Aug 25 (LT) Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera yesterday (23) said at parliament that government is in a position to consider Wanni Tigers' ceasefire proposal. He also said that it was informed to the co- chairs of Sri Lanka Aid Group. Speaking at the adjournment debate, foreign minister said that Wanni Tigers must lay down arms and stop killing the politicians who are engaged in democratic politics. more..

Aug 25 (LT) Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva said that the national security should be the most important factor to be considered when giving license to satellite TV channels. He said this at the Supreme Court considering a petition of the proprietors of CBN Sat which was sealed recently. more..

Aug 25 (LeN) The UNP has cautioned the president that the JVP is hatching a plot of politicizing the armed forces. The UNP accuses the JVP of creeping into camps without the knowledge of the commander of the three forces, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and spreading communalism in the forces. more..

Aug 25 (LeN) There are SLFP parliamentaries prepared to cross over to the UNP. This was revealed by SLFP leader and President Mahinda Rajapakse. He had divulged this at the government Parliamentary group meeting held last (22nd) Tuesday at Temple trees. He has stated that he has come to know that few Paliamantaries are planning to cross over to the UNP. more..

Aug 25 (wsws) As the Sri Lankan military continues its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the number of dead and wounded soldiers is rising dramatically. According to the official casualty figures, 159 military personnel have been killed and another 452 injured during fighting since the beginning of August. more..

Aug 25 (TN) Sri Lanka’s government was colluding in the recruitment of children by anti-Tamil Tiger paramilitary groups, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. Warning that the links between the Karuna Group and the government “seem to be very clear,” HRW senior legal adviser James Ross said a new worry for HRW was the abduction of children by the Karuna Group. more..

Aug 25 (TN) A group of Pakistan Air Force officers stationed in Colombo have been guiding the Sri Lankan military in carrying out air-mounted operations against the LTTE, a former counter-terrorism chief of India’s External intelligence says. The Pakistani officers have also been involved in drawing up plans for a decapitation airstrike with bunker-buster bombs to kill LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan, B. Raman says. more..

Aug 25 (TN) Sri Lanka Special Task Force (STF) personnel who came from Navatkerny, a suburb of Batticaloa town, where an STF patrol was targeted in a grenade attack, shot and killed five Tamil youths in the nearby New Muhathuvaram Road Cemetery Junction, 3 km northeast of the town, Thursday night around 7:45 p.m. The killings were carried out by STF men as "revenge killings" for the grenade attack, civilian sources said. more..

Aug 25 (TW) There are three main casualties in the raging war between the government and the LTTE: civilians, combatants, and information, in the alphabetical order. This is a war without reporters, a war about which the citizens as well as the outside world are being kept deliberately uninformed. more..

Aug 25 (TW) Kethesh Loganathan’s decision to join the Rajapakse regime’s “peace” secretariat was bewildering at the time. It still is after his assassination, presumably at the hands of the LTTE. A strong argument can be made that Tamils of conscience – and I don’t mean Lakshman Kadirgamar, a Tamil with U.N. Secretary-General ambitions – should have helped Chandrika Kumaratunga’s peace efforts. more..

Aug 25 (LeN) Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is currently on a European visit met Norwegian Develop Minister Eric Solheim and Monitoring Mission Head Jon Hansen Bauer in Oslo yesterday and held discussions on the present situation in Sri Lanka and the cease-fire agreement. more..

Aug 25 (LBO) Cheque usage in Sri Lanka has rocketed up, after an image clearing system is speeding up clearing, an official said. Sri Lanka's central clearing house, LankaClear (Pvt) Ltd says usage has almost doubled within months of introducing an image clearing and truncation system, which has eliminated the physical transportation of cheques within banks. more..

Aug 25 (ISL) Those enthusiastic about the LTTE should seek Wanni “citizenship” and give their shoulders to their terrorist leaders instead of being a bad example to a new generation of young Sri Lankan Canadians. They could seek help from Canada Immigration to deport them. more..

Aug 25 (ISL) The dam has burst and the current arrests are just a trickle and be ready for the swell and scream of the flood around the corner. Tuesday August 22, 2006 is a day that marked a major turning point in the lives of Canadian Tamils who have been hitherto terrorized by the LTTE for over two decades. They were literally subjected to a Tiger Government on Canadian soil. more..

Aug 25 (AT) Reports from Jaffna reveal of a lull prevailing in the region, despite of a sporadic incidents of aerial bombardments and artillery fire here and there. Reports received in Colombo revealed that Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers Thursday morning bombed Kattaikadu area in LTTE controlled Vadamaradchi East twice yesterday. more..

Aug 25 (DGI) President Mahinda Rajapaksa launched the first ever online Government Information Centre (GIC) Website at Temple Trees last morning. The launching of the Website heralded a novel government culture in the sphere of Information technology in Sri Lanka, dedicated to the provision of accurate government-related information, from a customer-oriented, courteous and well-trained staff, free of charge. more..

