Pakistan Shia mosque bombing kills dozens

Deadliest sectarian attack in nearly two years came during Friday prayers at mosque in Shikarpur, Sindh province

Agence France-Presse in Shikarpur-Friday 30 January 2015

A bomb blast at a Shia mosque in southern Pakistan has killed at least 40 people and wounded dozens more, officials said, in the deadliest sectarian attack to hit the country in nearly two years.

The bomb exploded as worshippers attended Friday prayers in the town of Shikarpur, in Sindh province, around 300 miles (470km) north of Karachi.

Pakistan has been hit by a rising tide of sectarian violence in recent years, most of it by hardline Sunni Muslim groups targeting Shia Muslims, who make up about one in five of the population.

The Sindh provincial health minister, Jam Mehtab, said at least 40 people were killed and 46 were injured.

Hundreds of people rushed to the scene after the blast to try to dig out survivors trapped under the roof of the mosque, which collapsed in the blast. Television footage of the aftermath showed chaotic rescue scenes as people piled the wounded into cars, motorbikes and rickshaws to take them for treatment.

An official with a national Shia organisation, Rahat Kazmi, said that up to 400 people were worshipping in the mosque when the blast struck.

It is the bloodiest single sectarian attack in Pakistan since March 2013, when a car bomb in a Shia neighbourhood of Karachi killed 45.

Friday’s attack came as the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, visited Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, to discuss the law-and-order situation in the city.

Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city and economic heartbeat, has wrestled for several years with a wave of criminal, sectarian and political murders.

Pakistan has stepped up its fight against militants in the past month, following a Taliban massacre at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Heavily armed gunmen went from room to room at the army-run school, murdering 150 people, most of them children, in an attack that horrified the world.

Since then the government has ended a six-year moratorium on executions in terror-related cases and pledged to crack down on all militant groups.

Racism and rhetoric, from Ferguson to Palestine

Heike Schotten on January 28, 2015

Mondoweiss

In the United States, “Ferguson” — the name of the town where unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by a police officer last August — has become a shorthand name for the free reign given to police to murder black people in the streets (and parks, stores, even their own homes) with impunity.

Racism and Rhetoric, From Ferguson to Palestine by Thavam Ratna

Israeli Journalist Amira Hass on Palestinian Resistance, "Peace Talks" and U.S. Role in Region (Pt. 2)

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013
Part two of our interview with Amira Hass, the only Jewish-Israeli journalist to have spent almost 20 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. Christiane Amanpour has described her as "one of the greatest truth-seekers of them all."

Amira Hass recently suffered a torrent of hate mail and calls for her prosecution after she wrote an article forHaaretz defending the right of Palestinians to resist violent occupation. In the article, Hass defended the throwing of stones by Palestinian youth at Israeli soldiers, calling it "the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule." In this web exclusive, Hass begins by reading her controversial article.

Israeli Journalist Amira Hass on Palestinian Resistance, Peace Talks and U.S. Role in Region (Pt. 2) by Thavam Ratna

How Obama could take on, defeat the Zionist lobby

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

By Alan Hart

A longer version of my headline would be this: “How President Obama could take on and defeat the Zionist lobby and secure for himself the freedom to put America’s own best interests first in the Middle East and wider Muslim world.”

How Obama Could Take on, Defeat the Zionist Lobby by Thavam Ratna

Greece’s leftist government sparks fears of a Russian beachhead in Europe

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras holds a news conference Thursday with European Parliament President Martin Schulz in Athens. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)

By Griff Witte and Karoun Demirjian January 29 at 6:35 PM

LONDON — Just days after shaking European economic policy to its core with a sweeping win in Greek elections, the radical leftist party Syriza is challenging a fundamental tenet of the continent’s foreign policy by seeking a softer stance on Russia.
Greece’s Leftist Government Sparks Fears of a Russian Beachhead in Europe by Thavam Ratna

Economic growth revised up by almost 50 percent

A labourer works at the construction site of a residential complex in Kolkata August 29, 2014.

BY MANOJ KUMAR-NEW DELHI Fri Jan 30, 2015

(Reuters) - India's economy grew almost 50 percent faster in 2013/14 than earlier thought, the government said on Friday after changing a formula, a reminder of the challenges that unreliable statistics present to Indian policymakers.

In the year leading up to the elections that brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power last May, the economy grew 6.9 percent, not the 4.7 percent reported earlier, chief statistician T.C.A. Anant told reporters.

