Jan 3 (ISL) V. Balakumaran, former EROS leader and a close confidant of Pirbhaharan, in a lenghy speech on �Voice of Tigers� radio on Saturday praised Tamil Nadu Cheif Minister Jayalitha Jeyaram for canceling her meeting with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse. more..

Jan 3 (LeN) In a bid to strengthen the international presence in the country's shaky peace bid, following a spate of truce-breaking at tacks allegedly by the LTTE, Foreign Minister Managla Samaraweera left for the United States yesterday for a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. more..

Jan 3 (LM) Sri Lanka will be able to produce its own oil within the next three years, Petroleum and Petroleum Resources Development Minister A.H.M. Fowzie said yesterday. Minister said that tenders will be called shortly from investors worldwide to exploit the massive oil deposits identified in Sri Lankan territorial waters. more..

Jan 3 (LM) The Air Force will not hesitate in neutralizing the LTTE's air power if and when the need arises Air Force Commander Air Vice Marshall Donald Perera said yesterday. "We should not think the LTTE has built an airstrip and acquired two light aircraft for the fun of it," he said more..

Jan 3 (LM) President Mahinda Rajapakse has called for an immediate re-scrutinising of all MCQ answer scripts including the controversial Chemistry I paper. He has also ordered a probe into how the system went wrong, a press release issued from the President's Office said on Sunday. more..

Jan 3 (LM) Electoral Registers for 2005 have been completed and will be open for inspection to the public for four weeks at District Secretariats, Divisional Secretariats and District Election Offices from today (3), The Elections Commission Secretariat said. more..

Jan 3 (LT) The UNP at its first media briefing for the new year said that the Government should commence peace talks soon without arguing on the venue. The Deputy Secretary of the UNP expressing the party's view said that it is vital to initiate talks rather than to be specific on the venue. more..

Jan 3 (ANN) Burma (now Myanmar) has become the focus for American values in the South Asian region. A Dec 28, 2005 report in The Washington Post states that the Bush Administration "... has mounted a diplomatic offensive against the military government of Burma ..." because Burma has become a "... test case for our whole agenda in the region". more..

Jan 3 (PIS) The recent series of massive cordon and search operations in Colombo were carried out following intelligence reports that the LTTE was targeting the assassination of several political leaders including President Mahinda Rajapakse, a senior police officer said yesterday. more..

Jan 3 (HT) President Mahinda Rajapaksa's four-day visit to India, which ended last Friday, has been viewed differently by the majority Sinhalas and the minority Tamils. The Sinhalas feel that precious little has been achieved in terms of the country's number one problem - the ethnic issue. more..

Jan 3 (SAMN) His Eminence Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'connor,the Archbishop of Westminster in London and Head of the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom, called on the Most Venerable Thibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangala Mahanayaka Thera of the Malwatta Chapter and the Most Venerable Udugama Sri Buddharakkhitha Mahanayaka Thera of the Asgiriya Chapter, more..

Jan 3 (SAMN) A tourist hotel owner in Kandy had complained to the Supreme Court that the Urban Development Authority has no right to declare any �Sacred Area� within which liquor sales should not be permitted. The petition to the Supreme Court stated that the petitioner is entitled to obtain a liquor licence to sell liquor at his hotel more..

Jan 3 (SAMN) The Sri Lanka Freedom Party has appointed Nomination Boards to select nominees for the Local Government Election due to be held within the first quarter of this year. According to Local Government Election Law, the current Local Government term ends in March this year. more..

Jan 3 (LNP) A central automated finger printing system with Swedish assistance is to be set up connecting island-wide police stations to expedite investigations on criminals and terrorists, the Inspector General of Police said. IGP Chandra Fernando told Daily Mirror yesterday that the system will be introduced within this year and is expected to cost Rs.700,000,000 million. more..

Jan 3 (LNP) Former PA heavyweight and present UNP National Organiser S.B. Dissanayake who is serving a two-year sentence for contempt of court could obtain a parole similar to the privileges enjoyed by other prisoners. Commissioner General of Prisons Rumy Marzook said yesterday that Mr. Dissanayake would be released as soon as he received the decision of the Prisons Board to that effect. more..

Jan 3 (LNP) The LTTE has warned that time was fast running out with the patience of the rebel leadership dwindling and urged the Government to give up its 'delaying tactics' and show more urgency to hold immediate talks on strengthening the ceasefire agreement. more..

