June 3 (AT) Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission will ascertain whether there was any advance notice of caution extended in the form of bit-notices, pamphlets or as wall posters - warning the LTTE to leave the Batticaloa – Amparai region immediately. more..

June 3 (AT) LTTE has sought the assistance of the Sri Lankan Army to settle scores with the rival renegade factions in the Batticaloa- Amparai districts. Since of late it is evidenced that the rival and renegade factions of the Tamil rebel outfit gaining an upper hand in the East and they have surprisingly targeted many of its supporters. more..

June 3 (NW) The Government's anti dengue campaign was being stepped up today in a clean-up programme at the Health Ministry where potential mosquito breeding sites will be destroyed, a top Ministry official said yesterday. more..

June 3 (NW) Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and Army Commander Lionel Balagalle will retire at the end of this month when he reaches 59 years of age once his third extension as Army Chief expires, a top Defence Ministry official said. more..

June 3 (NW) Unclaimed bodies now totalling about 40 have been lying for a long time at the Colombo Police Mortuary. Expressing concern over the problem, Additional City Coroner Rumy Ashroff said when a body is found in a particular police area, a search should be conducted to trace the identity of the deceased. more..

June 3 (DN) Minister Anura Bandaranaike has opened a can of worms in his crusade to clean up the Board of Investment (BOI). Mr. Bandaranaike told a media briefing, Tuesday, that the former BOI chief Arjuna Mahendran had allegedly made a colossal 79 trips abroad during his two year tenure more..

June 3 (AFP) Sri Lankan security forces and Tamil Tiger rebels have agreed to take joint action to stem a wave of killings that has undermined their fragile truce. Top commanders from the two sides met in the eastern district of Batticaloa Wednesday as residents there staged a strike to protest the latest killing of a Tamil journalist, military officials said. more..

June 3 (OW) Sri Lanka's Tamil media is being swept into violent battles between the two factions of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas, with the killing of a veteran journalist this week sending shockwaves among the beleaguered community. more..

June 3 (AFP) Sri Lanka's peacebroker, Norway, has agreed to maintain efforts to revive the island's stalled peace talks despite a deadlock in arranging an agenda, the main opposition here said. more..

June 3 (LBO) Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) says it has just plugged in a Rs. 60 mn revenue seepage, which was discovered after its new US$ 20 mn billing system kicked in. The telecom giant says around four million minutes of international inpayment calls were not billed, while nearly 3,000 customers were not sent invoices. more..

June 3 (LBO) The Treasury is considering the possibility of taking on the cost of thermal electricity generation to ease the CEB’s cash crunch. CEB sources say the Treasury is now considering, among other measures, the feasibility of taking on the cost of thermal electricity generation to ease the CEB’s financial difficulties. more..

June 3 (AFP) The Sri Lankan and US armies will jointly host a peacekeeper training exercise that will also include troops from Bangladesh, Mongolia and Nepal, a military official said Thursday. The Multinational Platoon Exercise starting next week is aimed at grooming soldiers for United Nations peacekeeping operations, more..

June 4 (TN) "The Government of Sri Lanka should take prompt action to bring the culprits who had been responsible for the brutal killing of a senior Tamil journalist Mr. Iyathurai Nadesan to book", Mr.Sunanda Desapriya, leading activist of the Free Media Movement (FMM) in Colombo Thursday appealed more..

June 4 (TN) Colonel Banu of LTTE Thursday afternoon declared open the eleventh "Thyaga Theepam" Thileepan Medical Service Medical Unit of LTTE in the village Pattalipuram in the LTTE held Muttur east, down south of Trincomalee town. more..

June 4 (TN) Dr Roland F.Steurer, Director of German Development Co-operation based in Colombo Tuesday declared open a school building constructed at a cost of about 10 million rupees by the NECORD project in Sithoor Muslim Vidiyalayam in Iqbal Nagar which is located about eight km off north of Trincomalee town more..

June 4 (IL) Eelam Peoples DEmocratic Party (EPDP) Secretary General and Minister K.N. Douglas Devananda in a statement said that it was very painful to see the lives of Tamils with alternate views and democrats being taken away by the brutal culture of murders committed by “unknown persons”. more..

