July 10 (LNP) Some of the southern youth caught up in the so-called nutcracker of terror and counter terror in the late 1980s found an innovative way of escaping death. They took to drinking! For, JVP cadres were teetotalers and the military and the vigilantes did not take drunkards seriously. The JVP, too, saw no threat in someone in an inebriated state, in spite of its aversion to firewater. more..

July 10 (LP) Minister Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan has appealed to the Tamil Diaspora to act wisely and help the President and the government in rebuilding the North and East. He said President Rajapakse pays attention on infrastructure facilities, drinking water, food, sanitary facilities, health and education in the welfare villages and centres in Wanni. more..

July 10 (GDI) Sri Lanka will participate in the 20th International Biology Olympiad to be held in Tsukuba, Japan from 12 - 19 July 2009. Four school children and three Jury members are scheduled to participate at this event. The International Biology Olympiad is an internationally conducted prestigious competition, in which bright students from countries all over the world compete for medals. more..

July 10 (LP) Latest findings on children presented by UNICEF at the fourth SAARC senior officials’ conference on children reveals that Sri Lanka is a very successful example with regard to child mortality. Sri Lanka’s child mortality rate has gone down from 40 to 5 percent from 1940 to 2005. The main reasons behind this success story are high adult literacy rate, institutional development, public health midwives and free health education. more..

July 10 (GV) The continued denial of freedom of movement for over 250,000 innocent men, women and children – including thousands who are injured, some with disabilities, some mentally challenged, some pregnant, many sick and elderly and most of them traumatized – is a serious violation of their rights as citizens of Sri Lanka. To do so even after weaning out over 11,000 individuals who had some form of LTTE connection calls into question the Government’s motives, more..

July 10 (LP) The Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry will increase the number of nurses, doctors and MLTs shortly for the benefit of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) housed in the Welfare centres. According to Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry sources there are a total of 226,908 IDPs in five zones and there is a health care centre for every11, 345 IDPs while there is a doctor for every 3,490 IDPs. more..

July 10 (Hindu) Sri Lanka has denied any plans to build a military base on the Katchatheevu island, ceded by India as per an agreement in 1974, Minister of External Affairs S. M. Krishna told D. Raja of the (CPI), during the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. The issue was raised during the visit by a delegation last month led by Senior Adviser to the Sri Lankan President, Basil Rajapaksa. more..

July 10 (LNW) President Mahinda Rajapakse has said that The Sunday Leader Editor-in-Chief, Lasantha Wickrematunge who was assassinated six months ago had made his last telephone call to him. The President had made this comment in an interview with The Hindu newspaper Editor, N. Ram, which was published on the 8th. Rajapakse had said he could not answer Lasantha’s call that was made minutes before he was assassinated at 10.30 a.m., as he was in the shrine room at the time. more..

July 10 (DN) The Sri Lanka Press Council is not a body designed to harass journalists but aims to create a proper mechanism to educate journalists, attend to their welfare in addition to training and educating them in the profession of journalism, Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said. “The Government has always been committed to stand up for the rights of journalists while ensuring their professional rights since more..

July 10 (CT) NFF leader Wimal Weerawansa says the All Party Conference of Prof. Tissa Vitarana has become annulled following the formation of an all party committee headed by president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Mr. Weerawansa was speaking at a seminar in Colombo on July 07, organized by his party against a federal solution. According to him, Prof. Vitarana would have no position in the new committee. more..

July 10 (CT) Among 10,000 LTTE who were arrested by the Sri Lanka Army, lawsuits will be filed against 1,000 while the rest will be sent for rehabilitation, Army commander General Sarath Fonseka said. He was addressing a function for the launch of ‘The Final Wanni Battle’, a book by journalist Tissa Ravindra Perera. General Fonseka added that the Army has ascertained the names of 10,000 out of the 22,000 LTTE cadres killed in battle.

July 10 (CT) Police have arrested a man who had killed his wife and raped his own 14-year old daughter in the Polonnaruwa area three years ago. He had killed his wife with an axe while she was gathering firewood and then raped his daughter before fleeing the area. Confessing his crimes, the man has said that he worked in a bakery in Dehiwala and married a woman from Bope, Padukka. more..

July 10 (DN) There is a saying 'Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own'. Now the time has come to make our country self- sufficient. The Daily News interviewed the Agriculture Minister Hemakumara Nanayakkara on the actions taken by him to develop agriculture in Sri Lanka. Q: World food prices had gone up during the past two years. more..

