Jan 21 (SAMN) People in the Badulla area were panic stricken after their houses vibrated for about three minutes late on Wednesday night. The Geological Survey and Mines Bureau and the National Buildings Research Organisation are conducting inquiries to establish the cause for these vibrations in Katupalallegama, Wewassagama and the Diyatalawa areas. more..

Jan 21 (SAMN) Agriculture department sources said that 259 hectares of paddy land had been destroyed due to tsunami tidal waves in the Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western coastal belt. "The agricultural sector has already faced serious problems due to many other factors more..

Jan 21 (SAMN) Vowing that the UNP would not allow anyone to use the tsunami tidal waves to sweep away democracy in Sri Lanka, the party Thursday demanded an immediate clarification from President Chandrika Kumaratunga on her statement that no elections would be held for the next five years. more..

Jan 21 (SAMN) The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) trade union, Lanka Viduli Sevaka Sangamaya, Thursday said they would totally oppose the moves by the authorities to privatize the CEB. They demanded from the government that the privatization legislation be done away immediately. more..

Jan 21 (LT) The responsibility of all is to cast away petit differences and contribute to develop the country said Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse. The Prime Minister made this observation addressing a ceremony held at Saindamarandu, in Ampare to celebrate the first anniversary of forming the UPFA. more..

Jan 21 (IANS) Nearly 15 years after they were forced to leave Sri Lanka, Indian military personnel are earning kudos for providing timely support to the islanders devastated by the tsunami disaster. "We are very grateful to India for helping us," more..

Jan 21 (ANN) In the wake of the Tsunami tragedy and the growing economic needs of the Sri Lankans, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce is seeking immediate special market access for exports, including duty free concessions from US and European trading partners. more..

Jan 21 (ANN) On 25 December 2004, Sri Lanka was on the verge of a disaster. Not a natural disaster, but a man-made one. War fever in the LTTE-controlled areas of the North and East, which had been whipped up from Prabakaran’s Heroes’ Day speech on 26 November onwards, reached a peak on Christmas Day. more..

Jan 21 (NBC) Not so long ago, you would have been courting death by trying to drive from Colombo to Kilinochchi. Now aid convoys are rolling all the way from the capital to the nerve center of Sri Lanka's rebel army, the LTTE. more..

Jan 21 (TN) Trincomalee Tamils domiciled in Canada distributed a consignment of cooking utensils through Trincomalee Children Fund (TCF) to about seventy eight displaced families from Kadaloor, a Tamil fishing hamlet in the Kinniya division, about 10 km northwest of the Trincomalee town, sources said. more..

Jan 21 (TN) "When we loose cadres in battles we strengthen our will to hit back at the enemy. The Tsunami losses are different, especially the loss of children has shaken us deeply. I have seen mothers carrying dead babies in their hands who refuse to accept that they are dead. more..

Jan 21 (PRIU) President Chandrika Kumaratunga today received Norway’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Development Mr. Jan Peterson and Ms. Hilde F. Johnson at President’s House. more..

Jan 21 (PRIU) My warm wishes and greetings go out today to all our followers of Islam. Eidul Aldha Hajj is one of the most important events in the Islamic calendar. It is the time of the year when millions of the World's Muslims congregate at Holy Mecca to pray in unison. more..

Jan 21 (AT) Australian front organisations of the banned Sri Lankan Tamil rebel group, LTTE, have launched an intimidatory campaign against the management of a leading Hindu temple in Australia. more..

Jan 21 (BBC) Cornwall-based surfers are holding a competition this year in a Sri Lankan resort hit by the Asian tsunami. About 20 top surfers will be travelling to Aragum Bay on the east coast of Sri Lanka for the contest from 13-23 June after an invitation from locals. more..

Jan 21 (Yahoo) Sri Lankan Muslims offer prayers on the occasion of Eid-ul-Alah at a mosque near the tsunami-ravaged town of Kalmunai on Sri Lanka's east coast January 21, 2005. more..

