June 5 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan believes that scientific research into the biomechanics of spin bowling will pave the way for his controversial doosra delivery being declared legal. more..

June 5 (AT) This is an impending danger signal that the entire Jaffna peninsula, Mannar and up to Anuradhapura in the North -central region plus 85 islets in the Western cost of Sri Lanka would go under watter once the Shipping Ministry of India begins to dredge the Gulf of Mannar sea to start the Sethu Samudhram Canal project. more..

June 5 (NW) Several public hospitals are now overcrowded with patients suffering from dengue, dysentery and diarrhoea and further admissions might seriously affect the service quality, health officials warned yesterday. more..

June 5 (NW) Colombo District Judge S.M.S. Samarakoon yesterday issued an enjoining order restraining the newly nominated Bhikku, Ven. Akmeemana Dayaratana Thera from taking oaths as a JHU MP in Parliament. The order is operative for one week from yesterday. more..

June 5 (LBO) Sri Lanka’s unique selling point is usually its intelligent workforce, but spiralling energy costs and poor road accessibility, may turn off investors, a top French lace manufacturer said Friday. more..

June 5 (LBO) Hunas Falls is dressing up its hill country hotel, to get a booking in the Small Luxury Hotels of the world catalogue. The Jetwing managed hotel is spending some Rs. 25 mn of the Hunas Fall’s internal funds to upgrade and expand 20 of its 31 rooms to mini-suites. more..

June 5 (SLA) On an information received from a civilian, troops have recovered one belt order, three water bottles, one body armoured jacket, two T-56 magazines filled with ammunitions, 870 x T-56 ammunitions, one field dressing and a pair of slippers from the general area north of MEESALAI, about 20 km. east of JAFFNA town on 04 June 2004.

June 5 (SLA) On an information received from a civilian, the troops on duty in the general area of KARAVEDDY, about 07 km. southwest of POINT PEDRO recovered a dead body of a male on 04 June 2004 around 07.00 a.m. more..

June 5 (SLA) One thousand three hundred and sixty eight (1368) lorry loads of food and other essential items had been dispatched to un-cleared areas in the northern province during the period between 28 May 2004 and 03 June 2004. more..

June 5 (TN) With the support of UNICEF, the Trincomalee District Child Protection Committee (DCPC) held a one-day workshop to further strengthen its activities in the district. Ms Gabriela Elroy, Head of Office, UNICEF Trincomalee, inaugurated the workshop in the Trincomalee district secretariat more..

June 5 (TN) Ms Gabriela Elroy, UNICEF head in Trincomalee zone Thursday handed over a consignment of medical equipments valued 13 million rupees to government hospitals to improve the maternal and child health services in the Trincomalee district to medical officers. more..

June 5 (G&M) Galle Road stretches noisily along the western edge of Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka, following the sand-tinged coastline of the Indian Ocean. From the terrace of the colonial Galle Face Hotel, one can gaze out across an endless horizon, listen to waves crash upon the shore, sip tea, and read the Daily News, more..

June 5 (TN) TNA parliamentarians are scheduled to the meet Mr.S.P.Thamilchelvan, political head of the LTTE, Saturday to discuss the current political situation in the south and the latest developments in reviving the peace talks through Norwegian facilitation, sources said. more..

June 5 (SN) Ven Kathaluwe Rathanaseeha thero who resigned from the parliament on 18th May declared yesterday at Colombo District courts that he was abducted and forcibly obtained his signature for the resignation. more..

June 5 (SN) Commenting on a statement made by Thamilchelvan about the killings in the East, JHU parliamentarian Ven Omalpe Sobhitha thero told that the killings in the East clearly proved that the LTTE was not the sole representative of even terrorists. more..

June 5 (SN) Mr Douglas Devananthan MP, Leader of Eelam People’s Democratic Party rejected the LTTE’s demand to take the ISGA as the basis for the future talks in a media release issued by them. Mr Devananthan has stated that any government elected by the people cannot agree with this demand. more..

June 5 (TP) Four trains derailed within 48 hours in Sri Lanka since Wednesday with many suspecting sabotage behind the accidents, newspapers reported. Transport Minister Felix Perera told state television that if evidence proved that the derailments were linked to sabotage, maximum punishment would be meted out to those involved. more..

