Aug 12 (AP) Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels on Friday gunned down a couple believed to be supporters of a rival ethnic Tamil group, hours after they attacked security forces at a camp for tsunami survivors, injuring four people, police and the military said. more..

Aug 12 (SB) The tiny fishing village of Thiruchenthoor has been transformed into a graveyard, and the piles of brick that once held together houses are the grave markers. The only signs that life still remains along this now barren stretch of the Indian Ocean coast are the constant, haunting calls of crows picking through the rubble. more..

Aug 12 (TN) Foreign Minister, Mr. Luxman Kadirgamar was shot and was admitted to the Colombo National Hospital in serious condition, security sources in Colombo said. Mr. Kadirgamar was shot in his head by a sniper from a long distance at his highly guarded residence at Wijerama Mawatte near London Place, Colombo-7, sources added. more..

Aug 12 (Reuters) Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was shot near his Colombo residence late on Friday and rushed to intensive care in critical condition, police said. The shooting comes amid escalating tensions between the government and the Tamil Tigers rebels, more..

Aug 12 (CNN) Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was shot in the head Friday night just outside his private residence in Colombo and died an hour later after emergency surgery, according to hospital and police sources. more..

Aug 12 (AFP) Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has died in hospital after being shot by a sniper in the capital, hospital spokeswoman Pushpa Soysa told AFP. He was pronounced dead after four surgeons struggled to save his life for more than an hour, Soysa said. more..

Aug 22 (TN) The Late Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Mr. Lakhsman Kadirgamar's ashes were scattered over the Kalutura river early morning at 4:30 a.m. Saturday, in what Kadirgamar's eldest daughter, Ms. Ajita Kadirgamar Perera, described to the press as a "blatant disregard" of the Minister’s family. more..

Aug 22 (TN) Sri Lanka's two main political parties, the ruling SLFP and the main opposition UNP are scheduled to inaugurate their presidential election campaigns this week in Colombo, expecting that the 5-member bench of the Supreme Court would decide in favor of such election should be held this year. more..

Aug 22 (TN) Two protest campaigns against the implementation Sedusamudram Ship Canal Project (SSCP) by the Government of Indian are to be conducted in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital Tuesday and Wednesday this week. One protest campaign will be held in front of the Indian High Commission in Colombo on August 23 and the other in front of the Fort Railway Station on August 24. more..

Aug 22 (TN) North East Secretariat on Human Rights, in a press release issued on Monday called upon the international community to excercise pressure on Colombo to withdraw the Emergency Regulation (ER) which was recently reimposed in Sri Lanka. more..

Aug 22 (TN) Five- member bench of the Sri Lanka's Supreme Court Monday put off the order in the presidential election date controversy for Friday. Earlier it heard the arguments on behalf the petition of the JHU, and counter petitions of SLFP, Liberal Party (LP) and Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) more..

Aug 22 (SLA) A grenade thrown at a Police post in the general area of ANURADHAPURA junction in TRINCOMALEE Sunday (21) night by suspected LTTE men caused injuries to one Policeman and one Home Guard Sunday (21) night around 8.10 p.m. more..

Aug 22 (SLA) A few unserviceable warlike items were recovered from the general area of MARBLE beach, TRINCOMALEE on 21 August 2005 around 10.30 a.m. during a combined search and clear operation conducted by Army and Air Force troops. more..

Aug 22 (LBO) As oil threatens to hurtle past US$ 70 a barrel, state oil giant Ceypetco is urging the government to raise prices, with its oil bill likely to shoot past US$ 1.4 billion this year. Sri Lanka is still holding retail prices steady, as fears mount of reduced growth, soaring inflation and a widening deficit to foot an astronomical fuel bill. more..

Aug 22 (LBO) Going abroad to work is a one way ticket to the land of no return for increasing numbers of Sri Lankan poor. For Sri Lanka’s rural poor, going abroad to work is the fastest route out of poverty but for increasing numbers of young men and women, going abroad to work is a ticket to death. more..

