Colombo denies it rejected LTTE proposal

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 August 2004, 08:29 GMT]
Minister Maithripala Sirisena, the General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), has issued a statement Wednesday denying "there is absolutely no truth in the reports" that quoted him as saying that the Sri Lanka government will not recommence peace talks with the LTTE on the basis of the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) proposals.


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Demo in Jaffna against wrongs in graduate jobs scheme

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 August 2004, 10:03 GMT]
Hundreds of unemployed graduates demonstrated in front of the Jaffna District Secretariat Monday demanding government jobs. A spokesman for the protestors told TamilNet that Jaffna has been neglected in the Sri Lankan government scheme to give jobs to more than thirty thousand graduates in the island. "There 3400 unemployed graduates in Jaffna. But Colombo has announced the names of only 513 of these for employment", he said.
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Mysterious explosion at checkpoint near Batticaloa border

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 August 2004, 09:02 GMT]
A Police constable, two homeguards and a lorry driver received minor shrapnel wounds when a grenade lobbed by unidentified persons near a Sri Lanka military checkpoint at Sevanapitiya on the Batticaloa-Polannaruwa road exploded Sunday night around 8.30 p.m.
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BBC's Harrison leaves

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 August 2004, 00:04 GMT]
Frances Harrison, BBC's Colombo correspondent for the past four years and who is leaving Sri Lanka to her new assignment in Tehran, pointed out in one of her last reports filed that she was troubled by the hardships the family of a murdered Jaffna journalist went through: "As I leave Sri Lanka I have on my mind a journalist called Nimalarajan Mylvaganam. He worked for the BBC in the northern city of Jaffna," she said, adding that Nimalarajan's family had become part of her life during the first eighteen months of her assignement in Sri Lanka.
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Death at noon creates crack in Sri Lanka's defences

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 August 2004, 02:31 GMT]
Mr. Kandaiah Yoharasa alias PLOTE Mohan was the most dreaded Tamil paramilitary operative that ever worked with the Sri Lankan armed forces in their war against the Liberation Tigers. His name once evoked terror among the people of Batticaloa. He was an invaluable if not indispensable part of Sri Lanka's intelligence and counter insurgency operations against the LTTE.
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Sri Lanka in precarious political uncertainty- Uyangoda

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2004, 18:44 GMT]
Warning that extended stalemate between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers may be leading Sri Lanka in a slippery slope towards war, Professor Uyangoda, in a political analysis column in Friday's Daily Mirror, says that "without partnership building premised on mutual trust and respect, there is no way for the UPFA [United Peoples Freedom Alliance] and the LTTE to return to the negotiation table in the foreseeable future."
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White elephant spotted in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2004, 11:31 GMT]
A rare albino elephant has been spotted roaming Sri Lanka's Ruhunu National Park, the first recorded sighting in the country, the website nature.com reported.
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Key paramilitary operative shot dead in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2004, 07:50 GMT]
A person believed to be a senior paramilitary operative working with the Sri Lanka military intelligence was shot dead Saturday around 12.15 p.m. by unidentified gunmen in the heart of Colombo. Paramilitary sources in the capital identified the dead man as the dreaded 'PLOTE Mohan'.
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Jaffna onion farmers face financial hardship

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2004, 04:08 GMT]
Market watchers warned that unplanned cultivation and increasing use of artifical fertilizers to grow onions are leading Jaffna farmers to face a tough market where the price of onions has plunged to less than Rs.12 per kilo in Colombo due to oversupply, Jaffna daily Uthayan reported.
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Anura blames UNP for planting Karuna story

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2004, 00:44 GMT]
Minister and Sri Lanka President’s Advisor Mr.Anura Bandaranaike today castigated former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe for attempting to make him earn the wrath of the Liberation Tigers by planting a concocted story in Colombo media that he transported LTTE renegade leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan (Karuna) to Singapore.


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Two killed in Colombo Police garage explosion

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 July 2004, 10:42 GMT]
A jilted Policeman killed himself and a Woman Police Constable (WPC) by exploding a hand grenade at the Police garage in Narahenpita, a suburb of Colombo Friday around 4 p.m. The WPC had rejected the Policeman's efforts to win her love.
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British HC official to visit Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 July 2004, 17:45 GMT]
Mr.David Waring, First Secretary for Investment and Trade in the British High Commission in Sri Lanka is scheduled to visit east port town of Trincomalee on a fact-finding mission on August 5, Colombo sources said.


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RSF urges Norway to press for journalists' safety in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 July 2004, 11:07 GMT]
Reporters Without Borders Thursday urged Norway to press Sri Lankan authorities to fight impunity with which journalists are attacked in the island, particularly on its east coast. ''Since the killing of a correspondent in Batticaloa region at the end of May, without any condemnation from a single minister, two other journalists have been forced to flee the area and take refuge in the capital'', RSF said.
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SL Government ready to resume peace talks- Cabinet Spokesman

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 July 2004, 10:25 GMT]
The minority United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government said Thursday that it is prepared to commence peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at any time and anywhere. Speaking at the post Cabinet press briefing held Thursday Media Minister Mr. Mangala Samaraweera said that the LTTE should adopt a policy of flexibility in its stand, sources in Colombo said.
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New Killings Threaten Ceasefire- HRW

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 July 2004, 03:01 GMT]
Human Rights Watch, a U.S. based independent nongovernmental organization said in a media release Wednesday, "A spate of killings between factions of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) threatens Sri Lanka’s ceasefire...More than a dozen people have been murdered over the last month in apparently politically motivated killings attributed either to the LTTE or a faction led by the LTTE’s former eastern commander, Colonel Karuna, who broke away from the LTTE in March 2004."
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Norway says peace hopes at new low

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 July 2004, 18:02 GMT]
Hopes that the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers would soon restart peace talks plunged Wednesday after a top Norwegian envoy said there is “little reason for optimism” and warned of a resumption of the protracted ethnic conflict.
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Mannar GA says refugee influx unprecedented

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 July 2004, 15:53 GMT]
''Hundreds of refugees are risking their lives, paying high fares to unscrupulous boatmen, to return from India to their homes in the northeast. The influx of refugees is increasing by the day. It is hence imperative that MPs of the Vanni District should persuade the governments of India and Sri Lanka to let these refugees return legally by ferry or by boats from Mannar,'' said the Government Agent for Mannar Wednesday.
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Corporal Rajapakse remanded in Jaffna prison

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 July 2004, 13:04 GMT]
The Jaffna High Court Judge Mr.K.P.S.Varatharajah Wednesday ordered remand in Jaffna prison till August 4 for Corporal Rajapakse who was cited as the first respondent in seven Habeas Corpus applications filed by relatives of missing persons in Jaffna district during the period 1996-1997 and the inquiry into these cases were fixed for September 6, legal sources said.


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Jaffna IDP families struggle to survive without relief

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 July 2004, 00:11 GMT]
Civil groups in Jaffna are concerned about the plight of thousands of internally displaced families in the Jaffna whose dry ration relief supply has been suspended by the Sri Lanka Government from February this year. Most of the families depended fully on the relief, according to the civil groups.
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Helgesen meets SLMC leader

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 July 2004, 16:07 GMT]
Mr. Vidar Helgessen, Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister is reported to have told Mr.Rauff Hakim, Leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Tuesday that renegade Karuna's affair has become a stumbling block in taking forward the stalled peace talks between the Government Of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to SLMC sources.


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