Jan 21 (Reuters) Sri Lanka plans to use 40 percent of its $3.5 billion tsunami recovery fund in new infrastructure projects and looks set to give Tamil Tiger rebels a piece of the pie, documents showed on Friday. more..

Jan 21 (Sun) A BOAT packed with dozens of kidnapped tsunami orphans was being hunted last night. Police fear the kids could be sold illegally to Western couples or used in the child sex trade. The fishing trawler left the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo a week after the killer waves struck and is believed to be heading for the Kolkata area of India. more..

Jan 21 (RT) The Rutland Times has joined forces with the former High Sheriff Mary Lloyd, and Tessa Ellis, of Rutland County Council, a team of five Sri Lankan professionals. The aid agency Wings to help rebuild schools and extend orphanages in the remote town of Pottuvil more..

Jan 21 (AR) Charitable organizations say the best way to help victims of the Asian tsunami disaster is by donating cash, not material goods. But working on its own outside those charities, the Sri Lankan Student Association at Arizona State University went ahead with a clothing drive. more..

Jan 21 (G&M) Six members of the Canadian Forces sat chewing tobacco in Sri Lanka yesterday, enjoying the scenery, and one blurted: "Wouldn't this make a great Tim Hortons commercial?" He had a point, despite the total absence of coffee during this break. more..

Jan 21 (CP) Two members of Ontario's Emergency Medical Assistance Team are on the ground in Sri Lanka to provide help to the tsunami-ravaged country, a government source said Thursday. The two members arrived in Sri Lanka on Tuesday and in the next few days will join the Canadian Forces Disaster Assistance Response Team, more..

Jan 21 (AP) A Tamil relief and rehabilitation group on Friday accused the Sri Lankan government of holding up urgently needed medical supplies and equipment for ethnic Tamils living in the tsunami-devastated north and east. more..

Jan 21 (Reuters) Sri Lanka will spend $1.5 billion of its $3.5 billion tsunami-recovery budget on new infrastructure rather than reconstruction or relief, documents obtained by Reuters showed on Friday. Following are key facts about the draft plan to rehabilitate areas devastated by the Dec. 26 catastrophe. more..

Jan 21 (AP) Sri Lanka's president and Norway's foreign minister held constructive talks Friday about the distribution of aid in the tsunami-battered nation and efforts to revive the stalled peace process with Tamil Tiger rebels, an official said. more..

Jan 21 (SL) In Sri Lanka, the Tamils live mostly in the northeast, where they have their own schools and worship freely in Hindu temples. They also have their own army. Until recent decades, Tamils kept a peaceful distance from the island's Buddhist Sinhalese majority for centuries. more..

Jan 21 (AP) Norwegian peacemakers who have been trying to revive talks between Tamil Tiger rebels and the government are back in Sri Lanka on a less ambitious mission: to end arguments over the distribution of aid to tsunami victims. more..

Jan 21 (Gulf) President Chandrika Kumaratunga has asked political parties to shed their differences and show unity to rebuild the tsunami-devastated nation. Opposition parties fear the government would take political advantage of the disaster as major rehabilitation and reconstruction plans are taken up in the country. more..

Jan 21 (GI) Norwegian Minister For Development Helide Johnson (L) and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen (R) walk on a devastated ground, during a visit to Hambantota, 21 January 2005. more..

Jan 21 (AGI) Italian Foreign Minister, Gianfranco Fini, visiting Colombo to discuss aid for tsunami victims, reached an agreement with the Sri Lankan president Kumaratunga, to work towards building houses. "I listened to the invitation made by the president," said Fini more..

Jan 21 (YDN) A team of doctors and students from the Yale School of Medicine returned last Saturday from a two-week stay in Sri Lanka, where they assisted in the tsunami relief effort by providing medical care. more..

Jan 21 (HT) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and LTTE Supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran seem to have at least one thing in common - both are planning to build a wall along the coast as the first line of defence against the dreaded tsunami. more..

Jan 21 (PA) British-based disaster management academics today warned against rushing the development of a tsunami warning system for southern Asia. Experts at Coventry University said the task was a huge one which needed to be worked through national policies and institutions. more..

