Oct 2 (NIP) The Sri Lankan Minister of Trade, Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, on Friday said the implementation of Sethusamadram project would not affect the operation of the Colombo port. more..

Oct 2 (BBC) The Muslim community and the LTTE representatives in Mannar have agreed to live in harmony after a tense situation. Community leaders and the Tamil Tigers agreed to take necessary steps to bring the situation under control in a meeting held in Mannar District Secretary’s office. more..

Oct 2 (Reuters) Sri Lankan vendor W.M Ranjith speaks to a customer from his mobile phone as he continues to engage in his business in central market in Colombo, Sri Lanka in this picture taken September 20, 2004. more..

Oct 2 (AP) First, a few things about Ravi: He is a Buddhist from Sri Lanka - , and he practices meditation as a way of life. He is also a physicist with a doctorate degree from the University of Missouri. more..

Oct 2 (TN) Social Economic Development Organization in Trincomalee (SEDOT) financially supported by Trincomalee Welfare Association-Canada, which is run by Trincomalee expatriates in Canada, inaugurated on the International Children Day Friday the supply of free milk to students studying in Thiriyai Government Tamil Mixed School in Trincomalee district. more..

Oct 2 (TN) A businessman was shot Friday around 5.30 p.m. by unidentified gunmen near Punanai, 45 kilometres northwest of Batticaloa. The businessman, Mr. Poopalapillai Sivapragasam, 47, was returning from Welikanda on his motorbike on the Valaichenai-Polannaruwa Road when four gunmen who had trailed him on their motobikes shot and wounded him, more..

Oct 2 (TN) The administration of the Point Pedro Urban Council (UC) in Vadamaradchchi division in Jaffna district again requested the Jaffna area command of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) to release its land and buildings now being used as the headquarters of SLA 524 Brigade since 1995, local government sources said. more..

Oct 2 (SLA) A civilian has been shot and injured by an unidentified pistol man in the general area of PUNANI about 14 km west of WELIKANDA on 01 October 2004 around 5.55 p. The victim was on his way towards VALAICHCHENAI from POLONNARUWA on his motorbike when the gunman struck him. more..

Oct 2 (SLA) One thousand four hundred and forty two (1442) lorry loads of food and other essential items had been dispatched to un-cleared areas in the northern province during the period between 24 September 2004 and 30 September 2004. more..

Oct 2 (SLA) Religious ceremonies that were precursors of a series of activities to occur in connection with the forthcoming Army Day (10th October) and its 55th Anniversary got well under way at break of Friday (01) at Anuradhapura Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi premises where 260 flags of the Sri Lanka Army were blessed. more..

Oct 2 (SLBC) The inauguration of the proposed Regional Broadcasting Station for the Eastern province is planned to mark the occasion of 10th year completion of President Chandrika Kumaratunga as Executive President of the country. more..

Oct 2 (LT) The second protest rally of the UNP to demand for reduction of prices of consumer items will be held on the 19th. People will come in several demonstrations and will converge at Fort Railway station where they will join the agitation says Mr. Tissa Attanayake, Deputy Secretary General of the UNP. more..

Oct 2 (SLBC) The National Child Information Centre of the National Children's Education Foundation International Headquarters was opened yesterday at, New Town, Mulleriyawa. The center will hold a data bank on disabled children and other children under the age of 18, more..

Oct 2 (F2F) Exports fell way below import bills for the country in July, as a heavy oil bill wiped out earnings from apparel and tea sectors. The Central Bank said Friday that exports rose 2.5 percent to US$ 506 mn in July over the same period last year, while imports shot up 7.8 percent to US$ 664 mn during the period under review. more..

Oct 2 (AT) V. Anandasangaree, President of the TULF slighted Gajaendrakumar Ponnampalam, MP from the Jaffna district representing TNA for his recent declaration encouraging killings and thus promoting an ominous genocidal culture in the midst of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and abroad. more..

Oct 2 (IANS) A book on Sri Lankan Tamil guerrilla leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is to be released in Switzerland. According to TamilNet website, the book, "Prabhakaran: A Leader for all Seasons", will be released in a hotel in the town of Ostermundigen. more..

