Top Asian News at 1:00 p.m. GMT

Top Asian News at 1:00 p.m. GMT

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s Tamil rebels said Tuesday that 1,000 civilians died in a government raid on their territory that the military says freed thousands of noncombatants from the war zone. The military denied the accusation. As government forces have pushed the rebels into an ever-shrinking sliver of territory, both sides have accused the other of endangering civilians. Rights groups say the rebels are holding many against their will to use as human shields. But those groups have also accused the government of indiscriminate shelling in the tightly packed region in its bid to end the 25-year war.