Oct 7 (SLA) A group of about seventeen Tamil villagers including women and children from the un-cleared village area of OMADIYAMADU, who ran in search of protection after hearing continuous sounds of gunfire from nearby jungles on Tuesday (05) night, were provided overnight accommodation by the troops at KURULUBEDDA Army camp. more..

Oct 7 (SLA) The BATTICALOA Police on a complaint made to them arrested an LTTE cadre on 04 October 2004 around 11.00 p.m. on charges of theft of jewellery and a cellular phone to the value of Rs 76,500 (US$ 750). more..

Oct 7 (SLA) Sixteen Sri Lankan refugees dropped at the general sea area of URUMALAI, TALAIMANNAR on 06 October 2004 at about 7.00 a.m. were rescued by naval troops and delivered to TALAIMANNAR Police station for necessary onward investigations and actions. more..

Oct 7 (Dawn) Sri Lanka has removed import duty on rice with immediate effect to meet its domestic shortfall arising out of bad paddy crop harvested by the country this year. The decision is likely to give Pakistani rice exporters a chance to command a bigger share in the Colombo market, exporters said. more..

Oct 7 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's central bank is expected to keep key policy rates unchanged for the 12th month in a row at next week's monthly monetary policy meeting, despite inflationary pressure, a Reuters survey showed on Thursday. more..

Oct 7 (Bloomberg) Sri Lanka's main opposition party, the United National Front led by former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, said it will support the government if it resumes talks with Tamil Tiger rebels to end two decades of civil war. more..

Oct 7 (AT) I appreciate Mr. Dayan Jayatilleke's opinion on my article that has appeared in the Asian Tribune October 5, 2004. Please let me take my liberty to make my theory more clear on the Tamil leadership. more..

Oct 7 (LT) The JVP proposal to provide fuel subsidiary to transport services has been approved by the UPFA parliamentary group. JVP parliamentarian, propaganda secretary Wimal Weerawansa proposal to provide the subsidy to private and state services and railway was unanimous approved by the government parliamentarians. more..

Oct 7 (DT) Pakistan and Sri Lanka are to renegotiate the list of items under 100 percent concession list, the no concession list and the phase-out list after Colombo unilaterally made some changes in the list of items under 100 percent concession list, more..

Oct 7 (PIS) Daily Mirror (DM): What was the purpose of your visit to Geneva and what was the outcome?
Thamilselvan (TS): The ISGA proposals have already been formulated and submitted to the government and are subject to review vis-à-vis certain criticisms from the south. more..

Oct 7 (PIS) Whether the summoning of the National Advisory Council for Peace and Reconciliation, at this stage, was properly and purely motivated or not, the collective affirmation of the search for peace through negotiation and the rejection of war as a method of settling the national issue that emerged at the deliberations on Monday, more..

Oct 7 (DN) President Chandrika Kumaratunga said yesterday the UPFA Government as pledged in it's manifesto 'Country Forward' will make every possible attempt to make the country self sufficient in sugar and milk production within the next five years. more..

Oct 7 (AP) Sri Lanka's government is offering cash rewards in return for illegal weapons as it struggles to curb escalating violent crime among the underworld, an official said Thursday. Chandra Ekanayake, an official in the Ministry of Public Security, Law and Order, said criminal gangs across the country have an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 firearms. more..

Oct 7 (HT) The dissident LTTE commander, Colonel Karuna, says that he opposed the 1988-89 military alliance between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan President, R Premadasa, which was formed to drive the Indian Army out of the island. more..

Oct 7 (AFP) Three international human rights organisations stepped up pressure on Tiger rebels to halt political killings and resume peace talks. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) on Thursday said they had asked a Tamil Tiger delegation in Geneva earlier this week to end the murders and the recruitment of child soldiers. more..

Oct 7 (OS) Jude Appuhamy starts crying when he describes what the car crash that killed his son has done to him. He's confident in Canada's legal system and in Justice Hugh Fraser's ability to make what he calls "the correct decision," in the criminal negligence trial more..

Oct 8 (USE) Former Georgetown University basketball stars Courtland Freeman and Omari Faulkner will travel to Sri Lanka next week as part of a multi-country tour under a U.S. government program to send American cultural envoys throughout the world. more..

