July 8 (PA) Gangs which prey on London’s Tamil community were themselves the targets as hundreds of police officers swooped in dawn raids today. More than 250 officers hit 22 addresses across north and east London as part of an ongoing campaign. more..

July 8 (Xinhua) The Chinese government has agreed to provide 150 million Yuan (about 17 million US dollars) to Sir Lanka for the construction of the proposed National Arts Theater in capital Colombo. more..

July 8 (AFP) The Tamil Tigers have denied staging the first suicide bombing in the Sri Lankan capital in three years, but analysts said the attack was a warning by the rebels not to let the peace process stall further. more..

July 8 (OW) The first suicide attack in Sri Lanka since the February 2002 ceasefire between the government and Tamil Tiger guerrillas has shaken the island nation and revived government-opposition conflict on the strategy to tackle the rebels. more..

July 9 (TN) "The construction of Buddhist Vihares on lands in traditional Tamil villages in the Trincomalee district would cause serious impact on the current peace process and would disturb the mutual understanding and co-existence that prevails among various communities in the district," more..

July 9 (TN) The World Food Programme (WFP) has come forward to provide financial assistance to launch fisheries development projects in the Jaffna district. As a prelude, a team of officials arrived in Jaffna Thursday to conduct a feasibility study, Jaffna district secretariat sources said. more..

July 9 (TN) Venerable Lendigele Sudassi, Chief Incumbent of the Bodhirukkaharamaya Temple in Bubulla in Hingurakgoda where last Tuesday midnight the Hingurakgoda Police arrested fourteen suspected Karuna faction Tamil youths with automatic weapons, was seriously injured in a grenade attack that took place Thursday around 7.30 p.m., police said. more..

July 9 (CT) World Bank’s Country Director Peter Harold says after the completion of the e-Sri Lanka programme the farmers or poorest masses can exchange their views through the Internet. He asked the local IT professionals to improve the knowledge on IT based education. more..

July 9 (AFP) Cricket will be played for the first time at the Asian Games during the 2006 meet in Doha, Qatar, in keeping with the sport's growing popularity in the continent, a top sports official said. more..

July 9 (LT) The bomb explosion that occurred at Kollupitiya killing five and injuring many will not have any impact on the peace process says the President. However, this explosion was a serious violation of the ceasefire agreement and safeguarding the agreement was the responsibility of both parties says the President. more..

July 9 (BBC) Tamil Tigers rebels say they have executed two suspected members of a rival faction in eastern Sri Lanka. The pair were among 13 people who the rebels say were detained last week because they were loyal to the breakaway commander, Colonel Karuna. more..

July 9 (LT) H.G.P. Nelson, former minister of Irrigation of the UNP government has taken away goods worth Rs.900, 000 from the official quarters he occupied during their term says the Ministry of River Basin Development and Rajarata Development. more..

July 9 (CI) Mahela Jayawardene, the Sri Lankan vice-captain, is confident of levelling the series in the second Test in the Bundaberg Rum Stadium in Cairns, beginning tomorrow, and hoped that the match would be played on a fair pitch. more..

July 9 (AT) Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) urged yesterday that the chairman of the National Police Commission (NPC) of Sri Lanka should either uphold his constitutional duty and deal with public complaints of torture by the police or resign. more..

July 9 (AT) A woman accomplice of the suicide bomber was yesterday arrested and remanded. Earlier the suicide bomber had been already identified as Thiagarajah Jeyarani (29) a resident of Manipay, Jaffna. more..

July 9 (TN) USAID sponsored two-day workshop organized by the Trincomalee Social Development and Research Organization (SDRO) on Ethnic Conflict and its related issues concluded Thursday at Trincomalee New Silver Star Hotel. more..

July 9 (LBO) Sri Lanka and the World Bank sealed half-a-century of cooperation on Friday by inking another large-scale development aid package. Sri Lanka joined the World Bank in 1950 and singed its first loan agreement with the international development bank on July 9th, 1954. more..

