யாழ் திரைகடலோடி

The Cost of Resistance: The interior lives of Tamil activists in the wake of war.by ANUSHANI - "The author is an activist based in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, working with war-affected Tamil communities. This piece draws from conversations with families of the disappeared in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka who have for years been fighting for justice. It seeks to shed light on the inner tumult of those often celebrated as icons of resistance. The author is grateful for the men and women who shared their stories and their courage, and trusted her with their vulnerabilities." The videos are drawn from the Legacies of Conflict In South Asia Archive, a collaborative pr…

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said there will be no compromise on corruption, and sought time for taking action against it. "It has just been eight days, give us some time. We will not spare anyone who is corrupt," Kejriwal told reporters. "There is no question of compromising on corruption. I will put my life at stake, but will not compromise on the issue," he said. Kejriwal was responding to a question on whether the Aam Aadmi Party-Congress tie-up would result in letting off the Congress, which AAP charged of corruption in the run-up to the Delhi polls. "Whether it is Sheila Dikshit, or some minister from the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, or my…

SRINAGAR //JammuKashmir liberation front (JKLF) Chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik has termed the massacreand burning down of Sopore town on 6th January 1993 by Indian forcesas a black day in the history of kashmir and said that Indian occupation onKashmir is written by these kind of brutal massacres and brutalities. Yasin Malikwhile paying rich tributes to Sopore martyrs, expressed solidarity with theirbereaved families. A JKLF delegation comprising of Adv. Bashir Ahmad Bhat, Sheikh AbdulRashid, and Mohammad Sidiq Shah and Abdul Rashid Magloo visited the martyr’sgraveyard Sopare and participated in a condolence meeting held for the martyrs. Meanwhile chairman JKLF in …

2000 Tamils sought refuge in Kappalthurai School [TamilNet, April 17, 2006 14:34 GMT] About two thousand members from four hundred Tamil families of resettled Tamil village Kappalthurai have sought refuge in Kappalthurai government Tamil school. They fled from their houses when soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army assaulted some of them following the claymore mine blast that killed three troopers of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Saturday night, sources said. Kappalthurai village is located along Trincomalee-Kandy main road. Mr.K.Thurairatnasingham, Trincomalee district parliamentarian Monday morning visited the refugees in Kappalthurai School. Victims told him t…

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka’s hopes of a quick victory over Tamil separatists looked shattered Thursday after Tamil rebels inflicted the heaviest losses on security forces since pulling out of a truce, analysts said. மேலும் படிக்க ..... http://www.orunews.com/?p=764

"Merry Christmas everybody!...Celebrating the holidays in the White House over these past eight years has been a true privilege. We’ve been able to welcome over half a million guests, our outstanding pastry chefs have baked 200,000 holiday cookies, and Barack has treated the American people to countless dad jokes. Although a few got a Frosty reception." —President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama celebrating their final holiday season at the White House. Join them in supporting America’s service members at JoiningForces.gov.

'I have never felt safe': MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq's final HoC speech

The town of Amatrice has been hit by earthquakes several times in recent months Sunday's early-morning quake near the town of Norcia is the biggest in Italy since the Magnitude-6.9 Irpinia event in the south of the country in 1980. Back then, some 2,500 people died and more than 7,000 were injured. Thankfully, we are not expecting loss of life on that scale here. In part this is because of the strides made in recent years in improving readiness and reaction. But the fact that the population of central Italy is currently living on such an acute alert status also will have further limited any dreadful consequences. The first, in August, was a 6.2. This was f…

Russia-China trade hits record $59bn in first half of 2014 Reuters / Sergei Ilnitsky / Pool 895210 The EU remains Russia's biggest trading partner and made up half of all trade worth $263.3 billion in the first half of 2014, but China remains the strongest single trade partner at $59.1 billion, Russia’s statistics bureau announced Monday.Russia’s recent trade figures show strengthening ties eastwards, not westwards. Trade with the 28-nation European Union declined 3.2 percent from the same period last year, whereas trade with China increased by 3.4 percent. China is Russia’s second-biggest trading partner after the EU, and total trade between the …

Learn from us, LTTE tells U.S., Iraq (2003) Hakone (Japan) March 21. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) today said the United States and Iraq should learn from its example of making peace with the Sri Lankan Government and urged the United Nations to prevail upon the two warring parties to restore normality. ``It is regrettable that the U.S. attacked Iraq without proper endorsement of the U.N. though we are also against the dictatorship of the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, and his not respecting the U.N. resolution,'' the LTTE's chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham, said. ``The LTTE is known for violence but we are renouncing it and pursuing…

Dr Suren Raghavan - Are some religions more violent ?

