TSUNAMI IMPACT: Victims Take Charge Amid Failed Policies

A law-abiding citizen, Mohideen Ajimal is nevertheless happy to have violated a 'no-build-buffer-zone' on the beach to re-establish a business selling fish wholesale, wrecked by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which flattened three-quarters of this island country's coasts.

SRI LANKA: Civilians Pin Hopes for Peace on Geneva Talks

Whether Sri Lanka's fragile peace continues to hold hinges on the outcome of talks, to be held this month in Geneva, between representatives of the government and Tamil Tiger rebels - the first in almost three years.

SRI LANKA: Media Targeted as Civil War Looms Large

There was nothing unusual about the two police officers leaning languidly against their patrol car and watching a group of protesting journalists in Colombo on a cloudy afternoon last week. To all appearances, it was business as usual.

SRI LANKA: Media Targeted as Civil War Looms Large

There was nothing unusual about the two police officers leaning languidly against their patrol car and watching a group of protesting journalists in Colombo on a cloudy afternoon last week. To all appearances, it was business as usual.

SRI LANKA: Vigilante Killings Fuel Cycle of Violence

As the funeral procession carrying the coffins of five Tamil students, victims of Thursday's alleged vigilante killings, wound through the streets of the port town of Trincomalee, there were whispers among the mourners that retaliation would be swift.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Still Coping With Trauma

When Indian psychosocial support specialist Mitesh Govender arrived in Sri Lanka six months after the tsunami struck, he was taken aback by the reception he received in this village, 160 km south of Colombo.

SRI LANKA: Growing Violence Eclipses Tsunami Anniversary

The three-year ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam totters at the brink of collapse as violence escalates to unprecedented levels in the north of the country.

SRI LANKA: Growing Violence Eclipses Tsunami Anniversary

The three-year ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam totters at the brink of collapse as violence escalates to unprecedented levels in the north of the country.

SRI LANKA: Poll Outcome Spells Return to Arms

True to the hawkish image that propelled him to electoral victory, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, has begun his six-year-term in office by indicating readiness to review not only a Norwegian-mediated peace process with Tamil rebels but also the historic 2002 ceasefire.

SRI LANKA: Poll Outcome Spells Return to Arms

True to the hawkish image that propelled him to electoral victory, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, has begun his six-year-term in office by indicating readiness to review not only a Norwegian-mediated peace process with Tamil rebels but also the historic 2002 ceasefire.

POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Clear Choices in Close Electoral Contest

When 13 million Sri Lankan voters cast their ballots on Thursday, they will do so with clear choices before them and the sense that this is the closest contest for the top job since 1979, when the country adopted executive presidency.

POLITICS: Elections Leave Sri Lankan Tamils Cold

Fighting elections in Sri Lanka’s embattled northern Jaffna peninsula can resemble fighting a real war. Candidates move from bunker to bunker communicating constantly over wireless with soldiers in forward positions while helicopter gunships provide cover and gunboats patrol the coastline.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Uncertainty Rules Sri Lankan Beaches

This tourist destination, famed for its golden beaches, has regained some of the splendour lost when the Dec. 26 tsunami turned the limpid waters into a mass grave.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Politics Narrows Coastal Buffer Zone

It was one of the most contentious issues that followed the December 26 tsunami. Declared days after the waves killed 35,000 people and damaged billions of dollars worth of coastal property, the construction-free, 'buffer zone' was seen as protective by some and as an impediment to speedy reconstruction by others.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: Monumental Trouble in Sri Lanka

The twisted hulks of three railway carriages, standing near where they were picked up and slammed against houses in this fishing village by the Dec 26 tsunami, symbolise the power of nature as well as human frailities exposed in the aftermath.

TSUNAMI IMPACT: In Sri Lanka, Polls Take Priority Over Housing

Democracy does not come cheap and Sri Lankan victims of the Dec. 26 Asian tsunami are discovering that their already long wait for permanent housing could now be delayed for more than a year after November's presidential polls are completed.

SRI LANKA: Division and Disgust Over Elections

-Sri Lanka's future rests precariously on the outcome of the Nov. 17 presidential election, the nation's fourth political contest within five years.

RIGHTS: Sri Lankan Media Failed Tsunami Victims, Report

For a country that suffered more than 35,000 deaths and one billion US dollars in damages, local media coverage of the aftermath of the Dec. 26 tsunami has been woefully inadequate, a study, sponsored by Transparency International in Sri Lanka, has concluded.

RIGHTS: Child Soldier Issue May Yet Snare Tamil Tigers

While the international community has given the benefit of the doubt to Tamil separatist rebels for the assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, last month, it may not be as forgiving on the issue of continued recruitment of child soldiers.

POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Talks With Tigers Greeted with Scepticism

Although the Sri Lankan government and the separatist militant group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have agreed to hold direct talks in the wake of the Aug.12 assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, analysts are urging caution.

POLITICS: No Return to Arms Despite Sri Lankan Minister’s Slaying

Although the dramatic assassination on Friday of Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has sorely tested relations, the three-year-old truce between the separatist, militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government will likely hold.