Joy and fear for Christians in Sri Lanka

Associated Press/Photo by Eranga Jayawardena

A Sri Lankan offers prayers at a Catholic shrine

By JULIA A. SEYMOUR -Dec. 24, 2013,

Christmas is a time of joy, but also of fear for Christians in rural areas of Sri Lanka.

Yamini Ravindran, National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka’s (NCEASL) advocacy officer, said, “Christmas is commercialized for the Christians residing in the main city areas; however, for most Christians in the rural or Buddhist-dominant villages it is a completely different scenario. It is an event filled with joy and fear for them. Joy to remember the birth of Christ—fear to conduct services boldly and fear of attacks against churches, pastors, or Christian members.”

Open Doors warned that Sri Lankan Christians may be under increasing persecution as Christmas nears in the mostly Buddhist nation. Citing recent reports from NCEASL, Open Doors said in a Dec. 19 email that “Christians in Sri Lanka are likely to take extra precautions as they hold their Christmas gatherings and celebrations this month.” The NCEASL noted several recent instances of persecution, including the Dec. 5 visit from authorities who told a pastor to “stop all religious worship activities taking place on his premises” in southern Sri Lanka, according to Open Doors.

“Most Christians who share the message of Christ face serious intimidation, threats or attacks,” Ravindran said, noting that as recently as Dec. 22 a pastor’s home was attacked with petrol bombs.

Persecution has been growing in the island nation throughout 2013 as Buddhist extremists attacked many churches and gatherings of Christians in the country.

Open Doors recently interviewed a persecuted Sri Lankan Christian who said, “The presence of Buddhist extremists in eastern and southern Sri Lanka usher in a new wave of attacks against believers this 2013. These include threats to pastors with growing ministries, harassment of congregations attending Sunday worship, destruction of church buildings, and shutdown of Christian ministries.”

Persecution has also come from officials. The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) said in a November prayer update that on Oct. 1 a Christian woman in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, was forced to stop holding prayer meetings in her home after a mob of people, including several Buddhist monks, attacked and made threats.

“During the police inquiry on the incident, the authorities threatened her with arrest if she continued to hold prayer meetings in her home,” WEA wrote. “The woman was also forced to sign a document stating that she would discontinue the prayer meetings with immediate effect.”

On Sept. 3, Mission Network News said a Christian leader working with Asian Access in Sri Lanka confirmed the rise of Buddhist-led persecution and added, “My gut feeling is that it will continue and will intensify until the international community will bring pressure on the government.”

The United Nations has taken notice of the persecution against all religious minorities in Sri Lanka. UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay spoke out against attacks on Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. According to The Khaleej Times, Pillay said, “Regrettably, government interlocutors seemed to downplay this issue or even put the blame on minority communities themselves, and (we) heard disturbing accounts of state patronage or protection given to extremist groups.”

Remembrance held in Vadamaraadchi East for Tamil tsunami victims

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 16:06 GMT]
Families, relatives and friends of victims who perished in the 2004 tsunami gathered at Uduththu’rai burial grounds on Thursday remembering their loved ones on 9th anniversary of the devastating catastrophe. The gigantic waves of tsunami claimed the lives of 41,000 people in the island on 26 December 2004 and most of the victims were from eastern and northern coasts of the Tamil homeland. Around 1.5 million people lost their homes in the tsunami. The International Community of Establishments, who failed the victims of tsunami, were not only complicit in Sri Lanka's genocidal onslaught on them in 2009, but they continue to fail the victims of the tsunami and the genocide by allowing the Sri Lankan State to continue the structural genocide on the nation of Eezham Tamils. 

On Thursday, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S. Sritharan, former TNA parliamentarian and Northern Provincial Council member M.K. Sivajilingam and Ananthi Sasitharan of the NPC joined the kith and kin of the victims at the remembrance event in Vadamaraadchi East.


The remembrance of the victims of 26 December tsunami would not be a complete one without the victims of genocide reminding the ICE on the injustice it has committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils.

The unitary Sri Lankan State system nullified a crucial Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure (PTOMS) agreement mediated by Norway between the parties to the conflict in 2005.

The agreement was nullified as the West, represented in a defined entity known as the Co-Chairs of the Tokyo Donor Conference, failed to take constructive steps in enforcing Colombo to desist from taking the destructive path in nullifying the PTOMS.

Eezham Tamils will never forget how the USA was culpable by encouraging the extremist elements in Sri Lanka to nullify the PTOMS deal.

Eventually, the failure of Post Tsunami conflict management became the failure of peace process.

The Sri Lankan Unitary State went the path of de-merging the North and East as it did away with the PTOMS agreement.

A genocidal onslaught was carried out on Eezham Tamils with the complicity of India and the Co-Chair countries.

