Day: 31 October 2014

By Zacki Jabbar The UNP on Wednesday accused the government of using a recent picture of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe meeting some members of the UK UNP branch in London, to allege that they were LTTE’ers. General Secretary of the UNP Tissa Attanayake MP said that the four persons in the photograph with Wickremesinghe were Harsha Kannangara, Roshan Samantha, Dharsahan Daniel and Indika Kumara, all office bearers of the UNP UK branch. The Rajapaksa regime was so bankrupt that it was disseminating blatant lies to shore up its dwindling vote base…

Don’t blame the Koslanda victims“The minister said the Plantation Industries Ministry Secretary has already taken measures to find out why these plantation workers failed to follow the instructions of the NBRO….” But, the question that begs an answer from the Minister is where the poor workers were supposed to go? If, the NBRO, three years ago, had forewarned that the disaster area was landslide susceptible, what did the government do to alleviate the situation? Did they take measures to provide those plantation workers with alternate accommodation in safe areas? Did…

 Bishop of Badulla decries bid to blame Koslanda victims Heavy rains disrupt search for Sri Lanka landslide survivors by Saman Indrajith The government could make excuses but it should accept the responsibility for its failure to save the lives of people who perished in the Koslanda disaster, Chief Opposition Whip John Amaratunga said in Parliament yesterday. Chief Opposition Whip, addressing Parliament soon after the Chief Government Whip and Water Supply and Drainage Minister made a special statement on the scope of the disaster and the action taken by the government,…

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) says it is ready for conditional talks with President Mahinda Rajapksa to reach a political solution to the Tamil issue. TNA leader R. Sampanthan told Parliament today that his party is ready to negotiate with the President based on three statements the President had made following the end of the war. The three statements include one made following a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when the latter had visited Sri Lanka. In the joint statement President Rajapaksa had expressed his firm resolve to…

The Court of Appeal today dismissed a writ application filed by a resident of Nugegoda who sought a writ of mandamus order directing the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the attorney General (AG) to take legal action against 33 members of Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) for urging former UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navanidan Pillai through a letter to determine if genocide has taken place in Sri Lanka. Bench comprising Justices Vijith K. Malalgoda (President) and A.H.M.D. Nawaz maintained that petition cannot be entertained…

BY Ruwan Laknath Jayakody The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) charged the approval process required for travel to the North as yet another inhuman and unjustified attack on the minorities. “This is an irritant and will cause a lot of national and international problems for the government. When the task is to get these communities into the mainstream and integrate them, such moves will only create further divisions,” BASL Standing Committee on Rule of Law Chairman and Lawyers for Democracy Convenor Lal Wijenayake told Ceylon Today. Describing the move…