Jan 3 (DN) The Government has earned Rs.4,980 million from the export of agricultural crops in 2004, Agriculture Development Minister Chamal Rajapakse said. The Minister said the target of his Ministry is to increase the income gained from export agriculture crops up to Rs.10,000 million within the next five years. more..

Jan 3 (SLBC) The Department of Registration of Persons embarks on a programme to provide national identity cards for needy persons before the forth-coming local government elections. The move has been initiated following a request made by the party leaders' convention that monitors the process of issuing national identity cards. more..

Jan 3 (TP) Civil and banking activities crippled for the past one week in the northern Jaffna Peninsula were due to resume yesterday, informed sources told the Daily News. The Tamil National Organisation of Trade Unions which had called for the complete shutdown of civil and banking activities in the Peninsula more..

Jan 3 (CI) New Zealand - held back by an elegant century from Upul Tharanga and the Christchurch rain - scrambled to a five-wicket win over Sri Lanka at the Jade Stadium, and took a 3-0 lead in the five-ODI series (one match was played in late 2004 but following the Indian Ocean tsunami the series was temporarily abandoned). more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) For most of 2005, Sri Lanka's stock market was Asia's best performer, but fears that a two-decade old civil war may restart are making investors worried and some hoteliers and shop owners are already feeling the pinch. more..

Jan 3 (AP) Sri Lankan opener Sanath Jayasuriya has been ruled out of the remainder of his team's cricket tour of New Zealand after slipping in the shower Tuesday and dislocating his shoulder. more..

Jan 3 (AP) Five people suspected of working for the Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in northeastern Sri Lanka when their grenades exploded before they could hurl them at a troop convoy, the military said Tuesday. But the rebels blamed the Sri Lankan military for Monday's incident in the port city of Trincomalee. more..

Jan 3 (HREA) The recent drug menace plaguing Sri Lanka has been linked to police corruption. On December 31, 2005 the Inspector General of Police was reported to have said that the country's drug problem cannot be eradicated without addressing the corrupt officials abetting the drug cartels. more..

Jan 3 (HT) Sri Lankan police say that 62 LTTE cadres may be lurking in Colombo to assassinate top political leaders including President Mahinda Rajapaksa. "We have had intelligence reports to this effect for sometime now," Pujitha Jayasundara, DIG Colombo district, told Hindustan Times on Tuesday. more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) Carrying their belongings in plastic bags and cardboard boxes, hundreds of residents are fleeing Sri Lanka's army-held northern Jaffna peninsula for Tamil Tiger territory. Some crossing a desolate no-man's land that separates military from Tiger-held areas said they were fleeing military harassment and feared the resumption of a two-decade civil war. more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) Tamil women from government controlled Jaffna peninsula talk with a Tamil Tiger rebel at a refugee camp run by Kilinochchi Development, Relief and Rehabilitation Organization (KDRRO), in Tamil Tiger held Kilinochchi, more..

Jan 4 (BBC) Tension remains high in the eastern Sri Lankan town of Trincomalee following conflicting reports regarding the deaths of five Tamil students. The Tamil Tiger rebels have accused government troops of a grenade attack on the students as they were sitting on the beach then opening fire as they tried to escape. more..

Jan 4 (wsws) President Mahinda Rajapakse�s much publicised election pledge to supply fertiliser to farmers at the subsidised price of 350 rupees ($US3.50) a 50kg bag is in disarray. The government has failed to release enough funds to provide adequate quantities of fertiliser at the cheaper prices. more..

Jan 4 (AFP) Sri Lanka�s main Tamil political party on Tuesday accused troops of shooting dead five Tamil students in the restive northeastern port town of Trincomalee and demanded an independent probe and action against the military. more..

Jan 4 (TN) Trincomalee Tamil Resurgence Forum has called for a general shut down and to bring civil administration in the eastern port city to a standstill until the removal of all Sri Lanka Army (SLA) sentries and checkpoints. The orgainzers is also demanding the withdrawal of Sri Lanka armed forces from Trincomalee town. more..

Jan 4 (TN) Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) personnel in Valvettithurai and Polikandy coastal areas in Jaffna have blocked fishermen from fishing for the past 3 days, Jaffna District Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Member of Parliament Mr.Selvarajah Gajendran told TamilNet Tuesday. more..

Jan 4 (TN) Sellathamby Visagaratnam, 55, Chief priest at the Santhively Kannagi Amman temple was shot dead by unknown gunmen on Monday night at 10-30 pm at Alaiyadychcholai in Kiran Valaichenai, sources in Batticaloa said. The priest was sleeping in his hut inside the LTTE controlled region of Kiran when he was shot, more..