Today, the International Community of Establishments, absconding from their accountability, continue to talk about ‘war crimes of both sides’ and ‘accountability’ of the parties to the conflict and continue to talk about ‘united Sri Lanka’ as the nation of Eezham Tamils are subjected to an ongoing structural genocide.

Although the UN has admitted its own failure, it continues to escape from its accountability by excusing itself with its own reports stating that it has learned lessons but continues to commit injustice to the victims.

Most of the victims along the coastal belts of Ampaa’rai, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Mullaiththeevu and Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna peninsula have been denied of proper resettlement as Colombo waged a genocidal onslaught on them, killing and maiming thousands of the Tsunami victims.

The families who survived the tsunami catastrophe and the genocidal onslaught are still denied assistance despite the propaganda by the Sri Lankan State that it has ‘developed’ Northern Province with ‘Vadakkin Vasantham’ and the Eastern Province with ‘Kizhakkin vidiyal’ programmes of the so-called Mahinda Chintana.

On top of all these crimes, the nation of Eezham Tamils is being robbed of its territories along the coast in Jaffna, Mullaiththeevu and Trincomalee by the Sri Lankan State as the International Community of Establishments continue to fail the victims by refusing to talk about the territorial integrity of Tamil homeland.

The remembrance of those who perished will also not be complete without remembering the Tamil heroes who were there to rescue a lot of people from the tragedy within minutes

VIDEO: REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS...

iDecember 26, 2013
The ninth tsunami disaster commemoration and religious ceremony to invoke blessings on those who lost their lives in the 2004 tidal waves was held today at the Tsunami Memorial at Peraliya in Hikkaduwa. The commemorative ceremony was attended by several distinguished guests including the Governor of the Southern Province Kumari Balasuriya, the Chief Minister of Southern Province Shan Wijayalal De Silva and the Deputy Speaker Chandima Weerakkody. The driver and conductor of the train which was toppled over by the 2004 Tsunami also participated. (Pic by Deepal de Silva)

Holiday in Peshawar

My Christmas Circa 1965-DECEMBER 24, 2013

by RON JACOBS

As a service brat, or military dependent in the official parlance, one grew up with an understanding that the winter holiday season might be missing a few ingredients. Those ingredients might include a fir tree, fresh milk, or even Dad. (In today’s military there might be no Mom.) Sometimes, there was even a question as to whether Christmas would be celebrated at all.

The latter situation arose in my family in 1965. In summer 1963, my father, who was in the Air Force, had been sent to a small post located near Peshawar in what was then West Pakistan. The primary purpose for the post’s existence was to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union and China, two of Washington’s chosen foes. To facilitate this, there was a group of radar dishes on base. Sometimes, U-2 spy planes launched their missions from the airport shared by the US and Pakistanis. Indeed, Gary Powers’ ill-fated flight began at that airport. The jobs of most military and civilian men on the post had something to do with the analysis and transmission of the data the radar picked up.

In the summer of 1965, the ever simmering conflict over Kashmir erupted between Pakistan and India. Both sides went into battle mode and a series of skirmishes became a full scale war. On September 13th of that year, the Indian Air Force bombed Peshawar and some nearby villages. Our family, like most other Americans there, huddled in the hallways of their homes until the all-clear siren sounded. The next day, while the children were at school, enlisted men moved from house to house, digging six-foot deep trenches in every other backyard. Each trench was anywhere from ten to twenty feet long and some, like ours, were curved. After the trenches were dug, sheets of one-inch plywood were place across the tops. The plywood was then covered in dirt. These trenches would serve as our bomb shelters until we were evacuated or the bombing stopped. Earlier, the GIs had painted every window black in every building on base. Furthermore, fires of any kind, including cigarettes, were banned outdoors after dark. All of this was to prevent providing a lighted bearing for the Indian bombers or, even worse, a target for a confused Indian pilot.

Sleep was intermittent at best the next six nights. Even my brother, who slept through the quarrels and other loud banter that was a constant in the room I shared with him and two other brothers, was unable to sleep soundly. Each night, after we had climbed into bed and begun to sleep, the air raid siren would go off. Within minutes we would be in the hole in our backyard listening to shelling, the ack-ack of anti-aircraft guns, and our parents whispering with other adults that shared the same hole. By design, I was usually the last person into the trench. That way I could look out the entrance and watch tracers light the sky and the shadows of giant aircraft fly in formations across the sky. Each morning before school, the students would compare notes about the previous night and repeat rumors about who was winning and whether or not we would be evacuated.

