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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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/ 23 December 2007
Dancing to traditional drums behind an elephant draped in purple, Sri Lankan cinnamon growers are offering part of their crop to pagan gods in thanks at a steady recovery from the 2004 tsunami. ”The tsunami took everything away. My wife, my daughter … goats, cows and my cinnamon,” said wizened Anthony Silva.
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/ 22 December 2007
Opener Alastair Cook hit a defiant century before rain washed out the last session to help England draw the final cricket Test against Sri Lanka in Galle on Saturday. Left-handed Cook made 118 as England groped to 251-6 in their second innings when a heavy downpour ruined Sri Lanka’s hopes of victory.
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/ 20 December 2007
Alastair Cook scored an unbeaten fifty to help England reach 102 for one before heavy rain washed out the final two sessions on the fourth day of the third Test against Sri Lanka on Friday. Battling to avoid a second loss of the series, England resumed on 2-0, having been asked to follow-on the previous evening.
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/ 19 December 2007
Mahela Jayawardene was on the brink of setting a Sri Lankan Test century record in helping the hosts reach 287 for six at tea on the second day of the third and final Test against England on Wednesday. Resuming on 147-4, Sri Lanka added a further 140 runs under overcast skies before England picked up two wickets in the final over of the session.
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/ 16 December 2007
England and Sri Lanka will mark one of cricket’s most poignant moments when they contest the third Test at the previously tsunami-ravaged Galle International Stadium from Tuesday. The stadium, situated close to the Indian Ocean in the country’s coastal south, was destroyed by the Asian tsunami in 2004.
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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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/ 5 December 2007
Muttiah Muralitharan bowled two magical deliveries when it mattered most to hand Sri Lanka an 88-run win over a fighting England in the first Test on Wednesday. The off-spinner, who became Test cricket’s most successful bowler in the first innings, got out Matt Prior and Ian Bell in the space of three deliveries with the second new ball to end England’s spirited challenge.
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/ 4 December 2007
Kumar Sangakkara became the first batsman to hit 150-plus scores in four consecutive Tests as Sri Lanka pressed for victory in the first Test against England on Tuesday. The left-hander made 152 as Sri Lanka piled up 442-8 in their second innings when they declared 30 minutes before stumps on the fourth day to leave England an imposing victory target of 350.
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/ 3 December 2007
Muttiah Muralitharan shattered the world Test-bowling mark and Sanath Jayasuriya excelled with the bat as Sri Lanka took charge of the first Test against England on Monday. Sri Lanka, trailing by 93 runs on the first innings, easily cleared the deficit and ended the third day’s play on 167-2 in their second knock, a lead of 74 runs with eight wickets in hand.
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/ 3 December 2007
Sri Lanka off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan took his 709th Test wicket on Monday to move to the top of the list above Australian Shane Warne. Muralitharan bowled England’s Paul Collingwood for 45 shortly before lunch on the third day of the first Test, sparking wild celebrations in Kandy.
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/ 2 December 2007
Muttiah Muralitharan equalled Shane Warne’s world-record tally of 708 wickets as Sri Lanka sent England crashing in the first cricket Test on Sunday. The off-spinner grabbed 4-30 in 23 overs as England, replying to Sri Lanka’s modest 188, slumped to 186-6 by tea before heavy rain washed out the rest of the day’s play.
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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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/ 1 December 2007
England’s pace-spin duo of Matthew Hoggard and Monty Panesar combined to destroy Sri Lanka for 188 on the opening day of the first cricket Test on Saturday. England replied with 49-1 by stumps after losing opener Alastair Cook to the third ball of the innings when he was trapped leg-before by 100-Test veteran Chaminda Vaas.
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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.