Kathmandu, Mar 3 : Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has cut his stay in Nepal in the wake of attack on Sri Lankan cricket team at Lahore in Pakistan on Tuesday.

Rajapaksa has cancelled his trip to Lumbini.

He had arrived Nepal yesterday on a three-day visit on the invitation of his Nepali counterpart President Dr Ram Baran Yadav.

During his visit, he met Dr. Yadav and Prime Minister Prachanda.

Colombo  - Following an attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore, Pakistan, Sri Lanka's main opposition parties Tuesday criticized the government's decision to send the country's players to tour Pakistan when other countries refused to play there.

Colombo - Government troops destroyed at least two enemy boats off the country's north-eastern coast on Monday, thwarting an attempt by Tamil rebels to launch a counter-offensive, a military spokesman said.

The boats had been sent in as part of an attempt to attack troops stationed in an area north of Pthumathalan, 395 kilometres north-east of the capital, when the ground troops stationed in the coastal area fired and destroyed them.

New York  - The Sri Lankan government has been urged to hold back its final military battle in areas where tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped, the United Nations' chief humanitarian emergency coordinator said Friday.

The UN's John Holmes recently visited the troubled island nation to gain first-hand information of the humanitarian situation in refugee camps.

New Delhi - India is to send an emergency medical unit to Sri Lanka to help civilians wounded in the current conflict, a spokesman for India's External Affairs Ministry said Thursday.

"India and Sri Lanka have agreed to work together to address the urgent medical needs of these civilians," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said in a statement.

The medical unit, which would be dispatched immediately, would comprise doctors, surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and support staff and medical equipment and supplies which would be augmented as required, Prakash said.

Colombo- Police Thursday made a controversial arrest of a newspaper editor in Sri Lanka, raising protests from journalists and media rights activists who say the arrest amounted to an abduction.

Three policemen in uniform and two in civilian clothing grabbed N Vidyatharan, the chief editor of the Tamil language Sudaroli newspaper from a funeral parlor in Mount Lavinia, 12 kilometres south of Colombo, where he was attending the funeral of a relative.

Police had failed to identify themselves, relatives said, and initial reports spoke of an abduction.