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SLMM suspends naval monitoring
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:33 AM SL Time
The Nordic truce monitoring mission has suspended naval monitoring following Thursday`s attack on a navy convoy off Vettilaikerni. Two vessels, troop ship Pearl Cruise II and Fast Attack Craft (P 421) of the eight-vessel convoy, carried Ilkka Happlina, the head of the Trincomalee-based naval monitors and Lars Bleymann, the deputy head of Jaffna-based naval monitors. The suspension would be temporary, Robert Nilffom, the Swedish acting spokesperson of the five-nation Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission told the Sunday Island.
He further said that they were in the process of assessing the situation, particularly the risks involved and counter measures. He emphasized that this would be temporary.
The Jaffna-based mission Saturday informed the Northern Naval Command of the decision as the navy prepared to bring Pearl Cruise II back to Trincomalee. The mission indicated that a decision would be made within two days, a well informed source said, expressing the belief that the monitoring would be resumed.
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Soosai reiterates sovereign right to seas bordering Tamil Homeland
Saturday, 13 May 2006 - 12:39 PM SL Time
`We have openly established our control, and have unequivocally asserted our rights to maritime waters adjoining our homeland, in the same way we recovered and control large areas of northeast. We are not prepared to relinquish sovereign rights to the seas which we have won with the sacrifice of our people,` said Col.Soosai when he met the press soon after the confrontation with the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in the seas off the northeastern cost of Jaffna Friday.
`Today, the long stretch of northern seas extending from Nagarkovil to Kokkuththoduvai is under the control of Liberation Tigers. After we evicted the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) from the Mullaitivu garrison, our control of northern seas has expanded and strengthened.
`We move with complete freedom in these waters to transport our cadres and to distribute material needs to our movement. We will not hesitate to wage war with anyone who attempts to prevent us from exercising our freedom,` Soosai further told the assembled press.
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LTTE says SLMM partial, warns monitors on Navy vessels
Saturday, 13 May 2006 - 4:35 AM SL Time
Hitting back at the SLMM statement issued after Thursday`s sea battle, the LTTE insisted that the monitors had no right to classify the two parties as state and non state actors in the country`s peace effort.
At a news conference held after an urgent meeting with the SLMM, the LTTE political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan said the ceasefire agreement was reached based on maintaining the status-quo in LTTE-controlled territory.
'Nobody has the right to pass judgment on the sovereign rights of our access to the sea and air space adjacent to our homeland. The SLMM statement issued on Thursday seriously affects this framework.
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Politics
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Trinco citizens prepare for tit-for-tats
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 4:17 AM SL Time
Ali-Oluwa Trincomalee - The police have offered shotguns to Sinhalese villagers to defend themselves against deadly LTTE attacks but the move appears to have deepened the ethnic chasm.
`I took up the offer purely to protect my family,` said Kumara, who declined to disclose his full name for fear of being singled out.
He lives with his wife and two daughters on the fringes of a thick forest that separates this little village from Tamil-dominated ones.
The 46-year-old farmer is among several in Ali-Oluwa, who opted for an `armed option,` after suspected Tigers attacked a nearby hamlet of Sinhalese villagers hacking a woman to death.
Ali-Oluwa was once threatened by elephants, hence the village name. Now, the threat is different.
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EU mulls slapping ban on LTTE; Govt. holds secret talks in Spain
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 4:11 AM SL Time
The government`s top official handling the peace process held talks with Norwegian peace brokers in Spain, as the European Union weighed whether to place the LTTE on a list of banned terrorist organizations, officials said.
Peace Secretariat Chief Palitha Kohona flew to Barcelona on Tuesday for meetings with Jon Hanssen-Bauer, Norway`s special envoy to Sri Lanka, senior officials involved in the peace process said.
The talks focused on a long-term strategy for Sri Lanka`s future peace, rather than how to overcome the immediate crisis, the officials said.
The two had just concluded a meeting when the LTTE launched a massive attack on a vessel carrying 710 unarmed troops in the northern seas.
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Civil society urges public action on 17th Amendment
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:39 AM SL Time
Lashing out at President Mahinda Rajapakse, Speaker W. J. M. Lokubandara and the entire gamut of parliamentarians, civil society groups last week urged the public to demand the proper implementation of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.
`The first responsibility lies with the people,` emphasised Chrishantha Weliamuna, director of Transparency Interna-tional, Sri Lanka. `The president and other politicians may commit wrongful acts every day but remember that we elected them to those positions. We sent 225 members to parliament, we pay them their salaries and we have a responsibility to question them.`
Weliamuna was speaking at a press conference organised by a Panadura-based organisation called Janasansadaya. Civil rights groups accused Rajapakse of subverting the 17th Amendment by independently appointing members to the National Police Commission (NPC) and the Public Service Commission (PSC).
