How Former Defense Secretary escaped arrest?

Saturday, 30 May 2015

Many SLFP MPs knew the former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa would not get arrested by the FCID because of his close links to Sagala and Kavan Rathnayake from Deniyaya.

Sagala is Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Chief of Staff and his brother Kavan, Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd. (Lake House) Chairman.

Now Gotabaya has fortified it for a while with an interim order.

Sagala Rathnayake for some reason, despite being critical of the UNP leader during the leadership crisis within the UNP in 2012 and did next to nothing to bring President Maithripala Sirisena to power, has got round the Prime Minister.

He is now in the process of tapping young businessman for cash to support his electoral work. Many have given him cash support because he is the Premier’s Chief of Staff. His brother Kavan who was not even a UNP supporter, but has been given two very good appointments in the Sirisena government. It is known in the open Gotabaya Rajapaksa was very close to the two brothers Kavan and Sagala .

A former Deputy Minister of Power, Sagala Rathnayaka had, according SL sources, got a land problem sorted and a land through the former defense secretary and Kavan had also got work done through him when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was in his full element as the de facto no 2 during brother Mahinda’s Administration. It was well known in SLFP circles that Gotabaya Rajapakse was using Sagala and Kavan to convince Ranil Wickramesinghe to contest the Presidency and to collect inside information about the campaign. Fortunately common sense prevailed in the UNP and Ranil Wickremasinghe gave way for Sirisena to contest as the common candidate. If the UNP had gone alone and had Ranil Wickremesinghe contested, the UNP would have ended up in shambles and Sajith Premadasa and Tiran Alles would be running the UNP today

Another allegation against Basil – PushpaRajapakshe also involved

FRIDAY, 29 MAY 2015

Former Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapakshe’s who has been inmagazine prison for alleged for misuse of Divinaguma public money will be questioned by FCID for an another investigation that has being carried out regarding a deposit of Rs 600 million in Pushpa Rajapakshe’s account whichis belongs to Pushpa Foundation by transferring money from a Chinese Construction company who has obtained a contract to build a part of the port city.

According to the reliable information, M/s Colombo International Container Terminal company who has obtained the contract to construct part of the Port City has directly transferred Rs 600 million to Pushpa Foundation by a cheque.

It is revealed by FCID from the preliminary investigations that, although this foundation was established as a charity organization, its money was used by the management for their benefit.

It is further evident from the investigation that this contract was awarded to the above mentioned company as an influence of Basil Rajapakshe who was a leading minister of the former Rajapakshe Regime.  The commission of Rs 600 million negotiated for the deal was not directly obtained by Basil Rajapakshe and it was get transferred from M/s Colombo International Terminal Company to the Pushpa Foundation.

After having verification of the evidence collected from the investigation, FCID will summon relevant persons for recording statements and further actionsagainst who are alleged for this transaction.

The details of wealth belongs to Pushpa Rajapakshe, Gotabaya Rajapakshe and Basil Rajapakshe in United States of America were exposed by our web site in previous occasions.

Gunmen kill at least 19 bus passengers in Pakistan

Bodies found in hills after attackers stop buses travelling from Quetta to Karachi and force passengers to dismount

 Pakistani paramedics treat an injured bus driver injured during an attack in Quetta Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Friday 29 May 2015

Gunmen have killed at least 19 passengers they forced off buses travelling from the western Pakistani city of Quetta to Karachi on the southern coast, according to officials.

Sarfaraz Bugti, the home minister of Baluchistan province, where the attack took place, said the assault occurred late on Friday in the town of Mastung, about 40km south of Quetta.

“The armed men were wearing the uniforms of the security forces,” Bugti told Reuters. The bodies of 19 passengers had been found so far, he said.

Security officials said about 25 passengers were taken off two buses and an operation had been launched to find them. They said the bodies were discovered in nearby hills, but the circumstances of their deaths could not immediately be established and the motives of the assailants were unclear.

Separatists have been fighting a low-intensity insurgency in Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital, for decades. They are demanding an end to what they see as the exploitation of their resources by people from other parts of Pakistan. 

Islamist militants regularly attack civilian and military targets; earlier this month at least 43 commuters were killed on a bus in Karachi by a group that has declared allegiance to Islamic State. All of the victims in that attack were Ismailis from Pakistan’s minority Shi’ite community, but one security official said the Mastung incident was unlikely to have been a sectarian attack.

As well as the 19 deaths, one person was injured and five more people rescued unharmed.

The High Cost of Defeating the Islamic State

U.N.: A military defeat of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq could scatter extremists around the globe.

BY COLUM LYNCH-MAY 29, 2015

This story was updated

Would the world be a safer place if the United States and its allies were to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria? Not necessarily, according to a U.N. Security Council counterterrorism monitoring team.

The High Cost of Defeating the Islamic State by Thavam Ratna

Aung San Suu Kyi still silent on Rohingya as Nobel laureates speak out

Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Pic: AP.

By Asian Correspondent Staff May 29, 2015 

A number of Nobel Peace Prize winners called for an end to the persecution of Burma’s Rohingya Muslims Thursday, but there has still been no word from Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi despite mounting international pressure.

Past winners of the prize, including South Africa’s Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ibadi from Iran and former East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, appealed for international aid for Rohingya in Burma’s Rakhine state, describing the persecution as “nothing less than genocide”.

Philanthropist George Soros, who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary, said that there were “alarming” parallels between the plight of the Rohingya and the Nazi genocide.

Not among them, however, was Burmese opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi became an international hero during her years of house arrest for speaking out against the generals who long ruled Burma. She entered politics after her release and has been largely silent about her country’s persecution of the Rohingya.

This week fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate the Dalai Lama urged her to end her silence and help protect the Rohingya.

In recent weeks, thousands of Rohingya have fled persecution and landed on the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, often abandoned by human traffickers or freed after their families paid ransoms.

The Dalai Lama said he has spoken to Aung San Suu Kyi twice about the Rohingya crisis. Pic: AP.

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, told The Australian newspaper that he has discussed the issue with Suu Kyi twice.

She “told me she found some difficulties, that things were not simple but very complicated,” he was quoted as saying. “But in spite of that I feel she can do something.”

Burma (Myanmar) is holding elections later this year, but it is unlikely that Suu Kyi will be allowed to run for president.

Hardline Buddhists marched in Yangon, Burma this week as efforts continued to rescue thousands of Rohingya migrants trapped on rickety boats in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Many carried placards blaming the United Nations for the problem and denying the existence of Rohingya Muslims in Burma.

Malaysian authorities were exhuming 140 graves this week believed to contain the bodies of Rohingya migrants held for ransom by traffickers.

Thailand was to host a regional meeting Friday to help address the crisis.

Additional reporting from Associated Press

China pressure suspected as Malaysia bars Hong Kong teen activist

Student leader Joshua Wong is scolded by government supporters (L) during a promotional event on electoral reform in Hong Kong, China April 25, 2015.-REUTERS/TYRONE SIU

 Tue May 26, 2015 

Malaysia on Tuesday denied entry to a prominent teenage Hong Kong activist for a series of talks on democracy in China, raising concerns that Beijing may have put pressure on Kuala Lumpur.

Joshua Wong, 18, was one of the leaders of last year's pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong that paralyzed key roads in the city for 79 days and presented China's Communist Party leadership with one of its biggest political challenges in decades.

Wong and other protest leaders were accused by China's state media at the time of trying to foment a "color revolution" to undermine Beijing's rule.

He had been invited to Malaysia to participate in academic talks ahead of the 26th anniversary of Beijing's Tiananmen Square demonstrations and bloody crackdown on June 4.

"I don't rule out that there is pressure from the Chinese government," Wong told reporters on arrival at Hong Kong airport.

Wong was detained soon after arriving at the airport on the island of Penang on Tuesday morning, then put on a plane back to Hong Kong soon after. He said a Malaysian immigration official had told him it was a "government order" to deny him entry.

Penang immigration authorities declined immediate comment when contacted by Reuters. The Malaysian Consulate in Hong Kong confirmed that Wong was listed as "not allowed to land" but declined to provide any additional information.

China's Foreign Ministry office in Hong Kong couldn't be reached for any immediate comment.

"We are still demanding that the government make clear why they stopped Joshua Wong from coming here," said Malaysian human rights activist Ng Yap-hwa, who helped organize Wong's visit.

"We're angry at the government's actions because there's no reason that the Malaysian government should stop us from organizing any international talk on the democracy movement."

In December 2012, Malaysia returned six ethnic Uighurs from China's restive Western region of Xinjiang, who were seeking asylum from China, Human Rights Watch reported, criticizing Malaysia for putting their lives at risk.

Malaysian authorities discovered and detained another 155 ethnic Uighurs last October. They were transported to Kuala Lumpur airport but it is unclear what happened to them. Uighurs are a Muslim minority from Xinjiang, an area beset by violence that Beijing blames on Islamist militants and separatists.

It is not only Chinese activists that Malaysian authorities have stopped. In 2013, Australian senator Nick Xenophon was refused entry on national security grounds after participating in an illegal street rally for electoral reforms a year earlier.

