Refugee claims hit ‘historic low’ as Ottawa’s policy faces fresh criticism

 Thursday, Jan. 23 2014

The number of people claiming refugee status in Canada reached what Ottawa calls a “historic low” in 2013 after it brought in changes to speed up the program by deterring applicants from safer countries.

The changes remain unpopular with refugee advocates who say valid claims are being brushed aside. Immigration Minister Chris Alexander has also lashed out at Ontario, one of many provinces continuing to provide health care for claimants who Ottawa says want to “game the system.”

Waiting times to hear asylum cases plummeted in 2013, from 20 months to two, and the average time needed to deport a failed claimant is now four months, not four years, Mr. Alexander announced Wednesday. Canada has also cut its case backlog by two-thirds and deported 10,000 failed claimants in the past year. He estimated the changes have saved about $600-million, a figure his critics doubt.

“We have achieved great results in making the refugee system work for refugees and for taxpaying Canadians,” he said.

Amid it all, the number of refugees turning to Canada has fallen – there were 10,000 cases in 2013, less than half what had been the norm and a key reason for the savings, estimated by the government to reach $1.6-billion over five years. Others don’t see the drop as a reason to celebrate.

“From our perspective, it’s a sad day when we say we’ve been receiving the smallest number of refugee claimants in decades. It means that fewer people have a chance at safety and security and a future,” said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Canada designates 37 countries as safe places that shouldn’t generate many legitimate refugee cases.

They include many in the European Union, which provided 85 per cent of Canada’s refugee claims in 2011 – what Mr. Alexander called a paradox. Designated countries now include Hungary, which had been Canada’s top source of refugees from 2010 to 2012, when the changes took effect. Hungary’s Roma community was a major source of refugees.

The changes also blocked most health-care services for people from designated countries, except if their cases were ultimately accepted, sparking a battle with provinces. Some decided to pick up the tab themselves – including Ontario, to Mr. Alexander’s dismay.

“It makes Canada, and Ontario in particular, a magnet for bogus asylum seekers. It’s also unfair for taxpayers,” he said, adding: “That is, in our view, scandalous. It’s irresponsible. It’s a bad practice because it will once again attract people who try to game the system.”

Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews retorted by saying doctors were being forced to deny care to ill refugees, including pregnant women.

“I am not going to put our front-line health-care providers in the position where they have to turn away people based on arbitrary rules of the federal government,” Ms. Matthews said. The province now offers limited, basic care to claimants from all countries up to their deportation date, at a cost of $20-million per year. “He is playing politics with this issue. I find that enormously offensive, and beneath him,” she added of Mr. Alexander.

Ms. Dench outlines other problems with the changes. Refugee claimants have too little time to prepare for their cases to be heard, she said, particularly those suffering from trauma.

Medical groups across Canada have called on government to reinstate health funding for refugees from designated countries.

“The message is getting out that Canada is an inhospitable country to refugee claimants,” said Dr. Philip Berger, a founding member of Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care and chief of family and community medicine at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital. “This is an attack on Canada’s historic ethical tradition of accepting people who were seeking safe-haven and refuge. And it’s almost punishing in its consequence. It’s vindictive.”

Why the row over spying is about human nature, not metadata 

Thursday 23 Jan 2014

For all the bamboozling hi-tech talk of “meta-data” and “bulk traffic collection”, the row over spy agencies’ electronic snooping comes down to two competing views of human nature.

Political theorists have speculated for centuries about how people would behave in a “state of nature”, i.e. left to themselves in a mythical land of plenty. Thinkers like Rousseau believed we’d rub along just fine. Thinkers like Hobbes reckoned we’d tear each other apart.

How does this relate to electronic surveillance? Well, if you side with Rousseau you see little point in monitoring everyone, because wrongdoing is an aberration and the majority of people will happily obey the rules.

If you side with Hobbes, you believe that at heart humans are a warlike and greedy bunch, so it’s probably worth keeping an eye on everyone, to catch people before they turn nasty.

