New UK TV channel a pro-LTTE move?

A new television channel, Thendral TV, launched in the UK and commencing telecasts on July 14, 2008, has come under suspicion of being a pro-LTTE station.

The new transmission commenced telecasts barely a month after the Israeli decision to close down Tharishanam TV transmission after the Israel authorities were informed about the link between the terrorist organisation and Tharishanam.

It is also reported that the transmission licence for Thendral TV was obtained by a well-known LTTE supporter through the Tendral Medical Centre.

The transmission rights have been acquired from Nepali Television, which is a Nepali language television service established several years ago in UK.

Thendral TV is using frequency 11.727 of EUtelsat Hotbird and its UK service provider’s address is Crawley Court, Winchester, Hampshire SO21 2QA.

Thendral TV is registered under Thendral Media Ltd UK at 135 Q, Alexandra Park Road, London N22 7UL, United Kingdom.

Analysts believe that the Thendral TV would initially telecast songs and cultural programmes and gradually move onto hard LTTE propaganda material to assist the terrorist organisation in its fund raising activities.

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http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/08/01/sec02.asp

Unprecedented Crowds in London Protest Against LTTE

THOUSANDS OF UK SRI LANKANS in London, with English friends protested against Tiger terrorism in Sri Lanka and urged authorities to crack down on their front organizations and fund raising activities. In London the protest was at the No 10 on Downing Street where a representative gathering handed over a memorandum on this to be delivered to the British premier.

Another demonstration took place in Paris. The demonstrators, carrying photographs of the victims of the most brutal killings of civilians by the Tamil Tigers urged the French and European Union to immediately ban the front organizations of the LTTE such as WTM, ORT (TRO of France), Tamil Sangham and other Tamil Eelam associations which are actively involved in money laundering, ransom and extortions from expatriate Tamils and foreigners.

They urged the French President Sarkocy, who is the current President of the European Union, to take effective action to stop ransom collections, money laundering, intimidation and harassment of innocent Tamils in France by the LTTE and its Mafia Gangs like Miinel, VVT Boys and Pambu.

The demonstration was organized jointly by United Sri Lankans comprising Sri Lankan associations and political party branches in France. A large number of second generation Sri Lankans under a banner of Sri Lankan youth in-France were the most vociferous. In addition to Sinlalese and Muslims several members of democratic Tamil political parties also took part in the demonstrations.

Read more,
http://www.lankaeverything.com/vinews/srilanka/20080729070838.php

Tamil victim is named

Detectives have named the Tamil man whose body was discovered in a disused cash-and-carry building frequented by rough sleepers.

Investigating officers believe Thiyagarajah Thiyananthan, 40, was murdered at the premises behind a retail park in Atlip Road, Alperton, last week.

A post mortem report ascertained he had died from had injuries but detectives have refused to say whether there was a weapon involved.

Mr Thiyananthan is believed to have lived in the UK for a 'substantial' amount of years after leaving Sri Lanka.

Det Insp Tony McKweon, who is leading the investigation, said he was keeping an open mind on the motive but had ruled out any gang-related connection to Mr Thiyananthan's death.

He added: "We have a line of enquiry we are currently looking into."

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http://www.wktimes.co.uk/

LTTE accused of continuing to recruit child soldiers

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continued to recruit and use children, despite repeated commitments not to do so, a global report on child soldiers released on Tuesday (May 20) said.

Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 published by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, a non governmental organization based in London, UK said that the LTTE, which had recruited under-age fighters for many years, pledged on June 18 2007 to rid its ranks of all under-18s by the end of 2007.

Despite the pledges LTTE had not committed to the full release of children under 18, it said.

“The LTTE consistently denied that it knowingly recruited children and it claimed that children sought to join by disguising their age. However, there is overwhelming evidence of recruitment, often forced, throughout areas under LTTE control as well as from government-controlled areas in the north and east.

The recruitment of children typically followed a pattern of increased recruitment during the season of temple festivals and a fall during periods of international condemnation,” the report noted.

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http://www.colombopage.com/archive_08/May2242537JV.html

“Col” Karuna may face deportation

Rebel LTTE leader “Col” Karuna Amman, who was serving a jail sentence here after being found guilty of travelling to the U.K. on an allegedly forged Sri Lankan passport, was on Friday released and transferred to an immigration detention centre pending a decision on whether he should be deported back to Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan High Commission sources said they had not received any request to issue travel documents that would enable it to deport ``Col” Karuna. Human rights groups want him to be tried for war crimes following allegations that his Tamileela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) which he formed after breaking away from LTTE in 2004 was involved in murders, torture and abductions.

The BBC quoted the Crown Prosecution Service, responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in England and Wales, as saying that according to the police there was “insufficient evidence” to provide a realistic prospect of his conviction.

Extracted from,
http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/10/stories/2008051055031800.htm

Pro-LTTE MDMK Leader Gopalswamyand UNP's Dr Jayalath Jayewardene held meetings with LTTE leaders in London

Fresh from their honeymoon with Minister Eric Solheim, Tamil Nadu's pro-LTTE maverick politician V. Gopalswamy, (VAIKO) leader of the MDMK party along with UNP's Dr Jayalath Jayewardene arrived in the UK on 15th April and held several meetings with LTTE leaders and their fund raising sympathizers based in London.

