Jan 5 (PRIU) A delegation of Sri Lankan Catholic Bishops and The National Christian Council called on President Chandrika Kumaratunga yesterday. The delegation briefed the President on the contribution already made by the Christian community to alleviate the distress of the disaster victims more..

Jan 5 (KTLA) At the moment he was running out of air, trapped underwater with his head held down by a slab of concrete and his body repeatedly slammed by the surging tsunami, Evan Russell Kern called to Jesus to save him. more..

Jan 5 (HT) Unscrupulous businessmen have already begun exploiting acute scarcities created by the tsunami in large parts of Sri Lanka. On Tuesday, the Customs in Colombo seized over four million panties falsely declared as "knitted fabric" to dodge the heavy customs duty and surcharge on panties, a top official told more..

Jan 5 (SW) THE BOXING Day tsunami, caused by an earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, has caused devastation across Sri Lanka. It engulfed buildings up to one kilometre from the shore and killed thousands of people. more..

Jan 5 (HT) On the day the tsunami hit India and Sri Lanka, Surgeon Lt Com Gopalaswamy Parthasarathy based in Kochi, got two calls. The first one was a frantic one from his home in Chennai saying that his grandmother was missing and that his house was under water. more..

Jan 5 (HT) The LTTE has warned that the taking over of tsunami relief camps in the Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan North East by the government troops may pose a threat to the peace process. more..

Jan 5 (TA) ALREADY devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami, Sri Lanka's fishing community is now doubly cursed. Struggling to re-establish their livelihoods, fishermen have returned to the sea but fishmongers across the country are reporting sharp declines in sales. more..

Jan 5 (Yahoo) Sri Lankan tsunami survivors struggle to receive food in the coastal village of Hangama, southern Sri Lanka January 5, 2005. After 10 days, food aid has only reached a quarter of the 2 million survivors of the tsunami in Asia, more..

Jan 5 (PTI) Observing that it has close coordination with the US, India today said there was no misunderstanding or misapprehension over the presence of American troops in Sri Lanka for providing relief assistance to the tsunami-hit areas. more..

Jan 5 (AP) On foot, by bicycle or in motorized rickshaw taxis, the people of this east coast village began returning home Wednesday as Sri Lanka turned its attention from relief efforts to resettling people uprooted by the Asian tsunami. more..

Jan 5 (AFP) It took 63-year-old Udmnachi eight days to pluck up the courage to return to her village on the east coast of Sri Lanka after it had been flattened by the Indian Ocean tsunami. She wishes she never had. more..

Jan 5 (AFP) Thushari, 15, has good reason to be crying. She saw both her parents swept to their deaths by the ferocious Indian Ocean tsunami, which also pulverised her family home and tore her from her siblings. more..

Jan 6 (TN) "The Armed Forces taking over the management of the Welfare Camps in the Northeast would be counterproductive and would destabilize all arrangements hitherto made at the district level in the Northeast to address the several consequences of the calamity," more..

Jan 6 (TN) Norwegian Red Cross Society has sent a medical team comprising 20 members at the request of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRC) to serve in Trincomalee district. more..

Jan 6 (TN) "The Government of Sri Lanka has permitted Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) to engage in rehabilitation and reconstruction work in LTTE controlled as well as military controlled areas of the northeast. But the Special Task Force (STF) is acting as an obstacle to our mission. more..

Jan 6 (NBC) A Sri Lankan teacher is spearheading a fund-raising campaign for the victims of the tsunami disaster. Her students at Philadelphia's Masterman Magnet School have also organized an effort to help. more..

Jan 6 (WV) World Vision Lanka is helping people across Sri Lanka who were affected by the events of December 26th. In the first week alone, US$1.2 million in aid made it to the field, reaching a targeted 200,000 people in 15 districts across 12 counties. more..

Jan 6 (BBC) Eleven days ago Nath Gunawardene was hosting a group of German tourists at his Dilena hotel on Unawatuna beach in southern Sri Lanka. Now he stands in the middle of the hotel lobby, looking at his minivan which is buried deep in a pile of plate glass. more..

Jan 6 (BBC) Children and adults already scarred by Sri Lanka's civil war are struggling to come to terms with the loss of their loved ones in the Asian tsunami. The BBC's Frances Harrison reports from Mullaitivu, in territory held by the Tamil Tiger rebels in the north-east. more..

Jan 6 (Yahoo) A Sri Lankan woman, native of Nasuvantivu village, sits amid packed bags of relief aid waiting to leave the school where has taken shelter for a week, at Oddamavadi, about 325 kilometers (203 miles) east of Colombo, Wednesday more..

Jan 6 (BBC) The loss to the Sri Lanka economy caused by the deadly tidal wave has been estimated at something between US $ 1.5 Billion to 3.0 Billion. Speaking to Journalist the Governor of the Central bank Sunil Mendis said that these are preliminary estimates. more..

Jan 6 (AT) It may be considered weird talking of silver linings in a disaster of the magnitude of the Tsunami -- but Central Bank sources announced that the dollar firmed at Rs 100 due to the large remittances of foreign exchange meant for Tsunami victims. more..

Jan 6 (AT) Yesterday, I stopped my car by the curb to let an American marine in a four-wheel drive reverse. He reversed, then just before taking off smiled at me politely -- and saluted. He was in full combat gear. more..

Jan 6 (AT) For people who lost everything in the devastating tsunami that roared across the Sri Lankan coast last week, the emergency relief kits being put together by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) can not reach them soon enough. more..