July 9 (LBO) The ADB will provide emergency aid to the tune of US$ 12.5mn to resuscitate southern roads drowned in floods. “ADB will provide emergency assistance amounting to US$12.5 million to help rehabilitate transport infrastructure damaged during severe flooding in southern Sri Lanka in May 2003,” more..

July 9 (LBO) Spread out over 16,000 hectares of elephant country, Sri Lanka’s largest sugar plantation sees good times ahead under private management, even as a battle over sugar rages between man and wild jumbos. more..

July 9 (LBO) The Japanese government will chip in with an aid package to help the CEB develop Sri Lanka’s electricity Master Plan for the next 20 years. “The Japanese government is working with the CEB to develop a master plan for Sri Lanka’s electricity sector,” said the Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, more..

July 9 (TN) In a panel session organized by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C., Mr.R.Sampanthan and Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, TNA parliamentarians, told the audience that implementation of Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) proposed by the LTTE is critical to sustainable peace. more..

July 9 (SLA) Two out of three LTTE cadres, believed to have been kidnapped by members of a rival faction, were found murdered in the general area of PANKUDAWELI junction in the uncleared area on 08 July 2004 around 11.30 a.m., information received by troops confirmed. more..

July 9 (SLA) A senior Buddhist monk at BUBULA Temple in the general area of HINGURAKGODA sustained serious injuries on 08 July 2004 around 8.15 p.m. after two unidentified men hurled a hand grenade at him. more..

July 9 (SLA) Four gelignite sticks, fifteen detonators, safety fuses and an illegal fishing net were among items that were recovered from a fishing hamlet in KOKILAI and PODUWAKATTU areas when naval troops with the Police conducted a search on 08th July 2004 around 9.45 a.m. more..

July 9 (SLA) Naval troops on duty in the general areas of DELFT ISLAND, JAFFNA sighted hundreds of Indian fishing trawlers poaching within Sri Lankan waters on 08th July 2004 between 7.00 a.m. and 10.45 p.m. more..

July 9 (PRIU) The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Sri Lanka were accorded legal status with the signing of an agreement in Colombo yesterday. more..

July 9 (GG2) COMMENTATORS are wondering whether the latest sexual pastime to hit the headlines in the UK, “dogging”, has reached Sri Lanka after the country`s chief justice was implicated in a car sex scandal. more..

July 9 (PTI) Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga thinks his country’s cricket board is corrupt and doesn’t handle funds properly. Ranatunga accused the Sri Lankan board of mismanaging funds and added that the board, which had funds to the tune of Rs 1.2 billion, was now running an overdraft of Rs 15 million. more..

July 9 (SUN) Buoyed up by the enthusiastic response to its service between Colombo and Kozhikode, SriLankan Airlines now plans to increase the frequency of its service to daily flights from November. more..

July 9 (SUN) Two Sri Lankan Tamil leaders said today that the peace process in the country was in danger of collapse unless the proposed Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA) was set up in the Tamil area quickly without waiting for agreement on the power-sharing arrangements at the centre. more..

July 9 (DT) 'It is difficult to understand what drives Tigers to suicide bombings. It is not an act carried out in the heat of battle’ Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers have staged some of the world’s most devastating suicide bombings, but those who blow themselves up are not driven by religious fervour but veneration for their school dropout leader. more..

July 9 (PSL) President Chandrika Kumaratunga yesterday appointed Mr.Leel Wickremarachchi as Director General of the Public Enterprises Reform Commission (PERC). His appointment was made under the Public Enterprise Reform Commission of Sri Lanka Act No. 1 of 1996. more..

July 9 (wsws) A suicide bomb attack in the heart of the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo on Wednesday has further undermined the country’s fragile ceasefire. The target of the attack was almost certainly Douglas Devananda, minister for agriculture, marketing development and Hindu affairs in the UPFA government. more..

July 9 (Gulf) Tamil Tiger rebels yesterday denied involvement in the first suicide bombing in the Sri Lankan capital since 2001 and accused government forces of paving the way for the attack. more..

July 9 (CI) For those of a statistical bent, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden were quietly becoming the weak link in Australia's juggernaut: only one century stand in their past 21 attempts. Those of a statistical bent were today nearly given the thrill of their lives. more..

