newslanka.org

Sri Lanka’s president called Thursday for minority ethnic Tamils to work with the government to settle their differences but indicated there will be no self-rule, as the country celebrated its first Independence Day since the end of a 25-year civil war.

Sri Lanka’s government is violating the rights of some of the 11,000 Tamil Tiger suspects currently in its custody, a leading rights group said Tuesday.

Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of Sri Lanka’s capital Wednesday to protest the results of the recent presidential election, which they say was marred by fraud.

Sri Lanka’s opposition accused the government Monday of hounding and detaining its activists following the country’s acrimonious presidential election.

Riding high on his battlefield victory against the Tamil Tiger rebels and his landslide re-election, Sri Lanka’s president appears under little pressure to tackle the deep ethnic tensions that fueled a generation of conflict here.

Profiles of the two main candidates in Sri Lanka’s presidential election Tuesday:

Key facts about Sri Lanka, which is holding its presidential election Tuesday.

Police raided the office of Sri Lanka’s defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka and arrested 15 of its workers Friday, his lawyer said, after he disputed this week’s election result and the government alleged he was planning a coup.

An opposition official says police have raided the office of Sri Lanka’s defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka.

Sri Lanka’s defeated presidential candidate will contest a parliamentary seat during general elections later this year, an opposition activist said Friday.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa pledged Thursday to seek reconciliation with minority Tamils after his sweeping re-election, but did not indicate how he plans to deal with their demands for greater rights.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa won a resounding re-election victory Wednesday, beating back a challenge from his former army chief, who rejected the official results.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa won a resounding re-election victory Wednesday, beating back a challenge from his former army chief, who rejected the official results and said he feared arrest as troops surrounded his hotel.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa won re-election Wednesday in a hard-fought race against his former army chief for control of a nation trying to rebuild after a devastating civil war.

Early returns Wednesday showed Sri Lanka’s incumbent president ahead of his estranged former army chief in their bitter race to win the country’s first presidential election after its quarter-century war against Tamil Tiger rebels.

Sri Lanka’s incumbent president vied with his estranged former army chief Tuesday in the country’s first election since the two men led government troops to victory in the quarter-century war against Tamil Tiger rebels.

When Sri Lanka’s president decided two months ago to call this week’s snap presidential poll, his re-election appeared assured — until his former army chief joined the race.

Sri Lanka’s ruling party plans to instigate violence to keep voters from the ballot box in an attempt to secure victory during the upcoming presidential election, the main opposition candidate alleged Saturday.

Assailants attacked the house of an opposition activist in Sri Lanka’s capital amid fears that election-related violence could mar the country’s first poll since the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels after decades of war.

The vast rice fields of Kilinochchi are overgrown with shrubs. The herds of cattle and goats have disappeared. The tractors and motorcycles are gone. Buildings and homes have been bombed into heaps of concrete rubble.

The vast rice fields of Kilinochchi are overgrown with shrubs. The herds of cattle and goats have disappeared. The tractors and motorcycles are gone. Buildings and homes have been bombed into heaps of concrete rubble.

A Sri Lankan journalist sentenced to 20 years in jail for supporting terrorism will be released on bail pending appeal, his attorney said Monday.

More than 700 former Tamil Tiger rebels were reunited with family members Saturday after months in rehabilitation camps since the country’s decades-long civil war ended last year.

A video purportedly showing troops shooting blindfolded, naked Tamils in the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war has revived calls for a war crimes investigation and cast a shadow over the upcoming presidential elections.

Sri Lanka said Friday that a video purportedly showing its troops killing blindfolded, naked Tamils during the civil war was a fabrication and dismissed a U.N. investigation confirming its apparent authenticity as biased.

A U.N. human rights investigator said Thursday that a videotape of an apparent execution of blindfolded and naked Tamils by Sri Lankan soldiers probably is authentic and called for a war crimes investigation.

Just months after winning Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war, the president and the former army chief are locked in a bitter election that has forced them to woo the very Tamils they are accused of recently pounding with airstrikes and artillery fire.

Sri Lanka’s main ethnic Tamil party said Wednesday it is throwing its support in the upcoming presidential election behind a former general who led the battle against the Tamil Tiger rebels and has been labeled by some as an ethnic Sinhalese nationalist.

North Korea, banned from selling arms by U.N. sanctions, may have gambled and lost when it dispatched 35 tons of weapons by air rather than by sea as it has done in the past. Authorities seized the plane, which may have been bound for Iran, during a refueling stop in Thailand.

