Fishing restrictions in Jaffna will continue – Fisheries Minister

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 15:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka Fisheries Minister and Aquatic Resources, Felix Perera, told representatives of the Fisheries Societies in Jaffna peninsula that the current restrictions on fishing in Jaffna lagoon and in the seas of the islets of Jaffna will not be lifted until new radars are installed between Mannaar and Poonakari, on being requested to lift the existing restrictions which continue even after President Mahinda Rajapakse’s public announcement that 24 hours fishing is permitted in the North, sources in Jaffna said.
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‘1,400 dying each week in Manik Farm camp’ – The Times

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 03:37 GMT]
About 1,400 people are dying every week at the giant Manik Farm internment camp set up in Sri Lanka to detain Tamil refugees from the nation’s bloody civil war, senior international aid sources have told The Times. The shocking toll lends credence to allegations that the Government, which has termed the internment sites “welfare villages”, has actually constructed concentration camps to house 300,000 people, the paper said. Most of the deaths are the result of water-borne diseases, particularly diarrhoea, a senior relief worker told The Times on condition of anonymity.
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Little foreign interest in Colombo port - report

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 02:43 GMT]
China Merchants Holdings, which operates ports in mainland China, together with a top Sri Lankan conglomerate, Aitken Spence, were the sole bidders for a container terminal concession at Sri Lanka's Colombo port, press reports said this week. Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH), the world's leading port investor, developer and operator, said this week it had refused to bid because elements of its original bid in 2007 had been included in the Sri Lankan government’s second request for proposals this year, putting HPH at a disadvantage. Meanwhile, Colombo port’s future is reportedly threatened by India’s plans to develop Vizhinjam in the southern state of Kerala.
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Sri Lanka restricts aid visas, equates its camps with Italy’s

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 July 2009, 01:39 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe this week drew parallels between his government’s running of barbed-wire ringed militarized camps in which 300,000 Tamils are held with Italy’s management of camps for survivors of the L’Aquila earthquake. The state-owned Daily News also quoted Mr. Samarasinghe as saying Sri Lanka “would welcome all [foreign] help it can get if relevant organizations would fall in line with the national agenda.” On Thursday, the minister said future visa applications for foreign aid workers will be granted only if their work “could not be carried out by locals.”
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Sri Lanka bars Tea Board speaking to media

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 July 2009, 16:00 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Tea Board seems among the least likely of institutions to fall under a government campaign to control the free flow of information. But authorities have now barred its officials from speaking to the media, Reuters reported Thursday. Sri Lanka’s revenue from tea exports has fallen this year, despite world tea prices rocketing. Quoting official figures, AFP reported recently that Sri Lanka’s harvest had fallen more than 50 percent in the first three months of the year on the island’s drought-hit highlands. Tea is the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner after garments.
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CPC seeks extension of Rajapakse’s presidency without election

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 July 2009, 05:32 GMT]
The ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Tuesday tabled a motion in the monthly meeting of the Central Provincial Council (CPC), to extend the current term of President Mahinda Rajapakse for another five years without holding fresh presidential election. Councillors of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) walked out of the meeting stating that the council should not take this motion for debate. The debate on the motion has been put off for another date, media sources said.
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The onus is on the diaspora

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 July 2009, 00:22 GMT]
The military outcome of the crisis has emboldened a bunch of people to chant that ‘we told you so’ and now collaborate with thy oppressors. This group is not new to Eezham Tamils, writes TamilNet's political commentator in Colombo. "Ever since universal suffrage was introduced in the ethnically divided island in 1931, there was always a section willing to play stooges to the majority. Yet the struggle of the freedom seekers also remained alive. If the fighters are accused of not achieving any, so are the collaborators and the ‘we told you so’ groups," the commentator writes. "The onus of facing the situation now entirely rests on the Eezham Tamil diaspora, as it is the only entity that has the freedom of expression. Response to Karunanidhi has to come from the diaspora through reaffirming the Vaddukkoaddai resolution," he further writes.
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Eastern armed Muslim groups surrender weapons

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 July 2009, 11:23 GMT]
Eastern Muslim armed groups Saturday afternoon initially handed over dozens of automatic weapons including sixteen T 56 rifles to the police in response to the amnesty period that ended on July 4 afternoon 3:00 p.m. The event took place in Kaaththaankudi Jumma Meera Mosque in the presence of the Eastern Deputy Inspector General of Police Edison Gunatilake and Provincial Minister M. L. A. M.Hisbullah.
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113 ministers in Rajapakse’s cabinet

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 July 2009, 03:44 GMT]
The number of ministers in the Cabinet of ruling party United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by President Mahinda Rajapakse rose to one hundred and thirteen Thursday with the induction of two more ministers, Nandana Gunatilake and Piyasiri Wijenayake of the National Freedom Front (NFF), a splinter group of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). NFF is an ally of the UPFA since JVP broke away from the alliance, sources in Colombo said.
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Jaffna residents demand back money, jewelry from Central bank

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 July 2009, 16:30 GMT]
Representatives of civil organizations, NGOs, Traders’ Circle and other participants requested the President of Bank of Ceylon, Dr. Gamini Wickremasinghe, to expedite the return of all the money and jewelry belonging to Jaffna residents taken to the Central Bank in Colombo in 1996 for safe keeping, Wednesday evening at Uroville Hall in Muththirai Chanthai in Nalloor. Mr Wickremasinghe was presiding a seminar titled "The role of Bank of Ceylon in the Development of Northern Province," when the demand was made, sources in Jaffna said.
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A "rolling" genocide?