June 5 (TP) Last year was a bad year, especially for school children with 220 of them losing their lives due to road accidents while there were 1,993 fatal accidents out of a total of 59,444 road accidents, officials said. more..

June 5 (AT) Tamil Tiger assassins, for a moment turned away from the Karuna loyalists who had been tormenting them for the last few weeks, and returned to the killings of their civilian political opponents, those who worked against their proxy political party - Tamil National Alliance, Police Sources in Jaffna said. more..

June 5 (AT) Sri Lankan Government is involved in a diabolic attempt to tilt the existing military equation with the view to deteriorate the situation in the East. Though outwardly Government of Sri Lanka pretends showing interest in the peace process, but in fact it moves towards a military solution to the conflict. more..

June 5 (DN) President Chandrika Kumaratunga yesterday stressed that race, language and religion should not be used to promote divisions within the community but towards the betterment of the country as a whole. more..

June 5 (Gulf) The all-Buddhist monk political party has been drawn into a fresh controversy with claims that a one of their member monks elected to parliament was forced to quit his seat after being 'abducted' ahead of a proposed vote to elect the deputy speaker. more..

June 5 (KT) Sri Lanka donor co-chairs came in for some stick from a key coalition party in the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government and the Tamil rebels over the statement they made following Tuesday's review of the local peace process in Brussels. more..

June 5 (Kyodo) Two people were killed Saturday in an assassination attempt on a junior government minister in Colombo, police said. A group of gunmen riding in a white van opened fire on the political office of Deputy Sports Minister Sripathi Sooriarachchi in a northern suburb of Colombo, the police said. more..

June 5 (TN) Ratnayake Mudiansalagae Seneviratne, a twenty-year-old soldier of the Sri Lanka Army Friday shot dead his 37-year-old superior Sergeant Mr. Gunaratne Vasantha Liyanage and then committed suicide by shooting himself. He left a letter stating that he had killed his superior, as he was unable to tolerate his punishment, more..

June 5 (TN) Leader of the LTTE, Velupillai Pirapaharan, attended the opening ceremony of a new building in the Home for the Elderly, 'Anpucholai,' in Kilinochchi and awarded prizes of faith to many older parents of LTTE war heroes, sources from Vanni said. more..

June 5 (UTHR) This latest bulletin by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) assesses the role of institutions responsible for protecting the rights civilians in the wake of Karuna's rebellion and the April election. more..

June 6 (Rupavahini) This is the first time that the untied nations had declared “seas and oceans’ as the theme to pay attention to the importance of seas and oceans. The idea behind the theme is to ensure that the world enjoys healthy seas and oceans. more..

June 6 (TN) Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians met with Leader of LTTE's Political Wing, S.P.Thamilchelvan Saturday in the LTTE political head quarters in Kilinochchi for a four hour long meeting. more..

June 6 (TN) The JDPO said in a memorandum sent to the Director General of Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Ministry, Mr.Harim Peiris, that they would launch a picketing campaign in front of the Jaffna district secretariat crippling the civil administration if the government failed to supply free dry ration to all 128,582 families, more..

June 6 (TN) Mr.Rajapakse, one of the accused who was sentenced to death in the Krishanthy Kumarasamy rape and murder case and now kept in prison in the South has appealed to the Jaffna High Court through his lawyer to cite him as a witness instead of respondent in the 12 Habeas Corpus applications which are pending in court for inquiry, more..

June 6 (SL) While President Chandrika Kumaratunga continued her search for a simple majority in parliament to push through the constituent assembly with a view to abolishing the executive presidency, Sri Lanka faced the prospect of losing US$ 4.5 billion in aid due to the peace process being stalled. more..

June 6 (SL) The peril of marrying the country's second and third largest political forces merely for electoral gain last April decisively prevented the country from having two separate political ideologies to choose between. For opting to say that, the critics were dubbed as anti UPFA elements and therefore anti proletariat. more..

June 6 (SO) The private bus operators have threatened a bus fare hike from July 1. However, the National Transport Commission (NTC) chairman, Dr. Amal Kumarage said the private bus owners will not be allowed to increase fares at their own will and pleasure. more..

