Sri lanka News

Amidst protests by Indian fishermen against the planting of mines along the maritime border by Sri Lankan Navy, Coast Guard today said the island nation could not be prevented from installing such devices to ensure the security of their territory.

Talking to reporters at the “Fifth island” near the International Maritime Boundary Line, the Commanding Officer of the Indian Coastguard Station at Mandapam, Commander K Janarthanan said: “how can we prevent them from planting mines, when they have got every right to make their country secure in whatever way they desire”.

He said the Sri Lankan officials had informed the Indian side about the mines so that fishermen could be careful.

Their objective was to prevent the movement of LTTE in and around Delft island, which was 12 nautical miles away from the IMBL, he said.

He also ruled out the possibility of the mines drifting into the Indian territory as they had been placed very far from the IMBL. Besides, the area where the mines had been planted were in the ‘High Security Area’, where fishermen were not allowed.

“If the fishermen went into the war zone and got killed in the cross-fire or by mines, it is also a cause of worry”, he said.

Source: outlookindia.com

Even as most fishermen ended their days-old strike following the Tamil Nadu government’s announcement that all 12 fishermen arrested by the Sri Lankan navy had been released, the main Opposition party, the AIADMK, would protest against the Sri Lankan navy at the Rameswaram coast tomorrow.
Referring to the fishermen’s arrest, party supremo Ms Jayalalitha said such incidents had become the norm now. The AIADMK leader, often portrayed as a Sinhalese supporter by Tamil nationalists here owing to her anti-LTTE stand, came down heavily on the Sri Lankan navy and said it was firing at fishermen frequently and had set up mines under the sea from Katchatheevu to Neduntheevu (islands near state coast), endangering the livelihood of fishermen.
“It had become customary for the Sri Lankan navy to arrest and attack Tamil Nadu fishermen and the complacent attitude of the state and Centre are to blame for it,” Ms Jayalalitha said. Though pro-LTTE leaders such as MDMK leader Mr Vaiko, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Mr Thol Thirumavalavan and Tamil nationalist leader Mr P Nedumaran, initially raised the issue of mines, anti-LTTE parties such as the AIADMK has joined issue only now as they can no longer ignore the growing anti-Lankan feeling of the fishermen.

Source: thestatesman.net

The contentious Sethu Samundaram project is likely to be put on hold as after facing uproar from the Sangh Parivar over the issue, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has been looking for a face saver that would allow it to exit the project.

The government’s political reluctance has now been bolstered by a military caveat after the Navy chief and the Coast Guard Director General said that the project is a security threat.

The military establishment has warned that dredging a channel out of Adam’s Bridge or Ram Setu will create a serious security problem for India.

“By virtue of the close boundary lines between Sri Lanka and us, obviously the implications are there for the security,” Vice-Admiral RF Contractor, DG Coast Guard, warned.

The Coast Guard DG’s warning comes close on the heels of reservations expressed by Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta.

And with the armed forces going public with their view, it’s clear that the UPA Government cleared the contentious Rs 2,500 crore project without a proper security audit.

“Expert bodies like the Coast Guard Chiefs are raising matters of serious security concern, then it is a matter that ought to be factored into by the Government of India,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shanker Prasad said.

The Congress would rather be out of the controversy though the development immensely suits their present political stand – delay any stand and it seems to be finding a way out of an embarrassing situation.

“The chief of the Naval Staff may have said or the coast guard may said but these are all that will be inputs before the government before they take a decision or before they go ahead,” Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said.

The bitter political spat over the Sethu Samundaram project has been focused around the existence of Lord Ram.

With India’s security establishment now going public with its grave reservations about this proposed channel, it’s perhaps a signal that the project should be debated rationally on its merits.

Source: CNN-IBN

By Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka has received six tenders from three foreign companies for oil exploration in its northwestern offshore Mannar basin, the island’s petroleum resource minister said on Thursday.

“We have got six tenders. They are from Cairn India (CAIL.BO: Quote, Profile, Reserch), ONGC Videsh (ONGC.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) from India and Nico Resources from Cyprus,” Minister A.H.M. Fowzie told Reuters.

“All three companies have bid for the first block, while Cairn India and Nico Resources have bid for the second block. The third block has received only one bid from Nico Resources.”

The first block is the smallest out of the three with 3338.1 square kilometres, while the third block is the largest with an area of 4126.5 square kilometres.

Sri Lanka has eight exploration blocks in the Mannar basin, three of which are to be given for exploration once the government decides on a successful bidder.

Two have been assigned to China and India on nomination basis. The government plans to delay bidding on the last three blocks to get higher revenue.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), which was offered the block nominated to India said in September it was not interested in the assigned block, citing low prospectivity and the fact that Sri Lanka was asking for a big signature bonus.

The Sri Lankan government later said it would negotiate with ONGC for a new oil block. The outcome of the negotiation has not yet been revealed.

The bidding process was closed on Thursday and the government expects to select the best three bidders by April 2008 and to start the oil exploration process by August.

The non-oil producing nation expects its first commercial crude oil production by 2010.

Prior to the bidding, the Sri Lankan government had said oil exploration licences would be awarded to firms that can provide most advanced technological and economic benefit to Sri Lanka.

A 35 percent tax from net profit, 10 percent royalty fee of annual production revenue, and allowing the planned National Oil Exploration Company to invest 10 percent in exploration activities were the conditions put forwarded by the government.

Signature bonds, production bonds, and profit sharing ratio are to be considered in selecting the best three bidders.

