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Athletes tricked into smuggling liquor
Tuesday, 3 August 2010 - 11:29 AM SL Time
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TIRUCHY: Yet another instance of exploitation of innocence came to the fore on Monday when at the Tiruchy airport, a group of athletes, 11 to 22 years old, were found carrying duty-free liquor. All of them had flown in on a Mihin Lanka flight from Colombo after an athletic meet there.
The athletes from Tiruchy were each given a bag by some unknown passengers, and told to just carry the bag out of the airport complex.
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Sri Lankan Tamils aim for North America, asylum
Wednesday, 4 August 2010 - 10:12 AM SL Time
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By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
An estimated 200 asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, including some believed to be members of a group the United States has labeled a terrorist organization, are aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean heading toward North America, according to U.S. government officials and other sources.
The MV Sun Sea had been destined for Australia but changed course after its captain determined that Australia`s navy and coast guard would prevent it from landing. Its current destination is believed to be the west coast of Canada, and it is expected to make landfall mid-month.
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Landmines explode in 3 Vanni school surroundings
Thursday, 5 August 2010 - 11:13 AM SL Time
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 August 2010, 04:09 GMT]
Three landmines went off Sunday morning in the surroundings of schools in three separate schools in Ki`linochchi district in Vanni where uprooted families were resettled in Vanni on Sri Lanka Army (SLA) assurance that the areas had been completely de-mined. The landmines exploded when students set fire to waste heaped after cleaning the surrounding area of their schools, sources in Ki`linochchi said.
The students were engaged in cleaning their school surroundings as a part of the Dengue Fever Awareness Week launched by Sri Lanka government.
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U.S. agency funds offshore training in enterprise Java
Friday, 6 August 2010 - 7:15 PM SL Time
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Computerworld - The U.S. Agency for International Affairs (USAID) is funding development of Sri Lanka`s offshore outsourcing industry, with the goal of creating some 3,000 jobs in an area of the country that has been especially brutalized by civil war.
The U.S. embassy in Sri Lanka on Friday posted a press release announcing a number of initiatives, including a joint program with business process outsourcing and IT companies `to establish professional IT and English skills development training centers` in the country`s Northern Province.
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USAID helps to create 3,000 offshore jobs in Sri Lanka : U.S. agency funds offshore training in enterprise Java
Friday, 6 August 2010 - 7:17 PM SL Time
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Computerworld - The U.S. Agency for International Affairs (USAID) is funding development of Sri Lanka`s offshore outsourcing industry, with the goal of creating some 3,000 jobs in an area of the country that has been especially brutalized by civil war.
The U.S. embassy in Sri Lanka on Friday posted a press release announcing a number of initiatives, including a joint program with business process outsourcing and IT companies `to establish professional IT and English skills development training centers` in the country`s Northern Province.
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Sri Lanka`s governing party members and ministers to call for action against rogue deputy minister
Friday, 6 August 2010 - 8:20 PM SL Time
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Aug 05, Colombo: Several governing party members and ministers of the Sri Lankan government are to meet with the President today (5) to take action against the controversial deputy minister.
Cabinet spokesperson, Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella told a press conference in Colombo that until the meeting with the President takes place, it was not possible to take action against Deputy Minister of Highways Mervyn Silva for his conduct on Tuesday (3).
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Prisoner refused A/L
Saturday, 7 August 2010 - 12:19 AM SL Time
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By N. Parameshwaran
A prisoner in Batticaloa who had got admission to sit the Advanced Level (A/L) examinations by the Examinations Department was refused permission to sit the exam by the Akaraitpattu judge as he was detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
The youth, A. Suhirthan, was arrested in April last year and had applied to sit for the examination this year but was today refused permission by the Court. (Daily Mirror online)
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Lanka in for clash with radical Islam
Saturday, 7 August 2010 - 9:06 PM SL Time
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The country may have come out of one of the most difficult conflicts in its history last year, but according to evidence that is surfacing, it could be plunged into a conflict with even more radical Islamic fundamentalists soon, if early action to check them is not taken, warns some leading members of the Muslim community who fear a bloodbath in the offing.
