Mar 27 (ST) External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris is hoping to visit Britain early next month but his counterpart William Hague is yet to confirm granting an appointment to him. His visit to Britain will be part of a European tour that will include a visit to Prague. As a fall back option, Minister Peiris has also asked for a meeting with Mr. Hague�s deputy Alistair Burt. more..

Mar 27 (LB) Red notice issued on LTTE�s international network leader Kumaran Padmanadan (KP) by Interpol has still not been withdrawn according to informed sources. However, red notices that were already issued by Interpol on LTTE leader Prabakaran and Intelligence Unit Head Pottu Amman through India have now been withdrawn by Interpol. The red notices on Prabakaran and Pottu Amman had been withdrawn after it was officially confirmed that they were dead, more..

Mar 27 (AFP) Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse on Sunday invited New Zealand Prime Minister John Key to witness the cricket World Cup semi-finals between the two nations on Tuesday, an official said. Rajapakse asked Key to visit the island after the home team crushed England by 10 wickets on Saturday to reach the World Cup semi-finals that will be played at Colombo's Premadasa Stadium, more..

Mar 28 (BBC) It was a great day personally for me and the Sri Lankan team as a whole. We played a very good game of cricket today. Credit should go to the whole Sri Lankan team for a very good all-round performance. Losing the toss in R Premadasa stadium was a slight disadvantage but we knew it was a very good wicket for the batsmen. We had a team meeting on Friday during which it was decided that I was to bowl with the new ball. more..

Mar 28 (LT) Whatever obstacles come their way students would not hesitate to fight for their rights and the Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) would relentlessly give leadership to such struggles stated the convener of the IUSF Sanjeewa Bandara. Mr. Bandara said this speaking to �Lankatruth� regarding the decision of the administration of the Sabaragamuwa University to ban all student councils in the university. more..

Mar 28 (BBC) The main opposition party in Sri Lanka has accused the government of exploiting a presidential war panel for political propaganda. The general secretary of the UNP said the party is not confident whether the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) is fulfilling task. �We are suspicious whether the LLRC is seriously working on to find a political solution to the national issue,� Tissa Attanayake, MP, told BBC Sandeshaya. more..

Mar 28 (AFP) Sri Lanka put off marking "Earth Hour" because it clashed with the cricket World Cup, an official said Sunday. Sri Lanka had joined the WWF drive to switch off lights for an hour on Saturday to display its green credentials, but the day-night match between England and the home team forced a rethink. Sri Lanka went onto to score a spectacular 10-wicket win to reach the semi-finals against New Zealand on Tuesday. more..

Mar 28 (NN) Sri Lanka has warned the European Union to remain mindful about the LTTE despite its military defeat saying Tiger remnants could end up being hired by other terrorist groups. Sri Lanka�s Ambassador to the EU Ravinatha Aryasingha said that remnant cadres of the LTTE and its front organizations constitute a ready army of �mercenaries for hire� who possess a wide spectrum of skills that can be obtained for a price and in this day and age of self inspired terrorism, more..

Mar 28 (HS) Organised crime gangs with links to Britain and Sri Lanka are fuelling a fresh wave of identity fraud in Victoria, with Melbourne's inner city firming as the latest frontier in card skimming. As police accuse banks of putting their own reputations before their customers' welfare, Herald Sun Investigations found: A Secret national taskforce has broken a $100 million global Eftpos skimming syndicate with 56 arrests, more..

Mar 28 (CI) South Africa didn't play a bunch of dummies who had to just turn up in Dhaka and watch Graeme Smith's men crumble from a vantage point. One of the undesirable fallouts of South Africa's exit from the World Cup, depressing as it was to their fans, is the focus on South Africa's choke. The talk all around the cricketing world has been how South Africa lived up to their record of not having won a single knockout game in World Cups, of their mental brittleness in big events, more..

