The sports minister in Sri Lanka says that exclusive broadcasting rights of 2012 Olympics obtained by state-owned Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) will not be sold to private channel as reported by media. The Sunday Leader newspaper said the Carlton Sports Network (CSN), reportedly owned by President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s family, has sought the broadcasting ...

Almost three years after the end of the civil war, Sri Lanka is still dogged by allegations of human rights violations. Amid fresh moves in the UN's Human Rights Council to hold Sri Lanka to account, the BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo reports on a rise ...

By Cheranka Mendis As you walk in to the children’s ward at the National Cancer Institute of Maharagama you cannot help but feel a lump in your throat, tears threaten to spill over and sobs have to be choked back. Turning towards you will be these little faces – eyes big as saucers, lips sometimes ...

Below are excerpts of a 38 page paper by Brian Senewiratne (MA. MD. FRCP.FRACP) of  Brisbane, Australia titled UN Human Rights Council Meeting – Another Farce. Excerpts: “This is not a document for easy reading, nor is it meant to be. It is a reasonably comprehensive record of the abysmal record of the UN and the UN ...

Former UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes has said that the United Nations did not succeed in rescuing the innocent Tamil civilians used by the LTTE as human shields. Mr. Holmes emphasized that the United Nations had no authority under whatever circumstances to forcibly interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign ...

The director of a British documentary on last stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war has accused the West and the UN of failing to take any “effective action” to prevent alleged war crimes by the country’s security forces BBC Sandeshaya reports.

In May, 2003, I travelled around Iraq reporting on its oil industry. Before reaching Baghdad, I got in touch with Marie Colvin, who was there covering the war and its aftermath for the Sunday Times, where I worked from 1986 to 1993. She wrote back to say that she was staying at a hunt club in ...

  Girls as young as seven have been sexually abused and sexual violence against women is on the increase in northern Sri Lanka, say health officials. According to a senior health official in Jaffna peninsula 32 incidents of child abuse and sexual abuse have been reported during the last two months. Dr S Sivaruban, the ...

Sri Lanka s human rights issue are causing huge divisions in the United Nations. The member st..

BBC: The International Cricket Council’s chief executives’ committee (CEC) has suggested that an associate or affiliate member such as Ireland could host a ICC World Twenty20 tournament. The CEC said non-Test-playing countries “should consider submitting a detailed proposition

The only Sri Lankan sportsperson to have qualified for London 2012 Olympics has called on the country’s authorities to plan ahead to get the best out of sportsmen and women. Niluka Karunaratne, the national badminton champion for the last ten years, told BBC Sandeshaya that otherwise Sri

The British Embassy in Colombo today monitored the return of a group of failed asylum seekers who had been deported from Britain. According to the Embassy, the British Deputy High Commission in Sri Lanka Robbie Bulloch monitored the return of 52 failed asylum seekers at the Katnayake airport. “I visited Colombo airport today to observe ...

Britain has questioned concerns raised by two charities which say that Sri Lankan Tamils deported from the UK are at danger of being tortured or raped. Another charter flight returning people to the island nation, including Tamil and Sinhala failed asylum-seekers, is due to leave on Tuesday. But Human Rights Watch and Freedom from Torture ...

Reporters Without Borders calls on all members of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council, which began its 19th session yesterday, to pass a resolution condemning the Sri Lankan government’s violations of freedom of information and to demand an end to threats and violence against news media and human rights defenders in Sri Lanka. “For ...

A teenager has admitted to killing a Sri Lankan shop worker on Merseyside, the BBC reported. Mahesh Wickramasingha, 30,  a father of two suffered fatal stab wounds while working at Stanley News in Huyton on  November 29. Sam Harrison, 19, of Salerno Drive, Huyton, appeared by video

British journalist Marie Colvin, who was contacted by the LTTE to broker a surrender during the final stages of the war, has been killed in Syria while she was covering the fighting in that country, the BBC reported a short while ago. Colvin and photographer Remi Ochlik both died in the attack

(Srilankamirror) - Mr. Rajitha Seneratne, the Cabinet Minister for Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, when answering a question to a BBC Sinhala Service correspondent regarding the shooting of a fisherman at a peaceful demonstration in Chilaw stated that the shooting of demonstrators

Students of the Buddhist Pali University in Sri Lanka have accused university authorities of failing to take action against corrupt officials despite parliament damning the university, BBC reports. .

A few days left to the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, the Colombo-based nominated parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran, has come out with a statement to BBC Sinhala Service on Wednesday, bailing out the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa. TNA backs a domestic process

(Srilankamirror) - The European Parliament has called on the United Nations to establish an inquiry into the alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. In a motion for a resolution, the European Parliament has called on the EU presidency, among many other issues, to urge the UN to implement the recommendations of the expert panel appointed by the UN secretary general on Sri Lanka. It comes as US Ass...

THERE are signs that the international community is gearing up for action to hold Sri Lanka accountable for alleged war crimes committed by its forces at the end of the brutal civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009. A resolution is being prepared for next month’s session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva ...

“I believe a journalist can change the world,” says exiled Sri Lankan journalist Sonali Samarasinghe, “if not why are we here then”. Sonali is one of three exiled journalists, from the minority Tamil and majority Sinhalese communities, whose stories are told in a new Norwegian film, Silenced Voices, by Beate Arnestadpreviewed last night at the Fritt ...

Francis Harrison, former BBC foreign correspondent whose book of accounts of survivors from Sri Lankas civil war is to be published this summer, says in an article in the Dawn, that there are "signs that the international community is gearing up for action to hold Sri Lanka accountable

A UN special envoy arrived Friday for talks with the new administration in the Maldives, as former president Mohamed Nasheed called for fresh elections after being ousted in what he called a coup d'etat, AFP reported. Assistant Secretary General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco reached the capital Male early Friday and was due to hold talks with new president Mohamed Waheed. “There will be a meetin...

During a meeting with the media the ousted Maldivian President said he will not consider leaving the country and would fight for a return to power, the BBC reported. Further a video clip on the BBC website captures President Nasheed commenting that should he leave the "

BBC Colombo correspondent Charles Haviland has been injured in a road accident in Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in the South, a report in a Sinhala website said.

BBC Colombo correspondent Charles Haviland has been injured in a road accident in Sri Lanka`s Yala N..

Feb 08, Colombo: BBC Colombo correspondent Charles Haviland has been injured in a road accident in Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in the South, a report in a Sinhala website said.

The extrajudicial killing of civilians, surrendering soldiers and dissident journalists under the direction of the Sri Lankan government has been alleged by a former general in the Army who was extremely well-placed to comment on military activity during the island nation’s bloody civil war. The source, whose name is withheld for reasons of safety, had high-level ...

The 200 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees stranded in West Africa are enduring miserable conditions in Togo, the BBC reported. They say they are living on meagre rations and face the prospect of imminent deportation home. The refugees say they are being detained by the army in an open sports stadium