Assistant Director of Fisheries received them; they said they were not harassed by Sri Lankan authorities

Nineteen Rameswaram fishermen, who were released by a Sri Lankan court on Thursday, returned home to an emotional reunion at the Rameswaram fishing jetty on Friday afternoon.

The fatigued fishermen, who had spent a month in captivity, were greeted with tears of joy by their family members and the fisherfolk when they arrived with their four trawlers around 2 p.m.

DFCC Bank and its retail banking subsidiary Vardhana Bank recently hosted the 4th Annual Productivity Awards, for Schools who participated in their CSR programme the ‘6S and 3R Implementation in Schools Project’ for 2012. The event was held at the Cinnamon Grand Colombo with Bandula Gunawardana, Minister for Education conferring the awards.

The highlight of this occasion was that DFCC has completed the implementation of the project in 100 schools across the country in the interiors of Anuradhapura, Badulla, Battica

Military Spokesman Brig. Ruwan Wanigasooriya’s exposition that Sri Lanka will need foreign help to determine the number of deaths in ‘Eelam War IV’ stands to reason. He has said, and rightly so, that many have migrated through the years of ethnic conflict; some among the 300,000 freed from the LTTE’s clutches during the closing weeks of the war or hospitalised at the time had escaped to foreign countries. There is nothing new in the claim for it to be dubbed an imaginative, post-Geneva initiative.

India today disapproved of the comments made by Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa after he had blamed India for the protracted war in Sri Lanka, the Press Trust of India reported.

Responding to Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s reported remark that India could never absolve itself of the responsibility for creating terrorism in his country, Indian Union Minister V Narayanasamy said the statement was not acceptable.

An Indian website has claimed that LTTE Sea Tiger leader Soosai had committed suicide during the final stages of the war.

The website, Athirvu, says Soosai swallowed a cyanide capsule and also shot himself using his personal weapon near the beach between Mullivaikal and Nandikadal on May 17, 2009.

He had committed suicide after  it became clear that senior LTTE leaders could not escape from the area as they were surrounded by the security forces.

Nishantha de Silva who handed his nomination for the post of Secretary of Sri Lanka Cricket lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission on Thursday stating that his fundamental rights were violated.

Nishantha de Silva said that his nomination for the post of Secretary of SLC has been rejected by Sri Lanka Cricket without providing a justifiable reason.

Washington: Greeting the Sri Lankans on the occasion of their New Year, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the United States stands ready to partner with the island nation as it works to make progress on reconciliation and accountability.

"On behalf of President Obama and the American people, I am eager to support the Sri Lankan people in this journey as you work to make progress on reconciliation and accountability four years after the end of the conflict which divided your country," Kerry said yesterday

About 19 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who feared deportation after they being stranded in Dubai can breathe easy with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refuting reports that they would be sent back home, the Times of India reported.

“UNHCR is looking for a solution to resettle the 19 refugees in other countries. We have full cooperation from the UAE government and there is no threat of the refugees being sent back to Sri Lanka,” said Babar Baloch, spokesperson for UNHCR in Geneva. There were re

The Sri Lankans who arrived undetected in Geraldton harbour in Australia on Tuesday were flown to Christmas Island, as refugee advocates voiced concerns the group was being shielded from lawyers, The Australian newspaper reported.

Most of the the donated Deutsche Bank vessel, whose stealth arrival to the mainland triggered an internal Customs and Border Protection review, left Perth last night for Christmas Island.

The UK based Global Tamil Forum (GTF) yesterday said that it wouldn’t cooperate with the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) as long as President Mahinda Rajapaksa remained in power.

The GTF was responding to a query by The Island on whether it would support GoSL efforts to establish the number of dead, missing and those who left the country through legal and illegal means since 1982.

GTF spokesperson Suren Surendiran said that Tamil speaking people living in Sri Lanka as well as the Tamil Diaspora had no faith in