* Prevents ICRC, UN transferring them from Puthukkudiyiruppu to Vavuniya

ICRC and UN officials, who went to Puthukkudiyiruppu area to fetch some three hundred patients to be transferred to Vavuniya Hospital for further treatment were refused and turned away by Tiger terrorists yesterday afternoon while holding all those patients captive as 'human shields'.

by Dayan Jayatilleka

The trick is to grasp the main needs of the present while being able to see into the future, with its problems and prospects, while being aware that the choices we make today, in the here and now, will determine the shape of tomorrow.

First things first: the Tigers have been almost completely overthrown and almost totally defeated, but not yet and not quite. The task is to stay focused and finish the job, resisting all external pressures from whichever quarter however exalted or powerful.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Sri Lanka said on Tuesday it was doing its best to minimise civilian war casualties and that probes into incidents including the killing of workers for a French aid group were nearly complete.

European Union officials told visiting Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on Monday Sri Lanka needed to show it was implementing U.N. rights conventions for the EU to continue to offer it trade concessions.