Jan 8 (SAMN) The management of the camps established to temporarily house the Internally Displaced Persons has now been streamlined. The staff responsibility of the camps lies with the Government Agents of each district. Since the establishment of these camps soon after the Tsunami most camps have been managed very efficiently. more..

Jan 8 (SAMN) In a special message over a private TV channel, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the country should raise its head from this calamity by sticking to one policy for the sake of the people. He said it is necessary to first end the war stressing that the country did not have the strength to go to war again. more..

Jan 8 (SAMN) The Hambantota town, which was virtually destroyed by the Tsunami, will be moved to safer ground at Gonnoruwa two miles away from the present town, it was decided Friday at a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. more..

Jan 8 (Xinhua) World Bank (WB) President James D. Wolfensohn will be here on Saturday to have a first-hand view of the destruction to lives, livelihoods and property caused by the tsunami, said WB official sources here. Wolfensohn will visit several areas affected by the tsunami devastation to see for himself the scale of destruction. more..

Jan 8 (Rediff) The state-run radio in Sri Lanka reported that LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief Pottu Amman are among those dead or missing in the December 26 tsunami disaster. However, the rebels denied the report and termed it as 'mischievous' and 'fabricated'. more..

Jan 8 (Yahoo) Tasmila Nawa, from Kalmunai, looks through the window of a school-turned refugee camp in the eastern town of Sammanthuran, Sri Lanka, Saturday, Jan. 8, 2005. more..

Jan 8 (Reuters) U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has seen the scars that the tsunami left in Sri Lanka, where lives are in ruins but where hard work and outside help have started to make a difference. more..

Jan 8 (ST) In the wake of the tragedy around the Indian Ocean, it's easy to lose sight of the unique individuals whose lives have been shattered. This is especially true when the people are brown-skinned, poor and far away. But I want to relate a story which shows that these people are exactly like us, except that they're brown, poor and far away. more..

Jan 8 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's government has stopped visiting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from touring tsunami-ravaged areas controlled by its Tamil Tiger rebel foes, despite his requests, officials said on Saturday. more..

Jan 8 (Xinhua) Sri Lankan media speculates on the personal safety of the Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabakaran inthe aftermath of the Tsunami tidal wave attack on Dec. 26, 2004. SLBC in its morning news bulletin here Saturday quoted high ranking military sources as saying that the LTTE rebels' leader had disappeared with the Tsunami disaster. more..

Jan 8 (G&M) Usha Sri-Skanda-Rajah, 53, is slim and elegant, with a manicure and a discreet jade ring. Sitting in her Toronto living room, she urges her courtly husband to tell a visitor a story. “Tell her why you left Sri Lanka in 1958.” more..

Jan 8 (PA) Aid efforts in Sri Lanka are being hampered by obstruction from the island’s airforce, inappropriate supplies and a lack of co-ordination on the ground, a British aid worker said today. Two weeks after the country was torn apart by the tsunami, there was frustration that bureaucracy was blocking desperately needed supplies. more..

Jan 8 (ND) As he copes with the trauma of the tsunami, a small bridge over a once great divide has given Thomas Brinson hope his "dream" of peace can be realized. In the coastal district of Trincomalee in Sri Lanka, where Brinson is an international peace worker, ethnic factions that have been warring for two decades have begun to work together. more..

Jan 8 (Yahoo) A Sri Lankan villager rides his cart after collecting wood from the beach in Pandiruppu, Sri Lanka, January 7, 2005. more..

Jan 8 (CNN) After 13 days trapped under the rubble of a seaside shop, a man believed to be in his 60s Saturday was rushed to a hospital in the southern Sri Lankan city of Galle, able only to mumble his name. Doctors at Karapitiya Hospital said he is suffering from pneumonia and severe hydration, but will certainly live. more..

Jan 8 (LT) Reports say that 10,000 members of the Relief Service Force of the JVP are at service in tsunami affected areas. In the wake of the tsunami floods the entire membership of the JVP was deployed for relief operations. They are now scattered in Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Kalutara, Ampara and Trincomalee districts doing relief service work. more..

Jan 8 (AFP) Sri Lanka was not on the map of four-time world heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield until the tsunamis devastated the island. Holyfield, who did not know that such a country existed till the December 26 tidal attack, was now here to help the battered victims start life again, more..

Jan 8 (TN) What used to be Navalady village is today an earthen stage containing the corpses of the villagers the sea claimed on Boxing Day as it swept into the land. And the villagers who remain struggle to cope with the shock, distress and pain of the effects of that day. more..

Jan 8 (DN) The marshy land west of Kalmunai Municipal area is to be reclaimed for new housing schemes for tsunami victims who lost their houses and fall within the 300 meter coastal security zone. more..

Jan 8 (AP) South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae-Chan pledged Saturday US$15 million (€11.5 million) to Sri Lanka in aid and technical assistance to help the island nation recover from the tsunami disaster. Lee concluded a two-day visit to Sri Lanka with his foreign and trade ministers, more..

Jan 8 (Reuters) Sitting cross-legged on the cramped, bucking floor of a Black Hawk helicopter as it roars above central Sri Lanka's pristine jungle and muddy rivers, aid has never seemed as complicated. A second U.S. Air Force Black Hawk on our flank is carrying a large consignment of hygiene kits. more..

Jan 8 (ANI) An Indian naval warship returned to Mumbai after undertaking rescue and relief mission in Sri Lanka and Maldives. 'INS Mysore' had left Indian shores on December 26, the 'Black Sunday' when killer tsunamis storm wreaked death and devastation in Asia. more..

Jan 8 (Reuters) The World Bank could hand out up to $1.5 billion (800 million pounds) in tsunami aid if need be, says bank President James Wolfensohn, but he is "wildly concerned" about how funds will be spent. more..

Jan 8 (ANN) The tsunami crisis with regard to loss of lives and property will subside with time. However, other challenging situations which would threaten the quality of life are emerging. Of particular importance is the food and nutrition crisis, which would further exacerbate the devastating effects of the tsunami and penetrate all corners of the island. more..

Jan 8 (ANN) Initial assessment of physical damage to the economy in the aftermath of Tsunami (Tidal wave) has now been placed at approximately I percent. This had not seriously dented the economy said the Governor of the Central Bank Sunil Mendis at a recent press briefing. more..

Jan 8 (ANN) The Tsunami does seem to have brought in its wake a weird paradox to this country. Yesterday’s front-page reports said that the world’s most powerful, notable and quotable were scheduled to be in the country during the weekend. more..

Jan 8 (Yahoo) A tsunami victim carries her son in a camp at the eastern coastal village of Panichchankeni, Sri Lanka, on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2005. more..

Jan 8 (SNA) Bulgarian parliamentary delegation, lead by Parliamentary Speaker Ognyan Gerdzhikov arrived Saturday in Sri Lanka to deliver the second part of humanitarian aid to the tsunami-wrecked country. more..

Jan 8 (AP) Lt. Col. Edmund Bowen is a seasoned Marine who has served in the Persian Gulf and Somalia. But he now finds himself playing the role of peacetime aid worker in Sri Lanka's tsunami-ravaged regions. more..

Jan 8 (AFP) Elusive Tamil Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief Pottu Amman are among the dead or missing after last week's tsunami disaster, state radio said, sparking fresh tension between government and rebels who immediately denied the report. more..

Jan 8 (PIS) US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday urged all Sri Lankans to "come together" so that the "spirit of cooperation" arising from the tsunami disaster "could be extended" to the "political dialogue" to resolve the ethnic conflict. more..

Jan 8 (PTI) Shortly after Sri Lanka's state-run radio reported that LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief Pottu Amman are among the dead or missing in the December 26 tsunami disaster, the rebels denied it and termed the report as "mischievous" and "fabricated". more..

Jan 8 (SD) U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was impressed with the response that the Sri Lankan government has mounted to the tsunami disaster. Powell spoke to reporters January 7 at the Colombo International Airport as he was leaving Sri Lanka after a tour of some of its damage zones. more..

