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Ex-LTTE leader’s family flees Tiger zone
Sri Lankan President Mahinda
Rajapaksa (L) with Japan’s special peace envoy to Sri Lanka Yasushi
Akashi during a meeting in Colombo on Saturday. After months of heavy
fighting, the LTTE are, said by the Sri Lankan military, to be down to
their last few hundred fighters. The UN has put the number of
civilians trapped in the small patch of rebel-held territory at
50,000, while the government says there are fewer than 20,000. — AFP
Rebels accuse army of 64 shelling deaths
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Four swine flu infections in Asia
Mexico begins 5-day shutdown
Pak forces kill 16 Taliban militants
Taliban ruthless killers: US
Indian migrants to challenge new UK immigration law
US banking on Sharif: Report
Trafalgar Square to rock to Baisakhi music
US report on religious freedom
flays Modi
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Ex-LTTE leader’s family flees Tiger zone
Colombo, May 2 The woman, who was not named, reportedly told military officials that they had quit the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after her husband’s death but the Tigers “had been paying some money every month by way of compensation”. Mahathaya, who was once the designated No.2 in the LTTE, was taken into custody by the Tamil Tigers in August 1993 after being linked to the Indian intelligence. He was executed in December 1994. According to the newspaper report, Mahathaya, born in 1956, had joined the LTTE in 1978 and was very popular with the Tiger cadres till his death. Mahathaya and the LTTE’s late political ideologue Anton Balasingham led the peace talks with then president Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was killed by an LTTE suicide bomber at a May Day rally in Colombo in 1993. Mahathaya had also led the LTTE’s political wing, the People’s Front of Liberation Tigers. The media report, quoting the book “Will to Freedom” written by Balasingham’s Australian-born wife Adale Anne, said that the LTTE had killed 257 people along with Mahathaya on December 28, 1994, citing various allegations. The Sri Lankan military says that the LTTE, which had been fighting to carve out a separate state in the northern and eastern region of the island nation for over a quarter century, has now been cornered into a small coastal land strip less than 10 sq km.
— IANS
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Rebels accuse army of 64 shelling deaths
COLOMBO: A pro-rebel website has accused Sri Lanka’s military of killing 64 persons on Saturday by shelling a makeshift hospital inside the last scrap of land held by the Tamil Tiger guerrillas.
The military denied the report. It said the LTTE might have set off explosions near the hospital. Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said troops were respecting President Mahinda Rajapaksa's order from Monday not to use heavy weapons, air strikes or artillery.
— Reuters
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Mystery of ‘nice fellow’ who killed six at royal parade
The motives of a “nice, quiet fellow” who killed six people while attempting to ram into a bus carrying the Dutch queen may never be known, say investigators. Karst Tates (38), an unemployed security guard, died of his injuries in hospital in the early hours of yesterday. Before losing consciousness in the wreckage of his black Suzuki Swift, he told a police officer that he intended to harm Queen Beatrix and other members of the Dutch royal family as they drove through the crowded streets of Apeldoorn in an open-topped bus.
The attack was mourned by the Dutch press yesterday as the "end of a national illusion" that the Netherlands could maintain its relaxed style of life and politics in a dangerous modern world. Tates had just lost his job and apartment but had no previous record of violence or mental illness and had no known political connections. Neighbours said he was an inoffensive loner who liked to roam around the streets in his souped-up Suzuki. Police said a search of his apartment had found no explosives or weapons. Tates accelerated his car through police barriers and spectators in an attempt to reach the royal bus on Thursday, the Queen's Day national holiday in the Netherlands. Four men and two women were killed, four immediately and two later in hospital. Ten other people were injured, including three children aged nine, 15 and 16. Musicians in a Dutch West Indian military band were among those hurt. One of the victims was named as Rolf Nijenhuis, 55, a military policeman who had driven the band to the parade route. Investigators believe that Tates was so badly injured in the collision with spectators that he was unable to ram the royal bus as he intended. A map of the queen's intended route, possibly copied from a newspaper, was found in his car. "It is very difficult now that we no longer have the suspect to reconstruct what was behind this," Fred de Graaf, the Mayor of Apeldoorn, said yesterday. "An element of uncertainty will remain because you can no longer question the suspect ... the last piece of the puzzle will remain in question." The unexplained attack on the popular Dutch royal family has sent shockwaves through a country which prizes its tolerant and relaxed way of life. Dutch royals have traditionally been open to frequent and easy contact with their subjects. "We will never see it like this again, a queen and her family, free and approachable ... The collection of curiosities in the category 'only in the Netherlands' is one attraction poorer.
