Feb 3 (AP) "Give us our baby!" a distraught Sri Lankan mother cried Wednesday after a judge kept her from the four-month-old boy she says was torn from her arms in Asia's tsunami. In the disaster zone's most heart-wrenching custody case, a court ordered Jenita Jeyarajah and her husband to undergo a DNA test to more..

Feb 3 (Yahoo) Parmeshwari, 65, a grandmother claimant of the infant dubbed 'Baby 81', wails outside a court in Kalmunai, about 210 kilometers (131 miles) east of Colombo, more..

Feb 3 (AFP) A Sri Lankan couple ordered to undergo DNA tests to prove their claim to a baby survivor of the December tsunamis said they were hopeful of winning custody of the child despite being arrested for trying to snatch him. more..

Feb 3 (LT) Immigration and emigration department is going to introduce a new law to levy taxes from foreigners who remain in Sri Lanka without visas. The existing law permits only deportation from the country of a foreigner if caught staying in Sri Lanka without visa. more..

Feb 3 (AT) It is very hard to discern the purpose behind Ranil Wickremasinghe’s sudden European tour. Speculations are rife that he plans to canvas support to link the tsunami aid package with the peace process and the ISGA proposal of the LTTE. more..

Feb 3 (SAMN) The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has highlighted a number of possible violations of human rights due to the Emergency (Miscellaneous Provisions and Powers) Regulations No. 1 of 2005. more..

Feb 3 (SAMN) Amidst calls from the government leadership to all political parties to be united to rebuild the devastated areas of the country and help reconstruction efforts leaving their differences aside, two main constituents of the ruling party are feuding over the reconstructing the Galle main bus stand. more..

Feb 3 (SAMN) Amidst reports of exploitation and child abuse involving tsunami affected children, a special police unit of the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) exposed an alleged child trafficking racket after they raided a hostel in Heiyantuduwa. more..

Feb 3 (SAMN) The two major health sector trade unions, the pro-JVP All Ceylon Health Services Union (ACHSU) and Health Services Trade Union Alliance (HSTUA) which fought their trade union battles together in the past are now at loggerheads with each union claiming the sole credit for winning the demand for the Rs. 2,500 pay hike. more..

Feb 3 (Jang) Pakistan and Sri Lanka are expected to sign a number of memorandums of understanding (MoU) during the three-day visit of President Chandrika Kumaratunga to Pakistan, starting from February 7. It will be the first visit of a Sri Lankan president after nearly six years. more..

Feb 3 (TN) Sri Lanka has asked the USA to speed shipment of parts required to return one C-130K to flight and to review a 2004 request to obtain at least one additional aircraft from excess US stocks, Flight International, a UK based magazine covering aerospace industry news quoted Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) commander Donald Perera as saying. more..

Feb 3 (TN) Sivakumaran Sahinthan (27) from Suthumalai, Manipay in Jaffna, giving evidence in trial before the Jaffna High court Tuesday, stated that in October 2001 officers attached to Jaffna Police suspended him from a high beam with toes fastened and repeatedly assaulted him, local media reported. more..

Feb 3 (PRIU) A vessel from the Land of the Acropolis equipped with medical facilities and a team of medical personnel is due in the Trincomalee Port over the weekend. The Government of Greece has also dispatched a consignment of relief assistance for people affected by the December 26th tidal waves. more..

Feb 3 (LBO) Japan will pump Rs. 146 mn to clean up Colombo’s century old sewer system that takes on the brunt of over 700,000 residents daily. The project will take till 2010 to clean up the 300 kilometres of sewage pipes designed to for a 400,000 people city. more..

Feb 3 (LBO) The gem industry is trying to bypass the 15% VAT that hit the gem trade from January 1, by setting up a tax-free trading centre. "We are trying to set up a gem exchange where the transactions will be exempt from VAT," said an official from the National Gem and Jewellery Authority. more..

Feb 3 (TS) A Consultant at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire is continuing working into his retirement - by spending a year modernising a hospital in tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka. Doctor Preman Jeyaratnam, a consultant anaesthetist who was due to retire next month, flies to his native Sri Lanka on Monday more..

Feb 3 (RW) A wide variety of psychological needs amongst affected people has been left in the wake of the tsunami which struck Sri Lanka and the Danish Red Cross is seeking to address these. The Danish Red Cross has been running a psychosocial programme in Ampara and Jaffna in Sri Lanka, assisting people caught up in the conflict. more..