Aug 22 (LT) Deputy Minister of Mass Media, Dilan Perera says that even though the government had ascertained beyond doubt that feign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated by Tigers organization, the president did not express it in all haste. Even the first government statement did not direct the accusation at the Tigers organization. more..

Aug 22 (LT) Vital information has been unearthed about the assassination of Jaffna police superintendent Charles Wijevardhan. Weerappan Yogi taken into custody in connection with this assassination has disclosed these information. more..

Aug 22 (LT) The political bureau of the JVP in a statement issued today says that certain quarters interpret the willingness of the Wanni Tigers to come back to negotiations with the government as eagerness and dedication of Tigers for peace, but the story underlying this peace drama is a totally different one as any one with a pinch of brain can perceive. more..

Aug 22 (AT) Sri Lankan Army Webiste has hit out at pro-Tamil Tiger media which are engaged in "typical overtime to prepare groundwork for “assassination” of another moderate Tamil leader, Mr V. Ananda Sangaree, who never bowed to Tamil Tigers’ terror tactics." more..

Aug 22 (AT) Former Ontario Premier Bob Rae recalls that Lakshman Kadirgamar was fully aware that he was a marked man and he could be shot and killed at any time, may be even in his swimming pool, and that the LTTE never hesitated to call him a traitor to their cause. more..

Aug 22 (AT) Subramanian Swamy, a leading Indian Tamil politician and noted academic, wants New Delhi to hunt for Tigers chief Prabhakaran for ‘the sin of arming and training LTTE in it formative days.’ In an interview to Asian Tribune panelists from Boston, where he was on Friday, Swamy, and said Indian agencies had trained LTTE cadres and this was never a secret. more..

Aug 22 (LM) A special three-member Supreme Court bench today issued an interim stay order on recruitment of Tamil teachers to schools in the plantation areas under the July 1, 2005 government gazette notification. more..

Aug 22 (LM) In the presidential poll, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) will support one of the two majority political parties that undertakes to recognize the right of the North-East Muslims for self-determination and independent representation in the peace talks, said SLMC Chairman Basheer Segu Dawood MP. more..

Aug 22 (PIS) The Special Task Force (STF) authorities and senior officials of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) held discussions recently at the SLMM, district secretariat in Ampara. The discussions were conducted to evaluate the present security situation, with special emphasis to the areas under the STF authority, in Batticaloa and Ampara districts. more..

Aug 22 (PIS) The JVP, in a statement yesterday said that the Government should launch a rigorous national campaign against the LTTE, locally and internationally, at this juncture, without entering into a dialogue with them. more..

Aug 22 (PIS) The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) will take centre stage in guiding the Ceasefire Agreement on the right track during forthcoming talks between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, SLMM Chief Hagrup Haukland said. more..

Aug 22 (Hindu) THE CEASEFIRE Agreement (CFA) of 2002 is dead: it breathed its last when Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated. When members of one party to a ceasefire agreement (the LTTE) shoot dead a leading member of the other party (the Government of Sri Lanka), they are in effect killing the agreement. more..

Aug 22 (Hindu) Sri Lankan Christian clergy leaders on Saturday emphasised the need for a peaceful negotiated settlement that would bring in "true freedom for all," along the lines envisaged by the assassinated Foreign Affairs Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar. more..

Aug 22 (UN) In yet another appeal for the protection of reporters, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has condemned the murder of a Sri Lankan journalist as a blow to efforts to achieve peace in the Indian Ocean island. more..

Aug 22 (RW) Buildings lie in ruins, signs warn of landmines, people watch heavily-armed Army patrols with suspicion: the scars of war have yet to heal in Sri Lanka's ravaged North and fears it will re-ignite are palpable. more..

Aug 22 (RW) World Vision Lanka has commenced a Cash For Work (CFW) program in Point Pedro, Jaffna, to clean up 14km of coastline. The operations will begin at the village of Munnai, which was severely damaged by the tsunami last December. more..

Aug 22 (GT) Police investigators probing the assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar believe that the LTTE had planned to target him on the State Drive along Parliament road, if the attempt to shoot him at his Buller’s Lane private residence failed. more..