Inside, there are no victims, no killers, and no questions. There are only bright white lights and the click-clack of sewing machines in this new garment factory in war-torn eastern Sri Lanka.

The five young northern Virginia Muslims arrested in Pakistan for trying to join jihadist groups offer an intriguing example of role reversal.

Muslims should learn to build Bridges before they demand any more Minarets

Just a few months ago, Sri Lanka’s president and its army chief were strong allies, working closely together to defeat the Tamil Tiger rebels and end the nation’s 25-year civil war.

A U.S. envoy praised the Sri Lankan government Wednesday for making progress in resettling hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians detained since the end of the country’s civil war.

To the security services in Britain, it is not a question of “giving Pakistani youth a bad name” as Mr Gilani alleged, because the young men could equally be British, but Pakistan is not an area they can afford to ignore.

Pakistan Joins the War on Terror, Pakistanis Don’t
Pakistan Plays Friend and Foe to U.S.

Sri Lanka gave permission Tuesday to nearly 127,000 Tamil refugees to leave squalid and overrun government camps where they have been detained since the country’s civil war ended six months ago, an official said.

Sri Lankan elections officials said Friday that the nation would hold early presidential elections on Jan. 26 in what is expected to be a battle between two men revered for their efforts to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The U.N. humanitarian chief says Sri Lanka’s decision to release Tamil refugees confined to government camps is good news but the United Nations is concerned about how they are being returned home.

Sri Lanka’s president signed a decree Monday calling for early elections, hoping to take advantage of his popularity after ending the country’s 25-year civil war to win a new six-year term.

Sri Lanka will release next month the remaining 136,000 Tamil refugees still in the squalid and overrun government camps where they’ve been detained since the country’s civil war ended six months ago, a top official said Saturday.

An senior Sri Lankan official says all ethnic-minority Tamil detainees will be freed from government camps Dec. 1.

I am writing this on Veterans Day. I call upon all Americans to step back, consider the unfathomable loss at Fort Hood, the ensuing apologia, and the tragic consequences of such behavior. This is a call to action. You’re either with us or against us.

Sri Lanka’s top general, who led the battle to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels and ended the island’s 30-year civil war, resigned from his post Thursday but declined to discuss his future plans.

An official says Sri Lanka’s top general who led the battle to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels and ended the island’s civil war has resigned from his post.

A group of 11 countries vulnerable to adverse effects of global warming urged world leaders Tuesday to reach a binding agreement at the next month’s global conference on the issue.

But virtually every Muslim country or country with a sizable Muslim population has a group like the Taliban waiting in the wings, to bring “true Islamic reforms” to the corrupt political culture. It is why Al Queda has a global foothold.

America should look to Europe — if, for nothing else, a grim glimpse of where the dark road of islamisation will take us. It appears Sarkozy is taking a page from Wilders’ playbook.

France Takes in Islam, The Deportations Have Started
Islam in action

Vinojan’s boyhood ended when Sri Lanka’s civil war reignited.

More than 4,000 ethnic Tamils displaced by civil war left government-run camps Thursday, the latest to be released amid international criticism that Sri Lanka is moving too slowly to let thousands of others go.

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:

Undoubtedly, Islam and the Shari’ah have reached new heights in the United Kingdom, Muslim communities up and down the country have brought forth a culture and system that is not only superior to the British way of life but also a shining example of what true subservience to Almi …

Members of the Maldives’ Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals Saturday at an underwater meeting staged to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.

Government ministers in scuba gear prepared Friday to hold an underwater meeting of the Maldives’ Cabinet to highlight the threat global warming poses to the lowest-lying nation on earth.

Maldives government ministers are taking scuba lessons and learning underwater signs in preparation for an unprecedented Cabinet meeting at the bottom of the ocean intended to highlight the threat global warming poses to the low-lying nation.

Sri Lankan soldiers fired on a group of war refugees trying to flee a camp in the north of the island, wounding two, the military said Sunday.

Honor killings on the rise in the West. The media gags itself and throws women under the bus.
Another young woman tortured and murdered to add to the gruesome gallery…..

Sri Lanka’s president promised Friday to send nearly 300,000 Tamil war refugees who are being held in military-run camps back to their homes in the next four months, the government said.

Hundreds of Tamil war refugees the Sri Lankan government said it had released from military-run camps last week were simply moved to other detention centers, a lawmaker said Thursday.

A U.N. rights expert called Thursday for an “independent and impartial investigation” into a video that purports to show Sri Lankan troops killing naked, blindfolded men during the recently ended civil war.