Jan 21 (AP) Aid groups have warned it might be too soon for the U.S. military to scale back its emergency operations for Asia's tsunami victims. Meanwhile an informal cease-fire between Indonesian troops and rebels appeared to have collapsed, threatening to derail relief efforts. more..

Jan 21 (DN) The first phenomena now identified as the tsunami was first experienced by Sri Lanka then Ceylon on August 27, 1883. The Ceylon Observer through its correspondents re-capped the phenomenon in vivid detail in the Ceylon Observer Editions of August 28 and 29, 1883. more..

Jan 21 (NP) Earlier this week, we criticized the federal government's indefensible reluctance to place the LTTE - better known as the Tamil Tigers - on its list of prohibited terrorist groups. As we noted, the group has cast Sri Lanka into a lengthy civil war that has killed 60,000 people, many by suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks. more..

Jan 21 (BBC) More than 30,000 people died in Sri Lanka in the tsunami and over 5,000 people are still missing. Many bodies are dumped in mass graves and some will never be found. Survivors need to start rebuilding their lives, but one Sri Lankan doctor warns this can not be done until they can start the grieving process, more..

Jan 21 (Reuters) Sri Lankans trying to come to terms with piles of corpses left by a tsunami may never know the actual death toll because of the disaster's unprecedented scale, different methods of counting and the politics of an ethnic war. It is now impossible to get officials to agree on a figure. more..

Jan 21 (AFP) Twentytwo Sri Lankan refugees were arrested when they attempted to flee the country illegally in a boat from Pamban Kuthukal, near Rameswaram, in Ramanathapuram district today, police said. more..

Jan 21 (EP) READING is looking to twin with a town in Sri Lanka so it can offer long-term help to victims of the Asian tsunami. The aim is to help rebuild one of the communities devastated by the Boxing Day tragedy. Sri Lanka has been chosen because it was one of the countries worst hit by the tragedy, more..

Jan 22 (TN) The Economic Consultancy House (TECH) of the Trincomalee district funded by the Australian TECH has launched a project purifying all wells in Tsunami hit coastal areas in the district from salinity. more..

Jan 22 (Yahoo) Jogeshwaram, a Sri Lankan tsunami survivor, who lost his mother, wife and children to the tsunami is comforted by a friend in the town of Kalmunai on Sri Lanka's east coast January 21. more..

Jan 22 (TN) The co-ordinating Colombo office of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), an NGO registered with Government of Sri Lanka and working exclusively in the NorthEast, told TamilNet that they need up to 10,000 tents that can hold a family of five more..

Jan 22 (TN) Two persons took their lives and few have been rescued from committing suicide in depressed state of mind following deaths of their loved ones in Tsunami that hit the coastal areas of the Jaffna district and more are found to be suffering from mental disorders, more..

Jan 22 (BBC) TNA say that the worst hit areas in the North and East, including two districts controlled by the LTTE, are yet to receive a fair share of aid. Jaffna District MP Nadaraja Raviraj told BBC Sandeshaya that the government is discriminating against the tsunami affected Tamils on aid distribution. more..

Jan 22 (CARE) The international humanitarian organization CARE continues to provide short-term assistance to tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka, while making the shift into the first phase of rehabilitation to help restore livelihoods and infrastructure. more..

Jan 22 (IJN) As relief becomes reconstruction in South Asia, several media groups are calling attention to the key role that independent news media have in the process. Sri Lanka’s Free Media Movement urged lawmakers to open up access to information to journalists and the wider public. more..

Jan 22 (Xinhua) Tamil Tiger rebels' supremo Velupillai Prabakaran is set to meet with the Norwegian peace facilitators on Saturday, diplomatic sources said Friday. Prabakaran is to meet Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen Saturday morning in the rebel-held Kilinochchi district in the northern province. more..

Jan 22 (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. more..

Jan 22 (SFG) When the surging water of the tsunami receded, Kumar Eadivira's three children were gone. Virtually all his possessions were gone, too. But left behind on the floor of his home, undamaged, was a white clay Buddha. more..