Saturday, January 18, 2014

மன்னார் மனித புதைகுழி எழும்புக்கூடுகள் 40 ஆக அதிகரிப்பு!

மன்னார், திருக்கேதீஸ்வரம் பகுதியிலுள்ள மனித புதைகுழி ஒன்பதாவது ஆவது தடவையாகவும் இன்று சனிக்கிழமை மன்னார் நீதவான் ஆனந்தி கனகரட்ணம் முன்னிலையில் அகழ்வுப் பணிகள் மேற்கொள்ளப்பட்டுள்ளன.

இன்றைய அகழ்வுப் பணிகளின் போது மேலும் மூன்று மனித எழும்புக்கூடுகள் கண்டு பிடிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. இதுவரை மன்னார், திருக்கேதீஸ்வரம் பகுதியில் மொத்தமாக 40 மனித எழும்புக் கூடுகள் மீட்க்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.

இன்று காலை 8.30 தொடக்கம் முற்பகல் 11.30 வரை மனிதப் புதைகுழியின் அகழ்வுப் பணிகள் மன்னார் நீதவான் ஆனந்தி கனகரட்ணம் மற்றும் அனுராதபுர சட்ட வைத்திய நிபுணர் டி.எல்.வைத்திய ரெட்ண ஆகியோர் முன்னிலையில் தோண்டப்பட்டது.

இந்த மனித புதைகுழியில் நேற்று மேற்கொள்ளப்பட்ட அகழ்வுப் பணிகளின்போது மேலும் ஒருவரின் எச்சங்கள் கண்டுபிடிக்கப்பட்டதாக பொலிஸ் ஊடகப் பேச்சாளரும், சிரேஷ்ட பொலிஸ் அத்தியட்சகருமான அஜித் ரோஹண தெரிவித்தார்.

மீண்டும் எதிர் வரும் திங்கட்கிழமை 20 ஆம் திகதி மன்னார் நீதவான் முன்னிலையில் குறித்த மனித புதை குழி தோண்டப்படவுள்ளதாக தெரிவிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. Translate this page

Mannar elumpukkutukal 40 percent increase in mass graves!

Mannar, Thiruketheeswaram mass graves in the area Saturday, the ninth consecutive year of excavations carried out in the presence of Mannar Magistrate thus Kanaganthram.

Excavation work was seen during the three human elumpukkutukal. Mannar far, a total of 40 human skeletons மீட்க்கப்பட்டுள்ளது Thiruketheeswaram.

This morning, from 8.30 am to 11.30 pm, the excavation of mass graves of Mannar and Anuradhapura Magistrate Kanaganthram thus legal medical expert IT. L.. Excavated in the presence of medical retna.

During the excavation of mass graves in the other person's remains had been found yesterday, police media spokesman Ajith Rohana said a senior police attiyatcakarumana.

On Monday the 20th against the back of the man in the mire of Mannar Magistrate தோண்டப்படவுள்ளத் said.

Sri Lanka ready to face UN rights body: Minister

PTI | Jan 18, 2014

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka, on Saturday said it was ready to face another resolution against the country in the UN rights body over alleged war crimes during decades long civil war against the rebel Tamil Tigers.

"We have a big challenge in March. We are ready to face any challenge," said Mahinda Samarasinghe, plantation minister and the country's human rights envoy.

Addressing a gathering in central Kandy town, he said while facing the challenge in the UNHRC, Sri Lanka would not let its troops down. "We will neither betray the nation nor our gallant troops."

Samarasinghe said military had never committed any wrong while combating the rebel LTTE. "We all know what the LTTE did. They took as human shields 300,000 civilians. They fired at troops from among the civilians."

The minister said, "It was true that the civilians were caught in the crossfire. The army was trying to crush terrorism. But the figure given as 40,000 killed was a lie."

He said it was not possible to take a count of the casualties during the final battle. "This false figure of 40,000 was given by a UN employee to help him sell a book."