The news came to us kids at the end of the week. Those who had not already made arrangements to go back to the US would be evacuated on Sunday, September 19th. That morning, everyone was to meet at the base athletic fields with a certain amount of luggage, passports and so on. Once there, we said goodby to our fathers, boarded military buses and headed towards the Hindu Kush mountain range, the Khyber Pass and Kabul, Afghanistan. As we drove toward the border, I looked out the bus windows thinking I would see the destruction caused by the fighting. There did not seem to be vast amounts, but I do remember seeing some homes near the road destroyed and even some bomb craters. When we arrived in Kabul my mother and siblings spent the night at the home of an official of the US embassy. I recall very little, just his wolfhounds, the great Pathan food, and the low slow-turning fans in his home from the age of the Raj. Early the following day, the lot of us boarded C-130 cargo planes outfitted for troop transport. Motion sickness pills were distributed (I did not take mine) and we were prepared for takeoff. After a brief stop in Beirut, Lebanon where USO and Red Cross women gave us each a bag lunch, helped the mothers with the younger children, and gave every kid who wanted one a stack of comics, we returned to the planes. That night we landed in Istanbul, Turkey and within days everyone was safely located in military barracks forfeited by servicemen stationed at the Karamursel Air Station.

For the next three months we lived in those barracks. My mother gave birth to another child; we attended school in temporary classrooms and ate our meals at the mess hall. Mail call for the adults came every weekday morning and teletypes came when they were required. Rumors flew about the end of the war, truce talks in Tashkent (in what is now Uzbekistan) and when we would return to Peshawar. Meanwhile, US military dependents in Vietnam were being sent home as that war continued its spiral into the further circles of hell. My father would end up spending a winter holiday season in that war zone in four short years while my disgust with war became open opposition. My mom told me to prepare for the possibility that we would be spending Christmas in the barracks. I was relatively unconcerned, being somewhat enthralled with the adventure of it all, but it was clear that life without Dad (and in the barracks) was taking its toll on her and my siblings. I imagine this heartrending scenario was being played out in every family in those barracks.

As it turned out, the truce talks were successful, the US military was efficient enough to arrange travel, and the planes got us back to Peshawar in plenty of time–December 15th to be exact—to celebrate Christmas. I have to admit spending the holiday with the family together in our little tract home on base was much better than attempting it in the barracks and mess hall. Peace on Earth was still more or less an empty Christmas wish thanks in part to the very powers that got us home, but at least we could ignore that just like we seem to every year.

Ron Jacobs is the author of the just released novel All the Sinners, Saints. He is also the author of  The Way the Wind Blew: a History of the Weather Underground and Short Order Frame Up and The Co-Conspirator’s Tale. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden.  His third novel All the Sinners Saints is a companion to the previous two and is due out in April 2013.  He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press.  He can be reached at: ronj1955@gmail.com.

Political prisoners still held in Burma

By Mark Inkey-By Asian Correspondent Dec 26, 2013 

While the NGO Human Rights Watch called for Burmese President Thein Sein to keep his promise to release all political prisoners by the end of 2013, the authorities imprisoned a reporter in dubious circumstances.

According to Human Rights Watch there are still over 200 political prisoners being held in Burma.

Since 2012 Thein Sein has often granted presidential amnesties to political prisoners before the visits of foreign dignitaries.

Pic: AP.

Prior to Obama’s visit to Burma in November 2012 Thein Sein promised to set up a review committee to look at the remaining cases of political prisoners. The committee was formed in February 2013 and since then over 200 political prisoners have been released, including 69 in November and 41 in December.

On 21st December the committee decided on the cases of the remaining 39 political prisoners on its list.

No agreement was reached on the fate of over 200 more imprisoned activists who were not on their list but are still regarded as political prisoners by Human Rights Watch and other NGOs.

Rather than being prosecuted as political cases these people are prosecuted either under old military–era laws, an outdated almost arbitrary penal code consisting of many obscure infractions or new legislation which violates basic human rights, despite government claims that they give people more rights.

Phil Robertson Deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch said: “All those jailed for speaking out should be promptly released, including the many activists arrested in the past year.”

Human Rights Watch is calling for the government to scrap or amend such legislation so that it is in line with international human rights. This includes the 1988 association Law, the 2011 peaceful assembly law and the new proposed draft law on association.

Though they have released political prisoners in the past year the regime has also been imprisoning new political prisoners.

One such is Eleven Media journalist Naw Khine Aye Cho who was jailed on 17th December in what is believed to be the first imprisonment of a journalist since the lifting of press restrictions in 2012.

According to Irrawaddy she was sued by Loikaw-based lawyer Aye Aye Phyo after an argument allegedly took place while the reporter was seeking comments on an alleged video piracy case.

Eleven Media think the verdict may be related to recent editorials that alleged corruption in Burma’s judiciary.

Myint Kyaw a member of Burma’s Interim Press Council, a journalists’ association, told Irrawaddy that he thought the sentence was too harsh and that he suspected some political interference with the courts.

