LABOUR-SRI LANKA: Trade Unions Fail To Keep Workers Happy

Sri Lanka's job market is getting more informal but trade unions have lost sight of globalisation-triggered changes where workers scurry to do two or more jobs at a time.

TRADE-SRI LANKA: Tea, Garments Win Buyer Approval for Labour Practices

Sri Lanka is regularly hauled up by western donors for its dismal human rights record, but its biggest exports, tea and garments, are gaining global recognition for ensuring workers' rights and welfare.

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 The rhetoric has already been replaced by mounting body counts - in the last three weeks of July, more than 50 combatants died along the forward defences that separate areas held by the two sides in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.

ENERGY-SRI LANKA: Solar Power Gets A Boost

There may be nothing new in a recent World Bank credit facility to provide electricity through renewable power to thousands of rural homes. But for the growing solar power sector here, it is a giant step in taking the industry forward.

POLITICS: Sri Lanka in Tug-of-War with UN, Relief Agencies

Sri Lanka, which has consistently received high marks from the United Nations for its superlative social indicators on literacy, child mortality and health care, has received failing grades for its growing human rights abuses and failure to protect civilians in the country's battle zones.

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: Primary Education in Crisis

The dismal results of Sri Lanka's school-leaving General Certificate of Education (GCE) exams this year, which showed only 48 percent of the 525,000 candidates passing, have left educationists wringing their hands and asking where they went wrong.

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.

MEDIA-SRI LANKA: Building Ethnic Harmony With Community Radio

In this tea-growing hill country, about 150 km from Colombo, a state-run community radio station is creating harmony among the country's Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups by broadcasting from the villages and opening up the airwaves to people's participation.

SRI LANKA: War Refugees Stressed by Mass Resettlement

An army-supervised mass resettlement plan underway for more than 100,000 people, displaced by fierce battles with Tamil rebels in eastern Batticaloa district, may be causing new problems for the refugees rather than solving existing ones, say volunteers.

SRI LANKA: &#39Flying Tiger&#39 Raids Pose Hard Questions

By successfully carrying out air raids on military and economic targets in and around the capital, separatist rebels have demonstrated a new capacity to wage ‘all-out' war in their fight to carve out a separate state for the Tamil ethnic minority in Sri Lanka.

LABOUR-SRI LANKA: Better Deal for Female Migrant Workers

Besieged by protests from local and international rights groups, the Sri Lankan government is reconsidering a ban on young mothers seeking employment abroad.

CLIMATE CHANGE-SRI LANKA: Flash Floods – An Ominous Sign

As Tamil militant planes flew sorties over the national capital last week, the attention of political leaders were diverted from a worse disaster unfolding on the ground - flash floods, attributed by scientists, to climate change.

PRESS FREEDOM DAY: Sri Lanka Out of the Reckoning

"Press and freedom? In Sri Lanka?" was the incredulous response of one journalist when asked what he thought of celebrating World Press Freedom Day, May 3. "Keep my name out of this," was all he would further venture to say.

SRI LANKA: Climate Change Worse Than Civil War – UN Expert

As the world prepares for yet another ‘scary' report by the United Nations panel on global warming and climate change, a Sri Lankan specialist in the group says Tamil rebels and government troops are actually fighting over land due to be submerged as sea-levels rise.

SRI LANKA: Labour Shortages Plunge Tea Estates Into Doldrums

Once Sri Lanka's sunshine crop and its top export earner, tea is no longer the answer to the country's economic ills, thanks to a serious shortage of plantation workers that began with the mass expulsion of 'Indian Tamils' in the 1960s.

RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Civil War – Not Quite Cricket Says Amnesty

The delivery is faultless but the government sees it as a 'googly'. Amnesty International (AI), the human rights watchdog, has timed the cricket World Cup series in the West Indies to get thousands of balls, inscribed with the message ‘'Play by the rules,'' sent up to the prosecutors of this country's brutal civil war.