by Prof Michael Roberts Many Sri Lankan fans expected the cricket team to win the World Cup and even stocked up with firecrackers to mark the celebratory moment. The disappointment has been commensurate with this high expectation. It has generated...

The UK vs. Wijesinha By Vimukthi Yapa The British High Commission in Colombo last week told The Sunday Leader they had no idea what ‘note’ UPFA MP Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha was talking about when he told the BBC Sinhala Sandeshaya Service that the former defence attaché at the BHC had handed him a typed note ...

The BBC Sinhala Service, in asking for comments on the 2010 US Report on Human Rights in Sri  Lanka, gave me little notice, and suggested I could just glance through the synopsis with which the report began. As it happened, I was able to look through some of the rest, which was good, because I ...

by Amarnath Amarasingam The recent revelation that members of the federal and provincial Conservative Party have been getting into bed with former members of the World Tamil Movement (WTM), banned as a terrorist organization in Canada since 2008, was not...

by Anthony Reinhart Tories trying to win support from South Asians in Ontario have opened the door to remnants of a Tamil Tiger front group the federal Conservatives themselves banned in 2008. The unlikely association, forged behind a curtain of...

by IRIN News COLOMBO, 12 January 2011 (IRIN) - Ongoing storms have dumped more rain in one eastern district of Sri Lanka than witnessed in a century, according to the country's Disaster Management Centre (DMC). Nationwide, storms have hit some...

By Indi Samarajiva Mark Zuckerberg was recently named TIME magazine’s person of the year. This comes as no surprise to the over 500 million people who know him impersonally as the founding head of their online social network, Facebook. It does, however, disappoint supporters of WikiLeak’s Julian Assange, another strong contender. They both have something ...

A decade ago, having recently begun Buddhist meditation practice, I attended a lecture/Q&A with a Tibetan master at a Buddhist center in Hollywood. The warm vibes and the stunning icons and paintings suggested a sacred, healing space. The speaker -- I knew so little at the time, I thought his name was "Sri" -- seemed the embodiment of enlightenment. He described how we can foster spiritua...

By Indi Samarajiva Behind every conspiracy, there’s a Private First Class, getting the coffee. There have always been leaks. WikiLeaks is just a digital bucket. The Leaks Bradley Manning had been busted down to Private First Class for assaulting an officer. It was the latest in a series of troubles for the 22 year old ...

by Tisaranee Gunasekara Basil Rajapaksa is unabashed in claiming that in Sri Lanka an era of ‘ruler kings’ has begun. Western ideas of transparency, he claims, along with limits of presidential power and accountability, are not relevant to ‘Asian Culture’.”...

(Lanka-e-News, 09.Nov.2010, 10.40PM) A senior DIG who wished to remain anonymous speaking to Lanka e news said , the IGP should shoulder the full blame for the stupid and blind raid conducted by the...

By Gazala Anver Construction on the illegal bungalow built by the Air Force Commander, Roshan Goonetilleke in Sudugalla, Knuckles, an environmentally protected area, is still continuing, alleges Programmes Manager, Sri Lanka Nature Forum, Sajeewa Chamikara. According to Chamikara, construction has been going on for over a month now. “Minister Faiser Mustapha went to see the ...

THAT the second testing of his urine sample might clear Manju Wanniarachchi of any wrongdoing and so restore his Commonwealth Games gold medal is pretty much a hope that rides on the wings of a prayer. The truth though is, hardly ever does the result of a second examination (for banned substance in the system ...

We are a group of concerned citizens including university academics who are writing this letter to express our concern over the incident reported in The Sunday Leader of September 19 and 26, 2010. According to these reports the Vice Chancellor of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura sent six female students in a university vehicle to ...

NOT that our little world of sport was at peace with itself last week and so free of issues that might warrant critical scrutiny. If there was such bliss for seven straight days, then, it must’ve been in some other land; over here (where, as the popular joke says, God deems it unnecessary to station ...

By Tisaranee Gunasekara “Today there was total confusion in Sri Rajapaksistan (formerly Sri Lanka) when thousands and thousands of people changed their name to “Rajapaksa” to get into Parliament or even get a job… Hospital authorities report that all new...

By Anushka Gunawardena President Mahinda Rajapaksa at a meeting with editors and publishers last Monday, September 7th at Temple Trees, produced a copy of an affidavit claiming to be from the Samurdhi officer where he had said he had willingly asked to be tied to a tree, based on Silva having threatened to do so if ...

YOU’D expect players to be climbing over each others’ shoulders to get a slice of the action at a National Championship, especially one with a rich history, like that of tennis. There was no desperate scramble, though, to get on court for the ongoing 95th Tennis Nationals, an annual tournament so immersed in tradition that ...

By a special correspondent Exclusive to BBC Sinhala service The alert and watchful eyes of weary soldiers scanned every vehicle passing through the checkpoints. Broken, torn buildings tower over the tiny UNHCR tents on the gardens and court yards. Hanging...

By Hilal Suhaib (islandcricket.lk/blogs/hilal) Last week I was forwarded several emails from an anonymous source. These emails included an email from a Roy Bishop of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka which was sent to various news agencies, journalist, ICC officials, officials of other Test playing countries

A group of 76 undocumented immigrants from Central America and Sri Lanka were rescued with signs of dehydration from inside a semi-trailer left abandoned in the southeastern state of Chiapas in Mexico, an official source said. The semitrailer was found at Kilometer 21 (Mile 13) on the Villaflores-Ocozocoautla highway, the Chiapas delegation of the federal Attorney General’s Office said. An...

by Melani Manel Perera On 17 July, masked men wielding weapons destroyed the homes of residents in Panama and Ragamvila, two coastal villages in northeastern Sri Lanka. Police and troops who now occupy the area have prevented residents from coming...

Foreign news reports quoting an official source have stated that a group of 76 undocumented immigrants from Central America and Sri Lanka were rescued with signs of dehydration from inside a semi-trailer left abandoned in the southeastern state of Chiapas in Mexico. The Latin America Herald Tribune has quoted the Chiapas delegation of the federal ...

by Frederica Jansz Since the bloody 30 year war ended in a shoot-out in a remote mangrove in the North, in Colombo we have all been enjoying a semblance of peace. Of course there are yet no strong institutions which would boost Sri Lanka’s democracy. Good discipline is sadly lacking at all levels for peace ...

HARDtalk - Sri Lanka Part 1 - The Tamils and the North: Hardtalk on the road in Sri Lanka: In May 2009, after almost 30 years of civil war, Sri Lanka's government announced its defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers...

The Disaster Management and Human Rights Ministry states that the US State Department’s 2009 Country Report on Human Rights Practices pertaining to Sri Lanka was a conflation of historical background, repetition of statements in earlier reports, unverified assertions and falls short of the high standards that the State Department professes to uphold. Issuing a release in response to the Marc...