Sept 3 (ST) Teacher librarians are still waiting for the Education Ministry to rectify a cadre issue — and the delay, they say, has affected their career prospects. Little or nothing had happened so far although Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena had asked Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Jayaratne to settle the issue, said Upali Amarasiri, National Institute of Library and Information Sciences (NILIS) Director and former more..

Sept 3 (ABC) The Federal Govt and refugee advocates have lashed out at the Opposition's plan to deport all Sri Lankan asylum seekers, saying it breaches human rights. The Coalition says Govt should sign a new treaty with Sri Lanka, so its citizens can be sent home before they get access to the Australian legal system. Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop says many Sri Lankan asylum seekers are economic migrants, not more..

Sept 3 (Island) PAFFREL has made a request to IGP N. G. Illangakoon for extra policemen to be deployed in the Anuradhapura District (particularly in the surrounding areas of the city), Akkaraipttu in the Ampara District and Eravur in the Batticaloa District. Rohana Hettiarachchi of PAFFREL said that the those places were hot beds for election violence. He alleged that the local police had delayed to provide security in time at Akkaraipattu, where two vehicles belonging to SLMC MPs were attacked on more..

Sept 3 (Island) Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, over the weekend, called for an impartial investigation into the killing and disappearance of several journalists in the past. Addressing a distinguished gathering at SIGNIS award ceremony, at the BMICH on Saturday, Cardinal Ranjith said that those responsible for killings and disappearances should be investigated and brought to justice. The Cardinal alleged that a section of the media was pursuing an agenda of its own for commercial gain. more..

Sept 3 (Island) UNP Deputy General Secretary Dr. Jayalath Jayawardana yesterday said that he had made a complaint to Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya that around 200 graduates in the North–Central, Sabaragamuwa and the Eastern provinces were interviewed by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Arts at Sethsiripaya on Saturday. The Polls Chief on receiving the written complaint from more..

Sept 3 (Island) Seven persons, including Wattegama Urban Council Chairman Krishantha Liyanage, sustained burn injuries following an explosion at the Wattegama crematorium in Ihala Yatawara, late Saturday afternoon. The explosion is believed to have occurred due to a leak in the pipe supplying gas to the crematorium. It occurred while the chairman and others were engaged in examining the cause of a machine failure. The injured more..

Sept 3 (Island) Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian Parliament, on Saturday unveiled at the Sri Lankan High Commission a painting to commemorate the 2600th year of the Sambuddhatya Jayanti and to celebrate the historic links between the two neighbouring countries. The painting, specially commissioned by the Sri Lankan High Commission here, depicts Indian more..

Sept 3 (DM) Amidst complaints about errors in question papers and irregularities in Z-scores, the Education Ministry has decided to ‘strengthen’ its supervisory role on the Department of Examination, and to overhaul its functions. Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Jayaratne said that he would take steps to restructure the functions of the Department to ensure that its credibility would not suffer in any of its activities in the future. more..

Sept 3 (LBO) Sri Lanka's Phoenix Industries, a plastics products maker said it was building a 350 million rupee plant in Horana, which will supply the packaging needs of the Sri Lanka unit of fast moving consumer goods firm Unilever. "Our focus will be to understand customer needs and to provide cost effective polymer based packaging solutions to Unilever," managing director, Phoenix Industries, Aslam Omar said in a statement. "Our aim is to grow along with the customer and more..

Sept 3 (MD) More than 500 people gathered Thursday to remember U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Suresh N.A. Krause, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot killed earlier this month in Afghanistan. Mourners filed into the chapel at Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, 69-855 E. Ramon Road, to pay their respects to the soldier and his family. "Sharing memories (of Krause) will help with our grief," funeral officiant Galen Goben said. Brody Schmidt, Krause's uncle, recalled more..

Sept 3 (Island) UNP MP Dayasiri Jayasekera has been banned by the party from attending its election propaganda meetings until further notice. A popular orator, Jayasekera was notified of the ban when he was about to address a meeting at Kantale on Saturday. A high ranking party source, said that since the UNP had already opened a disciplinary inquiry against him, allowing him to address meeting was inappropriate. more..

Sept 3 (MoD) Leaving memories of goodwill, the visiting General Liang Guanglie, State Councillor and Minister of National Defence of People's Republic of China (PRC), together with his delegation left Sri Lanka Sunday afternoon after a luncheon meeting with Deputy Minister of External Affairs, Hon. G.J.L Neomal Perera, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Chief Marshal Roshan Goonetillake, Commander of the Army, Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya, Commander of the Navy, more..

Sept 3 (Island) Horowpathana police arrested three fishermen on Saturday night for catching fish and crocodiles in the Serunewa tank. The raid was conducted by the anti-vice squad on a tip-off received by the OIC of the Horowpathana police, Inspector Sanjeeva Mahanama. The raiding party took into custody the carcasses of three crocodiles. A farmers’ organization in Serunewa had leased out the tank to the suspects to catch all its fish and empty the tank. more..