Sri Lanka has come under increasing international pressure to probe allegations of excessive civilian deaths during the final battle that ended in May 2009.

A crucial UN human rights council resolution on Sri Lanka will coming up in March.

Two previous resolutions backed by India were adopted in the council binding Sri Lanka for commitments in reconciliation and rights accountability issues.

HR Chief’s report will give an assessment on SL-UK

UKTamilNews

by: uktamilnews-19-01-2014

While claiming that the UNHRC Chief’s report ahead of the HR Council will give an assessment of Sri Lanka’s progress, Britain has reiterated that if a credible domestic process has not begun properly by March it would use its seat on the UN Human Rights Council to call for an international investigation against Sri Lanka.

Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Hugo Swire told in Britain’s Parliament on Thursday, “We are regularly discussing Sri Lanka with a range of international partners in the run-up to the next session of the Human Rights Council in March.”

He also said:“As the Prime Minister said in his statement to Parliament on 18 November 2013, Hansard, columns 959-61, we will continue to press the Sri Lankan Government for credible, transparent and independent investigations into alleged war crimes. We have made clear that if a credible domestic process has not begun properly by March we will use our seat on the UN Human Rights Council to call for an international investigation. We are regularly discussing Sri Lanka with a range of international partners in the run-up to the next session of the Human Rights Council in March. The High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report ahead of the Human Rights Council will give an assessment of Sri Lanka’s progress.”

Always Breakdown Norochcholai, Always Election Mode Rajapaksa Government

By Rajan Philips -January 19, 2014

Rajan Philips

For several days now there have been many news reports and editorials about the state of affairs at Lanka’s first coal-fired power plant at Norochcholai, which is also the first Chinese-built power plant in the country. Hapless consumers are bracing for blackouts or higher tariffs, or both. And the only people answering questions about Norochcholai are the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Engineers. No Minister, no all-powerful Secretary, and no charming Percy, the President – have been either seen or heard on the matter. There is an old maxim among policy analysts – there is no policy matter that is purely technical and which can be solved entirely through technical means.

And on a matter such as Norochcholai, the subject Minister must be seen and heard not only in the public domain, assuring the people, but also in the technical and professional realms, making sure that the right professionals and the right resources are assigned to get the problem fixed. And more, to find out what went wrong at Norochcholai, why is the plant in ‘always breakdown’ mode, what can be done with this Chinese albatross, and how such mishaps can be prevented in future power plants? Engineers and their technical inputs are a necessary part of this process but they alone cannot ask all the searching questions and provide comprehensive answers.

Further, this is also a matter that merits the President’s personal interest and intervention. I cannot think of any other matter that arose this week as being more critical and important than the Norochcholai breakdown. And it is not a matter that propped up suddenly day before yesterday. The fuse went off last April (2013) when the government introduced ridiculously conceived tariff increases that made no sense technically and hit the people hard in their pockets. Politically inexplicably, the tariff increases came when hydropower generation was at full throttle with the reservoirs brimful, prompting an electric spat between the ex (Patali Champika Ranawaka) and the current (Pavithradevi Wanniarachchi) Ministers in charge of Power and Energy. It was Patali vs Pavithra, as I called it then. Good enough for tele-drama, but the people were in no mood for cheap amusements.

Even then the President ignored Vasudeva Nanayakara’s plea for an emergency cabinet meeting and limited himself to making casual assurances at his monthly media breakfast – that the rate hikes were “a temporary measure taken to recover the losses incurred”, and that the rates would come down once the second and third phases of the Norochcholai coal power plant were completed, as then expected, by December 2013. Never mind that electricity experts immediately contradicted the claim that the rate hikes were a temporary blip. Never mind also that barely within days of presidential nonchalance, DEW Gunasekara, the government’s senior minister and only one in possession of wisdom, spoke to IMF officials in Colombo of “the catastrophic situation in the power sector”. What the IMF officials heard from DEW was not heeded by the President.

