By : J. T. Janani Tamil Guardian 
The Tamils will never have a voice in legislation that threatens their physical and political safety. For everywhere but in Eelam, they are a minority.I start with an admission. For many years, I have been a British Tamil. Britain has been good to me, I had taken on the citizenship of this country and I thought the matter ended there. One could say, broadly, the moral choices of Karna, having eaten of the bread of the Kauravas.But last year has shaken the foundations of this identity. And it must do so for the tens of thousands of others who, by some accident of birth and luck are, like me, part of the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora. For now as never before the words of the anti Nazi poem, attributed to the Rev. Martin Niemoller come to mind:

Tamil Guardian  
In the wake of persistent allegations of high-level corruptions in military procurements, media watchdogs rang alarm bells last week over moves by the Sri Lankan government to ban reporting on defence purchases.Meanwhile, the government forced three journalists, including two Britons, to leave the north of the country, denying them access to areas affected by the war.The Free Media Movement (FMM), local media watchdog said last week it “reliably learns that the government is preparing to promulgate new Emergency Regulations to impose a general prohibition on investigative reporting and media coverage in respect of issues relating to defence procurement.”

Passengers onboard were extremely frightened
In a report by The Independent, a British Airways Boeing 747 clipped the wings of a Sri Lankan Airways Airbus A340 whilst taxiing at low speed at Heathrow Airport on Monday.“It was a minor collision between two planes who just clipped each other,” a spokesman for the London Fire Brigade informed journalists. “There was no fire, no injuries,no damage.”According to a spokesman for the British Airports Authority (BAA), passengers were escorted off the aircraft and transported to nearby hotels for the night.

By Feizal Samath
Residents of war-wracked Jaffna city in northern Sri Lanka are a community on the run; every family has a bag packed with essentials, ready to flee at a moment's notice, a new research study reports. "When displaced to a refugee camp, they are very systematic in getting themselves organised. They immediately find a corner, hang up screens with saris, and start arranging their belongings for an indefinite stay," says Prof. Daya Somasunderam, a well-known Sri Lankan psychiatrist, in a new, path-breaking study on collective trauma. The author, who fled Sri Lanka fearing for his own family's safety and now residing in Adelaide, Australia, says the long-running civil war is causing far more mental health problems and social breakdown than the catastrophic 2004 tsunami. "People have learned to survive under extraordinarily stressful conditions. A UNHCR official observed that in Jaffna people have become professional in dealing with complex emergencies from previous experiences," noted Somasunderam, a clinical associate professor in psychiatry and Australia's first 'refugee scholar' at the University of Adelaide under the Scholar Rescue Fund.

A Sri Lankan party on Tuesday disfavoured any arms supply by India to the island country, saying it can be a "dangerous development". "The stepped up arms to Sri Lanka will only escalate the war with LTTE," Mano Ganesan, the leader of the Western Province People's Front (WPPF), said commenting on the news reports that New Delhi is considering enhanced arms supply to Colombo. WPPF is an ally of the main opposition UNP party headed by former Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe.

Citing ongoing reports of abuses in Sri Lanka, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who has just wrapped up a visit to the country, called for UN-Government cooperation to address the problem.“There is a large number of reported killings, abductions and disappearances which remain unresolved. This is particularly worrying in a country that has had a long, traumatic experience of unresolved disappearances and no shortage of recommendations from past Commissions of Inquiry on how to safeguard against such violations,” Louise Arbour said in Colombo.Sri Lanka, which has ratified most international human rights treaties, has potential for national protection, she said, but “in the context of the armed conflict and of the emergency measures taken against terrorism, the weakness of the rule of law and prevalence of impunity is alarming.”

Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse is scheduled to pay his first official visit to Iran from October 24 to 26. During his stay in Teheran Rajapakse is to hold talks with Iranian President regarding strengthening diplomatic ties including defence between the two countries, media reports in Colombo said.

Premier Anna Bligh has urged voters to put Queensland first when they cast their ballots at the upcoming Federal election. With both the potential Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan being based in Queensland, she said the election offered an unprecedented opportunity to elect a Federal Government that understood our state. "In the 10 months since he has been Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd has shown that he is prepared to roll up his sleeves to make things happen for Queensland. He knows what makes Queensland tick," Ms Bligh said.

Bundaberg tourism identity Dellarose Baevski has been recognised by the world's leading travel magazine, Travel + Leisure for innovation in developing an ecologically sustainable destination, Tourism Minister Desley Boyle announced. The Australian edition named Mrs Baevski as one of two Queenslanders and 20 Australian individuals/partnerships to receive 2007 T+L Travel Innovators Awards in the magazine's second anniversary issue. Ms Boyle said the prestigious awards acknowledged Australians with the vision, flair and dedication to improve the travel experience for the increasingly discerning traveller.

'No access' to Arbour in Jaffna  
 Civilians affected by the escalated hostilities in the northern Sri Lankan peninsular were prevented from meeting a top UN rights official, Jaffna residents said. UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour who is in Sri Lanka on a fact finding mission, visited Jaffna on Friday.Hundreds of civilians affected by the rights violations have been gathered in front of Nallur Kovil and UNHCR office in Jaffna.

Australia - Tamil Competition 2007 Winners & Photos - By Australian Society of Graduate Tamils

In yet another example of the Australian Labor Party saying one thing and doing another, the ALP export wheat policy released today dismantles the single desk for Australia’s bulk wheat exports, despite Kevin Rudd’s countless assurances of support for the single desk. The ALP’s announcement to abandon every principle of a single desk will come as a great shock to Australian wheat growers, who believed Kevin Rudd when he said:

Courtesy: Jay Shankar, Bloomberg
The U.S. said human rights violations in Sri Lanka remain ``serious,'' and while some aspects of civil liberties had improved, the killing of journalists is threatening the freedom of expression. There has been a decline in ``forced disappearances'' in Colombo and the Western Province, Ambassador Robert Blake told delegates of the American Chamber of Commerce in Colombo yesterday, according to a speech transcript posted on the U.S. embassy Web site. ``Violations in other parts of Sri Lanka remain as serious as ever.''