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Sri Lanka President Gets Extra Year In Power

NewYork Times, February 2, 2010. Sri Lanka's supreme court on Tuesday ruled President Mahinda Rajapaksa can begin his new term in November, giving him an extra year in power after he called polls two years before his first term was to expire.

Rajapaksa last week won a new six-year term in a landslide victory, correctly gambling that his popularity after leading Sri Lanka to victory in a 25-year war with the Tamil Tiger separatists in May would carry him.

"The Supreme Court says the new term begins on November 19 this year," an official in the president's office said on condition of anonymity. A senior presidential ally, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the date.

The court's decision, following a request by Rajapaksa, cements his firm hold on the reins of the Indian Ocean island nation until 2016, despite opposition vows of street protests on Wednesday over what it says was a stolen election. More...Discuss this story

Published: Tue Feb 2 10:14:29 EST 2010

Aide to Sri Lanka's General Fonseka arrested over journalist murder

Telegraph, Feb 2. Brigadier Duminda Keppetiwalana, aide to the former Sri Lankan army chief General Fonseka, was arrested over the murder last year of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga.

General Fonseka, who was last week defeated in the Sri Lankan presidential election by the incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa, said the arrest of Brigadier Keppetiwalana was part of a wider attempt to isolate him and tarnish his reputation. More...Discuss this story

Published: Tue Feb 2 12:24:57 EST 2010

Heartbreak in Post-War Jaffna

HuffingtonPost, Feb 3. On a sandy street on the northern shore of the Jaffna Peninsula in Sri Lanka, an innocuous building surrounded by mango and palmyra trees houses a rehabilitation center run by a Catholic priest, who in January 2005 just days after the tsunami began to counsel survivors.

"Now our population has increased," he told me the other day. Now we have war victims and people who were put in the IDP camps. Some of these people are survivors of the tsunami, the war and the camps. I need more counselors up here. I'm trying to train as many as I can. It is going to take a long long time to recover from this." More... Discuss this story

Published: Tue Feb 2 21:17:30 EST 2010

Lanka to amend the Constitution
hindu, feb 2. COLOMBO: The new Sri Lankan parliament to be elected by April this year would turn itself into a Constituent Assembly to draft a fresh Constitution for the country to replace the present one, The Nation Weekly reported on Sunday...

Commonwealth journalists condemn Sri Lankan government
AIM, feb 2. The London-based Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA) issued a statement yesterday stating it “appalled” at the Sri Lankan government’s continued persecution of journalists “for committing the ’sin’ of criticizing the ruling party”...

IDPs divided over election outcome
IRIN, Feb 2. VAVUNIYA, 1 February 2010 (IRIN) - As the results of Sri Lanka's first post-war presidential election poured in, the mood at Menik Farm, in the main government-run camp for the ethnic Tamil internally displaced (IDPs), in the northern town of Vavuniya, was sober...

Computer manipulation 'impossible'
BBC, Feb 2. The computer expert who was involved in presenting the final results in the recently concluded presidential polls has categorically rejected the accusations that the count was rigged using the latest technology...

0Sri Lanka purges military amid coup fears
abc.net.au, Feb 2. Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse has sacked a dozen senior military officers as part of a crackdown after last week's presidential election...

Sri Lanka opposition complains of gov't pressure
AP, Feb 1. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka's opposition accused the government Monday of hounding and detaining its activists following the country's acrimonious presidential election...

Sri Lanka: End post election clampdown on dissent
AI, Feb 1. Amnesty International today called on the government of Sri Lanka to immediately end its crackdown on journalists, political activists and human rights defenders after last week’s presidential election...