Mar 3 (SLA) An abducted civilian has managed to escape from an LTTE office in the general area of MAVADIVEMBU, about 19 km northwest of BATTICALOA town on 28 Feb. The civilian has been abducted on 27 Feb around 11.30 a.m. in exchange of his son while he was at his residence more..

Mar 3 (SLA) An LTTE boat movement from MULLAITTIVU to ILLANKANTHAI and back in the general sea area of MULLAITTIVU was monitored by representatives of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and Naval troops on 02 March 2003. more..

Mar 3 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's central bank left its key repurchase and reverse repurchase rates unchanged on Monday before conducting active open market operations under a new daily money market auction system. more..

Mar 3 (Reuters) Stocks ended slightly lower on Monday in thin trade as investors watched developments over a possible war in Iraq. The key Colombo all-share index finished down 0.37 percent, or 2.80 points, at 745.74 points. more..

Mar 3 (DOI) Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, now on an official visit to India, has explained plans for bringing the two countries closer, with a road network that would one day stretch from Hambantota to Mumbai. more..

Mar 3 (DOI) The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission is to convince the LTTE that they should comply with the rulings of the truce monitors as a signatory to the ceasefire agreement, when Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen and his Deputy Vidar Helgesen meet the LTTE leaders in Kilinochchi. more..

Mar 3 (DOI) Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the government are determined to provide electricity to the entire Jaffna district during this year, Power and Energy Minister Karu Jayasuriya announced yesterday. more..

Mar 3 (DOI) The 'Resources Development Act' that will facilitate oil exploration in Sri Lanka is to be forwarded to Parliament within the next couple of months, Karu Jayasuriya, Minister of Power and Energy told the Daily News yesterday. more..

Mar 3 (DOI) The Railways Department has launched a special programme to ensure the proper management of Department land rented out to different entities and individuals. The Department will re-estimate the value of all land and change the rents according to their current values. more..

Mar 3 (DM) Forum for Human Dignity has appealed to President Chandrika Kumaratunga not to re-introduce the barbaric death penalty and to make every effort to abolish this sentence in this country. more..

Mar 3 (UNI) Sri Lankan Airlines today announced the launch of flights on the Colombo-Kochi route, commencing on April 22. According to Airline Sales Manager in Kerala Asha Subramanian to begin with, three Airbus-A320 flights would be operated every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, on this route. more..

Mar 3 (SAPA) The Sri Lankan cricket side apparently threatened to boycott the crunch World Cup game against South Africa if an appeal lodged with the International Cricket Council was not upheld. more..

Mar 3 (DJ) The government issued external gateway licenses to 20 telecommunications firms Monday as part of liberalizing the telecoms sector. Up to 40 firms made inquiries after the government last month said it will issue an unlimited number of external gateway licenses, more..

Mar 3 (DN) Talented and hard-working teachers are being sidelined, said Education Minister Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku. School discipline in the Western Province has already been ruined with the appointment of unqualified persons for executive posts and offering positions to political henchmen overlooking qualified persons. more..

Mar 3 (AP) The Tamil Tigers' chief negotiator Anton Balasingham met with the rebel group's leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran amid tight security on Monday to map out strategies ahead of the sixth round of peace talks with the government, officials said. more..

Mar 3 (Reuters) Opener Marvan Atapattu struck his ninth one-day international century to lift Sri Lanka to an imposing total of 268 for nine in their crunch World Cup Group B match against South Africa on Monday (South African time). more..

Mar 4 (BBC) The Tamil Tiger rebel group in Sri Lanka has confirmed it has turned to South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) for advice in transforming from a military to a political group. The Tigers consider themselves a liberation movement and have always supported the ANC. more..

Mar 4 (CI) Hosts South Africa were knocked out of the World Cup in bizarre and cruel circumstances after a rain affected tie in their crunch clash against Sri Lanka at Durban on Monday night. more..

Mar 4 (Hindu) The chief negotiator of the LTTE, Anton S. Balasingham, today discussed with his leader, V. Prabakaran, the strategy to be adopted at future rounds of peace talks. According to LTTE sources, the meeting "lasted for about two-three hours". more..

Mar 4 (TOI) South African captain Shaun Pollock conceded that a miscalculation in the dressing room cost his team the chance of victory over Sri Lanka after Monday's rain-affected tie sent the hosts tumbling out of the World Cup. more..

Mar 4 (DM) While the common man is being heavily burdened by the skyrocketing food prices, the parliamentarians seem to be a lucky lot with the prices of their food bills remaining unchanged for more than two decades. more..

Mar 4 (Island) The LTTE has demanded a sum of Rs 55million from T. Maheswaran the Minister of Hindu Cultural Affairs to be paid before March 31. Pending the money demanded , the transportation of goods from Colombo to Jaffna have been prohibited by the LTTE, the sources said. more..

Mar 4 (TN) About twenty percent of students in the North-East province have been identified as children with special needs as majority of them have been mentally and physically affected by the twenty-year-old war, and about seventy five percent of these students have not received any specialized medical attention, more..

Mar 4 (TN) The nine-member team of the Infrastructure Development Institute (IDI) of Japan, which is on a fact-finding mission in the northeast province since February 28, visited Trincomalee Monday. more..

Mar 4 (TN) MEDICINS SANS FRONTIERS (MSF), an international non-governmental medical and humanitarian organisation which is providing medical assistance to people in the northeast province Monday expressed confidence that the ceasefire agreement between the Government and the LTTE will lead to permanent peace in the island more..

Mar 4 (TN) More than two hundred volunteer teachers from Batticaloa and Amparai districts Monday launched a picketing campaign in front of the office of the North East Provincial Ministry of Education in Trincomalee demanding that they should be made permanent immediately as given assurance earlier, sources said. more..

