Sri Lanka in tourism tie-up with Al Jazeera

The Sri Lankan ministry of tourism has tied up with Al Jazeera Arabic channel to improve the global perception of the country’s internal security and also promote and boost its tourism sector.

Addressing a stakeholders’ meeting comprising tourism experts and airline operators yesterday, Sri Lankan deputy minister of tourism Faiszer Musthapha said there is a need to be more aggressive in promoting the country’s image, which has been hit by disturbances in parts of the country.

“This effort which we will be doing alongside the national airline Sri Lankan, is an opportunity for Sri Lankan government to express itself and attract more tourists to the country, by projecting the positive stories emanating from the country, especially in the tourism industry,â€‌ he said.

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Cuban Anniversity Marked in Sri Lanka

Ministers Amarasiri Dodangoda (Justice) and Tissa Vitharana(Science and Technology) of Sri Lanka presided over an event of solidarity with Cuba to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

The solidarity ceremony, held at the Russian Cultural Center of Colombo, was organized by the Sri Lanka-Cuba Friendship Association led by Dodangoda, who is also a legislator.

Vitharana, who is also a Parliament member, chairs the Parliamentary Group of Friendship with Cuba.

During the event, a Peradeniya University professor gave a lecture on the significance of the Cuban Revolution and referred to the ideas and work of Cuban National Hero Jose Marti.

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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID

Asian Consuls General Open Film Festival

The Consuls General of 13 Asian nations inaugurated the first Asian film festival here on Saturday night. “This is one of the best ways to promote a cultural dialogue among various communities,” Muhammad A. Tayeb, director general at the office of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Makkah region, said while unveiling the festival logo.

Consuls General from 13 Asian countries — Bangladesh, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand — who are all members of the Asian Consuls’ General Club (ACGC), in addition to the Ethiopian and Swiss Consuls General, were present.

Documentaries made in Saudi Arabia followed the screening of India’s feature film “Chak De India” on the opening day.

A Japanese feature film “Nitaboh (2003) was screened last night. Malaysian feature film “Mukhsin” will follow tonight, followed by Sri Lanka’s “Udu Gan Yamaya” tomorrow. Invitations are being issued by respective consulates for their films.

Extracted from,
http://www.arabnews.com/?

Public Vigilance Prevent LTTE Massacre Attempt

One more LTTE attempt to execute carnage targeting innocent civilians gathered at the public fair near the ANURADHAPURA new bus stand was averted today (10) morning due to prompt actions taken by civilians now vigilant on terrorist activities.

Having seen a suspicious unattended plastic container, which later proved to be an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) with a timer, people brought it to the notice of a sailor proceeding on his leave who safely defused the IED containing about 1 kg of explosives.

The ANURADHAPURA Police are conducting further investigations.

Extracted from,
http://www.army.lk/morenews.php?id=10622

Sripathi Sooriayaarachchi – the tragic end of a fighter

Latest reports reveals that Sripathi Sooriayaarachchi has been killed in a fatal road accident that took place at Madagama, in the Galgamuwa area this afternoon, February 09.

According to the police sources, the vehicle carrying Sripathi Sooriayaarachchi crashed into a tree around 1.15.p.m. when it slipped off the road due to high speed. The vehicle was travelling from Anuradhapura to Colombo enroute via Thambuththegama, sources said.

Sooriyarachchi was rushed to the Thambuttegama Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on admission.

The driver of the vehicle, Priyantha Samarasinghe and a close friend of Sripathi Sooriayaarachchi, S.K.R. Silva (Chief Executive Officer of Isura FM), too died on the spot.

Two others injured in the accident – Ministerial Security Division personnel identified as Somaratne and Nihal – were admitted to the Thambutegama Hospital. Somaratne, who is in a critical condition, was later transferred to the Anuradhapura General Hospital.

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Sri Lanka Troops Close in on Rebel Town

Fighting raged across Sri Lanka's embattled north killing 44 combatants as government troops closed in on a strategic rebel-held town, the military said Saturday.

The latest gunbattles that erupted along the front lines in the northern districts of Jaffna, Mannar and Vavuniya killed 41 Tamil Tiger rebels and three soldiers on Friday, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Soldiers were just a short distance from the rebel-held town of Adampan, said Nanayakkara. Capturing Adampan would be a crucial step in the military's campaign to dismantle the rebels' de facto administration in the country's north.

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http://www.myfoxla.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?

Over 200 LTTE bunkers in north

While the military has destroyed a considerable number of LTTE bunkers in the north to date, there are nearly 200 LTTE bunkers in all in the northern districts at present.
Speaking to The Nation, Military Spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said that the LTTE has bunkers situated every 10 metres or so in the north and that it changes bunker positions from time to time.

“So far no bunker has been captured by the security forces, although the forces have destroyed many of them. At the moment we are in the LTTE Forward Defence Line (FDL), which we captured in 2006. Since then the military has not gone any further. The LTTE has the ability to reconstruct the bunkers even when the forces destroy them,” Brigadier Nanayakkara pointed out.

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http://www.nation.lk/2008/02/10/news9.htm

Armour plates for passenger buses in Sri Lanka

Shaken by a spate of claymore mine attacks against passenger buses that killed scores of people during the last two months, Sri Lankan government is planning to provide armour plates for the public vehicles to minimise the damage if they are hit by roadside bombs.

"We are undertaking a pilot project of fitting armour plates on two buses," Transport Ministry Secretary Nihal Somaweera said.

He said conversion of the passenger bus into a virtual armoured vehicle would reduce the seating capacity by nearly half in the vehicles.

