Mar 25 (TN) Pre-school teachers working in the Vadamaradchi area in Jaffna district Wednesday complained to their Pre-School Co-ordinator that they have been pressurized by activists of the Eelam Peoples Democratic Party to campaign for their candidates in the forthcoming general election, sources said. more..

Mar 25 (BBC) Foreign companies are delaying plans to invest in Sri Lanka ahead of next month's general election, the country's Board of Investment (BOI) has warned. The vote was called after bitter rivalry between the prime minister and President Chandrika Kumaratunga. more..

Mar 25 (UL) Public opinion is sensitive and it is dynamic. Opinion polls track the direction and intensity of these opinions. Even though ignored most of the time, it becomes very important around election time. more..

Mar 25 (UL) A fast track approach to strike a free-trade pact with the US is still on the cards, to obtain orders and secure jobs in the apparel trade. US trade negotiator Robert Solieck has assured Sri Lanka that they are pleased with its economic progress and are keen to sign up this year. more..

Mar 25 (BBC) Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe says he does not think the split in the Tamil Tiger rebel organisation will affect the outcome of the country's peace process. Earlier this month, a senior rebel military commander broke away from the organisation to start his own administration in the east of the island, sparking fears of internecine clashes. more..

Mar 25 (LBO) Despite a slew of recent opinion polls showing a significant lack of confidence in the UNF running of the economy, the party believes a societal shift in voter thinking can still push crucial votes their way. more..

Mar 25 (LBO) The Department of Commerce will get a 1.6 million euros face-lift, to support Sri Lanka’s increased participation in global trade. The project will integrate the department to the global market and connecting it with foreign state institution, departments and industries. more..

Mar 25 (SLA) Troops on duty in the general area of GURUNAGAR in JAFFNA were compelled to intervene in a dispute and disperse a crowd consisting of two rival political factions who quarreled over an alleged disruption of power to an EPDP political meeting held on 24 March 2004. more..

Mar 25 (SLA) LTTE men in the general area of VALANI junction went ahead with their screening of a film on their attacks against Security Forces at about 6.45 p.m. on 22 March 2004 although the Security Forces kept the SLMM informed of the LTTE plan in advance seeking a ruling on the matter. more..

Mar 25 (SLA) Naval troops on duty in the general areas of URUMALAI, DELFT ISLAND and VETTILAIKKENI continued to observe flotillas of Indian trawlers poaching inside Sri Lankan waters during early hours on 23 March 2004. more..

Mar 25 (SLA) Villagers in the general area of ELANDAMOTTAI, about 16 km east of MANNAR have recovered a dead body of a fellow-villager from a wayside paddy field during the evening on 23 March 2004. more..

Mar 25 (SLA) Twenty-three Sri Lankan refugees, who had reportedly arrived in Sri Lanka aboard an Indian trawler after paying money, were arrested on 24 March 2004 by troops while they were in the general area west of URUMALAI in TALAI MANNAR. more..

Mar 25 (TN) The General Secretary of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) and the lead candidate of the TNA in the Jaffna electoral district, Mr. Mavai Senathirajah, has requested the Commissioner of Elections to make necessary arrangements for TNA candidates to visit areas close to the high security zones in the Jaffna peninsula. more..

Mar 25 (TN) More than one hundred and fifty farmers from Sambaltivu, Varothia Nagar, Sarathapuram, Kanniya, Aandankulam and Kappalthurai in the Trincomalee district Wednesday picketed in front of the office of the Trincomalee town and gravets Divisional Secretariat demanding that they should be paid drought relief similar to those given to farmers in the districts of Anuradhapura, Amparai, and Polonaruwa, more..

Mar 25 (TN) TRO Tuesday inaugurated a scheme to provide monthly financial assistance to fifty-two pre-school teachers serving in the Trincomalee district, TRO officials said. Pre-schools in the northeast have been administered by the Pre-School Education Development Centre (PSEDC), which has its headquarters in Killinochchi. more..

Mar 25 (wsws) On March 9, Socialist Equality Party candidate Priyadarshana Maddewatte took part in a live debate on the popular private television station Swarnavahini, as part of the Socialist Equality Party’s (SEP) campaign in the forthcoming Sri Lankan general election. more..

