With no incidents of terrorism or a threat of its resurgence within Sri Lanka, most counter terrorism activities undertaken by the government in 2011 targeted possible LTTE overseas finances, a United States government report said.  'Country Reports on Terrorism 2011', an annual report  issued by the The US State Department - reviews the counter terrorism events worldwide last year, said...

Sri Lanka Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has entered into a MOU with counterparts of several foreign countries in a bid to keep a tab and tackle money laundering and terrorist financing. Accordingly, the FIU, which comes under the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, has signed the MOU with its counterparts in countries such as Mongolia, Russia, ...

( April 29, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sri Lanka has once again, like many times in recent years, sought the assistance of China to help avert a balance of payments crisis and also fund two key projects, official and political sources said. In a visit just before the Sinhala and Hindu New Year, that was kept under wraps, a team of officials led by Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera we...

Sri Lanka has once again, like many times in recent years, sought the assistance of China to help avert a balance of payments crisis and also fund two key projects, official and political sources said. In a visit just before the Sinhala and Hindu New Year, that was kept under wraps, a team of officials led by Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera went to China and secured assurances of a US$1....

Shift The Human Rights Council made a shift from May 2009 by voting (March 22) to criticize the Sri Lankan government for “not adequately address... serious allegations of violations of international law” when conducting its final phases of war against the liberation guerrilla army LTTE (Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam), which ended, May 18, 2009, with government-caused ...

Fat burners do not burn fat, literally; aphrodisiacs are frustratingly passionless; tablets to prolong passion fall short of the desired duration; green tea is trying to slim fat bodies; memory enhancers inevitably cause dementia; Minoxidil and hair formulae keep heads balding; and beauty products create superficial, transient beauty. There are medications to elongate the phallus ...

Let’s learn the right lessons from the Geneva outcome, not the wrong ones. It is not the case that a small country such as Sri Lanka cannot fight a diplomatic battle with the mighty USA and win. Minutes after the Sri Lanka vote at the HRC this time, the Cubans moved a resolution on the composition ...

Amid mounting speculation of potential oil reserves in Sri Lanka's seawaters, Indian media reports have suggested that India might be looking for a greater involvement overstepping China and Russia, who are also believed to be interested in oil exploration deals with the island nation.

India, China and Russia are interested about Sri Lanka's potential oil reserves, reports say.

Thousands of jobs at risk By Indika Sri Aravinda The  tea industry, the country’s second largest net foreign exchange earner is facing a potential crisis as a result of the economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the US government, the Sri Lanka Tea Board said. Tea Board Chairperson Janaki Kuruppu told The Sunday Leader that ...

(Srilankamirror) - The Russian centre will hold an art exhibition to celebrate 55 years of diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and Russia. The exhibition will be held from 6:30 p.m. onwards on February 19th 2012 at Palm Lounge, Galle Face Hotel. The event will feature art exhibits of artist Valeriy Belenikin. The artist’s conception of his work is based upon truth and the myste...

By Tisaranee Gunasekara “Nothing is closer to the law of the jungle than a system of distorted laws and procedures” Haaretz Editorial (2.1.2012) President Rajapaksa won the Eelam War, with the help of countless others (including the imprisoned Gen. Fonseka). In fairytales, the hero who saves a country from some deadly peril is rewarded with ...

Below is an interview with Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleke published in the French Diplomatic Review – La Lettre Diplomatique (The Diplomatic Letter) Two years after the end of a three decades conflict, the lifting of the emergency rule in late August 2011 confirmed the beginning of a new era for Sri Lanka. With the recent discovery of ...

Hatton National Bank plc (HNB), the only local bank to be a member of the Asian Bankers’ Association (ABA), reaped the dividends of this relationship at the height of the Great Recession which hit the world four years ago. Rajendra Theagarajah, HNB’s Managing Director/CEO and the incumbent ABA Chairman told reporters on Wednesday that his ...

Parliamentrians claim that Bank Ki-moon’s baseless Expert Panel Report is a futile attempt made to paralyse the country’s development path.   Minister Sarath Amunugama said that the country at this juncture should protect the war heroes. The Expert Panel had been appointed surpassing the international laws and to seek its recommendations. It is very clear ...

by M.D. Nalapat That old habits die hard is clear from the way in which the functionaries of the European Union seek to influence the developing economies on the best way to manage their nations. And woe betide those leaders...

By Malathi De Alwis On 18 May 2009, Sri Lanka officially declared the end of a 30-year civil war fought between. Sri Lankan government forces (GoSL) and Tamil militants, namely the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). Such a sea...

by Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka “The contest is never over, the field never quite ours.”- Dave Robicheaux in James Lee Burke, ‘The Tin Roof Blowdown’ (2007) Is it only me, or is not sad that there is no review in the Sri Lankan public space, of the first decade of the 21st century and the new millennium? Should we not be looking back at the road that has been travelled by the world, by our co...

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 Ranil Wickremesinghe By the 4th century BC, Asia had begun its first cycle of economic growth and power. This was the reason why Alexander the Great decided to travel eastward to establish an empire. At that time there was...

China has become Sri Lanka’s top bilateral lender up to September 2010, displacing Japan. Sri Lanka has racked up 2,481 million US dollars in bi-lateral and multi-lateral financing up to September 2010, the highest ever volume of foreign financing commitments, with China leading the way with 668 million US dollars of export credits. According to ...

By Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka The other day I was discussing contemporary Sri Lankan trends over lunch with a friend, an LSE educated professor who is on the faculty of the LSE, who promptly proffered his parallel: “Russia’s Putin and Russia under Putin… but can the model sustain without natural gas and oil reserves?” He also ...

BY Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka The other day I was discussing contemporary Sri Lankan trends over lunch with a friend, an LSE educated professor who is on the faculty of the LSE, who promptly proffered his parallel: “Russia’s Putin and Russia under Putin… but can the model sustain without natural gas and oil reserves?” He also thought that there was a quintessential continuity between ...

By Anusha Ondaatjie and David Yong Sri Lanka received more than $6 billion of orders for its global sale of $1 billion in government debt, according to an official, who asked not to be identified because the details have yet...

The Forbes magazine has ranked Sri Lanka high in its list of best countries in the world to do business. Sri Lanka ranks above China (90th), Philippines (91st), Russia (97th) and many of the South American nations. Being at the 83rd place, Sri Lanka is second only to India (77th) in South Asia. ‘President Rajapaksa’s ...

by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka The ongoing visit by the much-decorated chief of the Indian army provides an occasion for an objective perspective on Sri Lanka’s military achievement as well as the reactions to it. The Lankan military victory and our military have earned the respect of military professionals the world over. If they haven’t been exactly hailed or has sometimes been "dam...

By Dr. Janaka Ratnasiri Since winning the war, according to media reports, persons in both the public and private sectors have been talking about converting Sri Lanka into various hubs in such sectors as business, aviation, shipping, energy etc....