Sept 3 (ST) As the Navy stepped up its surveillance of the eastern and northwestern coast to detect illegal migrants heading to Australia, human traffickers this week opened up a new route from the north.Two boats carrying 120 illegal migrants were detected off Point Pedro. They included residents from Marawila, Puttalam, Vavuniya, Kilinochchi, Trinco and Negombo. more..

Sept 3 (Island) The GCE A/L (2012) answer script evaluation will be further delayed due to the strike by university teachers. Commissioner General of Examinations W. M. N. J. Pushpakumara said that a date to begin the answer script marking was yet to be decided on. "We did not schedule a date for evaluation earlier due to university teachers’ refusal to mark papers while being on strike," he said, noting that normally, answer script evaluation began while examination was in progress. more..

Sept 3 (CT) The Executive Committee of the Govt Medical Officer’s Association (GMOA) will convene in Anuradhapura today to discuss whether to go ahead with a country wide strike to protest the attack on Dr. Chamila Herath of the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital. GMOA Assistant Secretary, Dr. Nalin Ariyaratne, said the medical officers of the Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura hospitals, who are also the regional officers of the GMOA, will convene at the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital Auditorium to discuss the steps to be more..

Sept 3 (Island) The Sapugaskanda oil refinery has been saddled with a huge output of diesel, with a high content of sulfur, which cannot be sold, after refining 140,000 MT of Arabian light crude. But, the refinery has been shut down since last Friday due to its inability to take delivery of fresh stocks of crude, even from Iran, due to a burst hose at the Colombo Port recently. The impending shortage of fuel in the coming weeks, had more..

Sept 3 (Island) An increase in election violence against the SLMC at Akkaraipattu, in the Ampara District has been reported by the Campaign for Free and Fair Election (CaFFE). CaFFE’s Executive Director Kirthi Tennekoon said that during the last four days polls related incidents had increased and a complaint had been lodged with the Elections Commissioner against the Akkairapattu police. He said under the existing circumstances, more..

Sept 3 (Island) Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province, in Northeast China, wants to establish links with a Sister City in Sri Lanka. Chief Director of the Harbin City Council, Zhang Lixin told The Island that they had signed ‘Sister City’ agreements with 20 countries in various parts of the world and would like to finalise a similar relationship with a city in Sri Lanka. "It’s a pity we do not have a Sister City in your country," she replied when asked about the status of trade and tourist ties more..

Sept 3 (CT) The Treasury is looking for avenues to recover losses, estimated at around Rs160 billion, incurred by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) without burdening the public. The amount exceeds the sustainable limit of the Treasury. While sources from the Finance Ministry indicated the govt has not so far decided on increasing taxes or prices of essential items to recover the loss, more..

Sept 3 (AAP) Defence Minister Stephen Smith has labelled the federal opposition's call to deport all Sri Lankan asylum seekers "extraordinary" and "hypocritical". The opposition on Sunday urged the federal government to reach an agreement with Sri Lanka for the immediate return of people intercepted en route to Australia. In a joint statement, opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop and more..

Sept 3 (Island) Former Chief Minister of the North-Central Province Berty Premalal Dissanayake yesterday admitted that those who brutally assaulted Dr Chamila Herath, causing serious injuries to him, were UPFA supporters. He however denied that they were his loyalists though they were wearing his campaign T-shirts. Dissanayake said that the assailants had assaulted the doctor, around midnight last Thursday at Dahaiyagama, more..

Sept 3 (ST) A total of 83 deaths has been recorded due to dengue for this year alone, a Ministry of Health spokesman said. One of the latest victims was the receptionist at the SLBC. The husband of the victim Mahinda Rupasinghe, an employee of a private radio station said his wife had come down with the fever last Thursday (23). When medicines prescribed by the family physician provided no relief by Saturday, more..

Sept 3 (LB) Sri Lanka’s domestic rights situation will be closely analyzed by the international community during the UNHRC’s sessions in November. And in its country report recently submitted to the council – and published on the HRC website on Friday – the govt has declared itself willing and ready to cooperate. Over the past five weeks, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ravinatha Ariyasinghe has more..

Sept 3 (ENS) State Congress Committee president Gnanadesikan has questioned the veracity of the repeated incidents where Tamil Nadu fishermen are subjected to attacks by Sri Lankan Navy off Rameshwaram, Speaking at the Congress party’s public meeting in Cuddalore on Saturday night, he said, “Tamil Nadu fishermen issue is being projected as repeatedly occurring incidents. In 500 boats, around 4,000 fishermen venture into the sea for fishing at a time. more..

Sept 3 (GDI) ‘Don’t use students to gain political mileage, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appealed to opposition political parties yesterday. The President noted that certain opposition political parties were trying to make use of children who are the inheritors of the country’s future, to achieve petty political gain by targeting the examinations. The SLFP anniversary celebrations held under the patronage of the President were more..

Sept 3 (SL) The resignation of Tilak Karunaratne, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has left many people with a sense of betrayal. With his sudden departure from this important regulatory body, their basic assumptions about the principles that underpin our systems have been shaken badly. They were entitled to assume that the system works as an objective standard setter, impervious to more..

