The bomber appeared to have targeted six ministers as they walked in a procession toward the mosque to celebrate Mawlid, which commemorates the prophet Mohammed's birthday, said H.M. Fowzie, Sri Lanka's oil minister, who was at the event.

"A suicide bomber tried to kill us, but we escaped," Fowzie told The Associated Press.

Fowzie said he was splattered with blood and flesh after the bomb went off behind the ministers. The road was covered with dead bodies and blood, he said.

Ahamed Nafri, 29, said he was walking toward the mosque when the blast went off. More...Discuss this story Published: Tue Mar 10 04:02:12 EDT 2009

The first steps of that policy has unfolded with a military-medical mission landing in Colombo this week in a first sortie by the Indian Air Force. More sorties are to be followed by a series of measures. The reconstruction package coincides with political pressures mounting from Tamil Nadu where Jayalalithaa went on a hunger strike demanding humanitarian intervention.

The demand is catching on during election time and has echoes in Washington where foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon met US secretary of state Hillary Clinton last night.

Lurking in the background of the measures that India is taking and the US is pushing for is an increasing presence of the Chinese who are developing roads, expanding a port and filling spaces vacated by India during the years of a hands-off policy before the Sri Lankan armed forces took the battle to the LTTE and cornered it in the island’s northeast where the militants’ territory is now confined to less than 100sqkm and is shrinking by the hour. More...Discuss this story Published: Tue Mar 10 20:13:16 EDT 2009

Returning to his homeland for the first time since gunmen opened fire on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore last week, the Australian said the attack that left eight dead had cast a shadow on sport across the entire subcontinent.

"There's some big questions to be asked by the governing bodies of all the sports, not just cricket," Bayliss told reporters.

"I think this proves if cricket, which is the number one sport basically on the subcontinent, can get hit, then any sport can get hit and especially any big sporting tournaments or the Commonwealth Games maybe."

Commonwealth Games chiefs have said the event will be held in Delhi next year under tight security, although Australian swimming legend Dawn Fraser has warned that organisers risk "another Munich" if they proceed. More... Published: Tue Mar 10 04:05:24 EDT 2009