Significant number of urban Tamils back Rajapksa's policy: Poll

Contrary to popular beliefs, a significant segment of Tamilians living in urban Sri Lanka has endorsed President Mahinda Rajapaksa's policy to deal with LTTE and maintain law and order, according to an opinion poll.

Twenty-one per cent of the non-upcountry Tamils and 42 per cent of the Muslim community, the main minority ethnic groups, are satisfied with the law and order situation in the island country, the opinion poll by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), an autonomous body, reveals.

Around 49.8 per cent Muslims and 20 per cent non-upcountry Tamils are also pleased with the way the government is fighting the battle against terror, it says.

The survey shows that the overwhelming majority of the Sri Lankan people are satisfied with the way the President is conducting the war.

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http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200712181862.htm

LTTE denies Prabhakaran was injured in air raid

Sri Lanka's LTTE on Monday denied reports that its leader V Prabhakaran sustained injuries during an air raid in rebel held areas of Kilinochchi last month.

"It is a lie. Nothing of that sort happened," an LTTE spokesman said, reacting to a newspaper report which said the rebel leader sustained minor injuries during a raid by Sri Lankan Air Force planes on November 28.

When asked if Prabhakaran was in good health, the spokesperson said "Yes".

The Nation Newspaper reported on Sunday that Prabhakaran was treated for minor injuries sustained during the air raid.

"Although the nature of the injuries is minor, he had been treated in an underground facility in a secret location in the Wanni by the LTTE's Thileepan Medical Unit, the official emergency care unit of the LTTE," the report said quoting sources.

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest_of_World/

Sri Lanka to have joint air exercises with India: Newspaper

Sri Lanka will take part in joint air exercises with India to gear up for the challenge from the LTTE's air force, a newspaper said here today quoting informed sources.

'Daily Mirror' said the issue came up during talks between Sri Lankan Defence Ministry officials and the Indian defence delegation which visited the country earlier this week.

When contacted, a senior official said no decision has been taken on the issue so far

Extracted from,
http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptis

Tamilnet.com unblocked

Pro LTTE web site http://www.tamilnet.com which has been blocked by all major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Sri Lanka since June 2007, is now once again freely accessible.

Users from Sri Lanka who were trying to view the site on the 17th of June were presented with server timeouts. It was initially suspected that the error was a technical fault with Tamilnet's hosting provider. However,later it was evident that Tamilnet was blocked on government orders. It is doubtful whether the ban had any effect as majority of the users seemed to have found a workaround to in the form of 3rd party proxy servers.

Tamilnet, which has been online since 1997, acts as a major propaganda machine of the the Tamil Tigers. Earlier, it was hosted in Norway but the site has now moved to the United Kingdom. UK based ISP "Rackspace Managed Hosting" acts as its current hosting provider.

Extracted from,
http://defencenet.blogspot.com/2007/12/tamilnetcom-unblocked.html