Jan 4 (TN) Mr Balenthiran, a Tamil businessman and father of two children, was shot and seriously injured by unknown gunmen on Tuesday night 10.30 p.m. at Wellawatta in Colombo, near the Rolex Bakery, sources in Colombo said. He was rushed to the Kalubowila Hospital in critical condition more..

Jan 4 (TN) Major Jeyanthan, LTTE Vavuniya West area political head and a civilian, Mr. Vinotharan Thevarasa, were killed when a Claymore mine exploded hitting the motorbike in which they were riding in LTTE controlled area at Valaiyankattu in Mullikkulam, 45 km south of Mannar town, LTTE sources said. more..

Jan 4 (AP) Sri Lanka's coach and cricketers will have to explain their poor performance during the current tour of New Zealand, a top cricket official said Tuesday. New Zealand took a series-clinching 3-0 lead Tuesday by winning the third limited-over international by five wickets. more..

Jan 4 (WS) 'It's a right royal crisis, in fact,'Hiran Cooray, President of the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka told the 'Weekend Standard,' when contacted by telephone on a report in a Sunday paper last week that Udaya Nanayakkara had been dismissed as chief of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board. more..

Jan 4 (WS) The country witnessed on the 25th November 2005 another policy statement from a new President yearning for a new Sri Lanka. The President claims to have had no secret pact or agreement with anyone and only conditions he has set for himself are to "to build a Sri Lanka and, to be honest". more..

Jan 4 (LT) Though elections for local councils is due before the 15th of next month, holding of these elections is uncertain due to different views haraboured by various interested forces says Mr. Dayananda Dishanayake, Commissioner of Elections. more..

Jan 4 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers accused the army of infiltrating their areas and killing a senior rebel on Tuesday in what they said was the most serious attack since a 2002 truce, and warned time was running out to avert war. more..

Jan 4 (AT) The SLMM�s spokesperson has been accused of trying to "whitewash" the LTTE of responsibility for recent attacks on the armed forces in remarks to BBC Television last Thursday. Angry Sri Lankans including Tamils living here and in Europe telephoned or emailed this corresondent to protest at the remarks of Helen Olafsdottir during an interview with BBC TV�s World Service. more..

Jan 4 (Reuters) Sri Lankan Tamil tigers participate in a shooting competition to mark New Year's day at an undisclosed shooting range in Vanni, northern Sri Lanka January 1, 2006. more..

Jan 4 (AT) The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Up-Country Peoples Front (UPF) and the Western Peoples Front (WPF) are expected to meet this week to discuss matters pertaining to the setting up of the 'broad based Tamil alliance'. more..

Jan 4 (CSM) Kandya Parwathy and her family live in abject poverty and discomfort in a sprawling camp in northern Sri Lanka. They are refugees, not from the tsunami 12 months back, but from battles years ago in the island's civil war. "We want to leave this place as quickly as possible," says Mrs. Parwathy, more..

Jan 4 (GDN) For most of 2005, Sri Lanka's stock market was Asia's best performer, but fears that a two-decade-old civil war may restart are making investors worried and some hoteliers and shop owners are already feeling the pinch. more..

Jan 4 (ISL) According to our military sources, the Army had been given orders to �shoot to death� any suspected LTTE cadres threatening the lives of Sri Lankan Security Members. This was a U turn of the earlier military policy of restraining LTTE provocation. more..

Jan 4 (ISL) Thibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangala - Malwaththa Mahanayake thero said during his meeting with Cardinal McCormack Murphy O�Connor, Archbishop of Westminster that United National Party and People Aliance must come forward to solve the ethnic crisis with a common understanding to defeat Sinhalese and Tamil extremism which prevents the country from seeking a viable solution to the ethnic crisis in Northeast. more..

Jan 4 (BBC) Sri Lanka's army has denied involvement in the killing of five Tamil youths in the eastern town of Trincomalee. Two survivors of Monday's attack said men in military fatigues had thrown a grenade at the group before dragging them into a truck and shooting them. more..

Jan 4 (ISL) Several LTTE front organization in USA, in a joint press release while commending the co-chairs call for peace talks and disarming of paramilitaries slammed the co-chairs for issuing a �bias� against the LTTE. It also attacked the Sri Lankan armed forces of harrasing the Tamil civlians in the island. more..

Jan 4 (TW) The international dimension of the ethnic conflict and peace process is perhaps the one most opined on and yet, least understood in terms of the incentives, strictures and punishments the international community or any members thereof can visit upon the two main protagonists. more..