June 4 (AT) V. Suryanarayanan, former director, Madras University South and Southeast Asian Studies, today said the emergence of a third naval force in the Sri Lankan waters — the Sea Tigers, naval wing of the LTTE — posed a grave threat to the interests of India and Sri Lanka. more..

June 4 (AT) JVP has urged the international community to bring pressure on the LTTE, the Sri Lankan Tamil rebel outfit to give up its precondition of an Interim Self Governing Authority - Interim self rule as the basis to kick start the stalled peace process. more..

June 4 (TP) Ruling coalition’s main partners — the SLFP and the JVP — at five hours of intensive talks that ended at midnight on Monday, agreed on an increase in the number of cabinet ministers and reached a consensus on other vital issues like the peace process, informed sources were quoted as saying. more..

June 4 (NW) In a case filed yesterday by former Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) Member of Parliament, Ven. Kathaluwe Rathanaseeha Thera in the Colombo District Court seeking to restrain Ven. Akmeemana Dayarathana from acting as a member of Parliament, he claims he was abducted from his temple by a group of JHU monks including its leader. more..

June 4 (NW) Transport Minister Felix Perera vowed to take stern action against those responsible if the cause of yesterdays derailment was proved to be sabotage.He said officials would be briefed today in order to carry out further investigations. more..

June 4 (NW) The Supreme Court fixed for support a Fundamental Rights petition of Uruwarige Kekula, a Sri Lankan aborigine from Damana, Mahiyangana, against Mahiyangana Police who had allegedly remanded him when he confessed his inability to make a statement in Sinhala. more..

June 4 (NW) Responding to accusations by the LTTE about alleged military links to killings staged by the Karuna faction, the Defence Ministry yesterday asked the SLMM to prevail upon the Tigers not to make wild allegations. more..

June 4 (NW) In an apparent reaction to an appeal by the co-chairs of the Sri Lanka aid conference the JVP said yesterday whoever was distressed over the delay in the resumption of peace talks should pressurize the LTTE to withdraw its insistence on the Interim Self Governing Authority. more..

June 4 (TN) "Brussels aid conference has told the Sri Lankan government to commence peace talks immediately with the LTTE if the 4.5 billion dollars aid pledged in Tokyo is to be disbursed for development. This clearly shows that the international community has understood and accepted our freedom struggle," more..

June 4 (SLA) Naval troops on duty have observed two Indian fishing trawlers engaged in poaching on the general area south of DELFT ISLAND in Sri Lankan waters on 02 June 2004.

June 4 (SLA) A top-level US delegation, in what described as a visit of goodwill and appreciation, is to arrive in Sri Lanka to attend the graduation ceremony of the US sponsored first Mine Detection Dogs (MDD) and Mine Detection Dog handlers course, more..

June 4 (PSL) Values, ethics and civic consciousness are to be introduced into the school system. The Education Ministry now under the President has devised co-curricular activities and special assignments. more..

June 4 (CO) An agreement has been reached on many issues concerning fishermen during the talks between leaders of the Indian and Sri Lankan Fishermen's Association at Mannar in Sri Lanka. more..

June 4 (AN) The bodies of the two Sri Lankans killed in the Alkhobar terror attack were taken to Colombo by Sri Lankan Airlines Flight No. 264 from Dammam yesterday. The next of kin of Sivasubramaniam and Chandana Pradeep Anthony will formally receive the bodies when the airlines reach Colombo at 6 a.m. today. more..

June 4 (Dawn) Pakistan and Sri Lanka are likely to develop consensus on scaling down custom duty on 2-4 items to finalize the much awaited free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries. An official source told Dawn on Thursday that an official delegation has left for Colombo to negotiate duty reduction on these items. more..

June 4 (CT) A petition was submitted today to the Supreme Court, seeking an urgent order banning the use of images of Lord Buddha for commercial purposes. The Ven. Daranagama Kusaladhamma Thera of the Sambodhi Vihare in Colombo forwarded the petition citing the Inspector General of Police and Director General of the Customs Department as respondents. more..

June 4 (CT) According to Treasury Secretary Dr. P B Jayasundara, the government plans to streamline its revenue collecting units and give legislative powers to new taxes that were proposed in the previous budget. more..

