Sri Lanka needs to slash state spending and contain the budget deficit, the International Monetary Fund said last Sunday, warning that the island's debt exceeds gross national production.

The Sri Lankan government continued its efforts to deny the Liberation Tigers access to the international community last week by preventing two UN envoys from visiting LTTE –held areas and criticizing an Icelandic diplomat who entered LTTE-controlled territory without Colombo’s permission.

 

Sri Lanka said last Thursday that it would not allow the United Nation's human rights envoy to visit LTTE-held areas, while at the same time the government criticised the ceas

Thousands attended the funeral of Father Packiaranjith, an aid

The Tamil Tigers have stepped up attacks on the Sri Lankan security forces in the east of the island, barely two months after the government declared that the LTTE had been completely driven away from the region.

 

In the last past two weeks thirteen commandos from the Special Task Force (STF), an elite police unit have been killed and at least six injured in separate attacks by LTTE guerillas.

 

Military analyst Iqbal Athaas writing in

LTTE soldiers pictured in Vanni training with 120mm heavy mortars. Shelling exchanges are a daily occurence in Jaffna.

74 year old Nedumaran (speaking) has long been campaigning for the rights of Eelam Tamils.

Veteran Tamil Nadu acti

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former home minster Lal Krishna Advani.

Expressing concern over the "deterioration

Despite coming under strong criticism at the 6^th session of United Nations Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka is showing no signs of acknowledging rampant abuses by its military or intent to taking measures to rein in the forces.

 

Instead, Colombo, is bluntly rejecting all charges made against by international human rights organisations.

 

Since the President Mahinda Rajapakse came to power in November 2005, the number of extraj

BESET by censure over a rash of civil war human rights abuses, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa set out his case at the UN General Assembly this week -- but critics doubt it will wash.

 

Rights groups say hundreds of people have been killed or abducted since last year, when the civil war resumed after a near four-year lull. Some abuses have been blamed on state security forces.