The Hindu : International : Colombo ire over channel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
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International

Colombo ire over channel

B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan embassy in Washington has lodged complaints with the Justice Department, State Department and the FBI against the Washington-based Intelsat Ltd. for "reneging its promise" of removing the National Television of Tamil Eelam (NTT) channel and Pulikalin Kural radio from its transponder and for continuing to facilitate and broadcast terrorist propaganda.

The Defence Ministry claimed that the Intelsat Ltd. had laid down a condition that talks with them should not be publicised which the embassy refused even to consider.

Bus set on fire

The embassy has alleged that the satellite provider is violating the U.S. law by continuing to broadcast the television and radio services. The NTT, the official television channel of the LTTE, is a free to air channel in Asia and an encrypted one in Europe.

The four-hour daily programme of the NTT channel used to broadcast propaganda material of the LTTE which is a terrorist organisation banned in the U.S., Canada, India and in the European Union countries.

The military said a group of LTTE supporters on Tuesday set fire to a bus at Kondavil depot. Quoting civilians, the military said the passengers were forced out of the bus by a group of "boys" who threatened to explode hand grenades. They then set fire to the bus.

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