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

The R2P controversy

One event that made front page news last week was the expulsion of Dr Rama Mani the executive director of ICES from the country following an internal crisis within the organization.The faction opposed to Dr Mani had leaked to the press an e-mail written by her to the International Crisis Group wanting to become the local representative to promote the doctrine of 'responsibility to protect' (R2P for short).

That email basically sealed the fate of Dr Mani because no government can possibly ignore an international NGO which seeks to promote foreign intervention in that country. This talk of a responsibility to protect first came up in this country at last year's Neelan Tiruchelvam memorial lecture which was delivered by Gareth Evans, a former Australian politician turned international NGO operative.

According to the website of the International Crisis Group (ICG), which advocates the responsibility to protect, the right to protect concept arose because of the incidents that occurred in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo.

The first thing to note is that Sri Lanka is not a Kosovo, Rwanda or a Bosnia where a majority community seeks to eliminate a minority through mass killings; a fact which Gareth Evans, the head of the ICG himself has admitted.

What we have here is a counter-insurgency operation against a terrorist outfit that has been listed as a terrorist group by the USA, Canada, India, Australia, and the EU. This year, the FBI categorized the LTTE as the most dangerous and efficient terrorist organization in the world, ahead of even the Al Qaeda - the main bugbear of the west.

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http://www.island.lk/2008/02/10/politics3.html

India show brotherly love to Sri Lanka

Living up to their status of the regional big brothers, the Indian cricket board has always stood by their counterparts in Sri Lanka. This time, it promises to be no different.

The mandarins at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are already looking at options to help the Lankan board following the request of Arjuna Ranatunga, currently at the helm of Lankan cricket. "There is a possibility of hosting some off-shore matches between us, and we are trying to find out a slot when our cricketers are free," said Niranjan Shah, the BCCI secretary.

Speaking to Gulf News, Shah said they would work out a solution soon because of the "brotherly relation" that the boards of two countries enjoy. Incidentally, the two countries, alongwith Pakistan and Bangladesh, will host the third World Cup in the sub-continent in 2011.

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http://www.gulfnews.com/sport/Cricket/10188349.html

Sri Lankan army team on secret mission in Pune

A high-level team of officers from the Sri Lanka military intelligence corps (MIC) and army were brought stealthily into Pune five days ago for advanced intelligence training at Indian Army's various high-security institutions here.

The initial phase of the training at the National Defence Academy (NDA) got over on Friday. The team is expected to be briefed on advanced electronic warfare, command, control, communications and computer intelligence at the Military Intelligence Training School and Depot (MITSD), the only institution of the Indian Army which imparts training in all aspects of intelligence.

The secret visit comes as a precursor to the setting up of an intelligence training school in the island nation, which has been battling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels for 25 years.

The visit assumes added significance in the backdrop of recent statements by chief of naval staff Admiral Suresh Mehta that Indian Navy and Coast Guard had shared intelligence regarding movement of LTTE Sea Tiger boats in the Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar.

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/

Suicide-bombers | Just what are they dreaming of?

The list of causes and countries in which people are prepared to turn themselves, and those around them, into bloody piles of bone and gristle is long and growing. In Sri Lanka on February 3rd, a woman on a platform at Colombo's main railway station blew herself up, killing at least 15 people, including seven schoolboys and their sports coach. The next day, Israel saw its first suicide attack for more than a year: at a mall in Dimona, a Palestinian put an abrupt end to his own life, and that of an elderly Israeli woman.

As rescuers tended to an unconscious youth who appeared to be a wounded victim, they noticed—just in time—that he too was wearing an explosives belt. Meanwhile in the Pakistani garrison town of Rawalpindi, where Benazir Bhutto was slain in December, a human bomb on a motorcycle rammed into a military bus, killing at least ten people.

There is almost always something mysterious about suicide: a gap between everything that was ever said by or known about the self-destroyer (even by his family), and the silence that remains.

In the case of politically inspired suicide, the motives are at once more obvious and more elusive. Just why are terrorists, often promising young men (or increasingly, women) with much to live for, willing to kill themselves as well as others? It is exactly eight years since the first international conference on suicide terrorism was convened in Israel; since then, dozens of security pundits have been searching for new answers to the question.

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http://www.economist.com/world/international/

Indian delegation to visit Sri Lanka next week

A high level Indian business delegation led by Mr Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Commerce, would visit Sri Lanka next week, to give a boost to trade and investment between both countries.

"The Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh is leading a high-powered investment delegation for discussions with the Sri Lankan government on investment opportunities for Indian companies here," a senior Sri Lankan official said.

Representatives from Indian textile, IT and infrastructure companies, including Reliance, L&T, Mahindra and Mahindra, Aditya Birla Group, Indo-Rama, Vardhman, Arvind Mills, IOC, Quatrro, Virtusa and others would also accompany the delegation.

Among other engagements, they will have detailed discussions with the Sri Lankan Minister for Investment Promotion Mr Navin Dissanayake and other officials of the Sri Lankan Board of Investment (BOI).

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http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blnus/14081420.htm

Special committee for oil exploration

The Petroleum Resources Development Ministry has decided to appoint a Special Committee represented by all political parties in Parliament to supervise oil exploration activities in Sri Lanka.

Leader of the House Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva yesterday told Parliament a decision was taken at the Party Leader’s meeting held on February 6 to inform all political parties to nominate their representatives to this committee.

The Minister was responding to a question raised by JVP Parliamentarian Wimal Weerawansa regarding an assurance given by Petroleum Resources Development Minister A.H.M. Fowzie at the Budget debate to appoint a committee to supervise oil exploration.

Weerawansa said, however, the Minister has not yet taken steps to appoint this Committee.

Minister Fowzie agreed in this House to suspend the calling for tenders and appoint a Committee represented by all political parties to supervise oil exploration before these tenders are called.

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http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/02/08/news01.asp