South China Sea dispute: China 'deploys missiles'

China deploys surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea, say Taiwan and US Officials.

One of the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea

WEDNESDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2016

Tensions in the South China Sea region have flared after reports China deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile from Woody Island, which is part of the disputed Paracel Island chain.

This comes after Fox News published satellite images taken on February 14 appearing to show two batteries of HQ-9 surface-to-air missile launchers and a radar system on the island coastline. The HQ-9 is a Chinese-made mobile air defence system, with a reported range of 125 miles which could pose a threat to airplanes, civilians or military flying close by, according to US defence official.

South China Sea dispute

The island has been under Chinese control for more than 40 years, despite both Taiwan and Vietnam claiming ownership. However, the presence of missiles would significantly increase tensions in the ongoing dispute and frictions have already sparked concerns that area is becoming a flashpoint with global consequences.

Taiwan defence ministry spokesman Major General David Lo said missile batteries have been set up on the island and Japan said it had "gave concerns" over China's moves in the South China Sea.

China however, disregards the accusations and a ministry spokesman said any deployment of missiles on its territory would be legitimate.

"I want to stress that the Paracel Islands are China's inherent territory, China is absolutely within its legitimate rights to deploy defence facilities on its own territory," Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

Mr Lei said he was not aware of the specifics of the situation but added that any facilities built would be in relation to national defence, not militarisation. He also accused western media of creating the missile deployment story after Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said in a statement it had "grasped that Communist China had deployed" an unspecified number of missiles on the disputed island.

Pledge not to militarize

Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of the US Pacific Command, said the deployment of missiles to the Paracels are contrary to China's pledge not to militarize the region.

Japanese government spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said China has changed the "status quo" in the region and "we cannot accept this fact".

China's Defence Ministry said defence facilities on "relevant islands and reefs" had been in place for many years, adding that reports were nothing but "hype".

"Indisputable sovereignty"

China claims it has "indisputable sovereignty" over the islands in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters, controlling most of the region including the large Paracel and Spratly islands.
The area is rich in natural resources and fish with the presence of many low-lying islands and reefs. Despite this, it is the world's second busiest trade route with $5 trillion in global trade passing through every year.

The United States said it will continue conducting freedom of navigation patrols by ships and aircraft to assure unimpeded passage through the region, where Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

 Puerto Rico Is Nearing the Brink Of Bankruptcy

BY DAVID FRANCIS-FEBRUARY 17, 2016

Without the help it has requested, Puerto Rico is going broke.

That’s according to newly-released and unaudited financial documents for the U.S. commonwealth for fiscal year 2014. Last year, Puerto Rican Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla acknowledged the island is not able to service its $70 billion debt load. Now, there is “substantial doubt” that San Juan’s government can operate in the long-term.

The documents also said Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank is at danger of missing upcoming debt payments. The island has a $49.2 billiondeficit as of June 30, 2014 — or $2.5 billion more than in 2013 — so cash isn’t available to pay down its loans.

Ahead of the documents’ release late Tuesday, the White House said Puerto Rican labor leaders and business executives met with senior Obama administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell. Lew acknowledged the extent of the crisis in the commonwealth, and administration officials repeated President Barack Obama’s demand for Congress to give Puerto Rico a version of Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. That would let the island create a process for its creditors to recoup some of the owed funding. But Obama’s push has stalled in both the House and the Senate.

So have talks with Wall Street creditors, who want Puerto Rico’s government to be more transparent about the state of its finances. Since the new documents were long delayed and didn’t contain audited financial information for the Government Development Bank, nor for the government’s largest pension fund, creditors will all but certainly remain on edge.

Puerto Rico’s bonds are popular with municipal money managers because they are tax-free. The island has asked for a 45 percent haircut on their loans, which would allow it to pay far less than what it borrowed. So far, the creditors have refused.

Growing its way back to financial health is near impossible. Puerto Rico has a 45 percent poverty rate, and its tax base has shrunk. Its population, meanwhile, has left for the United States in droves, shrinking by about 48,000 between 2010 to 2013 — more than during the 1980s and 1990s combined.

In a statement accompanying the release of the document, Padilla once again demanded that Congress to come to San Juan’s rescue, and accusedlawmakers of seeking “an excuse for inaction.” If that continues, Puerto Rico will have few — if any — options to keep it from running out of cash.

Photo Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

China forbids journalist from traveling to accept Harvard prize

by AP News-16th February 2016

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese journalist says he has been blocked from traveling to accept a Harvard University prize for a 2008 book chronicling the Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1961.