July 10 (DN) Agriculture Development and Agrarian Services Minister Maithripala Sirisena told Parliament yesterday that the Malwanegama farm in Talawa belonging to the Agriculture Department had been rented to a private company for a paltry amount of Rs. 575 per acre per year by the then UNP Government in 1992. This 175 acre farm has been handed over to a private company for an annual rent of Rs. 100,000, he said. more..

July 10 (DN) Jaffna’s famous Windsor cinema hall will be turned into a Lak Sathosa outlet within two weeks to bring down the prevailing high prices of essential goods in Jaffna, Trade, Commerce and Cooperatives Minister Bandula Gunawardena told a meeting in Jaffna yesterday. Ministers Bandula Gunawardena, Douglas Devananda, Tissa Karaliyadda and Mahindananda Aluthgamage held discussions with the members of the Jaffna Chamber of Commerce, small and medium traders and farmers more..

July 10 (DM) Dr. Sathyamoorthy, whose astronomical casualty figures formed the basis for dozens of international reports that slammed Sri Lankan government for HR violations, now says he lied. This chief medical officer of Mullaitivu who along with four of his colleagues maintain that they provided grossly distorted facts for survival’s sake, dropped the bombshell after nearly 50 days in CID custody. more..

July 10 (DM) The Police recovered two bodies with gunshot injuries from two different locations in Colombo. One of them is believed to be that of a most wanted underworld leader called “Anamalu Imthiyaz”. Pettah Police had found Imthiyaz’s body in Old Moor Street last morning. Police believe he had been shot elsewhere and dumped in Old Moor Street. He was reported to have been abducted in Kuliyapitiya a few days ago by an unidentified gang. more..

July 10 (DM) The Kandy High Court yesterday acquitted Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) leader Arumugam Thondaman and two others from Primary Court sentence suspended for six months in connection with a building dispute in Nuwara Eliya. The High Court Judge revised the order of the Nuwara Eliya Primary Court issued by Ms. Amali Ranaweera on July 29, 2008 and acquitted Thondaman, CWC MP Muttu Sivalingam and Provincial Councillor, V. Radhakrishnan. more..

July 10 (DM) The UN said yesterday that, despite new information that has come to light, it would not be reassessing the number of casualties it reported during the period of conflict. Gordon Wiess, the UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka, told Daily Mirror that the organisation stood by its initial assessment of civilian casualties, although Doctors from the North admitted to having misled international organisations via reports from the no fire zone. more..

July 10 (Island) Political appointees serving as heads of Sri Lankan Embassies, High Commissions and Missions heavily outnumber those from the Foreign Service. A majority - 70 per cent – occupying key posts are from outside the Sri Lankan Overseas Service while career diplomats have been reduced to a minority of 30 percent, Parliament was told yesterday. Of the 56 Sri Lankan diplomatic missions top posts in 27 are held by political appointees while only 17 are headed by career diplomats. more..

July 10 (Island) The CID declined to comment on investigating fraud with regard to the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) privatisation deal. "We cannot comment on anything in order to maintain secrecy and covertness with regard to investigations. I am afraid I cannot say anything with regard to the matter," CID head, DIG Nandana Munasinghe told the Island Financial Review in response to a question whether or not the CID was carrying out investigations. more..

July 10 (Island) The JVP yesterday said that the Minister of Cultural Affairs was absconding from Parliament since the day the party had raised the issue of artifacts missing from the National Museum. JVP MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake told parliament yesterday that his party had revealed to the House that an ancient sword and a statue of Hindu Deity Natarajah, taken from the Museum to be displayed at the Dayata Kirula Exhibition, had gone missing. more..

July 10 (ANN) The JVP on Thursday charged in Parliament that some Ministers were making threatening phone calls to themselves in order to get additional security personnel allocated to them. JVP Colombo District MP Lakshman Nipunarachchi said that it is understandable that the President and few others needed extra security. But it did not mean that all those who rush about with sirens blaring and armed escorts are under threat. more..

July 10 (Island) As the number of dengue patients in the country escalated to 14,700 and the number of dengue deaths remained static at 163, the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), said the Health sector had failed to do its maximum in controlling the situation. The health sector has not done its maximum to fight dengue. The reason is that there is very little coordination and education on dengue. more..