Oct 2 (IANS) Sri Lanka's state-owned bus transport will get a fillip after 2,000 of its buses lying abandoned are made roadworthy by the end of this year. Transport Minister Felix Perera said the decision was made after President Chandrika Kumaratunga allocated $1.46 million for repairing state-owned buses, more..

Oct 2 (DN) Pettah Police yesterday apprehended two ex-sailors who had got away with several lakhs worth of jewellery and money belonging to young girls working in the Katunayake Free Trade Zone after allegedly raping them. more..

Oct 2 (IANS) Tamil Tiger guerrillas have killed a senior member of a rival faction, the pro-rebel TamilNet website said Saturday. Special jungle warfare units of the LTTE shot dead Friday a close associate of Karuna, a breakaway leader, at Kulaththu Madu, 40 km from the eastern town of Batticaloa. more..

Oct 2 (AFP) Sri Lanka's top Tamil Tiger rebel group began a week-long meeting in Switzerland which is meant to prepare for the next round of peace talks with the Sri Lankan government, the Swiss foreign ministry said. more..

Oct 2 (AFP) The United States called for a speedy return to peace talks by the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers as the rebels began a week-long meeting to prepare for a next round of negotiations. more..

Oct 2 (SLBC) At his meeting with Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, Minister Kadirgamar urged that favourable consideration be given to Sri Lanka's case for preferential treatment in respect of its textile products after the expiry of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement in 2005. more..

Oct 2 (LA) SN30952 writes "SriLankan Catering (Pvt) Ltd., in a bid to extend its catering facility, has begun work on a new, state-of-the-art flight kitchen in Katunayake. The present catering facility is equipped to produce 5,000 meals a day. 73% of the kitchen produce currently feeds SriLankan Airlines passengers. more..

Oct 3 (TN) Pilgrimage to Holy Thirukoneswaram (Thirukoneswara Thiruthala Yathirai), a research book on historic Trincomalee Koneswaram Temple and the history ofTrincomalee is to be released on October 2 at an event held in London Muthumariamman Temple located at Upper Totting Road, London. more..

Oct 3 (TN) Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) in Kilinochchi organized several pre-schools in Vanni to jointly celebrate the International Children' Day in Kilinochchi Friday sources said. Several elderly citizens of the area were also felicitated during the ceremony. more..

Oct 3 (TN) Special Forces of the Liberation Tigers' Jeyanthan Regiment Saturday morning attacked a group of heavily armed paramilitary cadres northwest of Batticaloa, killing two and wounding three around 6.30 a.m., LTTE sources in the east said. more..

Oct 3 (TN) Pre-school teachers and children of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala communities, participated in the International Children's Day event held in Trincomalee Friday organized by the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) with the support of Pre-School Education Development Centre (PSEDC). more..

Oct 3 (TN) Norwegian special peace envoy Mr. Erik Solheim is expected to arrive in Geneva Sunday morning to meet the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Liberation Tigers which is touring European countries, sources close to the delegation told TamilNet. more..

Oct 3 (AT) If the war resumes, or even if present trends continue and we remain in this twilight zone, our educated, talented, skilled and sensitive, especially the English-speaking youth, will be lost to the nation through migration. Our young in other societies, and we in ours, will be “strangers in a strange land”. more..

Oct 3 (AT) It can be done; it is still possible to put a spoke in the wheel of the triumphal chariot of the Sun God. As the recent Danish developments (the groundswell of opinion against the Tigers and the proposal to ban them) demonstrate the LTTE is not invulnerable. more..

Oct 3 (SN) Army Commander Lt. Gen. Shantha Kottegoda on last week dismissed LTTE’s allegations that the Sri Lanka Army is responsible for the killing of three LTTE cadres and wounding two of them in an isolated LTTE post in the uncleared area of Pullumalai close to Mahaoya in the East. more..

Oct 3 (HT) Going by the coverage of his birth anniversary in the Sri Lankan press, Mahatma Gandhi seems to be an icon only among the minority Tamils. The Tamil dailies Uthayan, Virakesari and Thinakural carried laudatory write-ups to commemorate the day on Saturday. more..

Oct 3 (SO) The LTTE is willing to examine the government's alternate proposals and accommodate same wherever it could fit in with their ISGA proposals but without any fundamental changes, Kilinochchi based LTTE sources said yesterday. more..

