Jan 20 (Reuters) It took a devastating tsunami to finally give the Sri Lankan government and its feared Tamil Tiger foes a common goal after two decades of bloody civil war -- and now the clean-up may hold the key to elusive lasting peace. more..

Jan 20 (Reuters) The Sri Lanka rupee closed a fraction higher on Thursday as exporters' dollar sales more than offset demand to settle trade bills, dealers said on Thursday. The rupee closed at 98.52 against the dollar, after strengthening slightly to 98.20 in intraday trade. more..

Jan 20 (KT) The London-based Tamil Tiger chief negotiator Anton Balasingham was scheduled to arrive in Sri Lanka tomorrow for talks with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen raising hopes that the discussion will go beyond the tsunami devastation to break the deadlock over resuming peace talks. more..

Jan 20 (WD) Harindra Joseph Fernando returned to Tempe on Monday after researching the devastating effects of the tsunami in Sri Lanka last week. On Jan. 7, Fernando, a native of Sri Lanka and professor in the School of Engineering and expert on fluid dynamics, joined a team of wave experts gathering first-hand accounts from survivors and studying disappearing data, more..

Jan 20 (AAP) Securing the safety of thousands of tsunami orphans should be the focus of the international aid response, a doctor who toured ravaged Sri Lankan communities said. John Whitehall, the director of neonatology at Townsville Hospital, said an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 children were orphaned in Sri Lanka alone. more..

Jan 20 (AN) Eight model Saudi camps will be set up in tsunami-affected Muslim areas of Sri Lanka. The decision to establish the camps was taken at a meeting held under the chairmanship of the Saudi Ambassador in Colombo Mohamed Mahmud Al-Ali at the Kingdom’s mission on Tuesday. more..

Jan 20 (Bernama) Sri Lanka hopes to complete an ambitious US$3.5 billion rebuilding programme -- much of it through foreign aid -- in tsunami-devastated areas in six months, President Chandrika Kumaratunga said. more..

Jan 20 (MG) A group of about 15 Medina County doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are packing their medical supplies and making the nearly 9,000-mile journey to Sri Lanka, where they will volunteer for two weeks to aid tsunami survivors. more..

Jan 20 (GI) Three and half year-old Sri Lankan girl Malsha plays at a relief camp, in Galle, some 120 km south of Colombo, 20 January 2005. more..

Jan 20 (IANS) He still fears the sea, but Rupasingo Rodrigo has finally resumed fishing. Almost a month after tsunami hit the shores of Sri Lanka killing over 38,000 people, many of the devastated fishermen are beginning to stir again, says Xinhua. more..

Jan 20 (DJ) Visitor arrivals to Sri Lanka are expected to be 20% below an original target of 600,000 this year, as devastation caused by the tsunami last month will keep foreign travelers away, the tourism minister said Thursday. more..

Jan 20 (TD) Two city engineers from Sri Lanka are heading back to their homeland to try to set up a schools twinning project between Plymouth and the Asian island. Nalin Seneviratne, head of asset management for Plymouth City Council, and Chas Daniel, operations manager at Midas Construction, will travel to Sri Lanka next month more..

Jan 20 (GD) CHILD abuse, rape, body-snatching, disease and hunger are some of the horrors facing Sri Lankan survivors of last month's tsunami. Thousands of traumatised victims need counselling, according to a Bahrain-based family who flew home to help with relief work. more..

Jan 20 (NYT) Three patients still waited in the clinic at his house at 8 p.m. one night last week, but they would have to come back the next day. M.M.M. Sameem had been called to a meeting with the Red Cross and local health workers to talk about tsunami victims living in nearby refugee camps. more..

Jan 20 (ANN) The Colombo Stock Market has gained international recognition as one of the most attractive, consistent and best performing stock markets in the world by registering capital gains of over 30% since 2001, the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) sources said. more..

Jan 20 (ANN) The LTTE handout picture of Prabhakaran (which The Island chose not to reproduce as its authenticity is in question) has fuelled speculation about the LTTE leader’s fate more than his prolonged absence did. LTTE watchers and the Eastern Tigers insist the person in the picture is not Prabhakaran but a double. more..

