In this second part of an extended interview to The Hindu at Temple Trees in Colombo on June 30, President Mahinda Rajapaksa answers N. Ram’s questions on his outlook on the LTTE, his approach to it in peacetime and in armed conflict, and his assessment of its fighting capabilities and of Velupillai Prabakaran’s strategy during the endgame. The first part was published on July 6.

Prof. Anuradha Seneviratna (70) Senior Professor in the Department of Sinhala, University of Peradeniya passed away last night after brief illness at the General Hospital in Kandy.

"In connection with the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, a formal request for an official confirmation of the deaths of Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman, the chief of the intelligence wing of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), has been made to the government of Sri Lanka," External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna told parliament, when asked whether India had sought the death certificate of Prabhakaran.

A dialogue on investigations, written for the occasion of the commemoration of six months after the assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge, a Sri Lankan journalist, on 8th January 2008 by Basil Fernando from the Asian Human Rights Commission.

SRI LANKA: The law is a dangerous thing

This is a discussion among several imaginary characters. These imaginary characters do not represent any living persons.

The hostility has been rooted in suspicions that aid groups secretly backed the Tigers, because most of them worked in rebel territory.

A Tiger rebel grabbed the gun of a soldier and opened fire as he tried to search a suspicious boat in the eastern district of Batticaloa on Saturday, the army said in a statement.

A Tiger rebel grabbed the gun of a soldier and opened fire as he tried to search a suspicious boat in the eastern district of Batticaloa on Saturday, the army said in a statement.

"In the aftermath of defeat of Tamil Tigers, it would be catastrophic if the Sri Lankan Government were to take a triumphant position. I am told there is a proposal to build statues of a Sri Lankan King who died 2,000 years ago to commemorate the victory," Ramachandra Guha, the Bangalore-based historian and biographer said while delivering the fifth Nehru memorial Lecture 2009 on "Democracy and Violence in South Asia and Beyond" at the Nehru Centre here on Friday night.

IMF's External Relations Director, Caroline Atkinson on Thursday told a press briefing in Washington that the finalisation of the programme would depend on the approval of the Executive Board, which is yet to take up the issue.

The US however on June 26 said, “The Department of State warns American citizens traveling to or living in Sri Lanka about the potential of continued instability, including possible terrorist attacks. This replaces the Travel Warning dated December 22, 2008, to update information on security incidents, safety concerns in specific regions of the country, and potential problems for US citizen travelers…”

"Sri Lanka and China enjoy a traditional bilateral relationship and have enjoyed a smooth development of cooperation since the diplomatic ties were established in 1957," Bogollagama told China Daily.

Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Treasurer, Minister Dullas Alahapperuma has issued notice on the party’s women’s wing and the trade union wing to move out of the respective building with immediate effect, sources from the SLFP headquarters said.

Alahapperuma it is learnt has informed officials at the party headquarters to find alternative office spaces for the members of the women’s wing and the trade union wing. He has said the President had requested for the setting up of a website office and a newspaper office at the locations where the two wings are housed at present.

Aid workers told The Australian yesterday officials at the internally displaced people's camp in Pulmoddai, a remote northeast region, are running the prostitution ring using women kept in the camp.

Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is to leave the island on an official visit following advice by astrologers, who have requested him to go overseas during this period, sources from the Cambridge Terrace office said.

The astrologers it is learnt have informed Wickremesinghe that he will be under going a bad period till September. The period afterwards is expected to be good (raja yoga). Therefore, it has been advised that he spends the bad period overseas to avoid any ill effects he would be faced with.

Majority of the estate community in the Uva province do not possess either a national ID card or a temporary form of identification, says CAFFE.

The organization states that following the directive of the Elections Commissioner that has made it compulsory for voters to carry a national ID or any other form of identification to cast their votes would therefore deprive most of the estate community from exercising their franchise at the forthcoming Uva Provincial Council elections.

  The head of the UN Refugee Agency in Sri Lanka Amin Awad issued a strange statement saying in essence that the government is free to detain staff as long as procedures are followed. But despite top UN humanitarian John Holmes' statement that unlike international staff, national staff members of the UN are not immune, the Staff Union disagrees. They criticize Awad's statement, and counter that national staff have immunity within the scope of their work.

  Troublingly, sources in Sri Lanka describe to Inner City Press even the torture of UN staff, and of doctors disappeared by the government after remaining in the conflict zone offering treatment and casualty figures. A Red Cross worker who had been in the conflict zone has been killed in Jaffna, where now newspaper editors face death threats.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union says the Sri Lankan government no longer has any reason for not investigating the murders of the Parliamentarians now that its long-running civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels is over.

China’s Huichen Investment Holdings Limited will manage and bring new investments into the Mirigama zone, some 55 kilometres north of Colombo, for a period of 33 years, officials said.