http://www.tamilnet.com Latest 20 TamilNet reports from Sri Lanka en Copyright (c) 1997-2009 TamilNet Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:41:41 GMT Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:41:41 GMT tamilnet@tamilnet.com http://www.tamilnet.com/img/feedlogo2.gif http://www.tamilnet.com 88 31 TamilNet logo http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29719 Unknown armed men shot and killed the principal of Parathipuram Tamil Mixed School and another man while the victims were travelling in a motorbike at Parathipuram in Vavuniyaa Saturday around 3:00 p.m., Police said. Sat, 04 Jul 2009, 12:18 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29718 Southern fishermen, with the help of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), have begun to encroach the seas of Jaffna peninsula using large number of trawlers to fish day and night, Fisheries Societies sources in Jaffna peninsula raised accusation. The Southern fishermen who are being afforded complete security arrangements by the SLN also visit the SLN camps along the coasts during day time in SLN boats, they further said. Sat, 04 Jul 2009, 11:13 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29717 A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier was killed and two wounded in a clash that erupted at Kiraanku'lam in Batticaloa lagoon area in the early hours of Saturday, sources in Batticaloa said. Sat, 04 Jul 2009, 09:53 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29716 About 27 families displaced due to conflict from Eeralakulam village and staying in the Maavadiveampu welfare centre in Batticaloa district have refused to go to Pazhachchoalai welfare centre as instructed by social department officials. However they have gone voluntarily to reside with their friends and relatives. Hence the authorities closed down Maavadivembu welfare centre immediately after dispatching the final batch of Moothoor IDPs to Ki’liveddi centre, civil sources said. Sat, 04 Jul 2009, 05:29 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29715 Retired Major Gen. Sunil Tennakoon, former Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Commander for Jaffna, said that action is being taken to acquire the lands belonging to the state and those unclaimed in Jaffna peninsula to be given to investors from foreign countries and the South, in a press meet held in Jaffna Secretariat Friday. Sunil Tennakoon, heading a team of officials of the ‘Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BISL), held the press meet along with the other members of the team. Sat, 04 Jul 2009, 05:22 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29714 Lands in Kattaiparichchan village are being cleared to set up temporary structures to shelter displaced families from traditional Tamil villages of Kadatkaraichcheanai, Champoor, Koonitheivu and Soodaikuda in Moothoor east division which fall under the High Security Zone (HSZ) declared by the Government of Sri Lanka after the 2006 military operation. Sat, 04 Jul 2009, 00:44 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=29708 Dominating the Indian Ocean, the shores of which are shared by 47 countries, has been the long-cherished dream of India ever since its independence. As China entering into a competition, the Indian Ocean is fast emerging as the new hotspot of Sino-Indian rivalry, says an article appeared Wednesday in Pakistan Observer. India’s security concerns as well as its needs to assert as a world power may be justifiable, but it is making a grave blunder in earning the animosity of Tamils, which is not going to help in its maritime ambitions, says TamilNet political commentator in Colombo. Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 16:46 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29713 Hundreds of Australians have paid tribute to Dr Nagaruban “Ruban” Armugam, a Tamil paediatrician tragically killed last week in a tragic road accident in Australia on 22 June. The 32-year-old Paediatrician was commemorated Monday at a moving funeral as tributes from politicians, colleagues, former patients and members of the community marked a week of mourning. Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 15:52 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29712 The Sri Lankan military has relocated nearly 5000 Tamil civilians from Vavuniyaa and Cheddiku'lam internment camps and resetteld them in pre dominant Sinhala village Tharmapuram in Anuradhapu on Tuesday and Wednesday, civil sources said. The SL military officials had told the Tamil civilians that they would be re-settled in their native villages in Ki'linochchi or Mullaiththeevu within 14 days, but the Rajapaksa government, at an all party meeting in Colombo on Thursday, said that it needed time to clear the mines before any resettlement. Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 13:23 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29710 Updating its travel advisory Wednesday, Britain warned its nationals “against all travel to the north and east of Sri Lanka, and to Yala National Park and the areas around it.” The new advisory was issued with an update on new surveillance measures at Bandaranayake International Airport related to A (H1N1) Swine Flu. Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 12:31 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29709 Despite assuring the international community that most Tamils interned in militarized detention camps would be resettled by the end 2009, the Sri Lankan government is turning Manik Farm, the largest barbed-wire ringed site, into a permanent detention centre, The Times newspaper reported Friday. Tamil refugees are being used as forced labour, UN sources told the paper. Aid workers say the site was fast becoming Sri Lanka’s second biggest city after the capital, Colombo. Whilst Sri Lanka blames mines for preventing resettlement, foreign demining agencies say that they have been given access so far to only about 30 sq km of the former Vanni conflict zone. Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 12:11 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29707 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. Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 03:44 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29706 The highway between Vavuniyaa and Horowopottana has been re-opened for public transport after several years of closure. Vavuniyaa Government Agent Ms. P. M. Charles said the route is now open for public transport including state and private sector bus services with effect from Wednesday, according to media sources. Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 03:39 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29705 Sri Lankan government officials are running a prostitution racket using Tamil women interned in at least one of the militarised camps for displaced people, The Australian newspaper reported Thursday. "It's been brought to the attention of senior government officials but no one seems to be doing anything about it," an aid worker, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, told the paper. In response to the accusations, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Palitha Kohona told the paper: "These (the military) are the guys who were winning the war - they could have raped every single woman on the way if they wanted to. Not one single woman was raped." Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 02:20 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29704 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. Thu, 02 Jul 2009, 16:30 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29703 Inner City Press (ICP) reported Tuesday that after a week of silence by the U.N. the U.N. spokesperson has revealed that "U.N. has hired a lawyer who has visited the U.N. staff and who are still detained in Colombo. Kandasamy "Saundi" Saundrarajan of UNOPS (Office of Project Services) and N. Charles Raveendran of UNHCR taken by the Sri Lanka Government and are under detention for more than a month. Thu, 02 Jul 2009, 11:26 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29702 Unidentified armed men arriving in a jeep abducted Friday night a Tamil youth travelling in a three-wheeler while on the same day armed men in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) uniforms took away a Tamil youth from his house in Koapaave’li in Batticaloa saying that he was to be interrogated, according to complaints made by the youths’ relatives to Chengaladi Prethesa Chapai President, S. Jeevarangan. Thu, 02 Jul 2009, 09:42 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29701 Sri Lanka’s Defence Ministry Wednesday extended the deadline given to Muslim armed groups in the east to surrender their weapons to the security forces, by two more days. The deadline issued earlier was to expire on July 2. The deadline has been extended following requests made by parties concerned, police sources said. Thu, 02 Jul 2009, 09:28 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=29700 “To say that Tamil tradition has always been all-inclusive of religions is modern Tamil national ideology projected into an invented past. It is not history of the Tamils”, writes Professor Peter Schalk, challenging the perspectives of looking at Tamil identity from the point of the use of Tamil language that simultaneously accommodated various religions in its history, despite of them contradicting one another or coming and going. Responding to an article on Buddhism appeared in TamilNet, Tuesday, Prof. Schalk said that Buddhism among Tamils he objectifies is different from what the Sinhala-Buddhists are envisaging. Thu, 02 Jul 2009, 06:09 http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29699 A Coalition of six US-based Human Rights Organizations in a letter to U.S. President Obama wrote: "[t]o address abuses associated with the recent fighting [in Sri Lanka's north], there is an urgent need for an independent, international commission of inquiry into many credible allegations of laws of war violations, including possible war crimes, by both sides, as well as illegitimate detentions. Mr. President, we urge you to publicly call for an international commission of inquiry and to take necessary steps to achieve it. We also urge you to take steps for the full protection of internally displaced persons, including independent access to camps, former areas of conflict and to conflict-affected civilians by humanitarian and human rights organizations and the media." Thu, 02 Jul 2009, 00:07