Oct 24 (AT) In a bid to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by the year 2015, number of activities has been launched by the World Bank in Sri Lanka. Recently the World Bank launched a survey in Sri Lanka to understand the depth of the penetration of these activities more..

Oct 24 (AFP) A top Sri Lankan Buddhist monk legislator admitted for the first time his all-monks party had been mistaken to enter politics, but stopped short of quitting the legislature where it has nine crucial seats. more..

Oct 24 (AT) Hamanthota district UNP Parliamentarian and the son of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa - - Sajith Premadasa said Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse’s manifesto is “full of carrot” and attractive but way too far fetched. more..

Oct 24 (AT) In a 37-point programme Douglas Devananda, the General-Secretary of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) has outlined the reasons for its decision to back Mahinda Rajapakse in the presidential race. more..

Oct 24 (TT) The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which has bid successfully for setting up a 300-mw power plant in Sri Lanka, has initiated negotiations with the government of the neighbouring country on the project. more..

Oct 24 (RN) WITH less than four weeks for the presidential elections, Sri Lankans are engrossed in the on-going campaigns by the two prominent contenders for their country’s highest job. The race for the November 17 polls is an open one in that incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunga cannot seek a third term. more..

Oct 24 (TN) Thousands of diaspora Tamils in Europe are expected to participate in Eluthamil (Tamil uprising) rally near the European Union (EU) Secretariat Monday noon "to express solidarity with the Tamil people in NorthEast homeland in their search for peace with justice, more..

Oct 24 (TN) Media reports that the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) belonging to Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) that came down in Vanni on 19 October was downed either by radar-guided gun or by an air-borne attack by the Liberation Tigers were mere speculations not backed up by concrete evidence, experts contacted by TamilNet said. more..

Oct 24 (UNP) UNP leader and Presidential Canidate Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday that the UPFA government’s failure to take the peace forward had cost the country billions of dollars in development aid. more..

Oct 24 (LM) Two Lankan blue-chip subsidiaries Aitken Spence and John Keells Holdings are among Asia's best for companies with annual revenues under one billion US dollars, Forbes Asia magazine said. They figure among a list of 200 best Asian firms. more..

Oct 24 (LM) If we are to find a sustainable solution to the North East problem, we have experienced there will be no point in negotiating only with the LTTE. SLFP and UNP, two major parties of the country should work together for the common goal of achieving peace. more..

Oct 24 (LM) Muslims Autonomy, separate representation and a coastal district for Muslims are indicated in the manifesto of Ranil Wickremasinghe. He will fulfill this manifesto after the elections. more..

Oct 24 (AT) Day-before-yesterday (22) the Mannar Police arrested a Tamil person with 4 kilos and 140 grams of Brown Sugar, a kind of heroin with a street value of Rs 130 million. A high official of the Mannar Police told the ‘Divaina’ that the suspect was traveling with the heroin parcel in a bus plying between Mannar and Pesalai. more..

Oct 24 (CI) Rahul Dravid looked bored out of his skull as he said, "I'm very excited" as the first press conference of the Videocon Cup for the seven-match one-day series against Sri Lanka ended. True to form he gave away very little at the pre-match briefing, saying many words yet not showing his hand. more..

Oct 24 (CI) The seven-match one-day series against Sri Lanka is a critical one for Indian cricket, and almost everything will depend on how the players, especially Rahul Dravid, the new captain, fare in a tough series against opponents who have not been in better form since the 1996 World Cup. more..

Oct 24 (ANN) Two children and a soldier were hurt when the LTTE fired on an Army checkpoint guarding a tsunami camp at Zahira College in Batticaloa yesterday (Oct 23). The children were identified as Navartnam Sahidaran (11) and Prabhakaran Inida (04). The soldier was identified as Chaminda. more..

Oct 24 (GT) TULF chief V Anandasangaree believes an Indian style federal constitution, which incorporates strong unitary features, should be the model to be followed by Sri Lanka. He is of the view that Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse’s camp would not be averse to such a federal set-up and more..

