“The United Nations system failed to meet its responsibilities,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said as he released a United Nations report looking into the world body’s actions during the final months of the 2009 war in Sri Lanka and its aftermath. In addition to finding that the UN system failed to meet its responsibilities, the [...]
British Prime Minister David Cameron is being urged by MPs to consider boycotting next year’s Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka in protest at its human rights record. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said it was wrong for Colombo to host the heads of government meeting amid reports of continuing “serious abuses”. The PM should [...]
The long delayed report on the UN’s actions and inactions in Sri Lanka in 2009 was given to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by Charles Petrie today, Innercity press reported. Attending with Ban were his chief of staff Susana Malcorra, the chief of Ban’s political unit and another staffer.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, today expressed serious concerns about reported intimidation and attacks against judges and judicial officers, and warned that they might form part of a pattern of attacks, threats, reprisals and interference in the independence of the justice system in Sri Lanka. [...]
Four Pakistanis have been charged with kidnapping and beating up two Tamils after being stopped on the motorway heading south from Paris at the weekend. The four were charged and denied bail on Tuesday night in the Paris suburb of Bobigny. They and their alleged victims were picked up by police on the A6 [...]
The Sri Lankan government has denied allegations that it intimidated UN staff at the end of the civil war. The claims were made in a UN report leaked to the BBC, in which the UN accused itself of failing the civilian Tamil population in the final stages of the conflict in 2009. The Sri [...]
Over 1000 children were hospitalized in Gampola today after suffering from an allergic reaction, Director of the Gampola hospital said. Gampola Hospital Director Sarath Weerabandara said that the children were from the Jinaraja Balika (girl’s) school. Weerabandara said that the allergy was still not identified. Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake said that the [...]
Parliament Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa today appointed a 11 member Parliament Select Committee (PSC) to to look at the impeachment motion on Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. The committee will be headed by Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa and includes members from the government and the opposition.
Rupavahini Chairman Mohan Samaranayake and former Director of the Sri Lanka Press Institute Anuradha Herath, will assume duties in the Presidential media unit tomorrow. Samaranayake will take over as the spokesman of President Mahinda Rajapaksa while Herath has been appointed as the Director for Foreign media in the President’s office. President’s spokesman Bandula Jayasekera is expected to [...]
Two Sri Lankan men were charged Tuesday with the murder of a former commander of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers rebel group in Paris, a French judicial source said. Nadarajah Mathinthiran was gunned down Thursday night as he was leaving the headquarters of the Tamil Coordination Committee in France (CCTF), an organisation regarded as a [...]