Modi's campaign succeeded partly because of the widespread feeling that his predecessors from the Congress party had plunged the economy into the country's longest deceleration in growth in a generation.

The revised formula, showing a faster recovery, includes under-represented and informal sectors as well as items such as smartphones and LED television sets in gross domestic product.

That could boost India's growth figure in the year ending in March 2015, which the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has projected to be around 5.5 percent.

Some in government predict the change will help bring down the fiscal deficit as a share of gross domestic product, making it easier for Modi to trim the gap to a seven-year low of 4.1 percent in the year to March despite a shortfall in revenue.

However, Anant said the overall size of India's $1.8 trillion economy had not changed enough to shift the ratio significantly, adding: "Our ranking in GDP terms will not change as the size of economy has almost remained the same."

The new methodology moves India more in line with global standards by measuring the economy at market prices, and by tracking consumer rather than wholesale inflation.

"This will help lower market distortions and give better representation to the manufacturing sector," said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic adviser at State Bank of India.

But the frequent GDP revisions and other deficient data are a headache for economic planners.

Among the worst offenders are the volatile index for industrial production and the jobless numbers, seen as very unrepresentative. The latest GDP revision is part of a change to the method of calculating national accounts that happens every five years.

"It is a problem for the government and economists who are trying to understand the exact situation," said D.H. Pai Panandiker, president of RPG Foundation, an economic policy group in New Delhi. "It is even a problem for the RBI, that doesn't have a full view about how the economy is performing."

(Additional reporting by Suvashree Choudhury in Mumbai and Andrew MacAskill in New Delhi; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Kevin Liffey)

'Prisons are awash with drugs of all types'

FRIDAY 30 JANUARY 2015
There is a growing crisis in British prisons with violence, self-harm and prisoner suicide on the rise. Blogger "Alex Cavendish", who served time in six different prisons, believes he knows why.

Prisoners look towards a window in a cell in a wing of Norwich prison in a photograph taken in 2005.

"Alex Cavendish" is a pseudonym.

'Prisons are awash with drugs of all types'.odt by Thavam Ratna

சபாபதிப்பிள்ளை நலன்புரி நிலைய மக்களுக்கு இராணுவம் எச்சரிக்கை! 

28 ஜனவரி 2015, புதன் 10:50 பி.ப

வலி.வடக்கு மக்களை சந்திக்க வரும் பிரிட்டன் வெளியுறவுத்துறை அமைச்சருக்கு எந்தவிதமான கருத்துக்களையும் தெரிவிக்க வேண்டாம் என இராணுவத்தினரால் அச்சுறுத்தல் விடுக்கப்பட்டுள்ளதாக தெரிவிக்கப்படுகிறது.

 

வலி.வடக்கு மக்களை நாளைய தினம் பிரிட்டன் வெளியுறதுத் துறை அமைச்சர் சந்தித்து கலந்துரையாடவுள்ளதாக ஊடகங்களில் செய்திகள் வெளியாகியுள்ள நிலையில் இன்று காலை வலி.வடக்கு மக்கள் இடம்பெயர்ந்து தங்கியுள்ள சபாபதிப்பிள்ளை நலன்புரி நிலையத்திற்கு சிவில் உடைகளில் சென்ற இராணுவத்தினர் மக்களை மிரட்டியுள்ளனர்.

 

புதிய அரசு பொறுபேற்ற பின்னர் உயர் அதிகாரி ஒருவர் உங்கள் பகுதிக்கு விஜயம் செய்யவுள்ள அவரிடம்,நாங்கள் இந்த இடத்தில் நீண்ட காலமாக இருந்து பழகி விட்டோம்.  எனவே  உயர் பாதுகாப்பு வலய காணிகளுக்கு பதிலாக தற்போது குடியிருக்கும் காணிகளையே எங்களுக்கே வழங்குமாறு கோருங்கள்.

 

அதனை விடுத்து உயர் பாதுகாப்பு வலய காணிகளை மீள வழங்குமாறு கோரிக்கை விடுக்க வேண்டாம் என இராணுவத்தினர்  மக்களை  எச்சரித்துள்ளதாக தெரிவிக்கப்படுகிறது.

 

 

இதேவேளை பிரிட்டன் வெளிவிவகார அமைச்சர் ஹியுகோ ஸ்வெயர் இலங்கைக்கு மூன்று நாள் விஜயம் மேற்கொள்ளவுள்ளார்.இன்று கொழும்பு வரும் அவர், ஜனாதிபதி மைத்திரிபால சிறிசேன மற்றும் பிரதமர்  உள்ளிட்ட அரசியல் கட்சி பிரமுகர்களை சந்தித்து கலந்துரையாடவுள்ளார்.

