Apr 22 (BBC) Leaders attending the African-Asian summit on Friday agreed to jointly present a common candidate from the Asian continent for the United Nations' top post. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse speaking from Jakartha told BBC that the leaders however did not come to an agreement on the name of the common candidate. more..

Apr 22(AFP) Sri Lanka accused Tamil Tiger rebels of provoking government security forces and said the military was ready to take action to "protect peace," a state-run daily reported. The Daily News quoted acting defence minister Ratanasiri Wickremanayake as saying the rebel LTTE were firing towards the positions of government troops in a bid to provoke them. more..

Apr 23 (TN) Three-day workshop for workers of Social Mobilization Unit (SMU) of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) began in Trincomalee Friday morning on the topic "Implementation of 3rd Phase of Tsunami Relief Programme." Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese from districts of Amparai, Batticaloa and Trincomalee are participating in the workshop. more..

Apr 23 (TN) A very senior Police sleuth has gone missing in Colombo since Wednesday, Sri Lanka's Inspector General of Police said Friday night. Mr.T. Jeyaratnam was a senior investigator of the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lanka Police. He was the most experienced officer in investigations against the Liberation Tigers. more..

Apr 23 (JG) A video about Sri Lanka saddened and inspired the 44 students in an Eastern Illinois University housing class. And it's a tough call which was more dumfounding — the dismal living conditions in the south Asian country, or the fact that it only costs about $500 to build a modest house. more..

Apr 23 (BBC) A Sri Lankan film star accused of attempting to rape an executive officer of an advertising company was acquitted by the Gangodawila magistrate. Magistrate Padmini Ranawaka Gunathilake acquitted and released Ranjan Ramanayake on Thursday. more..

Apr 23 (wsws) The Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka) will hold a public meeting in Colombo on May 1 to mark International Workers Day. The basic principles associated with May Day—the international unity of the working class and the political struggle for socialism—are vital for the entire working class. more..

Apr 23 (TN) Mr.S.Elilan, Trincomalee district political head of the LTTE Friday lodged a complaint with the SLMM in Trincomalee that soldiers in the Kaddaiparichchan Sri Lanka Army are preventing people taking torch batteries to and from LTTE controlled Muttur east villages. more..

Apr 23 (TN) UNESCO Friday donated a bus for the mobile library service of the Jaffna Municipal Council at an event held at the municipal library premises. Mr.R.P.Perera, Sri Lanka's representative of the UNESCO handed over the keys of the bus to Dr.K.Gunarasa, Jaffna Municipal Commissioner. more..

Apr 23 (AT) Doctors will decide whether S.B.Dissanayaka who has been in the expensive Merchant Ward of the Colombo National Hospital for two months should continue to be there or not. Dissanayake who was sent to jail for two years has spent the better part of his jail sentence so far in the ward, complaining of a pain in the vertebrae. more..

Apr 23 (AT) International experts and the donor agencies have shown keen interest to setup a Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation system for the Indian Ocean after a series of discussions with the countries in the Indian Ocean. more..

Apr 23 (AT) Western Province Chief Minister Reginald Cooray said in case the UNP sponsored no-faith motion against him succeed then he would recommend to the Sri Lankan President to dissolve the Western Provincial Council. more..

Apr 23 (SLA) Troops on duty at the Forward Defence Line (FDL) in the general area of MUHAMALAI have observed the presence of three LTTE men, about 30 meters ahead of the Security Forces (SF) FDL on 21 April 2005 around 11.35 p.m. However those LTTE men later have moved away to the interior. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission was to be informed.

Apr 23 (SLA) One thousand sixty four lorry (1064) loads of food and other essential items had been dispatched to un-cleared areas in the northern province during the period between 15 April 2005 and 21 April 2005. These consignments had reached areas in KILINOCHCHI and MULLAITIVU districts via OMANTHAI and UYILANKULAM entry/exit points. more..

Apr 23 (HT) Bharat Petroleum's controversial bid to enter Sri Lanka's oil sector has been put on hold following an understanding between Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Janatha Vimukthi Permuna (JVP), which are the main constituents of the ruling UPFA. more..

Apr 23 (AFP) Sri Lanka's ceramics industry, which has supplied crockery for Hollywood's glitterati at their annual Oscar banquet, is now hoping to win its own acting award -- for look-a-like bone china. more..