Oct 8 (Xinhua) Senior Chinese leader Wu Guanzheng arrived here on Thursday to start a good-will visit to Sri Lanka, the first leg of his four-nation tour. Wu was greeted at the airport by Lalith Weeratunga, secretary to the prime minister of Sri Lanka. more..

Oct 8 (TN) “The national identity card is a symbol of enslavement for the Tamils. It is a symbol of the humiliations to which they were subjected by the Sinhala state. What is the guarantee that the two main Sinhala parties won’t unite in the future to deny Tamils their voting right by making voter identity cards issued under this law invalid in the northeast? more..

Oct 8 (TN) The people of this area were displaced fourteen years ago when Sri Lanka army and Police established camps amidst their settlements. ‘Horizon’ held a formal function in Vankalai Thursday to hand over the official land release documents of Suganthapuri to a senior official from the Mannar District Secretariat. more..

Oct 8 (TN) Sri Lanka Police Thursday night arrested four workers who were constructing a memorial in Mannar town for 'Victor'(Mr.Marcelin Fuselus), a senior commander of the Liberation Tigers who was killed in battle with the Sri Lanka army in 1986. more..

Oct 8 (Rupavahini) The cabinet of ministers has decided to reduce the monthly fuel allowance of ministers approving a memorandum submitted by president Chandrika Kumaratunge. Accordingly, the fuel allowance of ministers will be limited to 800 liters. more..

Oct 8 (NZZ) Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey heads to Sri Lanka on Friday where she is set to hold talks on the country’s stalled peace process. Negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and rebel Tamil Tigers have been at a standstill since April last year. more..

Oct 8 (LBO) Your area postmen could be the next financial services sales guy knocking at your door, under a programme to revive the Postal Department. The Dept., with a Rs. 465 million loss last year, says it is keen to cut costs and retrain its delivery staff to offer other revenue generating services. more..

Oct 8 (LBO) Sri Lanka is stretching diplomatic goodwill by asking friendly nations to extend supplier credit to tide over external shocks and ease pressure on the rupee, Treasury Secretary said. The budget deficit has also been revised upwards to 8.5 percent of GDP, as revenue from Ceypetco’s privatisation is unlikely to come through this year. more..

Oct 8 (LBO) The Central Bank has resumed sales for commemorative gold and silver coins from Friday after a temporary halt following an upsurge in world market prices. Speculators were minting on the Rs. 5,000 gold and Rs. 1,000 silver coins when in fact they were worth double the face value in the open market. more..

Oct 8 (AT) Whoever said that the graves are silent is dead wrong. Coffins speak, perhaps, louder than some of our dumb politicians. The proof: the silent coffins placed at the doorstep of the Norwegian Embassy have forced the Norwegians, at last, to open their mouth and condemn the LTTE killings. more..

Oct 8 (NW) The SLFP - JVP battle over the SLCTB continued yesterday with Deputy Transport Minister Lasantha Alagiyawanna hitting out at JVP Minister and union leader K. D. Lalkantha. more..

Oct 8 (NW) The Kalutara City Coroner was remanded yesterday in connection with a charge of accepting a bribe of Rs. 500 to release a body immediately. The Commission to Investigate into Bribery or Corruption produced Kalutara City Coroner N.D. Padmasiri in the Colombo Chief Magistrate's court following a complaint made by the owner of Heladiva Florists in Nagoda. more..

Oct 8 (NW) The Bureau of Immigration busted an international syndicate involved in human trafficking and arrested its kingpin identified as Fernando of Sri Lankan national, here yesterday. However, his associates in the city are absconding. more..

Oct 8 (NW) Shocking deatils as to how policemen continously assaulted a hotel manager, when he refused to sell liquor. Ado, I am a karate expert. I hammered you so that you will never get up again", a police officer allegedly told a Polonnaruwa hotel manager when the fallen man asked for some water, a court was told. more..

Oct 8 (NW) To familiarize MPs with the electronic voting system which was installed in Parliament more than three years ago and with indications that the system may be used in the future, the MPs yesterday were put through a trial run. more..

Oct 8 (NW) German Ambassador here Juergen Weerth called on what he called Sri Lankas political elite and the people to learn from the German experience for the countrys peace process. more..