Wai Phyo, Eleven Media’s chief editor told Irrawaddy that the charges were not justified and if Burmese reporters risked being imprisoned for defamation and trespass it could deter them from following up certain stories.

He said: “This case threatens freedom of the press. A person should never be sent to jail under article 500 [defamation]. If you sentence someone under article 500, then how can anyone work as a journalist?”

In another recent political case highlighted by Burma Campaign UK three political prisoners had to go on a well-publicized hunger strike before the authorities would release them.

Khin Mi Mi Khaing, Myint Myint Aye and Thant Zin Htet were arrested on 11th June after they showed their support for farmers in Bagu Division, north of Rangoon, who ploughed their land, which had been seized from them by the Burmese Army nearly 20 years ago.

The three protestors were charged under Section 6 of the 1988 Law Relating to the Formation of Organizations, and Thant Zin Htet was also charged under Article 18(b) of the 2011 Peaceful Assembly Law.

After their arrest they were denied bail and held in Paungde Prison. On December 13th, after being on trial for more than six months, refused bail and having more than 20 court hearings they began a hunger strike.

Burma Campaign UK believes they were only released because of the negative domestic and international publicity their hunger strike was attracting.

According to Human Rights Watch an estimated 156 people currently face charges or have received convictions under the association and peaceful assembly laws. Among them are Kachin activists such as May Sabe Phuy who staged peaceful demonstrations in protest of the 2011-2013 conflict in Kachin State.

An unknown number of Kachin civilians are also being detained on charges of aiding the Karen Independence Organization and its armed wing, despite the group having agreed to a tentative ceasefire with the Burmese government in March.

Following sectarian violence in 2012 an estimated 535 ethnic Rohingya have also been imprisoned. Many are being held for peaceful political activities and the breaking of repressive local laws forbidding unregistered marriages.

MIA’s new album Matangi

By Zac Corrigan 
24 December 2013

British-Sri Lankan musician MIA (Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam) released her fourth full-length album Matangi this November. A refugee of the Sri Lankan civil war (her father was a prominent Tamil activist and the future singer fled with her family to London in 1986 at age 11), MIA makes pop music that shows an awareness of and sensitivity to the lives of impoverished victims of imperialism around the world.

This alone would make her stand out in a pop music landscape that all too often can’t conceive of a reality outside the club or the bedroom. Not that MIA doesn’t go there as well, but the fact that audiences in the West, especially in the US, have responded to her indicates a healthy interest in the world that she comes from and claims to represent. To what extent has the artist been able to go beyond the immediacy of her experiences and give artistic expression to important truths?

The fifteen tracks on Matangi are, first of all, party music. Rather adventurously combining—or surfing between—various hip hop and electronic styles, as well as reggae, Tamil drumming and many other styles and elements from around the world, the songs, often quite dramatically, switch things up musically, sometimes numerous times per song. Basically, anything with a pulsing rhythm and exciting tenor is fair game.

MIA at Bonnaroo in 2008

A charismatic performer, if not a great singer, MIA’s vocal performances also cover a great deal of stylistic ground. She raps, croons and hollers in a variety of moods. One has no doubt that Arulpragasam is in creative control, but much credit is also due to producer-composer David “Switch” Taylor, who helms most of the album. Although lacking patience and subtlety, and relying too much overall on the recently trending “trap” hip hop style, at its best,Matangi deftly combines fun musical ideas from around the globe in a way that emphasizes how much they, and implicitly the people who get down to these sounds individually, have in common.

Along these lines, it should at least be noted in passing that the prominence of a female singer raised in Sri Lanka as a recording artist (something inconceivable until very recently) speaks to the remarkable global integration of popular culture, and the way in which an endless number of forms and influences work on one another at present and break down previously existing barriers, a thoroughly healthy development.

The most frustrating moments on Matangi find MIA adopting the stance of a typical (i.e., cartoonish, tedious) gangster rapper, with a large ego, posturing as a hardened, anti-social outlaw, motivated by money and luxury, romanticizing her particular experience with poverty and oppression and wearing it as an identity rather than using it as a starting point for a serious artistic examination. On the song “Y.A.L.A.,” for instance, delivered with unimpeachable cool, we hear: “I drink some Cointreau [a French liquor]/Keep it in my poncho/Light up like Castro,” and later “Anti war war/M.I.A. underscore/I got the law law/Searching for me on tour/Bankin offshore/Take a trip to Singapore/I need to earn like/I’m [actress] Julianne Moore.”

This is pretty crass stuff, and there’s much more where that came from onMatangi. Does Arulpragasam honestly think banking offshore is anti-establishment behavior? Castro is thrown in simply as a “cool” figure with no comment. And nothing in the presentation, unfortunately, indicates she’s lampooning herself, or anyone else.