They said that the recovery by police, of illegal FM radio transmission equipment from a Rahuman Mosque belonging to the Thowheed sect in Beruwala on Tuesday, was only the tip of the iceberg. The radio had been used in recent days to incite followers to attack the nearby 186-year-old Buhari Mosque belonging to the Sufi sect, where there was a month long feast, which itself had been held for more than 130 years.
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Human rights groups are putting pressure on the website Wikileaks to remove the names of Afghan civilians from leaked US military reports
Wednesday, 11 August 2010 - 11:17 AM SL Time
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The groups, which include Amnesty International, say Afghans identified as suppliers of information to the US military could face reprisals.
The Taliban has executed hundreds of Afghan civilians it accuses of collaborating with US-led forces.
The huge cache of classified papers is one of the biggest leaks in US history.
All are linked to the Afghan conflict and Wikileaks posted them last month under the title of the Afghan War Diary.
The human rights groups also include the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, the Open Society Institute and the International Crisis Group.
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Asylum seekers say Australia reneged on deal
Thursday, 12 August 2010 - 8:01 AM SL Time
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Asylum seekers from the Oceanic Viking stand-off claim a `deal` to resettle all the people on board has been broken.
Twenty-five asylum seekers remain in limbo in detention centres on Christmas Island, the Philippines and in Romania with no prospect of re-settlement in another country.
The Oceanic Viking, an Australian Customs vessel, picked up the 78 Tamil asylum seekers in October last year in international waters and brought them to the port of Bintan in Indonesia where they refused to alight.
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Pain of 1990 Muslim `massacre` lingers in Sri Lanka
Friday, 13 August 2010 - 7:04 AM SL Time
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By Sivaramakrishnan Parameswaran
BBC Tamil
An apology has been issued by Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka to the country`s Muslim minority for `massacres` allegedly carried out by the Tamil Tiger rebel group during the civil war 20 years ago.
The rebels have been blamed for shooting dead more than 300 Muslims inside two mosques in the eastern town of Batticaloa in August 1990, and of attacking others in surrounding areas.
The killings were part of a series of tit-for-tat attacks by the local Tamil and Muslim communities between July and September 1990.
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A fatal intersection
Friday, 13 August 2010 - 9:08 PM SL Time
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I was born and raised in a little community in Kuliyapitiya, a typical agricultural area with three small tanks (wewa), which watered paddy fields, within walking distance on three sides of my house. Of course, there were also three Buddhist temples, almost within walking distance from each other. It was a typical village in the North-Western province, a part of which is known as bat kooralee or `rice province`. Where there were no tanks or paddy fields there were coconut plantations, big and small. Not surprisingly, much of the `coconut triangle` is also in this province.
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Migrants claim mass murders forced them to flee Sri Lanka
Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 3:37 PM SL Time
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Tamil migrants who arrived in British Columbia aboard a human-smuggling ship last week say they were fleeing mass murders, disappearances and extortion in their native Sri Lanka.
The Canadian Tamil Congress, an advocacy group for Canadian Tamils, released two letters to The Vancouver Sun and other media Monday allegedly penned by some of the 490 men, women and children detained in an immigration lockup facility in Maple Ridge.
`We would like to ask the Canadian people and the Canadian Government to have faith in us to believe that we are innocent civilians who have been affected by the conflict. We are not terrorists,` one of the letters states.
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Tamil asylum-seekers spark Canadian vitriol, anger
Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - 2:22 PM SL Time
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Raveena Aulakh
Staff Reporter
Send them back.
These boat people are abusing the system, taking us for a ride.
So they`ve come from a very bad situation. So what? So do a lot of other people why should we have to take everyone in?
Since the MV Sun Sea the boat carrying 490 Tamil refugees docked near Victoria on Friday, news websites and call-in radio shows have been inundated with vitriolic comments, media coverage has been sensational and there`s even been a protest against letting the boat into Canadian waters.
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Human smuggling or Tamil Tigers - A Story from the `Ocean Lady`
Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - 7:09 PM SL Time
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By Amarnath Amarasingam
After the MV Sun Sea was boarded and escorted into Canadian waters two days ago, speculation has been rampant about whether there are members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) on board, and whether this is an instance of human smuggling.
