Sri Lankan air force jets and artillery pounded Tamil Tiger rebel positions in the country’s north and east for a second day today, peace monitors said ahead of a mass funeral for 64 people killed a bus bombing blamed on the insurgents.

Sri Lanka's air force today launched a second day of strikes on Tamil Tiger rebel positions in the country’s north, a day after a bus bombing blamed on the rebels killed 64 people.

A top Japanese peace envoy said today he would travel to northern Sri Lanka to confer with Tamil Tiger rebels despite reports that the insurgents’ chief has rejected any meeting with the envoy.

Gunmen stormed into a Tamil-language newspaper office in northern Sri Lanka today and opened fire, killing two employees and seriously wounding a third, the editor said.

A Norwegian peace envoy was to visit Sri Lanka today amid efforts to encourage the Tamil Tiger rebels to attend peace talks with the Sri Lankan government in Geneva next week.

The Tamil Tiger rebels said today that the Sri Lankan government has failed to honour a pledge made at peace talks in Geneva earlier this year to disarm paramilitary groups.

A breakaway Tamil Tiger faction said it has offered its rival mainstream rebel group a ceasefire ahead of the Tigers’ talks with the government, hoping to bring Sri Lanka permanent peace.

SRI LANKA’S president and the leader of Tamil Tiger rebels agreed yesterday to resume peace talks, raising hopes the tsunami-ravaged island nation may avoid sliding back into civil war after months of escalating violence.

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels said today they have agreed to hold talks with the government in Switzerland in February, raising hopes that the country may avoid sliding back to war.

Norwegian envoy Eric Solheim arrived in northern Sri Lanka for crucial talks with the reclusive leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels today, amid fears the island could return to civil war after four years of relative calm.

Sri Lanka’s president today asked Norway’s peace envoy to set up new talks with Tamil rebels in hopes of staving off a civil war, but the separatists continued to brace for a possible return to battle

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels rammed an explosives-laden fishing boat into a Sri Lankan navy vessel off the north-western coast early today, killing at least 15 sailors and leaving three missing, officials said.

MOURNERS from across the world wept, prayed and observed moments of silence along ravaged Indian Ocean coastlines yesterday to remember those killed by one of nature’s deadliest disasters.

IN Indonesia’s Aceh province on Sumatra island, one survivor dismissively gestured at a jumble of scrap iron and plastic sheeting — all that remains of his neighbourhood.

The world’s grief and compassion returned to the Indian Ocean’s tsunami-battered shores today, marking a year since giant waves crashed ashore in a dozen countries, laying waste to communities and sweeping away at least 216,000 lives.

Former US President Bill Clinton arrived in Sri Lanka today to visit tsunami-devastated areas along the country’s eastern coast and to hold talks with the island’s new president.

Sri Lanka’s newly elected president today said he would resume peace talks with Tamil rebels in an effort to end decades of ethnic conflict in the island nation.

SRI Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels reacted angrily yesterday to the election of hardline President Mahinda Rajapakse, saying it showed that the island's Sinhalese majority had no understanding of Tamil aspirations for a homeland.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse won Sri Lanka’s presidential election by a slim margin, the country’s election commissioner said today.

Sri Lankans today voted for a president to shape peace efforts in a country bloodied by more than two decades of civil war and devastated by last year’s tsunami.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister today pledged to revise a peace agreement with Tamil Tiger rebels and reject their demand for self rule if he is elected president.

Stunned by the devastation wrought by the Asian tsunami, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan toured a Sri Lankan town today where hundreds of shoppers at an outdoor weekly market were swept to their deaths.

Sri Lanka’s government is allocating disaster relief to Tamils in rebel-controlled territory without discrimination, the prime minister said today, as he warned that the guerillas’ appeal for direct international aid would further split the war-ravaged country.

Sri Lanka’s hardline president installed a new prime minister today who immediately called on neighbouring India to help revive its frozen peace process amid post-election threats of a new civil war by the Tamil Tiger rebels.