On the title track, MIA shouts out the names of dozens of countries—Somalia, Bosnia, Cuba, Colombia, etc.—and ends with “It’s so simple, get to the floor!,” seemingly imploring these populations to get out into the streets. Later in the same song: “If you wanna be me you need a manifesto/If you ain’t got one you better get one presto.” What ideas would find their way into Maya Arulpragasam’s manifesto?

Although the singer has drawn the attention of censors in the US (for the line “Like the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] I don’t surrender” in the 2003 single “Sunshowers”), and is generally presented in the media as a political artist with something important to say, Arulpragasam in truth seems confused and, to be frank, rather timid. In a recent interview, the artist placed a “question mark” over her political views. She has criticized George W. Bush in song, but has never referred to Barack Obama, Syria, Egypt…

Even when there is oppositional sentiment in her music, it tends to take a rather self-centered direction, in keeping with various popular genres at present. For example, she seems genuinely concerned about the growing police state. Her 2010 song “The Message” warned presciently: “Headbone connects to the headphones/Headphones connect to the iPhone/iPhone connected to the Internet/Connected to the Google/Connected to the government.” However, this concern has largely devolved into a personal paranoia, with MIA rapping about herself being followed everywhere (for being a party animal?).

She has also painted herself as a victim of racial and gender discrimination in interviews, and, rather lamely, on Matangi’s “Boom Skit,” where she takes on the role of an imaginary American bigot telling “brown girl” MIA that “You know America don’t wanna hear your sound,” to turn down her “boom boom jungle music” and “go back to India.” In fact, she attracted a large European and US audience from the beginning. Her first album, 2005’s Arular was nominated for a Mercury prize in the UK, and Spin magazine called her the best artist of that year (and again in 2008 for her second album, Kala). Critics and audiences at least seem above such pettiness.

The new album’s strongest moments are those that take us farthest from such self-centered and self-pitying subject matter. “aTENTion,” a silly rhyming song about tents, is good fun, probably the most inviting song on the album. Presumably this one goes out to the tent-dwellers, of whom there are an ever increasing number.

The single “Come Walk with Me” is a tale of attraction and forgiveness in the Internet age, which begins: “There’s a thousand ways to meet you now/There’s a thousand ways to track you down/Whatever you said and done/There’s a thousand ways to make it count.” The song is a sweet and straightforward expression of sentiment until a couple of minutes in when, as though everyone has grown slightly embarrassed, it mutates into 4-on-the-floor dance beat and becomes a sugary self-parody. The sound of an Apple device turning up the volume that ushers in the transition is a clever touch, but the fact that the sentiment is aborted in this way may point to a deeper sourness.

In what must be the most significant political act of her career so far, the kick-off concert for the Matangi tour in New York City was opened by a live address from Julian Assange, via video conference. Assange, the WikiLeaks leader who is still marooned in the Ecuadorian embassy in London under dire threat from the UK and US governments, was projected onto a large screen and addressed MIA’s audience for ten minutes. Assange championed Edward Snowden, warned of the dangers of NSA spying and implored the singer’s fans to become politically aware and active to change the world for the better

Iran And The Season of Peace and Goodwill

Dr. James M. Wall Salem-News.com-Dec-24-2013

The pro-Israel senators in this discussion have chosen s path against the vulnerable nuclear peace agreement...

Modern day Bethlehem - Wikipedia, also a modern development.

(CHICAGO) - This is the season which celebrates the hope of peace and good will among humankind. The New Testament testifies to this hope in Luke 2:8-20.

“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” Luke 2:8-20 New KJV

The key to this passage is the announcement, “You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

The Babe is Jesus, born of Mary, in the town of Bethlehem (modern city shown above). In the time recorded by Luke, the Babe lies in a manger, helpless and vulnerable. When we speak of the Babe we see him as an embodiment of future hope, a promise of what could be.

Today, in the land where Jesus was born, there is another fragile and vulnerable hope for peace. A nuclear peace agreement between Iran and major western powers waits to grow into a mature reality. Unlike the child described by Luke, this peace agreement is not perfect; it was created by political leaders, not by God.

Israel stands in strong opposition to the agreement on the grounds that it believes Iran is moving toward developing a nuclear arms system that Israel feels threatens its security. Israel is known to have at least 200 nuclear warheads; Iran has none.

Israel stands alone in this belief, except for its allies in the United States Senate, 27 of whom are sponsoring the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act, a Senate proposal designed to undermine the Iranian peace efforts by President Obama.

The leaders of this effort are Senators Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) (pictured at left on the right) and Mark Kirk (R-IL). (also at left).Their bill is described by a release from Senator Menendez’ office as “bipartisan legislation proposing prospective sanctions on Iran should the regime violate the interim Joint Plan of Action agreed to in Geneva or should Iran fail to reach a final agreement.”

