UK Lanka deportations 'under review'
A British court has called upon the authorities to consider accusations of human rights violations in
Detained in Welikada for 15 years
A team from a Human Rights Organization called Peoples Forum for Independence that visited the Welikada prison made a startling disclosure that they found a Tamil youth who was arrested at the age of fourteen has been under detention for fifteen years under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Now the youth is 29 years old. He is among several Tamil political prisoners who have been detained under the PTA and Emergency Regulations (ER) without any inquiry and without recourse in courts, said an official of the organization to the Colombo media. The HR team visited Welikada prison eek and talked to several Tamil political prisons including senior journalist Mr. Tissanayagam who was sentenced to jail for twenty years. The team came to know the particular Tamil youth during that visit. (TamilNet)
Tamils arrested at Katunayake
Thirty-one Tamil youths were taken into custody by the State Intelligence Unit of the Sri Lanka Police at Katunayake International Airport in four separate incidents. The arrested youths are now detained in the Katunayake Police and are being interrogated. In the first incident on October 15, eleven Tamil youths took a flight to Singapore, but were refused permission to enter and returned to Colombo, where they were taken into custody. In the second incident that took place on Friday, October 16, eighteen Tamil students were arrested by the State Intelligence Unit personnel when they arrived in Katunayake International Airport to take a flight to London, despite having valid student visas issued by the UK embassy. Separately Thuraisamy Sureshkumar, 32, of Araly North of Jaffna district was arrested on October 10, and Thangarajah Nishanthan, 21, of Karuveppankulam, Vavuniya district, was arrested on October 20, as they were waiting at the Katunayake International Airport to go abroad for employment. They both had valid travel documents. (TamilNet)
War areas to be explored for new avenues of US, Sri Lanka economy
Assistant United States Trade Representative for South and Central Asia, Michael Delaney, who led the U.S. delegation in the seventh council meeting of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), a bilateral agreement reached between the USA and Sri Lanka in July 2002, has said that both the countries have now identified new areas of cooperation, adding that the purpose of the meeting was to "foster economic development and generate jobs, particularly in the war-affected areas." Sri Lankan Minister for Export Development and International Trade, G. L. Peiris, led the Sri Lankan delegation. “The seventh round of TIFA talks takes place at a historic juncture in the Sri Lankan economy. It is heartening to note that the TIFA process has already begun to expand beyond its traditional boundaries,” said Peiris, according to a press statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Colombo. Total two-way trade between Sri Lanka and the United States totaled $2.3 billion in 2008, with U.S. imports of $2 billion and U.S. exports of $283 million, according to the press statement. "The leading U.S. exports to Sri Lanka were aircraft, cereals, industrial machinery, electrical machinery and plastics. U.S. imports from Sri Lanka are primarily apparel, rubber, precious stones and industrial machinery. In 2008, U.S. imports from Sir Lanka qualifying for GSP preferences were valued at $153 million," the press statement said. (TamilNet)
'India offered to help Lanka if IMF denied fund'
India had offered to shore up Sri Lanka with a loan of $2.6 billion to meet a balance of payments crisis if the IMF had not given the amount on political grounds, the Sri Lankan Home Minister, Dr Sarath Amunugama, told Parliament on Tuesday, October 20. He said that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had even told the International Monetary Fund on one occasion, that India would supply that amount if it did not approve the standby credit facility for Sri Lanka. “The Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had telephoned the Indian representatives of the IMF and instructed them to support Sri Lanka’s case,” the Sri Lankan Home Minister said. In his speech, the Indian representative had said that if human rights violations were a criterion for denying the standby facility, many of the member countries of the IMF would not qualify. The Sri Lankan government would never forget the assistance and backing of India and Pakistan during difficult times, Dr Amunugama told parliament. (Expressbuzz.com)
