India's help to Sri Lanka fight LTTE terrorism: only if Tamil civilian casualties were minimal.

Lanka conscious of Tamil Nadu factor: Defense Secretary
Oct 29 (HT)

The Sri Lanka government is conscious of the Tamil Nadu factor in determining New Delhi's Sri Lanka policy, and it strives to ensure that the war waged in the island's North and East is directed against the LTTE terrorists and not against innocent Tamil civilians, Defense Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapksa, has said. Rajapakasa said that India's Central government would be able to help Sri Lanka fight LTTE terrorism only if Tamil civilian casualties were minimal.

Black Tigers were working at the A’pura air force base?
By Tissa Ravindra Perera and Ayesha Wijeratne

Initial investigations have revealed that one of the Black Tigers who took part in Monday’s pre -dawn LTTE attack on the Anuradhapura Air Force base has been working in the camp as a contract labourer under the project to develop the runway of the air force camp.Investigations have revealed that 164 civilian workers have been working inside the air force camp prior to the attack and no one has undergone any type of background investigation by the authorities other than the checking of their Identity Cards whenever they entered the camp.According to initial findings, one of the names in the Black Tiger list issued by the LTTE stating who took part in the attack is similar to the name of a worker who worked in the air force base under the development project. It has also been revealed that several lorries from Batticaloa had transported sand for the development project at the base. The Nation reliably learns that a security person who was apprehended on suspicion and made to retire after he was found guilty of being involved in the Ratmalana bomb blast had rented out his house which is situated in close proximity to the Anuradhapura Air Force base to several Tamil people.So far the investigation teams have questioned some 256 air force personnel including the Commanding Officer of the camp. However, when The Nation contacted Director General of the Media Centre for National Security, Lakshman Hulugalle, he refused to give details on the ongoing investigations citing that the report has still not been released yet. “Until the reports are out, we cannot make any comments on rumours as they will hamper the ongoing investigations,” he added.

08:26, October 29, 2007
Sri Lanka political parties back action to eliminate terrorism
Some 16 political parties allied to the government led by President Mahinda Rajapakse are backing the government's action to eliminate terrorism, said a statement issued here Sunday.
The party leaders in the joint statement said that through the elimination of terrorism action must be taken to create a political environment in the island to make sure that the Tamil minority shared and enjoyed political power.
The leaders condemned last week's terror attack on the Sri Lanka Air Force base that was blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, saying that parties must not be allowed to make political capital out of the losses suffered by the government troops.
Rajapakse has dubbed his government's present battle against the LTTE rebels as a campaign against terrorism. He said the military action was needed to force the rebels back into the negotiating table.
The government and the rebels ended their last face-to-face talks held in Geneva in October 2006 without any conclusion.
The February 2002 cease-fire agreement now exists only on paper while over 5,000 have died in the escalating conflicts since the end of 2005.
Source: Xinhua

Tata lanuches branded cold-rolled steel in Sri Lanka

Colombo (PTI):
India's steel behemoth Tata Steel has launched its first branded cold-rolled steel - Tata Steelium - in Sri Lanka with an eye on the auto-ancillaries sector in the island country.
Tata Steel has been selling its products in the Sri Lankan market for more than a decade and over the years, its focus in the country has shifted from transactional sales to relationship-based sales to key accounts, a senior company official said while launching the product on Saturday.
The official said it is this long term focus that has allowed Tata Steel to be a market leader in the Cold Roll Critically Annealed (CRCA) products in Sri lanka over the past four years.
Tata Steelium will provide a credible option in the Emerald Island for electrical engineering products and other components besides makers of steel furniture and other allied products.
The drums and barrels industry will also have access to a raw material that will make for safer and stronger products, the officials said.
Manufactured at one of the world's most sophisticated facilities, at Jamshedpur, Tata Steelium possesses advanced attributes, such as superior formability, flatness, surface quality, thickness consistency and strength, a company release said.
It said the product has a high level of consistency in width and thickness, ensuring low wastage, and is characterised by better packaging.
In Sri Lanka, Tatas already have a big presence in the automobile market besides having a wire manufacturing unit.
Tata Tea has a substantial interest in the Sri Lankan tea industry through Watawala Plantations, where it focuses on production and marketing of tea, rubber and palm oil.

Fall of n-deal will affect US outlook on India: Kissinger
New Delhi (PTI): India's failure to implement the civil nuclear deal with the US can lead to questions over its trustworthiness and may impact upon New Delhi's quest for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has suggested.
"It (failure of the deal) would certainly, in an intangible way, affect calculations because when an American leader goes down a certain road, he stakes his prestige on the ability to get it executed. So in that sense, it would undoubtedly be a setback," he told Karan Thapar's 'Devil's Advocate' programme on CNN-IBN.
"Definitely, people would make that argument," Kissinger said, when asked whether questions could be raised in the US regarding India's reliability if the nuclear deal fails to get through.
He said there would "undoubtedly be disappointment and also there would be a question as to what extent one can calculate Indian reaction to the negotiations on other subjects," he said.
Insisting that India should ratify the deal for "its own reasons", he admitted that the failure of the deal "would certainly be a disappointment" for the Bush administration which "has put a lot of effort behind it."
Kissinger said other countries, from whom India has been seeking support for the deal, could also wonder "what is going on and what that reflects. Does it reflect an immediate Indian internal problem or does it reflect the fundamental choice which makes it difficult to cooperate with India on these issues."