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/ 24 January 2006
Sri Lanka’s president on Tuesday asked Norway to arrange early talks with Tamil Tiger rebels and help stem the latest wave of violence that has killed at least 151 people. President Mahinda Rajapakse held closed-door talks with Norway’s top peace envoy, Erik Solheim, on salvaging the island’s Oslo-backed peace process, which has remained deadlocked since April 2003.
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/ 17 January 2006
Suspected Tiger rebels set off two more mines and fought a gun battle with troops on Tuesday as the United Nations urged talks and Norway made a fresh bid to pull Sri Lanka back from the brink of war. Military officials said members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ambushed a navy bus by setting off a landmine in the restive northeast port district of Trincomalee.
Suspected Tamil rebels blew up a naval gunboat on Saturday, killing 15 Sri Lankan sailors in a suicide attack that caused the biggest military loss of life since a truce began four years ago, the military said. The pre-dawn attack came as the United States expressed concern over the recent escalation of violence in Sri Lanka.
Stung by consecutive defeats, the Sri Lankan cricket board is sending renowned sports psychologist Sandy Gordon to help the national cricket team come out of its present poor form, a top cricket official said. Sri Lanka has lost eight of its last nine limited-overs internationals to India and New Zealand over the past two months.
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/ 21 December 2005
Nine hours after the tsunami struck the coast of Sri Lanka on December 26 last year, rescue workers found a 10-week-old boy caked in mud and took him to Kalmunai Base hospital. There he was registered as ”Baby 81”, the 81st person admitted on that chaotic day.
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/ 5 December 2005
Sri Lankan troops and police stepped up security on Monday following a spate of attacks blamed on the Tamil Tigers that killed 12 people over the weekend, a military official said. Troops in the island’s embattled northern and eastern regions as well as other parts of the island were asked to maintain a high state of alert, the official said.
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/ 21 November 2005
For Tamils erecting lifesized posters to mark the forthcoming Heroes’ Day, when Tiger rebels remember their fallen, the election of Mahinda Rajapakse as new Sri Lankan president is a matter of concern. ”We know Mahinda. He has been a politician for a long time. And we don’t trust him,” said Daruniali Saravanam, owner of a roadside eatery outside Kilinochchi, political capital of the rebels.
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/ 14 November 2005
Sri Lanka’s presidential election this week has turned into a vote on the country’s distressed economy and the troubled peace process, with the two main contenders diverging sharply on the major issues. About 13,3-million eligible voters will effectively be choosing on Thursday between the current and former prime ministers, who have radically different views on how to save the nation from economic and ethnic implosion.
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/ 26 October 2005
Sri Lanka’s media on Wednesday attributed their cricket team’s massive 152-run loss in the first limited-overs match against India to ”fireworks” from master batsman Sachin Tendulkar and Irfan Pathan, calling the former skipper’s performance ”Sachin’s magic”.
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/ 13 October 2005
Tamil Tiger rebels on Thursday asked peace broker Norway to help end the deadlock in Sri Lanka’s peace process amid a renewed outbreak of internecine clashes. Norway’s special peace envoy Trond Furuhovde met with the political wing leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, SP Thamilselvan, in a bid to lift the impasse in the troubled peace process.
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/ 26 September 2005
Sri Lankan election chief Dayananda Dissanayake will be running November presidential elections but won’t be voting — he doesn’t trust politicians. Dissanayake (64) wants to retire, but a constitutional quirk is forcing him, against his will, to lead a team of 100 000 officials in staging the November 17 vote.
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/ 23 September 2005
Sri Lanka has announced measures to prevent voters impersonating the tsunami dead as well as special arrangements for those displaced by the calamity to vote in November’s presidential elections. Elections’ Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake said polling cards would be sent out to those believed to have perished in the tsunami but these will be marked to indicate the voter is dead.
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/ 13 September 2005
South Africa A cricket squad members escaped unscathed in a head-on collision on the road between Dambulla and Kandy in central Sri Lanka on Tuesday. The squad were travelling in a bus from practice when the accident occurred. According to coach Vincent Barnes a truck loaded with wood smashed into the bus they were travelling in.
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/ 6 September 2005
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger guerrillas on Tuesday said three of their men were killed and five wounded when government troops launched an attack on a rebel sentry point in the island’s restive east. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said heavily armed troops attacked their Kattumurivu sentry point in the district of Batticaloa on Tuesday morning.
Sri Lanka’s slain minister of foreign affairs Lakshman Kadirgamar, a Tamil himself, was a fierce foe of Tamil Tiger rebels. Snipers gunned down Kadirgamar, whom the rebels dubbed a traitor to their cause of seeking a separate homeland, at his home late on Friday.
Gloom over Sri Lanka’s stagnant peace process intensified on Sunday as hundreds of troops and police manned hurriedly erected checkpoints throughout Colombo in the wake of the assassination of the foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar.
Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lakshman Kadirgamar, was assassinated on Friday night by unidentified snipers in the capital, the military and hospital sources said. Kadirgamar (73) was hit by several bullets in the head and chest as he returned to his tightly guarded private residence in Colombo.
West Indies fast bowler Tino Best has been fined 50% of his match fee for breaching the ICC Code of Conduct during his country’s second Test match against Sri Lanka. Best was found guilty of conduct contrary to the spirit of cricket by ICC Match Referee Mike Procter in a hearing on Tuesday in Kandy.
Sri Lanka’s government signed a deal on Friday to share international tsunami aid with the Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said, despite bitter protests by critics who say it threatens the country’s sovereignty. The plan was promoted as an opportunity for the government to forge peace with the guerrillas as the country recovers from the December 26 tsunami.
It was October 11, 2004, and the world looked beautiful to KMG Prinsika. She had given birth to her third child, a wide-eyed baby girl she and her husband named Pushmi Moonesha. The happy parents told the gynaecologist that they’d had enough children, and it was time for Prinsika to be sterilized. But on December 26, 2004, the world became a horror for the couple.
International lenders have downgraded Sri Lanka’s economic growth forecasts for this year after tsunamis devastated its coastline, but the island is banking on a flood of foreign aid to keep its head above the water. ”The tsunami has certainly given the country a new lease of life,” said Alastair Corera, country head of Fitch Ratings.
The crisis engulfing Sri Lankan cricket deepened on Tuesday as police raided the offices of the suspended governing body and its chief handed in his resignation. Witnesses said armed police forced their way into the offices of Sri Lanka Cricket, whose official recognition is on hold amid allegations of financial irregularities.
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/ 15 February 2005
The Galle Cricket Stadium was one of the most breathtaking Test venues, but the December 26 tsunami has exposed its vulnerability and brought down the curtain on Sri Lanka’s ”lucky” ground. Cricket officials are looking for an alternative venue to the stadium that the national team had considered lucky.
She survived the tsunami, only to suffer the inhumanity of her rescuer. The young woman was accompanying her family on a pilgrimage when the tunami hit. The journey was to seek protection. Instead, she nearly drowned, and was then raped. ”He told me to grab his hand, that he will save me,” said the 18-year-old girl, who asked not to be named for fear of being ostracised by her village.