Government officials in the Vavuniya, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts yesterday said that they get a number of complaints from people who have returned to the country after a lapse of 20- 25 years over the illegal occupation of their lands. Lands taken over by the LTTE were distributed among Mahaveer families by them during the time of the Ceasefire Agreement. The UNF Government had issued t...

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 ...

by Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai “To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the greatest hazard is to risk nothing” – Anonymous...

One need not journey to the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan to discover evil. We have our own home-grown variety of dangerous extremism here in Florida. The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, whose pastor Terry Jones has written a book called Islam is of the Devil, believes he is called by God to defeat non-Christians in general, and Muslims in specific. Terry Jones has...

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, and Sri Lankan cricketers both past and present. Along with Mr. ...

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 ...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Vanderbilt University has scheduled a news conference Wednesday to address "a football matter."The news conference was scheduled within an hour after WGFX-FM 104.5 The Zone cited three anonymous sources that coach Bobby Johnson had apparently resigned. The Tennessean also cited sources that Johnson has quit.Vanderbilt spokesman Larry Leathers says he could not confirm or de...

Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Peoples Alliance and Ranil Wickremesinghe’s main opposition UNP have agreed, in principle, to alter the Constitution to create an Executive Prime Minister post. In 1978, J.R. Jayawardene used his majority to replace a British-style Parliamentary system with a French-style Parliament plus Executive Presidency. Now it seems that Mahinda is using his majority to ...

Chicago Crime Commission releases its 1st list since 1937 For the first time in more than 70 years, the Chicago Crime Commission has released a "Most Wanted" list — this time promoting it on Facebook and starting an anonymous tip line to help catch the fugitives.

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...

Appellate court rules newspaper must disclose names A newspaper in Ottawa, Ill., must disclose the names of two commenters on its Web site who allegedly made defamatory statements about a local couple, a panel of state appeals court judges ruled.

By Emil van der Poorten I have had some feedback subsequent to the recent piece I did on some exceptional athletes of the ’50s at Trinity, urging me to put more reminiscences on paper. What I propose doing this week is to talk about the culture that Norman Walter, Principal of Trinity College, Kandy from 1952 to [...]

The practice of cultivating loving kindness (maitri in Sanskrit and metta in Pali) is a Buddhist approach toward opening one's heart to others. It is very ancient, very simple, very direct and very effective. The heart of the practice is generating four positive wishes for all beings: May you be safe May you be happy May you be healthy May you be at ease We include beings we care for,...

Juan-Carlos Cruz, of Food Network's 'Calorie Commando,' asked homeless men to kill someone, police say. Not so long ago, Juan-Carlos Cruz was an anonymous young chef just getting started in a culinary arts career.

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...