Nov 13 (Island) Sri Lanka’s Deputy Permanent Representative in New York, Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva, said that the UK media outfit, Channel 4 News, could have visited the country two years ago as an invitation was extended to it in late July 2011. The invitation was given in accordance with the govt policy that the international media including those who had been extremely critical of the govt as well as the armed forces should more..

Nov 13 (FT) The Northern Provincial Council passed an adjournment motion yesterday, calling for the removal of the Province’s military Governor, retired Major General G.A Chandrasiri. The motion passed unanimously in the Council with none from the opposition parties opposing when the NPC convened for the third time yesterday. The motion was moved by TNA Council Member Kesavan Sayanthan and seconded by TNA Councillor Arumugam Ravikaran. The adjournment motion calls for more..

Nov 13 (Island) Taj Samudra is in a dilemma over Indian Premier Dr. Manmohan Singh’s decision not to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) owing to TN protests. Having initially booked 150 rooms initially, India suddenly said it needed only 12. The Island learns that the Sri Lankan govt decided to accommodate some of its guests at the Taj after the management’s predicament was brought to its notice. The hotel was refurbished recently ahead of CHOGM.

Nov 13 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday urged PM Manmohan Singh to act immediately on the unanimous resolution passed by the state assembly urging India to totally boycott the Commonwealth meet to be held in Colombo. Forwarding the resolution adopted by the assembly this evening, she said there was groundswell of public and political opinion against the central govt's decision to send more..

Nov 13 (Hindu) The Congress and the CPI(M) on Tuesday abstained from the voting on the govt resolution in the State Assembly against India’s participation in the CHOGM in Sri Lanka. Members of these two parties left the House after their leaders expressed their stand on the issue. Puthiya Tamizhagam leader K. Krishnasamy who tried to stage a sit-in protest in the House was evicted before voting. While the Congress member N.R. Rangarajan justified India’s decision to send more..

Nov 13 (Hindu) PM Manmohan Singh, in his letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, gave no reason for his absence at the Commonwealth Summit, according to Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris. However, in an apparent underplay of Dr. Singh’s non-attendance, he added: “None of us give reasons.” Sri Lanka, Prof. Peiris said, got invited for several multilateral events. “We go to some, we don’t go to some. It is not incumbent on a govt to give reasons [for absence],” he said. more..

Nov 13 (AFP) Ethnic Tamils staged a rare protest in northern Sri Lanka on Tuesday against the military's refusal to hand back land after the war, as Colombo prepared to host this week's Commonwealth summit. Several hundred Tamils demonstrated in the former northern war zone of Jaffna, even though organisers received telephone death threats beforehand against the move, a local Tamil politician said. more..

Nov 13 (DM) Indian PM Dr. Manmohan Singh’s decision to skip the 23rd CHOGM to be held from Friday to Sunday in Sri Lanka - if made as a result of Tamil Nadu pressure - is a clear manifestation of the fact that politicians are nothing but politicians, irrespective of the country they hail from. In spite of the insistence of the officials of his own office (PMO) and the Ministry of External Affairs that the national interest is far more important than the ruling party’s electoral interests, Dr Singh, more..

Nov 13 (DM) That canard has been planted again apparently with Indian and possibly Western connivance. But this time the story filed by Madhav Nalapat for India’s weekly Sunday Guardian of October 6, 2013 has a Colombo dateline. According to Nalapat, Sri Lanka is fast becoming the new launching pad for Pakistan’s alleged terrorist outfit the Lashker-e-Taiba or the LeT. Venkat Narayan, a well known New Delhi journalist filed the story in a Colombo daily of October 7. more..

Nov 13 (Reuters) Allegations that ethnic minority Tamils in Sri Lanka are being subjected to abuses four years after the army won a civil war against separatist rebels have put pressure on the govt as it prepares to host a Commonwealth summit. Canadian PM Stephen Harper said weeks ago he was skipping the meeting because of concern about a deterioration in human rights and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, more..

Nov 13 (SL) Equal access to quality education is a human right and a main element of a democratic state. C.W.W Kannangara paved the way to establish that democracy by introducing free education and giving everyone access to education especially through the Central Education scheme which helped building a proper mechanism for education in rural areas. As a result of free education, people from rural areas more..

Nov 13 (DM) Development of the Colombo City was a result of team work by the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development and the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) with the assistance of the World Bank, Colombo Mayor A.J.M. Muzammil, said in response to a question raised by the Daily Mirror in an interview. The Mayor added that he and the CMC were also a party of the CHOGM. Following are the excerpts more..

Nov 13 (DM) UNP National Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said today he would handover more powers to the newly-appointed leadership council in the future. He gave this assurance when he met some members of the National Youth Front at the party headquarters Sirikotha and said he had already divested himself of 19 powers and passed them over to the leadership council and would hand over more powers to it soon. more..

Nov 13 (ST) Tintagel Castle, off the coast of Cornwall in southeast England, was the home of King Arthur, so legend says. Tintagel is also the name of the grand house the eminent doctor and gynaecologist Lucian de Zilwa built for himself in Colombo. The family moved into the house in 1930 and lived there till 1942, when the house was requisitioned for military purposes. When the war was over, Dr. de Zilwa was left with a home more..

