News stories by Feizal Samath, page 3

The Maldives Islands, fast gaining a reputation for ‘walking the talk’ as it raises its tiny island voice in the climate change discourse, has launched an action plan to phase out hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) by 2020, or 10 years ahead of other countries and the target set by an international agreement known as the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

Relations between Sri Lanka and European Union (EU), which turned frosty around six months back, appear to be thawing as the government makes a last- ditch stand to regain a crucial trade concession that has been suspended over human rights issues hounding the south Asian island state.

Though the global economic crisis has eased in most of Asia, latest reports about falling demand for garments in markets like Europe and the United States have become a new source of concern to Sri Lanka’s troubled garment labour force.

Two cyclists from the minority Tamil community are shooed away by government soldiers as they approach this northern Sri Lankan city’s only Buddhist temple while President Mahinda Rajapaksa is paying a visit.

Whenever Sri Lankan rights activist Shereen Xavier attends a meeting related to her work in this war-battered northern capital, she makes sure to be dressed in a sari, a traditional gown worn by South Asian women.

About eight months back, delivery boys for this northern city’s main newspaper were accompanied on their rounds by government soldiers — the first time a Sri Lankan broadsheet was being delivered under armed guard.

Issues of religious tolerance, the rule of law and freedom of expression in this mainly Buddhist country are being thrown into debate by the detention of a Sri Lankan Buddhist woman who converted to Islam and was writing a book on her conversion.

Political manifestos are often met with cynicism and even ridicule, but Sri Lanka’s first such manifesto for women is proving an exception to the rule as rights activists laud its recent launch.

Pressured by the west and international groups over its human right record, the Sri Lankan government is close to finalising a roadmap on safeguarding civil and political liberties.

The extent of Sri Lanka’s dependence on its one million citizens who work abroad can be gauged from officials who gleefully count the dollars that come in to sustain the country’s economy.