A video purportedly showing troops shooting blindfolded, naked Tamils in the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war has revived calls for a war crimes investigation and cast a shadow over the upcoming presidential election.

SRI LANKA TO RELEASE 136,000 TAMILS

The United States asked the Sri Lankan government to open to foreign inspection areas of the country where government forces are alleged to have shelled displaced Tamils early this year in the final weeks of a 25-year secessionist rebellion.

Human rights group Amnesty International today called for Sri Lanka to release hundreds of thousands of war refugees held in military-run camps, saying monsoon floods could create a health crisis.

Sri Lanka's president today urged the military to win over the Tamil people and to ensure they live without "fear or suspicion".

THE Tamil Tigers have officially acknowledged that their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed a week ago by Sri Lankan government troops, according to a statement from the rebels.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed today to a triumphant Sri Lankan government to “heal the wounds” from three decades of civil war with Tamil minority rebels and urged greater access to camps for the more than 300,000 people driven from their homes.

Aid groups pushed for access to Sri Lanka's former battlefield today to check on the fate of any wounded civilians stranded there, as the country celebrated a holiday to honour the military's victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels.

SRI LANKA’S president declared his country “liberated from separatist terror” as state television broadcast images of the Tamil Tiger rebel leader’s body after it was recovered from the battlefield.

Sri Lanka's president declared his country "liberated from separatist terror" today as state television showed the body of the Tamil Tiger rebel leader killed by troops.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to parliament today, declaring that his country had been “liberated” from terrorism after defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels on the battlefield.

SRI LANKA declared it had crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, killing their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and ending his three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils.

The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government today, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the northeast.

Yes, there is public feeling about the Palestinians and their rotten deal. I’ve never heard Chechnya being discussed on the DART, whereas I have heard Israel being trashed on buses as well as at smart dinner parties. Besides, who’s ever heard of a “Sri Lanka out of Tamil Eelam” march through Cork or calls for a boycott of Russia?

AN overnight artillery barrage in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone killed at least 378 civilians and wounded more than 1,100, a government doctor said yesterday, calling it the bloodiest day he had seen in the army’s offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels.

SRI LANKA’S government dropped leaflets across the northern war zone yesterday urging civilians to flee the fighting amid accusations the military pounded the area with artillery shells that killed at least 10 civilians.

FOR the past week we have witnessed an unprecedented media surge in the coverage of swine flu and, unfortunately, a few hundred people have died of this dreadful disease.

Hundreds who fled heavy fighting in Sri Lanka’s war zone waited to be evacuated from a tiny coastal village today as the UN reported that nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the last three months.

SRI LANKA’S Tamil rebels said yesterday that 1,000 civilians died in a government raid on their territory that the military says freed thousands of noncombatants from the war zone. The military denied the accusation.

SRI LANKA yesterday gave the Tamil Tigers 24 hours to surrender or die after troops breached a huge earthen defence and unleashed an exodus of tens of thousands of civilians held there by the rebels, the military said.

Lifeboats were scrambled after thousands of Tamil protesters calling for international action to enforce a ceasefire in Sri Lanka threatened to throw themselves into the River Thames.

Sri Lanka’s president today urged the Tamil Tiger rebels to allow the estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in the northern war zone to flee to safety following reports of heavy casualties among non-combatants stuck in the shrinking territory.

ZIMBABWE: President Robert Mugabe’s party said yesterday it is prepared to form a government on its own if the opposition won’t join it — a move certain to anger the West.

THE United Nations said yesterday that “many” civilians have been killed in recent fighting in Sri Lanka’s civil war and called the situation for thousands of displaced people trapped in the northern conflict zone a crisis.

Sri Lanka’s military declared a “safety zone” to enable 250,000 trapped civilians to cross into government-controlled territory from the diminishing area held by Tamil Tiger rebels in the war-torn north.

Sri Lankans raised flags and held a moment of silence today in honour of the military, as troops pushed deeper into rebel-held territory in the north in their offensive aimed at crushing the Tamil Tigers and ending the 25-year-old civil war in the country.

The Tamil Tigers’ capital in northern Sri Lanka was captured by government forces today, dealing a devastating blow to the rebels’ quarter-century fight for an independent state, the country’s

A bomb blast blamed on separatist Tamil Tigers wounded 45 people in Sri Lanka’s capital today.

An explosion has rocked the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, the country’s military said today.

TEN people were killed and 86 wounded yesterday in a suicide bomb attack on a bus carrying riot police in the Sri Lankan capital Columbo.

Scattered gunbattles and a roadside bomb blast in Sri Lanka’s embattled north killed 17 Tamil separatists and three soldiers in two days of violence, the military said today.

Nine suspects have been arrested in a bus bombing that killed 26 passengers outside Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, police said today as air force jets pounded positions of the Tamil rebels blamed for the attack.

A day of fighting between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels killed 28 insurgents and a soldier while troops overran guerrilla bunkers in the island’s north, the military said today.

Clashes between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists killed at least 40 combatants across northern Sri Lanka, the military said today, as air force jets bombed a rebel commanders' camp.

A bomb explosion on a bus wounded at least 14 people near the Sri Lankan capital today.

At least 34 people across northern Sri Lanka have been killed in the latest spate of violence across the country.

A roadside bomb tore through a civilian bus in northern Sri Lanka today, killing seven people and wounding 26, the army said, blaming Tamil Tiger rebels for the attack.

An explosion near a school spread panic among students and teachers in Sri Lanka today.

Sri Lankan officials today said commandoes had found torture chambers at a captured rebel base, but the separatists said the cement cells were for holding prisoners and denied any torture had taken place.

Armed police guarded the office of Dutch aid group ZOA Refugee Care in the Sri Lankan capital today after angry Buddhist monks stormed into the building and accused the group of aiding Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said.

Sri Lanka’s air force said it bombed a Tamil Tiger rebel naval base in the country’s north-west today, but a guerrilla spokesman claimed the air raid killed 15 civilians in a fishing village.

About 3,000 Tamil civilians braved flooded, mine-laden jungle paths to flee from separatist fighting into government-held areas in eastern Sri Lanka today, officials and witnesses said.

A boat transporting ethnic Tamil refugees capsized off eastern Sri Lanka today, leaving four dead and two missing, police said.

The United Nations today said it was “deeply concerned” about indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in Sri Lanka’s east where tens of thousands of civilians, most Tamils, are caught in fighting.