POPULATION-SRI LANKA: Ageing Adds to Unemployment Worries

The clock is ticking fast for Sri Lanka to take advantage of its 'demographic dividend' and get young people to participate in the country's economic future - before ageing hits the population in the next 25 years.

RIGHTS: Disputes Over Treatment of Displaced People in Sri Lanka

The number of displaced persons within Sri Lanka is increasing, and the international community does not have access to that population, said the representative of the United Nations secretary general on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Walter Kälin.

MEDIA-SRI LANKA: Custody of Female Journalist Reeks of Repression

The unjustified four-month incarceration of female journalist Munusamy Parameshwari under anti-terrorist laws is being seen here as an example of the repressiveness that she was reporting on.

SRI LANKA: Civilians – Real Losers in the Civil War

As fighting between Tamil rebels and Sri Lankan forces escalate into open war the losers are civilians, particularly some 200,000 refugees cramped into camps set up in eastern Batticaloa district.

LABOUR-SRI LANKA: &#39Ban on Young Mothers Working Abroad Hasty&#39

A ban by the Sri Lankan government on young mothers taking up jobs as housemaids in foreign countries, to minimise social disruption at home, has whipped up a storm of protests with rights groups slamming the move as hasty and poorly planned.

ENVIRONMENT-SRI LANKA: Elephants as Partners in Conservation

Decades after unsuccessful attempts to minimise the elephant-human conflict in Sri Lanka, authorities are trying out a bold experiment - allowing both mammals to live together in harmony with the environment.

SRI LANKA: Norwegian Truce Dead – All Sides Agree

Five years after the Sri Lankan government signed a Norway-brokered ceasefire agreement (CFA) with Tamil separatist rebels, all actors are now agreed that the document now remains solely on paper.

SRI LANKA: Newsprint Shortage Adds to Curbs on Media

Residents of the embattled northern Sri Lankan town of Jaffna who get to see the ‘Uthayan’ newspaper often get a copy that is thumb-worn and soiled from having passed through the hands of many avid readers.

FINANCE: IMF Quits Sri Lanka – May Return

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) shut its Colombo office this month saying it no longer had a Sri Lankan programme, but economists and civil activists say the Fund is still expected to keep a watch over this war-battered nation.

SRI LANKA: Donor Threats Unlikely to Stop War Machine

Will the Sri Lankan government forego recent military gains in Tamil rebel-held areas of the island and heed the advice of donors to resume dialogue with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)?

SRI LANKA: Rights Group Blasts Child Abuse on All Sides

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has relentlessly denounced a Tamil separatist rebel group for recruiting child soldiers in the northeast of Sri Lanka, is now pointing an accusing finger at the government in Colombo for complicity in similar crimes.

MEDIA-SRI LANKA: Journalists Under Fire and Fleeing

With the simmering conflict between government forces and Tamil rebels threatening to escalate into a full-blown civil war, journalists, unable to function freely and faced with death threats, have begun to flee the country.

SRI LANKA: Tsunami Recovery Skewed by Sectarian Strife

Mohideen Ajeemal is determined to put the dark days of the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami, which claimed two of his children, behind him.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Dim Prospects for Peace in Sri Lanka

If 2006 saw a four-year-old Norwegian-brokered truce between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels falling apart, the prospects for respite from ethnic warfare in the coming year look even bleaker.

SRI LANKA: Tamil Moderates Charge Gov&#39t With Genocide

One of the last public acts of Tamil parliamentarian Nadaraja Raviraj was to visit the United Nations offices here, along with a few of his colleagues, to seek help in getting the Sri Lankan army to stop indiscriminate attacks on minority Tamil populations in the north and east of the island.

SRI LANKA: Failure for Government and Rebels, Again

A second round of negotiations for a peace accord between the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil rebels ended in Geneva without agreement between the two sides, who have been involved in a civil war for over three decades.

SRI LANKA: Political Consensus Boost for Geneva Talks

As the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse prepares for talks with Tamil Tiger rebels in Geneva on the weekend, it goes in with hands strengthened by a political understanding arrived at with the main opposition United National Party (UNP).

SRI LANKA: Clashes Mar Govt, Tigers&#39 Vow to Talk

Continuous military confrontations and rhetoric have diminished hopes of renewed negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers just days after Norwegian facilitators won assurances from both sides to reopen talks.

SRI LANKA: Delay in Parley Deepens Humanitarian Crisis

As the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels quibble over where and when to hold peace talks, a massive humanitarian crisis is building up in the Jaffna peninsula where half a million people are short of food and fuel and where bombing raids by the air force have been continuing for the fourth day, Friday.

SRI LANKA: No Unconditional Talks With Tigers – Gov&#39t

The euphoria was short-lived. On Wednesday, the Sri Lankan government formally shot down hopes for a quick solution to escalating violence on the island by denying statements made by Norwegian mediators that spoke of unconditional talks with Tamil Tiger rebels early October in Oslo to restore the February 2002 ceasefire.

SRI LANKA: Monitors Accuse Military of Killing Aid Workers

When the Nordic Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) held government troops responsible Wednesday for the cold-blooded executions of 17 workers from a French charity earlier this month, few were surprised.