The World - News from Nov. 9, 1987

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has approved two bills setting up controversial provincial councils to give minority Tamils more autonomy, the government said. It said in a statement that the legislation, still to be approved by Parliament, would neither violate the country’s unity and sovereignty nor create a federal system of government. Last month, 40 opposition parties, Buddhist organizations and individuals petitioned the court against plans to merge the Tamil-dominated north and the ethnically mixed east into one provincial council.