Labour Minister Mervyn De Silva speaking to www.news.lk today confirmed reports that he would resign his parliamentary seat shortly. The Mnister represents the United People's Freedom Alliance.
He was first elected to Parliament in 1994 from Hambantota on the UNP ticket and crossed over to the People's Alliance in 1999. He is currently the SLFP Organizer for the Kelaniya electorate.
Extracted from,
http://www.news.lk/index.php?
The Sri Lankan government on Wednesday accused international rights groups of bias for their alleged failure to condemn the killings of students by Tamil Tiger rebels.
Keheliya Rambukwella, the minister of Foreign Employment and the government's defense spokesman told reporters that some 14 school children had been killed as a result of recent bomb explosions blamed on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels.
"These groups who are very quick to blame the government have remained silent on the LTTE's killing of students," Rambukwella said.
An LTTE female suicide bomber killed 14 civilians including six students at the Colombo's busy Fort railway station on Feb. 3.
The students from a leading Colombo school were members of the baseball team and were returning to Colombo from the central town of Kandy when caught in the explosion.
Read more,
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/13/content_7598545.htm
India is committed to a closer economic cooperation with Sri Lanka, visiting minister Jairam Ramesh said today, while is stating that investments of 2 billion dollars from business houses in his country into the Island Nation are at discussion stage.
"While 220 million dollars worth of Indian investment is already there in Sri Lanka as much as 2 billion dollars of investment by Indian business houses into the Island country are under discussions," India's Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh told reporters here at Indo-Sri lankan Investment Seminar.
Read more,
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/
The Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) - country's first airport built with private-public sector participation - may bag a deal to build a greenfield airport in Sri Lanka, the company said Thursday in a statement here.
A seven-member CIAL delegation, headed by managing director S. Bharath, is at present in the island nation and has held several rounds of talks with government ministers. It has also met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
'On Jan 29, we (the delegation) were taken in a special Sri Lankan Air Force plane to the airport site at Weerawila in southern Sri Lanka for a visit and study,' the statement said.
'The proposed airport site is 15 km away from Hambanota in the southern province of Sri Lanka and around 300 km from Colombo. It is also the political constituency of Rajapaksa.'
Rajapaksa - on a visit to the famous Guruvayoor temple in Kerala two years ago - himself mooted the idea of CIAL building the airport in his country.
Read more,
http://www.indiaprwire.com/businessnews/20080131/27083.htm
Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said that Nepali Premier Girija Prasad Koirala backed President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s decision to retaliate against LTTE terror, during a recent meeting he had with Koirala in Kathmandu.
The Nepalai Premier appreciated the action taken by the Sri Lankan government to neutralize the LTTE threat, he said.
The minister said that the government did not believe in war to settle the ethnic issue, but had no option but to meet the LTTE’s military challenge.
Extracted from,
http://www.island.lk/2007/12/24/news3.html
Sri Lankan Minister and Tamil politician Douglas Devananda has advocated the killing of LTTE chief V Prabhakaran saying a political solution to the 25- year-old ethnic conflict was not possible till he is alive.
"Till Prabahakaran is alive, the LTTE will not agree to a political solution. He should be killed. Devananda, leader of the Eelam People's Democratic Front, told foreign journalists here.
"He wants piece (of Sri Lankan territory) and not peace. Ninety per cent of the people in Wanni (rebel-held) area hate him," he said.
The Social Services and Social Welfare minister said another option to bring around the LTTE was to initiate the peace process and compel them to join in for the fear of being left out.
"President Mahinda Rajapaksa has agreed to initiate the political process for resolving the conflict soon and talks will be initiated in this regard," he said, adding moves are afoot to revive the provincial council by fully implementing the 13th amendment.
Read more,
http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/FE184BE3E8781B55652573B
The U.S. on Friday said only a “political solution, not a military one,” offers a way out of the violence even as Colombo said November 2007 “Hero’s Day Speech” of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabakaran is an acknowledgement that his “Tamil Eelam dream” stands shattered.
In a statement released here, the U.S. State Department referred to the series of incidents of violence in the last few days and called on all Sri Lankans to work toward the “goal of a just, political solution to the conflict.”
Separately, Minister and Defence Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said in contrast to previous years when the LTTE leader boasted that Tamil Eelam was around the corner, Mr. Prabakaran has acknowledged that the world and the Tamil Diaspora had distanced itself from him.
Read more,
http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/01/stories/2007120156291700.htm
At least 57 cadres of the LTTE and three soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army were killed in fierce fighting along the Forward Defence Lines (FDLs) in the north in the last three days, the military claimed on Saturday.
A report by the Defence Ministry maintained that the LTTE continues to suffer “heavy losses”’ as the security forces’ hold in the northern region is getting stronger.
“Despite the absence of a major counter terror offensive in the part of the security forces, the terrorists have been getting soaring death and casualty figures in scattered and intermittent clashes occurred along the Wanni and Northern Forward Defence Lines”, it said.
The Ministry said that over 57 LTTE cadres were killed and at least another 16 were injured in sporadic clashes in Jaffna, Vavuniya and Mannar from Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon.
Read more,
http://www.hindu.com/2007/11/25/stories/2007112556391400.htm
The Sri Lankan government said on Friday that the LTTE had been collecting up to $30 million a month from Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates across the globe.
Praising the US Treasury for freezing the assets of the LTTE front – Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told parliament that Sri Lanka could now expect a "significant decline" in the collections of the LTTE world wide which ranged from $ 20 million to $30 million per month.
The US government had become the "first foreign government to take tangible action against an LTTE front organization," Bogollagama said.
Could assume new guises
But the minister warned that eternal vigilance was necessary because the LTTE had become an expert in circumventing curbs and bans.
Read more,
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=
M.I. Anver Ismail, the non-cabinet Sri Lanka Minister of Irrigation passed away today early morning at a Colombo private hospital.
The 40 year old Minister was being treated for a stomach disease. His body was taken to his home town, Samanthurai and was buried there according to Muslim customs.
The Minister first entered into the parliament as a Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (Athavulla Faction ) MP in 2001. He was appointed as a Minister in 2004.
News extracted from,
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_07/September14125127SL.html
Photo,
http://www.parliament.lk/directory_of_members/images_members/060.jpg
