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WAR IN WANNI: WHY THE tIGERS ARE DOWN BUT NOT OUT D.B.S.Jeyaraj In writing about the ongoing war in the Wanni northern mainland, I have been regularly emphasising a salient point that goes against the view propagated by upper echelons of the power structure and dominant sections of society. According to this viewpoint, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) faces imminent destruction and the war would be over very soon. While subscribing to the opinion that the armed forces are indeed on the ascendant my take on the LTTE has been different. Regular readers would recall that I have been constantly asserting that the Tigers are not a …

By Spencer E. Ante A year ago there were reports that Digg had hired investment bank Allen & Co. to put the popular news aggregation Web site on the block with an asking price of $300 million. Bloggers predicted that buyers could "easily justify" the price given Digg's popularity, although no deal was ever consummated. Now that number looks like a relic from a bygone era. On Sept. 24, Highland Capital Partners and three other venture capital firms invested $28.7 million in Digg. The specific terms were not disclosed, but that investment implied a valuation of $167 million for the startup, according to one person who has seen the terms of the agreement. Digg exec…

The Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme is the greatest financial shock so far in a year full of them. We still have a couple of weeks to go, but barring Warren Buffett being caught in Vegas thrusting Berkshire Hathaway stock at strippers, it is hard to imagine anything worse. I don't say this lightly. How can Madoff be worse than Lehman Brothers or AIG or the travails of Detroit's Big Three? It's because what he did was so simple. And he duped so many smart, conservative people for so long. And he did it in plain sight. Look at the list of those who lost money. Swiss private banks. Jewish family foundations. Retirees in Palm Beach. Not exactly the Fast Eddies of fina…

Posted by: Dexter Roberts on December 15 It’s a big day for cross-Straits relations. Ending an almost 60-year-old ban on direct links that date back to the civil war between the Chinese Communists and Taiwan’s KMT Party, beginning today Taiwan and the mainland are allowing direct trade, transport, and postal links—what the Chinese call “three direct links.” And it’s long overdue: over the last twenty years, economic relations between the former enemies have soared. Today more than 750,000 Taiwanese live and work on the mainland, having invested tens of billions of dollars. Trade is expected to soon reach $100 billion, with Taiwanese electronics components, as we…

It's exactly two years today (15DEC06) since Prof Ravindranath disappeared in Colombo. Our thoughts & prayers are with his family.

Sri Lanka Allows Rupee Drop to Boost Exports, Central Bank Says Email | Print | A A A By Anil Varma Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka is allowing the rupee to decline at a faster pace, responding to exporters’ demand for a weaker currency to help weather the global economic slump, the central bank said. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka this week scaled back intervention aimed at stemming the rupee’s decline, Nandalal Weerasinghe, the chief economist based in Colombo, said in an interview. Foreign-exchange reserves are being exhausted and now may be enough to pay for less than three months of imports, according to Asian Development Bank estimates. Exports f…

Honda's withdrawal from Formula One racing came as a shock this week, but there were several signs over the past days that the auto industry's crisis would spill over into world sport. Less than a fortnight ago General Motors announced the premature end of their endorsement of golf star Tiger Woods, saving them an estimated $7 million (5.5 million euros) a year. On Thursday, the hopes of a future German America's Cup effectively ended when Audi announced that they won't be sponsoring a team. Audi followed up on Friday with the confirmation that it will stop auto racing after nine years in the American Le Mans series. Apart from banks and other financial companie…

In the Tigers' lair Nov 20th 2008 | COLOMBO From The Economist print edition The martial mood intensifies INDEPENDENCE DAY is not celebrated until February. But flags are flying from buildings and lamp posts in Colombo in a show of public support for the government’s military campaign against the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. On November 15th, as his government faced a crucial parliamentary vote on the budget, President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced on national television that troops had seized the Tiger-held town of Pooneryn for the first time in 15 years. His generals are calling this a “turning-point” in the 25-year war. It places the entire west…

