Extortionist’s death threats to president of organization to protect SLFP

 Monday, 03 August 2015

Notorious extortionist Madhawa Wattegama has issued death threats to president of the organization to protect the SLFP Thusitha Halloluwa, reports say.

Thusitha has told his friends that he was threatened when he had gone to request Madhawa not to harass his wife, who is living separately from him.

He has said that he would complain to SLFP’s patron, former president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga about this.

After the incident, Thusitha has strengthened his security and left Colombo for Matara.

Madhawa has threatened Thusitha when the latter had inquired from the former about Rs. 20 million he had lost within a space of half an hour at a Colombo casino.

His wife has told Thusitha about this money, which Madhawa had extorted from local and Indian businessman by selling the name of the prime minister, reports say.

A few weeks ago, Madhawa toured India along with Muttiah Shashidaran, ethanol businessman and brother of cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan, and collected a large sum of money from Indian businessmen by selling the names of prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and ports minister Arjuna Ranatunga.

Thusitha is going to complain to the CID about this, reports add.

Former MP arrested over abduction

2015-08-03

Matale Police has arrested the former UPFA MP Lakshman Wasantha Perera this morning upon his surrender to the police, Police Media Spokesperson ASP Ruwan Gunasekara told Ceylon Today Online.

Perera was arrested in connection with an election related complaint which was lodged on 26 July, ASP Gunasekara stressed. He has allegedly aided and abetted, an abduction and assault incident.

He was arrested till 6 August upon being produced to Matale Magistrate's Courts.

APJ Abdul Kalam: Campaigner for human 

empowerment to the end 

   
Teachers and schoolchildren hold a portrait of the former Indian President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam during a prayer ceremony in Agartala, India, July 29, 2015. Kalam, considered the father of the country’s missile programme, died on Monday in hospital at the age of 83, a doctor said. Popularly known as “Missile Man,” Kalam led the scientific team that developed missiles able to carry India’s nuclear warheads. He became a national folk hero after helping oversee nuclear tests in 1998 that solidified India’s status as a nuclear weapons state. REUTERS

 Monday, 3 August 2015

A man who wanted his fellow citizens to work an extra-day
APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India, scientist with a heart, campaigner for youth empowerment through knowledge and fighter against poverty, is no more. At the age of 84, he collapsed to his death while delivering a lecture to students at the Indian Institute of Management in Shillong. Just before proceeding to Shillong, he is said to have tweeted in full spirit that he was going to talk on a liveable planet to students there.

APJ Abdul Kalam Campaigner For by Thavam Ratna

Hundreds of civilians killed in US-led air strikes on Isis targets – report

Airwars project details ‘credible reports’ of at least 459 non-combatant deaths, including 100 children, in 52 air strikes

 

A US-led air strike in October in Kobani, Syria, during fighting between Syrian Kurds and Islamic State. Chris Woods, of Airwars, said: ‘You can’t have an air war of this intensity without civilians getting killed or injured.’ Photograph: Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images

Monday 3 August 2015

The air campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has killed more than 450 civilians, according to a new report, even though the US-led coalition has so far acknowledged just two non-combatant deaths.

More than 5,700 air strikes have been launched in the campaign, which nears its first anniversary this Saturday, with its impact on civilians largely unknown.

Now Airwars, a project by a team of independent journalists, is publishing details of 52 strikes with what it believes are credible reports of at least 459 non-combatant deaths, including those of more than 100 children.

It says there is a “worrying gulf between public and coalition positions” on the campaign’s toll on civilians.

To date the US Central Command (Centcom), the lead force in the campaign, has published one official investigation – a report in May that found two children were killed in a November 2014 strike in Syria.

Israeli leaders propose harsh new measures to fight ‘Jewish terrorism’

Israelis take part in a rally Aug. 1, 2015 in Tel Aviv's Meir Square in solidarity with the victims of an attack on six participants of a gay pride march in Jerusalem a few days earlier. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

By William Booth and Ruth Eglash-August 2

JERUSALEM — Israeli leaders proposed harsh new measures Sunday to curb “Jewish terrorism,” following a wave of extremist violence that left Israeli and Palestinian children dead in knife and arson attacks.

