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Wednesday, January 27, 2010 COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has won a second term in office, a local news channel reported on Wednesday. "The president has recorded a remarkable victory, with amore than 1.8 million vote majority," Rupavahini said. Official final results were not due for another three hours, but polling showed the incumbent with a powerful lead over his chief opponent, former army commander General Sarath Fonseka. The two war victors turned to foes in a bloody campaign that culminated in a largely peaceful election on Tuesday, with turnout that independent observers placed at between 70 and 80 percent of the Indian Ocean island's 14 million registered voters. Fonseka, a political neophyte, delivered an election day shock by admitting he was not registered to vote, after saying he may have done so but did not want to say where for security reasons. The winner will take the reins of a $40 billion economy which has enjoyed a partial ...

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has won a second term in office, a local news channel reported on Wednesday. "The president has recorded a remarkable victory, with amore than 1.8 million vote majority," Rupavahini said. Official final results were not due for another three hours, but polling showed the incumbent with a powerful lead over his chief opponent, former army commander General Sarath Fonseka. The two war victors turned to foes in a bloody campaign that culminated in a largely peaceful election on Tuesday, with turnout that independent observers placed at between 70 and 80 percent of the Indian Ocean island's 14 million registered voters. Fonseka, a political neophyte, delivered an election day shock by admitting he was not registered to vote, after saying he may have done so but did not want to say where for security reasons. The winner will take the reins of a $40 billion economy which has enjoyed a partial ...

Monday, August 24, 2009::COLOMBO: The arrested LTTE chief, Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP had told Sri Lankan interrogators that his organisation had tried to get nuclear weapons and nuclear know how from Western countries. “LTTE had been the first terrorist outfit that had tried to obtain nuclear power. Had they been successful in obtaining nuclear power, it would have flowed into the hands of other terror organisations too,” a local newspaper quoted military analysts. Interrogation had revealed that KP had been used by the intelligence services of various countries for assorted purposes. Some leading Sri Lankan politicians from the Opposition had also worked with him to get foreign governments to threaten to withhold aid to Sri Lanka if the government did not stop the war, KP had said.

COLOMBO — Voting for two local councils began Saturday near Sri Lanka's former war zone, officials said, as independent media was denied access to the area. Election officials said voting for the Jaffna and Vavuniya municipal councils would last nine hours till Saturday evening, with nearly 125,000 people eligible to vote. The two councils are located just outside the Wanni war zone where security forces defeated Tamil Tiger rebels in mid-May. Media rights groups have slammed the authorities for not allowing independent media access to the region. "It is unacceptable that the government should impose such a ban (on independent journalists) on nothing more than the vaguest security grounds," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said. "As well as violating the population?s fundamental rights by preventing them from circulating freely, this measure dashes any hope of a transparent election." Saturday's vote does not cover areas recently captured from the Tiger...

Wednesday, August 05, 2009 RIYADH: A Sri Lankan man and a Saudi teenager suffering from a heart defect have died from swine flu, raising the country's flu death toll to six, the Saudi health ministry said on Tuesday. The Sri Lankan man, 32, was found dead in his hotel room on Monday, while the 15-year-old Saudi failed to respond to treatment and died in hospital. On Friday the ministry said total A(H1N1) flu infections had reached nearly 600, and the government said it was doubling surveillance efforts as the peak season approached for umrah, the Islamic minor pilgrimage, to Mecca and Medina. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world are expected to undertake the umrah during the month of Ramadan beginning in late August, heightening the threat of the disease spreading. Another two million or more are expected for the hajj full pilgrimage beginning at the end of November.