July 10 (EB) The INDRA Mark II radars gifted by India to Sri Lanka, had spotted every LTTE aircraft that had raided civil and military targets in South Sri Lanka during the just concluded Eelam War IV. If the Flying Tigers got away unscathed, it was not because the Indian radars had failed to spot them, but because there were other deficiencies or difficulties. As the Indian radars were 2D, and the Sri Lankans wanted 3D radars, two Chinese YL 16 radars were ordered. more..

July 10 (EB) A local court here has come to the rescue of five Sri Lankan crew of an abandoned vessel which got drifted in the high seas and reached the Kochi coast. The Judicial First Class Magistrate Court ordered detention of the vessel, M T Malakas, at the Cochin Port till further orders. The plight of the crew came up before the court after the International Transport Workers’ Federation Inspectorate here and more..

July 10 (BBC) The recently appointed new Chief Justice (CJ) in Sri Lanka says he is ready to reform the way judicial services are administered in Sri Lanka. In the first ever interview with the media since taking office last month, new CJ Asoka de Silva told BBC Sandeshaya that he will soon announce reforms to the Judicial Services commission (JSC) that controls transfers and disciplinary action within the judiciary. more..

July 10 (AFP) They begin each day saluting the national flag of the country they had vowed to defeat or die trying. Gone are the cyanide capsules that, like all Tamil Tiger rebels, they had worn around their necks for use if captured by the Sri Lankan military. In their place hang religious symbols -- a substitution that perfectly reflects the image Sri Lanka wants the world to see: Its former enemies on the path to redemption and rehabilitation. more..

July 11 (BBC) The International Bar Association (IBA) has welcomed the commitment expressed by the new Chief Justice (CJ) of Sri Lanka to reform the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) and strengthen the rule of law. Newly appointed CJ, Asoka de Silva, told BBC Sandeshaya that he is taking steps to reform the JSC as there have been concerns of favouritism within the judicial services during the tenure of his predecessor. more..

July 11 (LBO) A Sri Lankan government aid package for the tea industry to recover from a crash in prices is being disbursed only slowly, a senior industry official said. Sri Lanka tea board chairman Lalith Hettiarachchi said the regulator had evaluated and recommended to banks over 400 applications from regional plantations companies and private tea factory owners. The recommended loans have exceeds two billion rupees. more..

July 11 (CI) New Zealand's five-match bilateral ODI series in Sri Lanka has been replaced by a tri-series also featuring India that will run from September 8-14. The four-game tournament, the dates for which were announced today, had been firmed up last month during the ICC meeting at Lord's. All matches will be played at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. The rest of New Zealand's tour schedule has also been tweaked. more..

July 11 (TN) Fisheries Minister and Aquatic Resources, Felix Perera, told representatives of the Fisheries Societies in Jaffna peninsula that the current restrictions on fishing in Jaffna lagoon and in the seas of the islets of Jaffna will not be lifted until new radars are installed between Mannaar and Poonakari, on being requested to lift the existing restrictions which continue even after more..

July 11 (LG) UNP M.P. and Gen. Secretary Tissa Attanayake addressing the media at the UNP media unit said, this is the first time Sri Lanka witnessed a Government which succeeded in breaking the record on promise breaking. Since this Govt. came to power it has been ruthlessly riding on the backs of the people giving false promises at elections time only to be broken at its whims and fancies after winning. more..

July 11 (GDI) All plans are afoot to hold the annual feast of Our Lady of Madhu on a grand religous and spiritual scale starting begining August 6, with Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa, MP, personally monitoring the arrangements for the convenience of the pilgrims. A discussion was held today at the Presidential Secretariat chaired by Basil Rajapaksa, MP with the participation of Catholic clergy and more..

July 11 (AlertNet) Sri Lanka has asked aid agencies to scale down operations on the Indian Ocean island now that a 25-year insurgency by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has ended. The move has raised concerns among aid groups about the care of some 300,000 people, mostly Tamils, who were uprooted during the last phase of the fighting that ended in May and are now being held in government-run camps. more..

July 11 (Stuff) Northern Districts have pulled off a notable coup by signing star Sri Lankan batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan for their Twenty20 cricket campaign. Dilshan was the highest run-scorer at the recent Twenty20 World Cup in England, notching up 317 runs at an average of 52 with a strike rate of 144 as Sri Lanka finished runners-up to Pakistan. The 32-year-old will turn out for the Northern Knights in the domestic Twenty20 competition this summer. more..