Jan 6 (AT) The Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commissions urges that the Sri Lankan government and world aid agencies to protect the vulnerable young children so that their lives may hold some hope, despite the tragedy they have experienced. more..

Jan 6 (Reuters) Mr. Chathura Perera, a Plan staff, is one of these people. He was in Dehigahalanda, Hambantota at the time when the tsunami hit his village, the second most affected area in Sri Lanka. more..

Jan 6 (IE) We are told while entering insurgent territory, it is more likely that we will get a Tamil Tiger cadre thrusting the point of a gun in our face as a sign of welcome, and the password is ‘We don’t carry any dollars’. more..

Jan 6 (AP) Some banged their heads against the hospital wall. Some, wide-eyed, just stared vacantly. Others mumbled "the sea is coming," reliving the horrors of the massive tsunami that took their families and homes. more..

Jan 6 (IE) A cemetery, R.G. Jayadasa said, explaining what he sees when he looks out at the sea. Jayadasa, 52, had come, like many others, to the edge of this southern town on Tuesday to stare at the waves rolling in. But between him and the water there was a new, studied distance that was more than just physical. more..

Jan 6 (UPI) The United States said Wednesday relief operations in Sri Lanka provide an opportunity for resolving long-standing political disputes. Parts of the Indian Ocean island devastated by last week's earthquake and tsunamis also suffer from a decades-long fight between the government and ethnic Tamil rebels. more..

Jan 6 (Yahoo) Tsunami victims wait in line for food and medicines at a camp in Pandiruppu village in the eastern coastal area near Ampara , Sri Lanka, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005. more..

Jan 6 (LBO) Sri Lanka’s insurance risk is under evaluation as international re-insurers take another look at the island’s potential risk from earthquakes, after an earthquake motivated tsunami wrecked havoc in the country. more..

Jan 6 (ND) Only the crows, the dogs and the dead are left on this village's pummeled beachfront, and if the words of local fishermen are to be believed, that won't change anytime soon. Too frightened to return to the sea, they are presenting a unique challenge to the government and to relief workers hoping to jump-start Sri Lanka's recovery more..

Jan 6 (Reuters) Fifteen men push and shove a crumpled Toyota Corolla that balances precariously on the edge of a swamp, using the splintered beams of houses to prise it out of mud and debris. more..

Jan 6 (SAMN) Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) General Secretary Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera Wednesday resigned from the party and pledged he would not contest in any election in the future. However the well-known monk said he would continue to remain as an independent MP for the rest of the term in the present parliament. more..

Jan 6 (SAMN) After a one-week closure of the Galle harbour due to the tsunami strike, it was cleared for work on Tuesday following a joint clearance operation launched by Sri Lankan and Indian navies. more..

Jan 6 (SAMN) Sri Lanka Wednesday protested to Italy against the distribution of aid directly to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Foreign Ministry sources said. The protest was made to Italian Ambassador Salvatore Zotta more..

Jan 6 (SAMN) With the President’s presence in the country so essential due to the enormity of the relief efforts presently underway, President Chandrika Kumaratunga has designated Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar to lead Sri Lanka's delegation to the special world summit for tsunami aid. more..

Jan 6 (UNHCR) They say it never rains but it pours. Tsunami victims in eastern Sri Lanka can well attest to that, having lost their loved ones and homes to massive tidal waves, only to be displaced again by floods from the monsoon rains. more..

Jan 6 (CP) Canadian military officials said Tuesday the country's Disaster Assistance Response Team is going to tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka to provide medical help, not to become embroiled in the region's volatile politics. more..

Jan 6 (ND) A mother and daughter share a bowl of rice at the camp. "There's no shortage of food," said a pregnant woman also there. "But we worry about the future of our babies." more..

Jan 6 (AFP) The clock at Galle International Cricket Stadium stands frozen at 9:26 am. That was the moment Sri Lanka's biggest disaster hit this southern city and shattered Jayananda Warnaweera's dream. more..

Jan 6 (AP) World leaders opened an emergency summit Thursday with a moment of silence for the tens of thousands of tsunami victims, before focusing on the best way to rush nearly $4 billion pledged worldwide to millions of survivors. more..

Jan 6 (Reuters) Sri Lankan prawn fisherman Sritharan Shunmugan vowed he would never move again after spending much of the past 20 years displaced from his modest home by a bloody civil war. more..

Jan 6 (UPI) Driving along once picturesque Galle Road from the capital, Colombo, to the southern town of Galle and beyond used to be a pleasure. Fishermen preparing to venture into the sea or trying to drag a huge fishing net out of the sea were a common sight. more..

Jan 6 (PTI) Seventy per cent of the Sri Lankan coastline has been devastated as a result of killer tsunamis unleashed by a massive earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a US Congressional Caucus was told. more..

Jan 6 (PTI) A delegation of American scientists from the National Science Foundation's Tsunami Research Group and the US Geological Survey (USGS) will visit the tsunami-ravaged areas of Sri Lanka from January 9-16. more..

Jan 6 (HT) The tsunami disaster has made a high profile Sri Lankan Buddhist monk politician quit party politics. The Venerable Uduwe Dhammaloka Thero, a Member of the Parliament with the monks' party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) on Wednesday announced his resignation from the party more..

Jan 6 (HT) The Central Bank, Sri Lanka's apex bank, has said that the country will need US$ 1500 million this year alone, to begin undoing the damage done by the tsunami of December 26. more..

Jan 6 (Yahoo) A Sri Lankan man and his son, natives of Nasuvantivu, leave the school where they have taken shelter for a week in Oddamavadi, about 325 kilometers (203 miles) east of Colombo, Jan. 5 more..