Jun 7 (GDI) National war heroes’ day will be commemorated today (07) and the main event will take place at the parliament ground in Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte this afternoon and war heroes’ month also begins today. The commemoration pays special tribute to war heroes who laid down their lives or received injuries over the past three decades in the fight against terrorism. more..

Jun 7 (GDI) “The establishment of diplomatic ties between Sri Lanka and Myanmar on 7th June 1948 marked a new beginning in the existing long standing relations between our two countries. The Theravada Buddhist traditions existing between our two countries have always been the pinnacle in the bilateral ties between Sri Lanka and Myanmar. This is evidenced in the Ramanne and Amarapura Buddhist orders established in Sri Lanka” more..

Jun 7 (GDI) Steps will be taken to renovate the network of irrigation tanks in the north with funds provided by the World Bank. It is expected to renovate road and electricity network too, Minister Sarath Amunugama said. He pointed out that the Ministry has made special plans to uplift the agriculture industry. It is expected to conduct a large scale development programme in Jaffna as these tanks are used for agricultural purposes. more..

Jun 7 (GDI) Even before the Health authorities could combat the vast spreading of the dengue fever epidemic which is affecting the population countrywide, a Hepatitis virus has broken out in Badulla, hill country. Health Ministry sources, from the Epidemiology Unit disclosed that several persons living in the 5th mile post in Badulla District are affected by the virus hepatitis. more..

Jun 7 (GDI) The Ministry of Disaster Relief Services has taken steps to commence the third phase of resettling the displaced in north of Mannar and 500 families will be resettled during the third phase, the Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Relief Services and Resettlement U. L. M. Haldeen said. The resettlement includes a programme, through which the displaced would be provided with dry rations for the next six months. more..

Jun 7 (LNP) It could at best be called a dubious distinction Lankan teenagers are ahead of their French counterparts in making their sexual debut. While a French teenager would dabble in sex at the mean age of 17.5 (boy) and 17.2 (girl), Sri Lankan boys are doing it at the age of 15.3 and girls at 14.4. Lankan society cannot be called coy by any standard. That holds true, even if comparatively, for every ethnic group in the country. more..

Jun 7 (CT) Justice Joseph Asoka N. de Silva is to succeed Sarath N. Silva as chief justice, after the latter retired from service today after reaching the retirement age of 65 years, reports said. According to the reports, he is due to take oaths at 2.00 pm tomorrow. Justice de Silva is an expert on Sri Lankan as well as international law. After graduating from the University of Ceylon, he was enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court in December 1972. more..

Jun 7 (LeN) Defence Secretary (Ret) Colonel Gotabhaya Rajapaksa RWP, RSP, Psc is the one man credited for co-ordinating the successful 'war effort' against the LTTE. In a wide ranging Col. Rajapaksa says how he was convinced that only a military solution will work; how a troika outside the Foreign Ministry kept India in the loop during the fighting; and dismisses the need for any investigations into the conduct of the 'war'. more..

Jun 7 (CT) The organizers of the ship 'Captain Ali' have insisted that the Sri Lankan government was informed in advance of the arrival of the ship with humanitarian supplies to Colombo, Sri Lanka. The vessel sent by Mercy Mission UK, was detained by the Navy this week claiming it did not have clearance. It said that on 22 April, a letter addressed to the Sri Lankan president describing the Mercy Mission Project was presented to the Sri Lanka High Commission in London. more..

Jun 7 (CT) Sri Lanka has requested the European Union to consider revising the negative travel advisories to the island they have issued to their citizens. Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha has called for the change, taking into account the significantly changed security situation in the island, 'Daily Mirror' online reported. The Sri Lankan government has also asked EU nations to encourage trade and investment by their business sectors. more..

Jun 7 (AT) The LTTE terror war is over. Tamil political parties yet stand divided. A resolution to the ethnic problem stands at a distance. Can the Tamil politicians blame the government in such a scenario? Tamils have to blame themselves for the division amongst them. The infamous Vadokkodai resolution mooted by the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) seeking a separate state caused division among the Tamils. more..

Jun 7 (PSM) A Bond titled the ‘North East Development Bond’ is to be created along with the Sri Lanka Banks’ Association (SLBA) to fast track the development of the North and East in colloboration with the govt. The SLBA is a guaranteed public company and marketed to the private sector. This mlove will attract investors and guarantee efficient management of the fund invested with a definite return on the investment. more..

