BY Roland Buerk
BBC correspondent in Colombo

Sri Lanka's military says it has captured a Tamil Tiger training complex complete with a hundred underground bunkers. The military said soldiers captured ‘Jeevan Base’, a rebel training complex in Weli-Oya on Saturday, after Tiger fighters fled the area. The military's spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said it contained lecture halls and a hundred underground bunkers. In fighting elsewhere across the north on Saturday, the military says twenty-seven rebels and seven soldiers were killed.

Sri Lanka’s Peace chief writes to the NPC 

The Peace Secretariat is surprised by a recent release of the National Peace Council in which it seems to suggest firstly that there are insuperable difficulties for citizens in the areas in the North that used to be under the control of the LTTE, and secondly that these are the responsibility of the Sri Lankan government. The statement is replete with misrepresentations, though the tone has a naïveté that suggests its author had no idea he would lend support to the current campaign of the LTTE and other opponents of the elected government of Sri Lanka, to build up the type of verbal assault on that government that seems to be the last string left in the LTTE bow.

 By Shanika SRIYANANDA

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Sunday, 17 August 2008

As fighting intensifies and the security forces move forward in the Wanni to capture the LTTE’s heartland, the government said it was fully geared to provide facilities for an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 civilians trapped in uncleared areas. Despite food and medicine going into the hands of the LTTE, the government will continue to supply essential food items for civilians in the Wanni.

Essential items to be delivered to the displaced people

A high level policy meeting of the Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (CCHA) was held yesterday where Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights and Senior Advisor to the President, Basil Rajapaksa addressed humanitarian issues faced by the people of the Wanni. While reiterating the continuous commitment of the Government in providing humanitarian assistance to the people in the Wanni, Minister Samarasinghe and Mr. Basil Rajapaksa requested the Government Agents of Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Vavuniya to assess the current situation for immediate assistance to be provided. Both Government Agents (GAs) of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu said IDPs were housed in schools in areas of displacement with further plans to settle them in shelters during the coming weeks......