Sri Lanka plans to bring new anti-terrorism rules into force effective on Wednesday, local media reported, replacing tough wartime emergency powers lifted this month under heavy international pressure.

A nearly three-decade separatist conflict ended in 2009 with the defeat of Tamil separatists. But Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa only moved last week to end wartime emergency powers in force since the August 2005 assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar by the rebels.

However on Wednesday, Sri Lanka Attorney General Mohan [...]

Sri Lankan authorities on Tuesday arrested more than 100 people that threw rocks at police and soldiers who stopped them from chasing men thought to be "grease devils," or nighttime prowlers who have sparked an island wide spate of deadly violence.

At least five people including a police officer have been killed over the past two weeks in bouts of vigilantism and clashes, prompting deployment of the army and opposition accusations that the government may use the panic to keep wartime [...]

Sri Lanka’s government, two years after winning a three-decade war against Tamil Tiger separatists, said on Thursday it would issue electronic identity cards to its citizens as a new security measure.

The island nation’s cabinet has approved the proposal by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, cabinet spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters in Colombo. He did not say how exactly the government would use the new IDs.

During the war, the government used existing identity cards as a tool to track ethnic minority [...]

A Western-led push for a war crimes probe into Sri Lanka’s war to destroy the Tamil Tigers is motivated by a "hidden agenda" to oust President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, the island nation’s defence secretary said Thursday.

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the architect of Sri Lanka’s destruction of the separatist Tamil Tigers in 2009 and the president’s younger brother, also expressed frustration that post-war rehabilitation efforts were being ignored.

Sri Lanka’s military crushed the Tamil Tigers to decisively end one of Asia’s [...]

Rising levels of corruption in Sri Lanka will scare off foreign investors who have poured funds into the country since the end of its three-decade war, the nation’s former chief justice said on Tuesday.

Sarath N. Silva, a well known critic of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, told an opposition forum the country’s anti-graft laws were "ineffective", and accused government officials of handing out contracts without going to tender.

Sri Lanka’s deputy economic development minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena dismissed the accusations on [...]

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa landed in China on Tuesday seeking tighter economic ties in a stormy financial world, and against the backdrop of an aggressive Western push for a probe into war crimes allegations.

Rajapaksa was due to attend the Universiade sporting event in Shenzhen and will later meet President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in Beijing, in the latest of his several visits to one of Sri Lanka’s closest allies.

The Sri Lankan leader on Monday said [...]

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling alliance swept local government elections in late July, but the former Tamil Tiger political proxy won handily in the old war zone, exposing the still-deep ethnic divide despite two years of peace.

Following are the key political risks to watch:

TAMIL-SINHALA POLITICAL DIVIDE

Rajapaksa and his United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) campaigned hard in former Tamil Tiger territory in northern Sri Lanka for local government polls held on July 23 but went away disappointed.

The Tamil National Alliance [...]

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a party formerly controlled by the separatist Tigers, won 15 of 20 local councils in the old northern war zone and three of six in the east, which was Tiger territory until the military ran them out in 2007.

"This means Tamils like freedom from a military regime and protecting their socio-cultural identity with a political solution versus the government’s development plans," said Kusal Perera, an analyst and frequent government critic at the Center for Social [...]

Citizens in Sri Lanka’s old war zone voted for local leaders for the first time in at least a dozen years, in a poll marked by intimidation, vote-buying and scepticism by the mostly Tamil electorate of any kind of post-war political change.

Soldiers remained on the streets across the north, as they have since the May 2009 end of a 26-year war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who fought for a separate state for Sri [...]

Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils say President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s post-war development and infrastructure projects in the former war zone in the island’s north have yet to address their real concerns and have not excluded their participation.

Sri Lanka’s northern cities hold local polls for the first time in many years on Saturday amid opposition and poll monitor complaints of intimidation.

Healing after a 25-year war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that ended in May 2009, [...]

Sri Lanka’s northern cities hold local polls for the first time in many years on Saturday and though the civil war is over, fear and intimidation remain rife, poll monitors and opposition politicians say.

Voters in the separatist Tamil Tigers’ self-declared capital of Kilinochchi, and in Mullaittivu where they were defeated by government forces in May 2009, will elect local councillors for the first time in 29 years.

The northern Jaffna district, under military control in the latter half of the 26-year [...]

Sri Lanka expects $1.5 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) through its first tourist city project, that includes four five-star hotels comprising 2,300 rooms, the government said on Thursday.

The planned hotel city at an 80 hectare site in Katana, a coastal town 15 km from commercial capital Colombo, is the latest destination where the island nation aims to build infrastructure to accelerate its post-war tourism boom.

"The envisaged foreign direct investment for phase one is $1.5 billion," Media Minister Keheliya [...]

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry has secured $1.2 billion foreign investment this year due to a post-war tourism boom and has raised its investment target to $3 billion within the next five years, an official said on Friday.

The end of the 25-year war in May 2009 has boosted the $50 billion economy’s leisure industry, making it one of the most attractive sectors for investment due to the island’s nature and tropical climate that attract more high-end Western Europe mtourists.

"So [...]

Sri Lanka’s main ethnic minority Tamil party on Thursday said the military had attacked its campaign events in the former war zone in the north to create a climate of fear ahead of the first local government polls in 26 years.

Legislators of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which backed the now defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, said supporters were chased away at a meeting in the main town of Jaffna by the military at the start of the first election [...]

Sri Lanka must investigate allegations of atrocities committed during its civil war after more video footage was aired claiming to show "horrific scenes" of bound prisoners being executed, Britain said on Wednesday.

British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said a failure to probe the claims of human rights abuses at the end of the 25-year war with guerrillas of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) could lead to international action against Colombo.

Burt’s comments came after Britain’s Channel 4 broadcast [...]