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..

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 link at Liverpool Crown Court where he pleaded not guilty to murder, but admitted manslaughter. He was...

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 in Syria, the ...

(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 is a usual practice of the Sri Lankan police. Sri Lankan policemen have shot demonstrators in the pa...

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 to implement the LLRC recommendations. We should ask for an international probe only after a failure of .....

(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 for alleged war crimes committed by its forces at the end of the brutal civil war against the Tamil Tiger ...

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 "country would go to the dogs"  and he was aware that an arrest warrent had been is...

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 in the capital Lome. The Togo authorities have declined to comment on their claims. Those being held u...

 In a human smuggling operation gone sour, around 200 Sri Lankan refugee claimants hoping to come to Canada are stranded in West Africa, the BBC reported The BBC  reports that 200 Sri Lankans  travelled through India and Ethiopia before a smuggler abandoned them in Togo instead of taking them on to Ghana and then Canada. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews speaking to reporters at...

Two hundred Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka are stranded in West Africa, BBC reports, after the human smuggling ring they hired to bring them to Canada marooned them in Togo. The BBC says the contingent travelled by ship from Sri Lanka to India, then on to Ethiopia before flying to Togo. After being assured they ...

Some two hundred Sri lankan refugees stranded in the tiny West African state of Togo have told the BBC that they fear for their life if they are deported back to their country. .

Stranded refugees from Sri Lanka, in the tiny West African state of Togo have told the BBC that they fear for their life if they are deported .

“Undercover Princes”: If the title makes you think of dashing Hohenzollerns trading secrets in romantic locales, think again. For one thing, the reality dating series of this title, beginning on Tuesday on TLC, is set not in Venice or Gstaad or even London but in the chip shops and seaside pubs of Brighton, England, which looks ...

News Pre-premiere of ‘Silenced Voices – Tales of Sri Lankan Journalists in Exile’ and panel debate   The Fritt Ord Foundation invites the public to a debate and film screening of Silenced Voices – Tales of Sri Lankan Journalists in Exile on Thursday 9 February 2012, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Vika Cinema (Vika 2) in Oslo. There will be ...

BBC WS speak to Shehan Karunatilaka whose debut novel set in Cricket-mad Sri Lanka won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.