Mar 28 (DM) Student unions and their activities had been banned in the Sabaragamuwa University from March 24, a student union said. A student union member of the university said that according to the ban, any type of student gatherings has been strictly prohibited. �The notice issued by the administration read that the university administration would take measures to get the students who are actively involved in unions to be arrested by the Police,� he said. more..

Mar 28 (SL) The govt has leased out two islands in the Kalpitiya area and has called for bids to lease out 10 more islands under the Kalpitiya Integrated Resort Development Project. The two islands have been leased out to foreign investors for a period of 30 years commencing August 2010 for Rs. 18 million for the first five years. The gt�s announcement in parliament last week on the leasing out of islands in Kalpitiya came as a surprise to more..

Mar 28 (DM) In any democracy parliamentarians have the right to voice their opinions, make statements and enter into debates that concern the country and its people. The tone in which such privileged speeches are made and verbal battles fought in the House can be mild, rude or corrosive. They can also cause alarm and draw ridicule. But whatever is in focus, they are open to challenge. Recently, the Prime Minister of the country made a statement in Parliament that created a more..

Mar 28 (DM) Two developments over the past week have helped focus better on the continuing process for finding a negotiated settlement to the ethnic issue. The results of the Local Government elections, particularly in the North and the East (without overlooking the same elsewhere, too) and the decision for the TNA to submit a set of devolution proposals to the Government at the next round of negotiations, scheduled for 27 April, if taken to their logical conclusion, more..

Mar 28 (Cimic) God has given us eyes to see the beauty of the nature and ears to hear the whisper of the nature. You cannot imagine of a life sans seeing and hearing. But life is not always what we expect. For some reasons, destiny turns unkind to some people dragging their life into misery. However, there area some who never let their lives fail but succeed with their courage and willpower. What is required is some kind hearts to lend a helping hand in their more..

Mar 28 (SL) UNP Hambantota District MP Sajith Premadasa�s last minute decision not to contest for the party leadership and to accept the deputy leader post came as a shock to his supporters, who were under the impression that Premadasa was all set to take over the party leadership. Following Working Committee meetings that were held on three consecutive days, Party Secretary Tissa Attanayake with the help of Kabir Hashim and Malik Samarawickrema managed to more..

Mar 28 (SL) I am concerned by your two recent reports, �S.Thomas� College Prefects Assault Fellow Thomian� (The Sunday Leader February 20, 2011), and �Nine Thomians Assaulted By Senior Prefects� (a week later). Your first report stated that Neomal Wickremasekera, a College cricketer, was slapped at least 25 times and bodily assaulted, in addition to being subjected to humiliating �acts� where he suffered serious bruising. It has been reported, that 17 Senior Prefects, more..

Mar 28 (HA) Jaffna Music Festival 2011 is initiated through the Norway-Sri Lanka Music Cooperation agreement in partnership with The USAID. In this collaborative effort, Sewalanka Foundation is organizing the event, with the guidance of Aru Sri Theatre and support from Concerts Norway. �Jaffna Music Fesitival will provide a forum for folk musicians, who have at times struggled to engage in and preserve these art forms and an opportunity to more..

Mar 28 (Island) Osama bin Laden, wherever he may be, must be splitting his sides with laughter on seeing the US-led attacks on Libya in support of rebels led by Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, who has admitted that his fighters have al Qaeda links. Abdel-Hakim has told an Italian newspaper that some of his cadres even fought the allied forces in Iraq! Describing his men as patriotic good Muslims, he has said 'members of al Qaeda are also good Muslims fighting against the invader'. more..

Mar 28 (DM) Kudos to President who made the country�s �coal power plant dream� come true. The President has also said that the country would get uninterrupted power soon. Good signs. The Norachcholai plant is 20 years overdue, still, it looks like if not for the President the plant would not have planted itself at one place firmly. The project had been touring all around the country before finally settling at Norachcholai in 2006. The project had been a political hot potato, more..