Jun 7 (MoD) Brushing off all the allegations that the IDPs in the Northern refugee camps live under squalid conditions, the Chief of Staff and the Competent Authority of the resettlement of the Northern Province Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasiri reiterated that no youth had disappeared from the camps. He said that things in the camps were `progressing speedily' and the government would introduce more programs to make the lives of these civilians, more..

Jun 7 (SO) The number of tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka will hit an all-time record high in two years due to permanent peace in the country, said Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Bernard Goonetilleke. He said that with the war ending, tourism would be one of the first industries to recover completely. The current tourist arrival figures were very low mainly due to the conflict which followed adverse travel advisories against Sri Lanka. more..

Jun 7 (PSM) "We have 720 houses short for the Tsunami affected homeless Muslims in Ampara district. 110 houses were built in Lahugala for Sinhala Tsunami victims in Ampara although only 10 Sinhala families lost their homes. In Tamil areas of the district we have got 300 houses surplus. The JHU has twisted the facts and as a result, the 500 benficiaries are unable to occupy the houses and still languishing in makeshift camps" more..

Jun 7 (SO) Every mission was equally daring for them. Be it either a close air support, dropping bombs on targets causing maximum attrition to the enemy or evacuating injured Army personnel, obviously they were clear targets of the enemy. They, great warriors of the Sri Lanka Air Force are ready to face any enemy, challenge or threat to save their motherland; they are not ready to compromise the sovereignty of the country and for ever their wings will protect the country and its people. more..

Jun 7 (SO) The adult population in Sri Lanka will increase by 27.6 percent of the total population in 2050. It is increasing rapidly due to the ageing process and decrease of fertility. That was revealed at a national symposium on senior elders held at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, organized by the Ministry of Social Services and Social Welfare. A person over 60 years of age is accepted as an elder. more..

Jun 7 (NS) In a strange turn of events, the TNA, which was earlier firmly behind the LTTE, has now made overtures to the moderate Tamil parties like the TULF, the PLOTE and the EPRLF (Padmanabha wing) in the run-up to the Municipal elections in Jaffna and Vavuniya. TNA Parliamentarian N. Srikantha told The Nation yesterday, that they have already held informal discussions with the Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA), comprising the TULF, PLOTE and the EPRLF, to arrive at a common position, on more..

Jun 7 (SO) Over the years, Sri Lankan Buddhists have been celebrating Poson Full Moon Poya day with much devotion and spirit. Devotees will observe sil, engage in religious activities, make Poson pandals, arrange `dansalas’ and reach out to the needy. Poson processions will parade through the streets and as usual people would line the streets to have a glimpse of it. Thousands of articles and books have been written on the significance of Poson Poya, but still there’s a lot more to say. more..

Jun 7 (NS) Human Rights and Disaster Management Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe who returned to the island on Friday after attending the special session on UN Human Rights Council, says Sri Lanka must do everything possible to inform the 12 countries that voted against it, the actual situation of that happens here. The minister said that the government should now go in for an intensified strategy of putting in place a better dialogue and more..

Jun 7 (NS) Terrorism sponsored by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the scourge that haunted Sri Lanka for the past 30 years, has, overnight, become a threat to the West, and it is a development that brings a new dimension to the Sri Lankan ethnic issue. At the height of the war with the Tigers in mid-May, there was unprecedented pressure on the government in Colombo, to let go of the stranglehold they had on the LTTE. more..

Jun 7 (NS) A crucial meeting of the TMVP is likely to take place tomorrow to decide whether or not the party should accept SLFP membership. It is speculated that some of the senior TMVP members had mounted pressure on the party leadership to accept SLFP membership like their former leader Karuna Amman, who is now a non-Cabinet Minister in the UPFA government led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. more..

Jun 7 (NS) Over the past couple of weeks, a certain electronic media station, and certain newspapers, were strongly hinting that several journalists in the country had been having cosy relations with the LTTE. They even went to the extent of charging that these journalists had been taking money from the Tigers. The general public, who have been celebrating the military victory against the LTTE, have now started eyeing the scribes with suspicion. more..

Jun 7 (Island) The Supreme Court in its Thursday’s landmark judgment on the privatisation of the SLIC overruled defendants’ objections that Vasudeva Nanayakkara’s fundamental rights application couldn’t be heard as it had been filed in violation of the constitution. In terms of Article 126 any application on the infringement of FR should be made within one month of the violation-in this case before May 11, 2003, as the now annulled transaction had been finalised on April 11, 2003. more..

Jun 7 (Island) The UNP yesterday accused the government of denying it an opportunity to prepare for forthcoming elections for Vavuniya Urban Council and Jaffna Municipal Council. The main opposition party said the government shouldn’t take advantage of the situation in the North to obstruct legitimate political opposition. more..

