The Sinhala Marxist party Jantha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) former parliamentarian, Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that JVP will oppose if a new political constitution devolving powers to the Northern and Eastern provinces is to be created, in a press briefing held in Colombo Tuesday. “Minister G. L. Peiris recently said that the government intends implementing its newly drafted political constitution following the parliamentary elections and I call upon the government to make public this new political constitution,” Anura Kumar Dissanayake said adding that JVP will never permit the country to be divided. [ Full Report ]

    CHINA has loaned US$290 million (S$405 million) to the Sri Lankan government to build an airport and expand the island's railway network, the foreign ministry in Colombo said on Wednesday. The Export-Import Bank of China loaned $190 million to construct a second international airport in Sri Lanka's south and $100 million to develop the island's railways. [ Full Report ]

    It was dusk when I checked into Bastion hotel in Jaffna. I had left Colombo at dawn. Layers of red dust had settled on me in spite of the car’s determinedly rolled-up windows. It took a clearance from the Lankan defence ministry and 12 hours to cross from Colombo on the west coast to the far north, road-distance of over 350 kilometers. The town was in Sunday somnolence. Markets were shut. Mostly television chatter and the queasy smell of incense sticks came out of pretty houses with red roofs and little gardens in front. The scene changed dramatically in the morning. [ Full Report ]

    Former Tamil rebels and ex-paramilitary troops were given fishing gear, carpentry tools and agricultural equipment as part of a rehabilitation programme, officials said yesterday. Some 500 ex-combatants received the aid in the eastern Batticaloa district under a programme funded by the US Agency for International Development with the International Organisation of Migration (IOM). The programme plans to reintegrate up to 1,000 former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and a paramilitary group known as the TMVP, which was made up of a breakaway faction of the rebels. [ Full Report ]

    A human rights group representing the families of disappeared military men in Sri Lanka has accused the government of victimising soldiers. Visaka Dharmadasa, convenor of the Association of War Affected Women (AWAW), said her organisation is currently campaigning to get soldiers arrested by the Rajapaksa administration released. "During the war, we have been visiting Kilinochchi to seek the release of arrested soldiers from the LTTE," she told BBC Sinhala service, Sandeshaya. "Now we are going to Temple Trees to meet President Rajapaksa seeking the release of soldiers." [ Full Report ]

    The Secretary-General and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay have both voiced concern about the situation in the island nation, and Mr. Ban said last month that the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe will soon head to the island nation for talks with senior Government officials. Speaking at UN Headquarters, Mr. Ban said today that he was “concerned with the lack of progress of the joint statement,” particularly political reconciliation, the condition of IDPs and the need for an accountability process. [ Full Report ]

    Sri Lanka's detained former army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka has mounted a hunger strike in order to be allowed to speak to his daughters, his wife said Monday. Fonseka had brushed aside an offer of a telephone from the military and insisted he be allowed to use his own mobile phone, Anoma Fonseka told a rally marking one month since the start of his detention. "He has not given up his hunger strike," she said adding that the military was no longer allowing her to take a mobile phone to her husband to speak with their daughters in the US state of Oklahoma. [ Full Report ]

    Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao raised the issue of finding a lasting political solution to the ethnic question in Sri Lanka when she met President Mahinda Rajapaksa here on Sunday, an Indian diplomat told Express. Rao had followed the tone set by the External Affairs Minister, S M Krishna, in Parliament a few days ago, when he called upon the Sri Lankan government to use the end of the armed conflict with the LTTE to move towards a lasting political solution. However, the press release issued by the Sri Lankan presidential secretariat did not mention the Tamil question, leave alone finding a political solution to it. [ Full Report ]

    The government said it was concerned that some umbrella organizations of the LTTE were still trying to trace their leader, LTTE Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, and the matter had been discussed with India. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama conveyed these concerns at a meeting held with Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao yesterday. Minister Bogollagama also informed Rao that Sri Lanka would continue to be vigilant and would use counter measures to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country. “We discussed terrorism and the need for us to be vigilant to counter terrorism. I shared with the Indian Foreign Secretary our concerns on the international front that some umbrella organizations of the LTTE are still trying to trace their head,” Minister Bogollagama told journalists. [ Full Report ]

    India Monday said it has urged Sri Lanka to quicken the resettlement of Tamils displaced by war and pledged aid for their housing projects as Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao returned home after a three-day visit to Colombo. In wide-ranging discussions with the Sri Lankan leadership and officials over two days, Rao told them that it was India's intention to continue supporting the task of development and reconstruction in war-hit northern and eastern Sri Lanka. She "expressed the hope that the resettlement process could be expedited, especially in Killinochchi and Mullaitivu, so that the IDPs could resume normal lives in their original places of habitation", the external affairs ministry said in a statement. [ Full Report ]