Harvard’s Nieman Fellows in December awarded the Louis M. Lyons Award to Yang Jisheng, a 66-year-old former journalist at China’s official Xinhua News Agency, for a 1,200-page book documenting a decades-long government effort to whitewash what he found to be a man-made disaster that claimed at least 36 million Chinese lives.

Yang said by phone Tuesday that Xinhua had forbidden him to travel or to speak with foreign media. He did not specify how Xinhua would prevent him from traveling.

In November, Yang accepted a prize in Sweden where he lamented that truth-seekers were “pressured, attacked and slandered.”

Fighting outside Delhi's Patiala House court hearing JNU student sedition case

BY ADITYA KALRA AND RUPAM JAIN-Wed Feb 17, 2016

Fighting broke out on Wednesday around Delhi's Patiala House court hearing a case against a Jawaharlal Nehru University student union leader accused of sedition, a charge that has sparked protests across university campuses and criticism the government was curtailing free speech.

Kanhaiya Kumar, head of the student union at Delhi's JNU, was rushed from a car through a gate into the court by police officers protecting him with a riot shield.

He was later remanded in custody by the court until March 2.

Lawyers chanting nationalist slogans earlier barged into the compound and threw stones at reporters, defying a Supreme Court order banning protests after a punch-up at a hearing on Monday.

Wednesday's remand hearing was briefly adjourned as the Supreme Court rushed a team of commissioners to investigate, after lawyers for Kumar said he had been attacked inside the Patiala House court in New Delhi.

"A person has come dressed as a lawyer and beaten him up inside the court premises today," said defence lawyer Vrinda Grover. "The police couldn't do anything, it's a complete violation of the Supreme Court order."

Kumar told the court he was manhandled on the way in and lost his shoes in the process. "I was rebuked, I was attacked," he said.

Kumar, 28, was arrested at a student rally last week held to commemorate the anniversary of the execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist for his role in an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

Supporters of Kumar, a member of the leftist All India Students' Federation (AISF) that has a Soviet hammer and sickle as its logo, deny he made incendiary remarks.

A smartphone video of a speech given by Kumar during the event has been widely reposted on Indian media. In it, Kumar criticises a right-wing student fraternity and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu-nationalist umbrella group to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party belongs.

He also explicitly eschews violence.

NATIONAL ANGER

The case has triggered the biggest nationwide protests by students in a quarter of a century and a tough response from supporters of the nationalist government who say the actions against Kumar are justified.

In a climate of growing polarisation, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is cranking up Hindu-nationalist rhetoric ahead of an election in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, next year.

The opposition Congress party and communist leaders have rallied behind Kumar and his AISF in its standoff with the pro-BJP student union, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

As protests have escalated, the chief of Delhi police faces accusations of taking political orders and failing to investigate alleged violence by nationalists loyal to Modi.

In one case, BJP lawmaker O.P. Sharma attacked a communist politician on the street outside the courthouse on Monday in an incident caught on television.

"If I had committed a crime then my party would have thrown me out," Sharma told Reuters. "I am ready to face any kind of punishment to defend my core philosophy."

FREE SPEECH, POLITICAL POLICING?

Some commentators and legal experts fault the government for exploiting the colonial-era sedition law to silence its opponents, when it should instead have left college rectors to manage what they say is no more than exuberant student debate.

"Any critical comment against government policy does not amount to sedition," Soli Sorabjee, a former attorney general of India, told Reuters. "Only acts that can disturb law and order or incite violence can be stamped as sedition."

Modi's party rejected the criticism.

"The constitution is clear that freedom of speech does not extend to the right to promote secession; slogans that demand the disintegration of India cannot be condoned," said M.J. Akbar, a BJP spokesman.

Particular attention has focused on the role of Delhi police chief B.S. Bassi, who has cracked down on student agitators but not acted against Sharma.

Earlier Bassi emerged confident from a meeting with officials in Modi's office, saying police had "ample evidence" against Kumar. "It was only on the basis of the evidence that we arrested him," he told reporters.

After Kumar's hearing, Bassi added: "We have managed the situation. We ensured that no serious breach of public order occurred despite a very charged environment. The use of force, in my opinion, would have been counterproductive."

Kumar's mother denied accusations of disloyalty.

"My son spoke the truth. He was arrested because his views questioned the government policy and their agenda," Meena Devi told Reuters by telephone from her home in the eastern state of Bihar. "My son can never be a traitor, he would lay down his life for his country."

(Additional reporting by Suchitra Mohanty and Andrew MacAskill; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

The radical plan to destroy time zones

By Adam Taylor-February 12

Last Summer, North Korea did something a little odd. On the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation, the closed and authoritarian state announced it was permanently turning its clocks back half an hour. The country was creating its own time zone: Pyongyang time.

