Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General of the Peace Secretariat and Secretary to the Ministry of Human Rights and Disaster Management, has denounced a recent BBC news report about an impending Human catastrophe in the North-east of Sri Lanka. Following this, Mr. David Loyn, the International Development Correspondent of BBC News and the author of the aforesaid BBC news report, has written to Professor Wijesinha to express his displeasure about the latter’s criticism of the BBC: Given below is a series of E-mail messages exchanged between Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha and the BBC correspondent Mr. David Loyn.

The Sri Lankan delegation to the on-going High-Level Segment of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva met with the UN High-Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navenethem Pillai, today, on the third day of the High-Level Segment. 

Thousands of acres of paddy land in the Eastern Province were left fallow during the long years of conflict. The prevailing insecurity made it difficult for farmers to access their fields, while many people left the region altogether. Further, the LTTE compelled farmers in areas under its control to pay into its coffers after each harvest, which affected the profitability of their enterprises. Paddy cultivation dropped sharply.

Colombo (IANS) Describing a Pakistani driver as 'hero of our time' for bravely saving the lives of Sri Lankan cricketers during the terror attack in Lahore, the state-run English newspapers have offered him a fully-paid holiday package as a token of appreciation.

B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: An International Committee of the Red Cross worker died on Thursday from a shrapnel injury in the war-torn north even as informed sources in the government indicated the military was hopeful of taking total control of the north in the next few days.

The Government is making arrangements set up a 1,000-bed field hospital for internally displaced persons fleeing Mullaitivu, Healthcare Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told The Island.

He said that more and more civilians were found to be fleeing from Mullaitivu and the hospitals were inadequate.

By C. Bryson Hull

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka plans to open two safe routes to let tens of thousands of civilians trapped in a war zone escape and has invited the Red Cross to help, a senior Sri Lankan official said on Thursday.

Sri Lankan soldiers have cornered the Tamil Tiger separatists in an area of less than 45 square km (17 sq miles) in the Indian Ocean island's north-eastern shore, aiming to deliver a final blow to a separatist war that has raged off and on since 1983.

Sri Lankan women get the best prenatal care in South Asia among other countries since Sri Lanka uses its resources more efficiently and equitably, a World Bank report revealed.

Andrew Dismore, Labour Member of Parliament for an obscure suburb in Northwest London, sounds as though he has been sniffing something. In an article described rather hopefully as ‘comment’ on the Guardian website today, he does a very good job of repeating LTTE propaganda, while completely failing to note what are accepted by the United Nations and other international agencies as the essential facts of the Sri Lankan conflict.

Statement by Hon. Mohan Peiris, P.C., Attorney-General of Sri Lanka at the interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 5 March 2009  

“Mr. President, 

Madam High Commissioner, 

May I thank you and congratulate you on your comprehensive statement introducing your first annual report dealing with a spectrum of issues both thematic and country specific.    

MULLAITTIVU: A PRE-DAWN escape of nine displaced civilians from the ‘Safe Zone’ area  across Mullaitivu lagoon met with mishap early Tuesday (3) morning, but the quick action of the Army troops rescued their lives and brought them ashore.

3 civilians were killed and 2 wounded following an indiscriminate LTTE gunfire attack this morning (March 6), at a group of civilians who were fleeing from the declared no fire zone at Mullaittivu.

Statement of Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General of the Peace Secretariat and Secretary to the Ministry of Human Rights and Disaster Management exercising the right of reply at the High Level Segment of the 10th Session of the UN Human Rights Council.

By Jamila Najmuddin

Foreign diplomats in Sri Lanka were taken to camps housing internally displaced people in Vavuniya, yesterday, and given a first hand view of the conditions at these camps and the measures taken by the government to assist the displaced people, a foreign ministry official said.  

Foreign Secretary Dr. Palitha Kohona, Resettlement Minister Rishard Bathiudeen and senior officials from the foreign ministry accompanied the diplomats who were flown to Vavuniya via Anuradhapura last morning.

The airwaves were spinning on Wednesday March 3rd with the claim that the ICRC had said that there was an impending humanitarian catastrophe in north-eastern Sri Lanka. It was highlighted on BBC World and, apart from having to answer various Sri Lankan media outfits who called me about this well before dawn, I even had to face an interview on World Radio Switzerland, with what seemed yet another gung-ho Britisher.

On the second day of the on-going High-Level Segment of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Sri Lankan delegation led by Hon. Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, held three regional group meetings and several bilateral meetings in the Palais des Nations, Geneva.

The delegation comprising Hon. Minister Samarasinghe, Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Geneva H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, Attorney-General Hon. Mohan Peiris, P.C., Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha and Dr. Rohan Perera, P.C. met with the Asian, African and Latin American Groups in the UN Human rights Council and briefed them about the present situation in Sri Lanka.

Amrith Rohan Perera 

“Offensives inside the remaining entire un-cleared area of less than 45 sq km, inclusive of the reserved ‘Safety Zone’ for fleeing civilians, should be carried out taking all possible safety precautions with utmost precision, since the number of civilians thronging into the area is now fast swelling,” so said Commander of the Army, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, when he met his senior ground commanders Wednesday (4) morning at the Vanni Security Forces Headquarters in Vavuniya.

ISLAMABAD: Sri Lanka has expressed full confidence on Pakistan in connection with investigation into Lahore attacks saying Pak-Sri Lanka friendship journey will continue and no attempt to isolate Pakistan will be allowed to succeed.  

This was said by visiting Sri Lankan foreign minister during a joint press conference along with his Pakistani counter part foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

John Thompson, National Post 

No prolonged violent civil war ends quietly; and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are squalling like, well, a cat on the losing end of a desperate fight.

Throughout the countries that shelter the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, the Tigers' activists are desperately trying to win some reprieve for the last LTTE guerrilla force trapped in Sri Lanka. The problem is that the Tamil Tigers began as a terrorist group; and the two main traits of terrorists are deception and atrocity.