Sri Lanka

The U.S. and Sri Lanka are seeking to improve ties strained by American pressure for a probe into civilian deaths during the island nation's civil war. Before their meeting Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.M. Peiris both spoke on the importance of the relationship. Clinton said the U.S. strongly supports Sri Lanka's process of reconciliation and reconstruction after the civil war that ended in 2009. Peiris referred to excellent defense cooperation and the potential for stronger economic ties.

Sri Lankan customs officials say they have seized about 1.5 tons of elephant tusks in the largest ever such seizure in the country. Udaya Liyanage, a customs official, says the tusks were being transported through the capital, Colombo, in a container that arrived from Kenya and was bound for Dubai. The container was stopped at Colombo's port on May 14. Liyanage says intelligence reports were analyzed and the container was opened Tuesday. Customs officials found 359 ivory tusks, weighing about 1.5 tons.

MATARA, Sri Lanka -- It was Oct. 11, 2004, and the world looked beautiful to K.M.G. Prinsika. She had given birth to her third child, a wide-eyed girl she and her husband named Pushmi Moonesha. The happy parents told the gynecologist that they'd had enough children, and it was time for Prinsika to be sterilized. On Dec. 26, 2004, the world became a horror. The Asian tsunami six months ago took away Pushmi Moonesha -- "blooming flower" in the Sinhalese language -- and the couple's 7-year-old son, Panitha.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A court granted bail for Sri Lanka's former Army chief on Friday, a move seen as a step toward a full pardon for the man credited with ending the country's long civil war but who later was jailed after challenging the president in elections. Sri Lanka's High Court set Sarath Fonseka's bail at $8,000 in a case where he is accused of harboring Army deserters. His lawyer, Saliya Peiris, said that Fonseka was also asked to surrender his passport. The court's decision comes ahead of a meeting between Sri Lanka's foreign minister and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton...

Where to stay Galle Fort Hotel 28 Church St., Galle Fort 011-94-91-2232870 www.gallefort hotel .com Luxurious rooms and suites range in price from $160 to $500 per night, with meals extra. Surfcity Internet Cafe and Guesthouse 274/5 Parangiya WattaUnawu tuna 011-94-91-4384790 www.surfcity.4t.com E-mail: surftosouth@yahoo.com Nine double rooms with attached baths and a restaurant on the beach. What to do National Cycle Trail The southern coastal portion of the national trail stretches about 150 miles from Wadduwa, south of Colombo, to...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka's president unveiled plans yesterday to lift wartime emergency laws that have curbed civil and political liberties for most of the past 30 years. The country has been under intense international pressure to sweep away the draconian measures now that more than two years have passed since the government's victory in its bitter civil war against separatist Tamil Tiger rebels. The emergency laws, which Parliament had extended every month, had allowed the government to detain suspects without trial, displace residents from their...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Under the watch of thousands of soldiers, Sri Lankans turned out in force yesterday for parliamentary elections, hoping to help set the agenda for peace talks with a ruthless rebel army. Despite numerous reports of election rigging, monitors said the early indications were that the vote had gone far more smoothly than most Sri Lankan elections, which are often plagued by widespread fraud and violence. "Overall, today has gone off much better than we hoped," said John Cushnahan, head of a 70-member European Union observer team.

KAJUWATTE, Sri Lanka -- Renegade Tamil rebels braced for a showdown with the mainstream Tamil Tiger movement, as the Sri Lankan military went on high alert yesterday, intent on maintaining a truce that has given this island nation its best chance of peace in two decades. The unconfirmed death toll from heavy fighting Friday between rebel factions was put at 33 by rebel and military officials. Residents in the area of fighting along the Verugal River, near Sri Lanka's northeastern coast and about 150 miles from the capital, Colombo, fled gunfire again early yesterday in an operation...

GENEVA — A UN expert called yesterday for Sri Lanka to investigate and file charges against soldiers shown in a graphic video shooting bound, blindfolded prisoners and abusing corpses in the final days of the country’s 26-year civil war. The UN expert, Christof Heyns, reviewed the 5-minute, 25-second video frame by frame with a team of technical and forensic specialists to determine its authenticity, and concluded that the video suggests there...

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka - Three years ago, Vairamuttu Bavani left her home in eastern Sri Lanka to attend her cousin’s wedding in the north. She did not make it back until September. Trapped by the civil war, Bavani, a Tamil, lost six members of her family and both her legs to a bomb. She spent months detained in an overcrowded refugee camp. And she remains under tight scrutiny by local authorities, who have visited her almost every day since her return from the northern Vanni region, she said.

The U.S. and Sri Lanka are seeking to improve ties strained by American pressure for a probe into civilian deaths during the island nation's civil war. Before their meeting Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.M. Peiris both spoke on the importance of the relationship. Clinton said the U.S. strongly supports Sri Lanka's process of reconciliation and reconstruction after the civil war that ended in 2009. Peiris referred to excellent defense cooperation and the potential for stronger economic ties.

NEW DELHI - A report from a UN mine removal expert says unexploded cluster munitions have been found in northern Sri Lanka, appearing to confirm, for the first time, that the weapons were used in that country's long civil war. The revelation could increase calls for an international investigation into possible war crimes stemming from the bloody final months of fighting in the quarter-century civil war that ended in May 2009. The government has repeatedly denied reports it used cluster munitions during the final months of fighting.

A report from a U.N. mine removal expert says unexploded cluster munitions have been found in northern Sri Lanka, appearing to confirm, for the first time, that the weapons were used in that country's long civil war. The revelation is likely to increase calls for an international investigation into possible war crimes stemming from the bloody final months of fighting in the quarter-century civil war that ended in May 2009. The government has repeatedly denied reports it used cluster munitions during the final months of fighting.

Sri Lanka will not implement all proposals from its civil war commission because the panel went beyond its mandate, a government minister said Monday after a U.N. rights council called for the report's implementation. The commission's report dismissed allegations that government troops deliberately targeted civilians as the long civil war was ending in 2009 but also proposed that complaints of isolated, civilian killings by government troops be investigated. It also said the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels committed serious human rights violations.

GENEVA - A US initiative calling the Sri Lankan government to account for the loss of civilian life at the end of its civil war three years ago has won support from a clear majority of the United Nations Human Rights Council despite an exhaustive government campaign to block it. The 47 members of the council, which is based in Geneva, voted 24 to 15, with eight abstentions, in favor of a resolution urging Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of...

China says it will back Sri Lanka and oppose a proposed U.N. resolution calling on the island nation to probe wartime rights abuses. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a news conference Thursday that China believes the Sri Lankan government and people are capable of dealing with the issue themselves. Sri Lanka's government sees the U.S.-backed resolution as interference in the country's internal affairs. The U.N. Human Rights Council is expected to vote on the resolution this week.

NUGEGODA, Sri Lanka - Ethnic Tamil separatists set off a bomb at a popular department store in a suburb of the capital yesterday, killing 17 people in a rare attack targeting civilians, the Sri Lankan military said. The blast, which came just hours after a suicide bomber tried to kill a Cabinet minister, showed that the Tamil Tiger rebels are still capable of striking deep in government territory despite months of punishing military attacks on their power base in the north. The attacks occurred a day after the rebels said that 22 civilians, including 11 schoolchildren, were killed inside...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Snipers assassinated Sri Lanka's foreign minister at his home yesterday, and the military blamed the separatist rebels whom the slain official had worked to ostracize internationally as a terrorist group. President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency today amid fears that the killing of Lakshman Kadirgamar, 73, would threaten a cease-fire between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebel group -- a truce already shaken by a two-year stall in peace talks.