Columnists and news anchors have been wondering how these refugees who were `languishing in camps` managed to escape and find a boat to take them across the Pacific. This is the wrong question. The refugees who arrived on the MV Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady, which landed in Canada last October, probably escaped the Sri Lankan Civil War months beforehand.
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Sri Lanka leader`s brother testifies before war panel
Thursday, 19 August 2010 - 8:18 AM SL Time
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The man who oversaw Sri Lanka`s defeat of Tamil Tiger rebels has said he believes more than 6,000 of them were killed in the final stages of fighting.
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that international critics of the government tended to confuse rebel deaths with civilian ones.
The secretary was testifying before a commission examining the years leading up to the end of the war in May 2009.
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Australian policy urged for refugees to Canada
Thursday, 19 August 2010 - 6:06 PM SL Time
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A former Canadian diplomat says the federal government should adopt Australia`s so-called Pacific Solution for dealing with asylum seekers, a policy that a UBC expert on migration and refugee law considers the worst of its kind.
Between 2001 and 2007, boats bound for Australia were diverted to small Pacific islands, where the passengers were confined to camps while their applications for refugee status were processed.
The Australian government is moving to revive the practice, and Martin Collacott believes Canada should follow suit.
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Calgary Tamil hopes father among migrants
Saturday, 21 August 2010 - 5:39 PM SL Time
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A week after a ship carrying hundreds of Tamil migrants reached the B.C. coast, a Calgary man is still waiting anxiously for word on whether his father was among those on board.
The 22-year-old says his father phoned three months ago from an undisclosed location to say he had left Sri Lanka and was making arrangements to reach Canada by ship.
`He told me, if you hear of people arriving by sea, please try to ensure I can stay with you,` recalls the young man.
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The impossible voyage of a Tamil ghost ship
Saturday, 21 August 2010 - 6:52 PM SL Time
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Mark MacKinnon
Songkhla, Thailand From Saturday`s Globe and Mail
Whispers about a boat headed to Canada began long ago in Thailand`s small and closely knit Tamil community.
Among the regulars at the New Madras Caf a Tamil restaurant in the bustling commercial heart of Bangkok that serves roti, curry and lassis under photographs of the beaches of the Tamil heartland in northern Sri Lanka there was frequent talk that the infamous Tamil Tigers, or at least some of their ex-operatives, were planning something: A money-raising operation that would also help the organization regroup after its devastating defeat ended Sri Lanka`s three-decade civil war.
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Two tales of Sri Lankans
Sunday, 22 August 2010 - 6:52 AM SL Time
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A ship arrived in B.C. and tempers flared around dinner tables in suburban Ottawa.
Spurred by radio talk show hosts, many Canadians shed their benevolent skins and began bellowing that the 492 Tamil men, women and children who arrived on the smuggler-operated ship MV Sun Sea should be sent packing, back to sea.
Naturally, at the end of a global recession, Canadians worry that boatloads of refugees will take away from them valuable jobs, healthcare and even some of their pension money. Forgotten is that Canada is a country that has always accepted genuine refugees from around the world and is usually held in high regard for its handling of migrants.
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Refugees go home for holidays
Sunday, 22 August 2010 - 7:08 PM SL Time
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By Brian Lilley, Parliamentary Bureau
OTTAWA - A secret government survey reveals the majority of successful Tamil refugees travel back to Sri Lanka, raising questions about the legitimacy of their refugee status.
To become a refugee, a claimant must prove they are in danger of torture, there is a risk to their life or meet other criteria showing they will face persecution in their home country. Yet this did not stop over 70% of successful Tamil refugee claimants surveyed from returning to Sri Lanka for vacations, business or to sponsor family members.
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Media boycotts Dhoni
Monday, 23 August 2010 - 8:33 AM SL Time
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The print media boycotted Mahendra Singh Dhoni`s post-match media conference after the Indian captain kept the presspersons waiting for more than an hour following the conclusion of the India-Sri Lanka ODI here on Sunday.
During this period, Dhoni was seen playing football with the members of the Indian team at the Rangiri Stadium.
According to the standard procedure, the two captains should address the media within half-an-hour of the prize distribution ceremony, a Sri Lanka Cricket spokesman said.
