WAILING relatives scrambled over hundreds of bodies piled in a Sri Lankan hospital yesterday, searching for loved ones as the tsunami death toll soared above 12,000 on the island.

Sri Lanka’s government is ready to present a peace plan to the Tamil Tiger rebels, and is “baffled” by their reluctance to return to the negotiating table, a senior minister said today.

A HIGH-LEVEL delegation from Norway will travel to Sri Lanka in early May to try reviving stalled peace talks between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.

The independent election commissioner took control of state-run television and radio today in an unprecedented move, following allegations of media bias toward the president’s party ahead of Friday’s parliamentary elections.

Irish MEP John Cushnahan has travelled to Sri Lanka to head a team of EU monitors overseeing the country’s upcoming general election.

Tamil Tiger rebels warned today that the Sri Lankan president’s decision to dissolve Parliament and call snap elections was “a grave setback” to the island’s frail peace process.

Tamil Tiger rebels said today they were committed to a Norwegian-brokered cease-fire, allaying fears that a power struggle between Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister would plunge the tropical island back into civil war.

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga is lifting the state of emergency she announced two days ago, a government spokesman said today, but she was preparing a new measure to boost the authority of the armed forces to respond to threats.

Sri Lanka’s Cabinet is trying to reconvene Parliament in defiance of a two-week suspension by the president in her power struggle with the prime minister over how to resolve Sri Lanka’s two-decade conflict with Tamil rebels, officials said.

SRI LANKA’S president has declared a state of emergency, deepening the country’s political crisis as her political rival was set to meet with US President George W Bush in Washington.

SRI LANKA’S president sacked three of the country’s most powerful cabinet ministers yesterday, suspended parliament and ordered troops out in the streets of Colombo, throwing the island into a constitutional crisis.

Sri Lanka’s government was plunged into crisis and its peace process jeopardised when the country’s president deployed troops around the capital and fired three key ministers who were trying to coax Tamil rebels back into talks to end a 20-year civil war.

The Sri Lankan president put her country on high alert today after the Tamil Tiger rebels suspended peace talks with the government.

The Tamil Tigers today refused to disband its dreaded suicide bomb squad, but reiterated it was committed to peace while negotiating an end to Sri Lanka’s 19-year civil war.

Sri Lankan and Tamil Tiger rebel negotiators will begin a third round of peace talks today amid fears that a brewing political crisis at home may affect the island’s best chance for peace in nearly two decades.

Sri Lanka is to offer to buy the debris of the giant statues of Buddha destroyed by Afghanistan's Taliban regime and rebuild them there.