Jan 20 (Reuters) It took a devastating tsunami to finally give the Sri Lankan government and its feared Tamil Tiger foes a common goal after two decades of bloody civil war -- and now the clean-up may hold the key to elusive lasting peace. more..

Jan 20 (AP) The United Nation's refugee agency is asking the Sri Lankan government to help resettle tens of thousands of people, mostly minority Tamils, displaced by the country's 20-year civil war. more..

Jan 20 (AP) Norwegian peace brokers began a series of meetings with Sri Lankan officials on Thursday before heading northward to see the leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels, amid hopeful signs of cooperation in relief efforts for victims of the Asian tsunami. more..

Jan 20 (AT) Presidential Secretariat made it public total amount of donations its two disaster relief funds so far received. Meanwhile, neither TRO which receives donations within Sri Lanka and abroad on behalf of the Tamil rebel outfit LTTE nor the rebel outfit made it public the amount of donations they have so far received. more..

Jan 20 (DN) The Lanka Sama Samaja Party, in a news release issued yesterday, appealed to the LTTE to favourably respond to any Government initiative for the establishment of the necessary machinery for the distribution of relief. more..

Jan 20 (KRT) An eight-car train that sits empty on broken tracks has become a pilgrimage destination for Sri Lankans of every class and religion who are journeying across the tsunami-ravaged country to survey the devastation. more..

Jan 20 (LAT) The old man frowns and says he has had enough of the sea. For 55 years, Samson Silva thought he had worked out a partnership with the turquoise ocean waters that each morning responded to his visits by yielding a bounty of tuna, mullet and grouper. more..

Jan 20 (IO) Moving stealthily through the jungle for more than 30 years, Velupillai Prabhakaran evaded Sri Lankan forces to mastermind assassinations and suicide bombing missions. The leader of the LTTE proved as elusive as he was deadly. more..

Jan 20 (HT) The Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said that there will be no elections for the next five years, because people have to close ranks and work together to rebuild the country devastated by the tsunami of December 26, 2004. more..

Jan 20 (GI) Sri Lankan survivors of the deadly tsunami, carry donated food in the town of Tangalle, 250 kms south of Colombo, 20 January 2005. more..

Jan 20 (HT) SP Tamilselvan, head of the LTTE's political wing, says that the Tamils feel "discriminated against" because India is doing tsunami relief work only in the government-held areas of Sri Lanka, totally ignoring the "even greater" humanitarian crisis in the Tamil-speaking areas held by the LTTE. more..

Jan 20 (AFP) Sri Lanka's tourism chiefs have launched a $A422 million plan to woo visitors back to the tsunami-lashed tropical island but say travel adviseries by foreign embassies are negating their efforts. more..

Jan 20 (UTHR) To those whose memories of the armed forces are associated with the massacres and disappearances of 1990 and before, the tidal wave brought new revelations. The story was the same everywhere along the government-controlled seaboard along the East. more..

Jan 20 (Dawn) The Tamil Tigers, whose calls for a separate north-eastern state were temporarily sidelined by the tsunami catastrophe worse than its bloody 20-year old war, is now beginning to roar again. more..

Jan 20 (AFP) Sri Lankan spin star Muttiah Muralitharan promises to unleash his full repertoire, including the infamous doosra, in the one-day cricket series between a World XI and New Zealand here. more..

Jan 20 (WP) Earlier this month, the USS Bonhomme Richard, a Navy helicopter carrier, was steaming toward Sri Lanka to augment U.S. forces helping survivors of the Dec. 26 tsunami when it suddenly changed course for Indonesia. Additional U.S. troops were no longer needed in Sri Lanka, because the Indian military had been dispatched to help. more..

Jan 20 (AFP) Norway's top peace envoys opened talks with Sri Lanka's political leaders in a bid to jump-start negotiations between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said. Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen and special envoy Erik Solheim held talks with opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe more..

Jan 20 (BBC) The UK Foreign Office is no longer advising against all but essential travel to tsunami-hit Sri Lankan areas. In the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami, it had warned Britons against visiting the eastern and southern coasts, and the south-western coast. more..