— By arrangement with The Independent
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Four swine flu infections in Asia
Seoul, May 2 The 51-year-old has been isolated in hospital since Tuesday after displaying flu symptoms after her return a week ago from the country worst-hit by the virus, the Korea Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said. The infection caused fear to grow that the influenza A(H1N1) virus could quickly
be spread from human to human in South Korea. A 44-year-old woman who lives with the sick nun is being examined on suspicions that she too could have been infected. According to statistics released by the WHO late Friday before South Korea’s report of its first infection, 367 cases had been reported in 13 countries. Mexico has the highest number at 156 infections and nine deaths, followed by the US at 141 infections and one death.
— DPA
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Mexico begins 5-day shutdown
Mexico City, May 2 National Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said, “The mortality rate isn’t as great as could be expected.” Mexico City’s streets, normally filled on Labour Day with throngs of celebrating workers, were eerily quiet as Mexicans began a forced five-day holiday to curb the spread of swine flu. It included near-total closures of government and private activity. Only essential services such as hospitals and supermarkets were open.
— AP
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Pak forces kill 16 Taliban militants
Peshawar, May 2 The clash in the Mohmand tribal region, bordering Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, came as security forces battled into the fifth consecutive day to take control of a strategic valley in the neighbouring Malakand division. Over 60 militants stormed a post of paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) in a predawn attack in the Spin Tangi area of Mohmand and killed two soldiers. "Our soldiers successfully repulsed the attack and killed 16 militants," military spokesman Major Fazal Khan told
here. Military officials said the security forces were steadily advancing towards Sawary, the main bazaar of the
valley. — Reuters
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Taliban ruthless killers: US
Washington: Branding Taliban as “ruthless killers,” the US has said the militants’ demand for tax from the minority Sikh community in Pakistan’s tribal belt was not surprising and provided all the more reason for international community to cooperate to rid the region of extremists.
“I’ve heard reports about that. It doesn’t surprise me. I mean, these are ruthless killers, the Taliban,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters when asked about Taliban’s demand for “Jiziya” or tax from Sikhs in Pakistan’s tribal region forcing them to leave their homes.
— PTI
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Indian migrants to challenge new UK immigration law
London, May 2 The Highly Skilled Migrants Forum today said the Labour government faced a wave of legal challenges to its new immigration and citizenship bill, which allegedly ignored High Court rulings that the Home Office cannot change rules for migrants already living in Britain. The HSMP Forum has won two landmark judicial review cases where the Home Office was ordered to honour the original terms of migrants’ visas after it tried to alter them retrospectively. "Yet Ministers Jacqui Smith and Liam Byrne are determined to press ahead with the new Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Bill, which tries the same thing all over again," Amit Kapadia of the campaign group said. Among many discriminatory provisions, the new bill retrospectively lengthens the waiting period for citizenship to eight years. "We are urging MPs from all sides to scrap this bill - or ensure it is heavily amended so that no legitimate migrant already living in Britain is caught up in these latest arbitrary and retrospective rule changes, which are doomed to failure," he added. Kapadia added that skilled migrants felt it was time the government left them alone and focused on the real problems with Britain's immigration system. "If the Bill goes ahead in its current form, HSMP Forum will have no hesitation in going back to court and we are completely confident of victory," he said.
— PTI
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Washington, May 2 Some Obama administration officials think that Sharif's close ties with Islamists in Pakistan could be useful in helping Zardari's government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents. The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government, The New York Times reports. General David H Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan's government is increasingly vulnerable, according to administration officials. Washington has a bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani politics, and no one in the administration is trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Zardari and Sharif, administration officials say. But they say Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special envoy Richard C Holbrooke have urged Zardari and Sharif to look for ways to work together, seeking to capitalise on Sharif's appeal among the country's Islamist groups, the paper reports. — ANI
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Trafalgar Square to rock to Baisakhi music
London, May 2 The annual event that attracts large crowds and performers includes recitation of "shabad kirtan" by personnel from gurdwaras in London. The event is organised by the Baisakhi London
Committee and is supported by the mayor of London. "Greetings and best wishes to
London’s Sikh community, whose values such as equality, generosity, mutual respect and tolerance are ones we all should share," Mayor Boris Johnson said. Awards will be presented to young achievers from Sikh community for their achievements in arts, sport and education or for the contribution they have made to their community. Vegetarian food prepared by the community will also be offered to people attending the event from 12 noon to 5.30 pm tomorrow. "Baisakhi, the Sikh New Year, is the holiest day for over 20 million Sikhs worldwide and its message about promoting friendship and mutual respect is of particular relevance to this great city of ours," Deputy Mayor Richard Barnes, said.
— PTI
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in 1994 on charges of being an Indian spy, have fled Sri Lanka’s war zone and entered government territory, a newspaper said today.
