Baird delivers fierce defence of Israel at UN Read more:

OTTAWA — In a strident speech heavy with references to the Second World War and the Cold War, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird launched a full-on defence of Israel at the UN in New York on Monday before criticizing a number of countries for their treatment of religious minorities, including China.


Baird said that while fascism and communism were the biggest threats facing previous generations, terrorism is the greatest threat today.

And far too often, the Jewish state is on the front line in our struggle and its people are the victims of terror," he said in reference to Israel
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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Sri Lanka says war general has diplomatic immunity

 

COLOMBO — A Sri Lankan general serving as a UN diplomat in New York has diplomatic immunity, the government in Colombo said Tuesday, after a US court issued him with a summons over the island's bloody ethnic war.
A civil case has been filed against Major General Shavendra Silva on behalf of two people whose relatives were killed in the final days of the conflict, which ended in a military onslaught against Tamil separatists in 2009.
Silva, who is Sri Lanka's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, was served with the summons at his New York residence on Friday.
Sri Lanka's defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels after decades of fighting has attracted accusations that both sides were guilty of atrocities in the final months of combat.
One UN report accused Sri Lankan troops of killing thousands of civilians in bombing attacks.
"Ambassador Shavendra Silva is protected by the relevant international treaties on diplomatic relations, immunities and privileges," the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said in a statement.
Silva was commanding officer of the army's 58th Division, which played a key role on the war's frontline.
A UN panel of experts said in April that the Sri Lankan army killed most of the tens of thousands of civilian victims of the final offensive in 2009, but both sides could have been guilty of war crimes.
A documentary shown on Britain's Channel Four in June said the military shelled civilian targets and showed footage of what it said were prisoner executions and the bodies of sexually assaulted Tamil Tiger fighters.