 

இந்த சந்திப்பை முடித்துக் கொண்டு நாளைய தினம் யாழ்ப்பாணம் வருகைதரவுள்ளார். கொழும்பிலிருந்து விசேட விமான மூலம் யாழ். வரும் அவர் வடக்கு முதலமைச்சர் உள்ளிட்ட குழுவினரை சந்தித்து கலந்துரையாடவுள்ளார்.

 

அதனைத் தொடர்ந்து வலி.வடக்கு மக்கள் இடம்பெயர்ந்து தங்கியுள்ள சபாபதிப்பிள்ளை நலன்புரி நிலையத்திற்கு விஜயம் செய்யவுள்ளதாக தகவல்கள் வெளியாகியுள்ளமை குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது.

 

புதிய அரசாங்கத்தின் மீது மக்களுக்கு முழு நம்பிக்கையில்லை: பிரிட்டிஷ் குழுவிடம் விக்னேஸ்வரன் தெரிவிப்பு

[ வியாழக்கிழமை, 29 சனவரி 2015, 08:33.32 AM GMT ]

பிரிட்டன் வெளிவிவகார அமைச்சர் ஹுகோஸ் ஸ்வய்ர் தலைமையிலான குழுவினர் இன்றைய தினம் யாழ்.குடாநாட்டுக்கு விஜயம் மேற்கொண்டனர்.

இவ்விஜயத்தின்போது வடமாகாண முதலமைச்சரை அவரது அலுவலகத்தில் சந்தித்துப் பேசியிருப்பதுடன், யாழ்.பொது நூலகத்திற்கும் விஜயம் மேற்கொண்டுள்ளார்.

குறித்த சந்திப்பு இன்றைய தினம் காலை 9.30 மணிக்கு இடம்பெற்றிருந்தது.

இதன் பின்னர் குறித்த சந்திப்பு தொடர்பில் முதலமைச்சர் ஊடகங்களுக்கு கருத்து தெரிவிக்கையில்,

Sri Lankan military must be removed from North, Wigneswaran tells UK minister

The removal of the Sri Lankan military from the Tamil areas is the most important issue at present, the chief minister of the Northern Province, C V Wigneswaran told the UK's Minister for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Hugo Swire during a visit to Jaffna on Thursday. 

புதிய அரசாங்கத்தின் மீது மக்களுக்கு முழு நம்பிக்கையில்லை பிரிட்டிஷ் குழுவிடம் விக்னேஸ்வரன் தெரிவிப்பு by Thavam Ratna

சொந்த இடங்களுக்கு விரைவில் திரும்புவீர்கள்! 

29 ஜனவரி 2015, வியாழன் 3:30 பி.ப

நீங்கள் அனைவரும் சொந்த மண்ணில் பிறந்து வளரவில்லை. என்பதை உங்கள் முகங்களில் பார்கிறேன் பிரித்தானிய வெளிவிவகார அமைச்சர் ஹ்யூகோ ஸ்வைர் தெரிவித்தார்.

வலி.வடக்கு மக்கள் இடம்பெயர்ந்து தங்கியுள்ள சபாபதிப்பிள்ளை முகாமில் வசிக்கும் மாணவர்களுக்கு ஒரு தொகுதி காலணிகளை  பிரிட்டன் அமைச்சர் வழங்கினார்.

அதனைத் தொடர்ந்து அங்கு கூடியிருந்த மக்கள் மத்தியில் அவர் கருத்துத் தெரிவிக்கையில்,

என்னை வரவேற்றதற்கு முதலில் நன்றிகளைத் தெரிவித்துக் கொள்கின்றேன். பிரதமர் டேவிற் கமரூன் வந்தமையினால் நானும் வர விரும்பினேன். 

இங்கிருக்கும் பிள்ளைகள் அனைவரும் தங்களுடைய சொந்த இடங்களில் பிறக்கவில்லை என்றும் இந்த முகாம்களில் பிறந்துள்ளனர் என்பதையும் நான் நன்கு அறிவேன்.

அனைவரும் ஆர்வமாக இருக்கும் தருணத்தில் நான் இலங்கைக்கு 2 ஆவது தடவையாக வந்துள்ளேன். இலங்கையில் தற்போது நடைபெறுகின்ற மாற்றத்தோடு உங்களுடைய சொந்த இடங்களுக்கு செல்வதற்கும் வாய்ப்புக் கிடைக்கும் என்று நம்புகின்றேன். 