Jan 8 (HT) The World Bank has worked out a system to prevent the misuse of the aid that it is giving to the tsunami-ravaged countries. Announcing an initial grant of US$ 10 million in cash to Sri Lanka in Colombo on Saturday, the bank's President James D.Wolfensohn said that the money would be allocated at the instance of local committees and will be given to the local bodies. more..

Jan 8 (HT) A leading Sri Lankan psychiatrist has criticised Tamil Nadu's proposal to build a wall along the coast of the state as a defence against the dreaded tsunami. Prof Daya Somasundaram, an internationally known expert on war-induced trauma at the University of Jaffna said that the proposed wall would "alienate the people from the sea." more..

Jan 8 (HT) A Sri Lankan fisherman stands in his boat which was washed up onto the beach at Hambantota on Sri Lanka's Southeastern coast Saturday, Jan. 8, 2005. more..

Jan 8 (SS) As U.S. military forces plug ahead with a relief plan in tsunami-wracked Sri Lanka, a collaboration of private companies set up after another devastating natural disaster is helping ensure tons of aid relief is moving in and out of the main airport smoothly. more..

Jan 9 (TN) Civil organization representatives in northeast accompanied by a large crowd met Ms Penny Brune, UNICEF representative for Vanni, in Killinochchi on Friday and handed her written appeals from civil organizations. more..

Jan 9 (TN) Reserving over USD 100 million to Sri Lanka from the existing projects for immediate recovery work and to rebuild the devastated homes and spectrum of livelihood, visiting World Bank chief D. Wolfensohn hinted in Colombo Saturday more..

Jan 9 (TN) Mr.Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations Saturday evening paid a thirty-minute visit to Trincomalee. He consoled Tsunami affected Tamil refugees at Alankerni Tamil School and Muslim victims sheltered in Kinniya Central College. more..

Jan 9 (TN) "Take over of the management of welfare centres sheltering Tsunami victims by the State armed forces is a blatant violation of fundamental rights of refugees," Mr.Vasudeva Nanayakkara, General Secretary of the Nava Samaja Party and a former parliamentarian told more..

Jan 9 (AT) While immediate neighbor India has been Sri Lanka’s most active benefactor in the country’s bleakest moment, and while superpower America has got into the Sri Lankan post-tsunami quagmire, it is the role of the United Kingdom, the country’s former colonizer that’s least uplifting - - and that’s putting it mildly. more..

Jan 9 (AT) Life cannot be the same after the tsunami. Survival and success in and of post-tsunami Sri Lanka will depend on our ability and capacity to understand this new reality and to adapt to it. The tsunami has made us a part of the world as never before. more..

Jan 9 (AT) Adapting a slogan from the World Social Forum, originally derived from Fidel Castro who said ‘a better world is possible’, I’d say ‘Another Sri Lanka, a Better Sri Lanka is possible’. But it is not inevitable, and cannot even be said to be probable (which is why I balance between hope and scepticism). more..

Jan 9 (wsws) From December 29 to January 1, a WSWS team spoke with tsunami survivors in and around the eastern Sri Lankan town of Ampara. At least 25,000 people from the area were killed and more than 166,000 were left homeless by the December 26 tragedy. Another 80,000 are now living in refugee camps. more..

Jan 9 (Yahoo) Fatima Rijani, 11 a Sri Lankan tsunami victim who is now orphaned watches a game at the refugee camp where she is now living with relatives Friday Jan. 7, in Galle. more..

Jan 9 (AFP) World Health Organisation (WHO) director general Lee Jong-Wook yesterday said fish being caught off the tsunami-battered Sri Lankan coast were safe to eat and urged locals to return to their favourite dish. more..

Jan 9 (TP) Lebanon is to release 200 Sri Lankan workers held in prisons for overstaying their visas as a goodwill gesture to the country in view of the tsunami disaster. more..

Jan 9 (TP) The Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry has reported an increasing number of contagious diseases from the eastern Batticaloa health administrative division, one of the areas devastated by the tsunami. more..

Jan 9 (TP) Sri Lankan Tourist Board officials say 107 foreign tourists were confirmed dead in the tsunami-hit country while several more are missing, newspapers said. In addition to this 30 bodies of foreigners are currently kept in a cold room at the Colombo National Hospital awaiting identification. more..