SRI LANKA: Women Want Better Pay, Out of Free Trade Zones

The room is dingy and cramped. The walls are unplastered and its rough cement edges can scrape the skin easily. Furniture is strewn all over the place, plastic chairs stacked one on top of the other, boxes on top of them, handbags hanging from the wall and clothes on a rack. A small kerosene cooker is kept on the side of the room while a bicycle is parked next to the only bed in the 10-by-10-feet room.

DEVELOPMENT-SRI LANKA: Three Scouts Trek 600 Km for Peace

It is a walk that no one has taken in the last quarter of a century. The nation having been beset by a bloody sectarian war, who would have thought of travelling the length of Sri Lanka south to north, let alone walk the distance, in the name of peace?

RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Young Girl’s Suicide Ignites Public Debate

By all accounts, 14-year-old student Anuthara Jayawardene was an unobtrusive child. But her death, by hanging herself inside a toilet in her school premises on July 22, has brought her right into the middle of media attention. Her name and the circumstances surrounding her death are now at the centre of a public dust storm.

SRI LANKA: As Fighting Stops, Sri Lanka Hopes to Woo Back Tourists

Hope has once again returned to Sri Lanka’s resplendent beaches. Everyone, including hoteliers, boat operators, and beach boys, are hopeful that the end of a three decade old civil war will herald better fortunes.

HEALTH: Sri Lanka’s Battle With Dengue

Sri Lankan health authorities have had to combat an upsurge in cases of the lethal Dengue flu in the island nation this year. They have used mass man-power, public awareness campaigns and even threatened incarceration to stem the spread of the killer disease that has touched epidemic levels in the past six months. But it won’t be easy to stop the disease from spreading.

SRI LANKA: Terror, Recession Put Tourism in the Doldrums

With the sun glistening on waves that gently lap its clean sandy beaches and coral reefs, Hikkaduwa is the perfect tourist paradise. But there is one thing missing -tourists.

SRI LANKA: Supplies to Tamil Rebel Areas Firmly in Gov't Hands

With the United Nations and other international humanitarian agencies vacating the Tamil rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi, now under army siege, the onus of maintaining essential supplies to tens of thousands of civilians in the area called the Vanni has fallen on the government.

SRI LANKA: Elections Quicker Than Resettlement

In the last one year Sri Lanka’s eastern Batticaloa district has seen two rounds of mass displacements as hundreds of thousands of people fled warfare between Tamil militants and the armed forces of the country.

SRI LANKA: Restrictions Tighten on Media

Gemunu Amerasinghe, a photographer with the international news wire Associated Press, was shooting earlier this month in downtown Colombo for an innocuous assignment - or so he thought.

RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Civilian Lives Going Cheap

This week, as Sri Lanka celebrated the 60th anniversary of its independence from British colonial rule, over 60 civilians were reported killed in the raging ethnic conflict on the island.

MEDIA-SRI LANKA: New Media – First With Reports On Intensifying War

Information is at a premium in Sri Lanka, especially authentic, unadulterated news, fast and quick.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Sri Lanka&#39s Tinderbox Set to Go

Three years after the Indian Ocean tsunami left over 32, 000 Sri Lankans dead and 500,000 survivors homeless, this island country stands on the brink of another disaster - this time manmade and in the shape of an all-out war between Tamil separatist rebels and the country’s armed forces.

RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Arbour’s Visit a Guided Tour – Critics

United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour’s five-day tour of this strife-torn country is already circumscribed by the fact that she will not be allowed to visit areas in the Jaffna peninsula controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Consider Sanctions Says Parliamentarian

As the nationalist government of President Mahinda Rajpakse continues to resist calls for a United Nations rights monitoring mission in Sri Lanka an elected Tamil leader said the time may have come to consider international sanctions.

SRI LANKA: Civilians Pay for Civil War in Supply Shortages

Sri Lankan government forces and Tamil Tiger rebel leaders are gearing up for a massive face-off along the line of control in the north of the island. The rhetoric has already been replaced by mounting body counts - in the last three weeks of July, more than 50 combatants died along the forward defences that separate areas held by the two sides in the north.

SRI LANKA: Not All Tsunami Reconstruction Is Equal

It has been 30 months since the waves struck the coasts of Sri Lanka in the morning hours of Dec. 26, 2004. Since then, in a pattern that has become symbolic of the divided nature of the South Asian island, parts of the country have motored ahead with the reconstruction effort, while others have lagged woefully behind.

SRI LANKA: Civil War Shifts to Jaffna

As the government celebrates the capture of the country’s east, all out battles with Tamil rebels in their northern bastion of Jaffna have become imminent.

SRI LANKA: Norway in No Hurry to Resume Mediation

While much store is being set by the prospect of Norway returning to its key role as mediator between the nationalist government of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and ethnic Tamil rebels, indications are that the Scandinavians are in no hurry.

POLITICS-SRI LANKA: As Violence Rises, Media Climate Declines

The overhead projector cast a ghastly glow on the larger- than-life picture of Darmarathnam Sivaram, the Sri Lankan Tamil journalist abducted and killed in April 2005.

SRI LANKA: Gov&#39t in Serious Image Crisis

"Somewhere in the jungles of Vanni (northern Sri Lanka), Velupillai Prabhakaran (Tamil Tiger rebel leader) is rubbing his hands in glee. The actions of the Sri Lankan government during the last week, however quickly reversed, best served his interests, and his alone," 'The Nation' commented in its Sunday editorial.

SRI LANKA: Court Stays Eviction of Tamils From Capital

The nationalist government of President Mahinda Rajapakse received a rap on the knuckles from the country's apex court Friday when it ordered a stop to the indiscriminate deportation of ethnic Tamils from the national capital to their homes in the island's north and east.