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/ 4 February 2008
With a parade of tanks, troops and rocket launchers, Sri Lanka on Monday marked its 60th anniversary of independence from Britain amid tight security after a string of attacks blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels. Thousands of police and troops were on high alert in the capital Colombo as the island’s armed forces put on a show of military might.
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/ 2 February 2008
A bomb exploded on a civilian bus in the central Sri Lankan town of Dambulla on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and wounding 50, the military said. The explosion was the latest in a series of bomb attacks blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan, rebels fighting to create an independent state in the island’s north and east.
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/ 29 January 2008
Tamil Tiger rebels said Sri Lankan troops on Tuesday ambushed a school bus and killed 18 people, including 11 children, as the military reported killing 67 militants in two days of heavy fighting. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said a ”deep penetrating unit” of the military carried out the bomb attack.
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/ 25 January 2008
Sri Lankan warplanes bombed a Tamil Tiger base in the far north on Friday, a day after ground troops killed 30 rebels in clashes across the region. Seven soldiers were killed in the battles on Thursday, the latest in an intensification of the 25-year civil war following the official scrapping of a truce with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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/ 18 January 2008
At least nine civilians were shot dead by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels in southern Sri Lanka, the military said on Friday, two days after 27 people were killed in a bus ambush in a nearby town. A six-year truce between the state and rebels formally ended on Wednesday.
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/ 17 January 2008
Sri Lanka’s military said on Thursday most of the 27 people killed in a bus ambush were shot by rebels as the passengers tried to flee rather than in the blast that struck the vehicle. Wednesday’s attack came as a six-year truce between the state and rebels formally ended.
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/ 16 January 2008
A roadside bomb tore through a Sri Lankan bus killing 24 people and wounding dozens on Wednesday, officials said, as a six-year ceasefire formally expires between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels. The Ministry of Defence said a large number of schoolchildren were on the bus at the time of the blast in the central district of Moneragala.
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/ 14 January 2008
A Sri Lankan man has been released from prison after spending 50 years on remand, his lawyer said on Monday. DP James, now 80, was arrested in August 1958 for attacking and wounding his father with a knife. He was sent to jail, then moved to a psychiatric hospital, and then discharged back to jail — where he was forgotten about.
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/ 10 January 2008
Monsoon flooding has forced more than 30Â 000 people in eastern Sri Lanka from their homes, with many taking refuge in temporary shelters like huts, schools and mosques, officials said on Thursday. Flooding and ensuing mass displacement are common in Sri Lanka, fuelled by monsoon rains.
A Sri Lankan minister was killed by a roadside bomb planted by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels north of the capital on Tuesday, the second MP killed in a week as a protracted civil war escalates. Nation Building Minister DM Dassanayake died on the operating table, said the deputy director of the government teaching hospital.
Nordic ceasefire monitors began wrapping up their six-year mission to Sri Lanka on Friday after the government scrapped a truce with the Tamil Tigers, and their mandate, amid a chorus of international concern. The government formally notified mediator Norway late on Thursday it was giving a stipulated 14-day notice period to end the truce.
Police and security forces went on alert across Sri Lanka on Thursday, hours after the government announced its withdrawal from a tattered ceasefire with Tamil Tiger rebels, security officials said. The already tight security in the capital was further strengthened one day after suspected rebels set off a roadside bomb that killed five and wounded 28.
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/ 31 December 2007
Sri Lanka’s air force bombed a Tamil Tiger training base in the north and nine rebels and two soldiers were killed in ground battles, the military said on Monday. The air raids in the district of Mullaitivu and clashes in the northern district of Vavuniya and the north-western district of Mannar were the latest engagements in intensified fighting.
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/ 24 December 2007
Sri Lankan troops killed 41 Tamil Tiger fighters in a series of weekend clashes in the island’s civil war-ravaged north, while three soldiers were also killed, the military said on Monday. Eleven rebels were killed in fighting in the northern districts of Vavuniya and Jaffna on Sunday, while another eight were killed in the north-western district of Mannar.
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/ 16 December 2007
British-born science fiction author Arthur C Clarke, who turns 90 on Sunday, says all he wishes for is peace in his adopted home Sri Lanka where he has lived for the past five decades. Sri Lanka’s most celebrated guest resident since 1956, Clarke said he had sadly watched a bitter ethnic conflict dividing his adopted country.
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/ 12 December 2007
England face the daunting prospect of playing out spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan on Thursday to draw the second Test against Sri Lanka and keep the three-match series alive. The tourists, trailing Sri Lanka by 197 runs on the first innings, ended the fourth day’s play on a wearing Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) pitch at 48-0 in their second knock on Wednesday.
