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 [...]

The head of Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic church declared Saturday he will boycott state functions to protest against police allegations of child trafficking involving the Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith said the church has decided not to participate in government-sponsored events in December to show their anger over a police raid on a children’s home run by the charity.

He said the police raid on the children’s home run by the order founded by the late Mother Teresa [...]

Japan, a top aid giver to Sri Lanka, on Wednesday urged the island’s government to probe war crimes allegedly committed while defeating Tamil rebels and pressed Colombo to improve human rights.

Japan said it wanted "genuine reconciliation" in Sri Lanka after troops crushed Tamil Tiger rebels in May 2009 and declared an end to nearly four-decades of ethnic strife that claimed up to 100,000 lives.

Tokyo’s special envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, said there was a "perception of insecurity" despite [...]

Sri Lanka’s President on Sunday unveiled the island’s first expressway, linking the capital and the southern city of Galle, asserting that better road connectivity would remedy old separatist tendencies.

President Mahinda Rajapakse, who opened the expressway by unveiling a plaque at the main entry point in Galle, drove a short distance before addressing a public rally where he promised a highway "revolution" on the island.

"Separatist tendencies will fade away when we have better road connectivity," Rajapakse said referring to the [...]

Heavy rains and gale force winds have killed at least 14 people and left more than 30 fishermen mising in southern Sri Lanka, according to officials.

Disaster Management centre officials said a total of 14 people were confirmed dead while another 30 were reported missing after coastal areas were lashed by heavy winds on Friday.

Officials said nearly 1,500 homes were damaged, with most of them losing their roofs.

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Two and a half years after the end of Sri Lanka’s bloody ethnic conflict, hundreds of families displaced by the war are still engaged in a fraught, exhausting search for missing children.

Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians were caught up in the chaos of the military’s ferocious final assault on cornered Tamil Tiger rebels in the jungles of northeast Sri Lanka in April and May 2009.

As the offensive intensified, Usha Devi Selvaratnam said goodbye to her teenage son, [...]

Sri Lanka announced Monday a surprise three percent depreciation of the rupee against a basket of currencies in a move to boost exports, as it released a 2012 budget that boosts defence spending.

Sri Lanka’s central bank has said the rupee has been steadily appreciating against other currencies since the end of the island’s decades-long Tamil separatist war in May 2009.

Economic woes in Europe and the United States have also led to a downturn in demand for Sri Lanka’s exports, [...]

Sri Lanka’s president is expected to raise defence spending when he unveils his 2012 budget Monday, officials said, even though the country’s bloody civil war came to an end two-and-a-half years ago.

As the island nation’s export-dependent economy is hit by a downturn in key US and European markets, Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also finance minister, is expected to outline plans to cut the country’s deficit and raise new revenues.

Finance ministry officials said the budget will forecast a growth rate [...]

A Sri Lankan government probe into the civil war against Tamil rebels has called for further investigations of alleged war crimes committed in the final stages of fighting in 2009, according to a report.

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which has been widely criticised as biased by international rights groups, concluded that some evidence warranted a new inquiry, the local Sunday Times said.

The commission was due to hand over its report to President Mahinda Rajapakse later Sunday, but [...]

A Sri Lankan High Court sentenced former army chief Sarath Fonseka to three years in jail on Friday after finding him guilty of making a false allegation against the president’s brother.

Fonseka, who ran against President Mahinda Rajapakse in 2010 elections, is already serving a 30-month prison term after a court martial convicted him of irregularities in military procurements.

The three-judge bench in a two-to-one judgement found Fonseka guilty of violating emergency regulations by "spreading rumours and causing public disorder" in [...]

Sri Lanka’s failed bid to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games may have been scuttled because of shoddy organisation of the event in neighbouring India last year, an official said Tuesday.

Ahead of a vote on the 2018 event last week, Canada brought up deficiencies at the New Delhi Games last year and highlighted that many bills remained unpaid, head of the Sri Lankan bid committee Ajith Nivard Cabraal said.

“It created a certain fear amongst the voting delegates who associated India [...]

Sri Lanka on Saturday warned websites to register with the authorities after the United States expressed deep concern over Colombo’s blocking of a popular Internet-based dissident publication.

The Ministry of Mass Media and Information said many reports posted on dissident websites amounted to character assassination of President Mahinda Rajapakse, his ministers and top officials.

"This ministry believes that those who are operating and maintaining these clandestine websites have been doing so to discredit the government, the head of state," the ministry [...]

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Sunday condemned a "preposterous" UN-commissioned report alleging war crimes in his country, revealing he stopped Canada raising it at a Commonwealth meeting.

Foreign Minister Gamini Peiris also confirmed Sri Lanka will host the next Commonwealth leaders’ meeting in 2013, saying that none of the 54-nation bloc raised the prospect of moving it during this year’s summit in Perth.

"There was no attempt whatsoever to revisit the issue relating to the venue," he told reporters at the conclusion [...]

Sri Lanka’s government on Thursday sought to dismiss war crimes allegations as propaganda from its defeated rivals, as it came under further pressure ahead of a Commonwealth summit.

A spokesman for Sri Lankan President Mahendra Rajapakse described the heavy focus on the issue in the lead-up to Friday’s gathering of leaders from the 54-nation Commonwealth bloc in the Australian city of Perth as "unfair".

"This is the well-oiled propaganda machinery of the LTTE rump," spokesman Bandula Jayasekera told the ABC news network, [...]