Sept 3 (PTI) Taking on senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj and the party-led Madhya Pradesh government over a proposed visit of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse there later this month, MDMK founder Vaiko today urged BJP's top brass against entertaining him and threatened a black flag demo if his demand was not heeded to. Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha,had announced that Rajapakse will lay the foundation stone for more..

Sept 3 (Xinhua) Sri Lanka has decided not to contest for a seat in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) during the elections this year, a top govt official said on Monday. The official said that the Sri Lankan govt has not made submissions to be elected among the five countries from Asia for the council this year. Elections to fill 18 of the 47 seats of UNHRC will be conducted when the UN General Assembly convenes in November at the UN headquarters in New York. more..

Sept 3 (DM) Compared to the rest of the countries in the world, the geographical entity of Sri Lanka may be called tiny. Yet, when it comes to rearing a bandwagon of spendthrifts in its higher echelons, there is nothing ‘tiny’ about the extravagance and wastage of public money the people are compelled to witness every day. The matter resurfaced when many quizzical eyebrows were raised at the number of members in Sri Lanka’s Olympic team, which consisted of only 8 athletes and 15 officials. more..

Sept 3 (DM) The Negombo lagoon’s mangroves which mitigated the great tsunami waves back in 2004 are now at the mercy of a development project. The mangroves in the Thaladuwa grama niladhari division in Negombo stretch for 36 acres. Eight of theses acres have been allocated to a development project which included a housing scheme, claimed Romesh Fernando, “Society for the Protection of the Negombo Lagoon” President, a resident of Negombo. Fernando charged that the more..

Sept 3 (LT) There is a plan to arrest those who revealed to the country that questions of the Grade Five scholarship examination had been leaked the day before the examination and according to this plan the police is attempting to arrest him on false charges says the General Secretary of Lanka Teacher Services Union (LTSU) Mahinda Jayasinghe. He said his union, through fax and registered post, informed the police regarding the leakage of questions. more..

Sept 3 (LBO) Heritance Hotels and Resorts, a brand of the island's Aitken Spence group has won top green awards at a competition organized by the state tourism promotion agency. Heritance Kandalama, which is built around a hillock near a man-made fresh water reservoir in central Sri Lanka has won awards for 'best practices in green architecture' and 'best practices in accommodation'. Heritance Kandalama was designed by Geoffrey Bawa, a celebrated Sri Lankan architect. more..

Sept 3 (LBO) India's Mahindra group is targeting Sri Lanka with its range of small passenger aircraft which can boost domestic and short range air travel between neighboring destinations including the Maldives, a top executive said. The group's chief of strategy, Shiprakash Shukla said its small aircraft is ideal to take smaller groups of tourists looking for quick and easy access to destinations. Mahindra Aerospace, the aircraft manufacturing more..

Sept 3 (Hindu) The Supreme Court on Monday granted six weeks more to the govt to apprise it of its stand on the controversial Sethusamudram project about which a high level committee has said that an alternative alignment, other than the one through mythological Ram Sethu, is not economically and ecologically feasible. A bench of justices H.L. Dattu and C.K. Prasad gave more time to the govt to disclose its stand on the project on Solicitor more..

Sept 3 (CI) 1. Dilshan Munaweera (Uva Next) (212 runs @ strike-rate 144.21): Came to the tournament as one of the most hyped young talents in the country, and unlike several others, justified that hype with several scorching innings. He saved his best for the final, clubbing five sixes and two fours to catapult Uva Next beyond the Duckworth-Lewis par score and into the Champions League. In doing so, he became the tournament's highest run getter and finished with the more..

Sept 3 (PTI) CPI on Monday asked the govt to stop training Sri Lankan Army personnel anywhere in India and respect the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu, who are opposed to any such measure. CPI national secretary D Raja dashed off a letter to Defence Minister AK Antony explaining the opposition to the training programme to Sri Lankan Army personnel in the state. He dubbed as "highly deplorable" Minister of more..

Sept 3 (GDI) Ebert Silva Holidays (Pvt) Ltd. won the Tourism Award for the “Most Improved Tourism Service of the Year” at the 5th Annual Tourism Awards held at Waters’ Edge recently. The award was presented for the Colombo City Tour, the first ever open deck sightseeing service in Sri Lanka, operated by Ebert Silva Holidays. This service highlights and features the unique history and heritage of Sri Lanka’s premier city, Colombo, to visitors arriving on our shores. more..

Sept 3 (CI) Kumar Sangakkara has said that Sri Lanka will be one of the favourites at the upcoming World Twenty20, despite Sri Lanka's pitches having become less spin-friendly. Pitches at Pallekele and Hambantota - stadiums built for last year's World Cup - have suited seam bowling, while the relaid square at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo has also seen bounce and carry in the last year. No team breached 200 in the Sri Lanka Premier League played in Colombo and Pallekele in August and four of the top five wicket takers in the more..