Mar 25 (wsws) The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Sri Lanka is holding a public meeting in Colombo on March 29 to conclude its general election campaign. Under Sri Lankan election regulations, all public campaigning has to stop 72 hours before the poll. more..

Mar 25 (PSL) The third tranche of US$ 25 million of the US$ 100 million Line of Credit extended by the India to Sri Lanka was signed Tuesday, 23rd March, 2004, in Colombo, in the presence of Secretary to the President W.J.S Karunaratne and Secretary to the Treasury Charitha Ratwatte. more..

Mar 25 (LT) UPFA Government would establish an admirable state service which would be for the service of the people says the JVP. They point out that during the last two years the UNF government allowed the state sector of this country to get eroded, closed down about 100 state institutes and terminated the employment of more than 50,000 workers. more..

Mar 25 (CM) CYPRUS Airways (CY) has teamed up with Jordanian Airlines to continue providing flights to Sri Lanka after the national carrier announced last week it would be axing its flights to Colombo from the end of this month. more..

Mar 25 (ER) On 15th February this year, while Charles de Gaulle was thronging with people flying to the Alps to go skiing, 60 runners collected at the airport with a completely different adventure in mind. They were headed off on a 10 day adventure race – in the footsteps of Marco Polo, on the island of Sri Lanka, the mythical island of Ceylon. more..

Mar 25 (Xinhuanet) Sri Lanka has recently ratified prisoner transfer agreement with Britain which was signed in London by the two countries last year, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement available on Thursday. more..

Mar 25 (CNA) Sri Lanka's political groups enter next week's elections vowing to bring the Tamil Tigers back to the table, but the parties are poles apart on how to end decades of ethnic bloodshed. more..

Mar 25 (DM) President Chandrika Kumaratunga yesterday brushed aside UNF allegations that the JVP was behind the recent church attacks and charged that the UNF was behind them. The President alleged three monks allegedly instigated by the UNF had been involved in the attacks. more..

Mar 25 (DN) Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe speaking on the eve of his 55th birthday said Tuesday, the Freedom Alliance members panicked when the peace process was getting successful fearing that their political future over. more..

Mar 25 (Dawn) Sri Lanka is seeking joint ventures with Pakistani entrepreneurs in textile sector particularly in fabrics, the newly-posted Consul General of Sri Lanka to Pakistan Ms. Manel Desilva said here on Wednesday. more..

Mar 25 (GD) Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, facing a tough re-election fight, yesterday said he expects a huge undecided vote to shift his way, giving him a mandate to restart peace talks with Tamil rebels. more..

Mar 25 (Gulf) Time and again, Tamil Tigers have dealt ruthlessly with moderate Tamil politicians and members of other Tamil rebel organisations, who sought the Tamil vote at local or national polls, or supported any faction opposed to them. In the latest Tiger reprisal, two men shot Thevanayagam Thiruchelvam, a Tamil university professor, in eastern Sri Lanka yesterday. more..

Mar 25 (Bloomberg) The Sri Lankan president's call for early elections in April helped undermine the peace effort with Tamil Tiger rebels, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. more..

Mar 25 (DJ) Sri Lanka's United People's Freedom Alliance - the president's political party - won't stand in the way of foreign investors if it comes into power, but it would hold back on privatizing key state enterprises, a party official said Thursday. more..

Mar 25 (Gulf) President Chandrika Kumaratunga's United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) has run into trouble after releasing a second manifesto for the upcoming elections and making an attempt to blame Prime Minister Ranil Wickremeisnghe's UNP for the manifesto. more..

Mar 25 (AP) Sri Lanka's Election Commission has not decided how tens of thousands of voters in Tamil rebel-controlled areas will cast their votes in April 2 parliamentary elections, an official said on Thursday. more..

Mar 25 (AT) Speculation is rife in Sri Lanka over who might have engineered the recent split in the LTTE. While some are pointing to a foreign hand - India and/or the United States - others are insisting that Colombo might have had a part in fomenting the rebellion. more..