Roadshows to attract investors were held in London, Houston and Kuala Lumpur in September last year.

The government says seismic data shows more than a billion barrels of oil lie under the sea off Sri Lanka’s northwest coast, though no reserves have yet been proven.

If proven, the reserves would be a major boost for the war-torn country, which produces no oil and imported $2.2 billion worth in the first 11 months of 2007.

Source: Reuters

Japan today warned it could be forced to review its aid policy if military action keeps escalating, but said it hoped to provide long-term support to bring peace, Japan’s special peace envoy Yasushi Akashi said.

Source: Dailymirror

Disruption to internet services in south Asia and the Middle East is continuing the day after Mediterranean undersea cables were damaged.

Operations outsourced to India from the UK and US are badly hit, said an industry body, adding that 50% of India’s bandwidth was affected.

Egypt has about 40% of its internet capacity, following damage to a cable thought to be off its northern coast.

It could take a week or more to restore full services, say experts.

Further disruption has been reported in Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

‘Bad delay’

India is the world leader in offshore outsourcing, with the remote servicing of IT or other business processes worth an estimated £24bn.

“The companies that serve the US east coast and the UK are worst affected,” said Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of India.

He told the Associated Press (AP): “The delay is very bad in some cases.

“They have to arrange back-up plans or they have to accept the poor quality for the time being until the fibre is restored.”

Major companies including IBM and Intel were still trying to assess how their operations had been impacted, AP reported.

An official in Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said that the cause of the cable damage would not be known until repair ships and divers could get to the site.

Rough seas and weather were delaying that operation, he said, adding that the repairs could take as much as a week.

‘Two cuts’

On Wednesday, a Dubai internet service provider (ISP), DU, blamed services disruption on “cuts in two international submarine cable systems in the Mediterranean Sea”.

The company said: “We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators (FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE 4) to ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut,” it said.

FLAG Telecoms operate the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG), a 28,000km (17,400 mile) long submarine communications cable.

SEA-ME-WE 4, or the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 project, is a submarine cable linking South East Asia to Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.

Neither of the cable operators have confirmed the cause or location of the outage but some reports suggest it was caused by a ship’s anchor near the port of Alexandria in Egypt.

There was disruption to 70% of the nationwide internet network in Egypt on Wednesday, while India suffered up to 60% disruption.

International telephone calls, which have also been affected, are being rerouted to work around the problem.

Source: BBC

Damage to undersea Internet cables hit business across the Middle East and South Asia on Thursday, including the vital call centre industry, prompting calls for people to limit their surfing.

Around 70 percent of Internet users in Egypt have been affected since two submarine cables in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged on Wednesday, also rupturing connections thousands of kilometres (miles) away.

The cause of the damage is not yet known.

State-owned Saudi Telecom reported the loss of more than 50 percent of its international lines, and said it did not know when normal service would be restored, the Arab News reported.

Egypt’s telecommunications ministry said repairs would take “at least a week” and appealed for users not to overload the backup system with hefty downloads and file-sharing applications.

“Two of our cables are affected; everyone will go onto a third cable,” ministry spokesman Mohammed Taymur told AFP. “But that will not be enough bandwidth. The cable will be overloaded and no one will be able to get access.”

“People should know how to use the Internet because people who download music and films are going to affect businesses who have more important things to do.”

Taymur said a company had been asked to repair the cables but that “for the time being we don’t know the cause. The two cables are a kilometre (over half a mile) apart and we don’t know what could have affected both at the same time.”

Like India, Egypt has a major call centre industry which has been affected by the outage, with a telecommunications ministry statement saying productivity was down to 30 percent.

The statement named other affected Arab countries as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Qatar and Bahrain.

Egyptian blogger The Arabist said he would “resume posting after the problem is resolved” and predicted, with a hint of sarcasm, “complete social breakdown in vast swathes of (upmarket Cairo districts) Heliopolis and Mohandiseen as thousands are unable to update their Facebook status.”

Bahrain’s Batelco issued a statement appealing for people to limit use to browsing and email but to refrain from file-sharing applications which require more bandwidth.

Gas-rich Qatar said that less than 40 percent of its Internet services were affected but that international phone lines were functioning normally.

The Al-Raya daily quoted one of national operator QTel’s directors as saying that repairs in the Mediterranean could take up to two weeks.

In Muscat, OmanTel issued a statement saying it had reestablished 76 percent of Internet services by Thursday.

In Kuwait, the government said “weather conditions and maritime traffic” had damaged two cables, affecting most of the region.

India’s Internet-dependent outsourcing industry was also severely disrupted, with businesses saying it may take up to 15 days to return to normal.

“Information-technology companies, software companies and call centres that provide online services to the UK or the US East Coast are the worst affected,” said Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of India.

India’s 11 billion dollar outsourcing industry employs 700,000 people working for companies that deliver services ranging from answering customer queries to to analysing equity markets for global clients.

The industry serves clients mainly in the US and Europe that sought to cut costs by farming out work to the country.

Neighbouring Bangladesh was also hit, with an official from the state Telegraph and Telephone Board saying that “voice and data traffic bound for Europe and America is not working. It slowed down the Internet services in the country.”

Another Bangladesh provider, BDCom, said it was running at a quarter of its usual capacity.

“Our operations have slowed down. All the ISPs and call centres have also experienced similar problems,” said Sabbir Ahmed Suman, BDCom director and a senior member of the Bangladesh Internet Service Providers Association.

Sri Lanka also faced a drastic drop in service quality, according to Sri Lanka Telecom, the country’s largest Internet service provider.

Source: AFP