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 11:56 GMT]
"The continuing concentration of over 250,000 people in the camps both blocks the search for answers to these questions, and itself constitutes a most serious crime. If the doors are not opened quickly, this will raise questions of whether the government seriously intends a restoration of Tamil society in the conquered zone. This would indeed pose a question of genocide, in the sense of the deliberate destruction of a population group in its home territory," writes Dr. Martin Shaw, professor of International Relations at UK's University of Sussex, and a historical sociologist of war and global politics.
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Nirupama Menon Rao succeeds Shiv Shankar Menon

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 07:25 GMT]
Nirupama Rao, nee Menon, hailing from Kerala is named as India’s Foreign Secretary Tuesday, to succeed Shiv Shankar Menon who will be retiring on July 31. The 58-year-old diplomat is currently serving in China as India’s ambassador and before that she was High Commissioner of India in Sri Lanka, between 2004 and 2006.
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NFF wants provincial boundaries redrawn

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 July 2009, 05:23 GMT]
The National Freedom Front (NFL), splinter group of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), and a close ally of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance led by Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse, has asked the government to immediately appoint a Special Delimitation Commission to redraw the boundaries of provincial councils. NFF has twelve members of the current parliament.
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JHU to withdraw support to Government if 13th amendment is fully implemented

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 09:50 GMT]
The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), the Buddhist monks’ political party, Monday declared that it would withdraw its support to the government led by President Mahinda Rajapakse if it fully implements the 13th Amendment to the Constitution or attempts to bring any other solution for the ethnic conflict devolving more powers to provinces including land and police.
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Ploy of Buddhism in nullifying Tamil nationalism

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 01:53 GMT]
The North and East of the island of Sri Lanka should first be subjected to ‘archaeological’ investigation to prove the land’s Sinhala ownership, before its ‘resettlement’, is the demand of the National Front of Buddhist monks of Sri Lanka, reported Virakesari a few days ago. If archaeology has any say, the entire island having microlithic sites of prehistoric period has to be resettled by Veddas, and if enough Veddas are not found in the island they could still be found among their next of kin outside, ranging from the Austro-Asiatic tribes of the South Asian subcontinent to aborigines of Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Australia, commented an academic of ethnic studies in the island.
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US statement undermines tourism revival - SL Foreign Ministry

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 June 2009, 11:24 GMT]
United States travel advisory aimed at discouraging US citizens from visiting Sri Lanka was part of US strategy to undermine the country [Sri Lanka], according to Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry official, the pro-Government Island newspaper said. "[N]othing could be as bad as the US warning of potential for continued stability and possible terrorist attacks a month after the end of war," the paper said, and added, "though the armed forces maintained road blocks and carried out routine checks on vehicles entering the city and its suburbs, there was no likelihood of LTTE attacks," attributing the comments to a foreign ministry official.
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IFJ condemns reactivation of Sri Lankan Press Council Law

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 June 2009, 07:31 GMT]
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has strongly condemned the Sri Lankan Government's decision to revive the Press Council that was established by an act of parliament in 1973. The Sri Lankan Press Council Act of 1973 contains stringent provisions, including the power to prosecute for contempt and sentence journalists to extended periods in prison and to prohibit the publication of certain kinds of content by the media. Reflecting on the move by Colombo, media activists in Colombo told TamilNet Saturday that the Sri Lanakan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, despite his claim that the Tamil war has ended, was continuing his war on journalists, aiming at creating a full fledged authoritarian ruling of the island.
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120 Tamils in Welikada prison urge immediate release

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 June 2009, 00:42 GMT]
One hundred and twenty Tamil prisoners, detained in the Welikada magazine prison for the last four years under the Emergency Regulations (ER) without any inquiry and not being charged in court, have appealed to President Mahinda Rajapakse to take immediate steps to release them without any further delay. Some of the Tamil prisoners brought to Colombo magistrate’s court Tuesday in some cases against them handed over the memorandum addressed to President Mahinda Rajapakse on behalf of them and other fellow detainees to the Chief Magistrate, media sources said.
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Wholesale attack on Jaffna newspapers

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 June 2009, 01:36 GMT]
All the local newspapers of Jaffna that defied publishing an anonymous and defiling notice against the LTTE came under attack by an armed group in the early hours of Thursday. The notice was brought out in the name of 'Tamil Front Protecting the Country' allegedly linked to a paramilitary group operating with Colombo. Thousands of copies of the local newspapers, Valampuri, Uthayan and Thinakkural (Jaffna edition), were burnt down wholesale in huge flames by the armed group allegedly operated by the Sri Lankan military intelligence at Aanaippanthi and Kannathiddi junctions at 5:00 a.m. Thursday, while the newspapers were being taken for distribution.
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25 Tamil detainees in A’pura prison request release

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 June 2009, 02:56 GMT]
Twenty five Tamil civilians detained in Anuradhapura prison for the last two years without any inquiry, some under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and some under the Emergency Regulations (ER), have requested President Mahinda Rajapakse that they should be released immediately.
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