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Home » News30,000 vials of vaccine airlifted to save pigs
The Animal Production and Health Department has airlifted about 30,000 vials of Foot-and-Mouth immunisation vaccine from France as the disease spread to seven districts, including Gamapaha. “We decided to treat it as an emergency situation and airlift the vaccines to be used mainly on pigs,” Dr. Kumar de Silva, the department’s Director General, said yesterday. [...]
Pakistani heroin smuggler disappears: Customs, Police trade charges
The Customs and the Police yesterday traded charges over the failure to arrest the Pakistani mastermind involved in the smuggling of 36 kilograms of heroin to Sri Lanka on Friday as he made his escape from a shipping line office in Kollupitiya.The Customs claimed that they informed the Police to arrest the suspect from the [...]
Private online lottery introduced in Lanka
A private company with foreign connections has been given a licence to operate an online lottery including thousands of e-Games terminals from next month – a move that could draw young people, including schoolchildren into gaming. The licence has been given to Oceanic Games (Private) Limited which will operate in collaboration with eGame Solutions, a Hong [...]
Malaysian plane with 239 people goes missing
KUALA LUMPUR/HANOI, March 8 – A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew went missing off the Vietnamese coast today and was presumed to have crashed. There were no reports of bad weather and no sign why the Boeing 777-200ER would have vanished from radar screens about an hour after it took off from [...]
Unholy racket in import of vehicles
The misuse of import licences issued by the Controller General of Imports and Exports is being probed after it was revealed that vehicles imported under this scheme were sold fraudulently depriving the country of revenue, Customs detectives said. The concession has been given to religious places to receive vehicles as gifts, but investigations have revealed this [...]
Chinese company gets huge railway contract
A Chinese company will be awarded the second and third stages of the railway line extension project from Beliatta to Kataragama to be constructed at a cost of US$ 600 million or Rs 7.7 billion, Transport Minister Kumara Welgama said yesterday. He said the funding would come as a loan from the Exim Bank of China [...]
Attack on Excise Chief possibly linked to audit probe on 10 companies
Excise Commissioner General D.G.M.V. Hapuarachchi was conducting a massive audit inquiry of alleged tax evasion by some 10 top distillery companies when his house was shot at earlier this week, it was revealed yesterday. Mr. Hapuarachchi said he had started an audit check last month on these distillery companies to check out on tax evasion [...]
UNHRC Resolution violates SL’s sovereignty, territorial integrity: Ambassador Aryasinha
Sri Lanka accused the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) of violating the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by entertaining the US resolution for an international mechanism to probe alleged war crimes. Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative at the UN in Geneva, Ravinatha Ariyasinha was making an intervention at the Council sessions on Friday. His remarks came [...]
World believes Govt. impunity cannot, will not protect SL’s human rights: UNP
The United National Party (UNP) has declared that the paralysis on the part of the Government to end impunity has caused the international community to lose faith in the Rajapaksa regime’s ability and willingness to protect the rights of the Sri Lankan people. “International action being called for today, is a consequence of the Rajapaksa [...]
Eminent doctor passes away
Dr. Walter Gooneratne, a former President of the College of Private Medical Practitioners passed away on Friday. He was 90. Dr. Gooneratne, who was educated at S. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia practised in Colombo as well as in some of the remote areas in the country. “He liked to work in the remote areas as he [...]
SL fishermen to protest to SLHRC over Indian backtracking
Fisher groups from the north and east and the Puttalam District are to lodge a strong protest with the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) early next week after the Indians arbitrarily broke off from an agreement and have returned to poaching in large numbers in the Palk Bay Sugath Emmanuel, Secretary of the Puttalam District [...]
Candidates expect President to provide satisfactory solution
A section of the law examination candidates are set to meet President Rajapaksa next Wednesday to demand the much delayed solution to their plight. Neethi Adyapanaya Surakeme Sishya Ekamuthuwa (NASSE) president Nayaka Wannigama said the candidates have split up into several groups and are trying to get a solution to their problem. Law examination candidates [...]
Outer Circular Road around Colombo to ease traffic congestion within
The second phase of the Outer Circular Road around Colombo is set to be completed by the end of next year, officials said yesterday.The first phase from Kottawa to Kaduwela, of the three-stage project, was launched yesterday by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Construction of the second phase from Kaduwela to Kadawatha is under construction, while the [...]
Dry zone gets drier and drier, no drinking water
The scarcity of drinking water has added to the burdens of the villagers of the dry zone as the drought continued for the fourth successive month, officials said. Drinking water is being distributed in bowsers to the hardest hit areas. “The reservoirs in the Puttalam District are drying up. Some villagers don’t have access to any [...]
Land-grabbers squeeze Kandy Hospital services
The Kandy (Teaching) Hospital is fighting a losing battle to regain more than 40 acres of its land and expand badly-needed services to care for the thousands of patients coming in for treatment from all over the country. As a result of encroachment by hundreds of private dwellings the hospital has only been left with [...]