Apr 23 (MC) He speaks English, but his accent is so thick you can only make out a handful of the words. He begins by telling the students at Potomac School on Friday about his country, Sri Lanka. Then about his town, Komari, then about the town's school, where he is principal. more..

Apr 23 (TI) Sri Lankan police have arrested 11 Indians who had overstayed their visas. Six men, two women and four children were detained yesterday in the eastern district of Batticaloa, police said. They appeared before a magistrate this evening who ordered them to be remanded in custody until Monday, they said, more..

Apr 23 (TP) A top Colombo school principal was arrested by police on Thursday in connection with an ongoing controversial probe by the President’s Office over allegedly irregular school admissions in state schools. Newspapers said Asoka Senani Hewage, principal of D S Senanayake College who was interdicted on Wednesday, was arrested the following day. more..

Apr 23 (TP) Police are probing the registration of 42 vehicles apparently done by feeding false information into the computer system of the Registration of Motor Vehicles department. 42 vehicles had been registered by feeding false information into the computer system using the password of the Additional Commissioner, W Kodituwakku. more..

Apr 23 (SAMN) Sixteen Jaffna journalists who are following the Diploma Course in Journalism conducted by the Jaffna University and funded by the government of Denmark have been awarded scholarships to go to South India to follow a three week internship in the leading Tamil dailies in South India. more..

Apr 23 (ANN) The hunt for errant school principals is gaining momentum and sending tremors though the education establishment. The former head of D. S. Senanayake College was taken in by the CID on Thursday for interrogating on some questionable admissions. more..

Apr 23 (SAMN) The Medical Faculty Student’s Union said 40 health institutions, including tertiary care providers had been affected due to interns not being appointed. President of the MFSU Kremlin Wickremasinghe said the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, National Hospital and all other teaching Hospitals had been affected by the problem. more..

Apr 23 (SAMN) Police investigations have revealed the Sub Inspector (SI) of Police, who was in a jeep with a suspect drug dealer, when a bomb went off in the jeep at Milepost Avenue, Kollupitiya on Wednesday, had dealings with drug dealers. more..

Apr 23 (DN) THE Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWLC) is exploring alternative methods to prevent human-elephant conflicts apart from erecting electrified fences which is costly, Director General Dayananda Kariyawasam said. more..

Apr 23 (LNP) The spree of interdicting principals is a part of the government`s plan to pave the way for the collapse of the national school system to enthrone the international schools in the country, the Old Boys Association of the D.S.Senanayake College, Colombo charged yesterday. more..

Apr 23 (TP) The powerful JVP, a key ally of the ruling UPFA, says it will quit the government within an hour of any joint mechanism being signed with the LTTE. The Daily Mirror quoted government sources as saying a powerful minister and a number of deputy ministers from the JVP had decided to resign from their positions within an hour after signing the joint mechanism. more..

Apr 23 (LNP) The healthy leg of a 48-year-old woman was mistakenly amputated at the Negombo General Hospital and the authorities are trying to cover up what is clearly an act of criminal negligence, the Asian Human Rights Commission charged yesterday. more..

Apr 23 (PIS) Police Inspector T. Jeyaratnam who played a key role in tracking down LTTE suspects in Colombo is reported missing since Wednesday. Mt. Lavinia Senior Superintendent Willey Abeynayake said the Inspector who was living with his family at the Mt. Lavinia police quarters had left home for duty on April 20 with a friend called Manoj from Kochchikade in Colombo. more..

Apr 24 (TN) A discussion was held at the Tellipalai Divisional Secretary’s office in Jaffna Saturday to prepare a documentary on the plight of the thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Valigamam North division of the northern peninsula. more..

Apr 24 (TN) Three day Human Rights Animators Congress-2005 of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) began in Trincomalee Ehambaram Play Ground Friday night. About one hundred seventy five HR activists from the districts of Jaffna, Mannar, Vavuniya, Puttalam, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Anuradhapura are participating in the Congress more..

Apr 24 (TN) A Tamil book written by well-known political analyst, Mr. C.A.Jothilingam, titled "Ethnic Conflict and Proposals for Political Solution" was released and introduced to the Trincomalee audience at an event held Friday evening in Trincomalee Town Hall. more..

