Conviction of ?LTTE sympathisers? set aside

Government regrets comments by Mannar Bishop

The government expressed regret over the statements made by the Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, regarding Sri Lankan asylum seekers heading to Australia. The Bishop had appealed to the Australian government to halt the deportation of Tamil asylum-seekers from the north and east of the country, warning that returnees face intimidation and harassment by security forces. Bishop Rayappu Joseph, made the appeal in an open letter in which he also claimed some returnees were being forced to turn in

09 Dec, 2012

Army insists Tamil girls not forcibly recruited

The army today insisted that Tamil girls in the north are not being forced to join the army and that those recruited have access to their families. Army spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said that that reports to the effect that the Northern Commander had gone from house to house and forcibly recruited girls was false. ?As outlined earlier the recruitment process was a pure voluntary recruitment which was open to all female citizens living in the north who are of that age group with requ

10 Dec, 2012

Attempts to save Sri Lankan elephants failed: Study

An attempt to save the lives of both elephants and people by moving the pachyderms away from humans has failed in Sri Lanka, a new study finds. Instead of the relocated elephants living peacefully in their new homes, they wandered, researchers found. Relocated elephants died more often than problem elephants left in their original range. The relocated elephants also killed more people than elephants that stayed put. “We were stunned that translocation neither solves the conflict nor saves elep

10 Dec, 2012