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Editorial News
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Culture of Immunity
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:40 AM SL Time
There was an abysmal inadequate focus on the ``culture of impunity`` Mr. Nimal Siripala de Silva spoke of in parliament last week which he said had for too long been the ``curse`` besetting this country. He was speaking on the direction of the president and replying allegations that the TNA had made during the Emergency debate with special references to the killing of students on the Trincomalee beach, the discovery of headless bodies at Avisawella and other killings at Jaffna and Vavuniya that had escalated tensions between the government and the LTTE leading finally to the horrific attempt on Thursday to destroy a troop ferry with over 700 unarmed security servicemen and police on board. This was thwarted by its Sri Lanka Navy escort but at the heavy cost of 18 officers and men on board an Israeli-built Dvora class fast patrol boat which was sunk.
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Why should EU dither?
Saturday, 13 May 2006 - 4:31 AM SL Time
The LTTE bared its true intentions once again on Thursday. It is not peace that it seeks. It is all out to plunge the country back into a full scale war. The attempt to sink a privately-owned ship ferrying about 700 unarmed troops was part of a sinister plan not only to mar a national festival but to provoke a backlash on a day holy to the majority of Sri Lankans. The ship in question does a number of trips a month along the same route and the LTTE could have targeted it at some other time. But it waited until the eve of Vesak obviously in a dastardly bid to provoke the people, who, it knew, would be out on the streets in their millions, to fury. Previously, the LTTE had timed a terror attack in Trinco for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
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Career diplomats and diplomatic careerists
Thursday, 11 May 2006 - 6:47 AM SL Time
Sri Lanka`s Foreign Service has become the last resort of the failed and the retired. Politicians seem to believe it is their grandma`s property and that it is there for them to harbour their henchmen or political and administrative deadwood which they can`t otherwise get rid of. Successive governments have done so over the years and today the Foreign Service has gone the same way as the CTB'wobbling along with things falling apart.
We learn that W. J. S. Karunaratne, former Secretary to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, has been appointed Sri Lanka`s High Commissioner to Canada. The Parliamentary High Posts Committee is reported to have endorsed his appointment.
We thought Mahinda`s Kurahan Chinthanaya was different from Chandrika`s Paan Piti Chinthanaya. How can a person, who was part of a team that failed here in Colombo, deliver the goods for the country from a far away land' There have been several other appointments which have raised many an eyebrow in diplomatic and political circles. Chandrika`s previous secretary Kusumsiri Balapatabendi became Sri Lanka`s High Commissioner to Australia. He was also a part of a failed team which ran the affairs of this country. One may wonder whether failures are the pillars of Sri Lanka`s Foreign Service!
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| Security |
LTTE-underworld deadly alliance bared
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 4:13 AM SL Time
A long-term plan by the LTTE to infiltrate the underworld by selling arms to criminal elements and getting the underworld involved in its activities has been uncovered, following the arrest of an LTTE intelligence wing member and nine others, Deputy Inspector General D. W Prathapasinghe told The Sunday Times.
He said LTTE intelligence operative Rajendra Mahesh Sinniah and nine Gampaha underworld gangsters who had purchased weapons from him were being interrogated to extract further details.
DIG Prathapasinghe said state intelligence agencies had been alerted to the LTTE`s plan and police had been directed to keep track of the underworld gang members linked to the LTTE.
'We have deployed a special team to track down other LTTE gunrunners in the Gampaha area. But we now have reason to believe that these gunrunners who are believed to be from the LTTE intelligence wing have fled the Gampaha area in the wake of the arrests,' the DIG said.
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Forces must prepare for any eventuality: military
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:37 AM SL Time
Last Thursday`s sea battle off Vettilaikerni that led to the aerial attack on the LTTE airfield at Iranamadu underscored the urgent need to prepare for any eventuality, military officials said.
Although the navy managed to save passenger ferry Pearl Cruise II carrying over 700 unarmed troops to Jaffna peninsula, the confrontation revealed what a well informed source called `operational difficulties` that have to be rectified urgently.
With the Oslo-arranged four-year cease-fire agreement now widely believed to be in tatters the government is deliberating ways and means of enhancing the firepower of security forces. Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga accompanied Defence Secretary Colonel (retd) Gotabaya Rajapakse and the president`s elder brother Basil to Navy Headquarters as the navy top brass called in reinforcements to thwart the looming suicide attack on the troop ship.
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Tigers refuse SLMM access to airfield
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:35 AM SL Time
The Tigers have denied access to the SLMM to visit the LTTE airfield bombed by the government last Thursday. SLMM spokesperson Robert Nilffom confirmed this. The truce monitoring mission sought permission after the government announced that the airfield was bombed in response to last Thursday`s Sea Tiger attack on the navy off Vettilaikerni.
The SLMM had made previous requests to visit Iranamadu after the government brought to its notice the existence of what a senior foreign ministry source called an illegal aviation facility. Military sources said that the LTTE allowed the SLMM to Muttur east targeted by security forces on April 25 after the suicide attempt on the Army Chief`s life. Nilffom said that the SLMM was still awaiting government approval to visit Army Headquarters where the army Chief was targeted.