Apr 24 (AT) The multi-ethnic eastern province is highly tensed with the sudden increase in the internecine warfare between the two factions of the Tamil militants claimed over 10 lives in two weeks. more..

Apr 24 (AT) President Chandrika Kumaratunga has two strategies for the vexed question of the proposed tsunami joint mechanism which could ring the death bell for her coalition government if it is handled wrongly. more..

Apr 24 (AT) The Private Bus Operators Association has warned the authorities that they would launch an island wide bus strike on Monday, if those responsible for setting fire to a private bus at Nagoda, Welisara along the Fort-Airport main bus route early Friday morning, are not apprehended by the police. more..

Apr 24 (AT) Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse was among the 89 Afro-Asian leaders who signed a draft agreement on regional cooperation on Saturday, at the Asia-Africa Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, during the Golden Anniversary of the Bandung Conference. more..

Apr 24 (AT) A prominent leader of the United National Party (UNP) Dr. G L Peiris made it public through media that action taken against some college principals in Sri Lanka, who were alleged to have embezzled millions of rupees by fraudulent means, - “Unacceptable.” more..

Apr 24 (AT) Chairman of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), Hudson Samarasinghe, has criticised the producers of the BBC "Sandeshaya" programme for failing to produce quality programme to satisfy the local listeners. more..

Apr 24 (BBC) Inspector General of Police(IGP) Chandra Fernando says CID and the Intelligence unit are carrying out investigations into the disappearance of polce inspector T.Jeyaratnam. "we expect national and international assistance in resolving this issue” said the IGP. more..

Apr 24 (BBC) Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse urged the leaders attending Asia-Africa Summit in Jakrata, Indonesia to work hard to combat international terrorism. The two day Summit concluded on Saturday. more..

Apr 24 (AGI) The first 25 workers, in majority women, hired by Tuscany region to work for one year in Italy, arrived last Thursday. They were selected with the assistance of the International Organization for Migrations (IOM) and were employed as family assistants by 25 families. more..

Apr 24 (HT) India and Sri Lanka have put the idea of signing a Defence Cooperation Agreement on the back burner, says Sri Lanka's Acting Defence Minister, Ratnasiri Wickramanayake. "Both of us are slightly delaying it," he told when asked if Sri Lanka and India had abandoned a three year old, bi-lateral proposal to sign a defence pact. more..

Apr 24 (ANN) The Deputy Governor appeared on television the day before the New Year and explained why the Central Bank alone cannot control inflation. For the first time in fifty years the Central Bank avoided Orwellian double speak. more..

Apr 24 (ANN) Prof. Vini Vitharana was the chief of the committee appointed to name the national game of Sri Lanka in 1990. The committee, comprising several other intellectuals, after a months long discussion, selected volleyball as the national game of the country. more..

Apr 24 (ANN) TULF leader, V. Anandasangaree, in an impassioned appeal to Norwegian Special Envoy Erik Solheim and US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca last week asked the international community not to think only in terms of bringing back peace to Sri Lanka by merely satisfying the LTTE "whose track record has no parallel" anywhere in the world. more..

Apr 24 (ANN) The Colombo Municipal Council’s garbage dumps are overflowing and the council is depending on the goodwill of adjoining local authorities to tackle a growing dilemma, Colombo Mayor Prasanna Gunawardena revealed Saturday. more..

Apr 24 (LNP) EPDP leader Douglas Devananda last week told Norwegian special envoy Erik Solheim that he had intelligence reports that the LTTE had plans to bump him off using two explosive-laden vehicles when Solheim called at his ministry last week. more..

Apr 24 (LNP) TULF leader V. Anandasangaree asked Norwegian special envoy Erik Solheim a pointed question last week: `Even you, can you go into the LTTE areas without their permission' Can you breach their iron curtain'. Anandasangaree, who completed a short visit to India last week, more..

Apr 24 (LT) Opposition leader Ranil Wickaramasinghe yesterday touring at Galle tsunami affected arias accuse that government has not taken measures to build houses for the tsunami victims. Houses so far build are done by NGOs and privet companies. Some other houses are building by donors on personal capacity. more..

Apr 24 (Hindu) A senior police officer, T. Jeyaratnam, a key investigator of the activities of the LTTE, is reported missing for the past few days. The Tamil Inspector of Police who hails from Jaffna, was earlier attached to the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID), and last seen on Wednesday night. more..