A self-confessed people smuggler who helped asylum seekers get on boats to Australia has told a court of bribes paid in Indonesia. Sri Lankan-born Tamil Pathmendra Pulendren, 36, from Pendle Hill in Sydney's west, pleaded guilty on Thursday to a charge of facilitating the arrival of unlawful people to Australia.

Seeking to give a fillip to bilateral military ties, army chief General V.K. Singh is set to undertake a five-day visit to Sri Lanka from Sunday to discuss defence cooperation.  During his visit, Singh is scheduled to meet Defence Secretary, Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, his Sri Lankan counterpart, Mr Jagath Jayasuriya, and other senior defence officials. 

A lawsuit accusing a Wall Street hedge fund manager and his father of using a charitable foundation to funnel millions of dollars to the LTTE, a Sri Lankan terrorist group, can go forward, a federal judge in New Jersey says. The suit, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act, concerns the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), a non-profit that the U.S. Treasury Department shut down in 2007 for allegedly bankrolling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (aka Tamil Tigers), which the U.S.

Military Spokesman Major General UAB Medawela said that more than 300,000 landmines laid by the LTTE terrorists in the North and East have been cleared by the de-mining groups. There is still another area of 2000 square kilometres to be cleared. Making this observation at a press conference held at the Media Centre for National Security, the Military Spokesman said that an area of 1,800 square kilometres of the Northern, Eastern and North Central Provinces have been cleared by the de-mining groups.

The Sri Lanka Air Force has recovered gutted light aircraft parts belonging to the LTTE from a container, where they were kept during the height of the Wanni battle in Vellamullivaikkal and Ampalawanpokkanai.

Resettlements in Vadamarachchi east begun recently facilitating Tamil civilians to back their native places after completely removing LTTE laid land mines, unexploded ordnance and trappings in the area. Army Engineers and foreign agencies collectively conducted the de-mining operations in vadamarachchi east.

BERLIN, August 31, 2010 (AFP) - German prosecutors said Tuesday they had charged three men suspected of fundraising and buying weapons for the Sri Lankan separatist group the Tamil Tigers. Sri Lankan national Vijikanendra V. S., 35, and German nationals Sasitharan M., 33, and Koneswaran T., 39, were charged with belonging to a banned "terrorist" organisation and breaking export laws, a statement said.

The Japanese government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are providing a grant of $2.5 million for a skills-training project for approximately 2,500 internally displaced persons in northern Sri Lanka. The program will also include a cash-for-work option to develop infrastructure by rebuilding roads and irrigation canals.

The LTTE moved against the EPDP funded Thinamurasu, a Tamil weekly, as part of its overall measures to target those critical of the CFA and LTTE atrocities. We reported the LTTE move (The Island-April 5, 2002) quoting EPDP leader Douglas Devananda, who accused the LTTE of threatening a private firm, hired by his party to distribute Thinamurasu in the East, to stop delivery or face the consequences.

A decision to cultivate 54,000 acres in the Kilinochchi District during the forthcoming Maha season was taken at a progress review meeting held at the Kilinochchi District Secretariat on Sunday. Kilinochchi District Secretary Rupawathi Kethiswaran said that subsidies would be granted to encourage all farmers to cultivate and Rs. 8,000 would be paid to each family to clear all idle lands and make them cultivable

(Hindu) Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is arriving here on Monday on a four-day visit for a first-hand assessment of India's assistance to the nearly three lakh displaced Tamils. Besides exchanging views with the authorities here on ties between the two nations, Ms. Rao is scheduled to travel to some of the areas where the displaced civilians were resettled as well as the camps that house those awaiting resettlement. 

Army Commander Lt. General Jagath Jayasuriya says the Sri Lanka Army is ready to share its experience in defeating the LTTE with SAARC countries. Lt. Gen. Jayasuriya, the senior officer in charge of all fighting formations deployed in the Vanni during the largest ever combined security forces campaign, says army headquarters had recently received Defence Ministry approval to invite military contingents from the SAARC region.

The government is taking steps to rehabilitate the education sector in Northern Province by providing infrastructure facilities for the children who had to abandon their schooling due to LTTE terrorist activities.

International counter terrorism expert Shanaka Jayasekara said that Ponniah Anandarajah, the main agent of the LTTE’s arms network in the post-KP period, still poses a serious threat to Sri Lanka’s efforts in countering the LTTE’s international links.

Pro-LTTE asylum seekers in Australia cannot be enjoying the indecisive result of the Australian national poll paving the way to the first hung Parliament in the country since World War II. It is not the stability of the Canberra Legislature that worries them but that either candidate who scrapes through to form a coalition has stood firmly against unlimited freedom to asylum seekers, especially from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan