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/ 18 January 2009
Sri Lankan government troops have almost completely cornered the Tamil Tigers in their north-eastern jungle base, the army chief said.
Nineteen United States soldiers were killed in Iraq in May, the lowest monthly death toll since the US-led invasion of 2003, the US military said on Sunday. The month that saw the highest US losses was November 2004, when 137 American troops were killed.
Sri Lanka was hit by scathing criticism over its human rights record on Thursday, with its government fingered over hundreds of ”disappearances” and an influential panel storming off the island. The move is a major blow to the image of the island’s government, which pulled out of a truce with Tamil Tiger rebels in January.
Sri Lankan children are being encouraged to raid their piggy banks in a bid to end a serious shortage of loose change in a country where inflation is making coins worth more than their face value. State-owned banks are offering colour pencils, felt pens, drawing paper and books to children who part with their savings in exchange for bank notes.
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels took their separatist campaign to a new level on Monday with their first air raid. Their aircraft may be small in size and number, but the daring night-time bombing mission on a key air force base beside Sri Lanka’s only international airport strikes a significant psychological blow.
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/ 27 January 2007
Sri Lanka’s navy attacked and destroyed three Tamil Tiger boats on Saturday as the rebels launched their first assault on the port of Colombo in 10 years, the Defence Ministry said. Naval craft blew up one boat after the three were spotted near a restricted zone before chasing and sinking the other two, leaving an unknown number of casualties, the ministry said.
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/ 8 November 2006
At least 65 civilians were killed and about 300 injured on Wednesday when government forces shelled a refugee camp in eastern Sri Lanka, Tamil rebels and medical sources said. A spokesperson for the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said the final toll could rise to 100.
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/ 17 October 2006
The Tamil Tigers’ latest suicide bomb attack, the deadliest in the island’s history, has illustrated that the rebel army still ranks as a master of the tactic. The elite band of "Black Tigers" is regarded by guerrilla supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran as a "protective armour" and one of the most effective weapons in his battle for an independent homeland for ethnic Tamils.
Sri Lanka’s president vowed on Friday not to allow the killing of 64 bus passengers derail the island’s peace process as the air force bombarded Tamil Tiger positions for a second straight day. President Mahinda Rajapakse insited the Norwegian-brokered process would not be allowed to collapse following Thursday’s Claymore mine attack on the bus.
Eighteen months after the tsunami uprooted centuries-old cinnamon plantations in a country where the golden-cash crop is a vital source of income, the trees are sprouting "like magic". The Boxing Day sea surge left about 31 000 people dead and a million homeless across Sri Lanka.