Dec 10 (DM) The Kelaniya University Students Council is on a collision course with the University Administration for halting their literary festival called "Bihidora Abiyasa" scheduled for December 12 and 13. more..

Dec 10 (IT) The legal wrangling that has surrounded the issue of broadcast rights to cricket emanating from Sri Lanka appears to have been settled once and for all. more..

Dec 10 (LBO) Friction between the President and the Premier has pushed back a December deadline to offer private investors a stake in the Bandaranaike International Airport. Privatisation of the Bandaranaike International Airport has been on the cards as a phase three of ongoing expansion efforts, on the basis of a private-public partnership. more..

Dec 10 (LBO) Dubai based Emirates Airlines will invest US$ 1.8 bn into glamorising its new fleet of Airbus 340-500�s as it revamps its long-haul flights. The service began December 1, when 14-hour non-stop flights to and from Sydney, Australia took off, with plans to fly to North America (New York) from 2004. more..

Dec 10 (LBO) The Public Enterprises Reform Commission (PERC) on Wednesday said it would call on prospective investors to stake their claim in State Engineering Corp., by March 2004. �The divestiture process will take around 20 weeks and it is expected to call for proposals from strategic investors in March 2004,� said PERC. more..

Dec 10 (SLA) Major General G. S. C Fonseka, who hitherto functioned as Commander Security Forces, Jaffna assumed office as new Commandant Sri Lanka Army Volunteer Force (SLAVF) on Tuesday amidst blessings of religious dignitaries and Senior Officers who graced the simple but dignified ceremony. more..

Dec 10 (SLA) An attempt to fling a hand grenade at troops on duty by a suspicious newspaper seller in the general town area of JAFFNA, close to the EPRLF office, was thwarted by troops on 09 December 2003 around 5.00 p.m. after firing a shot in self-defence. more..

Dec 10 (SLA) An EPDP political campaign to distribute propaganda leaflets among the public in the general town area of KODIKAMAM, JAFFNA on 09 December 2003 around 4.00 p.m. was hampered after several EPDP activists came under attack by suspected supporters of the LTTE. more..

Dec 10 (SLA) A group of LTTE men threatened the wife of an Eelam People�s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) member at her residence in the general area of BATTICALOA town on 07 December 2003 for reasons best known only to LTTE. more..

Dec 10 (SLA) Two vehicles (WP-DP-0271) and (98-9087), attached to the Norwegian embassy carrying seven LTTE men, including two female LTTE cadres, were allowed into un-cleared areas through the entry/exit point at OMANTHAI on 09 December 2003 around 3.45 p.m. more..

Dec 10 (Gulf) A proposal to form an alliance between President Chandrika Kumaratunga's Sri Lanka Freedom party (SLFP) and the Marxist People's Liberation Front (JVP) has been further delayed raising a number of questions. more..

Dec 10 (LT) Local Government Members of Uva Province have requested the government to make available to them the salary increase given to the government servants from the budget. Though an increase of Rs.1270 was given to the government servants from the budget the Members of Local government have not got that increase point out these Members. more..

Dec 10 (AT) The country�s fate hangs in a balance as Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, who met today, managed to agree to disagree on almost all the proposals put out for discussion. The discussions ended unceremoniously without even agreeing to meet again. more..

Dec 10 (GT) CONSUL-GENERAL of the Sri Lankan Consulate in Dubai, Bandula Somasiri, has been posted back in Colombo in a routine transfer. Somasiri will return to his base in the Department of Commerce in the Sri Lankan capital. He took charge in Dubai in December 2001, more..

Dec 10 (PSL) The final report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into raid on the Army Safe House, Athurugiriya in 2002, was handed over to President Kumaratunga, December 5, by Dharmasiri Jayawickrama, the Chairman of the Commission. more..

Dec 10 (PSL) A 16-member delegation of state and private sector professionals, headed by the Secretary to the President W.J.S. Karunaratne left for Germany today. The delegation will attend a seminar on Decentralization and Human Resources Development from 11-19 December in Mannheim. more..

Dec 10 (TN) The Jaffna Missing Persons Association and Mothers� Front held a protest in front of the office of Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRC) in the northern town Wednesday. more..