Sri Lanka: Mumbai terror strike and Prabhakaran's expectations of India's support – Update No. 157 Col R Hariharan The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Prabhakaran's usually much hyped Great Hero's Day 2008 speech on November 27 became a casualty of the daring terror strike on the same day in Mumbai. Holding the city to ransom for three days the terror story hogged headlines and only few of the Indian print media carried Prabhakaran's speech on the sidelines, while the visual media ignored it. And this time he needed the ears of New Delhi, more than Tamil Nadu, to act upon his strong plea for India's support for his armed struggle and lifting …

நடப்பவைகளை பார்க்கும்போது கிழக்கு விரைவில் வெளிக்கப்போகுது போலுள்ளது. http://www.orunews.com/?p=2612

Paramilitary Politics November 15, 2008 On the simmering strife in the TVMP ON 14 NOVEMBER, Kumaraswami Nandagoban, alias Ragu, a chief architect of the Eastern Provincial Council administration, was shot dead inside a car on the outskirts of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo. The killing confirmed, ’till now whispered, bad-blood between the paramilitary-cum-politicians of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP). Here, we trace the origins of the internal conflict and explore possible routes the strife may take in the coming weeks and months. The “Karuna Group” To most people’s understanding, TMVP is a the registered name of what was known as the “Ka…

Tamil leader blasts Tamil Nadu over Sri Lanka resolution Calcutta News.Net Sunday 16th November, 2008 (IANS) A prominent Tamil politician Sunday criticised a resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu legislature seeking a ceasefire in Sri Lanka 'as shocking and totally unacceptable'. V. Anandasangaree of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) also urged politicians from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to come to Sri Lanka 'on a fact finding mission'. Anandasangaree, who is opposed to the Tamil Tigers, said in a statement that the Tamil Nadu resolution asking the Indian government to pressure Colombo to start talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (L…

SRI LANKA: Operational Developments in the Eelam War – Update No. 155 Col R Hariharan Operational fronts The security forces put two weeks of sunny weather to good use, advancing their offensive further both along the Mannar coast and the axis Akkarayankulam-Kilinochchi, southwest of the administrative capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). According to the security sources Task Force-I formed out of 58 Division advancing on a broad front south east of A32 Mannar-Pooneryn axis are six km short of Pooneryn on October 10, 2008. They came under heavy LTTE resistance at Palayilkulam and Uruthirapuram on way. The LTTE appears to be r…

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake announced on August 18 “We are very close to Kilinochchi. Which is not far from our sight,” Wickremanayake assured for Singalees. But heavy battles are continuing until now (58 days), this indicated that the Kilinochchi will not be an easy task. The battle is continuing from Vannerikkulam to Akkarayan where positions held by the Army’s 58 and the 57 Division converged. Both Divisions are suffering heavy casualties. Troops are still 16 kilometres away from Kilinochchi. According to the government statistics over 1,098 soldiers have been killed and more than 8281 injured in the battle during past nine months of this ye…

By Saman Gunadasa 30 October 2008 A World Bank report published just prior to a joint International Monetary Fund-World Bank meeting on October 10 included Sri Lanka among 28 countries that are judged to be “highly vulnerable” to the ongoing global financial crisis and credit crunch. The countries listed were mainly small, impoverished and economically backward countries, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tajikistan, Madagascar, Nepal, Rwanda, Malawi, Ivory Coast, Fiji, Haiti, the Seychelles and Mauritania. The Seychelles declared on October 1 that the country was in default and could not pay interest on its foreign loans. Speaking in New York prior to the …

by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Financial Times November 26th, 2007 When New York City's Michael Bloomberg launched Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a nationwide campaign seeking to stop the flow of illicit weapons in cities and towns across America, he became a favourite verbal target of the National Rifle Association. To bring more muscle to its fight in Washington, the mayors' coalition in May hired lobbyists at Dewey Square Group. To succeed, Dewey Square would have to go head-to-head with the NRA's own veteran lobbyists at Ogilvy Government Relations, one of the most powerful and well-connected such operations in Washington. Although they are on opposite s…

