Sri Lanka News

AN Australian customs ship holding 78 asylum seekers off Indonesia should be sent to Sri Lanka, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says.

A man who jumped into the Indian ocean to escape arrest drowned after being badly beaten by Sri Lankan police in the water in front of a large crowd and television cameras, police said Saturday.

AN international syndicate, believed to be headed by expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils, are targeting their countrymen in Malaysia to make a fast buck.

About 90,000 Sri Lankans displaced by the conflict in Sri Lanka have returned to their homes in the past three months, and the pace of returns has begun to accelerate, the United Nations refugee agency reported.

The leader of a boat of Sri Lankan asylum seekers held in Indonesia is a known people smuggler previously deported from Canada, the government said Friday, a charge he has strongly denied.

Sat, Nov 7, 2009, 12:02 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 07, Colombo: The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR said some 90,000 of Sri Lanka's Internally Displaced Persons have returned to their homes in the past three months under the Sri Lankan government's resettlement program.

INDONESIA extended by a week from today a deadline for an Australian customs ship loaded with 78 protesting Sri Lankan asylum seekers to leave its territory.

Colombo, Nov 5 : The Sri Lankan government has stepped up clearing mines in former rebel-controlled areas aimed at resettling 159,000 war refugees before the end of January, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said Thursday.

The spokesman for the 255 Sri Lankan asylum seekers staying on an Australian boat in Indonesia is a 27-year-old people smuggler known as 'Alex' alias Kulaendrarajah Sanjeev once belonged to 'Kannan Gang' involved in street fights and was deported from Canada in 2003, after being arrested for trouble making.

"International law is not as half as dumb as many people think. Any civilian facility including hospitals is open to attack if terrorist use them to launch attacks. If hospitals were given unconditional immunity, they will become the favourite hang outs for terrorists and the end of western civilization will start from hospitals! Article 31(1) ..."

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia: Larita Delacruz sits on the concrete base of a bridge pylon, rubs her swollen belly and explains her predicament: she is five months pregnant with twins, and wants to go home to give birth.

CHRISTMAS ISLAND, Australia - Deep in the jungle on this small island lost in the Indian Ocean, Australia's new $370 million refugee detention center reaches its full power after its lights come on at dusk.

SRI Lanka's president has announced an immediate salary increase for all members of the country's armed forces amid plans to boost the strength of the security services.

COLOMBO: A top Sri Lankan official today said the rebel LTTE may have had links with the Maoists in India, days after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said that the left wing extremists were acquiring arms from abroad.

Nearly 2000 fishermen in Puthukkoaddai in Tamil Nadu are boycotting fishing demanding the immediate release of their fellow fishermen, sources in Tamil Nadu said.

Hurricane Katrina victims are still living in temporary shelters. Further most of these countries did not have a problem of land mines or security problems about their IDPs. Tiny Sri Lanka had set a world record by resettling a larger number of IDPs within few months

RIYADH: Two Sri Lankans, one of them a woman, and an Indian were beheaded by the sword in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Wednesday for theft and murder, the Saudi interior ministry said.

Wed, Nov 4, 2009, 07:48 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Nov 04, Colombo: Sri Lanka government today said that the Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka has left the United States this morning to return to Colombo.

Adjusting to new lives...Sri Lankan Tamil refugees speak to Reverend John Jegasothy of the Dulwich Hill Uniting Church Photo: Quentin Jones THE Federal Government has refused to take the 78 asylum seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking to Christmas Island, saying the deal between Jakarta and Australia to disembark the Sri Lankans in Indonesia needed to ...

Sat, Oct 31, 2009, 08:09 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Oct 31, Colombo: The wife of Late Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, Dr Sudharshini Fernandopulle will enter politics to contest at the upcoming General Election next year.