The 9/11 terror attacks gave a boost to the Hobbesians. To many people, America’s aggressors seemed to arrive suddenly and unexpectedly, and there was a pervading sense that the enemy was an insidious force that could be lurking, unsuspected, in any neighbourhood.

More from Channel 4 News: What GCHQ knows about us

This led to a massive expansion of surveillance powers as America’s law enforcement and intelligence services fought to understand a new and asymmetric threat.

Barack Obama‘s announcement on Friday is evidence that the pendulum is starting to swing the other way, and that those who would monitor all of us all the time are increasingly required to justify that behaviour.

Our view of human nature not only helps inform this debate: it can help us make decisions about specific actions. For example, America’s National Security Agency has been accused of cracking the encryption standards used to encode our emails. Personally, I think that’s acceptable, because it’s likely that those who would do us harm will seek to use encryption to hide their communications. Giving law enforcement the ability to monitor that traffic seems sensible.

Cracking encryption does not assume that anyone, at any time, can suddenly turn bad. It gives states the ability to monitor those they suspect may have malicious intent.

However, the mass collection of innocent people’s data, to be stored for future access, is an essentially Hobbesian activity, for it assumes that on the balance of probabilities enough people are going to turn out to be evil to justify the harvesting of their traffic.

As the electronic surveillance tussles continue, we’re not going to decide once and for all which view of human nature is correct; it’s a broad spectrum of belief and there are many position on it for us to occupy. But let’s hope we don’t lose sight of it as a fundamental part of the discussion.

Follow @geoffwhite247 on Twitter

Tylenol Kills Thousands

Dr. Phillip Leveque Professor of Pharmacology-Jan-22-2014

I am writing this as a Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology in medical schools. I have known about this extreme hazard for at least sixty years and I am astonished that it took the FDA sixty years to do something, meager as it is.

en.wikipedia.org

(PORTLAND, OR) - The headline, warning: this common painkiller may cause liver damage, was a report initiated by the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) that doctors should limit prescribing combination medications that Tylenol, which is acetaminophen, since an excess make cause severe liver damage, leading to death.

This exposes the well known phenomenon of a doctor's advice to a patient, "Take two and if that doesn't work, take one more, but don't take anymore." The patient assumes that if one more won't harm, why not take two or even three? That is where the trouble starts.

The usual dose of Tylenol is 325 milligrams. The FDA recommends that an adult take no more than 4,000 milligrams per day but this is getting into a lethal dose and it is unlikely that a person should not take more than 1,000 milligrams.

Pharmacology professors and the poison control centers in the US have known about this toxicity for at least fifty years. The American Association of Poison Control Centers gave this report in 2001, about Tylenol:

• Total reported exposures 57,516.
• Reported exposures under age 19, 40,774
• Unintentional overdoses 35,705
• Intentional overdoses 20,002
• Total treated 24,934
• Impact on health, minor 6,223
• Impact on health moderate 3,138
• Impact on health major 829
• Fatal result 120

At present, the annual deaths are in the thousands and about 100,000 calls to poison control centers. Tylenol is linked to more deaths than any other similar medicine.

It is important to note that aspirin does also cause death in high doses which, because it is acid-like --- it removes the lining of the stomach and the person can bleed to death. Other similar drugs have not been reported to cause these consequences.

Tylenol has a sad history in other countries because of its liver toxicity. It is illegal to use in China with a population of one billion, two hundred million people. Other countries may have similar restrictions.

It seems obvious to me that the pharmaceutical lobby in Congress has much to do with this. The FDA's "weak, slap on the wrist action" is a weak approach. They know that Tylenol is severely damaging, toxic and even lethal. It would be best if we didn't have it available. Young children use sweet syrups of Tylenol and drink lots of it. The end result is frequently death.

I am writing this as a Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology in medical schools. I have known about this extreme hazard for at least sixty years and I am astonished that it took the FDA sixty years to do something, meager as it is. It is unlikely that many people will even hear about new restrictions, and still be in danger. It would be best for all of us if Tylenol were banned at any dose.