Sri Lanka is losing its soul to war Posted By: Peter Foster at Sep 22, 2008 at 07:48:18 [General] Posted in: Foreign Correspondents Predictably in a conflict which stirs such bitterness, my last post on Sri Lanka and an analysis piece I wrote in Saturday's paper on Sri Lanka's human rights record has generated a slew of emails accusing me of failing to understand the conflict and ‘siding with the terrorists.' I must preface this post, therefore, with the (I hope unnecessary) disclaimer that I hold no candle for the Tamil Tigers or their methods, which include recruiting child soldiers and the abduction, intimidation and extortion of Tamils both ho…

This article have been published on "The Australian" Newspaper today under the world news section

Sri Lanka:: * LTTE launches another artillery attack on the Vavuniya Air Force base Tuesday, September 9, 2008, 16:39 GMT, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka. Sept 09, Vavuniya: The LTTE has launched another artillery attack on the Vavniya Air Force base this evening. Vavuniya police said that two artillery attacks were aimed between 4:00 and 4:30 p.m. Security forcers have launched retaliatory attacks. The extent of destruction caused by the attacks has not yet known. At a press conference held in Colombo this morning, Defence Spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said that 24 deaths were reported due to the attacks which took place at the Air…

"China is using the space provided by India’s reluctance to sell weapons to Sri Lanka for political reasons to increase its influence in Sri Lanka’s strategic spectrum. So the possibility of the Hambantota project ending up as a remake of the Gwadar episode in Pakistan is very much there". Extracts of the paper presented by Col.R.Hariharan, at the India-Taiwan interaction, jointly organised by the Chennai Centre for China Studies and the Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry-Tamil Nadu Chapter at Chennai on August 1, 2008: China is aiming to quadruple its per capita GDP to $ 3200 by 2020 from $ 800 per capita attained in 2000. This would imply an ave…

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Majority in TN supports LTTE’ N Ravikumar Chennai, Aug. 11: Majority of the people in Tamil Nadu are supporting the LTTE, despite accepting that the organisation was behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, according to a survey conducted by a leading Tamil weekly here. The shocking results of the survey published in this week's Ananda Vikadan, which tops the circulation among weeklies in Tamil Nadu said that 54.25 per cent of the respondents said that they have always supported the Tigers and their goal of a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka. Although it is known that support for the Tigers is rising in Tamil Nadu, as seen from the la…

People for Equality And Relief in Lanka (PEARL) is an advocacy group composed of over 1,800 Americans concerned about the crisis in Sri Lanka. PEARL was formed in 2005 after a handful of volunteers worked in Sri Lanka and was exposed firsthand to the egregious human rights violations there. PEARL is dedicated to promoting a fair and balanced perspective of the conflict in Sri Lanka, providing U.S. policymakers with the often-obscured truth of the situation there, organizing constituents to foster positive change, and inspiring political courage in the midst of human rights atrocities in Sri Lanka. PEARL members come from all corners of the United States, and have each bee…

Beauty in the street Smile on the face Face in the heart Heart in the break me in the sick. சுட்ட கவிதை.

Sri Lanka: Some Thoughts on LTTE's Military Response - Update No 147 By Col R Hariharan (Retd.) [This is the second part of SAAG Note No 458 "Sri Lanka: War after the fall of Vidattalthivu- Part 1–Update No146" dated July 21, 2008 available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/notes5/note458.html] During the last one week, Sri Lanka army has kept up its momentum of advance. According to defence sources, the troops of 57 Division are on the periphery of line Tunukkai-Mallavi, west of A9 highway. We can expect them to secure the line from Vellankulam on the coast to Mallavi during the course of the week The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)'s faile…