Three Nobel Peace Laureates Oppose Colombo’s Bid for Re-election

(New York, May 19, 2008) – Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize from three continents called on UN members to reject Sri Lanka’s candidacy for the UN Human Rights Council, the NGO Coalition for an Effective Human Rights Council said today. Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina, and Jimmy Carter of the United States each published statements urging opposition to Sri Lanka because of its abusive human rights record.
Contribute

(Source HRW)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Hundreds of Sri Lankan journalists demanded an inquiry Friday into the abduction and assault of a colleague who was critical of the military.

Keith Noyahr, deputy editor and defense analyst of the English weekly The Nation was abducted by unidentified men about late Thursday and severely beaten before being set free, media rights groups said.

Protesting journalists paraded in Colombo with placards saying "Stop abduction, torture and killings of journalists" and "Expose now who abducted, assaulted journalist Noyahr."

(Source: IHT)

A bomb exploded near Lake House at around 12noon, today (May 16). According to the available information, a motor bike riding LTTE suicide bomber had rammed into a bus carrying Police personnel at the Ceramic Junction, near Lake House. Around fifty people injured and seven were killed due to the bomb blast ..
(Source: Sri Lanka News First)

Longtime Sri Lanka resident wrote more than 100 books, including ‘2001’

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, an aide said. He was 90.

Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30 a.m. local time after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva told The Associated Press.

By Surya Pratap Singh, Bodh Gaya, Feb.13 : Thousands of Buddhist
monks and devotees, many of them from abroad, are participating in a
10-day chanting ceremony for world peace here.
Organised by the Mahabodhi Society of India, the over weeklong
festival is being attended by several Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.

The country’s tourism sector, which is already in dire straits, was dealt yet another severe blow after at least five countries issued strict advisories against their citizens travelling to the war-torn island, owing to the prevailing fear psychosis.

Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and Russia late last week updated their travel warnings in the backdrop of back-to-back bomb blasts and other sporadic violence-related incidents occurring in almost all parts of the country.