Technology Education key to Tamils' prosperity- Thilak

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 August 2004, 00:04 GMT]
"Skills development in information technology across the districts of NorthEast at international levels is key to economic upliftment of our people," said S.Thilak, currently the Director of Economic Development for NorthEast and formerly political head of Trincomalee, when TamilNet talked to him Saturday about his new assignment in the economic division.
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Agricultural exhibition to be held in Vattakachchi Model Farm

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 August 2004, 04:19 GMT]
Manufacturers and resellers of agricultural tools using latest technology, and agricultural, livestock producers will be showcasing their products in an exhibition at the Model Farm premises in Vattakachchi organized by the Tamil Eelam Economic Development Organization (TEEDOR) during the first week of September, organizers in Vanni said this week.
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Garbage dump sparks protest in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 August 2004, 13:12 GMT]
Hundreds of people Saturday from four villages affected by a dump for disposing garbage from Vavuniya protested against the disposal of waste to near Rasenthirakulam eight kilometres west of the large northern border town. Protestors blocked tractors carrying garbage to the dump. Residents of these farming villages complain that the garbage dump used by the Vavuniya Urban Council (UC) has become a major health hazard in the area and its foul smell is unbearable. Protestors also blocked vehicle of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) that was carrying waste to dispose at the dump.
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Murder convict said organizer of Sri Lanka conference in Oslo

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 August 2004, 05:20 GMT]
A man convicted of murder is the joint organiser of a conference on Sri Lanka in Oslo, the Norwegian multicultural newspaper Utrop said in its online edition Friday. The conference, which begins Friday, brings together Sinhala nationalist hardliners and Sinhala Buddhist extremists from around the world. The Norwegian, the joint organizer of the Sinhala nationalist conference, was convicted for murdering an immigrant restaurant owner in Oslo and sentenced to preventive detention for ten years in 1997, according to Utrop.
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Peace talks should be over ISGA proposals - Mannar Bishop

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 August 2004, 02:35 GMT]
“The Interim Self Governing Authority [ISGA] document was only a proposal for discussion as a step towards a viable alternative to separation. The current talk of a counterproposal to be made by the [Sri Lanka] government is not acceptable to the Liberation Tigers, as the LTTE feels this will become an opportunity for the government to bide its time…The government can bring up all its proposals at the discussion table over the ISGA proposals,” said the Bishop of Mannar, Rt.Rev. Rayappu Joseph, when TamilNet interviewed him Monday.
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Sri Lanka faces fuel distribution crisis

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 August 2004, 11:13 GMT]
Sri Lanka is facing a major fuel distribution crisis after trade unions of the state owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation went on strike against a proposed plan to sell a major share of the institution to an Indian oil company. Panicked drivers jammed fuel filling stations in many parts of the island as distribution of petroleum products stopped after the strike started Friday afternoon.
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TNA MPs welcome POTA's repeal, urge India to revoke ban

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 August 2004, 13:52 GMT]
''We welcome the Indian Central Government for its intention to abolish the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). At the same time, we also urge the Indian Government to consider lifting the ban on the LTTE and create a more meaningful and conducive environment necessary to bring the stalled peace process in Sri Lanka back on track'', TNA MPs Mr. Joseph Pararajasingam and Mr. Selvam Adaikalanathan told TamilNet Friday.
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SLFP, UNP should act together to recommence negotiations - NLF

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 August 2004, 02:57 GMT]
"It is indeed absolutely incumbent on the two so-called major parties (UNP and SLFP) to get their act together to recommence negotiations and take them forward fruitfully to an equitable outcome, especially because it is these two parties that are irrefutably responsible, jointly and severally, for the sins of omission and commission that triggered the 20 year long war," Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne, the leader of the New Left Front (NLF), told TamilNet in an interview Monday.
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Refugees abandoned on mid sea sandbank

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 August 2004, 12:06 GMT]
Nine refugees who were abandoned by two Indian boatmen on a sandbank in the middle of the sea in the Gulf of Mannar were rescued by a fisherman from Thalaimannar Saturday. Mannar magistrate released them when they were produced before him by Thalaimannar Police Sunday. The refugees said the boatmen had forced them to get off on a small shifting sandbank at midsea around midnight on Thursday. The influx of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from state run camps in South India who risk illegal and dangerous sea journeys to reach Mannar has increased dramatically recently.
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SLN arrests Indian poachers in northern sea