[Jewish extremists torch Palestinian homes, killing toddler, authorities say]


Yishai Schlissel, who stabbed three at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem 10 years ago, appeared in an Israeli court July 31 on suspicions that he stabbed six people during a pride parade the day before. (AP)

After a deadly stabbing at a gay pride parade and the death of a toddler in an arson attack, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin warned against acts of extremism, saying that flames of hatred were spreading across Israel. (Reuters)

Israeli Leaders Propose Harsh New Measures to Fight ‘Jewish Terrorism’ by Thavam Ratna

Regime warplane crashes into marketplace in Syrian town

At least 27 killed after regime jet crashes into marketplace in rebel-held Ariha during bombing raid

Market destroyed in Syrian town of Arih

Monday 3 August 2015
At least 27 people have been killed and dozens injured after a Syrian fighter jet crashed into a marketplace in the rebel-held town in north-west Syria, witnesses said.

The UK-based Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence across Syria, said most of the dead were civilians in Ariha, which fell to a coalition of Islamist insurgents in May. Scores were also injured, according to the observatory and witnesses. There was no immediate reaction from the Syrian army.

The military plane bombed the centre of the town, which is in Idlib province, before crashing in the middle of the marketplace on Monday, witnesses told Reuters. “The plane had dropped a bomb on the main bazaar street at low altitude only seconds before it crashed,” said Ghazal Abdullah, who was close to the incident. The observatory said the jet was not shot down.

Fighting has intensified recently in Idlib province between government forces and an insurgent grouping called Jaish al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) which includes al-Qaida’s Syrian wing Nusra Front.

The fall of Ariha has left the insurgents in control of most of Idlib, which borders Turkey and neighbours Latakia province, the heartland of President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect, on the Mediterranean coast. Most of the rich agricultural region, however, has since come under heavy aerial bombardment by Assad’s forces in a counter-offensive to regain lost ground.

The Syrian army has also used air strikes in an effort to halt insurgent advances into Latakia province. Those advances have brought rebel forces closer to government-held coastal areas north of the capital, Damascus. Syria’s western flank, which fringes both the Mediterranean and the Lebanese border, also contains the country’s other the major cities and is seen as crucial for Assad’s hold on power.

Syria’s civil war began in March 2011. The United Nations says more than 220,000 people have been killed and at least a million wounded in the war.

The Mysterious Death of an Indian Muckraker

Jagendra Singh paid the ultimate price for exposing political corruption in Uttar Pradesh. But was his death murder or something even more nefarious?

BY SONIA PAUL-AUGUST 3, 2015

UTTAR PRADESH, India — The afternoon’s heat was thick and voices of the crowd low as two young men stood on a straw bed outside the ancestral home of the late freelance journalist Jagendra Singh. Over 100 people had gathered on June 15 for a sit-in here in Khutar, a village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The young men reached for a banner strung against a tree to post Singh’s photograph in its center. It stated the reason for the sit-in, with bright red Hindi script emblazoned across the top: “Justice for martyred journalist Jagendra Singh.”

The Mysterious Death of an Indian Muckraker by Thavam Ratna

China bureau investigates Shaolin Temple abbot over sex and fraud claims

Shi Yongxin. Image via @echinanews’s Twitter feed.

By Asian Correspondent Staff Aug 03, 2015

The controversial abbot of China’s famed Shaolin Temple is under investigation over online allegations of misbehavior.

The religious affairs bureau under the Denfeng city government says it was asked by the national body to look into claims made against Master Shi Yongxin.

The one-sentence notice was issued late last week and viewed on the city government website on Monday.

The notice didn’t specify any of the claims, although media reports say the accusations include that Shi fathered children with at least two women and embezzled temple funds.

The accuser, Shi Zhengyi, said the abbot is an “embezzler and womanizer” with illegitimate children.

China’s Xinhua news agency reported that the Bhuddist Association of China has called for for full clarification.