(Reporting by Anuradha Raghu and Yantoultra Ngui and Shan Kao; Additional reporting byJames Pomfret and Nicole Li; Editing by Clare Baldwin and Nick Macfie)

U.S. citizen Mohamed Soltan freed from Egyptian prison

Mohamed Soltan, shown in 2012, spent nearly two years in prison as part of a widespread crackdown after a military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. (Courtesy of Soltan Family)

By Erin Cunningham-May 30
CAIRO— Egyptian authorities freed a dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen who had been sentenced to life in prison, his family said Saturday.

U.S. Citizen Mohamed Soltan Freed From Egyptian Prison by Thavam Ratna

Researchers measure giant “internal waves” that help regulate climate

05/06/2015

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Once a day, a wave as tall as the Empire State Building and as much as a hundred miles wide forms in the waters between Taiwan and the Philippines and rolls across the South China Sea – but on the surface, it is hardly noticed.

These daily monstrosities are called “internal waves” because they are beneath the ocean surface and though scientists have known about them for years, they weren’t really sure how significant they were because they had never been fully tracked from cradle to grave.

But a new study, published this week in Nature Research Letter, documents what happens to internal waves at the end of their journey and outlines their critical role in global climate. The international research project was funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Taiwan National Science Council.

“Ultimately, they are what mixes heat throughout the ocean,” said Jonathan Nash, an Oregon State University oceanographer and co-author on the study. “Without them, the ocean would be a much different place. It would be significantly more stratified – the surface waters would be much warmer and the deep abyss colder.

“It’s like stirring cream into your coffee,” he added. “Internal waves are the ocean’s spoon.”

Internal waves help move a tremendous amount of energy from Luzon Strait across the South China Sea, but until this project, scientists didn’t know what became of that energy. As it turns out, it’s a rather complicated picture. A large fraction of energy dissipates when the wave gets steep and breaks on the deep slopes off China and Vietnam, much like breakers on the beach.

But part of the energy remains, with waves reflecting from the coast and rebounding back into the ocean in different directions.

The internal waves are caused by strong tides flowing over the topography, said Nash, who is in OSU’sCollege of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. The waves originating in Luzon Strait are the largest in the world, based on the region’s tidal flow and topography. A key factor is the depth at which the warm- and cold-water layers of the ocean meet – at about 1,000 meters.

The waves can get as high as 500 meters tall and 100-200 kilometers wide before steepening.

“You can actually see them from satellite images,” Nash said. “They will form little waves at the ocean surface, and you see the surface convergences piling up flotsam and jetsam as the internal wave sucks the water down. They move about 2-3 meters a second.”

The waves also have important global implications. In climate models, predictions of the sea level 50 years from now vary by more than a foot depending on whether the effects of these waves are included.

“These are not small effects,” Nash said.

This new study, which was part of a huge international collaboration involving OSU researchers Nash and James Moum – as well as 40 others from around the world – is the first to document the complete life cycle of these huge undersea waves.

The Little-Known Inexpensive Teeth Whitener and Detox Agent

by PAUL FASSA-MAY 26

Before the 20th Century, scientists were willing to put their lives on the line to prove their discoveries. Prior to the turn of that century, Madame Marie Curie had started experimenting with radium and exposing herself to radioactivity during the late 1800s. The accumulation of radioactive toxicity over her life created the type of leukemia that killed her after she had turned 67 in 1934.

The Little-Known Inexpensive Teeth Whitener and Detox Agent by Thavam Ratna

Death metal drummer saving Romania's addicts from HIV

FRIDAY 29 MAY 2015

Addicts in Bucharest shoot up as many as 30 times a day. Paraic O'Brien went to meet the death metal drummer who is trying to stem Romania's drugs and HIV epidemic.

Death metal is the sound track to the "big society" in Bucharest.

Paraic O'Brien went to the Romanian capital to meet Mikhai Tanasescu, a drummer who is also part of a team of young health workers giving out clean needles to addicts and condoms to prostitutes, trying to stem an HIV tidal wave. Mikhai says drumming and performing saved him from the sort of life lived by the addicts he now helps.

The World Bank's global Aids programme is warning that a raft of countries in eastern Europe are on the brink of a new HIV epidemic, driven by cheaper synthetic heroin alternatives. Mikhai reckons that some addicts, using these "legal highs", shoot up 30 times a day. And that means the likelihood of people being infected with HIV goes through the roof.

Among drug users being supplied with clean needles are the addicts who live in the tunnels under Bucharest - as well as a young couple who are forced to bring their small baby to the night-time needle bank. Team leader Dan Popescu says "harm reduction" is all about time. "The first step is to shoot less often," he tells Paraic O'Brien.

It is the perfect storm for drug users across Europe: rocketing levels of legal high injection, coupled with a tightening of the purse strings on health budgets. The political chattering classes are debating over austerity - while people in Bucharest are dying over it. Romania has tried but struggled to plug the funding gap.