Mar 28 (SL) Cornel Perera, the promoter behind the Hilton Colombo project and at the centre of a veritable imbroglio claims that contrary to reports he has, in fact paid the Japanese the bulk of their funds and sensationally revealed that former President Chandrika Kumaratunga wished to own the Hilton Hotel and hold it by proxy. Cornel Perera spoke at length and a full version of his recorded interview will be available on more..

Mar 28 (TC) As the latest WikiLeaks-cables reveal, lies and deception occupy a position of honour in the Rajapaksa modus operandi. Open defiance is not the Rajapaksa way, when operating in an unfavourable climate of opinion. Instead, the siblings favour the stealthy approach of Velupillai Pirapaharan, using deceptive declarations and false promises to camouflage a ruthless will and a steely determination. more..

Mar 28 (LB) Someone said �globalization� is a new name for capitalism. Someone else said it also means �imperialism.� A third interjected, �colonialism.� The vocabulary of politics is about sanitizing the sordid. �R2P� (Responsibility to Protect) is a nice term. Nice terms/words include �Liberty� and �Freedom,� both used as names for torture chambers in Pinochet�s Chile (Pinochet was installed by a US-backed coup against the democratically re-elected more..

Mar 28 (BL) Sri Lanka�s Singer Industries (SINI), which deals in the assembly of sewing machines and the manufacture of cabinets and stands for sewing machines say they were forced to discontinue a newly set up television assembly plant during the year 2010 due to the government�s 2011 Budget decision to reduce VAT rates. The company had also at the time resolved to discontinue the business activity relating to trading in televisions. more..

Mar 28 (Island) One of Sri Lanka�s heroes of the 1996 World Cup triumph Asanka Gurusinghe says that the team should consider resting off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan from the World Cup semi-final encounter against New Zealand on Tuesday, so that he could be fully fit to play Saturday�s final in Mumbai if Sri Lanka go through. Muralitharan sustained a hamstring injury during Sri Lanka�s last group game against the Kiwis in Mumbai last week and more..

Mar 28 (NS) Ravi Karunanayake, UNP MP had a narrow shave when his vehicle turned topsy turvy on his way back home from Galle last afternoon after attending a meeting. The driver, spotting a small child on the road had attempted to avoid the child when an oncoming vehicle collided head on. Karunanayake when contacted by The Nation said that the accident had taken place in Hiniduma, Galle on his way to Colombo. He said the vehicle had toppled several times while more..

Mar 28 (LB) With Sri Lankans enjoying the peace in the country for the past two years after nearly three decades of war, the division that existed between the peoples of the north and the south of the country is slowly but surely diminishing. While reports in the media and websites periodically suggest that there is some degree of tension in the north, citing abductions, disappearances and even killings, and more..

Mar 28 (FT) The banking sector has begun the New Year with only private sector increasing borrowing with their cumulative figure topping the Rs. 1.5 trillion mark whilst that from two other key segments contracting in January. Credit to private sector had grown by Rs. 36.2 billion or 2.4% in January 2011, more or less the same as 2.3% rise in December 2010. On the other hand net credit to Government in the first month of this year was down by 3.7% or Rs. 22.6 billion more..

Mar 28 (DN) The Health Ministry will file cases against 1,934 persons whose household premises had high density of mosquitoes due to negligence of maintenance. Health Ministry officials had inspected 207,829 houses islandwide last Saturday which is the fourth day of the National Mosquito Control Week declared by the Ministry to control diseases spread by mosquitoes, especially dengue. They had identified mosquito larvae in 3,001 households. more..

Mar 28 (SL) Less than a kilometre from the R. Premadasa stadium, a three wheeler stand is doubling as a ticketing office for the ongoing World Cup. Sri Lanka cricket has insisted that tickets are sold out for all the matches, yet the tuk-tuk drivers are selling an unlimited number of Rs.50 tickets at an inflated price. The Sunday Leader investigated the sale of tickets carried out by the three wheeler drivers in Maligawatta. more..

