Aug 18 (AT) After receiving the 2006 UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for Tolerance and Non Violence at its Paris headquarters, the leader of the TULF V. Anandasangaree appealed to the international community "to help liberate the Tamil people of Sri Lanka from the clutches of the ruthless LTTE". He urged the Tamil diaspora "to ensure that no funds and support are provided to a terrorist outfit, who will never be able to achieve the aspirations of the Tamil people living in Sri Lanka by the use of terror and violence". more..

Aug 18 (TP) The embassy of Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Coordinating Committee (SLCC) has jointly floated a Sri Lankan Community Benevolent Fund (SLCBF), at a function held at the embassy premises, yesterday. The venture was formally inaugurated by Sri Lankan ambassador S B Atugoda. The SLCBF will extend monetary help to the 60,000-odd Sri Lankan compatriots, who are willing to be its members. more..

Aug 18 (PISL) The Tokyo donor conference co-chairs who convene in Washington on Monday will call on the LTTE to show more flexibility on the A9 while urging both the government and the rebels to reach a compromise on the issue, the Daily Mirror learns. Japanese Ambassador Kiyoshi Araki yesterday met the government peace delegation which participated at the last Geneva talks before departing for Washington to attend the co-chair meeting. more..

Aug 18 (PISL) Underscoring the importance in civilian cooperation to combat clandestine terrorist activity, Police Chief Victor Perera yesterday said that security forces and police thwarted a series of attacks due to the timely information provided by civilians. The IGP admitted that the LTTE would have carried out terrorist attacks, particularly in the city and its suburbs if not for the cooperation received by the police from the public in providing vital information. more..

Aug 18 (LNP) Sri Lanka has secured a place in UN International Law Commission. Foreign Ministry Legal Advisor Dr. Rohan Perera was elected by the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday. `He polled 138 votes and secured one of the seven seats allocated to the Asian region,` a ministry spokesman said. Eleven candidates had represented Asia. more..

Aug 18 (LNP) Following the assignation of Tamil National alliance MP, Nadrajah Raviraj, in the capital Colombo, another Tamil MP representing the Capital Tamils left the island nation under death threat. Western People`s Front Leader and Member of the Sri Lanka parliament, Mr. Mano Ganesan left for Chennai, India amidst threats to his life, on Thursday. more..

Aug 18 (LNP) There has been a mixed reaction to President Mahinda Rajapakse`s second budget. Its focus is on development and, out of the sixty budgets presented so far in post Independence Sri Lanka, it is believed to be the first to have an infrastructure orientation. The government is planning to utilise a large portion of its spending on power plants, highways and the Weerawila airport. more..

Aug 18 (LNP) President Mahinda Rajapaksa will lay the foundation stone for the proposed second International Airport at Weerawila tomorrow in one of the programmes marking the first anniversary of his inauguration as the President. The President is also expected to address the nation from there outlining the achievements of his government in the first year in office, Presidential Secretariat said. more..

Aug 18 (SAMN) The UNP working committee will decide on the fate of the three dissident members who unsuccessfully sought an injunction order against the holding of the 58th convention of the party. UNP�s incoming General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said the move by UNP members Wijeyapala Mendis, Imthiaz Bakeer Markar and Dharmadasa Banda to seek legal action against the holding of the UNP convention on Sunday was a �serious mistake� because it created a split within the party. more..

Aug 18 (SAMN) Despite a severe LTTE threat, the Government is going ahead with a major public event at Weerawila in the South on Sunday to mark President Mahinda Rajapaksa�s first year in office. Police Headquarters declared the area, covering the meeting site, as a high security zone, as part of stringent security measures to prevent a possible LTTE attack. A senior security official said that a special two-day security operation would come into operation today. more..

Aug 18 (SAMN) The JVP Friday hit out at President Mahinda Rajapaksa�s second budget, scoffing at it as an exercise where the mountain laboured and produced a mouse. As the budget debate began in parliament, JVP frontliner Sunil Handunnetti said the people had high hopes about the budget, but the hopes were shattered. Handunnetti said the budget did not contain proposals conducive to economic revival of the country. more..

Aug 18 (SAMN) The molecular medicine unit of Ragama Medical Faculty in Colombo North, Friday, confirmed the presence of Chikungunya viral fever among the viral fever patients identified from Colombo, Hambantota and Ampara areas. Head of the molecular medicine unit Dr.Wimaladharma Abeywickrema said that due to the wet weather condition prevailing in the country there was a risk of the Chikungunya virus spreading rapidly. more..