Oct 8 (PTI) Sri Lanka is seeking closer and stronger economic and trade ties with India and is moving to open the bilateral free trade agreement to cover the services sector, a senior official said here on Thursday. more..

Oct 8 (AT) Majority of the Danish political parties are all out to prevent the delegation of the LTTE entering the country and also to get the outfit banned in the European Union by including it as one of the proscribed organizations, similar to the ‘Terrorist List’ maintained by the United States of America. more..

Oct 8 (AT) The Leader of the Muslim Congress Rauff Hakeem told the parliament on Thursday that Muslims has given the authority only for the Government to maintain law and order of the country and not for anybody else. more..

Oct 8 (AT) Dr Imtiyaz takes pains at the bottom of his articles to mention that he is a “visiting scholar in the department of Politics at the University of Pennsylvania”. Well, that’s one university’s Political science department to avoid, because Dr Imtiyaz obviously does not know what he is talking about. more..

Oct 8 (AT) Sri Lanka on Thursday adopted new law to make identification documents compulsory for the citizen to cast their vote in future elections after minority parties proposing amendments to the new law to safeguard their voting rights. more..

Oct 8 (AT) UNP Spokesman, former Minister Prof. G.L Peiris told a press conference here in Colombo on Thursday that that the UNP endorse the view that peace talks with the LTTE should be started within the framework of the Oslo declaration as expressed by President Kumaratunga on Monday. more..

Oct 8 (LT) Sources related to Hela Urumaya say that the party has split into several factions as a result of the internal disputes within its ranks. These sources linked this situation to the attempts by Athuraliye Rathana Thero, Campika Ranawaka and a few others associated with them to influence the incumbent MP Theros to get them to resign from their MP posts and to appoint Theros loyal to them instead. more..

Oct 8 (NW) A sense frustration is building up in the society against the Police Force due the conduct of certain police officers. People are very concerned in the manner the police handle matters relating to election violence, demonstrations and rallies. more..

Oct 8 (SLBC) Chinese Ambassador Sun Guoxiang with Treasury Secretary Dr.P.B. Jayasundara signed the agreement, to grant Rs. 500 million for various development projects in Sri Lanka. more..

Oct 8 (SLBC) The Government has focused attention on granting a fuel subsidy to the common transport service. This was discussed at length at the Freedom Alliance Party leaders meeting on Wednesday. more..

Oct 8 (TN) Sri Lanka's Court of Appeal Thursday quashed the life sentence imposed on a Tamil youth Mr.Mylwaganam Wijeyaratnam who was charged under the Prevention of terrorism Act (PTA) and acquitted him from all charges indicted by the Attorney General. more..

Oct 8 (TN) The entire Trincomalee town except few settlements where Sinhalese live in majority was paralysed Friday when Tamils and Muslims observed a general shut down (‘hartal’) responding to the call of the Trincomalee Tamil People’s Forum (TTPF). more..

Oct 8 (TN) A group of Tamil refugees sheltered in UNHCR run Allesgarden camp located about three km north of Trincomalee town Friday morning around 7.30 a.m.held a sit in protest obstructing the traffic on the Trincomalee Nilaveli road stating that they are unable to return their villages of Kanniya and Kuchchaveli more..

Oct 8 (SLA) The Police were compelled to take a stock of building materials into their custody from the general town area of MANNAR on 07 October 2004 after the Police were alerted about an LTTE move to erect a statue at the middle of the town without obtaining permission from the local government authorities. more..

Oct 8 (SLA) Civilians engaged in renovating a tank in the general area of NOCHCHIKULAM, about 14 km northwest of VAVUNIYA town on 07 October 2004 recovered a stock of unserviceable arms. more..

Oct 8 (LBO) The Swedish Government pitched in with a US$ 20 mn loan on Friday to light up villages, as well as small and medium industries in rural Sri Lanka. The funds will be used to supply about 43, 550 houses in over 250 villages around the island, also supplying small and medium industries with electricity, more..

Oct 8 (AP) Sri Lanka, host of next year's 10th South Asian Federation Games, has proposed cricket and netball be included in the biennial event, an official said Friday. "The (Sri Lankan) prime minister is very enthusiastic on cricket being introduced, more..