Oct 3 (BBC) The National advisory council for peace and reconciliation will commence proceedings on Monday as scheduled said Presidential spokesman Harim Peries. Although the main opposition has declined to join in talks the presidential spokesman was optimistic of UNP participation in the near future. more..

Oct 3 (TP) Over 20,000 tonnes of rice will be imported from India next week to counter rising prices of local rice, the Daily Mirror said. According to commerce ministry sources, the 20,000 tonnes of rice, which is ready to be shipped once the legalities are finalised would be sold at significantly reduced prices in the local market.

Oct 3 (TP) Power and Energy Minister, Susil Premajayantha, on Thursday warned the public of future power shortages and that they would have to live by candlelight because politicians had postponed projects like the Upper Kotmale hydro power plant. more..

Oct 3 (SLBC) A Senior Chinese government official is due in Colombo this week. Member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, Wu Guanzheng will undertake a good will visit to Sri Lanka from October 7th to the 10th. more..

Oct 3 (SLBC) The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress has sought a meeting with the President to discuss the proposed National Advisory Council for Peace and Reconciliation. In a letter to the President, SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem said that some of the functions of this advisory council are not sufficiently clear, and that he wants a clarification. more..

Oct 3 (SLA) An unidentified LTTE group had reportedly kidnap three civilians from the general area of KARAPOLA on 01 October 2004 around 10.30 p.m. while they were in their residence. The victims of SENADIRAJAH (46) of No. 289, KARAPOLA, MUTHUGALA, K WIJEKUMAR (22) of No. 214, KARAPOLA, MUTHUGALA and B RANJANI (33) were kidnapped by the LTTE at KARAPOLA village. more..

Oct 3 (SLA) The sit-on fast, launched at TRINCOMALEE clock tower by next of kin of two Home Guards being detained by LTTE, continues for the twentieth day on Sunday (03 October 2004) , demanding the immediate release of them.

Oct 3 (SLBC) Minister of Foreign Affairs Lakshman Kadirgamar has met his counterparts from several countries who were in New York to attend the UN General Assembly. They are from Algeria, Laos, Pakistan, Nigeria, Uruguay, Cuba, Malaysia and Indonesia. more..

Oct 3 (AT) The US State Department has expressed appreciation of the flexibility shown by President Chandrika Kumaratunga on resuming the peace talks. It said that the delay in starting the talks again could pose problems to both parties. more..

Oct 3 (AT) Australian Labor Party led by Mark Latham, present Leader of the Opposition is expected to win in the forthcoming parliamentary general elections’ for which polling is slated to be held on 10 October, in an official statement said that it strongly supports the mediated peace negotiations between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE. more..

Oct 3 (TP) A professor of botany at the Sri Jayewardenepura University was detained by customs at Colombo airport on Friday attempting to smuggle out some indigenous plants. “We suspect this female professor had been involved in gene-piracy for some time. more..

Oct 3 (TP) A new study has revealed that over 50 per cent of street children in Sri Lanka are between 10-16 years which is a vulnerable group and open to bad societal influences, says Dr Rohana Luxman Piyadasa of the Kelaniya University. more..

Oct 3 (TP) A group of Buddhist monks represented in parliament is the second group to decline an invitation from President Chandrika Kumaratunga to join a new peace initiative being launched tomorrow. The Jathika Hela Urumaya turned down the invitation by the president to join the proposed National Council for Peace and Reconciliation. more..

Oct 3 (Gulf) Tamil guerrillas are in the process of replacing a majority of their cadres including senior members in the eastern Batticaloa district with their trusted cadres from the north as they battle to maintain their grip over the region in the face of a continued challenge from their rival group loyal to renegade regional military leader Karuna. more..

Oct 3 (PIS) The US Government has once again called on the LTTE to end violence against "political opponents" and to cease the recruitment of child-soldiers, while urging both the Government of Sri Lanka and the rebel group to seek a negotiated settlement based on the Oslo Declaration. more..

Oct 3 (xinhua) Sri Lankan Tamil rebels have softened their stance on their self-rule proposals as a basis to resume the stalled peace talks with the government and are willingto consider the government counter proposals in this regard, the official Sunday Observer reported. more..

Oct 3 (HT) The decision of most of the opposition parties of Sri Lanka to boycott President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s consultative council on the peace process is expected to further delay the search for permanent peace in this war-torn country. more..