Aug 22 (GT) There has been mixed reaction from the country’s main political parties to the announcement by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that they are agreeable to discussing with the government the revision of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) of February 2002. more..

Aug 22 (CPA) The cold blooded assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar, the highest profile killing on the government side since the ceasefire of 2002 is a serious blow to a peace process which was any way seriously in need of reviving. more..

Aug 22 (IANS) India Monday sought an end to violence in Sri Lanka even as it sought a durable solution to the lingering conflict that would keep the country united. In a statement released at the end of Sri Lankan opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to India, more..

Aug 22 (NY) In Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, the seventh district is the best address. Colombo 7, with its wide boulevards and winding, leafy lanes, is dense with government ministries and foreign embassies, and, clustered between them, the private homes of the political and business élite—villas ranging in scale from ample to opulent. more..

Aug 22 (SAMN) A senior Muslim leader said the SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem has misled the Muslims by abstaining when the emergency vote took place. The senior Muslim leader said "Muslims are very disappointed. He let us down. He has misled the Muslims. I don't think he would be able to win a place in Kandy during the next election because of this act" more..

Aug 22 (SAMN) UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said talks must resume soon and action taken to strengthen the existing cease fire agreement. "Killings must stop and rehabilitation in the North and the East must commence at once. The government has failed in its duties to provide relief," Wickremesinghe said. more..

Aug 22 (LNP) The Department of Examinations will conduct investigations regarding some supervisors who had given some packets containing question papers of the Grade 5 Scholarship Exam, to tuition masters and children`s newspapers soon after the completion of the exam on Saturday. more..

Aug 22 (LNP) If the UNP happened to be in power at the time of the tsunami nobody would be languishing in tents by now, Prof. G. L. Peiris MP and UNP organiser for Moratuwa said at a meeting held at the De Soysa Stadium at Katubedda, Moratuwa. more..

Aug 22 (LNP) Leader of the EPDP, minister Douglas Devananda said the Norwegians were trying to only please the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Devananda said that the Norwegians think they can bring the LTTE to democracy by appeasing them but, they would not be able to do that. more..

Aug 22 (AP) Norway's ambassador met with senior Sri Lankan officials Monday to prepare for expected high-level talks between Tamil Tiger rebels and the government in an effort to save the island's fragile cease-fire from collapse. more..

Aug 22 (Xinhua) A foundation ceremony for the China-Sri Lanka Friendship Village was held Monday in Walahanduwa of Galle district, about 144 km south of Colombo, to house the displaced and the homeless due to last year's tsunami. more..

Aug 22 (DN) The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probing the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar jointly with the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) have forwarded all the items collected at the scene to obtain expert evidence on several tests including DNA, fingerprints and ballistic. more..

Aug 22 (ANN) Norwegian facilitators are trying to block all efforts and other plans by the government to corner the LTTE internationally after the brutal assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, authoritative governmental sources told The Island Sunday. more..

Aug 22 (HT) The horrendous assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar on August 12 had threatened to unleash another round of war and terrorism in Sri Lanka. But the country has not only remained calm, but there has arisen a high degree of consensus on the need for continuing the peace process, maintaining the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) and beginning a process of dialogue with the LTTE, however limitedly and tentatively. more..

Aug 22 (IPS) Although the Sri Lankan government and the separatist militant group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have agreed to hold direct talks in the wake of the Aug.12 assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, analysts are urging caution. more..

Aug 22 (Reuters) The brother of President Chandrika Kumaratunga was sworn in as foreign minister on Monday to replace Lakshman Kadirgamar, assassinated by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels, the government said. Anura Bandaranaike will also retain his portfolio as tourist minister, more..

Aug 22 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's Supreme Court will announce on Friday whether the next presidential election will take place this year or next, the Chief Justice said on Monday, after a bitter political feud drove the issue into the courts. more..

Aug 23 (TN) Construction work of new buildings in two schools in the LTTE controlled areas in the Mannar district has come to a halt due to the ban imposed by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on the transportation of building materials through Uyilankulam and Madu road army checkpoints, sources said. more..