Rajapaksa claims occupation of Poonakari

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 November 2008, 09:07 GMT]
Sri Lankan President and Commander-in-Chief of the SL Armed Forces Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday claimed that his forces have occupied the "full stretch of the A-32 road" (Mannaar- Poonakari) and the Poonakari area Saturday morning. "Now, we can open a land route to the Jaffna Peninsula after many years; I think we can say, it was after the Second Eelam war," Mr. Rajapaksa said in a message to the Sri Lankan media.
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Youth of India voice for Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 November 2008, 14:37 GMT]
More than 10,000 students, coming from all the states of India marched to the Indian parliament on Friday in New Delhi, pressing educational demands including a 10 percent allotment of state expenditure on education. Political observers find great significance in the highlight of Eezham Tamil issue as a demand in this all India student rally. This is their only demand outside of the purview of education. The agitation took place against a backdrop of Sri Lankan president ruling out the possibility of stopping the war in the island, while on a visit to New Delhi on Wednesday. Even the Indian Prime Minister who received him hasn’t said anything on stopping the war, according to news reports.
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Announce ceasefire, call back military and commence peace talks - TN Assembly

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 November 2008, 16:56 GMT]
Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday demanding "an immediate halt of military operations, reverting the Sri Lankan military to old positions and a commencement of political negotiations to find a solution to the Tamil problem." The house of representatives also urged New Delhi to press for talks between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The resolution comes while the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is in New Delhi on an official visit.
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APRC: how long you tolerate a farce, Suresh asks India and IC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 November 2008, 01:20 GMT]
The All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) is a farce of the Sri Lanka government. It was always used to impress upon India and the International Community. The basic premise of the APRC not to go beyond unitary constitution of Sri Lanka, will not bring in any meaningful result. India and the IC know it well. Yet, if they continue to tolerate the farce, they will only be abetting the genocidal programme of Colombo, says Suresh Premachandran of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
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'13th Amendment powerless, youth may go for war again' - Eastern minister Hisbullah

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 November 2008, 15:55 GMT]
Powers devolved under the 13th amendment to provincial council are being taken away by the central government by issuing gazette notifications and circulars. The provincial council has no power to transfer even a police constable, lamented Mr.M.L.A.M.Hisbullah, a Minister in the Eastern Provincial Council in an exclusive interview to the weekly edition of the leading Tamil daily Virakesari published from Colombo.
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Sri Lanka rejects ceasefire with LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 November 2008, 11:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka's government rejected a ceasefire with the LTTE on Monday, again demanding the Tigers surrender or be destroyed. "The government will not go for a ceasefire with the LTTE. We will not have any form of discussion with the LTTE. We have already told them to lay down arms and there is no change in our stand," Agriculture Minister Maithripala Sirisena told Parliament, Reuters reported.
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Political Prisoners to fast in Colombo, Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 November 2008, 15:27 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners in Colombo Remand Prison and Anuradhapura Prison have announced a one-day fast on Monday, urging the authorities to expedite their cases. The prisoners, who alleged that the authorities were conveniently availing themselves of the PTV (Prevention of Terrorism Act) provision that allows for indefinite inquiry, said even the cases that have come to the courts were being delayed. The prisoners have warned that they would launch fast-unto-death campaign if there was no positive response to their one-day fast on Monday.
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Ravaya: 25,000 SLA soldiers deserted under Rajapaksa regime

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 November 2008, 19:20 GMT]
About twenty-five-thousand soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) have deserted their ranks since the war began under the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, media sources in Colombo quoted reports carried by the Sinhala weekly "Ravaya", published from Colombo. 15,000 soldiers have deserted ranks till January this year, an article based on a survey carried by Ravaya states.
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Sampanthan blames SL state for committing genocide, protests Budget speech

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 November 2008, 13:37 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa presented his fourth budget to Parliament on Thursday at 1:00 p.m. while 12 members of the Tamil National Alliance who were present at the Sri Lankan parliament walked out after the parliamentary group leader of the TNA, R.Sampanthan made a statement in the well of the house, condemning the budget by the Rajapaksa government, which allocates a colossal sum of money for committing a genocide on Tamil civilians in the North and East.
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Rajapaksa to table Budget 2009 Thursday, security tightened in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 November 2008, 17:07 GMT]
Tight security has been imposed in and around parliamentary complex located in Jayawardhanapura. Several roads leading to the parliamentary complex have been banned for traffic Thursday morning for one hour and in the evening when parliament concludes its session for the day. The security measures have been taken as the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is scheduled to table his fourth Budget for the year 2009 in parliament Thursday morning in the capacity of Finance Minister.
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India has not asked to stop the war - SL Foreign Minister

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 November 2008, 10:03 GMT]
India has not exerted any pressure on the Sri Lankan government to halt the war against the LTTE, said Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister, while responding to a demand made by Joseph Michael Perera, chief whip of the main opposition United National Party to table the secret understanding reached in New Delhi between President Mahinda Rajapaksa's special envoy Basil Rajapakse and Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjie on 26th October. 'As a step to strengthen the relationship of the two countries,' India has come forward to send 800 metric tones of food material to internally displaced people in Vanni region.
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13th Amendment: arousing a zombie

