The 69-year-old leader was sworn in by President Maithripala Sirisena, who sacked him on October 26
President Jacob Zuma has returned from a summit dominated by allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka during the bloody climax of its 26-year civil war.
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/ 19 November 2011
Sarath Fonseka has been handed a three-year sentence for ‘false statements’ he made about a state order to kill separatist Tamil fighters.
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/ 7 September 2011
At least 10 000 civilians were killed in the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war but a national inquiry has failed so far to investigate war crimes.
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/ 27 November 2009
Sri Lanka will hold early presidential elections on January 26, officials said on Friday.
As Sri Lanka declared victory in one of the world’s most intractable wars, the EU and US urged its government to reach out to its Tamil population.
Sri Lanka on Monday said heavy combat was over in a last pocket of territory held by the LTTE and it was shifting its focus to rescuing civilians.
The myth that the Tigers were unbeatable has been shattered with a victory over the separatists inevitable, Sri Lanka’s president was quoted as saying
More than 23 000 civilians escaped last month from a war zone in Sri Lanka’s north, where the military appears close to crushing rebels.
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/ 30 January 2009
Sri Lanka’s president urged the Tiger rebels on Friday to allow about 250 000 civilians trapped in the northern war zone to flee to safety.
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/ 28 January 2009
A Sri Lankan health official says recent heavy fighting in the north has killed more than 300 civilians and wounded at least 1 000 others.
Assault signals Tamil Tigers are turning to guerrilla tactics as government closes in on rebel-held territory.
Sri Lankan troops marched into the Tamil Tigers’ de facto capital of Kilinochchi and the town is about to fall to the government , an official said.
Hard not to laugh when you’re told about Claymore landmines. I am being told of them by a helpful young Sri Lankan near a military checkpoint.
A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed Sri Lanka’s highways minister and at least 11 others on Sunday gathered for a marathon race near the capital, the government said. ”Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle is dead from the explosion,” Laksman Hulugalla, director general of the media centre for national security, said.
Visionary science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke was buried on Saturday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, where the nation paused for an international ”titan” it had adopted as its own. British-born Clarke, best known for his work on the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, died aged 90 of respiratory complications and heart failure.
Sri Lankan troops killed 38 Tamil Tiger rebels for the loss of four soldiers in fresh fighting in the island’s north, the military said on Friday. Thursday’s fighting came as the military captured stretches of Tiger-held terrain in the north-western district of Mannar as part of a wider strategy to gradually retake the Tigers’ northern stronghold and win a 25-year civil war.
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/ 23 February 2008
A suspected Tamil Tiger bomb blast destroyed a passenger bus on the outskirts of the Sri Lankan capital on Saturday, wounding 18 people, but no one was killed. The military said deaths were averted after a female passenger spotted a suspect parcel on the bus and informed the driver and conductor, who then evacuated the bus.
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/ 22 February 2008
Tamil Tiger rebels said Sri Lankan government fighter jets killed five civilians in an air raid on their northern stronghold on Friday. Fighting between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has intensified since the government formally pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact in January.
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/ 4 February 2008
With a parade of tanks, troops and rocket launchers, Sri Lanka on Monday marked its 60th anniversary of independence from Britain amid tight security after a string of attacks blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels. Thousands of police and troops were on high alert in the capital Colombo as the island’s armed forces put on a show of military might.
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/ 17 January 2008
Sri Lanka’s military said on Thursday most of the 27 people killed in a bus ambush were shot by rebels as the passengers tried to flee rather than in the blast that struck the vehicle. Wednesday’s attack came as a six-year truce between the state and rebels formally ended.
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/ 16 January 2008
A roadside bomb tore through a Sri Lankan bus killing 24 people and wounding dozens on Wednesday, officials said, as a six-year ceasefire formally expires between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels. The Ministry of Defence said a large number of schoolchildren were on the bus at the time of the blast in the central district of Moneragala.
Nordic ceasefire monitors began wrapping up their six-year mission to Sri Lanka on Friday after the government scrapped a truce with the Tamil Tigers, and their mandate, amid a chorus of international concern. The government formally notified mediator Norway late on Thursday it was giving a stipulated 14-day notice period to end the truce.
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/ 1 November 2007
Sri Lankan troops killed 31 Tamil Tigers fighters in a series of clashes in the north of the island, as warplanes bombed rebel training camps on Thursday, the military said. Two soldiers were also killed and 17 wounded in the clashes with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.