Aug 25 (FT) There is a sound that forever haunts the Indian diplomatic establishment: the plaintive notes of “Auld Lang Syne” mockingly played by a Sri Lankan military band as a humiliated Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF), leaving at the request of the government in Colombo, set sail from Trincomalee in March 1990. more..

Aug 25 (CP) The recent arrests of six Canadians accused of trying to obtain weapons on behalf of the Tamil Tigers terrorist group is not a fair reflection of the more than 300,000 Tamils living in this country, the Canadian Tamil Congress said Thursday. “The recent arrests of Canadians in the United States allegedly on terror related charges has shocked and bewildered all of us,” more..

Aug 25 (OC) Money to bribe a U.S. official - traced during an international anti-terrorism probe aimed at the Tamil Tigers - came from Montreal, the FBI said Thursday. And two of the men arrested in the bribery case are former Montreal residents, adding more Canadian connections to a widening probe that has seen six other men from Canada arrested on charges of aiding a foreign terrorist organization, more..

Aug 25 (CP) Sri Lanka’s intensifying violence and its crumbling cease-fire agreement has officials and aid groups concerned about prospects for peace and stability. This past month, Sri Lanka experienced the worst violence since the 2002 cease-fire agreement – which ended a 19-year civil war – between the LTTE rebels and the country’s government. more..

Aug 25 (ANN) Over 6,500 employees are out of work, and Sri Lanka has been losing US$700,000 per day in foreign exchange since June 4, as a result of restrictions imposed by India on hydrogenated vegetable oil exports from Sri Lanka. The operations of 10 vegetable oil and four bakery shortening factories have come to a grinding halt since the first week of June, more..

Aug 25 (SAMN) Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has spent more than Rs. 12 million for his seven overseas trips after being appointed as a Minister in November 2005. Chief Government Whip Jeyaraj Fernandopulle gave this information to Parliament Thursday in response to a question raised by JVP parliamentarian W. Y. M. Navaratne Banda. more..

Aug 25 (SAMN) The master plan on urban transport prepared by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was discussed with feedback from the stakeholders at a meeting organised by the Ministry of Railways and Transport, Ministry of Highways, Road Development Authority and JICA. more..

Aug 25 (SAMN) Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has called on Norway to appeal to the international community to help the internally displaced people in the North and East. Wickremesinghe made this request from the Norwegian Government when he met Minister and peace facilitator Erik Solheim and Ambassador Jon Westborg in Oslo on Wednesday. more..

Aug 25 (SAMN) Japan has decided to delay moves to freeze the assets of the LTTE on Japanese soil owing to the rise in hostilities between the rebels and Government forces, a top Japanese diplomat said Thursday. He said Tokyo was also keen on ensuring Japanese special peace envoy Yasushi Akashi held discussions with LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran before such a move is initiated. more..

Aug 25 (LNP) An employee of the Palmyrah Development Board has been taken into custody in connection with the August 8 Dickman`s Road explosion in which two people, including a policeman, died on the spot and another in hospital. The prime target S. Sivathasan, an ex EPDP Parliamentarian and Chairman of the Palmyrah Development Board, was seriously injured. more..

Aug 25 (LNP) The JVP on Wednesday in parliament requested the UN to extradite UNICEF official Penny Brune from Sri Lanka, now based in Killinochchi, for giving distorted information to the world to suit the LTTE interests. Speaking during the adjournment debate on the grave humanitarian crisis in the North East, JVP parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa said that this official is now staying in Sri Lanka even violating the UNICEF regulations as well. more..

Aug 25 (LNP) Jaffna residents spend their off curfew hours in long queue to withdraw cash at automatic teller machines. Tamil political sources said that monies can only be withdrawn from the ATMs and that too at a maximum of Rs. 3,000/= per withdrawal. `It`s a mad rush during the short time that the curfew is lifted , with people queuing up in large numbers before the few ATM`s at their disposal to withdraw monies needed to buy their daily provisions.` more..

Aug 25 (Gulf) A long-standing dispute between President Mahinda Rajapakse and former president Chandrika Kumaratunga has erupted once again. The recent row follows a remark made by Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike that his sister had been left out from an important function of their political party due to be held next month. more..

Aug 25 (CI) Mahela Jayawardene has been retained as Sri Lanka's captain for the Champions Trophy although Marvan Atapattu is included in the 14-man squad. Prasanna Jayawardene, the wicketkeeper, is the only exclusion from the team named for the cancelled one-day triangular series in Colombo. more..

Aug 25 (CNS) Money to bribe a U.S. official -- traced during an international anti-terrorism probe aimed at the Tamil Tigers -- came from Montreal, the FBI said yesterday. And two of the men arrested in the bribery case are former Montrealers, adding more Canadian connections to a probe that has seen six other men from Canada arrested on charges of aiding a foreign terrorist organization, more..

Aug 25 (HT) Sri Lankan Muslims can now look to India for the protection of their interest because the Indian view of the Muslim question has undergone a sea change since the India-Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987, says Rauff Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the island nation's most influential Muslim political party. more..