Petroleum Industries Minister says:

By Maheesha Mudugamuwa-January 17, 2014,

In the wake of trade unions urging the government to reduce fuel prices instead of increasing fuel standards, Petroleum Industries Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa yesterday said that local fuel prices couldn’t be reduced as the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) was still incurring heavy losses.

Minister Yapa told The Island that fuel prices in the international market had not gone down though some people were shouting about the need for price reductions.

"We have recently introduced 92 Octane petrol which is of high standard than the earlier used 90 Octane petrol, not to mislead the public but to provide them quality petrol at the price they spent earlier," he said.

"It’s much better upgrading fuel standards than reducing the prices," Yapa said.

"We had to bear the cost of converting the 90 Octane petrol to 92 Octane; however, we decided to bear that cost instead of burdening the general public. We made these changes on the basis that we will not increase prices of fuel in the near future," he stressed.

The minister explained that the Octane rating or Octane number was a standard measure of the performance of a motor fuel.

‘The higher the Octane number, the more compression the fuel could withstand before detonating, he said adding that the use of gasoline with lower Octane numbers might lead to the problem of engine knocking.

According to the minister the next objective of the government is to introduce high standard diesel to the market.

"We can’t reduce the fuel prices because we have not yet come down from the losses incurred by the CPC through the fuel subsidies," Yapa said.

But the minister recently said at a media briefing that the CPC had not experienced any losses last year, adding that Ceypetco was able to achieve this feat even after paying a sum of 60 million US dollars or 7800 million rupees on the hedging agreement.

He said Ceypetco suffered an operational loss of Rs.61.2 billion in 2012 due to the hedging agreement signed with a bank.

However, petroleum industry trade unions claimed that Minister Yapa had misled the public by introducing bogus 92 Octane petrol to the market.

They said that the majority of the country’s population belonged to the working class and many of them were poor, so they want a fuel price reduction not an increase in fuel standards, as the prices of all goods depend on fuel prices.

UK let SAS veterans coach Sri Lanka in 1984

: 17 JANUARY 2014; BY PHIL MILLER

Phil Miller provides JDS with an extended version of his article published in the Guardian newspaper today, including memos from Margaret Thatcher's 1979-1984 file on Sri Lanka, just made publicly available at the UK National Archives in London.

The British government had “no objection” to retired SAS officers training security forces in Sri Lanka three months after India's 1984 Golden Temple massacre, recently released government papers show.

The disclosure comes days after documents emerged that an SAS officer advised India on a plan to storm the temple in Amritsar, the Sikh religion's holiest site.

It widens the debate over Britain's role in the Golden Temple raid, revealing how Downing Street allowed former and serving special forces soldiers to help counter separatist movements across south Asia.

Outrage among British Sikhs this week forced David Cameron to order an investigation into possible SAS collusion in the 1984 massacre.

The new documents show that in September 1984 Peter Ricketts, an aide to foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe, wrote to Margaret Thatcher's private secretary approving a request from British company Falconstar Ltd, directed by an ex-SAS captain, to provide senior counter-insurgency consultants for Sri Lanka.

At the time the Sri Lankan government was trying to defeat an uprising by the Tamil Tigers and other groups in the north and east of the island.

Ricketts wrote: "The Sri Lankan government have engaged another British company, KMS Ltd, to provide training in counter-terrorist techniques… The presence of KMS employees, including some ex-SAS personnel, in Sri Lanka, has aroused controversy and the Indian government have expressed concern to us about the firm's involvement.

"We have made it clear that this is a purely commercial matter and that HMG [Her Majesty's Government] are not involved." Both firms were allowed to continue working in Sri Lanka.

KMS Ltd was founded in 1974 by an ex-SAS Major, David Walker, and a former deputy head of SAS Group Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Nightingale. The company's work in Sri Lanka involved training a new Police commando unit called the Special Task Force (STF), as noted on the unit's official website.

The STF became notorious for its brutality against the Tamil population, a reputation which was already emerging during these discussions.

