Jan 3 (Reuters) The Canadian government on Sunday doubled its aid contribution after Asia's devastating tsunami and promised to speed existing visa applications for those from the region wishing to join family living in Canada. more..

Jan 3 (GDN) SRI Lankans flying home from Bahrain to find or bury their families after the tsunami disaster are making the worst trip of their lives. Some know already that their families are gone, while others are hoping against hope to find relatives alive amidst the carnage. more..

Jan 3 (SAMN) A UN special envoy for tsunami relief operations flew to Sri Lanka Sunday saying all UN agencies were throwing their full weight behind the biggest relief operation history though the world body like many others had been a little slow to react because it did not understand the horrifying magnitude of the catastrophe. more..

Jan 3 (SAMN) Galle port is yet to re-open for commercial activity since the tsunami devastated the town a week ago. Official sources said that considering the devastation the town, properties and people suffered, the Port has managed to escape serious damage. more..

Jan 3 (TN) Qatar's Ministry of Public Health will monitor the situation in countries such as India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, where epidemics of malaria, typhoid and other communicable disease might strike in the areas affected by last week's killer Tsunami, more..

Jan 3 (TP) SriLankan Airlines recorded 15 per cent growth in the number of passengers carried from Doha between April and December last year, generating an increased revenue of seven per cent, as compared to the same period in 2003, more..

Jan 3 (AFP) Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders are to meet in Indonesia on Thursday to help coordinate relief efforts for the Indian Ocean tsunami tragedy, Philippines President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman said. more..

Jan 3 (Xinhua) UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will visit Indonesia and Sri Lanka, two countries worst hit by the tsunami, said a senior UN official on Sunday. Annan is expected to be in Indonesia on Wednesday and go to Aceh on Friday, more..

Jan 3 (AP) In times of crisis, envy the authoritarians. Veterans of a long guerrilla war, the Tamil rebels who control northern Sri Lanka moved with military precision to help victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami. more..

Jan 3 (TN) Pakistan has decided to send two ships from its Naval fleet, two helicopters along with 400 military personnel to join the international bandwagon in assisting Sri Lankan government to carry out the tsunami relief and rescue operation, Pakistan Embassy sources said. more..

Jan 3 (TN) Ms Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the UNICEF, Monday morning around 8.30 a.m. arrived in Killinochchi, met with and consoled the 38 children who escaped death in the Tsunami which wiped out the Senthalir Illam with 113 children in Mullaitivu. Senthalir Illam is run the Women Rehabilitation Organization (WRO). more..

Jan 3 (TN) Dr.T.Kadambanathan, a leading specialist in psychiatry currently serving in the mental heath division of the Ratnapura government hospital in the south Sunday held a pilot study visiting various refugee camps in Nilaveli, Adambodai and Kinniya in Trincomalee district more..

Jan 3 (SLA) Four identified LTTE cadres, regardless of trauma and tragic circumstances being experienced by tsunami victims, have abducted a civilian from the government-managed Social Welfare Centre at HINDU VIDYALAYA in the general area of VALAICHCHENAI on 30 December 2004 around 3.30 p.m. while his wife looked on. more..

Jan 3 (SLA) In what could be seen as an LTTE retaliatory measure, suspected LTTE men during early hours on Sunday (2) ordered tsunami victims sheltered inside a cadjan-thatched hall at KUDATHANAI VIDYALAYA (school) north of NAGARKOVIL to vacate the premises before two motorbike-riding LTTE men set fire to the hall. more..

Jan 3 (SLA) Commander of the Army Lieutenant General S. H. S Kottegoda at the turn of the New Year took time off to meet a representative gathering of all ranks of the Army on Monday (03) morning at Army Headquarters after they reported for work in the New Year 2005. more..

Jan 3 (wsws) As soon as the magnitude of the tsunami disaster became apparent, hundreds of Sri Lankan health workers, including doctors and nurses from Colombo’s National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) immediately volunteered for medical relief work. more..