June 4 (EUB) Sri Lanka Friday showcased a free trade agreement with neighbouring India that has boosted bilateral commerce in a bid to attract fresh investment from Europe. Sri Lanka's BOI told that they could take advantage of the island's incentives including tax concessions and also have access to the vast Indian market due to the free trade pact. more..

June 4 (CT) The Indian central government would fast track a proposed Colombo-Tuticorin ferry service once it receives the views of Tamil Nadu, which had opposed it on grounds of national security. more..

June 4 (AN) The next of kin of the two Sri Lankans who were killed in the Alkhobar attacks have been promised substantial compensation by the men’s Saudi sponsor. The families of both Sivasubramaniam and Chandana Pradeep Anthony will receive salaries from Saad Trading and Contracting Establishment. more..

June 4 (AFP) A convict who joined his prison's dance troupe escaped when his jailers took him to perform at a Buddhist temple, an official. The prisoner, serving a four-year jail term for robbery, vanished when he was brought from the main prison in the central town of Kandy three days ago for the temple ceremony, more..

June 4 (G2L) A group of heavily armed LTTE cadres stormed a Hindu temple in Batticaloa on Tuesday during a religious festival, chased away the devotees, removed and killed two former LTTE combatants. more..

June 4 (DN) The President's Office states that the Government has appointed a Committee of Officials to review the cases of appointments in statutory bodies and Government Departments in the period between the dissolution of Parliament and the General elections on April 2 more..

June 4 (Gulf) Pro-guerrilla groups are planning a major protest in the northern and eastern parts of the country against the killing of a Tamil journalist as guerrillas prepared to step up their campaign against a rival group blamed for the assassination. more..

June 4 (PRIU) Ambassador of Japan, Akio Suda called on Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar at the Foreign Ministry yesterday to discuss ways and means of broadening and deepening the long standing friendly relations between the two countries. more..

June 4 (FL) It was a sizable audience that had assembled at the Museum Theatre in Chennai on May 17 to listen to the second Vesak Commemoration Lecture, 2004, by Dr. S.U. Deraniyagala, former Director-General, Archaeological Survey Department, Sri Lanka. more..

June 4 (Reuters) The Sri Lanka rupee fell to a record closing low of 99.56 to the dollar on Friday despite central bank intervention. Analysts attributed the weakness to uncertainty about the new government's economic policies and stalled peace efforts to end a 20-year civil war between Tamil Tiger rebels and the government. more..

June 4 (CI) Muttiah Muralitharan has been named in Sri Lanka's 16-man squad for the short "Top End Tour" of Australia tour which starts later this month. But Murali still hasn't decided whether he will go, after persistent criticism of his bowling action in Australia, notably from their prime minister John Howard. more..

June 5 (BS) Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd’s (BSNL) 5 million cellular subscribers can now roam to Sri Lanka. The company on Friday signed a roaming agreement with Sri Lanka Telecom Ltd which will enable Cell One subscribers to roam in the Mobitel network of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT). more..

June 5 (LT) If the estate workers’ salaries are not increased during this month, a large scale strike action would be taken say estate workers’ unions. According to an agreement estate workers’ salaries should be increased every two years and on the 20th of this month the next increase is due point out the trade unions. more..

June 5 (TN) Mr.John Chandramohan alias Victor aged 26 and a father of two children was found dead Friday morning with cut injuries on his neck and his both hands were tied behind his back in a restroom which is located along Udupiddy-Vathiri road in Vadamarachchi division in Jaffna district, Nelliayadi Police said. more..

June 5 (TN) The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), a constituent of the main opposition UNF, is still undecided on extending support to the ruling UPFA, sources in Colombo said. Meanwhile, the Presidential Secretariat Friday denied media reports that talks were held Thursday between the President and CWC leader Mr. Arumugam Thondaman. more..

June 5 (TN) Mr.V. Pirapaharan Friday honored the senior journalist, Mr. S.M. Gopalaratnam (“Gopu”) with an award embossed with the Tiger emblem, for his “magnificent contributions to Tamil national consciousness and Tamil people’s national awakening” throughout his journalistic career for more than 50 years, LTTE sources said. more..

June 5 (TOI) When the whole of Sri Lanka is debating whether their favourite son Muttiah Muralitharan should tour Down Under and run the risk of being subjected to more humiliation over his controversial doosra delivery, his mentor has been keeping a very low profile. more..