Aug 18 (DN) Textile Industry Development Ministry has decided to utilise the expertise of Indian textile masters with the objective of promoting high quality and demandable handloom textile products manufacturing in Sri Lanka. Under this programme, an intensive training for local handloom weavers will be provided by them. more..

Aug 18 (IANS) The number of anguished Tamils fleeing to India to escape violence in Sri Lanka has crossed the 10,000-mark, and a leading activist says the refugees will keep coming unless fighting halts in the island. A total of 477 Tamils landed on Tamil Nadu's coast on Monday and this rose to 491 on Tuesday. Indian authorities have opened about 15 new refugee camps on top of the 100 already in the southern state to accommodate the rush. more..

Aug 18 (LE) The British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London have commissioned a documentary film for the BBC on the 8th century AD gilded bronze figure of Goddess Tara, now on permanent display in the Asia section of the British Museum. This exquisite piece from Sri Lanka, is considered by the British Museum to be one of the ten best artifacts in their vast collection. more..

Aug 18 (IRNA) Allaying apprehensions expressed by political parties in Tamil Nadu, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday assured that the Centre will not provide Sri Lanka with "lethal offensive military hardware, especially those which could be used against the Tamil population" there. In a letter to MDMK chief Vaiko, Singh said at every opportunity the Indian government had put pressure on the Sri Lankan government to respect the rights and privileges of Tamils as citizens of the country, more..

Aug 18 (HT) Serious incidents of violence and military clashes took place in north Sri Lanka on Saturday, as Mahinda Rajapaksa turned 61 and ended his first but turbulent year in office as the President of Sri Lanka. There was a major sea battle off the northwestern coast of Mannar, in regard to which the Sri Lankan Navy and the LTTE made conflicting claims. more..

Aug 18 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's navy clashed with Tamil Tiger rebels at sea on Saturday, each claiming to have sunk the other's vessels, while police said a rebel ambush on land killed five soldiers and four civilians died in ensuing gunfire. The navy said it sank three Tiger boats off the northwestern Mannar peninsula, while the rebels said they sank two navy boats and killed 10 sailors in the incident. more..

Aug 18 (HT) Following the discovery of Tamil Nadu fishing trawlers being used by the LTTE to smuggle in arms, the President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to raise the issue when he meets the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi at the end of this month. Rajapaksa could also reiterate Sri Lanka's long-standing demand for joint Indo-Sri Lankan patrolling of the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar to prevent such gun running. more..

Aug 18 (AFP) Sri Lanka's navy and Tamil Tiger rebels claimed they had sunk each others' craft in a sea battle off the northwestern coast as seven people were killed following a mine blast elsewhere. The battle off the coast of Mannar district came four days after the navy sank an Indian trawler allegedly hijacked by Tiger rebels to transport "warlike material". more..

Aug 18 (AP) A sea battle, a bomb blast and gunfire killed at least 23 people in war-torn Sri Lanka Saturday, government officials said, a day after the rebels denounced a government call to disarm as a joke. Sri Lanka's military said it destroyed three Tamil Tiger gunboats Saturday, killing at least 15 rebels. The Tigers countered that they sank two navy boats, leaving 10 sailors dead. Both sides denied any deaths on their own side. more..

Nov 18 (LN) We are not charging any money here so everybody can use the place and this has arisen to a lot of unwanted people loitering around the park. To improve this situation, we have to implement a system where Rs.10.00 as an entrance fee could be charged but so far they have failed. We need to build awareness amongst people to use these dustbins. To do this we are going to introduce a system where we will put up a lot of warning boards more..

Nov 18 (AP) Ten people were killed when a speeding passenger bus crashed into two cars traveling in the opposite direction in northwestern Sri Lanka on Saturday, police said. The bus was heading to the capital, Colombo, when it crashed into the two cars packed with about 20 people returning from a funeral, in Gokarella village, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Colombo, more..

Nov 18 (AP) Hundreds of Sri Lankans Saturday overran a government convoy of food trucks, seizing supplies meant for tens of thousands of displaced ethnic Tamils in the country's rebel-controlled east, witnesses and the rebels said. More than 40,000 people displaced in August by fighting between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels are living in schools and temporary shelters in the rebel-held village of Vakarai, in eastern Batticaloa district. more..