Jan 3 (LBO) Last week’s tidal waves have eaten into stretches of shoreline, meaning Sri Lanka may have to re-draw those lines on its map, as it assesses the extent of coastal damage. The Coast Conservation Department (CCD) is fielding a team to study Southern and Eastern coastal lines, more..

Jan 3 (LBO) With the Sri Lankan government brewing plans for an international fundraiser to re-build the island, the local building industry is struggling for a foothold in the one billion dollar opportunity. more..

Jan 3 (Time) Is it possible that the death and destruction in post-tsunami Sri Lanka also contains a glimmer of hope for resolving the country's 21-year civil war? Three days after the tsunami, Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the LTTE, pronounced sympathy for the forces on the other side. more..

Jan 3 (BBC) When the tsunami struck rebel-held northern Sri Lanka, fisherman Rajasingham in the town of Mullaitivu assumed the civil war had started again. "Most of the people thought the army had come to do some military operation and then there was an explosion like a bomb but when we saw the huge waves, only then we knew the danger." more..

Jan 3 (BBC) More than a million fishermen in Sri Lanka's north-east may have lost their livelihoods in the Asian tsunami, experts say. About 80% of fishing boats there are believed destroyed and many fishermen are also too scared to go to sea. more..

Jan 3 (Yahoo) A tsunami victim holds her son in a camp at Valachenai in the eastern coastal town of Kalkudah, Sri Lanka, Monday, Jan. 3, 2005. At least 137,321 people were killed in 11 countries more..

Jan 3 (HT) The decision of the Sri Lankan government to accept 1,500 US Marines as part of the American contribution to tsunami relief work in the island, without taking India into confidence first, has "greatly angered" India, says the Tamil daily Sudar Oli. more..

Jan 3 (HT) For the "Paradise Isle" of Sri Lanka, the year 2004 ended with a dreadful and completely unexpected blow from the sea. The giant tsunami waves, which battered two thirds of the island's coastline on December 26, left an unprecedented trail of death and destruction. more..

Jan 3 (HT) In its indiscriminate sweep, the tsunami did not spare Sri Lankan cricketers. According to The Island daily, the families of several top-of-the-line cricketers, now touring New Zealand, were victims of the deluge. more..

Jan 3 (HT) The destructive power of the tsunami might have annihilated Sri Lanka's exquisite "Coral Gardens" off Hikkaduwa on the southwestern coast, conservationists fear. more..

Jan 3 (AFP) US marines arrived in Sri Lanka as foreign military aid efforts picked up while the island's tsunami death toll hit 30,196, fuelling fears that disease could spread ahead of an internationally-backed cleanup effort. more..

Jan 3 (AFP) A large-scale relief operation was underway in this eastern coastal region of Sri Lanka as the military carried out air drops of food and water to thousands of tsunami survivors. more..

Jan 3 (AFP) Fishing runs in the veins of N.G.Punchihewa, 71: his father was a fisherman and his grandfather before him. Punchihewa's son, too, was carrying on the tradition until the December 26 tsunami struck. more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) Aid for hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans made homeless by the Indian Ocean tsunamis poured in on Monday, but officials said in some cases it was the wrong aid and distribution had to be improved. more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) Rapists are preying on survivors of Sri Lanka's deadly tsunamis, taking advantage of lax security at refuge centres for those made homeless in the disaster, a women's collective said on Monday. more..

Jan 3 (TO) Sri Lanka is likely to suffer the worst economy damage from the tsunami disaster, according to experts. Although Indonesia is likely to have sustained the highest death toll, smaller Indian Ocean countries are likely to find the catastrophe most economically disruptive. more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's tsunami devastation has drawn a huge international aid response, but a geopolitical game of influence between India and the United States is playing not too subtly in the background, analysts said on Monday. more..

