (AFP) – The body of an asylum seeker who died of a suspected stomach infection in Indonesia will be returned to Sri Lanka this week, a foreign ministry official said Sunday. The man, identified by Indonesian authorities as Jacob Samuel Christian, 29, died last Wednesday in hospital. His body will be […]