As a plan, it didn't make a lot of sense. Many, understandably, interpreted it as just another example of Pyongyang's characteristically illogical policy logic. Yet Pyongyang time also highlighted something else. All around the world, time zones make little sense. Russia currently has 11 time zones, while China just has one.

Spanish people are said to be constantly tired because they are in the wrong time zone. Nepal is –inexplicably – the only country in the world to have a time zone that is set to 45 minutes past the hour.

[North Korea’s new time zone is perfectly bizarre]

A recent history of time zones

A look at the development of time zones, from solar time to coordinated universal time. (WonderWhy/YouTube)

Looking over this chaotic landscape, it's reasonable to ask: Are time zones inherently flawed? That's what Steve Hanke and Dick Henry think.

A few years back Hanke, a prominent economist with Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow with the CATO Institute think tank, and Henry, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins, teamed up to propose a new calendar designed to fix the inefficiencies of the current one. The plan was dubbed the "Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar." Last month, after reading a WorldViews story about Pyongyang time, Hanke reached out to us to detail another idea that he and Henry had devised to fix the chaos caused by time zones.

The plan was strikingly simple. Rather than try to regulate a variety of time zones all around the world, we should instead opt for something far easier: Let's destroy all these time zones and instead stick with one big "Universal Time."

Read More

SMU law student jailed 2 months for accessing professors' accounts

Georgy Kotsaga plugged a USB hardware keylogger into the common desktop in the classrooms of two professors to capture their login details, in an attempt to cheat in an exam. 

File photo of students sitting for an exam. (Photo: AFP/Jung Yeon-Je)

• By Vanessa Paige Chelvan-16 Feb 2016

SINGAPORE: A Russian student enrolled in Singapore Management University’s Juris Doctor course has been jailed for two months for accessing the eLearn accounts of two professors and deleting 19 examination scripts.

Georgy Kotsaga, 32, had earlier pleaded guilty to two charges under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act. Another two charges were taken into consideration in sentencing him.

The court heard Kotsaga had bought a USB hardware keylogger, which he plugged into the common desktop in the classrooms of two professors. The keylogger captured the professors’ login details, which Kotsaga later used to gain access to their accounts.

During an exam on Nov 24 last year, Kotsaga went to the toilet and used his professor’s login details to gain access to the scripts of the other 18 students also sitting for the online exam.

Kotsaga was having difficulties answering the exam questions and viewed the scripts of his classmates for about 20 minutes in the hopes of finding “useful information”.

After the exam, he logged into his professor’s account again to view the script of the top student in the module. Realising that he would not do very well in the exam and worried about his GPA, Kotsaga used his professor’s account to delete all the exam scripts, under the impression that he would get a second chance to attempt the exam.

But his plan was foiled by SMU’s IT system that makes real-time backups, and all the scripts were later recovered.

KOTSAGA’S ACTIONS ‘SPITS IN THE FACE OF EDUCATION SYSTEM’: DPP

In urging the court to impose a sentence of between two to three months’ jail, Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo cited four aggravating factors.

Kotsaga’s actions were “carefully planned and premeditated”, DPP Khoo said, pointing to Kotsaga’s purchase of the keylogger to commit the offences. This shows “a higher level of sophistication” as compared to other offenders who “merely stumble upon a password written down somewhere or guess the password to an account”, the DPP said.

If Kotsaga had succeeded in deleting the scripts, the outcome “would have been catastrophic”, DPP Khoo said. Kotsaga had cheated by accessing his fellow classmates’ scripts in the middle of the exam and later deleted all the scripts after realising he would not do well. This “spits in the face of the education system”, the DPP told the court.

The deputy also added that great harm could have been caused to the professor, who was “unnecessarily dragged into investigations and questioned about the offences” because Kotsaga had “used him to mask his criminal actions”.

Cybercrimes are difficult to detect, the DPP noted, and more so when an offender takes steps to mask his offence. Kotsaga had changed the IP address of his iPhone before accessing the professors’ accounts, although he was eventually tracked down.

DPP Khoo also highlighted Kotsaga’s motive for committing the offences, which he did “purely to further his own self-interest”, having “no qualms destroying the interests of other innocent people”, the DPP said, calling for the court to impose a sentence that would deter other like-minded offenders given the ease of access to keyloggers, which are extremely simple to use and difficult to detect.

For the unauthorised access of his professors’ accounts, Kotsaga could have faced up to two years’ jail and/or fined up to S$5,000. As for the unauthorised deletion of exam scripts from a computer, Kotsaga could have been jailed up to three years and/or fined up to S$10,000.