Provinces get their own butterflies
Everybody loves a butterfly and perhaps Sri Lankans more than most: four years after the Sri Lanka Birdwing was declared the national butterfly each of the nine provinces are to get their own butterfly. The nine are considered flagship species due to their attractive colour patterns and have been selected because they are endemic to [...]
Excavation suspended, report awaited on remains already recovered
Mannar Magistrate Ananthi Kanagaratnam this week ordered a temporary halt to the excavations at the mass grave site in Mannar and called for a full report from the Police. The decision was made following discussions held near the grave site presided over by the Mannar Magistrate with the Anuradhapura Judicial Medical Officer Dr. D.L.Waidyaratne, Archeological [...]
Vesting of police powers in the armed forces: BMICH cancels BASL’s booking for a forum
The administration of the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH) in Colombo has suddenly cancelled a booking placed by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) to conduct a public forum on the implications of a gazette notification to vest police powers in the armed forces. ‘The booking had been made by paying an advance [...]
Human smuggling: Five kingpins arrested since 2012
When Muhundan got a call from Raju* inquiring about his ‘migration services’ he readily gave details. The next boat to New Zealand will leave soon, and if Raju wants a place in the boat he should pay the advance immediately. Raju agreed to do so and arranged to meet him in Trincomalee with Rs. 50,000 [...]
Even those who complain of human rights hail our infrastructure development: MR
There are some who are planning to make false complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, while there are some already there doing this, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said yesterday at the opening of the Outer Circular Highway from Kottawa to Kaduwala. “Even the international community which is complaining about the human rights [...]
28-year-old mother remanded for allegedly killing her newborn
Police have arrested a 28-year-old mother over the killing and dumping of her newborn child in a toilet bowl at the National Hospital early this week, police said. The 28-year-old was admitted to the National Hospital on Monday (3) at 9 am for a medical checkup. She had given birth to a child inside a [...]
Police warn: Check vehicle papers
Motor vehicle registration certificates that went missing from the Motor Traffic Department (MTD) more than three years ago could still be in circulation and being used fraudulently, the Police Fraud Bureau warned this week. The warning came after a major racket in selling these certificates for sums varying from Rs. 5,000-100,000 was uncovered by the [...]
Many hands but no directing brain in fight against drugs
Lack of an independent enforcement body to impose laws and direct narcotics trafficking investigators has led to the country being used as a transit point by international drug mafia, a drug expert warns With 45,000 heroin users in the country and drug use spreading through schools and universities, the narcotics menace has also reached deep [...]
Foot-and-mouth spreads to Gampaha District
Gampaha District has also been declared a foot-and-mouth disease infected zone by the Animal Health and Production Department, raising the number of districts infected by the disease to seven. Dr. Kumar De Silva, Director General of the Animal Health and Production Department said three cases of foot-and-mouth disease had been detected in Karandeniya in Galle. [...]
Competitive bidding turned on head
In the past–before it began bluffing that Australian gambling tycoon James Packer’s proposed resort in Sri Lanka would not have a casino–the Government cited Singapore’s successful foray into gaming as good reason to expand the industry here. But Singapore’s decision to allow casinos for the first time was preceded by research and a firm policy [...]
A paucity of planning
The problem of accommodation at the Kelaniya University has regularly interrupted student activities over the past few years.The most recent interruption arose when 300 female students of university forcibly occupied the canteen on the grounds that they have not been provided hostel facilities. Despite students occupying the canteen for the past seven days, no solution [...]
Man using electric motor to fish gets electrocuted
A 28-year-old motor mechanic died on Tuesday while fishing with an electric motor in a canal in the Kaduwela area.A watcher at the land besides the canal told an inquest that the victim, identified as Kankanam Padirige Ravindra Lanka Kumara, a father of two and a resident of No.642/4, Kendaliyaddha, Koratota, Kaduwela used to come [...]
Crime points to lawlessness in schools
The arrests of three students suspected of carrying out serial robberies of mobile phone shops have raised questions among educationists over the increasing lawlessness and lack of respect for moral values in schools. The three Advanced Level students, who targeted mobile phone shops in the Kottawa and Maharagama areas were arrested and released on bail of [...]
Candidates openly distribute gifts to constituents as election law violations increase
Exercise books, cement bags, bicycles, application forms for loans are being distributed by candidates contesting for the Southern (SPC) and Western Provincial Councils (WPC) as more complaints flowed in of election law violations, officials said. Some candidates were openly distributing items while campaigning, while others discreetly passed on goods, with less than three weeks left for [...]
Discussion soon on mechanism in House to monitor unsolicited project proposals: Speaker
The proposal by Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to set up a Parliamentary mechanism to monitor stand-alone or unsolicited development proposals would be taken up for discussion at the next meeting of party leaders in Parliament, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa said. On Friday the Opposition Leader said the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament should probe such proposals [...]
Fire at Anawilundawa destroys endemic plants and wild life
A number of animals at the Anawilundawa Wetland Sanctuary in the Putalam district died when a fire broke out there on Wednesday the 5th.This sanctuary is rich in biodiversity and is home to a variety of animal species ranging from the black tortoise to hare (wild rabbits) and chevrotain (Meeminna). The fire, which originally broke [...]