Nov 13 (Island) The Eighth Regional Environmentally Sustainable Transport Forum and the Better Air Quality (BAQ) will be held in Colombo next year. Nearly 1,000 experts, from some 50 countries, will speak on Climate Change, Transportation issues and air pollution related issues, says BAQ Sri Lanka President and Naturalist Ruwan Weerasooriya. The BAQ workshops have been held since 2001 and more..

Nov 13 (CG) An investigation is underway over a possible security breach after a Channel 4 media team had managed to get close to President Mahinda Rajapaksa when he was coming out of the Cinnamon Grand Hotel yesterday after the Commonwealth Business Forum. The Channel 4 team had approached the President and asked him to comment on the allegations that war crimes were committed in Sri Lanka. more..

Nov 13 (CT) Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, denied claims made by the Opposition, who had said that closing down the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery had caused a huge loss, adding that only 30% of the requirements of petrol and diesel were produced by the refinery. As such, closing down the refinery did not result in a big loss to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC). He added that production at the Sapugaskanda more..

Nov 13 (Island) By hosting the CHOGM in Colombo, President Rajapaksa had overtaken the then President J.R. Jayewardene, according to a statement issued by UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake. He said that the late President had turned down an offer to hold CHOGM in 1983 in Colombo saying that he could not justify the massive expenditure to host the meeting in Colombo. Full statement: more..

Nov 13 (LBO) Changing demographics in India and China could make Sri Lanka 'a leading tourist mecca' for the rising middle class in Asia, head of Crown Australia, James Packer said. Rising income in Asia was creating a greater demand for leisure and luxury goods, Packer told a Commonwealth Business Forum in Colombo. In 2000, 4 million Indians had travelled abroad. The UN World Tourism Organization had estimated more..

Nov 13 (CT) The challenges before the Heads of Govts of Commonwealth nations who are meeting in Colombo for the biennial summit, the CHOGM, are enormous, and yet could be more matter-of-fact than most pundits and academics would articulate. The forum that has transformed the City of Colombo into one giant carnival, has already suffered two body blows in the decisions made by the heads of two leading democracies, Canada and India, but the heads of other leading democracies, more..

Nov 13 (CT) When I wrote my novel The Devil Dancers, I could not have predicted that the cycle of events in 1950s Ceylon which provided the historical background for my book would re-surface in contemporary Sri Lanka. An important influence on Sri Lankan politics since Independence – which has neither been fully appreciated nor understood by the West – is that of the Buddhist clergy or sangha. This is partly due to Western misconceptions regarding Buddhism. more..

Nov 13 (CT) “Moreau reviewed the fairly positive experience two years ago when 200,000 people were displaced and then returned to the east. She said that the GSL had done a pretty good job in cleaning up the areas of conflict (including de-mining), putting local administration in place and getting some infrastructure and other recovery projects off the ground. This gave the GSL a good model to use, though Moreau expected that more..

Nov 13 (Island) Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena lamented the deteriorating standards of hospital administration. He said that about 25 years ago the administration of hospitals had reached a high degree of excellence but today it left much to be desired. All successive govts, all hospital administrators, all trade unions during the past 25 years should be held responsible for the serious deterioration of hospital management standards, the Health Minister said more..

Nov 13 (ANI) After series of negotiations and weeks of speculation, a decision has finally been taken on whether or not India should take part in the CHOGM in Sri Lanka this week. PM Manmohan Singh will not be attending CHOGM in Sri Lanka from Nov 15 to 17. Instead, the Indian delegation will be led by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. The pressure on Dr. Singh from various Tamil organizations and regional parties like the DMK and AIADMK to skip CHOGM was tremendous, more..

Nov 13 (ANI) Reacting to the Tamil Nadu State Assembly's resolution calling on ndia to completely boycott the CHOGM in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Minister Salman Khurshid on Wednesday said people looking forward to a desirable outcome with Sri Lanka on the fishermen issue, are now demanding that New Delhi skip the summit. "I haven't seen anything about the assembly resolution. I have heard about it. more..

Nov 13 (LR) On the margins of the Commonwealth meeting, Parliamentary Secretary Deepak Obhrai will visit Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka today where he will meet with Chief Minister Canagasabapathy Visuvalingam Wigneswaran to demonstrate Canada’s support for peaceful political development in Sri Lanka. Mr. Obhrai will also take this opportunity to visit a community displaced during the nearly 30 years of fighting and the site of the battle that ended the conflict in May 2009. more..

Nov 13 (Island) The National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) yesterday said an awareness programme would be held for school counselors, in the Anuradhapura Education zone today, on prevention of child abuse. Planning and Information Officer NCPA Champika Chandrasekara said that the programme would be conducted for 150 school counselors. She said that this was a part of the NCPA’s programme to set up School Child Protection Committees. more..

