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Western Province schoolchildren representing Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim schools participate at the Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations at the President’s House, Colombo, yesterday to signify ethnic harmony in the country.

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Sri Lanka president to meet Marxist leaders over tsunami aid to Tamil rebels

Sri Lanka's president on Friday started a key meeting about how to distribute foreign aid to tsunami victims in areas held by the country's Tamil Tiger rebels.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga was meeting with the Marxist People's Liberation Front, which is her party's main partner in the country's governing coalition - and has threatened to withdraw from the government if it sets up a joint aid-distribution group with the guerrillas.

The Marxist party holds 39 seats in the 225-member Parliament, and without its support, the government might collapse.

Details of the meeting were not immediately available.

The Marxist party has said setting up a joint group would help the rebels attain their goal of a separate Tamil state.

The Tamil Tigers have been observing a three-year-old cease-fire with the Sri Lankan government, after fighting a two-decade civil war to try creating a separate homeland for the country's ethnic minority Tamils. The conflict killed more than 65,000 people.

Government-rebel peace talks have stalled over differences on how much power should be devolved to Sri Lanka's Tamil-majority north and east.

The Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami killed at least 31,000 people in Sri Lanka, and left nearly 1 million homeless. The hardest- hit areas were in the country's northeast, some of which is controlled by the Tamil Tigers.

CEB demands immediate withdrawal of reforms bill, or else all out strike commencing Tuesday

Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) trade unions today threatened to launch an all out strike on Tuesday if the Government does not withdraw the Cabinet paper on electricity reforms which was passed on Wednesday and the Electricity Reforms Bill passed in the year 2002.

The workers also launched a token strike today afternoon at 2.00 p.m., it is scheduled to go on till tomorrow 8 a.m. The striking unions also claimed that even though during their meeting with President Kumaratunga last night she had assured that the CEB will not be liquidated after the reforms are implemented, the Cabinet paper which was passed states that the Board will be liquidated and a new company will be formed in its place. “We are giving the Government time till Monday, by then if they do not withdraw both documents, then we will launch an all out strike from Tuesday onwards,” the JVP backed Lanka Viduli Sevaka Sangamaya General Secretary Ranjan Jayalal warned.