July 11 (NYT) When the piercing whistle and sharp thuds of artillery shells grew faint, S. Theventhran dashed to safety. After days of cowering in a narrow, open trench on a strip of beach in the northeastern corner of Sri Lanka, he was cheered by the sight of Sri Lankan Army soldiers helping wounded and terrified survivors of the last stand of the Tamil Tiger rebels, who had held nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians hostage. more..

July 11 (AT) Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka inaugurated the Fourth SAARC Ministerial Conference on Children at Hilton Colombo on 10 July. Chairman of the SAARC Council of Ministers, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama was also present at the Inauguration Ceremony. Addressing the gathering, Prime Minister Wickramanayaka, Chief Guest on the occasion stated that the well-being of the region’s children requires political action at the highest levels and more..

July 11 (Hindu) It is a fairy tale happy re-union for Thuraiyappah Sathayaseelan, an Assistant Director in the Sri Lanka Ministry of Education, from a camp in Vavuniya for the war displaced to his family and colleagues at Vadamarachi. The case of Mr. Sathaseelan was reported in The Hindu dated May 28 (Senior Tamil officer in search of his family). The officer who would attain his retirement age of 60 on October 31 was working in the Zonal Education Office at Vadamarachi in Jaffna peninsula. more..

July 11 (GV) With the end of the ground campaign, the death of the Tamil Tiger leadership and the unification of the island of Sri Lanka under one authority, the Sinhala majority can truly say their war has been won. But now the people of Sri Lanka are faced with the daunting task of rebuilding their country, making up for all the lost years and taking their rightful place as a prosperous, vibrant island nation in a region of the world where economic success can only be held back by instability or despotism. more..

July 11 (GV) As a journalist, there is almost no end to the diversity of people I meet on a day-to-day basis. I was covering an event this morning with a colleague and was accosted by a lady who asked to speak to me in private to which I agreed, thinking that maybe I could ask her for an interview after the event. She introduced herself as a counselor who worked with children and then more..

July 11 (Hindu) Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said his greatest ambition is to educate the Tamil children in the Northern and Eastern provinces like the children in the Southern province. Also on Thursday, Army Chief Sarath Fonseka said nearly 300 soldiers died in the last two weeks of Eelam War IV and that the number of soldiers killed in the last three years stood at 5,200. more..

July 11 (LG) Prabhakaran on the run was an incredible sight to the world that was made to believe in his inexhaustible and mystical “military genius”. He, like his followers (one of which is Erik Solheim), believed in this fiction not because he had the capacity to bring down the Sri Lankan government to its knees, but because the successive Sri Lankan government lacked the will to take him on. more..

July 11 (LG) Foreign Minister of Bangladesh Dr. Dipu Moni who is in Sri Lanka to attend the Fourth SAARC Ministerial Conference on Children held on 9 – 10 July 2009 in Colombo, met with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on 10 July 2009 at the Ministry. Welcoming the visiting Foreign Minister, Minister Bogollagama referred to the excellent relations that the two countries have maintained for decades. more..

July 11 (LG) The debate on devolution and the 13th amendment between Malinda Seneviratne and me has pretty much reached its terminus. It no longer covers new ground. Malinda’s rejoinder (The Island, Friday July 10, 2009) to my reply (of the previous day) merely rehashes his known position and arguments. Another round and the debate will become almost totally ideological. Therefore I shall limit myself to a few points and observations. more..

July 11 (TC) It was said that Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister was like a Banyan tree. Not even a blade of grass could grow under it. He was always the centre of attention. Muttiah Muralitharan has played the same role among Sri Lankan spin bowlers. Not only have many batsmen failed to smother Murali's spin, but he has smothered the careers of many capable spinners. more..

July 11 (LT) The JVP made a special statement in Parliament today regarding serious irregularities that have occurred in re-scrutinizing of the A/L answer scripts. In presenting the special statement JVP MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake said as a result of not finding solutions for the chaotic situation that exists in the education sector the education of students is in crisis. more..

July 11 (TC) Many in Batticaloa will note this month the centenary of the birth on 1 July 1909 of Mr V Nalliah who represented Trincomalee-Batticaloa in the State Council from 1943 and Kalkudah in Parliament till 1956. Batticaloa’s debt to Nalliah as the most vigorous Numerous small and large educational institutions all over the region including the Teachers Training College in Batticaloa and more..