பிரித்தானிய மக்களுடைய விருப்பத்திற்குசார்ப்பான காலணிகள் வழங்குவதில் மகிழ்ச்சி, பாடசாலை, உங்களுடைய ஊருக்குச் செல்லவும் வாய்ப்புக் கிடைக்கும் எனவும் அவர் மேலும் தெரிவித்தார். 

இராணுவத்தின் பிடியிலுள்ள  நிலங்களை மீட்டுத் தாருங்கள்; வலி.வடக்கு மக்கள் கோரிக்கை

இராணுவத்தின் பிடியிலுள்ள நிலங்களை மீட்டுத்தருமாறு பிரித்தானிய வெளிவிவகார அமைச்சரிடம் வலி.வடக்கு மக்கள் கோரிக்கை விடுத்துள்ளனர்.

வலி.வடக்கு மக்கள் இடம்பெயர்ந்து தங்கியுள்ள சபாபதிப்பிள்ளை முகாமிற்கு இன்றைய தினம் விஜயம் செய்த பிரித்தானிய வெளிவிவகார அமைச்சரிடமே இந்தக் கோரிக்கை விடுக்கப்பட்டது.

நீண்ட காலமாக முகாம்களிலே வாழ்ந்து வருகின்றோம் விரைவில் இராணுவத்தின் பிடியிலுள்ள காணிகளை எங்களுக்கு பெற்றுத்தர நடவடிக்கை எடுங்கள் என கோரினர். 

இதேவேளை வலி.வடக்கில் இராணுவத்தின் ஆக்கிரமிப்பில் உள்ள தமிழ் மக்களுக்குச் சொந்தமான நிலங்களின் வரைபடத்தையும்பிரித்தானிய வெளிவிவகார அமைச்சர்  பார்வையிட்டார்.

  

- See more at: http://onlineuthayan.com/News_More.php?id=358373842329179929#sthash.9QsyQttD.dpuf

Tamil People in Sri Lanka - - Westminster 

Hall debate on Sri Lanka

Westminster Hall

Wednesday 28 January 2015

[Martin Caton in the Chair]

Tamil People in Sri Lanka

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Gavin Barwell.)

9.30 am

Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. May I ask everyone’s forgiveness as, perhaps to a lot of people’s delight, I am losing my voice, so I might not speak for as long as I would normally?

The timing of the debate is opportune, because the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), is in Sri Lanka as we speak. He arrived this morning and is staying until Friday. Perhaps some of what we discuss will be relayed to the new Sri Lankan Government.
Tamil People in Sri Lanka - - Westminster by Thavam Ratna

Will Mahinda now look towards UN and US for relief?

Will Mahinda now look towards UN and US for relief?

 2015-01-21

"The media does not highlight the threats hurled at my supporters. The media behaves in a manner as if it does not know such things" – Mahinda Rajapaksa tells BBC Sandeshaya Channel from Medamulana after his defeat. When in power Mahinda labelled the BBC and the international media as contractors of the LTTE. When the United States brought a resolution before the UNHRC against the Rajapaksa government in March 2013, Mahinda's government disrupted the BBC Tamil Service. He censored all news that was critical of his administration. That was a violation of the agreement between the BBC and the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. It appears that Mahinda has forgotten that past.

So now he claims that the media ignores attacks on his supporters.
When a new government is elected, any attacks on the supporters of the defeated regime are usually reported by the alternative media. Also when new governments take office media institutions which indulge in business transactions with governments attempt to renew such links with the new government. Hence, they fear to report attacks on supporters of the defeated government. The only media that would act fearlessly is an alternative media as they do not contract businesses with governments.

This scenario recalls to memory, the services rendered by the alternative media spearheaded by Lasantha Wickremetunga in the past. Lasantha launched repeated attacks on the Chandrika Kumaratunga administration from 1994 – 2005. When Chandrika lost power and new President Mahinda Rajapaksa launched attacks on Chandrika, Lasantha's 'Sunday Leader' newspaper gave space for Chandrika's views too. If Lasantha was alive today, he would have given adequate space for Mahinda to highlight the attacks and issues faced by Mahinda and his supporters. Sadly Lasantha was mysteriously killed during Mahinda's regime. On the instructions of Mahinda, the 'Irudina' and 'Sunday Leader' publications of Lasantha was bought over by a businessman close to his government.

It is no surprise therefore that Mahinda, by going to suppress the alternate media while fondling the state media today has no media whatsoever. Mahinda never dreamt that he would end up back in the opposition. Had he thought in that direction, he would have realized the need of an alternative media, human rights, non-governmental organizations that spoke of democracy, the United States and West were important. When he was in the opposition from 1989 – 1994, he sought relief from the alternate media, NGOs, UNHRC and the western countries. That was why Mahinda went before the UNHRC to lodge complaints against the then administration. Upon assuming office as President, Mahinda erased that past from his memory.
David Gladstone divulges Mahinda's tattling...

If the UNP and Maithripala cause injustice to him tomorrow, he has only two places to make representations. First is the judiciary. But today he cannot go before the judiciary he once destroyed. Why? It was reported that he destroyed the independence of the judiciary. Therefore, how could Mahinda expect justice from a judiciary that is reported to be partial considering the past history? The second place he could go is the embassies of the west. When Mahinda was in the opposition during the Premadasa administration, Mahinda brought the issues faced by then opposition before David Gladstone, the former British High Commissioner in Colombo. Gladstone has recently divulged to the media how Mahinda divulged facts and information as an opposition MP to him. During the Rajapaksa regime it bitterly criticized the British High Commissioner in Colombo. Having won the terrorist war in 2009, the British High Commission in Colombo was pelted with stones and tomatoes.

It must be recalled that when British High Commissioner in Colombo, John Rankin stated in his website in 2012 that the government should withdraw troops from the North, Rankin was summoned by External Affairs Minister, Prof. G. L. Peiris and reprimanded. In the recent past, the former United States Ambassador to Colombo was accused of bribing government ministers by offering US dollars to overthrow the Rajapaksa government and urged the US to remove her from office. The UNHRC Commissioner, Navi Pillay was insulted. Allegations were also levelled at the incumbent UNHRC Commissioner.
Now where could Mahinda, the Rajapaksas' and their supporters go to lodge complaints about injustices caused to them? The country eagerly views that situation.

Sri Lanka: Rajapaksa Legacy of Abuse

A Muslim woman cries next to her burnt house after a violent attack against Muslims in Aluthgama on June 16, 2014.

JANUARY 29, 2015
(New York) – The Sri Lankan government stepped up pressure in 2014 on human rights activists and journalists, particularly those urging justice for past war crimes, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2015 released today. A new government, elected in January 2015, should order investigations into arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and killings since the final military operations in 2009.

In the 656-page world report, its 25th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth urges governments to recognize that human rights offer an effective moral guide in turbulent times, and that violating rights can spark or aggravate serious security challenges. The short-term gains of undermining core values of freedom and non-discrimination are rarely worth the long-term price.

Sri Lanka’s new government, elected after the world report was finalized, has already taken important measures to improve free expression and other rights: blocked news websites were restored, media restrictions have been eased, and a fresh investigation ordered into the 2009 killing of journalist Lasantha Wickeramatunge. Activists and journalists report a lifting of government surveillance and pressure. The government has also asked for a list of all detainees held under the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act for review.

The failure of the previous government of Mahinda Rajapaksa to honor its pledge to provide accountability for war crimes during the armed conflict with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in 2009, led the United Nations Human Rights Council to pass a resolution on March 27, 2014, calling on the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by both sides to the conflict.

The Sri Lankan government immediately denounced the March UN rights council resolution, and several senior government members threatened to take action against anyone cooperating with the UN investigation. The new government has said that it will engage with the Human Rights Council, and it should take steps to ensure accountability and justice.

“The UN investigation is the first real hope for justice for victims of atrocities on both sides during Sri Lanka’slong civil war,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Sri Lanka’s new government should cooperate with the UN investigation and act to end the previous hostility to justice.”

Human Rights Watch documented extensive surveillance in ethnic Tamil majority areas in the north, detention of activists, and shutting down of workshops organized in the south to train journalists from the north.

In 2014, ultranationalist Buddhist organizations denounced religious minorities, spurring mobs from the Buddhist majority to attack a largely Muslim town in the south, leaving at least four Muslims dead, nearly 80 injured, and many Muslim properties damaged. Although the government quickly denounced the violence and made some prompt arrests, it has not taken action against anyone who might have incited the violence.

“The Rajapaksa government’s resettlement and reconstruction of affected communities in the post-conflict years has been seriously marred by oppression of the Tamil population,” Adams said. “The new government has the responsibility to set Sri Lanka on the long road to ensure justice and rights for everyone, particularly minorities and critics of the government.”