President Mahinda Rajapakse marked Sri Lanka’s national day by appealing to the country to show "strength and courage" in the face of a worsening global economic crisis.

Rajapakse on Saturday said the problems confronting the world economy were also hitting the resort island nation of 20 million people who are emerging from nearly four decades of ethnic war after crushing Tamil separatists in 2009.

"It is important to be aware of the reality," Rajapakse said in his address to the nation on [...]

Sri Lanka freed 1,414 convicts on Saturday to mark the country’s 64th anniversary of independence from Britain, a prisons official said.

President Mahinda Rajapakse granted an amnesty to convicts serving light sentences, but Sri Lanka’s most high-profile prisoner, former army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, was not among those released.

There had been intense local media speculation that Rajapakse may use the Independence anniversary to pardon his rival.

Fonseka was arrested two weeks after he lost presidential polls to Rajapakse [...]

Sri Lanka’s central bank on Friday raised its key interest rate for the first time in five years and asked commercial banks to reduce lending in the face of a worsening trade deficit.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka hiked its benchmark lending rate by 50 basis points to 9.0 percent, the first rise since February 2007 when the rate was upped to 12.0 percent from 11.50 percent.

The bank also asked commercial banks to rein in lending, arguing that much [...]

Dozens of media rights activists took to the streets in Colombo on Wednesday demanding action against those responsible for killing journalists and attacking news organisations.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joined Sri Lankan media organisations at the demonstration in Colombo’s Lipton Square.

Organisers said the rally was in response to a spate of attacks on the media and the failure of the government to bring those responsible to justice.

"The killers are out there," said a placard carried by one journalist, [...]

Sri Lanka has ordered a group of 161 foreign Islamic clerics to leave the country, for flouting visa regulations by preaching to pockets of Muslims around the country, an official said Sunday.

Controller of Immigration and Emigration Chulananda Perera said the clerics, who were mostly Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Maldivian and Arab, had travelled into the country on tourist visas.

"We have ordered them to leave the country by January 31. They have violated immigration laws. A tourist visa is to have [...]

A Sri Lankan doctor who admitted aiding the South Asian nation’s Tamil Tiger separatist group began his appeal on Tuesday to be allowed to resume work in Britain.

Murugesu Vinayagamoorthy spent almost five years in a US jail for providing material support to the rebels, who were defeated by Sri Lankan troops in 2009 after decades spent fighting for an independent homeland.

The 62-year-old doctor was released last year and has asked Britain’s General Medical Council (GMC) if he can see [...]

Sri Lanka has reacted furiously to a spate of "personalised" foreign postage stamps bearing the image of slain Tamil Tiger rebel supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The stamps, from Britain, Canada and France, were reportedly put together by overseas Tamil Tiger support groups, using services sanctioned by state postal agencies that allow people to combine personal photos with official stamps.

"Sri Lanka has protested in the strongest possible terms and made it clear that any foreign mail with these stamps will not be [...]

Sri Lanka has lifted a moratorium on killing stray dogs as it tries to reduce the more than 2,000 cases of hospitalisation due to dog bites every day.

Health minister Maithripala Sirisena told the Swarnavahini television network the government had decided to revert to destroying strays, a practice suspended five years ago, because of rabies concerns.

"Clearly our new policy has failed," Mr Sirisena told the privately run network.

"As a government, we have decided to go back to the previous [...]

Police have arrested the Sri Lankan caretaker of a property belonging to Hollywood actress Gillian Anderson following allegations of fraud, police said Thursday.

The caretaker, a Sri Lankan national, was remanded in custody on Wednesday following a complaint he misappropriated up to 17.8 million rupees ($154,000) from the X-Files star’s property at Pasyala, a village outside Colombo.

"We arrested the man following a complaint that he criminally misappropriated funds entrusted to him to manage the property," police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.

He [...]

More than one in three south Asians say they were forced to bribe officials in the last year, mainly for services they were legally entitled to, an international anti-graft watchdog said on Thursday.

A survey released by Berlin-based Transparency International in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu showed bribery has become so endemic that the region is second only to sub-Saharan Africa as the corruption hotspot of the world.

The watchdog surveyed 7,800 people in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the [...]

Sri Lanka’s parliament on Wednesday approved the country’s 2012 budget, officials said, boosting spending on defence despite the end of the island?s decades-long Tamil separatist war in May 2009.

The annual budget for 2012 unveiled last month by President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also the finance minister, was passed with a two-thirds majority.

The budget increased defence spending to 230 billion rupees ($2.1 billion) from 215 billion rupees in 2011.

Officials said they need to keep defence spending high to settle loans on [...]

The United States on Monday voiced concern over a Sri Lankan commission’s report on the end of the island’s civil war and urged the government to address human rights allegations more fully.

In a 400-page report released last week, the government-created commission cleared the military of charges that it deliberately targeted civilians as it wiped out the Tamil Tiger leadership in 2009, ending decades of war.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission made some [...]

International human rights groups criticized a Sri Lankan report Friday on the island’s civil war and called for more accountability after the commission cleared the military of key charges.

The Sri Lankan government commission, in a 400-page report, concluded that the military did not deliberately target civilians during the final stages of the conflict as forces wiped out the Tamil Tiger rebel leadership.

Human Rights Watch renewed calls for an independent review. Sri Lanka has said that its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation [...]

Sri Lanka on Tuesday said it was "true friends" with China due to military assistance provided during the island’s bloody civil war, underlining growing links with Beijing.

China’s influence in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and other surrounding countries is a sensitive subject with neighbouring India, which itself has emerged as a strong regional player in Asia as its economy has boomed.

Army chief Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya thanked China for its "unfailing support" in helping to train the Sri Lankan army, [...]

China has said it may use the Seychelles as a naval supply stop while conducting anti-piracy missions, at the invitation of the Indian Ocean island state.

The announcement comes at a time of growing Indian concern about China’s influence in the strategically important Indian Ocean, a vital shipping lane connecting Asia to Europe and the Middle East.

"According to escort needs and the needs of other long-distance missions, China will consider taking supplies or recuperating at appropriate ports in the Seychelles [...]