Dec 10 (TN) �During the last 13 months of my service in Vavuniya, the Sri Lanka Police and the LTTE�s political cadres, who are working in the SLA-controlled areas, cooperated with me. more..

Dec 10 (Gulf) The UAE's policy of striving for a broad-based demographic structure has spelt many opportunities for Sri Lankan manpower, said the outgoing Sri Lankan Consul General Bandula Somasiri. more..

Dec 10 (CI) England's team selection for the second Test at Kandy had everyone fooled. Before the match, various permutations had been aired � from the retention of Paul Collingwood as an extra batsman, to the inclusion of a third spinner, to the return of James Anderson in place of Richard Johnson or Matthew Hoggard. more..

Dec 10 (HT) Sensing an urgent need to get New Delhi on its side, the LTTE has asked the TNA, a group of Tamil parliamentary parties, to lobby India vigorously. The LTTE's Political Wing leader, SP Tamilchelvam, had met a delegation of the TNA led by the TULF General Secretary, R Sampanthan, at Kilinochchi on Tuesday. more..

Dec 10 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's president and prime minister met on Wednesday for a fourth time since their power struggle burst into the open, but came no closer to ending a rift that has stalled efforts to bring lasting peace to the island. more..

Dec 10 (CNN) Tillekeratne Dilshan notched a stylish half-century on Wednesday to lead a Sri Lankan rally on the opening day of the second Test against England. But Dilshan received little support from his fellow batsmen as Sri Lanka, 187 for three at one stage, ended on 277 for seven. more..

Dec 10 (BBC) Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka are continuing to recruit child soldiers - despite promises not to, international ceasefire monitors say. The monitors say they received more than 80 complaints of child recruitment by the Tigers in October alone. more..

Dec 11 (TN) The Jaffna additional Magistrate, Ms Srinithi Nandasekaran, Wednesday ordered remand till December 23 for three soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army when they were produced by the Jaffna Police in connection with the shooting incident that had taken place in Jaffna bus stand Tuesday evening, causing injuries to civilians, more..

Dec 11 (TN) A seven-day residential training camp for pre-school education coordinators of the education zones of Trincomalee and Vavuniya south began Wednesday in Trincomalee. The training program has been organized by the North East Pre School Education Development Council (PSEDC) more..

Dec 11 (CI) It's the sort of problem that might hinder Nepal's attempts to attain Test status: the more breathtaking the scenery, the less chance of there being anywhere flat and boring enough to house a cricket pitch. more..

Dec 11 (IL) The Supreme Court has begun examining the petitions filed against the proposed land ownership bill. Provincial councils have filed 11 petitions opposing the proposed legislation in a bid to retain the right over with regard to land ownership. more..

Dec 11 (DN) Sri Lanka will launch another effort to strike oil early next year, Power and Energy Ministry sources said. The Ministry has given the go-ahead to Australian and Norwegian investors for the exploration of oil off the Lankan coast, the sources said. more..

Dec 11 (Island) The JVP yesterday urged President Kumaratunga not to hand back Defence and Interior ministry portfolios to Premier Wickremesinghe�s government. JVP parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa said holding and taking full responsibility of the defence portfolio by the president was mandatory under the Constitution. more..

Dec 11 (TN) A World Bank team is to begin its six-day tour in the northeast province and its border areas Thursday to assess the ongoing rehabilitation and development works in the selected villages under the North-East Irrigated Agricultural Project (NEIAP), which is funded by the Bank, sources said. more..

Dec 11 (TN) The expanded programme of immunization survey is to be launched in the Jaffna district, after two decades, with the UNICEF funding Thursday. All children under school-going age would be brought under the survey to ensure whether they have been immunized properly during the war period and after, more..

Dec 11 (FE) The India-Sri Lanka trade has recorded a �positive� growth during the past five years with the signing of the free trade agreement (FTA) covering goods in December 1998, first with any country in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) region. more..

Dec 11 (AP) A man dressed in a traditional sarong outfit walks past an expresso bar in Colombo. Famed for producing some of the world's best tea for more than a century, the island's top industry now has keen competition from frothy cappuccinos, milky lattes and dark espressos. more..

