Two Customs officers now in custody for their alleged involvement with the LTTE have revealed that they got millions of rupees from the LTTE to clear without checks the outfit’s lethal cargo. A high ranking police officer attached to the Terrorist Investigations Department (TID) told The Island, yesterday that those Customs men had secured the support of some lower rankers in the department and the police believe that they shared the spoils at the expense of national security.

The police investigating covert LTTE operations in the city and its suburbs have arrested two Customs officers for their alleged involvement with LTTE intelligence chief Shanmugalingam Sivashankar alias Pottu Amman. Acting on information elicited from an LTTE operative, the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) took them into custody. Government sources told The Island last night that the suspects had met Pottu Amman in the Vanni in 2004

 The Sri Lanka Country Director of USAID and Sri Lanka's Commissioner General for Rehabilitation today handed over equipment to help over 550 former Tamil Tiger combatants to start new civilian jobs in eastern Sri Lanka.  The handover in Batticaloa, which included canoes, pumps, engines and tool kits for rice paddy cultivation and fishing, was part of a USAID-funded IOM pilot project to help reintegrate the demobilized former rebels into civilian life.

A SRI Lankan refugee being held on Christmas Island with her two young children after ASIO declared her to be a security threat worked for the legal system run by the Tamil Tigers.  The Australian has learned that the woman, who was rescued by the Customs vessel Oceanic Viking in October, lived and worked in the Vanni district in Sri Lanka's north, which was controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

A Tourism Development Action Plan for Eastern Province has been implemented by the Tourism Ministry aiming to boost the tourism sector in the province. This Action Plan has been signed by a three member committee of the Sri Lanka Tourism Board. The Tourism Ministry will take steps to organise 24 projects which are in the Action Plan into operation.

Among six LTTE operatives, including three German passport holders arrested in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia last Wednesday (March 3) for extorting money from Tamils living in Europe, particularly Germany, is Vaheesan alias Vijikanendra (34), who had received weapons training in the Vanni during the Norwegian brokered ceasefire agreement between the then UNP-led United National Front (UNF) government and the LTTE.

India today assured Sri Lanka of its support in resettling nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians displaced by the civil war in the island-nation and pushed for a political settlement when Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao called on President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo.Rao met Rajapaksa over lunch at Janadhipathi Manidiraya and congratulated him on his landslide victory in the Jan 26 presidential polls.

The Presidential Secretariat in a Press Release today states that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has pointed out that the intention of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a panel of experts to advice him (i.e. the SG) on Sri Lanka is totally uncalled for and unwarranted.

Sensitive information provided to the German Intelligence Service by the Sri Lanka Embassy in Berlin and complaints made by the peace-loving Tamil community in Germany led to last week’s arrest of six Tamil men suspected of raising funds for the LTTE, Major General Jagath Dias, Sri Lanka’s Deputy Ambassador in Berlin said.

Karlsruhe (Germany), March 5 (DPA) German police have arrested six leading Tamil separatists, the federal prosecution agency said Friday. The men - three German and three Sri Lankan nationals - are suspected of belonging to an organisation which extorts money from ethnic Tamils living in Germany, to fund Sri Lanka's rebel Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) group.

There is no set back in tea production or tea exports, Sri Lanka Tea Board Chairman Lalith Hettiarachchi said. Sri Lanka is the largest exporter of pre-packed tea under brand name among tea producing countries. Sri Lanka earns more revenue from tea exports than other countries, he told the Daily News yesterday.

Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Palitha Kohona was honoured with a Global Citizenship Award by the Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW). The ceremony was held at the Webster Hall in New York recently. The award recognizes individuals who best personify the global citizenship through their leadership in helping humanity, Colombo Page reported.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband holding forth on race relations in Sri Lanka was hollow in his address to the Global Tamil Forum in London and still bent on pursuing separatism. He seemed bafflingly oblivious to the conscientious reconciliatory efforts being made in Sri Lanka after the recent elections. He was careening into mayhem, an affront to his bona fides.