As you read this story, hundreds of patients are in hospitals and ER's trying to escape death.

By the way, I must say that small doses of marijuana/cannabis will supplant any and all of this kind of medicine without any danger of adverse effects or death.

FactCheck: are you poorer than you were in 2010?

FactCheck: are you poorer than you were in 2010?

The claims-January 23, 2014 

“Average wages are down by 1,600 a year since the election.”
Ed Miliband, 22 January 2014

“Because the leader of the opposition keeps quoting the figure without the tax cuts that we have put in place, he’s not recognising that actually this year people are better off.”
David Cameron, 22 January 2014

The background

This week’s edition of prime minister’s questions coincided with good news on jobs, with unemployment falling to 7.1 per cent.

Nevertheless, Ed Miliband was determined to attack the government over the economy, and he returned to the key Labour theme of the “cost of living crisis”.

The Labour leader said annual earnings have fallen by £1,600 since 2010. Mr Cameron insisted the opposition were only telling half the story. Time for a FactCheck.

The analysis

Labour’s “cost of living bombshell” has been a key line of attack for the party since last year.

The calculation comes from a fact no one disputes: inflation has risen faster than wages in the wake of the recession, causing wages to fall in real terms.

The drop of £1,600 comes from comparing average weekly earnings in May 2010, the month of the election, with the most recent figure from September 2013.

Wages grew by 5.8 per cent from £449 to £475, but RPI inflation inflation rose by almost 13 per cent in the same period, leaving real earnings down by just over 6 per cent: that’s £31 a week or £1,600 a year.

It’s worth pointing out that this spell of negative growth did not begin the month David Cameron entered Downing Street. Office for National Statistics figures show negative real earnings growth began in the middle of 2008.

We can raise some objections to the way Labour has come up with these sums. The party has used RPI inflation, no doubt to give the highest possible figure for loss of earnings.

RPI is no longer used as an official measure of inflation by the ONS, and other ways of measuring inflation like CPI tend to be lower, giving Labour a less dramatic number.

Nevertheless, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) backs the thrust of Labour’s calculation, saying it “does not give a misleading picture of the magnitude of falls in living standards likely seen during this period”.

Mr Cameron’s defence is that we would expect wages to stagnate or fall in the aftermath of a major recession, and of course he blames Labour for the financial crisis. That is a political argument that would take a book, not a FactCheck, to settle.

The Prime Minister also points out that Labour are dwelling on falling real wages, but a family’s income is affected by other things like taxes and benefits.

This is a view the IFS also endorses, although it’s unclear to what extent how much government policies have helped to mitigate falling earnings.

Part of the problem is that everyone’s circumstances are different, and the various tax and benefit changes affect different groups in different ways.

IFS calculations appear to back the Prime Minister’s position that there was a small net giveaway for most people in the latest tranche of economic policy.

The think tank suggests that people in all income groups except the very poorest will have seen their net incomes rise very slightly thanks to the measures announced in last year’s Autumn Statement (the blue line).

This has to be set against the IFS’s calculations for the whole parliament of 2010-2015, in which the totality of changes (the purple line) see income falling.

The verdict

Both sides are right, essentially. Labour’s cost of living “bombshell” has a basis in fact, but is only half the story.

And Mr Cameron is arguably right to say “this year people are better off”, in that the government has tinkered with the fiscal levers to create a very slight giveaway for most earners.

But the percentages are small and people will probably want to consider the government’s whole record on how changes to the tax and benefit system have affected incomes.

யாழ்.பொதுநூலகத் தீ வைப்பில் அரசின் சிரேஷ்ட அமைச்சரும் தொடர்பு; வடக்கு முதலமைச்சர் தெரிவிப்பு 

22 ஜனவரி 2014, புத

கடந்த 1981 ஆம் ஆண்டில் யாழ்ப்பாணத்தில் இடம்பெற்ற அசம்பாவிதங்களின் போது  யாழ்ப்பாணம் பொதுநுலகம் தீ வைத்து கொளுத்தப்பட்டது. இந்தத் தீவைப்புடன் அரசின் சிரேஷ்ட அமைச்சர் ஒருவர் தொடர்புபட்டிருந்ததாகவும் குடிபோதையில் இருந்த சிங்கள சிப்பாய்கள் சிலரும் இதனுடன் தொடர்புபட்டிருந்ததாகவும் பொலிஸாரால் தெரிவிக்கப்பட்டிருந்தது.

அந்தக் கால கட்டத்தில் 16 மொழிகளில் புலமை வாய்ந்த தாவீது அடிகளார் யாழ். நூலகத்தைப் பயன்படுத்தி ஆராய்ச்சியில் ஈடுபட்டிருந்தார். எனினும் ஆராய்ச்சி முடிவில்  நூலகம் எரிக்கப்பட்டதால் மனமுடைந்த அவர் உயிரிழந்தார். இவ்வாறு தெரிவித்தார் வட மாகாண முதலமைச்சர் க.வி.விக்னேஸ்வரன்.

ஏசியா பவுண்டேசன் நிறுவனத்தால் யாழ்ப்பாணம் பொது நுலகத்துக்கு ஒரு தொகுதி நுல்கள் கையளிக்கும் நிகழ்வு யாழ்ப்பாணம் பொது நூலகத்தில் இடம்பெற்றது. இந்த நிகழ்வில் பிரதம விருந்தினராக  கலந்து கொண்டிருந்தார் முதலமைச்சர்.

தென்கிழக்காசிய  நாடுகளிலேயே அதிகூடிய புத்தகங்களைக் கொண்ட நூலகமாக யாழ்ப்பாண நூலகம் ஒரு காலத்தில் விளங்கியது என்று குறிப்பிட்ட முதலமைச்சர் பெறுமதி மிக்க ஆவணங்கள் தீ வைத்துக் கொளுத்தப்பட்டதன் விளைவாக ஆவணங்கள் மீளவும் தேடவேண்டிய நிலை ஏற்பட்டுள்ளது என்றும் குறிப்பிட்டார்.

இதுதொடர்பாக அவர் தொடர்ந்து உரை நிகழ்த்தும்போது தெரிவித்ததாவது:

தென்கிழக்காசிய நாடுகளிலேயே 95 ஆயிரம் புத்தகங்களை கொண்ட நூலகமாக யாழ்ப்பாண நூலகம் விளங்கியது. தீ வைப்பின் காரணமாக பொக்கிசங்களாகக் கருதப்பட்ட நூல்கள் முற்றுமுழுதாக எரிந்து சாம்பலாகின. 

தற்போது ஏசியா பவுண்டேசன் நிறுவனத்தின் உதவியுடன் பெருந்தொகுதி நூல்கள் பொது நூலகத்துக்கு கிடைக்கப் பெற்றுள்ளன. தொடர்ந்தும் இந்த நூலகத்தின் அபிவிருத்திக்கு இவ்வாறான உதவிகள் பயனுள்ளதாக அமையும் - என்றார்.

ஏசியா பவுண்டேசன்  நிறுவனத்தால் நூலகங்களை வலுப்படுத்தும் செயற்றிட்டத்துக்கு அமைவாக 1.2 மில்லியன் பெறுமதியான 284 நூல்கள் யாழ்பாணம் பொது நூலகத்துக்கு  நேற்று கையளிக்கப்பட்டன. அந்த நூல்களில் சிறுவர்கள் மற்றும் பாடசாலை மாணவர்கள் பல்கலைக்கழக மாணவர்கள் பயனடையக் கூடியதான நூல்கள் வழங்கப்பட்டன.

ஏசியா பவுண்டேசன் நிறுவனத்தின் தலைவர் டேவிட் ஆனல்ட் தலைமையிலான குழுவினர் நேரடியாக வருகை தந்து நூல்களைக் கையளித்தனர். நிகழ்வில் வடமாகாண முதலமைச்சர் க.வி.விக்னேஸ்வரன், யாழ் மாநகர சபை முதல்வர் திருமதி யோகேஸ்வரி பற்குணராஜா, மாநகர சபை ஆணையாளர் மற்றும் ஏசியா பவுண்டேசன் நிறுவனத்தின் அதிகாரிகள், நூலகர் கள் ஆகியோர் கலந்து கொண்டனர். 

ஏசியா பவுண்டேசன் நிறுவனத்தின் தலைவர் டேவிட் ஆனல்ட் யாழ்ப்பாணம் பொது நூலகத்துக்கு ஒரு தொகுதி நூல்களைக் கையளித்தார்.

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RPG. Arsonists Public Relations senior minister in the government of the northern Reporting to the Chief 

In 1981, when the last such incident in Jaffna Jaffna potunulakam torched. Senior Minister of State at the tivaip linked to one of drunken police officers had been linked with some of the Sinhalese soldiers. 

In that period, the outstanding scholarship in 16 languages ​​Adigalar David said. Involved in library research. However, the burning of the library at the end of the research, he died broken. Provincial Chief Minister said this kavi also present.

The Asia Foundation is a set of books to the Jaffna Public nulakat handover ceremony was held at the Jaffna Public Library. The Chief Minister was the chief guest on the occasion.

தென்கிழக்காசிய  நாடுகளிலேயே அதிகூடிய புத்தகங்களைக் கொண்ட நூலகமாக யாழ்ப்பாண நூலகம் ஒரு காலத்தில் விளங்கியது என்று குறிப்பிட்ட முதலமைச்சர் பெறுமதி மிக்க ஆவணங்கள் தீ வைத்துக் கொளுத்தப்பட்டதன் விளைவாக ஆவணங்கள் மீளவும் தேடவேண்டிய நிலை ஏற்பட்டுள்ளது என்றும் குறிப்பிட்டார்.

Therefore, when he undertook the following text is added:

Southeast Asian countries, the Jaffna library was the library with 95 thousand books. Texts are regarded as treasures of arsonists burned completely. 

Now, with the assistance of the Asia Foundation peruntokuti books have been available to the public library. Such assistance would be useful to continue the development of the library - he said.

The Asia Foundation in accordance with 1.2 million project to strengthen the library of 284 books were handed over yesterday to the Jaffna Public Library. The texts of books that you have been given the benefit of the children and school students and university students.

The Asia Foundation Chairman's visit to a group led by David analt handed threads. Provincial Chief kavi also present at the event, nothing Mrs.Y.Patkunaraj Jaffna Municipal Council, the municipal commissioner and the Asia Foundation, the company's officials, attended the meeting of the librarian. 

The Asia Foundation President David analt of the Jaffna Public Library to present a set of books.

- See more at: http://www.onlineuthayan.com/News_More.php?id=503312591221549566#sthash.ZwcX8sRi.dpuf

Conversation On The Claim Of Superior Intelligence

By Basil Fernando -January 22, 2014

Basil Fernando

Today, I would like to discuss a few more matters with you, matters that we cannot any longer discuss amongst human beings. As you may know, we human beings claim that we are a superior species to yours, as well as to many other species; in fact, to all other species. The reason we give is that we have a superior intelligence. This claim of superior intelligence is taken for granted as an absolutely right assertion. However, I want to illustrate to you why this is not such an easily acceptable proposition.

The same capacity for intelligence is often used to develop notions which are absolutely silly, and we have throughout our history acted on many things in very many silly ways. We have acted with so much silliness that we have been damaging our own species as a whole and of course, in many instances, many specific individuals from our species have been brought to destruction due to our own silliness.

We have also shown the capacity to turn even the better achievements of our intelligence to silly uses. The method we have often resorted to is to make a pretext of using a good idea and then developing many silly ideas out of it, and then, for all practical purposes, acting on the basis of the silly ideas, virtually ignoring their better origins.

