Sri Lankan maids to get a pay hike from Jan.

Sri Lankan housemaids in the UAE will have to be paid a minimum salary of Dh825 per month from January 1, 2008.

Officials from the Sri Lankan Consulate in Dubai yesterday told Khaleej Times that the Sri Lankan missions have notified recruiting agents of the revised minimum wages.

The Sri Lankan government has revised the minimum wages of housemaids in the entire Gulf. While Dh825 has been set for the UAE, the wages in other countries in the Middle East have been set according to their respective per capita income.

Sri Lankan Consul-General Wasantha Senanayake said, “We have sent a circular to all the agents this week stating that any new contract drawn for housemaids from January 1 will have a minimum wage of Dh825 vis-a-vis the existing Dh600. All employers will have to pay Sri Lankan housemaids this revised amount.”

This decision comes in the wake of the visit by Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare, Dr Keheliya Rambukwella, to Dubai in October, when he told reporters that the government was considering increasing the wages.

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http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2007/

Gnanakone rubs shoulders with UNP MPs at party inaugural meeting in LA

Jayantha (Donald) Gnanakone, the controversial Tamil activist, with alleged connections with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rubbing shoulders with Dr. Jayalath Jayewardena, the UNP stalwart at the inaugural Los Angeles meeting of the United National Party became the cynosure of the gathering when Pro-Ranil Wickremesinghe leaders converged on the metropolis for the historical event .

"I may be supporting Mano Ganeshan in Colombo ( a pro-LTTE politician) or anybody else and it's none of the f..... business of anybody or RAW or any one of its agents," he said when asked whether he has joined the UNP. RAW is the Indian intelligence service and currently dreaded by the LTTE since the assassination of the former Indian Prime Minister by a LTTE suicide killer. Formerly RAW funded, armed and trained the LTTE in South Indian military camps when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India.

Jayantha Gnanakone is the brother of the now acquitted alleged participant of the assassination of the former Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.

At the inauguration of new branch of the UNP in LA delirium reind supreme when two UNP stalwarts mingled with a bother of a well-known LTTE financier cloistered inside the Hyatt Summerfield Hotel in El Segundo on Sunday and sang the praises of Ranil Wickremesinghe to their hearts content.

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http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20071225_06

LTTE terrorism must be wiped out, says Nepal’s Prachanda

Maoist leader Prachanda has said that all South Asian and Asian countries must help to Sri Lanka to wipe out the LTTE terrorism.

Prachanda conveyed this view during a meeting with Sri Lanka’s visiting Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva.

The meeting, which took place on Sunday at the Maoist office in Katmandu, also focussed on the LTTE’s lack of success in realising its dream of a separate Tamil nation in Sri Lanka.

Prachanda urged LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran to stop his suicide bomb attacks on politicians and members of civil society.

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http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/

French journalists arrested in Sri Lanka

At least two French journalists have been arrested in Sri Lanka's south for filming a detention camp without permission, police said Tuesday.

The police at Ratgama, about 104 km south of Colombo said that the two French men belonging to "France 24 TV" were arrested Monday evening for filming the area surrounding the Boossa detention camp.

Police spokesman Jayantha Wickramarathne confirmed the arrest of two French men, but said the authorities are not sure whether they are journalists or not.

"They were arrested by the Army because they didn't get permission to film the area," said Wickramarathne, adding that they are still under custody.

The Boossa camp, just 4 km away from the Ratgama police station, drew attention late November when a large number of Tamil minority were rounded up in Colombo and its suburbs on suspicion of links with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/25/content_7309608.htm

Bandaranaike says he's exposed to LTTE's assassins

Former Sri Lankan cabinet minister Anura Bandaranaike, who had crossed over to the opposition Dec 14, has complained that the scaling down of his security since his defection is making him easy prey for the Tamil Tiger rebels' assassination squad. The media reported Monday that Bandaranaike had written a strong letter to the Sri Lankan police chief saying that the withdrawal of security had exposed him to "Prabhakaran's assassins".

Bandaranaike, who has been having a running battle with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, quit the treasury benches just ahead of a critical vote on the annual budget Dec 14, when the government's fate was hanging by a thin thread.

Eventually, the government won with a 47-vote majority. And the police promptly scaled down his elaborate security, though Bandaranaike was no ordinary politician.

He is the younger brother of former president Chandrika Kumaratunga, a former speaker of parliament, and a former foreign minister, who had campaigned against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) abroad.

The LTTE led by Velupillai Prabhakaran had tried to assassinate president Kumaratunga in 1999. Hence Bandaranaike's fear that he might be exposed to "Prabhakaran's assassins".

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http://indiainteracts.com/gossip/2007/12/25/11071/

Lanka asks UNESCO to avoid making comments on internal matters

Sri Lanka has categorically stated that UNESCO should not express its views on the subjects where it neither has the competence nor the mandate.

In a letter to Director General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, the government said the conflict in Sri Lanka was a complex political issue on which UNESCO should refrain from making comments.

Though UNESCO had made a contribution in inter-sectoral activities in the various domains of the UN aimed at countering terrorism, this did not give a ''carte blanche'' to the Director General to comment on specific situations of the member states, UNI reported here quoting official sources.

The drawing of parity between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the context of a domestic peace process would not fall within UNESCO's contribution to the Counter Terrorism Implementational Task Force.

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http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-235/0712242669185559.htm