Mar 4 (SLA) Six fishermen engaged in illegal practices of catching fish with use of explosives in the general area of MANNAR were taken into custody by Naval troops on 03 March 2003. The suspects and their items were handed over to the MANNAR Police for further investigations. more..

Mar 4 (SLA) A group of local fishermen from PESALAI had captured seventy five Indian fishermen along with their twenty Indian fishing trawlers in PESALAI, about 15 km northwest of MANNAR on 03 March 2003 around 8.30 p.m. while they were poaching inside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters more..

Mar 4 (Dawn) There are some good deeds in this bad old world. There are some bitter enmities and bloody wars that can end in peace. There is always hope , practical hope - if only you want it enough. Which is where Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland come in. more..

Mar 4 (Reuters) Sri Lanka stocks ended lower on Tuesday in paltry trade as investors remained on the sidelines due to fears of a war in Iraq, brokers said. The key Colombo all-share index closed down 0.34 percent, or 2.57 points, at 743.50 points. more..

Mar 4 (DOI) The International Humanitarian Law Conference was held with the participation of 90 Judicial Officers from the North-East and North Central Provinces at the Grand Oriental Hotel Colombo on Saturday. more..

Mar 4 (DOI) The Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission Gen. Trond Furuhovde and his successor Tryggve Tellefsen will take up the matter of releasing the Army soldier and the Police officer under the LTTE custody when they meet LTTE leadership in Kilinochchi tomorrow. more..

Mar 4 (DN) The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probing a massive racket on container cargo at the Colombo Port yesterday questioned at length a senior Binder attached to the Government Press, Colombo. more..

Mar 4 (Gulf) Sri Lanka' ruling United National Front (UNF) is being accused of election malpractices in a local poll where they have not been able to contest the election due to a default in their nomination list. more..

Mar 4 (Gulf) LTTE chief negotiator Anton Balasingham has met with his leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in northern Sri Lanka to plan for the next round of talks to be held in Japan, as the Scandinavian monitors and Norwegian facilitator prepare to take up a host of issues related to cease-fire violations. more..

Mar 4 (AP) After bouncing back from a defeat by minnow Kenya and then securing a berth in the Super Sixes with a thrilling victory over South Africa, Sri Lanka can go on to win the World Cup again, the nation's cricket chief said Tuesday. more..

Mar 4 (BBC) Seventeen Indian fishermen have been taken to hospital in the northern Sri Lankan island of Mannar after a clash with local fishermen. The incident took place at sea on Monday night when, according to the Sri Lankan fishermen, their Indian rivals entered their waters and when chased away, threw stones and bottles. more..

Mar 4 (AP) The government and Tamil Tiger rebels are set to hold their first meeting on women's issues as part of efforts to end a 19-year ethnic conflict, officials said Tuesday. During talks in January, the warring parties appointed a women's committee to ensure the active participation of women in the peace process. more..

Mar 4 (AFP) The UN agency for children Tuesday opened fresh talks with Tamil Tiger rebels on children affected by Sri Lanka's drawn out ethnic conflict and efforts to demobilise child soldiers, officials said. more..

Mar 4 (PTI) The Government today assured the Rajya Sabha that it would take all steps to ensure early release of Tamil Nadu fishermen who were taken into custody by Sri Lankan authorities. "We will definitely take up with appropriate authority (Sri Lanka) in appropriate fashion for arranging early release of Tamil Nadu fishermen," more..

Mar 4 (Reuters) Sri Lanka has decided to offer amnesty to about 51,000 deserters who fled army ranks during a 19-year ethnic war with Tamil Tiger rebels, an official said on Tuesday. The government has begun peace talks with the rebels to end the war and is finding it easier to hold together an army of 120,000 that saw soldiers flee during years of bloody battles. more..

Mar 5 (TN) Rehabilitation Minister Dr.Jayalath Jayawardene Monday instructed Jaffna's Government Agent to take back all vehicles handed over to the chairmen of local authorities by the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority for the North (RRAN) when elected councils administered these institutions, district secretariat sources said. more..

Mar 5 (TN) The TNA Member of Parliament, Mr. A. Chandraneru, has requested in a letter to the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, that the police checkpoint operating from the Cultivation Services Office at Periyaneelavanai in the Ampara district should be removed, sources said. more..

Mar 5 (Xinhua) The president has said there is a renewed threat on her life from repeated accusations by Tamil Tiger chief negotiator Anton Balasingham that she is an obstacle to the peace process, The Island newspaper said on Tuesday. more..

Mar 5 (Island) The General Secretary of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) Batty Weerakoon has claimed that the present ceasefire agreement (MoU) needed comprehensive revision if the peace process was to be taken forward in a manner that gained confidence of the Tamil people themselves, the Muslims and the Sinhalese. more..

Mar 5 (TN) The head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Tryggve Tellefsen, officially met with LTTE’s senior commander, Col. Karuna, at Karadiyanaru in the LTTE controlled area in Batticaloa on Tuesday, sources said. more..

Mar 5 (JT) The five rounds of talks in as many months between the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE, are perhaps the most significant development in South Asia in almost two decades. The discussions began after the two sides called a truce. more..

Mar 5 (Hindu) The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the UNICEF today agreed on a set of measures to be taken by the rebels to address the sensitive issue of child recruitment by the Tigers. more..

Mar 5 (LBO) Pramuka Bank Stakeholders Association is urging Central Bank to quickly give the information required by Janashakthi Capital for their restructure proposal, before the firm loses interest. more..

Mar 5 (LBO) SriLankan Airlines has sought Civil Aviation Authority approval to raise outbound airfares by US$ 5 per sector. The airline has sought the increase, as fuel prices have shot up by 10 percent to 12 percent over the past three-months due to Middle East tension. more..