Internally Displaced Persons, who live in government-run camps in Sri Lanka, lack the basic right of freedom of movement, according to a top United Nations official who visited the country recently.
During the 13-minute special session, Dhammika Dassanayake, ecretary general of Parliament, announced the vacancy for the post of president.
There are elements in Tamil Nadu who could get emotional over the death of Prabakaran and self-motivate themselves to give vent to their anger through terrorism. There is a need for a heightened alert for at least some months.
The United Nations on Friday said that more than 50,000 civilians were still trapped in Sri Lanka's war zone and renewed its call to Colombo to allow an assessment mission into the area to facilitate relief operations and evacuation procedures. The Sri Lankan government had said that an estimated 15,000 people still remained in the war zone.
As suspense grows about the whereabouts of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran after the capture of the last bastion of the outfit, the Sri Lankan army chief on Monday said he believed the guerrilla leader could be in an underground bunker or in the no-fire zone.It is widely believed that both Prabhakaran and his son Charles Anthony could be in the 20 sq km no-fire zone, where the rebel remnants are said to be holed up after they were pushed out.
The Sri Lankan army's hopes to crush Tamil Tigers and end Asia's longest running civil war are still not around the corner, a media report said. 'Peace still will not be easy or, despite recent good news, immediate. The Tigers may still be able to carry out some terror attacks, though they no longer pose a wide-scale threat. And Colombo faces questions about its commitment to a permanent political settlement,' a Wall Street Journal report said.
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo V Prabhakaran will find it difficult to survive beyond six months, Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka has warned, vowing to eliminate the 3,000-strong Tiger rebels from their stronghold of Wanni in the embattled north. "The three armed forces are confident of wiping out the LTTE, which is now smarting its wounds due to the present military operations," Fonseka, who survived an assassination attempt by LTTE in April 2006, said.
Sri Lankan Navy, assisted by helicopter gunships, on Saturday destroyed three Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam boats, killing at least 15 of its cadres, while rebels said they sank two naval vessels in a fierce sea battle.
He said the army has captured the entire Pudukudiriyirippu area that was under the control of the Tamil Tigers, who have lost many of their key leaders in the latest fighting. Important LTTE leaders killed in the clashes included Vidusha, Nagesh, Durga, Deepan and Patabi, Nanayakkara said, adding another senior rebel leader Banu was injured.
On January 27, B Muralidhar Reddy, a distinguished journalist with The Hindu was taken to the war zone of Mullaithivu, along with other Sri Lankan journalists by the Sri Lankan defence ministry.
The Sri Lankan Army chief on Monday said his forces have inflicted heavy losses on Tamil Tigers and the militant outfit's capability to wage a conventional war will be wiped out within a year.
The pitched battles follow two days of air raids by government troops triggered by the killing of 64 bus passengers in a suspected rebel landmine attack on Thursday in Anuradhapura.
IMAGES from the World Cup match between India and Sri Lanka played at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai on Thursday
India, which abstained during the vote on a strong resolution against Sri Lanka's human rights practices at the UNHRC, on Tuesday urged Colombo to fulfill its commitments on the devolution of political authority, to carry forward the process of reconciliation and address the aspirations of the Tamil community in the island nation.
Sri Lankan authorities on Wednesday deployed troops and military vehicles in the streets to ensure public security in the capital amidst nationwide protests over the government's failure to tackle the worst economic crisis.
The protests seem unlikely to end until the people's anger and grievances with the leaders who have brought Sri Lanka to economic ruin are redressed.
According to observers, with pro-China Rajapaksa winning the election, the result will have a bearing on India's presence in the Indian Ocean region where Beijing is increasingly making inroads.
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena will visit India on his maiden foreign trip next month even as he ordered the release of all Indian fishermen in custody in Colombo as a goodwill gesture on the first day in office.
China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang has not been seen in public since June 25. Is he unwell, or has he been purged?
Advancing Sri Lankan troops have intensified the battle near the LTTE-controlled headquarters of Kilinochchi amidst fierce resistance by the Tamil Tigers and are now consolidating their position near Mannar, officials said today.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today urged the Centre to take steps in sending immediate medical assistance to thousands of injured Sri Lankan civilian Tamils caught in the cross-fire between the LTTE and the island nation's Army.
The commander said that by looking at the pattern of operation and the places that the suspects travelled, there has to be some outside involvement of some leadership or instructions.
Seeking to give a fillip to bilateral military ties, army chief General V K Singh is set to undertake a five-day visit to Sri Lanka from Sunday to discuss defence cooperation.
Swamy, a close friend of the Rajapaksa family, also met with Gotabaya's brother Mahinda Rajapaksa on Wednesday evening and attended the Navratri pooja at his residence.
Ppolitical experts in Colombo said the ministers came under intense pressure from the public over the government's alleged "mishandling" of the economic crisis, triggered by the shortage in the foreign exchange reserve.
On a day of high political drama when the ruling coalition of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa suffered serious defections, the election commission on Friday set January 8, 2015 as the date for a snap presidential election.
We present to you a special series that we had done 10 years after the IPKF withdrew from the island nation
Video footage from inside the building showed hundreds of protesters packing into rooms and corridors, while hundreds also milled around the grounds outside.
India said it will continue to extend its developmental assistance to the friendly people of Sri Lanka.
The 73-year-old former President who is presently in a hotel in Bangkok along with his wife will return to Sri Lanka on August 25, cancelling his initial plan to remain in Thailand at least till November, the report said.
Scotland Yard's War Crimes Team, which is part of its Counter-Terrorism Command, has launched an investigation into the role of British mercenaries in fighting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in Sri Lanka during the 1980s.
The High Commission said it was striving to return to its normal functioning soon.
Sri Lanka's new government on Sunday said it will probe whether longtime president Mahinda Rajapaksa sought military help to cling to power after he realised that he had lost the closely contested election.
Fierce clashes between Sri Lankan security forces and the LTTE militants in the rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi has left many Tamil tiger rebels dead as the army made further inroads into the island nation's embattled north, officials said on Saturday.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi on Friday said Narendra Modi's invitation to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for his swearing-in was "not acceptable and unwelcome" by Tamils all over the world and urged the BJP leader to drop the initiative.
The ATR 72-600 aircraft was accorded water salute as it landed at the Jaffna airport, about 400-km from capital Colombo.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is currently facing public demand for his resignation over his mishandling of the economic crisis, is the man who ruthlessly ended Sri Lanka's nearly 30-year civil war with the LTTE with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009.
Speaker's media secretary Indunil Abeywardena said a resignation letter from President Rajapaksa has been received through the Sri Lanka high commission in Singapore.
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