View image on Twitter

 Follow

China Xinhua News 

✔@XHNews

#China Buddhist Association steps in after alleged #Shaolin Temple abbot scandal http://xhne.ws/YjokM 

1:41 AM - 30 Jul 2015

•  
 
•  3737 Retweets
 
•  4646 favorites

Calls to the temple in Henan province south of Beijing rang unanswered.

Shi has been criticized by some for seeking to turn the temple and its famed kung fu fighting monks into a commercial enterprise.

China News Service reported Monday that Shi was absent from a planned delegation of monks to Thailand. The organizer told the service that he was informed Saturday that Shi would not be able to travel to Thailand as planned.

Shi was supposed to head a delegation of 42 monks and 45 other Buddhists at cultural exchange activities in Bangkok and Chiangmai between August 1 and 6.

Additional reporting from Associated Press | Image via @echinanews

India signs landmark peace agreement with Nagaland separatist group

03.08.2015

New Delhi has endorsed a peace accord with the country's separatist group in its northeastern state, Nagaland. The rebel organization has been fighting for an independent ethnic homeland for Naga tribes.

Officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and representatives of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) met in New Delhi to sign a peace deal.

"We are making a new beginning today… 60 years is a long time of fighting, the wounds are deep," Prime Minister Modi said at a conference together with NSCN-IM's Secretary General Thuingaleng Muivah (pictured above), the rebel outfit's co-founder.

Modi also tweeted pictures of the proceedings.

Today, we mark not merely the end of a problem but the beginning of a new future. #Nagaland http://nm4.in/1g0sUvP 

Narendra Modi 

✔@narendramodi

Today, we mark not merely the end of a problem but the beginning of a new future. #Nagaland http://nm4.in/1g0sUvP 

10:47 AM - 3 Aug 2015

•  
 
•  1,7941,794 Retweets
 
•  2,0412,041 favorites

"Our oldest insurgency is getting resolved, and it is a signal to other smaller groups to give up weapons," Modi said at the signing ceremony at his residence.

"Since becoming prime minister, peace, security and economic transformation of the northeast have been among my highest priorities. It is also at the heart of my foreign policy, especially Act East," Modi said, referring to his latest plans for improving relations with neighbors in South East Asia.

The terms of the agreement were not immediately known, although the Modi government said it planned to develop the region, which consists of seven other states and has considered itself neglected by mainstream Indian society because of its different ethnic and cultural roots and geographical location.

The NSCN-IM has been fighting for an independent country for Naga tribes in Nagaland and its neighboring state Manipur, since Indian independence in 1947, and is one of the 30-odd separatist movements in India's northeastern part, bordered by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Despite a ceasefire with the Indian government in 1998, no formal peace agreement has been made as yet. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, more than 170 people have died this year alone in Nagaland in terror-related incidents.

mg/jil (Reuters, AP)

India orders clampdown on Internet porn, sparks censorship debate

Backlit keyboard is reflected in screen of Apple Macbook Pro notebook computer in Warsaw February 6, 2012.REUTERS/KACPER PEMPEL/FILES (REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE)

Mon Aug 3, 2015

India has blocked hundreds of adult websites to prevent pornography becoming a social nuisance, a government official said on Monday, sparking a debate about censorship and freedom in the world's largest democracy.

In India's first big crackdown on Internet porn, service providers have been directed to block 857 websites, N.N. Kaul, a spokesman at the department of telecommunications, told Reuters.

"Free and open access to porn websites has been brought under check," Kaul said.

"We don't want them to become a social nuisance."

The government, in a 17-page order issued on July 31 and leaked to freedom of speech activists on Monday, listed offending sites and directed service providers to block access on the grounds of morality and decency.(bit.ly/1DkfEx8)

Last month, the Supreme Court refused to impose an outright ban after hearing a petition that said Internet porn fuelled sex crime. The court said individuals should be free to access such websites in private.

But the court asked the home ministry to submit its views and the government acted after the ministry sent a letter to the telecom secretary, Kaul said.

