A common refrain regarding the arrival of the Tamil refugees aboard the MV Sun Sea is that they have "jumped the queue" and taken the place of "legitimate" immigrants who await entry to Canada. The accusation is emotive but it is just plain wrong. Immigrants and refugees are entirely different groups. Each has its own stringent set of rules for admission to Canada. Immigrants are people who want to come to Canada and have the opportunity to meet with officials at a Canadian embassy and apply under the criteria established by law. [ Full Report ]

    A Sri Lankan citizen who was a crewman on a gun-running boat for the Tamil Tigers has been given the right by the Supreme Court to apply for refugee status in New Zealand. In a unanimous decision, the court has dismissed an appeal by the Attorney-General against a Court of Appeal judgment that the applicant, who cannot be named, was eligible to claim refugee status. [ Full Report ]

    Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday secured the two-thirds parliamentary majority he needs to change the constitution after an opposition party with eight legislators pledged its support. "We will not join the government, but we will support the proposed constitutional amendments," Basheer Segu Dawood, the chairman of the ethnic minority party Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, told Reuters. The president's United Peoples Freedom Alliance won a sweeping majority in an April parliamentary poll after Rajapaksa's re-election to the presidency three months earlier. [ Full Report ]

    Indian tourists will no longer get their visas on arrival in Sri Lanka September 30 onwards. On Friday, Department of Immigration and Emigration announced that it was withdrawing the visa-on-arrival facility for tourists from 79 countries including, India, UK, USA, China, Japan and host of European nations. It is from these and West Asian countries that Sri Lanka gets its chunk of tourists. It means tourists coming into Sri Lanka will now have to get their tourist visas stamped from Sri Lankan missions abroad. The decision comes a day after Economic Development minister Basis Rajapaksa presided over a road show in New Delhi entitled “Sri Lanka as a destination for tourism and investment in its infrastructure” sponsored by the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau and the Confederation of Indian Industry. [ Full Report ]

    If the 492 Tamil asylum-seekers who recently arrived by boat on B.C.'s shores are "queue-jumpers," then I guess my parents were too. They came as Vietnam War draft dodgers from the U.S. in 1967. Like a couple of the Tamil women who just arrived, my mom was pregnant with me. My parents did not seek advance permission from Ottawa to immigrate. They did not fill out any paperwork before arriving. And they could no more seek permission to leave from their home government than these Tamils could, for what they were doing, as far as the U.S. was concerned, was illegal and would result in my father's arrest. [ Full Report ]

    Asked about Sri Lanka on his final day as UN Humanitarian Coordinator, John Holmes offered a defense of his department's funding of the government's internment camps while admitting the government may have “deliberately shelled” civilians and hospitals. Inner City Press asked Holmes about criticism of his and the UN's actions in Sri Lanka, for example pulling out of Kilinochchi, funding the internment camps and failing even now to get to the bottom of the murder of the Action Contre La Faim humanitarian workers. [ Full Report ]

    All government MPs were directed not to leave the country till September 15, informed sources said yesterday. The reason for this order is believed to be that the government has planned to table the proposed Constitutional Amendments when Parliament meets next month, and the ministers need to be present, political sources say. The SLFP MPs have been informed by their party headquarters while the MPs from the other constituent parties of the UPFA are expected to be informed soon by the office of the Chief Organiser. [ Full Report ]

    A Sri Lankan housemaid with nails embedded in her body is to undergo surgery, her doctors said. LP Ariyawathie, 49, said her employer in Saudi Arabia inflicted the injuries as a punishment, according to medics at Kamburupitiya Hospital, Sri Lanka. "She was brought in complaining her Saudi employer drove nails into her body," said hospital director Prabath Gajadeera. "X-rays showed that there were 24 nails and a needle." [ Full Report ]

    With the end of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, New Delhi and Colombo will revert to a normal defence relationship. Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar will soon visit Colombo to get an idea of the issues to be taken up at the first annual defence dialogue between the two countries. The institutional mechanism of yearly defence dialogue was decided by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during their summit meeting here in June. “It is time to look at greater comprehensive cooperation [ Full Report ]

    The United Nations (UN) refused to comment on the appointment of Major General Shavendra Silva as the new Sri Lankan Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York. When asked about the appointment at a press briefing in New York, Wednesday, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky refused to comment. The spokesman was also asked if UN Secretary General Ban ki-moon can refuse to accept the appointment but the UN spokesman said he needed to check on the general procedure. Major General Silva’s appointment to the UN comes amidst human rights allegations being raised against the government and the military which resulted in UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon appointing a panel to advise him on Sri Lanka. [ Full Report ]