Three days before Downing Street gave tacit approval for Falconstar to work in Sri Lanka, Whitehall planners had noted that “ten civilians were shot dead by police commandos [STF]”, in what a Tamil rights monitorNESOHR records as the Point Pedro - Thikkam massacre of September 1984.

Despite this evidence that a British trained unit had already carried out atrocities, the Foreign Office decided: “Although we have little knowledge of Falconstar Ltd's capabilities in counter-insurgency or police training, we would have no objection to their seeking to obtain business in Sri Lanka”. Thatcher's private secretary then sent a “non-committal” response to Falconstar days after the Point Pedro massacre, saying “it was good of you to let us know of your interest in Sri Lanka.”

The full extent of Falconstar's business in Sri Lanka is unclear from the files, but author Dr N. Malathy commented that "Tamils who are old enough to remember the media reports of that time recall this as an outfit made up of ex-British-military persons who advised Sri Lanka on military matters".

A secret British government file obtained last year byCorporate Watch found the Foreign Office intended in May 1983 to help the Sri Lankan government “discreetly” with training courses on counter-insurgency, para-military and commando operations. These latest files confirm that such assistance was being delivered by private companies with no objection from Downing Street by August 1984, on the basis that, as Ricketts wrote, “If the firm succeed in their bid to secure a consultancy it is important for us to be able to maintain that any contract between Falconstar Ltd and the Sri Lankan Government is a purely commercial arrangement with which HMG has no connexion.”

Tim Smith, who was employed by KMS Ltd to work in Sri Lanka during the 1980s, wrote in his memoirs TheReluctant Mercenary that “the whole KMS setup … provided an excellent firewall between themselves, the contract and the British Government”.

Lead photo: Foreign military officer training STF Commandos in 1980s - JDS Library

“T.I.N.A” Vs “N.O.T.A”

By Emil van der Poorten -January 19, 2014 |

Emil van der Poorten

Recently there has been, I don’t know whether orchestrated by the UNP or not, a fall back on “There is no alternative” arguments with Ranil Wickremesinghe as the beneficiary of the Hobson’s Choice scenario being depicted. The primary argument for this theory is the fact that the current government, from the very top down, is absolutely corrupt and beyond redemption and Ranil has never been tarred with the brush of financial dishonesty.

For starters, in and of itself, this is a pretty poor justification for putting someone as head of a country where he will inherit dictatorial powers over its entire populace. Even if Sri Lanka still had in place something resembling a democratic liberal constitution, it still would not be an acceptable choice.

You might well say, “Better half a loaf than no bread at all,” but after 2500 years of recorded history, this country should be aspiring for more than a tarnished bronze medal in the stakes of governance. Certainly, some in the rural neighbourhood that I inhabit appeared, a while ago, to be prepared to settle for ANY alternative to the present lot because they figured that no one could be more violent and corrupt and any change would be for the better. There is now a perceptible change in that response. Many of us are old enough to remember better times when we had far better governments running this country without the monumental corruption that is the current reality, not to mention the absolute suppression of dissent under one guise or another and that too with a ham-handedness that is indicative of the kind of arrogance only mad men would be guilty of. As a side-bar to that central argument it needs to be stated, that ham-handedness of that kind has another side to it and that is the knowledge, subconscious though it might be, that the current “glory days of impunity without limit” cannot last forever and when they end they will do so on a very sticky note. That is not simply crystal-gazing of a kind practiced by soothsayers in the deep south inhabiting four-storey houses, but simple logic that it does not take a PhD to comprehend.

Without beating around the bush, one needs to take a look at dramatic changes in the governance of countries that might well provide a clue to what might be possible. In fact N.O.T.A – “None of the above” – would be a more logical and practical response to what faces Sri Lanka today. Read More

Sri Lanka Foreign Service in death row: Amunugama forced to retire

Friday, 17 January 2014

As reported by LankaNewsweb earlier MR has forced Mr. K Amunugama, Secretary of the Foreign Ministry to retire from the post. So, Mr. Amunugama retired from his post on 16 January 2014 as yet another victim of infamous Condom Theory of Rajapakse regime.