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 August 2004, 19:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Thursday evening took into custody four Indian trawlers poaching in the Sri Lankan northern territorial waters with 21 Indian fishermen and four boatmen and handed them to Kankesanthurai (KKS) Police. The SLN carried out this operation on receipt of information from the members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in Jaffna, TamilNet sources in the northern town said.
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"Patience running thin"- Gajendrakumar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 August 2004, 18:37 GMT]
''Tamil people are fast running out of patience. It has been three years since the ceasefire agreement was signed and our people continue to be denied the fruits of peace,'' Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Tamil National Alliance MP told TamilNet Thursday.
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LTTE returns paddy fields to displaced Muslims

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 August 2004, 09:44 GMT]
Liberation Tigers returned twenty nine paddy fields belonging to Muslims in Thannimurippu in the Mullaithivu District recently, Mr. Sathasivam Kanakaratnam Tamil National Alliance MP for Vanni told TamilNet Tuesday. The MP said all Muslims displaced from the district during the war can reclaim their lands as soon as they produce documents to prove ownership.
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Jaffna IDPs woes worsen without relief

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 August 2004, 03:01 GMT]
Lack of employment opportunities, stalled economic growth, and infrastructure development at a virtual standstill continue to affect the lives of people of Jaffna especially the Internally Displaced People (IDPs). Many families, who have suffered loss of lives and loss of property during the two decades of war, face uphill battle to stay above the poverty line.
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Demo in Jaffna against wrongs in graduate jobs scheme

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 August 2004, 10:03 GMT]
Hundreds of unemployed graduates demonstrated in front of the Jaffna District Secretariat Monday demanding government jobs. A spokesman for the protestors told TamilNet that Jaffna has been neglected in the Sri Lankan government scheme to give jobs to more than thirty thousand graduates in the island. "There 3400 unemployed graduates in Jaffna. But Colombo has announced the names of only 513 of these for employment", he said.
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BBC's Harrison leaves

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 August 2004, 00:04 GMT]
Frances Harrison, BBC's Colombo correspondent for the past four years and who is leaving Sri Lanka to her new assignment in Tehran, pointed out in one of her last reports filed that she was troubled by the hardships the family of a murdered Jaffna journalist went through: "As I leave Sri Lanka I have on my mind a journalist called Nimalarajan Mylvaganam. He worked for the BBC in the northern city of Jaffna," she said, adding that Nimalarajan's family had become part of her life during the first eighteen months of her assignement in Sri Lanka.
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Death at noon creates crack in Sri Lanka's defences

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 August 2004, 02:31 GMT]
Mr. Kandaiah Yoharasa alias PLOTE Mohan was the most dreaded Tamil paramilitary operative that ever worked with the Sri Lankan armed forces in their war against the Liberation Tigers. His name once evoked terror among the people of Batticaloa. He was an invaluable if not indispensable part of Sri Lanka's intelligence and counter insurgency operations against the LTTE.
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Mullaithivu fishermen still at risk- MP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 July 2004, 16:50 GMT]
''The fishing community of Mullaithivu suffered immensely during the war. But the Sri Lanka Navy continues to terrorise them even after two years of peace'', Mr. Sathasivam Kanakaratnam, Tamil National Alliance MP for Vanni, told TamilNet Thursday. He said two Mullaithivu fishermen were dragged around at mid sea in their boats by SLN speed craft last week on 21 July.
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Mannar GA says refugee influx unprecedented

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 July 2004, 15:53 GMT]
''Hundreds of refugees are risking their lives, paying high fares to unscrupulous boatmen, to return from India to their homes in the northeast. The influx of refugees is increasing by the day. It is hence imperative that MPs of the Vanni District should persuade the governments of India and Sri Lanka to let these refugees return legally by ferry or by boats from Mannar,'' said the Government Agent for Mannar Wednesday.
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Police action threatens freedom of expression- IFJ

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 July 2004, 12:06 GMT]
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), a global organisation representing over 500,000 journalists worldwide, has today condemned recent actions by the Sri Lankan police threatening freedom of expression in Sri Lanka.
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RSF fears for Tamil journalist's safety

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 July 2004, 00:35 GMT]
"A dozen [Sri Lanka] police without a warrant searched the Colombo home of Dharmaretnam Sivaram, editor of the news website TamilNet.com for the second time in three months on 23 July," said Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a press release published on its website. "Reporters Without Borders deplored the post-midnight raid as unjustified and said it was worried about his safety," the report added.
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