Oct 24 (PIS) Society for Peace Unity and Human Rights, (SPUR) an Australian based organisation of Sri Lankan expatriates and the World Alliance for Peace in Sri Lanka requests the UN Secretary General Koffi Annan to warn the LTTE desist from killing politicians in the presidential election campaign. more..

Oct 24 (SAMN) The people withn the Buffer Zone complain that they cannot shift to the new houses now being constructed in another village if their old residences situated near the coastal area are taken over by the government. They say that the government has decided to take over their lands after resettling them in the new houses. more..

Oct 24 (SAMN) “The present Presidential election is a fight between the local progressive forces and the reactionary foreign forces. All progressive forces and humanists have joined hands with me. On the other side the reactionary forces in the country have come together. more..

Oct 24 (LNP) President Chandrika Kumaratunga yesterday called upon the people of the country and the party members to question and correct SLFP Presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapakse if he is doing anything wrong and guide him on the correct path. more..

Oct 24 (LNP) Tamil leaders, who had entered the democratic system, say all politicians, including the TNA leaders, are taking the Tamil people for a ride. One leader said TNA parliamentarian R. Sampanthan`s comments, that LTTE`s arms strength was the strength of the Tamil people, were appalling and an insult to democratic Tamils. more..

Oct 24 (LNP) The Bolgoda Junior School, Bandaragama, which was established in July, 1943 is on the verge of closure due to lack of students. At present, there are only sixteen students and four teachers. The school is located in a four acre land donated by well known Philanthropist Wilmat Perera. more..

Oct 24 (DN) Four schoolboys from the Ja-Ela area died in a boat accident on the Attanagalu Oya on Saturday evening. The accident occurred around 4.30 p.m. on Saturday when the boat carrying eight boys including the four overturned in the Attanagalu Oya which flows between Seeduwa and Ja-Ela, more..

Oct 24 (AP) Thousands of Sri Lankan fishermen protested Monday against the lack of government help to rehabilitate their industry that was devastated by last year's tsunami, demanding access to foreign donations to rebuild their lives. more..

Oct 24 (HT) There are two political battles raging in Sri Lanka today. One is open and the other is covert. The open one is the electoral battle between the two main Presidential hopefuls, Mahinda Rajapaksa of the SLFP, and Ranil Wickremesinghe of the UNP. more..

Oct 24 (AP) Former Sri Lanka cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga has blasted Indian cricket organizers for selecting minor venues for the upcoming limited-overs tournament, saying he was "extremely disappointed" by the decisions. more..

Oct 24 (AP) Sri Lankan police operate like thugs and gangsters, often committing "catastrophic" levels of torture, a human rights group said Monday, as it urged the United Nations to take measures to curb the abuses. more..

Oct 24 (AP) A move that could adversely affect the chances of Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Sri Lankan Presidential election is the meeting of his party chief Chandrika Kumaratunga with his rival Ranil Wickremesinghe to discuss political cooperation. more..

Oct 24 (TN) TNA parliamentarians Sivanathan Kishor, Sivasakthi Ananthan and Vino Noharathalingam met with Vavuniya Head of the SLMM at the Vavuniya SLMM offices Monday morning, sources in Vavuniya said. The discussion centered on the National Resurgence Event scheduled to take place on the 27th of this month. more..

Oct 24 (LeN) President Chandrika Kumaratunga emphatically stated in historic Kandy yesterday that nobody should be allowed to undermine the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and added its vision and policies followed for decades should be carried forward without an iota of change. more..

Oct 24 (DN) The main criticism the UNP has so far made of "Mahinda Chintana" the manifesto of Mahinda Rajapakse, "Bandaranaike Chintana" or the principles and policies of the late SWRD Bandaranaike, the founder of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. more..

Oct 24 (UNI) Expressing strong displeasure over Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse's electoral pacts with the Sinhala extremist parties in the South, President Chandrika Kumaratunga has vowed to protect her Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) from those "extremist groups at any cost". more..

Oct 24 (Reuters) Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse's pledge to amend the terms of a truce with the Tamil Tigers if elected president next month could cause the agreement to collapse, the rebels warned on Monday. more..