Jun 7 (Island) The major player in the country’s beer industry, Ceylon Brewery PLC and its subsidiary, Lion Brewery (Ceylon) PLC, have said in their annual reports that the group "remains committed in its effort to institute a responsible alcohol culture." Both companies were strongly critical about the country’s existing excise policy saying that Sri Lanka had for too long allowed proliferation of a "drunken culture." more..

Jun 7 (Island) Inquiries have revealed that the failed Golden Key Credit Card Co. Ltd induced investors by assuring them that their deposits with the company of the Ceylinco Consolidated wouldn’t be subjected to Withholding Tax (WHT). A disappointed investor told The Sunday Island that the company assured them as their investments had been taken as security deposits for the issue of credit cards, they wouldn’t be liable to WHT. more..

Jun 7 (ST) The glamour and glitter of a military parade at the Galle Face Green on Wednesday evoked the sentiments of two different generations in two different ways. To the old, it was reminiscent of an event on February 4, 1948, when Sri Lanka won Independence from the yoke of colonialism. Then, national leaders hoisted the lion flag at the same venue to mark the birth of a free, independent nation. To the new, it was witnessing history in the making. more..

Jun 7 (ST) Pyjama-clad, on crutches, others on wheelchairs and still others in groups playing carrom or draughts or just chatting – all of them injured soldiers in various stages of rehabilitation. Despite their injuries there is an air of relaxed camaraderie at Ranaviru Sevana, the spacious main rehabilitation centre of the Sri Lanka Army at Ragama, where battle scarred soldiers are cared for and rehabilitated. more..

Jun 7 (ST) Banks involved in the controversial oil hedging deals involving the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) have been making payments to overseas counterparts (banks) despite an order not to do so by the Central Bank (CB), The Sunday Times reliably understands. It is learnt that Standard Chartered Bank, seen as the lead bank in the transactions, has paid at least $100 million (Rs. 11.5 billion) to a counterpart bank in recent weeks while at least one other local bank has also made payments. more..

Jun 7 (ST) The Government is set to release the Syrian flagged MV Captain Ali that is currently detained by the Navy after it illegally crossed into Sri Lanka’s territorial waters with a shipment of humanitarian aid meant for the displaced people in the north, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said. He said the ship and its crew would most likely be asked to leave once investigators were convinced that the shipment did not include any subversive material but had only humanitarian items. more..

Jun 7 (BBC) Australia captain Ricky Ponting has backed his side to bounce back strongly in their must-win World Twenty20 game against Sri Lanka. Ponting's side lost their opening game against West Indies and another defeat would put them out of the competition. "We'll have two weeks in Leicester if we have an early exit here - that won't be good for anybody," joked Ponting. Sri Lanka won one and lost one of their warm-up games but have dangerous batsmen and a varied bowling attack. more..

Jun 7 (TS) Since Mark Steyn, writing in Maclean's, calls me one of the "least soft-headed of Canadian columnists," before complaining I was soft-headed about recent protests by Canadian Tamils, allow me to return the favour. Steyn's a good columnist. That said, I wish he would spend more time disagreeing with what racists say and less time defending their right to say it. In his column: "Tamil questions that can't be asked -- That's because professional ethnic grievance mongers cry 'Racist!' at the drop of a turban," more..

Jun 7 (PTI) Sri Lanka is "100 per cent" sure that its forces killed LTTE intelligence chief during the last phase of army offensive against the rebels, but admitted that Pottu Amman's body could not be identifed as the troops were busy with search and destroy operation, a top official said. "We found the body of LTTE sea tiger chief Soosai. We have identified the bodies of all the leaders except Pottu Amman. more..

Jun 7 (AFP) President on Sunday marked a key Buddhist celebration by granting a pardon to 585 jailed military deserters, officials said. The pardon applied to deserters serving up to a year in jail after being convicted by a military court. The amnesty announcement coincided with Boson, the celebration of the arrival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka more than 2,500 years ago. "They were released from the main prison in Colombo and several other jails across the country," more..

Jun 7 (AFP) Japan will send a special envoy to Sri Lanka this week to discuss the plight of nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians displaced by recent fighting, according to diplomats. Japan, Sri Lanka's largest single aid donor, was sending Yasushi Akashi on a three-day visit starting Monday to assess Colombo's moves to re-settle the war-displaced civilians, a diplomat said. more..

