By Jason Motlagh 

AGGRESSIVE Sri Lankan government forces continue to push deeper into the Tamil Tiger heartland and are now within reach of their administrative capital, raising hopes that the end of a brutal 25-year civil war may be near.The military campaign has benefited from an international crackdown on the Tigers' fundraising and smuggling networks, and high-level defections that have undermined grassroots Tamil support for its iron-willed chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Since January, when it scrap- ped a Norway-brokered ceasefire and vowed to crush the Tigers by the end of the year, the government has poured some £821 million into an all-out, multiple-front offensive that has killed about 6,000 rebels and reduced their last stronghold in the island's northern Wanni region by nearly 75 per cent, according to the Ministry of Defence.

Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health who chaired the Commission says that Sri Lanka is among the countries that have better health facilities than some other countries with higher incomes.

United Nations, 29 August, (Asiantribune.com):

The new Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations - New York , Hewa M.G.S. Palihakkara, presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.Mr. Palihakkara, who currently serves on the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, retired as the Foreign Secretary of Sri Lanka on 31 December 2006 after 38 years of civil and diplomatic service.Since the 1990s, he has served his Government on a number of assignments to the United Nations in Geneva and New York, covering work related to the General Assembly’s First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), and later the Conference on Disarmament, as well as on human rights, humanitarian and economic and social affairs. He either led or participated as a member of Sri Lanka’s delegation in several peace and security/ disarmament-related conferences and meetings, including the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Twenty nine Tamil civilians from Mullattiuvu and Kilinochchi Districts arrived in the liberated areas yesterday (27), seeking protection from the security forces at Pulmoddai (Eastern coast) and Iluppaikkadavai (Western coast) military detachments, Defences sources said. The group including women, children said that the continuous terrorist intimidation and harassment led them to escape to Government controlled areas.

They also accused the LTTE of abducting civilians and conscripting children as combatants to deploy at the Forward Defence Line in the battlefield.