Colombo, Mar. 15 : The last major medical facility in Tamil-held territory has almost stopped functioning due to medicine shortage, the BBC quoted a Sri Lankan health official, as saying at the weekend.

Dr. T. Varatharaja warned that the closure of the hospital would put the lives of thousands of sick and injured people in the conflict zone at extreme risk.

Geneva - The situation in northern Sri Lanka is "desperate," United Nation's top human rights official Navi Pillay said Friday, criticizing both the government and the Tamil rebels.

"The current level of civilian casualties is truly shocking, and there are legitimate fears that the loss of life may reach catastrophic levels, if the fighting continues in this way," Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said.

Islamabad, Mar. 11 (ANI): Pakistan’s Sports Minister Pir Aftab Shah Jilani has admitted his Government failed the Sri Lankan cricket team last Tuesday by providing inadequate security, but promised it would not happen again as they seek to retain hosting rights for the 2011 World Cup.

Colombo, Mar 10 : At least ten people were killed and 20 others, including Cabinet Minister Mahinda Wijesekara, injured in a suicide attack near a mosque here on Tuesday.

According to defence ministry sources, the suicide attack by a suspected LTTE bomber occurred during a ceremony to mark Eid-e-Milad-ud-Nabi, the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammad, near the mosque in the Akuresha area in Matara.

All injured, including Wijesekara, were rushed to a local hospital.

Colombo  - A former Tamil rebel military leader in eastern Sri Lanka has joined the ruling party and been named a government minister, local newspapers said Tuesday.

Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharna, also known as "Colonel Karuna," was sworn as minister of National Integration and Reconciliation at a ceremony presided over by President Mahinda Rajapaksa Monday night, the state-run Daily News said.

Muralitharan and about 2,000 of his followers joined Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which leads the coalition government, the newspaper said.

Sydney, Mar. 10: Sri Lanka cricket team coach Trevor Bayliss claimed on Tuesday that security was less than it had been on previous occasions in Pakistan.

“It was certainly less than when were there for the Asia Cup in July the year before and when we there for the one-day series only a month before (the attack) and probably different between Lahore (second Test) and (the first Test in) Karachi,'''' Fox Sports quoted an angry Bayliss, as saying.