16 SLA troopers loose their limbs in Mannaar FDLs More than sixteen Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops have lost their legs caught in booby traps at the Front Defence Line (FDL) positions in Pa’ndivirichchaan, Mu’l’likku’lam and Vi’laaththikku’lam in Mannaar district, since Friday, Mannaar LTTE Operations Command said. The disabled troopers are members of the SLA Deep Penetration Unit and those deployed by SLA in the intermittent advance attempts to break into LTTE FDLs. http://www.tamilnet.com/

Tamil New Year [TamilNet, Sunday, 13 April 2008, 02:30 GMT] The Tamil New Year day falls on Sunday, 13th April, since 2008 is a leap year. On other years, it is 14th April. It is not only the Tamil New year, but also the New Year of Sinhalese and Malayalis. It is not appropriate to call it a Hindu New Year since vast majority of Hindus in India don't celebrate it a New Year. Yet, it is an auspicious day called Mesha-samkraanti for them. In Orissa, it is observed as Paana-samkraanti. It is also equally inappropriate to call it a Buddhist New Year, as Buddhists other than the Sinhalese don’t celebrate it. The calculation for the commencement of this New Year and the cal…

LTTE Posses 3 Single Engine Helicopters (LeN-2007 Jan. 02, 7.00pm) The government defense spokesperson minister Keheliya Rambukwella warns, of a possible air strike on the Parliament or the Presidents house, based on the information received by the security forces about 3 single engine helicopters said to be in the possession of the LTTE. He was answering a question raised by a journalist whether there were plans of arresting the Editor of the Sunday Leader Lasantha Wickremetunga on charges of writing about a bunker, said to be built for the President. When the minister categorically stated that Lasantha Wickremetunga was not arrested, the journalist requi…

Colombo, March 11 (Daily Mirror) - In response to recent findings published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, concerning child malnutrition and underweight girls, Sri Lanka's health authorities have rejected the content referred to the portrayal of Sri Lanka. According to the study, approximately 410,000 girls in Sri Lanka are categorized as underweight, representing a prevalence of 16.4%. Despite efforts and initiatives aimed at improving nutrition and healthcare access, the report claims no detectable change in this distressing statistic since 1990. The Lancet publication, which covers data from 1990 to 2022 and was released on February 29, also rank…

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Osama bin Laden warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against fighting al-Qaeda and vowed to expand the terror group's holy war to Israel in a new audiotape Saturday, threatening "blood for blood, destruction for destruction." Most of the 56-minute tape dealt with Iraq, apparently al-Qaeda's latest attempt to keep supporters in Iraq unified at a time when the U.S. military claims to have al-Qaeda's Iraq branch on the run. The tape did not mention Pakistan or the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, though Pakistan's government has blamed al-Qaeda and the Taliban for her death on Thursday. That suggested the tape was made before the assassination. …

Kanni Wignaraja, who is from Sri Lanka, is set to assume duties as UNDP’s Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific on December 1, UNDP Sri Lanka said. Ms. Wignaraja was earlier appointed as Assistant Secretary-General and Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The UNDP said Ms.Wignaraja brings to the Asia-Pacific Bureau and region a wealth of experience in the field of development that includes a long and distinguished career with the UN system. Ms. Wignaraja said the Asia-Pacific region is an economic powerhouse, a driver of innovation and invent…

Nambiar, India's proxy in UN, complicit in white flag killings? While the International Community which, blinded by the 9/11 terror, architected the annihilation of Tamils' primary safeguard, the LTTE, is left to savor the resulting horror state and the autocratic dystopia in Sri Lanka, Rights groups have accused the U.N. of being derelict in its duty to protect civilian lives. Vijay Nambiar, the Chef de Cabinet, who was a key official in shaping UN's Sri Lanka policy, is also accused of complicity in the "Whiteflag" incident where several surrendees were executed by the Sri Lanka military after being given assurances of safety by International actors. Nepotism and fa…