Jun 8 (MB) Poddala Jayantha, Secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association was abducted and assaulted on June 1, 2009. The ‘who’ and the ‘why’ of this attack is yet to be determined and I believe it is of little use to engage in conjecture. On the other hand, this attack is not the first on a journalist. Over the years many journalists have been abducted, attacked and even killed. more..

Jun 8 (BBC) The Supreme Court ruled to demerge the north and east after considering the Sinhala heritage in the provinces, the country's chief justice said. Sarath Nanda Silva told a gathering in Trincomalee that the carefully studied the Sinhala heritage in the region before making the judgment. The Supreme Court ruled in October 2006 that the merger of the north and east provinces in 1987 under the Indo-Lanka accord was against the country's constitution. more..

Jun 8 (BBC) The Sri Lankan navy says it has found only food, medical items and similar goods on board a ship anchored offshore, which was sent by Tamil expatriate groups in Europe. The vessel was intercepted by the navy late on Thursday and the government said the expedition, which started out in two legs from Britain and France in April and May, was intending to help the now defeated Tamil Tiger rebels. But a Tamil spokesman denies this. more..

Jun 8 (AT) Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxemburg and the EU Ravinatha Aryasinha has called on Governments of EU Member States, to facilitate change of perception on Sri Lanka through an early revision of travel advisories, taking into account the significantly changed security situation in Sri Lanka. He also called on them to encourage trade and investment with Sri Lanka by their business sectors, more..

jun 8 (TOI) Union home minister P Chidambaram on Sunday demanded speedy rehabilitation of war-displaced Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka and asked Colombo to decide early on devolution of powers to Tamil-majority areas. Chidambaram called on Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi at the latter's residence here and said after the meeting that they had had discussed steps that ought to be taken now to address the problems of Sri Lankan Tamils. more..

Jun 8 (Hindu) President Mahinda Rajapaksa is all set to make an official visit to Myanmar ‘shortly,’ possibly the first foreign country he would be visiting in the post-war scenario. In a message addressed to Senior General Than Shwe, Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of the Union of Myanmar, Mr. Rajapaksa said: “My visit to the Union of Myanmar this month and the numerous other activities planned to take place in our two countries more..

Jun 8 (CI) Sri Lanka's campaign in the World Twenty20 will be the last to get underway when they play Australia in Nottingham on Monday. The contest is significant because it is Sri Lanka's first international since the players survived the Lahore terror attacks and it's Kumar Sangakkara first game as captain since he took over the leadership from Mahela Jayawardene. The biggest draw of the match, though, is the precarious position Sri Lanka's opponents are in more..

Jun 8 (IPS) For people in Sri Lanka’s war-torn North, for many years life has meant virtually living out of a suitcase while moving from place to place to escape the rigours of war and bloody combat. In the late 1980s when government troops were battling Tamil separatist rebels for control of the northern capital of Jaffna, journalists from the Tamil daily newspaper Udayan - who themselves were fleeing the fighting - printed the newspaper, virtually on the run. more..

Jun 8 (Hindu) Demanding that the world community and the United Nations intervene on behalf of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka, IT professionals and students from medical and engineering colleges took out a procession here on Sunday. More than a hundred people participated in the ‘Rally for Justice’ holding placards condemning the Sri Lankan government and criticising the Indian Government’s inaction. more..

Jun 8 (Hindu) The Sri Lankan government should take steps immediately to help the displaced Tamils in the island nation and devolve powers to them at an early date, said Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Sunday. Talking to reporters soon after meeting Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, he said that the Lankan government should take steps immediately to house the Tamils in safe places, send them to their respective places and provide houses to those who had lost them. more..

Jun 8 (PTI) India was kept updated about the situation in Sri Lanka’s north "from day one" of the security forces’ final assault against the Tiger rebels till the eventual defeat of the LTTE, the powerful defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse has revealed. "From the very beginning, from day one, we kept India very well briefed and we prevented any suspicion being created whether it was because of our relationship with China or Pakistan or anybody else," more..

Jun 8 (AT) Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) chief Thol. Thirumavalavan, who is alliance partner of the Congres-led UPA government at the Centre, said he was disappointed with the President’s address to Parliament. Addressing the media persons here, Thirumavalavan said the address lacked solutions to Sri Lankan Tamils problem and the fate of the Sethusamudram project. more..

Jun 8 (AT) Minister Arumugam Thondaman revived the President Mahinda Rajapaksha’s invitation to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi to visit Colombo, with all-party representatives to review the Tamils’ situation, when he met the latter on Sunday at his residence in Chennai. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister responded that he will be able to consider such an invitation if more..