Feb 3 (CNA) The Singapore and Malaysia branches of the Taiwan-based Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tzu Chi Foundation will build a new town in Sri Lanka's Kajuwatta area to accommodate displaced survivors of the Dec. 26 tsunami catastrophe, a spokesman for Tzu Chi's Singapore branch said Wednesday. more..

Feb 3 (AFP) The World Bank said it expected to provide 660 million dollars to Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives under the first phase of its support for the reconstruction of tsunami-hit areas. more..

Feb 3 (SLT) To the casual observer, franticly paced Colombo hasn't slowed a step. Single-minded drivers race along every centimeter of pavement, including sidewalks, ignoring traffic signs and lanes. Emaciated women with children in arms beg from doorways. Prostitutes and three-wheeled taxi drivers solicit customers as well-heeled businessmen commute to work. more..

Feb 3 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's tourism industry will recover faster than that of other tsunami-hit countries in Asia because the island nation has taken quick steps to revive the sector, the World Tourism Organisation said on Thursday. more..

Feb 3 (KRT) Saman Latha, 20, sat in her father's arms last Saturday at the Caritas school for the handicapped. She is mentally disabled and cannot walk. She lost her mother and her wheelchair in the Dec. 26 tsunami. Her hands are scarred from injuries she suffered that day, and her father must carry her wherever they go. more..

Feb 3 (AFP) A Sri Lankan baby who survived the December tsunamis has been given police protection after the couple who claim to be his parents tried to snatch him from hospital. Police were deployed to guard "Baby 81" while the United Nations childrens' agency UNICEF stepped in to help with a DNA test more..

Feb 3 (AP) A top envoy of Pope John Paul II is expected to travel to southern Sri Lanka on Friday to assess the damage wreaked by the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Vatican's embassy said. Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes _ the president of Vatican's charity organization Cor Unum _ arrived in Sri Lanka Wednesday from Indonesia, more..

Feb 3 (CI) Hashan Tillakaratne, the former Sri Lankan captain, appears to have acknowledged the end of his international career after accepting a major post within the board's Cricket-Aid program. Tillakaratne, 37, resigned from the captaincy last March after Sri Lanka were whitewashed for the first time on home soil by Australia. more..

Feb 3 (CI) Kumar Sangakkara, who has been long tipped as the future Sri Lankan captain, will take over the captaincy of Central Province after Muttiah Muralitharan was forced to withdraw from the Provincial Tournament because of his troublesome shoulder. more..

Feb 3 (DN) Minister of Public Security, Law and Order and Deputy Minister of Defence, Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, said the Government will not disband the Special Anti-crime Unit (SACU) that is now fighting valiantly against the underworld. more..

Feb 3 (ANI) Former Indian cricket captain and opener Sunil Gavaskar, who has been appointed as the chief selector for the World XI team that will probably take on Australia in a Super series in October, has said that there will be no repeat of the embarrassing omission of Lankan off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan due to concerns about his bowling action. more..

Feb 3 (Reuters) The Sri Lankan government's January-November 2004 revenues rose 13.0 percent to 281.2 billion rupees from 248.7 billion rupees during the same period in 2003, the Central Bank said on Thursday. more..

Feb 3 (SLA) A fourteen -year old school boy while being abducted by two WANNI LTTE cadres from the general area of KUMBURUMULLAI has been rescued by troops and Policemen on 01 February 2005 around 7.50 p.m. more..

Feb 3 (SLA) A driver who offered bribes and tried to illegally transport a lorry load of sand into cleared areas was taken into custody by troops and policemen on duty at the MUHAMALAI Entry/Exit point on 01 February 2005 around 3.00 p.m. more..

Feb 3 (Xinhua) Main opposition party accused the government of inefficiency in handling post tsunami relief operations. G. L. Peiris, spokesman for the UNP, told reporters on Thursday that government has failed to provide adequate relief services to the victims more..

Feb 3 (HT) President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, has said that foreign tsunami aid to her country should not be tied to progress in the peace process. Kumaratunga lambasted an un-named opposition party for telling international donors that tsunami aid to Sri Lanka should be linked to progress in the peace process. more..