23 November 2013 The intelligence operatives of the occupying Sri Lankan military have threatened Tamil Catholic priests in Mannaar and Jaffna, who have been active in exposing the genocide of Eezham Tamils by the Sri Lankan State. The threats against the priests in escalated following the visit by UN Human Rights Commissioner for Human Rights and have topped after British PM visited North on 15 November. The Catholic priests were active in exposing the recent genocidal experiment of birth control carried out by the Sri Lankan authorities and the priests joined the peaceful march by the kith and kin of the missing persons when they wanted to berate their plight to the…

Curfew re-imposed in Trincomalee [TamilNet, April 17, 2006 16:21 GMT] Curfew was re-imposed in three police divisions, Trincomalee town, Uppuveli and Chinabay in the Trincomalee with effect from 6 p.m. from Monday till Tuesday 6 a.m. The police said the curfew has been imposed as a precautionary measure. Earlier today, police and Sri Lanka Army personnel cordoned off and conducted a house-to-house search in Varothiayanagar, a Tamil suburb about 3 km. north of the eastern port town. About 50 Tamil residents were detained for questioning. All vehicles, motorbikes and push bicycles passing through the village were stopped and throughly checked by the government tr…

Callum Macrae 02/10/14 00:00 Just over 200 days ago the Sri Lankan authorities arrested a Tamil mother, Balenderan Jeyakumari, and her teenage daughter. Mrs Jeyakumari had been campaigning to find out what had happened to her 15-year-old son, Mahindan, who disappeared after apparently being taken prisoner by the Sri Lankan authorities at the end of the war in 2009, accused of membership of the Tamil Tigers. Mrs Jeyakumari and her daughter were well known activists who had been among the crowds which mobbed British prime minister David Cameron when he visited the former war zone in Jaffna in November last year. Three months later Mrs Jeyakumari sent me a video …

Sri Lanka: Looking beyond consolidation - Update No. 118 By Col R Hariharan (Retd.) [This up date may be read in continuation of SAAG Note No 367 "Sri Lanka: Revisiting LTTE's options Update No 114 " dated February 24, 2007 available at URL http://www.saag.org/notes4/note367.html] Consolidation in the East The consolidation operations of Sri Lanka Security Forces are now nearing the final stage. During the last four weeks Security Forces have made good progress both in Trincomalee and Batticaloa sectors. However, two recent incidents in the east have highlighted the type of threat the Security Forces and the public would face from the Liberation Tige…

Saudi crown prince pledges $20b investment PHOTO: PID ISLAMABAD: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said the first phase of investment of $20 billion in Pakistan has been completed while more investments will be made in the future. Saudi crown prince sees Pakistan as ‘very important country in future’ Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed contracts and Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) pertaining to investments in various projects on Sunday during the crown prince’s maiden visit to the country. The MoUs were signed in diverse fields, inclu…

Ground Surveillance Since the earliest days of flight, aircraft have been used to monitor troop movement, to patrol borders, and to prevent smuggling and other illegal activities. Today, Beech King Airs are the ground surveillance platform of choice for several reasons. They are: capable of flying low enough to visually observe ground activities; capable of flying high enough to evade ground weapons defenses; adaptable to carry radars, FLIRs (forward looking infrared), and cameras to document intelligence data and evidence. King Airs have been provided to the US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force as the C-12 military aircraft. They are actively used today to perform s…

Under SOFA, American troops need no passports or visas to enter Sri Lanka; its vessels or aircraft cannot be checked; not liable to taxes A draft copy of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), now under negotiation between the United States and Sri Lanka, obtained by the Sunday Times, reveals a number of Washington’s demands that would impinge on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty. The US is seeking that aircraft and vessels of the US Government to be free from boarding and inspection. This means none of the state security arms, like the Navy, Coast Guard or the Customs can board any US military vessel or aircraft when it is in a Sri Lankan airport or sea port — or even ve…