July 9 (G2L) A woman accomplice of the suicide bomber, Jeyarani who accompanied the walking bomb to Minister Douglas Devananda’s office has confessed to the Police and a magistrate who saw her alone that the Colombo suicide blast , July 7, was planned by the LTTE. more..

July 9 (DN) Sathya Leela Selvakumar, 29, of Jaffna, the woman accomplice of the LTTE woman suicide bomber who committed suicide at the Kollupitiya Police station told CID investigators yesterday she was employed by EPDP Minister Douglas Devananda until last April. more..

July 9 (G2L) Rice, the king of all grains and essential staple of millions of Asians including Sri Lankans is being hit by the much feared global warming contributed mostly by industrial nations of the West, rice scientists said. more..

July 9 (AFP) The United States has asked Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers to give up "terrorism," saying a suicide bombing in the capital Colombo had the hallmarks of the rebels despite their denial. more..

July 9 (Reuters) An elderly monk was badly wounded in a grenade attack on a Sri Lanka temple and the Tamil Tigers said they killed two rival rebels in new violence since a suicide bombing this week raised fears for the island's peace bid. more..

July 10 (TN) Unidentified gunmen Friday shot dead a village officer in Ariyampathy, 6 kilometres south of Batticaloa town. Mr. Kunjithamby Sivarasa 47, was killed at his home around 5.30 p.m. by two gunmen who came on motorbike, Police said. Mr. Sivarasa was the village officer for Karadiyanaaru in the LTTE controlled hinterland of the Batticaloa District. more..

July 10 (TN) The Chavakachcheri Magistrate Mr.P.Subramaniam Friday issued notice on the first respondent, Sri Lanka Army official Dumminda Keppetipola, in a Habeas Corpus application through SLA counsel to appear on the next date without fail. more..

July 10 (TN) The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka Thursday commenced inquiry into complaints made by resident-fishermen of Kovilakandy in Thenmaradchchi division in Jaffna district against the harassment by Sri Lanka Army soldiers who are located in the area, more..

July 10 (AT) On 24 June 2003, the Daily Mirror featured Ranil Wickremesinghe, the then Prime Minister, shaking hands with Tony Blair at No. 10 Downing Street. He was shown blithely grinning at the camera probably at the same time when a key policeman, Nihal Thabrew, head of the Colombo-Dehiwela Anti-Terrorist Intelligence Unit, gathering vital intelligence against the LTTE, was being shot dead at point blank range in his office. more..

July 10 (AT) Summarily execution of two youths in the Eastern region of the country, on last Wednesady, by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on allegations that they were members of the renegade leader Colonel Karuna Amman’s group, is highly condemnable. more..

July 10 (Hindu) Sri Lanka's two-year spell of non-fighting is under serious threat. The plunging levels of confidence on the Government by the LTTE do not auger well for the continuation of the fragile ceasefire agreement, which has held, somewhat tenuously, for the past two years. more..

July 10 (Rupavahini) All arrangements have been finalized for tomorrow's provincial council elections. The election secretariat says that voting will commence at 7.00 a.m. and will end at 4 p.m. tomorrow. Sri Lankans will go to the polls to elect 316 provincial councilors for 6 provincial councils. more..

July 10 (Rupavahini) 1135 more houses are to be built in the city of Colombo under the "Thirasara Puravara" housing scheme. The total cost of the project is around 1920 million rupees. The shelter Colombo private limited has been entrusted with the task of implementing the project. more..

July 10 (TN) On July 14 Wednesday Chief Justice Mr.Sarath N.Silva will lay the foundation stone for the modern court complex in Jaffna to be constructed at a cost of 160 million rupees with financial assistance from the International Development Agency (IDA) of the World Bank under the Legal and Judicial Reforms Project. more..

July 10 (TN) "The denial of our human rights is the basis of our struggle. We have not effectively conveyed this message to the world. We will bring about greater awareness of human rights and related international conventions among our people", said Mr. S. P Thamilchelvan, more..