According to our Republic Square sources Mrs. Kshenuka Senewirathna has been appointed as new Secretary of the Foreign Ministry. As we reported earlier this appointment has been done in accordance with deal struck between Senewirathna and Sajin Vass Gunawardena who is the unofficial Foreign Minister. The main elements of the deal is to absorb all politically appointed sons/daughters of friends of MR to the Sri Lanka Foreign Service, to dissolve the Foreign Service and amalgamate it with Sri Lanka Administrative Service and other related services. Mr. Amunugama being a true public servant vehemently opposed this activity and it led to his downfall.

Senewirathna’s name has now been sent to the Government Printing Department to announce the appointment through Gazette. It will also be placed before the High Post Committee of Parliament soon (a rubber stamp committee that clears each and every rogue nominated by MR) for its clearance.

In addition, Sajin Vass has recently removed Mr. Kapila Jayaweera, the powerful Director General of the Overseas Administration Division of the Foreign Ministry at the request of Kshenuka Senewirathna. To replace Jayaweera, Senewirathna has asked Sajin Vass to appoint Jauhar, another Foreign Service Officer who worked under Senewirathna in Geneva. This appointment has been made accordingly. Our sources say that Jayaweera also opposed the politicization of the Foreign Ministry and therefore he has also been shown the door like Amunugama. According to rumours circulating in the Foreign Ministry Senewirathna is going to use Jauhar to implement the politicization process of the Foreign Ministry.

Hapless officers of the Ministry are waiting to see their fate unfold in the coming weeks.

No more Foreign Service in Sri Lanka

Kottu party for Kshenuka from Sajin Vaas

Kshenuka to succeed external affairs secretary Amunugama!

No Anchor For A Sinking Catamaran

By Kumar David -January 19, 2014

Prof Kumar David

Impecunious fishermen drown in deep waters: No anchor for a sinking catamaran

It will be no mean feat to reach a resolution of the fishing dispute in the waters between India and Lanka. First there is the wrangle between impoverished fishermen struggling to haul in a catch and provide an income for their families; second, fat-cat businessmen (mudalilis) on both sides own trawlers that roam the seas in search of return-on-investment. The depleted oceans can feign yield sufficient to satisfy the latter, though if it was a dispute between fishermen alone, resolution is reachable. As it stands the quarrel is set to drag on interminably. Much has been written in recent weeks so I will not to repeat well known facts.

The loss of life and the number of arrests and detentions is large and would have led to military clashes if confrontation on this scale had occurred between India and another neighbour – Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal or Burma. Indian National Fish-workers’ Forum President M. Illango claims that 800 fishermen have been killed, another 800 seriously injured, and hundreds of boats confiscated by the Lankan side in the last 30 years. These numbers are wildly exaggerated but even the lower estimate of 100 deaths made by Fisheries Management Resource Centre expert Vivikenandan (sic initials omitted by publisher) in Himal magazine is troubling; a potential flash point.

No one is quite sure how many Lankan fishermen have been arrested and detained by the Indian authorities but probably right now it is more than 200. From time to time the two governments arrange farcical prisoner exchanges; then tempers cool for a while. There was accelerated detention by both sides recently in honour of a bilateral meeting scheduled for Monday (20); both want as many tradable objects as possible to barter! I am not being facetious; many spokesmen say this. Those locked up in Lanka are almost exclusively Indian Tamils, but in India mostly Lankan Tamil, but a number of Sinhalese too are in detention. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha moved first last week and ordered release of 180 held in her state; Rajitha refused to take the gambit unless 50 held in other states are also freed.