Feb 3 (SP) The wall of water that gutted the west coast of Sri Lanka had receded weeks before, but Guilford resident Jim Abrahams, MD, said you could still smell the decay of flesh beneath the rubble the tsunami left behind. In mid-January, Abrahams and his son, Michael, a pre-med college sophomore, formed a sort of free-lance tsunami relief team in Sri Lanka more..

Feb 3 (LO) A Copley family that saw firsthand the effects of the Dec. 26 tsunami in South Asia is raising money for schoolchildren in Sri Lanka, with a little help from a local school. Ravi and Kumudu Kulasekere, who are originally from Sri Lanka, were visiting family there along with their daughter Dinushi when the tsunami struck. more..

Feb 3 (RW) The Sri Lanka donor Co-chairs came together today to express their support to Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami disaster and to evaluate how best to build confidence in and strengthen the Peace Process. more..

Feb 4 (TN) A delegation of the TNA told the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, Mr. Bernard Bot, when they met him Thursday that Colombo's attempt to centralize the rehabilitation work has not worked as experience from the last six six weeks clearly show that hardly any progress has been made in the restoration of the lives of the affected people. more..

Feb 4 (TN) Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) refused permission to transport building material for the construction of a new building in Ponnalai Varathajaperumal Vidiyalayam effectively halting the construction work, civil society sources in Jaffna said. The school is located in the high security zone. more..

Feb 4 (TN) Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) handed over 23 underage youths who had enlisted with the LTTE to the NorthEast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR) Chairperson Rev.Fr.Karunaratnam Thursday, the Peace Secretariat website said. more..

Feb 4 (PRN) The first of a US$380,000 consignment of boat repair kits to help restore the livelihoods of thousands of Sri Lankan fishermen was handed over to the country's fisheries minister Chandrasena Wijesinghe today. more..

Feb 4 (PMS) Today, we commemorate the Fifty Seventh Independence Day at a moment when we are concentrating to write a new chapter of our history giving top priority to the perseverance, courage and self-confidence. more..

Feb 4 (DVN) The SOS Malta medical and nursing team returned from Sri Lanka where they successfully assisted the tsunami survivors. The team consisted of the head of mission nurse David Grech, and three medical doctors Rachel Attard, David Paul Galea and Vanessa Saliba were greeted by their families as they walked through the arrival lounge at 1400CET. more..

Feb 4 (DM) Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan may be keen rivals on the field but it is another matter off it - the world's greatest leg-spinners will make a joint pilgrimage next week to the worst-hit area of tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka. more..

Feb 4 (UN) In the first small step in a large-scale initiative to help restore the livelihoods of thousands of Sri Lankan fishermen devastated by December's Indian Ocean tsunami, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today handed over an initial $380,000 consignment of boat repair kits. more..

Feb 4 (TN) Franco-Sri Lanka Business Council in Colombo has donated a consignment of medical equipments to North East Provincial Health Department to strengthen its medical services in tsunami-hit areas such as Sampoor, and Eachchilampathu in Trincomalee district and Vakarai in the Batticaloa district, more..

Feb 4 (TN) The operation of the Centre for National Operations (CNO) established by Sri Lanka President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge following December 26 tsunami devastation brought to an end Thursday and its functions have been handed over to Line Ministries and provincial authorities, more..

Feb 4 (TN) Black flags were hoisted in many parts of the Sri Lanka's northeast in protest against the country's independence day. Jaffna University students flew black flags and decorated University's main entrance with curry plantain trees which are used by Tamils at funerals. more..

Feb 4 (TN) Humedica, a german NGO helping Tsunami victims in the north, Thursday gave fifteen boats, out board motors (OBMs) and bicycles to fishermen in three villages on Jaffna's Vadamaradchi coast. Officials of Humedica, Liberation Tigers, local fisheries societies took part in ceremonies to handover the boats. more..

Feb 4 (SLA) Naval troops, on 03 February 2005, have observed approximately 75 – 100 Indian fishing trawlers poaching in Sri Lanka waters south of OLD PIER in THALAIMANNAR. Similarly, naval troops have once again observed about 08 - 10 Indian fishing trawlers poaching in the general sea area east of KACHCHATIVU the same day.

Feb 4 (ANN) Vegetation and coral reefs of some areas in the east and west coasts were severely damaged by the tsunami, a survey has revealed. The vegetation can be replanted in about two years, but damaged coral reefs will take longer, Dr. Channa Bambaradeniya, Programme Coordinator of IUCN Sri Lanka said. more..