[The Economist]

THE president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, may well feel pleased with himself. On the face of it, more than six years after his first election, his prospects are still remarkably rosy. The economy clips along at about 7% a year. Mr Rajapaksa’s coalition controls over two-thirds of parliament, and opposition parties are so weak that a senior minister chuckles about not being held to account. The chief political threat, Sarath Fonseka, a former general turned popular presidential candidate, is in a Colombo jail. There, says an MP who has visited him, he wears short trousers and passes his days in a cell known as the “Scouting Room”, complete with a portrait of Baden-Powell.

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[AFP]

Sri Lanka on Wednesday used draconian anti-terror laws to detain thousands of Tamil rebel suspects who would have had to be freed when a state of emergency ended after 28 years, an official said.

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[BBC]

The Tamil Tigers say that 250,000 civilians in the conflict zone in north-eastern Sri Lanka want to stay to be protected by the rebels. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had appealed to the rebels to allow the civilians to leave. But his government also ruled out a ceasefire. Rebel political chief B Nadesan said the people did not wish to end up in the hands of “their killers”. Health officials and rights groups say hundreds of civilians have died. Mr Nadesan denied the rebels were blocking civilians. He also said he was in daily contact with the Tigers’ Vellupillai Prabhakaran and that the rebels’ main leader was still full of enthusiasm.

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[AFP]

The Sri Lankan government has overwhelming public support for its war against the Tamil Tigers, and most people believe the rebels will soon be defeated, an opinion poll published Wednesday shows. The privately run research group TNS Lanka questioned 500 people living outside the northern conflict zone between October and November. The result will be greeted by the government as an endorsement of its decision in January to pull out of a Norwegian-brokered truce with the LTTE and escalate its offensive. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has said he will not accept anything short of the rebels’ total surrender.

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