Aug 25 (DN) The Committee On Public Enterprises (COPE) will hand over some financial irregularities and corruption running into billions of rupees at the Ceylon Electricity Board and Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to the Criminal Investigations Department and Bribery Commission to probe them, UPFA MP Wijedasa Rajapaksa said yesterday. more..

Aug 25 (WT) The arrests in the past week of supporters of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers is the kind of crackdown needed to bring the separatist rebels back to the negotiating table. Any meaningful cease-fire negotiations in Sri Lanka are predicated on cutting off the influx of money and weapons to the Tigers, forcing talks in order to forge a lasting resolution and not simply to rearm themselves during the break in fighting. more..

Aug 25 (NP) The Canadian Tamil Congress has requested meetings with federal justice officials and the head of the RCMP in a bid to distance itself from the terror-related arrests of six Tamil-Canadians, one of whom used to work for the CTC. "We are deeply concerned at the allegations and the media publicity aris(ing) from the arrests as (they do) not reflect appropriately on the hard working, law-abiding members of the Tamil-Canadian population," more..

Aug 25 (PTI) Two Indian Tamil parties joined the Sri Lankan cabinet on Friday, months after pledging support to the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) party and its rival Up Country's People's Front (UPF) joined the cabinet. The CWC, a political party of Tamils of recent Indian origin, was given one cabinet position and two deputy ministries. more..

Aug 25 (UNCHR) Over the last few days, as our staff has gained greater access to areas of the country previously cut off by fighting, we have dramatically revised the number of people who have had to flee their homes. The number of people displaced since April this year now stands at 204,602. more..

Aug 25 (AP) Sri Lankan air force jets on Friday bombed a Tamil Tiger rebel base in the north, the military said, as the new chief of European monitors overseeing the country's crumbling cease-fire headed for talks with the rebel leadership there. Meanwhile, a passenger ferry left eastern Sri Lanka for the northern peninsula of Jaffna to drop off five doctors and help evacuate hundreds of foreign nationals cut off by the fighting. more..

Aug 25 (AP) A member of Congress who a newspaper said traveled to Sri Lanka on money provided by the Tamil Tigers says he has seen no evidence that the money came from the rebel group, which is considered by the United States a terror organization. The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that the Tigers paid for a seven-day trip by Rep. Danny Davis and an aide to the Indian Ocean island nation. more..

Aug 25 (Reuters) The first aid ship to break a two-week siege of Sri Lanka's northern Jaffna peninsula began to unload on Friday, while another Red Cross-flagged vessel headed in to evacuate foreign nationals. More than three weeks of fighting between the army and Tamil Tiger rebels has forced 180,000 people to flee their homes and created a humanitarian crisis in north and east Sri Lanka. more..

Aug 26 (HT) Joining the government as ministers will protect the Indian Origin Tamils (IOT) in a rapidly communalising and worsening security situation in Sri Lanka, says Arumugan Thondaman, the leader of the biggest Indian Origin Tamil party, Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC). more..

Aug 26 (TN) The leadership of the LTTE, on Friday, decided to release the third Sri Lankan Policeman held in custody since October 2005. The decision was made following a request for goodwill-gesture from the outgoing Head of SLMM Major General Ulf Henricsson, LTTE sources in Kilinochchi said. more..

Aug 26 (TN) A silent protest march was held Friday morning in Mannar town condemning the disappeared Allaipiddy Parish Priest Rev.Nihal Jim Brown. The march began around 10.15 a.m. from Mannar St.Sebastian Church arrived at Mannar District Secretariat building at about 11 a.m. About six thousand people including the Head of the Mannar Diocese and Parish Priests of Pallimunai and Mannar and other several priests, more..

Aug 26 (TN) The outgoing Head of SLMM Major General Ulf Henricsson and the newly appointed Acting Head of Mission, Major General Lars Johan Sølvberg, met Liberation Tigers Political Head Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan in Kilinochchi Friday evening. Mr. Thamilchelvan, on behalf of the LTTE leadership, thanked Maj. Gen. Ulf Henricsson for his courageous and determined efforts, at the risk of his own safety, more..

Aug 26 (DGI) Chief Minister M. KarunanidhiAll Congress Party legislators on Tuesday walked out of the Tamil Nadu State Assembly over a controversy raised on Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's (MDMK) general secretary Mr. V. Gopalaswamy's pro-LTTE speech. more..

Aug 26 (LeN) A person outside the Auditor General's Department is to be appointed as Auditor General. Auditor General H.C.Mayadunne retired on the 11th of this month and Deputy Auditor General W.D.Premaratne was appointed as acting Auditor General for a period of two weeks and that period lapses tomorrow. more..

Aug 26 (LeN) Following Tourism Minister Anura Bandaranaike's hard hitting letter to SLFP General Secretary for not sending an invitation to former President Chandrika Kumaratunga for the Sri Lanka Freedom Party convention, he has sent not just one but two invitations her Colombo office. more..