An Indo-Lanka Joint Working Group, set up long ago as a consultative forum, is dysfunctional having never met (or hardly met) in the last eight years! Indian fishermen are threatening to boycott the Lok Sabaha elections due in May. Agitated Jayalalitha and firebrand Tamil nationalist Vaiko are kicking up a commotion with the Centre (Delhi) demanding the following: Read More

Wimal & Nimal appointed to head Rupavahini

Friday, 17 January 2014

The Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation has two former career administrative officers, at its helm, with Wimal Rubasinghe appointed chairman and lawyer Nimal Bopage as working director.

Mr. Rubasinghe is a former chairman of the Central Environment Authority and secretary to the ministry of cultural affairs. The SLRC chairman’s position fell vacant following the resignation of Mohan Samaranayake. He was to be succeeded by former DIG Prathapasinghe, but that had to be changed due to the strong opposition by the subject minister, reports say.
Lawyer Bopage is the former chairman of the Sri Lanka National Council for Human Resources Development, and his F3 project for GCE A/L dropouts and W9 project for GCE O/L dropouts have been widely talked about in society.
He is also playing a leading role since 2008 in the UPFA’s campaigning at elections.
The two are without any black mark in their characters so far. It is up to both to prove that their’s are not just two more political appointments.

‘Fortune’ for wife of Mangala’s ‘boy’!

Friday, 17 January 2011

The wife of Weeraperumal Shivan Priyankara, who has ‘volunteered’ to file a sworn affidavit at the Panadura magistrate’s court to claim her husband has had a sexual relationship with MP Mangala Samaraweera, after he was arrested on a charge of robbing the parliamentarian’s home, is in for a ‘fortune,’ according to reports.

She has come to claim this ‘fortune’ at the office of MP, businessman Tiran Alles, who owns ‘Mawbima’ newspaper. A few days ago, the MP summoned the woman to his office, gave her Rs. 200,000 and said, “I was told to give this by the owner of Sirasa TV. Keep this for expenses. Later, we will help more. Do as we say. When the child grows up, bring him. I will give him free education at Gateway.”

In addition, engineering minister Wimal Weerawansa has promised her a free house from a state project. In return for all these, she is due to give more sworn affidavits and television and newspaper interviews.

In a mark of gratitude for vilifying MP Samaraweera at Panadura magistrate court by appearing for suspect Priyankara, president’s counsel Hemantha Warnakulasuriya is to be posted to Singapore as the Sri Lankan high commissioner there. For that, incumbent Fariel Ashroff is to be recalled, and a situation is being created to do so, with state and pro-government private media now on a mudslinging campaign against her. In the end, everyone will be happy and contented at the cost of Mangala’s private life.

Schumacher remains in a 'stable but critical condition' as he continues to fight for his life following his skiing accident in the French Alps

JACK DE MENEZES-Friday 17 January 2014

A brain injury specialist has said that Michael Schumacher will be a completely different person should he survive the severe head injuries he suffered in a skiing accident in December, admitting that “he will not be Michael Schumacher”.

The seven-time Formula One world champion is currently being treated in Grenoble University Hospital for brain injuries he suffered in an accident while skiing off-piste in Meribel in the French Alps.

Michael Schumacher Prosecutors Confirm Investigation Findings

Doctors in France have begun tests on the 45-year-old German, who has been in an artificially induced coma for over two weeks following the tragic accident. Schumacher struck his head on a rock that left his helmet split in two, and has subsequently undergone two operations to relieve swelling of his brain and remove haematomas.

Fans worldwide have sent their messages of support to both Schumacher and his family, which included a silent vigil held near the hospital where he is being treated on January 3 - the day of his 45th birthday - but Dr Richard Greenwood of the University College London Hospital has warned that a successful recovery would still involve adjusting to an entirely different life.

Michael Schumacher Latest: Fans Hold Silent Vigil

The acute brain injury specialist was reported by The Times as saying: “If Schumacher survives, he will not be Schumacher.

“He will be [Joe] Bloggs. His rehabilitation will only be effective if he comes to terms with being Bloggs.

“That is a very, very hard process to take people through. They need to come to terms with their limitations — the fact they have changed.”