Jan 20 (LBO) Anti-corruption watchdog wants the government of Sri Lanka to disclose tsunami-donations. Transparency International Sri Lanka(TISL), the local arm of an international ant-corruption body, is organising an island wide monitoring mechanism on aid funds that came into Sri Lanka after the December Tsunami. more..

Jan 20 (BBC) Sri Lanka leg-spinner Upul Chandana will play for Gloucestershire in 2005 ater signing a one-year deal. He is only the fourth Sri Lankan to get a taste of county cricket, following Aravinda de Silva, Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan. more..

Jan 20 (GI) Three and half year-old Sri Lankan boy Chamod plays at a relief camp, in Galle, some 120 km south of Colombo, 20 January 2005. more..

Jan 20 (NP) In Australia, Britain and the United States, belonging to or attempting to raise funds for the LTTE -- better known as the Tamil Tigers -- can lead to arrest or imprisonment. Given the track record of this vicious terrorist group, that makes sense. But while other countries have banned the LTTE outright, Ottawa turns a blind eye. more..

Jan 20 (AFP) Britain relaxed travel warnings for its nationals heading to Sri Lanka, rescinding a caution introduced following the December 26 tsunami against all but essential travel to affected areas. more..

Jan 21 (TN) President Kumaratunga, seizing the tsunami disaster as an opportunity to extend her presidential term, is behaving in an undemocratic and opportunistic manner, charged the main oppostion UNP Parliamentarian Prof. G.L.Peiris at a press conference more..

Jan 21 (TN) About 450 families numbering around 1000 persons in Upooral and Cheenanveli, two remote Tamil coastal villages in the Sinhala dominated Seruvila division in the Trincomalee district are not provided with dry rations and other relief by the Sri Lanka government and the World Food Programme since Tsunami hit the areas. more..

Jan 21 (TN) "Two third of the loss of lives and properties caused by Tsunami disaster has been in Tamil areas in the northeast province. But the Sri Lanka government is channelling vast sums of foreign aid to the south," said Colonel Soosai, Special Commander of Sea Tigers more..

Jan 21 (SFG) Inside the ghostly red coach of the doomed passenger train Queen of the Sea, half a dozen fat round spiders have begun spinning their webs from the ceiling. Three weeks after the tsunami hit the train here and drowned an estimated 1,000 passengers, more..

Jan 21 (MM) In broken English, a Scout leader from Sri Lanka wrote to a fellow Scout leader in Milford via e-mail, relating news of the toll tsunamis had taken on members of his troop. "Hi my dear friend," Sanjeewa Komangodage wrote to Ed Abbazia, leader of Cub Scout Pack 722 based at Orchard Hills School. more..

Jan 21 (Xinhua) Sri Lanka unveiled Thursday a 320-million-US dollar campaign to revive the country's tourist industry badly hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami. Called "Bounce Back Sri Lanka," the aggressive campaign combines international marketing and promotion of the unique tourism attractions unaffected by the tsunami more..

Jan 21 (BBC) Sri Lanka is to launch a major campaign to revive the tourism industry which was largely destroyed by the recent tsunami. The Chairman of the Sri Lanka tourist board, Udaya Nanayakkara said the project is to cost around 320 million US dollars. more..

Jan 21 (BBC) A high level Norwegian Government delegation, including Development Aid Minister, Deputy Foreign Minister and Special Envoy to Sri Lanka Eric Soleheim, met Finance Minister Dr Sarath Amunugama in Colombo. “We discussed aid and aid distribution” said Amunugama. more..

Jan 21 (Yahoo) A statue of Jesus Christ lies on the sand-covered floor of a church at the tsunami-destroyed village of Munalkadu near Point Pedro. more..

Jan 21 (RN) A Russian field hospital pitched camp in Sri Lanka a mere two days ago, and has attended to 343 patients since. The airmobile hospital belongs to the Ministry for Emergency and Calamity Relief. It started work, January 19, in Tangalla, 200 kilometers off Colombo, Lankese capital. more..

Jan 21 (Rediff) The state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation on Thursday said it is considering setting up a 300 MW power plant in Sri Lanka. "We are looking at setting up a 300 MW power plant in Sri Lanka, for which we have submitted a proposal to the Sri Lankan government," NTPC chairman and managing director C P Jain said. more..