Oct 24 (AP) President Chandrika Kumaratunga met late Monday with Sri Lanka's main opposition presidential candidate to consider the possibility of cooperating to end a simmering ethnic conflict. more..

Oct 25 (CI) Five months have now passed since a BCCI-appointed committee announced, after two-and-a-half hours of deliberation, that Greg Chappell was India's new coach. The announcement ended the most farcical of recruitment processes and heralded the beginning of Sri Lanka's World Cup planning. more..

Oct 25 (AT) When S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike formed the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), he laid the foundations for an alternative to the UNP. He mobilized the grassroots forces and joined hands with the left-wing to score his historic victory in 1956. more..

Oct 25 (DNA) Murugan and his wife S Nalini, members of the LTTE squad that assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumbudur in 1991, have written letters thanking President APJ Abdul Kalam for pushing the Union home ministry to accept the former’s mercy petition. more..

Oct 25 (TN) "Both agreed on the importance of all major political parties working together in order to resolve the country's most troubled issue, that of war and peace," said a press release issued by the Presidential House after the meeting with President Ms Kumaratunge and the Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe on Monday. more..

Oct 25 (AP) President met privately Monday with the presidential candidate from the main opposition party to discuss cooperating to end a conflict with separatist Tamil Tiger rebels - revealing a rift between her and her party's hawkish presidential candidate over the peace process. more..

Oct 25 (TBB) Sri Lanka is enjoying nearly 600,000 tourists from across the globe for whom the industry has gone beyond beaches to Culture, Nature and Adventure positioning Sri Lanka as ‘a land like no other’. more..

Oct 25 (ANN) President Chandrika Kumaratunga and her Foreign Minister brother Anura Bandaranaike have come under fire by the members of the SLFP and their allies over what they describe as, their "negative" role in the run up to the Presidential elections. more..

Oct 25 (TN) Most of the national and international non-governmental organizations which came forward to provide assistance as soon as tusnami hit the northern coast have now withdrawn from the scene without restoring normalcy in the lives of tsunami affected people, alleged Mr.K.Thavaratnam, more..

Oct 25 (TN) Transformation of the Sri Lankan democracy into one that is capable of handling conflicts is essential in addition to the political transformation of the LTTE for Sri Lanka to resolve its pressing ethnic struggle, notes Kristian Stokke, more..

Oct 25 (SLA) AN LTTE (TAMIL TIGERS) DESERTER, subjected to continuous LTTE harassment after he declined to rejoin their organization has sought safety and protection for his life from the troops in the general area of PAHALA-THOPPUR, about 20 k.m south of TRINCOMALEE town on Monday (24) night at about 10.30 p.m.. more..

Oct 25 (SLA) FIVE SUSPICIOUS men roaming around the office of Minister DOUGLAS DEVANANDA (EPDP Leader) at HAVELOCK TOWN in NARAHENPITA, COLOMBO 05 were taken in for questioning with their three-wheeler on Monday (24) around 11.10 a.m.. more..

Oct 25 (UNP) UNP presidential candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the political traditions inherited from senior UNP leaders such as D. S. Senanayake, J. R. Jayawardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa will help him face any challenge that comes his way. more..

Oct 25 (UNP) UNP Presidential candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe claimed last week that Premier Mahinda Rajapakse and the JVP committed the biggest crime to the country by failing to eradicate unemployment using the Rs. 45,000 million pledged in the Tokyo Donor Conference that he negotiated. more..

Oct 25 (SN) At the Bodhu Samuluwa held at Panadura yesterday 24th Oct 2005, Ven.Dr.Omalpe Sobitha Thero – Secretary of the JHU accepted the challenge of UNP parliamentarian Dr. Rajitha Senaratna, who in an interview with Sunday Divaina on October 23, called for a Buddhist monk or any person to have a debate on Buddhism with his leader Ranil Wickramasinhe. more..

Oct 25 (LBO) Official notice of a Rs 1,000 salary increase for Sri Lanka’s private sector coming out this week, says Ministry of Labour.“The Speaker has signed the Bill and it has already gone to the government printer. So the gazette notice announcing the private sector salary increase should come out this week,” more..