Nov 19 (AT) One year ago Mahinda Rajapakse became the fifth executive president of Sri Lanka. One week from today Mr. Pirapaharan will deliver his annual Hero�s Day speech. When Ranil Wickremesinghe made his Faustian bargain with the Tigers, he confidently expected to win the Presidency with their help. more..

Nov 19 (AT) The Business for Peace Alliance, a network of 21 regional business chambers welcomes the budget proposals of the government for the year 2007. The proposals for the coming year include strategies to develop the under-developed areas with special emphasis on infrastructure development, education and skill development, improvements in the health sector and promotion of SMEs. more..

Nov 19 (AT) Fantasy begins at the Corbett�s Gap . Standing alone at the Koratuwe muduna (Corbett�s Gap as the British called it) the present southern gate to this historic village and gazing in to the open valley of Meemure on a clear morning in the month of Navam (Late February), one can witness one of the rarest scenic panorama in the world, perhaps you may experience only in your dream world. more..

Nov 19 (LBO) An online poll shows that more LBO readers believe the economic growth numbers generated by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka than the Department of Census and Statistics, but a vast majority disbelieved both. The Central Bank data set has a slightly higher weight for agriculture, as a result the two government agencies report different numbers, contributing to public skepticism about national income accounting. more..

Nov 19 (NIP) AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Saturday urged the Centre to send the humanitarian assistance to the suffering Tamils in Sri Lanka through the International Red Cross Society. In a statement here, Jayalalithaa said, �if the assistance is sent through the Sri Lankan government, it is doubtful whether it would reach the Tamils�. more..

Nov 19 (ZN) Presidential elections in November last year were a much-hyped event in both the media and international community. There was a lot of hope, a lot of flutter as Mahinda Rajapakse of the SLFP, won the Presidential polls amidst LTTE boycott. It was widely believed that Rajapakse, who had served earlier as the Prime Minister, would definitely bring peace to a war-ravaged, battered and bleeding nation, not as a ruler but as a healer. more..

Nov 19 (ST) The Government has lodged a strong protest with Norway over its reported inability to deal firmly with a visa applicant who had stormed the Sri Lanka Embassy in Oslo, removed a portrait of President Mahinda Rajapaksa that was on the wall and dashed it on the ground. The applicant, a former Sri Lankan Tamil, is now a citizen of Norway. He had made an application to obtain a visa to travel to Sri Lanka. more..

Nov 19 (ST) Opposition UNP holds its annual convention today despite a last minute attempt to have it cancelled as the re-appointment or sacking of its deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya becomes the major issue of the event. The decision hinges today on whether party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe will re-appoint Mr. Jayasuriya following the latter's continued efforts to clip Mr. Wickremesinghe's powers, more..

Nov 19 (ST) Despite the initial urgency in soliciting the assistance of Britain's Scotland Yard to probe the Raviraj assassination, help is not forthcoming yet because of Colombo's delay in sending the terms and conditions required by the Metropolitan Police, it is reliably understood. more..

Nov 19 (LBO) The convention of the main opposition went ahead without the rebel faction led by its deputy leader being present, deepening the divisions within the party, United National Party sources said. Leading parliamentarians representing the Colombo district, including Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya, Milinda Moragoda and Bandula Gunewardene, who was earlier involved in a fence mending exercise, also did not turn up at the meeting. more..

Nov 19 (TN) The Parliamentary Group of the Tamil National Alliance, condemning the execution style killing of four students of Agricultural Farm School by the Sri Lanka Army Saturday morning in Vavuniya where ten students including six girls were also wounded, said it was a serious war crime to be added to a long list of war crimes that targeted innocent Tamil civilians in NorthEast, more..

Nov 19 (TN) TNA Parliamentary Group leader, R. Sampanthan, in an urgent letter to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, Sunday, requested again the SL President that food, medicine and other essentials be urgently rushed to the people of Vakarai and Kathiraveli and urged Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse to intervene personally and take every necessary step to ensure that this is done. more..

Nov 19 (CI) Malinda Warnapura is determined to put behind the disappointment of being overlooked for Sri Lanka's tour of New Zealand and pile on the runs for the A side in the Caribbean. Warnapura, the left-handed middle-order batsman, was the leading light in the Duleep Trophy rattling off successive unbeaten centuries for Sri Lanka A at the famous venue Eden Gardens in Calcutta. more..

Nov 19 (CI) Chamara Kapugedera, Sri Lanka's exciting young batsman from the hill country, just can't avoid being in the limelight. His latest accolade is the Prince of Wales Trophy, awarded to the most outstanding schoolboy cricketer of the year, which he picked up at Westminster House, the official residence of the British High Commissioner Dominick Chilcott. more..

