Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

North cleared of 4 m sq metres of land-mines - PM

Irangika Range and Sandasen Marasinghe

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka told Parliament yesterday that the Security Forces had been able to remove land-mines in an area extending to four million square metres in the North.

The Premier also brought to the notice of the House that it was estimated about 1.5 million death traps including land-mines had been buried in the Northern Province.

He made these observation moving the Motion for the extension of the Emergency by a further month.

The Sri Lanka Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia has informed the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry that `Alex` the spokesman of the suspected 255 illegal Sri Lankan migrants in Indonesia had been involved in human smuggling for a long time and it is believed that his office is based in India.

Alex also once belonged to `Kannan Gang` involved in street fights and was deported from Canada in 2003, after being arrested for trouble making. His date of birth is 6th January 1982.

Who are the Tamils?

The Tamils are a minority with deep roots in the north of the island nation of Sri Lanka and kinship ties to the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which lies across a narrow sea channel. A separate group of Tamils arrived later from India as laborers during British rule and are known as Indian Tamils. Together they make up around 18 percent of Sri Lanka`s 20 million people, with the Sinhalese majority making up 74 percent. Largely Hindu, the Tamils live mostly in the north and east, the area claimed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), though large numbers live in Colombo, the capital. Since the 1980s, Tamil emigration has created an influential diaspora in Britain, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere that exceeds 800,000 people.

`New Alliance` a misnomer

Indika Polkotuwa

The United National Front formed on Tuesday cannot be considered as a new political alliance because it comprised a handful of people who had worked with UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe for the past several years said Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare Minister Keheliya Rambukwella.

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Chief of Defense Staff General Sarath Fonseka is scheduled to arrive in Sri Lankan from the United States, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) informed parliament today.

When contacted army sources confirmed to Daily Mirror that the General would return to the island tomorrow morning, and would not be facing the interview with the US Homeland Security Department that was expected to be held this afternoon.

Explosive residue found on Lankan migrants` clothing



Authorities investigating the 76 Sri Lanan migrants aboard a ship seized off Vancouver Island, in Canada told an immigration hearing Monday that two items of clothing the men brought with them tested positive for explosive residue.

Investigators also say there had been an attempt to disguise the ship`s identity and that the vessel actually belongs to the Tamil Tigers, an alleged terrorist organization banned by the federal government.

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US seeks info on Gota from Fonseka


Criticizing a US to move `interview` Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka, now on a short visit to the US, the Sri Lanka government says an attempt is being made to target Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

The AIADMK led by J. Jayalalithaon, Wednesday, adopted a resolution which said that the party would take steps to ensure that the Tamils in Sri Lanka lived with honour and equal rights and would also make efforts to retrieve Kachchatheevu and protect Indian fishermen from the attacks allegedly by the Sri Lankan navy.

Sri Lanka has been ranked at 16 in the World Economic Forum`s Global Gender Gap Index 2009 ahead of France and the USA. Iceland has claimed the top spot from Norway which slipped to third position behind Finland.

The report`s Index assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities.

Presidential, Parliamentary poll might be on same day


The government is considering holding both a Presidential and Parliamentary election on the same day and President Mahinda Rajapaksa will make a formal announcement over the matter during the November 15th SLFP convention to be held in Colombo, the Government said today.

The Big Mac, long a symbol of globalization, has become the latest victim of this tiny island nation`s overexposure to the world financial crisis.

Iceland`s three McDonald`s restaurants -- all in the capital Reykjavik -- will close next weekend, as the franchise owner gives in to falling profits caused by the collapse in the Icelandic krona.

`The economic situation has just made it too expensive for us,` Magnus Ogmundsson, the managing director of Lyst Hr., McDonald`s franchise holder in Iceland, told The Associated Press by telephone on Monday.

The government has made remarkable progress in resettling the people displaced by the was between government forces and the terrorist group LTTE, the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe said today.

Addressing a media briefing in Colombo today at the Presidential Secretariat, Minister Samarasinghe said the number of Internally Displaced Persons has been reduced from 288,000 to 196,088.

The IDPs have been resettled in their original homes in a secure environment with all the assistance given to restore their livelihood, the Minister said. However, the IDPs have been given a choice of a location to resettle and they are not forced to choose the location, the Minister added.

LTTE, Maoists working together in India- Indian intelligence



VISAKHAPATNAM: Indian Union home minister P. Chidambaram`s assertion that Naxalites are acquiring arms from abroad is only the tip of the iceberg, as central intelligence agencies have found fresh evidence of joint training camps and meetings conducted by the Red guerrillas with Tamil Tigers in the forests of south and central India.

Sri Lankan Flag to be hoisted in Jaffna Fort
[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 October 2009, 04:42 GMT]
Son of Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa, Namal Rajapakse, who is presently staying in Jaffna along with the 250 youths he brought from the South will be officially hoisting the Sri Lanka Lion Flag Sunday in Jaffna Fort, sources in Jaffna said. In 1996 when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupied Jaffna, the then Deputy Defence Minister, Anurathe Rathwathe had ceremoniously hoisted the Sri Lankan Flag in the esplanade in front of Jaffna Fort. Tamils protested vehemently when Sinhala parties adopted the lion flag as the national flag soon after British left the island. Opposition to the flag, since then, has been part of the Tamil national movement.