Since I am talking about something that you may find confounding, I can try to illustrate it with a few examples. Let me begin with an example close to home, from Asia itself.

We know that India developed an early civilization, known as the Harappan civilization. Historians have more or less agreed that this existed from around 2500 B.C. to about 1700 B.C. Following this period there emerged another civilization, usually called the Vedic civilization. Many written texts were developed there and those writings gave rise to various stories, poems, hymns and the like. That was the great aspect of that civilization, developing our use of our faculties of intelligence.

But what did we do with it? Very soon we used these great achievements to create extraordinarily silly and damaging ideas, one of which was the caste system of India, which has done so much damage to everybody living in India, particularly to those who became the dominated people or the people who were brought to submission. Those people were called the low caste, and later that developed into outcastes, also called Untouchables.

Later periods, nearing the 20^th century, brought movements and struggles by these people, and now these people call themselves Dalits – people who are fighting against oppression.

Read More

PPT judgement upholds Eelam Tamil identity and nomenclature

Watch live streaming video from genevapressclub at livestream.com

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 January 2014, 10:42 GMT]PPT verdict released at Geneva Press Club
The full report of the judgement of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka (Bremen Session), released on Wednesday, came out with a discussion on the choice of nomenclature to identify the victims of genocide and has decided on the use of the term “Eelam Tamils as a national group.” This recognition, coming for the first time, from a credible global body of humanity such as the Peoples’ Tribunal, nullifies the so-called legitimacy in the insistence of the use of the term ‘Sri Lankan Tamil’ thrust on the victims by various States and their international organisations. This part of the PPT judgement is of equal importance like the verdict on genocide, complicity etc., and the implementation of it is of much practical value to the people’s struggle of the victims, said Tamil civil activists. 

PPT Judgement Upholds Eelam Tamil Identity and Nomenclature by nelvely

 Two opposition MPs to join Sri Lankan government delegation to UNHRC session 

Human Values and Universal Responsibility

Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:39 am SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Jan 22, Colombo: The Sri Lankan government has decided to also include opposition politicians in the delegation to the upcoming United Nations Human Right Council (UNHRC) session scheduled to be held in March in Geneva.
Accordingly, two parliamentarians of the main opposition United National Party (UNP), Lakshman Kiriella and Ms. Thalatha Atukorale have been designated to participate in the UNHRC session along with the government delegation.
Sri Lanka government will be represented by Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva and President's special envoy for human rights Mahinda Samarasinghe.
Government sources say that the UNP has responded with the names of the two MPs on a request made by the government to have two delegates from the opposition for the UNHRC session.

The government says it is expecting a serious challenge from the international community in Geneva and it is ready to meet the challenge. The 25th session of the UNHRC is scheduled to begin on March 03.

Rajapaksa State Media Defends Attack On Churches; Alleges Genocide Against Sinhalese

January 22, 2014

Making clear reference to the recent brutal attacks on two Christian churches in Hikkaduwa earlier this month, the state controlled press has claimed the Buddhists taking the law into their hands are a persecuted people and that the Sinhala majority in Sri Lanka are often not permitted to do anything tangible about aggressive proselytization and the barely legal establishment of churches and other places of religious worship.

A free Laptop from President to Daily News Editor Rajpal Abeynayake

In his editorial of 22 January 2014, entitled, THE ONGOING GENOCIDE AGAINST THE SINHALESE Editor of the state controlled Daily News Rajpal Abeynayake says people besieged in this way can easily be paranoid, or they can overreact and it is suspected that the entire idea is precisely to get them to go over the top, so that this fact can be used against their further persecution as well, taking on the role of apologist for marauding saffron mobs perpetrating violence against minority religious communities.                                                                                         Read More

Rajapaksa's DOC -DID Tamil journalists in Jaffna! Atircci in the media world .. 