Nov 19 (PISL) The United Nation�s foremost human rights official last week called on the international Tamil diaspora to hold the LTTE accountable for its abuses of human rights and demand a change of approach. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour also expressed alarm at what she called the "spiraling level of human rights violations in Sri Lanka... particularly in recent months". more..

Nov 19 (LT) Karu Jayasuriya and 18 other senior men of the UNP have boycotted the 51st Annual Convention of the party held today under the leadership of party leader Ranil Wickremasinghe. In a letter to Mr.Ranil Wickreemasinghe the members who boycotted state that the Annual Conventions was illegal and biased. They also point out that proper procedures were not followed in convening the convention. more..

Nov 19 (ISL) Now that Junius Richard Jayawardene is dead, buried and virtually forgotten, the mantle of the Agent Provocateur for the genocide of the Tamils has fallen on the shoulders of Velupillai Prabhakaran. He has, no doubt been immensely helped by Jayawardene�s nephew and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe with the treasonable concessions given to the LTTE in the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement. more..

Nov 19 (LNP) More than half of the country`s pre-schools and Montessoris are being conducted in ill-suited building surroundings and inferior environments raising grave concern for the authorities, a survey has revealed. According to the survey only 46.4 per cent pre-schools operate in good buildings which are solely allocated for teaching purposes, said a spokesman for the Women`s Affairs and Child Care Probation Ministry. more..

Nov 19 (LNP) The budgetary decision to increase the import duty on vehicles by 2.5% will push up market prices of automobiles by at least 7%, industry officials said. `A 2.5% increase may appear to be innocuous on paper, but in terms of reality it translates into an almost three-fold increase in import duty as it touches on other taxes as well`, they explained. more..

Nov 19 (LNP) UNP MP Bandula Gunawardane, who served as Deputy Finance Minister during Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe`s last tenure as prime minister, used a home-spun idiom to describe the 2007 budget presented on Thursday to parliament by President Mahinda Rajapakse wearing his finance minister`s hat. Gunawardene, a politician with a firm grasp of economics, has the gift of making insightful comments in easy-to-understand Sinhala. more..

Nov 19 (SAMN) Last week�s stock market boom with both the All Share and Milanka price indices bettering their all time highs on three consecutive days and turnover running into the billions created a sense of economic wellbeing in the run-up to the presentation of the 2007 budget. But underlying this are fears that pyramid related companies are now setting their sights on blue chip companies like John Keells Holdings and, more..

Nov 19 (SAMN) JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe has said the biggest challenge to the country was the threat to its sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence. Addressing Rotarians in Colombo. Amarasinghe said there was also a threat of a �mono-ethnic dictatorship� being established in a part of Sri Lanka. The JVP leader was speaking on the topic �Challenges before the JVP are the challenges before Sri Lanka�. more..

Nov 19 (SAMN) Several roads were under water in Colombo in less than two hours Saturday following heavy rains experienced amidst warnings from the Meteorology Department that heavy thunder showers would continue for the rest of the week. Many roads in the Kotahena, Slave Island, Maradana, Rajakeeya Mawatha and Jawatta areas were under water while several main roads in Battaramulla, Rajagiriya, Wattala, Ratmalana and Gampaha were rendered impassable. more..

Nov 19 (SAMN) The Government is estimating the 2007 revenue to go up by 24% and income tax revenue to go up by 36%. That�s going to be a tough task, according to N.R. Gajendran, a well known tax specialist. He said: �The GDP currently is going up by 17%. The GDP estimated for 2007 is over Rs 3 trillion, an increase by 17% over the previous year. They are further compromising on the VAT principles. It is perishing because of the administration. more..

Nov 19 (LN) Government members loudly cheered JVP MP Piyasiri Wijenaike in Parliament as he continuously criticised the Budget presented by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The reason for this unusual support for someone speaking against their own Budget was because what Mr. Wijenaike was saying was not audible amidst the loud protests being conducted by Tamil legislators inside the Chambers at the same time. more..

Nov 19 (LN) Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena has ordered an inquiry into an incident where seven persons selected by the Cultural Affairs and National Heritage Ministry to visit Pakistan as a dance troupe had been allegedly �impersonated� by seven others who had left on the tour. Ministry Secretary Sunil Premadasa has been appointed to investigate the allegation. more..