Co-sponsors of the bill are Senators Menendez, Kirk, Schumer, Graham, Cardin, McCain, Casey, Rubio, Coons, Cornyn, Blumenthal, Ayotte, Begich, Corker, Pryor, Collins, Landrieu, Moran, Gillibrand, Roberts, Warner, Johanns, Hagan, Cruz, Donnelly, Blunt and Booker, an “honor roll” of pro-Israel senators, politicians who do not hesitate to stand against the U.S. President when his policies are opposed by Israel.

The last name on the “honor roll” list is newly elected New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who entered the Senate this fall with strong pro-Israel credentials. He and his fellow senators who have offered the new sanction bill have begun their Christmas break with the full awareness that in this season of “peace and good will” they have called for a nuclear agreement action already rejected by Iran.

Jay Carney, Obama’s press secretary, told reporters that should the Senate pass the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act, President Obama would veto the bill.

A veto may not be necessary because while the hard line pro-Israel senators from both parties are standing against the President’s sanctions agreement, he has strong Senate support.  Senate Democratic committee chairs have sent Obama a letter of support.

In their letter they indicate that they are opposed to imposing new restrictions on Iran. They also ask the President to inform them “before any attempt is made to pass sanctions legislation.”

This is procedural protection from senators who often try to pass legislation by a unanimous consent vote at the end of long work periods or at the end of the year.

The letter that supports the current Obama-Kerry negotiated agreement is signed by Senate Banking Chairman Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein of California, Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan, Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Environment and Public Workers Chairwoman Barbara Boxer of California, Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Tom Carper of Delaware, Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Energy Chairman Ron Wyden of Oregon and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Tom Harkin of Iowa.

During a recent press conference, President Obama spoke to his support for the original negotiated agreement:

The pro-Israel senators in this discussion have chosen s path against the vulnerable nuclear peace agreement, thereby working to kill the agreement.  They may think they are the Wise Men in this discussion, but given Israel’s increasing isolation on the world stage, alongside its decreasing ability to stave off international economic boycotts, it would appear their wisdom is flawed.

They may soon find that they have listened to the wrong voices when they rejected the Obama-Kerry nuclear agreement.

http://wallwritings.me/2013/12/21/iran-and-the-season-of-peace-and-goodwill/

Please visit James Wall's Website, Wall Writings

Political Parties’ Dirty Activities In Nepal

by Dirgha Raj Prasai

( December 26, 2013 – Kathmandu, Sri Lanka Guardian) The aspirations of the people are the best law. To implement the thoughts of the people the political leaders should have to fulfill the needs of people. The people’s oriented leadership always empathizes on the development of the country. Nepal’ is known as the place from where world civilization started. Nepal is a sovereign ancient nation with its traditional identity. Nepal is a mini-world. 

Political Parties’ Dirty Activities In Nepal by nelvely

MaRa – CJ rift takes a turn for the worse : army intelligence posing as police with special devices to spy on CJ

(Lanka-e-News- 24.Dec.2013, 11.30PM) Though the conflict between MaRa and (CJ) chief justice (cheat justice) Mohan Peiris alias Pachoris has apparently died down , two secret informants have been deployed with special devices to garner secret information about Peiris by MaRa since yesterday , based on reports reaching Lanka e news inside information division.

It is the Judicial Security Division (JSD) officers affiliated to the police force who are detailed for security duty of ordinary judges and the chief justice too is provided with similar security detail. However when Peiris was appointed as CJ , an additional STF team of soldiers was provided to him. Those soldiers also belong to the police division.

However since yesterday ( 23) , two JSD (Judicial security division) officers of the CJ had been withdrawn and two army intelligence unit officers have been substituted masquerading as police officers even without Peiris’ knowledge . Those two substitutes are army intelligence unit Lance Corporal S D R Silva (16431) and army intelligence unit ordinary soldier B R U Jayamanne (27359).

State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director Chandra Wakishta had provided this security detail attached to the police on the instructions of Gotabaya Rajapakse. Wakishta had given permission for these special ‘police officers’ to carry with them the special devices of the army intelligence officers to trail behind Mohan Peiris. The ordinary police officers of the JSD nevertheless do not know about this device. Moreover , the ordinary JSD officers are not aware that these two substitutes are of the army intelligence division.

The first clash between Rajapakses and Peiris after being appointed as the CJ was triggered over the incident where the law college Principal passed Namal fraudulently in the law final examination. 

When this law College Principal sought to follow the same fraudulent tactic to pass his own son at the law exam , Peiris agitated against this which constituted an indirect ‘missile’ attack on the guilty Rajapakses. 