June 6 (AT) The Organization for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR) has been organized with a fully functional office in Colombo to look after the interest of the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees returning from India. more..

June 6 (Hindu) Sri Lanka's recent elections gave the Tamil National Alliance (ITAK) 22 seats in Parliament. ITAK, an alliance of five Tamil parties, is a proxy of the LTTE. Eight of its parliamentarians were elected from Jaffna and the rest from other parts of the North-East. The LTTE projected ITAK's performance in the election as its triumph. more..

June 6 (AT) LTTE had ordered Members of Parliament belonging to the grouping called TNA to press the Government inside and outside the parliament, for the institutionalizing of the Internal Self Governing Proposal aimed at bringing about an autonomous rule in the North and east of the country - supposed to be the traditional homeland of the Tamils. more..

June 6 (Hindu) Expressing dismay over the deteriorating situation in eastern Sri Lanka, a human rights group has warned of looming war prospects and cautioned against giving democracy a second place in the island's search for peace. more..

June 6 (TN) North East Parliamentarians are to be briefed of the development activities now being carried out by the North East Provincial Council (NEPC) administration. The two-day briefing will be held on June 10 and 11 at the conference hall of the NEPC which is located in Uppuveli, a suburb, about 2 km off north of Trincomalee, more..

June 6 (TN) An auto rickshaw driver was shot dead by unidentified men in the northern town of Vavuniya, Saturday night. The driver was identified as Sathees Thamotharampillai, 21, of Railway Station Road, Vairavapuliyankulam, police said. more..

June 6 (TN) The Mannar Magistrate Mr. N.M.M.Abdullah Sunday released all 29 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees but ordered remand till June 10th for three boatmen, S.Jayarasa (27), S.Chandrabose (19) and A.Thavarajah (29) who brought them to the shore, legal sources in Mannar said. The three boatmen are Sri Lankan Tamils. more..

June 6 (SLA) Two Tamil persons who were taking photographs of the COLOMBO Telecom Chief Executive Officer’s office and outside areas have been arrested by Telecom Security Officers with the assistance of troops on duty at the premises on 05 June 2004 around 08.30 a.m. more..

June 6 (SLA) One civilian has been killed and another injured by an unidentified gunman at the fish market, TRINCOMALEE on 04 June 2004 around 7.10 p.m. The deceased has been identified as ANDRA HENNADIGE KAPILA (28) of NO. 12, MAHAMAYAPURA, TRINCOMALEE. more..

June 6 (SLA) On an information received from a civilian, troops deployed at KUMBURUMULLAI ROAD BLOCK have found one 60 mm. mortar bomb abandoned near the VILLUWA ROAD on 05 June 2004. The same day, troops on duty in the general area of DAMMINA, have recovered a hand grenade hidden inside an unattended parcel when they searched it on suspicion. more..

June 6 (SLA) Naval troops on duty in the general sea area of THALAIMANNAR have arrested 29 Sri Lankan refugees onboard a fibre glass dinghy along with its three crew members nears the 3 SAND BANK on 05 June 2004 around 5.00 a.m. more..

June 6 (LT) The three member commission inquiring into the affairs of the Colmobo – Katunayake Highway project says there had been a large scale swindle of Rs.1000 billion during the UNP regime. This highway project was started by the PA government in the year 2000 with a Korean Company. more..

June 6 (PTI) Sri Lanka's star spinner Muttiah Muralitharan is contemplating legal action against former Indian skipper Bishen Singh Bedi for making defamatory remarks against him. more..

June 6 (LT) A clique of student thugs being sustained by the UNP stabbed a third year arts student of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. He succumbed to his injuries this evening. The student who was stabbed was Sampath Bandara, a third year student of the Arts Faculty. more..

June 6 (TP) Seven railway employees including a Chief Inspector were suspended on Friday by Sri Lanka’s Railway Department following the derailment of five trains within two days, newspapers said. more..

June 6 (TP) Residents in the flood-prone district of Ratnapura, about 130km north-east of Colombo, are bracing for a fresh crisis as officials warned of serious earthslips due to rain in recent weeks. The region was the worst affected in flash floods last year that killed more that 200 people and rendered thousands homeless. more..