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/ 11 December 2007
At least 32 Tamil Tiger rebels and five soldiers were killed in Sri Lanka’s north on Tuesday, the military said. ”Sporadic clashes between the Army and the LTTE [the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] broke out south-west of Adampan in Mannar,” said a spokesperson at the media centre for national security.
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/ 11 December 2007
Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene took over from Sanath Jayasuriya as his country’s leading run-maker as the hosts pulverised England in the second Test on Tuesday. Jayawardene made 167 not out and Michael Vandort hit 138 as Sri Lanka, replying to England’s first-innings total of 351, piled up 379-4 by stumps on the third day at the Sinhalese Sports Club.
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/ 10 December 2007
Michael Vandort scored an unbeaten 50 as Sri Lanka shook off a poor start to close on 105-2, 246 runs behind England, on the second day of the second Test on Monday. England were earlier bowled out for 351 after resuming on 258-5, with Matt Prior hitting 79 and Muttiah Muralitharan claiming his 62nd five-wicket haul in Tests.
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/ 2 December 2007
At least 52 combatants were killed and 25 wounded in fresh fighting between security forces and Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka’s embattled north during the weekend, the Defence Ministry said Sunday. With the upsurge in clashes along the de facto frontlines separating the mini-state held by the guerrillas, the military stepped up the already tight security.
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/ 27 November 2007
Umpire Rudi Koertzen, who angered Sri Lankans this month for wrongly giving Kumar Sangakkara out on 192, has been withdrawn from the England Tests, officials said on Tuesday. South African Koertzen (58) was due to stand in the three-Test series between Sri Lanka and England starting in Kandy on Saturday.
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/ 12 November 2007
A Sri Lankan newspaper chose a graphic way to illustrate how a media rights dispute between Cricket Australia and the international news agencies is hurting its coverage of the series. Next to the report, in a space where a match photo would usually go, was a black figure in the shape of a batsman playing a stroke.
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/ 2 November 2007
Tamil Tiger political wing leader SP Thamilselvan was killed in a Sri Lankan air force bombing raid early on Friday, the rebels said, in what analysts said was a body-blow to any hope of ending renewed civil war soon. Thamilselvan was the rebels’ main interlocutor at the last round of peace talks with the Sri Lankan government in October 2006.
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/ 1 November 2007
Sri Lankan troops killed 31 Tamil Tigers fighters in a series of clashes in the north of the island, as warplanes bombed rebel training camps on Thursday, the military said. Two soldiers were also killed and 17 wounded in the clashes with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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/ 26 October 2007
Sri Lanka has ordered a high-level probe into a public display of the naked bodies of Tamil Tiger rebels who devastated a key air force base earlier this week, officials said on Friday. Two tractors pulled trailers loaded with the stripped corpses and mutilated body parts from the base to Anuradhapura Hospital, 210km north of Colombo.
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/ 24 October 2007
Sri Lankan troops killed 11 Tamil Tiger rebels in a series of clashes in the island’s restive north and one soldier also died, the military said on Wednesday. Troops fought four separate engagements with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fighters in the northern district of Vavuniya late on Tuesday.
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/ 22 October 2007
The Tamil Tigers air wing bombed a north Sri Lanka air force base before dawn on Monday, the military said, while the Tigers said suicide fighters mounted their biggest ground assault since the two-decade civil war began. The rebel air strike in the north-central district of Anuradhapura comes months after the Tigers’ first-ever air attacks using light aircraft.
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/ 11 October 2007
Alastair Cook hit a masterly 80 as England thrashed Sri Lanka by five wickets in the fourth one-day international on Wednesday to clinch their first series win on the subcontinent for 20 years. The 22-year-old left-hander shared a 110-run stand for the third wicket with Kevin Pietersen (63 not out) to give England a memorable win in the day-night game.
All-rounder Farveez Maharoof grabbed four wickets to propel Sri Lanka to an emphatic 119-run run victory over England in the first one-day international on Monday. Maharoof ripped through the top order after a positive start by England’s batsmen.
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/ 21 September 2007
Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed a Tamil Tiger military base in the rebel-held far north on Friday, triggering multiple explosions, the air force said, while a suspected rebel roadside bomb killed one civilian in the east. The air strike targeted top leaders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Sri Lanka’s prolific spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was on Thursday ruled out of the inaugural World Twenty20 Championships next month due to an elbow injury. ”Murali is affected by an elbow injury and he will be out for four to six weeks,” Sri Lanka Cricket secretary Kangadaran Mathivanan said.
Veteran Sanath Jayasuriya grabbed four wickets as ruthless Sri Lanka thrashed Bangladesh by 39 runs on Wednesday to sweep the one-day series 3-0. The 38-year-old all-rounder picked up 4-14 in four overs to cap a series of dominating performances by the World Cup runners-up who had mauled Bangladesh by a 3-0 margin in the Test series as well.