Jan 3 (Yahoo) Tsunami victims try to get food that was dropped from a helicopter by Sri Lankan government forces at a school in Kodaikallar, 325 kilometers (203 miles), east of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, Jan. 3, 2005. more..

Jan 3 (AP) President George W. Bush has tapped former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush to lead a U.S. charitable fund-raising effort for victims of the Asian tsunamis, the White House announced this morning. more..

Jan 3 (BBC) Sri Lankan cricket star Muttiah Muralitharan and his team-mates are helping galvanise the relief effort for the tsunami disaster victims. Muralitharan narrowly avoided being caught up in the tragedy, leaving Galle just minutes before the waves struck. more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) Thousands of children whose lives have been upturned by Sri Lanka's worst natural disaster need two things above all, the head of the United Nations Children's Fund says -- clean water and playtime. more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) Thieves, rapists, kidnappers and hoaxers are preying on tsunami survivors and families of victims in Asian refugee camps and hospitals and in the home countries of European tourists hit by the wave. more..

Jan 3 (DN) The Government yesterday announced the establishment of several structures to provide immediate relief and rehabilitation to persons affected by last week's tsunami disaster. It has been decided to set up special Management Structures for each camp in the country sheltering people affected by the disaster. more..

Jan 3 (EVT) About 100 Sri Lankan students, families and community members gathered Sunday evening at Arizona State University in Tempe to pray and reflect on the tragedy in their homeland. ASU’s Sri Lanka Student Association hosted the interfaith candlelight vigil on Hayden Lawn, more..

Jan 3 (Xinhua) Sri Lanka is badly in need of donations in cash and kind for its relief operation and long term rehabilitation of about one million homeless people, Gamini S. Munasinghe, Sri Lankan high commissioner to Bangladesh said here Monday. more..

Jan 3 (Xinhua) An initial welfare plan is to be launched immediately for the children left orphaned and unaccompanied by the Dec. 26 Tsunami disaster. Save the Children Fund's Sri Lanka office said that welfare of Tsunami child victims is a priority. more..

Jan 3 (Yahoo) A Sri Lankan tsunami survivor scavenges through debris and rubbish next to covered bloated bodies downtown in the coastal town of Sri Lanka, Monday, Jan. 3. More than a week after the tsunami disaster police and medics are still pulling bodies from the rubble, more..

Jan 3 (Gulf) Sri Lankans yesterday held traditional religious ceremonies marking the first-week remembrance of people killed in the December 26 tsunami. Local and international relief workers continued efforts to clear debris and assist the affected, officials said. more..

Jan 3 (Reuters) The Sri Lanka rupee strengthened on Monday on hopes of increased dollar inflows to the country as aid for relief and rebuilding of tsunami-affected areas, dealers said. more..

Jan 3 (AP) Sri Lanka's president on Monday asked the European Union for euro1.2 billion (US$1.63 billion) to provide disaster relief and help rebuild the island country's tsunami-hit coast, an EU official said. more..

jan 3 I (AA) HAVE watched events surrounding Sri Lanka's tour of New Zealand over the last three or four days mostly with a sense of horrified disbelief. On Sunday, we had a humanitarian disaster of almost biblical proportions, and Sri Lanka was one of the countries worst devastated by the tsunamis that swept out from the earthquake off Indonesia. more..

Jan 4 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels are accusing the government of denying them adequate tsunami aid, warning this could squander a chance to bridge differences after two decades of war. more..

Jan 4 (AP) Veteran international cricketer Sanath Jayasuriya said his mother was lucky to survive after being injured in the tsunamis that have killed about 30,000 in Sri Lanka. The former Sri Lanka captain on Monday said his 60-year-old mother, Breeda, was seriously injured while she was on her weekly trip to buy vegetables. more..

Jan 4 (CI) The extent to which Sri Lanka's cricketers suffered from the tsunami disaster was spelt out clearly by four of the players whose families and relatives were directly affected by it. more..