Colombo  - A female suicide bomber posing as a civilian entered a government-controlled area from the Tamil rebel-held area in northern Sri Lanka Monday morning and detonated herself at a welfare centre, killing several persons and injuring at least 60 others, the military said.

The explosion went off in the Visuamadu area, 360 kilometres north-east of the capital, where the military is receiving hundreds of civilians before they are sent to transit camps.

London, Feb 09 : Suresh Joachim, a Sri Lanka native who lives in Toronto, has smashed his own Guinness world record for non-stop broadcast-television watching, clocking 72 hours in the Swedish capital.

"I feel fine, I drank between 25 and 30 cups of coffee," the Telegraph quoted Joachim, as saying.

Joachim set the previous world record of 69 hours and 48 minutes in 2005 but has now exceeded that with 72 hours in front of a box.

Chennai, Feb. 8, : Activists of the ruling Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) on Sunday staged a protest against the Sri Lankan Army''s offensive on ethnic Tamils in that island-nation.

State's Rural Development Minister M. K. Stalin led the protest and raised anti-Lankan slogans.

The protesters called for a democratic solution to the Sri Lankan crisis.

"The massive rally is being conducted with the help of members and other political partners of DMK. It is conducted mainly to stop killings in Sri Lanka so that at least the remaining Tamils can live there in peace," Stalin said.

India has been demanding protection for Sri Lanka''s Tamils, who are closely linked to the 60 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu.

Colombo  - The Sri Lankan government is preparing to receive some 100,000 civilians fleeing Tamil rebel-held areas in the northern part of the country after some
10,000 have already crossed over to military controlled areas, officials said Sunday.

Preparations were being put in place to receive large numbers of civilians in Vavuniya, 240 kilometres north of the capital, an official involved in providing relief to the displaced persons said.

New Delhi  - India on Sunday asked the Sri Lanka government to take care of the thousands of Tamils caught up in the war between rebels and the country's military.

"We don't support the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), we have no sympathy with the LTTE, it is a terrorist organization," Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said a rally of Congress party workers in the Indian capital.

But India was concerned over the plight of Tamils caught in the battle between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE.

Nagapattinam, Feb.