So why should people in the UK care about a possible public health crisis in a poor corner of Bucharest? Take the example of Ramona. She has two children in Bucharest, one in Britain. She spends part of her time as a sex worker in Tottenham and Ilford, suburbs of London. In our connected world, HIV "harm reduction" is connected too.

If you would like to donate to ARAS, the Romanian Aids charity featured in Paraic O'Brien's film,click here.

Land seized from Tamils turned into luxury tourist resorts in Sri Lanka, report finds

All the while, hundreds of thousands of Tamil families remain displaced, living in camps.

PEDRO UGARTE / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Internally displaced Tamil civilians are seen at Manic Farm in the northern Sri Lankan district of Vavuniya. A report has found that thousands of hectares of land seized from Tamils during the war are being redeveloped as luxury tourist resorts, industrial projects and army bases.

By: Raveena Aulakh Environment, Published on Thu May 28 2015

Six years after Sri Lanka’s army crushed the Tamil Tiger guerrillas and ended a 26-year civil war that killed tens of thousands of people, a silent war continues under the guise of a land grab, says a new report.

Thousands of hectares of land seized from the locals during the war are being redeveloped as luxury tourist resorts, industrial projects and army bases, the report says.

In some cases, fertile land — also occupied during the war — is being used for farming by soldiers and the produce sold to the very people the land was seized from, it alleges.

The report says tourists can book holidays at luxury beach resorts by calling numbers at the ministry of defence.

All the while, hundreds of thousands of Tamil families remain displaced, living in camps, said Anuradha Mittal, author of the report and executive director of the Oakland Institute, a think tank in California.

“These people see no sign of return despite several demands and petitions,” she said in an interview.

The Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa called the report “baseless” and “unsubstantiated.”

“There is nothing to these allegations,” said Waruna Wilpatha, the acting high commissioner. The army, he said, released 20,000 acres of land in the northern part of the country in June 2014.

“Gradually all land will be released but it first has to be cleared of land mines . . . can’t release without de-mining the land. The new government is committed to doing it.”

On the question of internally displaced people, Wilpatha said there are none. “We closed all the camps and resettled all the IDPs.”

Mittal says she visited camps and met several displaced people — mostly Tamils — who had left their land years ago to escape the shelling.

“They didn’t even get to collect their belongings, forget about the land deeds,” she said. “Now, there is almost no way they can prove that this is their house or their land.”

Thousands of Tamils, she said, are displaced, without homes or livelihoods. Many of those who have been “resettled” through government schemes have often been moved involuntarily to areas that lack proper infrastructure like homes, schools or hospitals.

“They are becoming IDPs (internally displaced people) yet again, in their own land.”

It’s tough to get an estimate about how much land is still being occupied by the Sri Lankan army, said Mittal.

“It’s widespread, I was blown away.” she said. “We have worked on land issues around the world . . . but have never seen anything like this where you just move in because you are either the army or have the support of the largest Sinhala majority.”

(The Oakland Institute has chronicled land-grab cases in Africa, Argentina and Papua New Guinea.)

One woman, from eastern Sri Lanka, told Mittal that the army took over her home and homes of least 40 other families in June 1990.

“When we left, it was not from choice,” said the woman. “We were forcibly evicted without compensation and legal procedure. The army now says that it will leave if the government gives orders to vacate.”

If people pursue the issue, “unidentified visitors come to see you,” she said. “Out of the homes of 40 families, today only seven to eight remain. The rest have been destroyed to make way for the army camp.”

This case is among several chronicled in the Oakland Institute report.

The document notes that what aggravates the situation for the Tamils is the new government’s refusal to take the country off war footing, and the delay in investigating alleged war crimes by both the army and Tamil Tigers.

Apart from land occupation, the report also talks about the huge presence of soldiers still.

An estimated 160,000 soldiers — almost entirely Sinhalese — were stationed in the north in 2014. With the area’s population standing at a little over 1 million people, the occupation means there is one soldier for every six civilians, the report concluded.

Sri Lanka accused of waging 'silent war' as Tamil land is appropriated by army

US thinktank claims post-conflict harmony undermined by military occupation in north and east, combined with land grabs that have marginalised Tamil people

Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil women hold portraits of missing relatives during a protest in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena/AP

Sam Jones-Thursday 28 May 2015

Six years after the end of Sri Lanka’s long and bloody civil war, a “silent” conflict is being waged across the island, with tens of thousands of government troops continuing to occupy the north and east and the army expanding its property developments on land belonging to displaced Tamils, a new report claims.

Sri Lanka Accused of Waging 'Silent War' as Tamil Land is Appropriated by Army by Thavam Ratna