News stories by Amantha Perera, page 9

JHIRPU PHULPINGKATT, Nepal, Jun 02 (IPS) - Residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatt, a village nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 110 km from Nepal's capital Kathmandu, are on red alert.

COLOMBO, May 28 (IPS) - The monsoon in Sri Lanka is always a much-awaited event. There is something about the sight of the gathered clouds, the washed trees and the drenched landscape that stirs romance even in the most hardened of souls.

KATHMANDU, May 16 (IPS) - With a combined population of over 1.7 billion, which includes some of the world's poorest but also a sizeable middle class with a growing spending capacity, South Asia is a policymaker's nightmare.

PUTTALAM, Sri Lanka, May 08 (IPS) - The camp should not have been difficult to find. We were told to drive straight on the road that leads north away from the town of Puttalam, 140 kilometres from Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, and we would come upon the settlement of internally displaced people.

COLOMBO, Apr 24 (IPS) - The eve of the much anticipated Sinhala and Tamil New Year, celebrated across the island of Sri Lanka in mid-April to mark the end of the harvest season, was marred by a series of attacks, reminding everyone that "peace" does not mean a lack of violence.

COLOMBO, Apr 02 (IPS) - Soon after the deadly tsunami struck Kesennuma city in the Miyagi Prefecture in Northern Japan on Mar. 11, 2011, 59-year-old Naoko Utsumi found herself on the rooftop of a community centre with only one line of communication to the outside world – the email option on her mobile phone.

COLOMBO, Mar 12 (IPS) - Sri Lanka has paused for breath after the extreme weather conditions last year that many associate with climate change.

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Mar 06 (IPS) - The sea is all that 40-year-old Arul has mastered. From looking at the clouds or from the direction of the wind, this fisher from northern Jaffna can predict the condition of the sea fairly accurately.

COLOMBO, Feb 27 (IPS) - Lahandapurege Ariyawathie feels she got off lightly - if returning home with 24 nails embedded in your body is lucky.

COLOMBO, Feb 20 (IPS) - It has now become an annual affair. When the Geneva based UN Human Rights Council readies itself for the first of its annual regular sessions in February, the government in Sri Lanka gets ready to ward off yet another attempt to scrutinise its rights record.