Foreign sources have informed Asian Tribune that both MDMK Leader Gopalswamy and UNP's Dr Jayalath Jayewardene were picked up from London Heathrow airport upon their arrival from Norway by Mr. Thilagaraja of the LTTE's (UK) branch otherwise known as the British Tamil Forum (BTF).

It is said that the parties attended several meeting organized by the British Tamil Forum (BTF) and met with senior LTTE leaders based in London. Both Gopalswamy and Dr Jayalath Jayewardene were looked after well otherwise by representatives of the LTTE for lobbying on behalf of the LTTE in Norway which was funded by the British Tamil Forum (BTF).

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http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/10625

LTTE terror supporter base gone down in UK

Same handful of street campaigners of the LTTE was seen demonstrating in front of the Solvakian Embassy in London on 15 April 2008. Prominent of those were Kandiah Rajamanoharan and London Baba Suresh. The LTTE relies on the support of these activists that they too wait for an opportunity as there is no one to compete with them in the expatriate Tamil community.

The street campaign group has shrunk to the residue of these two senior street campaigners. Cllr Daya Idaikadar, Cllr Madame Mann, Cllr Yogan Yoganathan and Dancing Queen Miss S Angayatkanni have given up the cheap street campaign for some time now.

It is now claimed that the demonstration in front of the Slovakian Embassy was a disastrous failure for the campaigners and they have exposed the declining support base of the LTTE in the UK.

Extracted from,
http://www.srilankawatch.com/index.php?

Third undersea cable reportedly cut between Sri Lanka, Suez

A third undersea fibre optic cable running through the Suez to Sri Lanka was cut Friday, said a Flag official.

Two other fiber optic cables owned by Flag Telecom and consortium SEA-ME-WE 4 located near Alexandria, Egypt, were damaged Wednesday leading to a slowdown in Internet and telephone services in the Middle East and South Asia.

"We had another cut today between Dubai and Muscat three hours back. The cable was about 80G capacity, it had telephone, Internet data, everything," one Flag official, who declined to be named, told Zawya Dow Jones.
The cable, known as Falcon, delivers services to countries in the Mediterranean and Gulf region, he added.

"It may take sometime to fix the cut but we are rerouting the traffic to another cable in the U.K. and U.S., the bandwidth utilization will go down," the official said.

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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/third-undersea-cable-reportedly-cut/

Lankan Defence Secy denies helping Karuna

Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse has rejected accusations that he helped renegade LTTE leader V Muralitharan, better known as Colonel Karuna, to secure a diplomatic passport through which he entered Britain.

His remarks came a day after BBC reported Karuna's allegations made in a British court that Rajapakse, younger brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, "arranged everything" for him to travel to the UK using a diplomatic passport.

Karuna was sentenced to nine months in prison by the Isleworth Crown Court in West London on Friday for traveling on a forged passport to Britain

"I haven't helped him (Karuna). It is wrong for the British judiciary to make public these claims without verification," Gotabhaya Rajapakse told 'Lakbimanews'.

Reading out Karuna's statement in the open court, the prosecution had charged that President's Rajapakse's brother was known to him since he defected from the LTTE.

Read more,
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200801271401.htm

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

Mr. Chilcott, From Which Side of Your Mouth Did You Speak at the Dudley Senanayake Memorial Lecture?

British Representative in Sri Lanka Mr. Dominic Chilcott ironically blames everything that is wrong with the world on the 1648 treaty of Westphalia which created the idea that no country has the right to interfere in another country’s problems. Poppy cock!

You are fully aware Mr. Chilcott that since 1648 the British behaved as if everything in the world were up for grabs. It was theirs for the asking.

Now you complain that “the conflict in Sri Lanka makes waves in the UK and as the conflict worsens, we get more asylum seekers from Sri Lanka. It becomes more difficult to manage the movement of people between our countries. More Sri Lankans try to get into the UK illegally. The numbers of those overstaying their visa also increases.”

Mr.Chilcott have you ever considered how many innocent Indians were massacred by the British troops during Gandhi’s struggle for independence from England. Were any British politicians ever tried for war crimes? How many innocent people were displaced and subject to degradation as hapless estate labor during the time when your forefathers invaded Sri Lanka? Did you pay any compensation to the poor unsuspecting victims?

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http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/8696

Lanka seeks access to top LTTE agent in Indian custody

Although India has overlooked previous requests for access to LTTE operatives in her custody on, what a senior official called, domestic political reasons, Sri Lanka is confident that a chance to question Jayakumar (34) alias Gowrishankar, a senior Sea Tiger in Indian custody wouldn't be denied.

Jayakumar, believed to be one of the highest ranking LTTE operatives arrested in India after the Norwegian-arranged CFA came into operation in February, 2002, is widely believed to be a central figure in the LTTE arms procurement ring. Under interrogation, he has revealed the financial support received from the UK based LTTE organisations in support of the operations in Sri Lanka.

A resident of Valvettiturai, Jayakumar is believed to have joined Sea Tigers in 1995 and has some close relatives living at Thanjavur.

India didn't allow SLN to question three LTTE operatives arrested along with two Indians on February 13, this year and six others, believed to be a special squad deployed for arms smuggling operations arrested by her Coast Guard on April 11. Although India signalled that it could arrange two Sri Lankan intelligence personnel to meet investigators who interrogated the suspects, it never materialised.

Read more,
http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20071211_01