Over the weekend, several sites became inaccessible and displayed messages that they were blocked on instructions of the competent authority. The hash tag #Pornban became a trend on Twitter.

"Porn ban is anti-freedom, impractical, not enforceable. Politically not very smart too. Avoidable. Let's not manage people's private lives" best-selling novelist Chetan Bhagat posted on Twitter.

India has the second largest number of internet users after China. Social media and smartphone use is growing rapidly.

In 2011, India urged social network companies to screen content and remove offensive material. A year later, the government faced criticism for ordering dozens of Twitter accounts to be blocked for spreading rumours.

Censorship extends to Bollywood and Hollywood movies, with regulators often forcing producers to edit dialogues and scenes to suit audiences in the generally conservative country.

Demand for porn, however, seems strong. Pornhub, an adult entertainment website included in the ban, last year said India ranked fifth for daily visitors.

Kaul said the government was working on a long-term solution and suggested the ban would not remain indefinitely.

(Additional reporting by Aman Shah in Mumbai; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Robert Birsel)

Clean Your Liver And Lose Weight In 72 Hours With This Powerful Drink

May 26, 2015

Make this powerful drink for liver cleaning and get rid of extra weight without too much effort.

When the organism if full of toxins, the liver can’t perform its functions normally. In this case the process of losing weight is significantly slower and you gain more and more weight.

People don’t consider that the liver is probably the most important factor which decides if you are going to lose weight or that process will be stopped without any results for long time.

That is the reason why people don’t lose weight despite their great effort and different methods.

If you are one of them who want to lose weight then try this recipe and detox your liver entirely.

Consume it for 3 days and clean your liver from any toxins and filth which live inside.

How it is used?

Consume this drink 3 times a day during 3 days. Avoid heavy meals during these 3 days. Eat healthy food in order to ease the process of detoxification of the liver and lose some weight.

Ingredients:

-3 lemons

– 1 cup of cut parsley

– 5 steams celery

– 6 cups water

Instructions:

Put in blender the lemon juice, parsley and celery and mix it, then add water and mix again. Consume 2 glasses, 3 times a day on empty stomach. Repeat the procedure in the next 2 days. Than make a break for 7-10 days and then repeat the treatment.

'Cool new hands': boy gets first ever double hand transplant

WEDNESDAY 29 JULY 2015
Eight-year-old Zion Harvey lost both his hands when he was two and is the first child to receive the pioneering operation.

Surgeons at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have performed the first ever double hand transplant on a child, having successfully transplanted two donor hands and and forearms.

Eight-year-old Zion Harvey lost both his hands and feet when he contracted a serious infection at the age of two. When asked if he felt different following the operation he said: "I'm the same person that I used to be, but with cool new hands."

Doctors at the hospital hailed the surgery as a breakthrough and said that it promised to open the door to an expanded use of transplant surgery for children.

A 'huge step forward'

Lead surgeon Dr Scott Levin said "it's a huge step forward in the movement of reconstructive surgery and now what we call restorative surgery."

A team of forty medical practitioners were involved, with four separate teams working during the surgery itself. Dr Levin explains the teams "had to find all the structures, put pre-made tags on them for every single structure that we'd have to repair and they would have to sew those on to the nerves, blood vessels, tendons etc."

Though the operation is considered a success, doctors caution that Zion still needs extensive physiotherapy and will take immuno-suppressant medication for life to stop his body from rejecting his new hands.

On Sri Lanka, ICP Asks UN of Domestic Probe, "Peacebuilding" Funds
Pioli & Ban Ki-moon, Sri Lanka war crimes denial not shown. UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 31 -- The UN delayed the war crime report on Sri Lanka until September. Now UN documents leaked to Channel 4indicate that the UN is trying to undercut that report and support a merely national investigation, or cover-up. 

  On July 31, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric,transcript here:

Back on June 24, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Dujarric:

Council which already delayed release of their report.Video here.

On Sri Lanka ICP Asks UN of Domestic Probe Peacebuilding Funds by Thavam Ratna