Dec 11 (Guardian) A storm is brewing here and for once it has nothing to do with monsoons. Mention the umpire Daryl Harper to any tuk-tuk driver around the hills of Kandy and the chances are you will come away with a few choice phrases in Sinhalese. more..

Dec 11 (LT) Complaints against twelve Ministers of the UNF government will be forwarded to Bribery and Corruption Commission said Mr. Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Member of Parliament of PA for Kandy District in the Parliament yesterday. more..

Dec 11 (Gulf) Rapprochement talks between Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe ended in a deadlock with uncertainty continuing to shroud the peace process. more..

Dec 11 (MD) H Ratnayake has been trained to move carefully. The 27-year-old from Sri Lanka will try and do that when he participates in the ongoing Bank of Baroda Asian Chess Championship for the Blind organised by the All India Chess Federation for the Blind. more..

Dec 11 (LBO) The Asian Development Bank on Thursday approved a US$ 80 million loan package to improve daily living conditions in the North and East. The project will focus its activities on the most-severely conflict-affected districts: Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Mullaittivu, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Ampara, more..

Dec 11 (LBO) Sri Lanka will host a regional �tuna-workshop�, in December, exploring ways to adapt small and medium scale vessels for lucrative deep-sea tuna fishing. The deeper waters of the Indian Ocean are rich with migrating tuna, accounting for 20 percent of global tuna landings or 3.7 mn MT in 2002. more..

Dec 11 (TN) Some Muslim families are settling by force in the Tamil area of Koddukal village in the Pottuvil division of the Amparai district, the Tamil people of the village have complained to the TNA parliamentarian from the district, Mr. Ariyanayagam Chandraneru, more..

Dec 11 (TN) Shops, businesses, public offices were closed and few people and vehicles were on the roads in Jaffna Thursday in response to a call to observe a general shut down (Hartal) in the peninsula against the Sri Lanka army for shooting at a newspaper seller and wounding a commuter on Tuesday in the busy centre of the northern town. more..

Dec 11 (TN) A rally organized by the Women�s Development Society (WDS), to protest the violence inflicted on women within families and in the larger society, was held in Mannar Tuesday, and more than 300 women participated, sources said. more..

Dec 11 (SLA) A teenaged LTTE member with a cyanide capsule around his neck, found in the general area near the Special Task Force camp at LAHUGALA, AMPARA, was arrested on suspicion by Security Forces on 09 December 2003 around 11.20 a.m. more..

Dec 11 (SLA) The sixteen-year old LTTE newspaper seller, who tried to fling a hand grenade at troops in the general town area of JAFFNA for reasons best known only to him, has sought admission to the JAFFNA hospital through the UNICEF allegedly on 09 December 2003 around 9.00 p.m. more..

Dec 11 (SLA) A mob of about 100 civilians, apparently incited by interested parties, stormed the intensive care unit at JAFFNA hospital where those injured in the JAFFNA town incident on Tuesday (9) were lying and threatened medical staff on Wednesday (10) evening around 6.00 p.m. more..

Dec 11 (SLA) LTTE men armed with pistols on a van abducted a Police officer, attached to BATTICALOA Police station from the general area of BATTICALOA on 07 December 2003 around 5.45 p.m. but the victim managed to escape from LTTE while he was being ridden off on a motorbike the same day. more..

Dec 11 (SLA) An LTTE cadre, identified as BALAKUMARAN and his wife Mrs. BALAKUMARAN in the company of the Norwegian official RISTING PROMSWAY, entered into un-cleared areas across the Entry/Exit point at OMANTHAI on 10 December 2003 around 4.45 p.m. more..

Dec 11 (ICD) When Dumbarton student Mark Ferrier was studying for a geography degree, he had no idea that his first job would take him half way across the world. But big-hearted Mark, 22, is preparing to travel thousands of miles to Sri Lanka to teach for six months with Dundee charity Link Overseas Exchange. more..

Dec 11 (Bloomberg) Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels won't restart peace talks with the Sri Lankan government unless Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has control over the island's armed forces, a rebel spokesman said. more..