Subsequently , the rift deepened when MaRa came to know that Peiris has made a remark referring to MaRa as a Pissa (lunatic), ‘ everything what this Pissa says cannot be carried out’ Peiris had told in an unguarded moment which was sneaked to MaRa by a latter’s lackey . At about the same time Peiris took into custody all the law exam answer scripts written by Namal .

While it is an established fact that giving instructions by phone or otherwise to a chief justice even by the President of a country is deemed as an interference with the independent judiciary , the highest in the hierarchy (Medamulana) himself most shamelessly taking the initiative to exert pressure on Peiris had infuriated and provoked the resentment of Peiris . Latter had then openly said , so and so is interfering with my independent judicial duties by giving phone calls.

It is in this backdrop of the murky and corrupt activities of the Rajapakse brothers that Peiris has come under the ‘firing line’ of the devil incarnates since yesterday.

The crucial question now is : are the devil incarnates resorting to their characteristic dirty criminal tricks in order to merely spy on Peiris or put his life itself in peril?- liquidation of those opposing the Rajapakse brothers is a simple matter for the latter .

Lanka e news which is always first with the news and best with the views ; and does not hesitate to expose the criminals and fraudsters irrespective of their official status or position , is in this case unable to ex

மன்னாரில் படையினரின் மரக்கறி நிலையத்தால் வியாபாரிகள் பெரும் பாதிப்பு

25 டிசெம்பர் 2013, புதன்

மன்னார் நுழைவாயிலில் படையினர் கடந்த சனிக்கிழமை மரக்கறி நிலையம் ஒன்றை திறந்து  வியாபாரம் செய்து வருவதால் தாம் பெரும் பாதிப்புக்கு உள்ளாகியுள்ளதாக மன்னார் வியாபாரிகள் கவலை வெளியிட்டுள்ளனர்.

மன்னாரிலுள்ள வர்த்தகர்கள் தம்புள்ள உள்ளிட்ட இடங்களில் மரக்களிகளை கொள்வனவு செய்தே மன்னாரில் விற்பனை செய்து வருகின்றனர்,

குறிப்பாக இடவாடகை,வரி,செலவுகள் என்பவற்றை கருத்தில் கொண்டே விலைகளை தீர்மானித்து விற்பனை செய்து வருகின்றனர்.

ஆனால் படையினர் திறந்துள்ள மரக்கறி நிலையத்தில் மிகவும் மலிவான விலையில் மரக்களிகள் விற்பனை செய்யப்படுவதால் தமது வியாபார நடவடிக்கைகள் பாதிக்கப்படுவதுடன் தமது வாழ்வாதாரமும் பாதிக்கப்படுவதாக வியாபாரிகள் குற்றஞ்சாட்டியுள்ளனர்.

- See more at: http://onlineuthayan.com/News_More.php?id=619892535625827924#sthash.PmJu2ycs.dpuf

Mannar traders suffer losses after SL Army opens up shop
25 December 2013
Tamil grocery traders in Mannar have reported losses after the Sri Lankan army began selling groceries last Saturday, reported Uthayan.

According to the paper, traders are having to buy vegetables from Dambulla in the South, before selling them on in Mannar, whilst the Sri Lankan army is selling the same vegetables at a lower cost.

This report is the latest in a serious of business ventures by Sri Lankan Army in the North-East, at a time when Tamil residents are struggling to regain their livelihoods. 

See related articles below:

Sri Lankan army to create profit-making entities (18 Jul 2013)

Army coordinates dental clinic for school children (06 May 2013)

Army builds hotel on shores of Nanthikadal Lagoon (26 Dec 2012) 

Gota's catering services (21 July 2012)

Military does public health (12 May 2012)
Army to form construction company (19 Jan 2012)

Army opens yet another holiday resort in Jaffna (11 Jan 2012)

Army on standby to sell and distribute vegetables (13 Dec 2011)
Army to build a 5-star hotel (06 Nov 2011)
Militarising Cricket (04 Nov 2011)
Sri Lankan military expands commercial arm (01 Oct 2011)

Colombo accelerates Sinhalicisation of land link between Jaffna and Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 December 2013, 18:25 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military has almost transformed the narrow strip of Chu’ndik-ku’lam sandbar, which links the Jaffna peninsula with Vanni mainland, into a Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ), denying the Tamil fishermen of Vadamaraadchi East and Vadmaraadchi, access to the coastal strip and the seas off Chu’ndikku’lam. While the occupying SL military is carrying out a new kind of Sinhalicisation with settlements for Sinhala fishermen, who endanger the fishing environment, the SL Ministry of Wildlife Resources Conservation has schemed occupation under the so-called extended development of the Chu’ndik-ku’lam Natural Park, bringing 11,149 hectares and a coastal strip of more than 50 square km into the exploitation of Colombo. 