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 November 2008, 01:39 GMT]
The Indian government may be bereft of all guts to do anything in Sri Lanka. But at least it can render a great service by not talking about the 13th amendment as a basis to resolve the crisis. What is more dangerous than India abetting a war against Eezham Tamils by providing arms, armed personnel and intelligence to Colombo is the political sabotage of thrusting the rotten 13th amendment upon the struggling people to muffle their voice. India should rather acknowledge the decades-old Tamil voice for self-determination as a nation, to base exploration of fresh models, writes Opinion Columnist Chivanadi.
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Discuss Tamil national question and self-determination: CPI (ML)

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 November 2008, 23:07 GMT]
"Stop the war. The Tamil national question in Sri Lanka demands a political solution”, is the headlines of a statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), released in its November issue of Liberation. "The current phase of the war in Sri Lanka does call for an urgent and appropriate Indian response to bring about an immediate cessation of the war and facilitate a negotiated political settlement of the question of Tamil self-determination in Sri Lanka", urged the ultra Marxist party actively leading proletarian movements throughout India.
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LTTE planes drew Indian embassy gunfire as Rajapaksa moved to bunker- report

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 November 2008, 23:02 GMT]
Indian gunners in the Indian embassy compound in Colombo “fired relentlessly” at the LTTE aircraft that were returning to Vanni after bombing on the Kelanitissa power station Tuesday, a Sri Lankan press report said Sunday. Quoting reliable sources, the Lakbima newspaper also reported that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse was ushered into a special bunker during the air raid ‘purely as a precaution’’. Meanwhile, the Sunday Times said the LTTE had used a new kind of bomb on the Army Headquarters in Tha'l'laadi, Mannaar and that Sri Lankan jet’s missile was unable to ‘lock on’ to the LTTE plane.
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Dismissive to Sunday Times, acceptable to Hindu

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 November 2008, 16:20 GMT]
Sunday Times of Sri Lanka rejected an award bestowed on a newspaper of its group by a Sri Lanka government-backed NGO, last Tuesday, saying it does not recognize the NGO or its ‘spurious’ awards. However, the editor-in-chief of the Chennai-based The Hindu, Mr. N. Ram received the ‘Best Journalist of Asia award’ given to him by the NGO in person and delivered a speech on ‘the media's social responsibility to promote peace processes’.
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Strategic Partners

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 November 2008, 13:14 GMT]
"The American ban on the LTTE, which was followed by several other countries, also cut the flow of money and weapons to the Tigers, the result of which could be seen in their recent military defeats", said the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka in an interactive session at Chennai last month, as reported by The Hindu. The other side of the result story is that the same American policy tilted the balance in favour of a genocidal government, precipitated aggressive war on a grand scale and thus deepened immensely the divide between the concerned ethnicities, making reconciliation unfeasible more than ever.
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India, US working with hidden agenda against Sri Lanka, says JVP

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 October 2008, 14:51 GMT]
"Indian and United States of America have been working with a hidden agenda for their own political benefit political in Sri Lanka and also to safeguard the Liberation Tigers. The speech made US envoy William O'Blake in Mathurai in South India is part of that agenda," said Mr. Somawanse Amarasinghe, leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), Sinhala nationalist party at a press briefing held Thursday.
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Tehelka on what the grass roots feel in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 October 2008, 12:19 GMT]
"In these villages, it hardly matters that Pirabhakaran is an accused in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, or that the LTTE is banned un India. Many have named their children after Pirabhakaran. Housing colonies have been given the names of LTTE martyrs", reports Tehelka Magazine in a feature article on Kolathur (Ku'laththoor), a Panchayat of 10 villages and 75,000 people, bordering Karnataka, in the Selam (Chealam) district of northwestern Tamil Nadu.
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UPFA MPs instructed not to leave country during budget debate

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 October 2008, 11:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in his capacity of Minister of Finance, is to present his fourth budget for the year 2009 in parliament on Thursday November 6th.  Meanwhile, the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) has notified all government parliamentarians not to leave the country till the Budge-2009 is passed in parliament, parliamentary sources said. Mr. Rajapaksa assumed executive presidency in December 2005.
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Violence against upcountry Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 October 2008, 12:03 GMT]
A gang of about fifteen Sinhalese armed persons entered the house of a Tamil family in Perk rubber estate in Horana electorate Sunday evening and attacked the inmates mercilessly with clubs and knives. Other Tamil families in the area along with the affected family fled into the nearby jungle to escape further attack from the Sinhalese hoodlums. The violence comes as reports in Colombo said an upcountry Tamil minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, Mr. P. Chandrasekaran was currently under presidential investigation for alleged expression of support to the recent protest campaign lauched by the Tamil Nadu government that sought to protect Tamils in Sri Lanka.
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