Nov 13 (Reuters) Sri Lanka will sign $2 billion worth foreign direct investment (FDI) deals, including the $1.3 billion investment from China Communications Construction Co Ltd to build a port city, the island nation's investment minister said on Wednesday. Along with the port city, Sri Lanka will sign two mixed-development projects totalling $700 million on Thursday, Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardhena told reporters in Colombo. more..

Nov 13 (FP) The Congress’s decision not to send PM Manmohan Singh to the CHOGM in Colombo was certainly made with the 2014 parliamentary elections in mind, but Tuesday’s resolution by the TN state assembly has negated any possible gains for the party. The state Congress unit was exposed further in the process when it refused to support the resolution, which called for a complete boycott of the summit. To avoid collateral damage, its ally DMK not only supported the resolution but more..

Nov 13 (Island) The Peliyagoda police, acting on a tip off, yesterday arrested five suspects with 15 forged notes of the Rs.1000 denomination, two high-tech printers and printing material. SSP Ajith Rohana said the police had arrested four suspects while they were in a restaurant at the Thorana junction, They had in their possession ten counterfeit notes of the Rs. 1,000 denomination. The police found another five forged notes from a house in Wellampitiya and a laser printer. more..

Nov 13 (AI) Commonwealth leaders must use their summit in Colombo this week to pressure the Sri Lankan authorities to end their alarming crackdown on civil society, Amnesty International said. Sri Lankan military this morning blocked scores of family members of disappeared people from attending a human rights vigil in Colombo, the latest move to stifle freedom of expression and assembly ahead of the CHOGM on 15-17 November. more..

Nov 13 (Island) Hambantota District UNP MP Sajith Premadasa Monday accused the government of purposely working to shut down the country’s only refinery, at Sapugaskanda, to encourage the import of refined fuel with an eye on commissions. MP Premadasa said that if the existing refinery was outdated, the government should set up a new refinery with the support of a Commonwealth country, but it was instead encouraging refined oil imports to get underhand commissions. more..

Nov 13 (TS) A Toronto man who was detained and tortured in Sri Lankan jails for three years is taking his case to the UN, accusing Sri Lankan authorities of violating international human rights laws. Roy Samathanam, 44, who has been a Canadian citizen since 1996, was arrested by the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) in 2007 while visiting his homeland. He says he was handcuffed and blindfolded after failing to provide a bribe demanded by officers, while his pregnant wife and more..

Nov 13 (C4) Hundreds of protesters have blocked a train taking a Channel 4 News television crew, in Sri Lanka to cover the CHOGM, from travelling to the north of the island. A team of six journalists left their Colombo hotel to catch an early-morning train to the city of Kilinochchi, in the heart of the former conflict zone. The team had been tailed by Sri Lankan state intelligence agents on to the train. Five hours north of Colombo, more..

Nov 13 (LBO) Stocks closed flat despite net foreign selling. All Share Price Index closed 3.20 points higher at 5,816.04, up 0.06%. The S&P SL20 closed 12.38 points lower at 3,178.28, down 0.39%. Turnover was 710.41 million rupees, up from 579.86 million rupees a day earlier, with stocks of 81 firms closing in the red against 86 gainers. Foreigners brought 206 million rupees worth shares while selling 272 million rupees of shares. Commercial Leasing and Finance closed 30 cents higher more..

Nov 13 (CG) Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa says Tamils in the North enjoy full freedom following the end of the war. Speaking to reporters at the BMICH today, the Minister said that the Tamils in the North enjoy freedom more than the Tamils in Tamil Nadu. He also said that the government has not obstructed people protesting over their land in Vallikamam. Owners of land in Vallikamam North are currently on a hunger strike over the military taking over their land. more..

Nov 13 (DM) The UNP said the General Secretary of the Commonwealth Kamalesh Sharma should put pressure on President Rajapaksa to implement the Commonwealth Charter once the President assumes the Chair of the Commonwealth Union. “It is the duty of Mr. Sharma as the General Secretary of the Commonwealth to ensure that the new chairman implemented the Charter in his own country first. more..

Nov 13 (AP) The palm-flecked island nation of Sri Lanka plays host this week to leaders from dozens of Commonwealth nations at a summit it hopes will generate enough good will and photo opportunities to eclipse three decades of grim history — massive civilian deaths, persistent media harassment and gangster-style politics. Instead, as Friday’s opening approaches, global focus remains trained on the country’s 27-year civil war and alleged atrocities committed by both rebels and soldiers more..

Nov 13 (HRW) When Sri Lankan authorities detained Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon for publicly criticising their human rights record, it reinforced why Sri Lanka is a poor choice of host for the CHOGM. The gathering of heads of state from 53 nations, which begins on Friday, aims to promote 'common values' including equitable growth, democracy, accountability, rule of law, and human rights. The principles of human rights are enshrined in the Commonwealth's Harare Declaration more..

Nov 13 (ENS) Days after its inauguration, officials today demolished the compound wall and removed a park at the Mullivaaikal Memorial, built in honour of Tamil martyrs in the war in Sri Lanka, alleging that these were constructed on encroached highway land, triggering instant protests by pro-Eelam activists. Police said World Tamils' Federation President P.Nedumaran, who played a key role in setting up the memorial at more..