Colombo's blueprint for expansion of Chu'ndikku'lam Sanctuary into Natual Park [Map courtesy: Integrated Strategic Environmental Assessments (ISEA) - North]

The expansion scheme would also affect the bordering Kaa’ndaava’lai division of Ki’linohchi and Karai-thu’raip-pattu division of Mullaiththeevu district, Tamil civil sources say. 

Another map by SL Department of Wildlife Conservation, revealing the extent of Sinhalicisation

SL Minister of Wildlife Resources Conservation, Mr Gamini Vijith Vijayamuni Zoysa, last week declared open a modern tourist resort built in Chu’ndikku’lam using 22 million rupees. 

EPDP's opposition member of Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and the district organizer of EPDP in Ki’linochchi, Mr Thavanathan, took part in the opening ceremony of the ‘Bear Garden’ resort together with the the SL Government Agent of Ki’linochchi district.

The Tamil families that were residing in Chu’ndikku’lam have been refused resettlement. The Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) has already seized the public buildings, including the post office building at Chu’ndik-ku’lam. 

SL ministry of fisheries and resources development is targeting a corporate occupation from South as part of the Sinhalicisation scheme. 

Having access to a major seabed along the narrow coast, Chu’ndikku’lam stood for the major portion of fish supply to Vanni and Jaffna, Tamil fishermen society representatives say. 

Stealing the fishing industry from Tamils, Colombo would be exploiting an expected annual fish production from Chu’ndik-ku’lam lagoon alone amounting to 180 MT (Midterm Policy Framework 2013-2016 for Fisheries Sector Development by SL ministry of fisheries and resources development, 2012). 

Before the occupation by the SL military, hundreds of Tamil fishermen from nearby villages, Uduth-thu’rai, Thaazhaiyadi and Maruthangkea’ni in Vadmaraadchi East and Vadamaraadchi, used to camp at Chun’dikku’lam on a permanent basis from March to October every year for seasonal fishing. 

Between November and January, local and migrant birds frequent the lagoon.

Chundikkulam Nature Park [Photo Courtesy: Snappikz Media, Dehiwala]

The SL ministry for wildlife resources conservation has schemed the expansion of the area into a Natural Park, using the funding from UNDP and UNEP in the name of developing 11,149 hectares of the bird sanctuary. 

In 2009, the SL military in Jaffna advanced into Chu’ndikku’lam during the last phase of the Vanni war. 

Despite the end of war, the SL military has continued constructing military bases in the area. 

After seizing the area, the occupying Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) imposed a complete ban on Tamil fishermen accessing their coastal strip for camping. Tamil fishermen are now not allowed to access the sea. 

But, Sinhala fishermen were brought in with the backing of SL Navy to engage in fishing. The fishermen from the South were deploying illegal methods of fishing, causing an environmental disaster to the seabed, according to the representatives of fishermen societies in Jaffna. 

The occupation and expansion of the occupied land, lagoon and sea is part of a calculated move by Colombo, political observers say. 

The latest construction of the resort adding to already open facilities is compared with what has been taking place in Kaangkeasan-thu’rai (KKS) in Jaffna. 

Colombo is engaged in strategic Sinhalicisation with an aim of permanently choking the Jaffna peninsula in all the three linking entries to Jaffna from Vanni mainland. 

With an aim to convert Poonakari into a major hub of Sinhala militarization and colonization, more than 30,000 SL soldiers have been deployed there. 

Similar to the Vanni war, genocidal Colombo is now hurriedly engaged in a colonisation war against the unarmed and demographically weakened nation of Eezham Tamils. India and USA, which labelled the former as war against terrorism now smokescreen the latter as ‘reconciliation’ and ‘post-war development’. Shown in pink is the targeted area for industrial and fisheries colonisation. The yellow circles are the major SL military colonies. [Map by TamilNet]

At Naavat-kuzhi, where the two highways A9 and A32, the only existing land arteries that lead into Jaffna from the south and the western coast, meet, a small Sinhala colony has been already established with SL military guarding the settlement. 

Now, the strategic sandbar linking the mainland with Jaffna is being converted into a Sinhala zone under the so-called ‘Natural Park’ extension scheme.

A deputy director at the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), Manjula Amarathna, has taken command of the expansion project, informed civil sources said. Another key area of his focus is Madu Road, a long time plan of Colombo for Sinhalicisation, the sources added. 

A coordination project, linking the ministries and various stakeholders, was carried with international assistance, under the name of Integrated Strategic Environment Assessment (ISEA) - North. 

The World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Global Environment Fund (GEF) United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are providing support to the Sri Lankan ministry of fisheries and resource development as well as the wildlife conservation ministry of Colombo, Tamil civil sources in Jaffna said.