Mar 25 (Rupavahini) The commonwealth observer team will be monitoring the election campaigns of various political parties and their conduct on the day of the elections. The head of the monitoring mission Margaret Reid said their main objective is to monitor whether a free and fair election acceptable to the international community will be held on April 2nd. more..

Mar 25 (Rupavahini) The Customs seized two container loads of textiles yesterday which were similar to the material used in LTTE uniforms. The Customs Department said that the consignment is worth around six million rupees. more..

Mar 25 (CI) Marvan Atapattu, Sri Lanka's captain-in-waiting, bounced back to form with an unbeaten 109 – his 12th Test hundred – as Australia's bid for a 3-0 clean sweep was delayed on the second day in Colombo. more..

Mar 25 (AFP) Sri Lanka is holding its third general election in four years after President Chandrika Kumaratunga sacked the legislature controlled by her arch political rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. more..

Mar 25 (HT) The LTTE is preventing V Anandasangaree, the president of the TULF, from campaigning in the parliamentary elections in Jaffna district. "I cannot go out and campaign because there is no guarantee that I will come back alive," Anandasangaree told Hindustan Times more..

Mar 25 (NW) President Chandrika Kumaratunga yesterday brushed aside UNF allegations that the JVP was behind the recent church attacks and charged that the UNF was behind them. The President alleged three monks allegedly instigated by the UNF had been involved in the attacks. more..

Mar 25 (NW) The LTTE may be pushed to a war again if the new government that will be formed after the April 2 general election attempts to change the peace process by imposing new conditions. more..

Mar 25 (BBC) Sixty-seven year old Karunawathie strokes the photograph of her dead son and cries. "I am very sad," she says, "I brought up my children with such difficulty and now I have to suffer more." Her eldest son was abducted by the Tamil Tiger rebels and killed. more..

Mar 26 (TN) Sri Lankan Airlines will expand itsBangkok to Colombo route from four to seven flights a week in September to serve rising demand in Thai pilgrimage tours. "Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country like Thailand - that is the reason why Sir Lanka is one of the popular destinations for Thais," more..

Mar 26 (TN) A group of Jaffna university students Thursday evening held a token protest against the attack on them, allegedly by a group of EPDP activists, which resulted in injuries to two students including the President of the Students Union Mr.P.Paheerathan. more..

Mar 26 (TN) In a statement issued Thursday, the LTTE has explained to its cadres and divisional heads in the Batticaloa-Amparai district about the ‘offenses’ of Mr. Vinayagomoorthy Muraleetharan, also known as Karuna, who was the LTTE’s commander for the district. more..

Mar 26 (TN) Commonwealth country representatives who arrived in Sri Lanka Thursday to monitor next week's parliamentary elections held discussions with the Commissioner of Elections Dayananda Dissanayake today, political sources in Colombo said. more..

Mar 26 (CI) Darren Lehmann has shown over the past two days that cricket is played as much in the head as on the pitch. Time after time on his way to an unbeaten 153 he shimmied down the pitch against Muttiah Muralitharan, to defend gently, thump rustically, drive through the covers, or nudge delicately. more..

Mar 26 (Kyodo) Maj. Gen. Dennis Larsen, commander of the Guam-based U.S. 13th Air Force, made an unpublicized visit to Sri Lanka from Sunday through Thursday for meetings with senior military and government officials, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo said Thursday. more..

Mar 26 (RSF) In the evening of 7 September 1999, Rohana Kumara, Editor of Satana ("Battle"), a Sinhalese-language weekly newspaper, was murdered while going in a trishaw (three wheeler taxi) within 50 metres of his home in a suburb of Colombo. The murderer shot him at point-blank range with a 9mm handgun. more..

Mar 26 (Scoop) Former Cabinet Minister Paul East has been selected to take part in a Commonwealth mission to observe the up-coming general elections in Sri Lanka, Foreign Minister Phil Goff announced today. more..

Mar 26 (AFP) Sri Lanka's elusive Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is not a candidate at next week's election, but he could end up calling the shots in parliament. Mr Prabhakaran, 49, has for the first time openly backed candidates from the Tamil minority, who will contest the election due next Friday. more..