Sinhala website published a message of brotherhood.-January 17, 2014

The Harp; ppanattai included in the Tamil media. To a press release from the website of the Sri Lankan Tamils ​​are a woman who has been recruited from Sri Lanka will be adding information to the investigators.

Tamils, who are working for public institutions, including the Tamil National Alliance to provide information to monitor the state of the jobs involved some ivaraipponra Jaffna journalists.

This group of investigators at the site of a former activist of the organization carrying out the media has reported sister Sinhala Website 

The journalists who work in the national and international level, has close ties with the opposition parties and various organizations, opposition parties and organizations of the projects, their anti-government activities and is responsible for the nominees who are in search of information about the daily.

The journalists, intelligence-gathering by the Defence Secretary kottapayavin the special section C of the WTO provided new investigative unit.

In charge of the intelligence unit of the Ministry of Defence, Major General henta Vitharana appointed advisor. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the system is operating under the direct control.

For further information on the structure of the intelligence-gathering intelligence, military intelligence and the Inspector General of Police and the Internet has provided.

In charge of the intelligence unit of the Ministry of Defence, Major General henta Vitharana appointed advisor. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the system is operating under the direct control. Meanwhile, the northern Jaffna deal with the issue of Blast tan Kuganathan of television and its chief news editor of both labor Jayachandran said. Thus ஊடகவியலாளர்களிற்கு with alcohol and recreational facilities open vitutiyonrai Blast funds were allocated. Prior to this, Gotha, he wanted to open himself entangled in disputes at the end of the day, the Sri Lankan minister tiyukunacekaravai yalin Information was organized in the open.

Army trying to reduce security points ahead of UNHRC sessions

 Wednesday, 22 January 2014 

The government in its preparations to face the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions in Geneva this March has decided to remove several security checkpoints in the Northern Province.

The move comes a few days after President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s statement that the number of soldiers in the North has been reduced to 12,000 at present from 60,000-75,000 during the period of the war.

The Defence Ministry has stated that army would take steps to further reduce the number of security points manned by the army in Jaffna.

The Ministry has reportedly quoted the Commander of the Jaffna Security Forces, Major General Udaya Perera, as saying that a number of security points manned by the army have been removed considering the peaceful environment prevailing in Jaffna.

He has said that steps would be taken to withdraw some more except the camps essential to ensure security in the peninsula in future as situations permit.

Sri Lanka Disappearance Probe to Hear More Cases from North

By PTI - COLOMBO

Published: 22nd January 2014 03:13 PM

Last Updated: 22nd January 2014 03:13 PM

A three-member panel appointed to probe disappearances during Sri Lanka's three-decade-long civil war will hear more cases in Tamil-dominated northern areas.           

The panel had received some 13,000 complaints of disappearances when it began their Kilinochchi hearings.      

Commission's H W Gunadasa said that the panel would now sit in Mullaithivu, the former LTTE military headquarters.          

Gunadasa said some 440 people appeared before the Commission during the four days of sittings which concluded yesterday in the district of Kilinochchi.       

"Having investigated the complaints we have handed over to the Attorney General's Department some 162 cases for further action," Gunadasa said.  

The deadline to receive complaints ended on December 31. Gunadasa, however, said the panel was open to entertaining complaints of disappearances beyond its deadline.   

This includes complaints from parents and relatives of those who had disappeared from the former conflict zones of north and east and from the families of the government troops.

The Commission was appointed in August last year to gather details of disappearances between 1990 and 2009.     

A panel to probe disappearances was a key recommendation in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC)           

A government census in the former northern battle zones last year said that over 8,000 people were killed while another 6,350 had gone missing during the conflict.

Letter to the President from Bradman Weerakoon

• by Bradman Weerakoon 
• - on 01/22/2014 

This is part of an exercise where Fulbright Scholars were requested to write a letter, for their 60th Anniversary, to the President referring to what they learned through their exposure to the US political system during their stay in USA.

Letter to the President From Bradman Weerakoon by nelvely