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Business / Economy News
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New housing policy for tsunami victims
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:55 AM SL Time
A new tsunami housing policy has been finalized by the government and sent to district secretaries in tsunami-affected regions with a clear message: assume full responsibility for work and ensure all affected persons return to or get new homes by end 2006.
The policy document is a departure from the previous pre-buffer zone strategy and this time promises 'a house for a house, regardless of ownership.' It provides every tsunami affected family including squatters (a substantial number) a house or land and compensation and encourages those who have land or a house (damaged in the earlier declared buffer zone) to build on the same premises or rebuild the same house.
In a bid to free land provided earlier to donors for housing but unused so far, the government has cancelled dozens of MoUs signed with donors on the provision of land and are reallocating these under the new policy. 'There were some we obtained by mutual consent (from the donor) and others where we used the law. Its something that had to be done as we need land and cannot watch while things were not happening on this land,' noted Saliya Wickramasuriya, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the Reconstruction and Development Agency (RADA).
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Mini hydro power projects vital
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:51 AM SL Time
Sri Lanka depends on expensive petroleum resources. At present it is over 60 percent. A barrel of crude oil now costs US $ 72 according to the prevailing world oil prices. The quick surge in world oil prices will be a burden on the economy and the masses will have to pay for it, Consultant for Mini Hydro Power Projects, National Council for Economic Development, Nishantha Nanayakkara said.
`We need to go for alternative indigenous renewable energy resources such as hydro, wind and dendro which is cheaper and affordable to the common masses. Air, water and wood are renewable energy resources because, they are gifts of nature and its lifecycle is short,` he said.
Since we are gifted with such resources we should produce our own energy requirements instead of depending on costly thermal power from abroad. Producing hydro, wind and dendro power is cheaper and environmentally, socially and economically feasible, Nanayakkara said.
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Engineers Institution lauds President`s stand on Norochcholai coal power plant
Friday, 12 May 2006 - 9:18 AM SL Time
The Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL) congratulated President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Cabinet for the consistent stand they have adopted towards the country`s power policy and for their initiative and courage in deciding to commence the much talked about and much delayed coal power plant at Norochcholai without any further delay.
`It is with sadness that we note here that the successive governments in the past have failed to understand the urgency and the importance of setting up a coal power plant to meet the country`s ever increasing energy needs,` the IESL said.
The IESl release: `We at the IESL, over a period of almost a decade, have been agitating for a viable and cost effective power policy for the country knowing too well the adverse effects the absence of such a policy could have in the years to come on the country`s economy and the industry. We have brought this to the notice of the policy-makers repeatedly.
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| Sports News
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The Downfall of Sri Lankan Cricket
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:43 AM SL Time
Sri Lankan cricketing fortunes seem to be following a course very similar to that which has afflicted the West Indians for the last decade or more. Whilst the Sri Lankans never ever approached the greatness of the West Indian teams of the late 1970`s and the decade thereafter there seems to be a parallel worth examining.
The great West Indian teams under Clive Lloyd and Vivian Richards annihilated all before them. Other than for the odd hiccup they were simply too good both at home and away. They had a conveyor belt which kept on producing great fast bowlers at a rate that resulted in several fast bowlers being unable to get a place in the team whilst all the other test playing teams looked on enviously. During this period the West Indies also produced several great batsmen with Vivian Richards being pre-eminent amongst them. Despite very slow over rates, test matches involving the West Indies rarely went beyond the fourth day.
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Hapless Sri Lanka heading for heavy defeat
Sunday, 14 May 2006 - 3:42 AM SL Time
Sri Lanka are facing an uphill task in the first Test Match against England here at the Lord`s cricket ground when England seamers reduced them for 91 for six at close of second day`s play in reply to their massive 551 for six declared, their best score ever against the tourists. After being sent on a leather hunt over five sessions in the series opener England`s seam attack had Sri Lanka`s top order in trouble and the target of 351 to avoid follow on looks beyond their reach with captain Mahela Jayawardene on 40 and Farveez Maharoof on six not out.
On a pitch where Sri Lanka`s seamers failed to do anything significant their English counterparts swung the ball sharply to take control of the game.
Mathew Hoggard claimed the wickets of openers Jehan Mubarak and Upul Tharanga, both out lbw, to reduce Sri Lanka for 21 for two and then debutant Sadjid Mahmood inflicted three telling blows.
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Sri Lankans arrive in high spirits
Saturday, 13 May 2006 - 4:40 AM SL Time
The Sri Lanka rugby team arrived in Hong Kong early last morning and is scheduled to have two practice sessions ahead of their crucial Asian zone World Cup qualifying round match against the host country on Sunday.
Team manager Sanjaya Fernando said the players arrived on schedule and were in high spirits looking forward to the game.
The players will train this morning at the King`s Park and have a light session in the evening at the Football Stadium which is the venue of the match.
One of the major sports promoters in Sri Lanka, Singer, will be the sponsors of the team.
Victory for Sri Lanka on Sunday will book the team a place in the final qualifying round to meet Japan and South Korea during the Asian meet in Colombo November.
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