Mar 28 (NS) One of Sri Lanka�s foremost business tycoons and Chairman of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), Harry Jayawardene has vowed to fix the heavily crisis-ridden state-run oil giant. In a fiery speech delivered at the 39th Annual General Meeting of Petroleum Dealers� Association (PDA) of Sri Lanka, yesterday (26) at Galadari Hotel Colombo, he ensured that CPC would be back in proper order within the next three to four months, and requested dealers to help him in his ambitious endeavour. more..

Mar 28 (NS) The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) is to take legal action over restaurants and other eateries that prepare and sell food under unhygienic conditions, says CMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kariyawasam and adds that food even in some five-star hotels is contaminated on some occasions. �According to the Food Act, the CMC should be checking on the eateries around Colombo every possible month just so that the hygiene and cleanliness levels are maintained. more..

Mar 28 (Island) The police say a Customs officer has been taken into custody over his alleged involvement in the recent theft of gold at the BIA. The suspect had handed over eight gold slabs to investigators, sources said. The suspect and several other Customs personnel and staff of a private security firm deployed at the Air Cargo village are alleged to have removed gold slabs worth Rs. 70 million imported by a jewellery shop at the Sea Street, Colombo. more..

Mar 28 (UCAN) A sharp rise in chronic kidney disease has prompted Caritas in Kandy and Anuradhapura dioceses to introduce farmers and young people to the benefits of organic farming. The rise in kidney disease in agricultural communities there has alarmed doctors, researchers and Caritas officials alike, all of whom are struggling to pinpoint the causes of the life-threatening illness. �It�s an emerging health problem,� said Nalin Sampath, youth coordinator of Caritas Kandy. more..

Mar 28 (TN) 76 councilors elected to fifteen local bodies including two Urban Councils and ten Predesiya Sabas in the last local elections held in Northern and Eastern provinces on the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) ticket, and Chairmen and Vice Chairmen appointed to twelve local bodies captured by the ITAK would be taking oaths on March 31 Thursday morning at Trincomalee Town Hall, political sources in the East said. more..

Mar 28 (DN) The Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Ministry has been close to public for a long time and the fisheries industry plays a key role in Sri Lanka�s social and economic life President Mahinda Rajapaksa said. �During the past three decades our fish production had reduced to seven percent from 43 percent because of the war. We have liberated the North and East provinces from the terrorists and that was the greatest thing we have done for more..

Mar 28 (LB) The Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats Youth group is currently meeting in Kandy for a Strategic Planning Workshop. Delegates from several Asian countries representing youth movements have gathered for a follow up meeting, following the initial establishment of CALD-Y last August. The current chair of CALD-Y is Selyna Pieris, since the Sri Lankan Liberal Party currently chairs the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats. more..

Mar 28 (NS) Police Sergeant M. A. Chandraratne of the CID submitting a report to the court said he would produce CCTV clips of the two Ukrainians operating the automated teller machines inserting forged teller cards to obtain cash from them. He also said that the Ukrainians should not be granted bail since it would hamper CID operations to arrest the other Ukrainian who had fled the country, and that investigations into the second suspect Dinuka Dilusha Kodituwakku were now complete. more..

Mar 28 (NN) Minister of Higher Education S.B. Dissanayake said that his ministry will, under no circumstance, surrender to the whims of the students of the Sabaragamuwa university. During a media briefing held yesterday, the minister revealed that the vice chancellor has been directed to ban all student unions and lodge complaints with the police to arrest such students. A group of students belonging to the Sabaragamuwa university engaged in a protest yesterday. more..

Mar 28 (CI) The next week is definitely the most important week of our cricket lives. We know we are two games away from fulfilling a dream we came so close to fulfilling four years ago. We also know that one mistake can be enough to end that dream. And a World Cup comes only once every four years. The memories of that campaign in the West Indies come back to us, but it is important to stay in the present moment. The reality is, four years have passed, we have come a long way, more..