Dr Greenwood was speaking at the launch of a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry, in which it found that people who had suffered a traumatic head injury were three times as likely to die prematurely as those who had not.

220,000 people were tested in the extensive research.

Schumacher's Wife Corinna Pleads Media To Leave Hospital

Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm last issued a statement in which she confirmed that anything reported from a source away from either herself or the Schumacher family “must be treated as invalid and pure speculation”.

Speaking on January 6, Kehm said: “I can confirm Michael's condition can be considered stable.

“I can't confirm to have stated his life is out of danger.”

Schumacher remains in a “stable but critical condition”, and no further update will be issued until doctors have seen a change on his status as he continues to fight for his life.

Israel summons European envoys over protest

By Associated Press, Published: January 17

JERUSALEM — Israel’s foreign minister summoned a group of European ambassadors Friday to protest against what Israel has described as their countries’ one-sided approach to the Mideast conflict.

Avigdor Lieberman called in the ambassadors of Britain, France, Italy and Spain a day after these same countries summoned the Israeli ambassadors in their countries to protest a recent Israeli announcement of new settlement tenders in east Jerusalem and the West Bank — territories Palestinians want for their future state.

Israelis and Palestinians resumed peace talks in July after years of stalemate and the Israeli government has come under heavy criticism for continuing its construction plans throughout the talks. More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

While the Palestinians dropped a longstanding demand that Israel halt all settlement construction when peace talks resumed, they say they received assurances that Israel would show restraint. Since then, Israel has approved plans, most recently last week, to build thousands of new settler homes. The Palestinians, and the international community, view the settlements as illegal or illegitimate. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently said the construction raises questions about Israel’s commitment to peace.

Israel rejects the theory that settlements pose an obstacle to peace and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the critics as hypocrites and called their claims “bogus.”

The European Union has been particularly outspoken, and Netanyahu took aim at them in his remarks late Thursday before foreign journalists in Jerusalem.

“When did the EU call in the Palestinian ambassadors to complain about the incitement that calls for Israel’s destruction?” he said. “I think it is time to stop this hypocrisy. I think it is time to inject some balance and fairness to this discussion. Because I think this imbalance and this bias against Israel doesn’t advance peace.’”

The Siege of Yarmouk Crimes Against Humanity Warranting Prosecution of the Guilty, Not Blame for the Victims...

Dr. Franklin Lamb Salem-News.com-Jan-17-2014

International law relevant to situations of this nature was created specifically to stop the targeting of civilians.

Yarmouk camp

(YARMOUK PALESTINIAN CAMP, Damascus) - At the Palestine Embassy in Beirut recently, a young lady showed this observer a video of a gentleman in Yarmouk camp in Damascus. The video showed the man killing and eating a cat. Food ran out in Yarmouk weeks ago, and nearly 18,000 refugees are facing death from starvation and other conflict-related causes. This siege has been ongoing since July 2013, and it has become viciously lethal.

The Palestinians living here have been targeted. They are part of the quarter million people—children, women, and men—trapped and dying from hunger and illness all across Syria as a direct, predictable result of using the siege of civilians as a weapon of war. It isn’t just Yarmouk. Throughout Syria, neighborhoods are being blockaded.

The Siege of Yarmouk Crimes Against Humanity Warranting Prosecution of the Guilty, Not Blame for the Victim... by nelvely

Ariel Sharon - Butcher of Palestinians

Zionist war criminal Ariel Sharon died after eight years in death throes.

Western leaders’ responses demonstrate their powerlessness in the face of Jewish crimes.
by Latheef Farook
Israel’s former prime minister Ariel Sharon, known for his massacres and genocides of Palestinians ,destruction of their properties and accused by an Israel commission

itself of massacring Palestinians, died on Friday 10 January 2014. However world leaders from United Nations secretary General Ban Ki Moon, United States President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameroon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others praised Ariel Sharon as a great Zionist leader.

Ariel Sharon - Butcher of Palestinians by nelvely