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Jaffna University medical student commits suicide
Tuesday, 24 August 2010 - 10:41 AM SL Time
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Jaffna University medical student commits suicide
[TamilNet, Monday, 23 August 2010, 14:31 GMT]
A third year medical student of Jaffna University committed suicide Friday hanging himself in a house in Kantharoadai in Chu`n`naakam in Jaffna. His friends who found him missing Saturday went in search of him to his house and found him hanging dead by a rope, sources in Jaffna said. It is suspected the student took his life having failed in the recent examination. He is the third medical student of Jaffna University to commit suicide for failure in the examination this year.
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Redefining refugees
Tuesday, 24 August 2010 - 8:21 PM SL Time
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Over the weekend, the Sun newspaper chain reported the findings of a secret government report suggesting that nearly three-quarters of Sri Lankan Tamils previously granted refugee status in Canada have returned to their homeland for visits or vacations, casting doubt on their claims that they faced persecution, or even death, in their homeland.
The secret report turns out to be a collection of 50 refugee-applicant case studies, plucked at random from government files. That is a small sample size, and it`s not clear that even these 50 individuals are entirely representative of the larger Canadian-resident Tamil community. Still, the results are worrying: Of the 50 refugee applicants, 31 had been granted asylum. Of those, 22 had made trips back to Sri Lanka. If applicants feel safe enough to return to Sri Lanka, they are putting the lie to their pleas for sanctuary here.
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..Prabhakaran s family members to demand that Prabhakaran s body be handed over to them and for the overseas tigers to organize a final farewell ..
Thursday, 26 August 2010 - 2:20 PM SL Time
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Q: Another point I want to ask you is about Prabhakaran`s body. I expected Prabhakaran`s family members to demand that Prabhakaran`s body be handed over to them and for the overseas tigers to organize a final farewell to the man who dedicated himself to the cause he espoused for nearly 40 years.
A: I thought as you did at that time and obtained legal and diplomatic advice.
I was told that if Prabhakaran`s siblings would make a request that their brother`s body be handed over to them international pressure could be exerted on Colombo in that respect.
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it is not as if someone there with a axe and slaughter every animal that come there and chop their head.
Thursday, 26 August 2010 - 7:11 PM SL Time
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it`s just like Ajan said!! 100% truth!!
but as many readers in here thinks all those animals are not slaughted at the site.
only those to be cooked at the site will be slaughted at site.( that again not killed in front of people)
all other animals are sprayed with some holy water ( god accepting the gift) then it will be taken home and slaughted at later date.
it is not as if someone there with a axe and slaughter every animal that come there and chop their head.
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Sri Lankan who crewed Tamil Tiger boat free to seek refugee status
Saturday, 28 August 2010 - 9:28 PM SL Time
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A Sri Lankan citizen who was a crewman on a gun-running boat for the Tamil Tigers has been given the right by the Supreme Court to apply for refugee status in New Zealand.
In a unanimous decision, the court has dismissed an appeal by the Attorney-General against a Court of Appeal judgment that the applicant, who cannot be named, was eligible to claim refugee status.
The court has referred the matter back to the Refugee Status Appeals Authority for reconsideration on whether the applicant meets the requirements of the Refugee Convention and New Zealand law to be recognised as a refugee.
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In a Bangkok apartment, Tamils wait for a ship to Canada
Monday, 30 August 2010 - 10:37 AM SL Time
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Mark MacKinnon
Bangkok From Monday`s Globe and Mail
Published on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010 9:05PM EDT
Last updated on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010 11:06PM EDT
.The four men, Sri Lankan Tamils, say they are in Thailand on vacation, though they rarely venture outside their one-room apartment on the outskirts of the Thai capital. They sit together on the bed, endlessly watching old movies in English and Thai that they barely understand.
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Germany indicts three alleged members of Tamil Tigers for terrorism
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 - 7:16 PM SL Time
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Karlsruhe, Germany - Three alleged leaders of Sri Lanka`s separatist Tamil Tigers movement have been indicted in Dusseldorf, Germany for terrorism, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
They are accused of membership in a foreign terrorist organization, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was defeated last year by Sri Lanka`s army, ending a decades-long bloody civil war.
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