- CNA

Humanitarian aid convoys enter besieged areas in Syria

Food and medicine packages being provided to starving civilians in seven besieged locations, including Madaya and Zabadani

The convoys were announced by UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura on Tuesday. Photograph: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images

Kareem Shaheen in Beirut-Wednesday 17 February 2016

Aid convoys loaded with food and medicine to relieve starving civilians have entered five besieged areas in Syria, the government of Bashar al-Assad has said.

The convoys, announced by the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, on Tuesday night, entered the Damascus suburb of Moadamiyah, which is under siege from forces loyal to Assad, as well as Fua and Kefraya, which are besieged by rebels.

A further convoy has entered the city of Madaya, and another is en route to Zabadani. The citizens of both have been starving to death under a siege imposed by forces loyal to the regime. 

Syrian officials said the Madaya convoy had departed from Damascus bearing food, medical supplies and other equipment, as well as a mobile clinic. Several residents in the town have died from malnutrition despite the arrival of an aid convoy last month. The dozens of aid trucks, containing wheat and high-energy foods, were provided by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the UN

UN officials were also expected to meet on Wednesday to decide whether to airdrop supplies in Deir ez-Zor, where hundreds of thousands of people are under siege by Islamic State. The delivery of aid and supplies was agreed as part of a tentative and fragile deal struck last week in Munich for a “cessation of hostilities”. Unverified reports have suggested that up to 20 people in the city have died of starvation.

The fate of the convoys was called into question after the Syrian foreign ministry issued an angry rebuke to De Mistura’s statement, flexing its diplomatic muscle on the back of recent gains on the battlefield. The UN envoy said the provision of aid, part of an agreement reached by major powers in Munich last week, was a test of the Syrian government’s seriousness.

“The Syrian government does not allow neither UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, nor anybody else to talk about testing Syria’s seriousness in any matter,” the foreign ministry said. “Rather, the Syrian government is now in need to test the credibility of the UN special envoy, whose statements since the beginning of his mission to the mass media outlets, completely contradict to [sic] what happened in joint meetings with the Syrian government.”

“The Syrian Arab Republic, in this regard, reaffirms the government’s commitment to deliver humanitarian aid to the people living in areas besieged by terrorists, and this does not have any relation to Geneva, Munich or Vienna meetings, or any other party,” the statement said. “We don’t wait for anyone to remind us of our duties towards our people.”

The Syrian government refers to all opposition fighters as terrorists. Humanitarian agencies believe that more than a million people are living under siege in Syria in dozens of locations, the vast majority of which are sieges imposed by the regime.

Turkey said on Wednesday that it wanted to secure a strip of territory 10km (6 miles) deep on the Syrian side of its border, including the town of Azaz, to prevent attempts to “change the demographic structure” of the area, the deputy prime minister, Yalçın Akdoğan, said in an interview.

Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes have advanced towards the Turkish border in a major offensive in recent weeks. Kurdish militia fighters, regarded by Ankara as hostile insurgents, have taken advantage of the violence to seize territory from Syrian rebels.

Turkey has accused the Kurdish fighters of forcibly displacing Turkmen and Arab communities. Ankara ultimately fears the creation of an independent Kurdish state occupying contiguous territories currently belonging to Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

What actual ‘caveman’ DNA says about the Paleo movement
A worker in Motala, Sweden recovers remains of humans believed to be about 8,000 years old. DNA from the bones has been analyzed for clues to human evolution.

By Peter Whoriskey-February 17

The article kicked off not just a diet, but a movement. Appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine in January 1985, “Paleolithic Nutrition: A Consideration of Its Nature and Current Implications” argued that the human body is “genetically programmed” to run, not on a modern diet, but on the foods consumed by our Stone Age ancestors.

“The human genetic constitution has changed relatively little since the appearance of truly modern human beings, Homo sapiens sapiens, about 40,000 years ago,” S. Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner wrote.

The authors reasoned that human bodies have been shaped more by our prolonged time as hunter-gatherers than by the brief span since the advent of farming. Meat, probably lots of it, as well as fruits and vegetables were in. The staples of agriculture -- breads, cereals, milks and cheeses -- were not.

Three decades later, that academic ripple is now a popular tidal wave. We have not just Paleo diets -- the subject of multiple bestsellers -- but Paleo exercise, Paleo sleeping and Paleo toilets. They’re all based on the premise that our bodies are more suited for Paleo-era habits.

But even as the “caveman” diet rose to become the most Googled diet in 2013 and 2014, evolutionary biologists, with much less advertisement, were using advanced DNA techniques, sometimes on ancient bones, to suggest that the original Paleo premise may be off the mark: In fact, it seems, we have evolved.

Over the last year alone, prominent scientific journals have published evidence of genetic shifts in humans over the last 10,000 years -- apparently in response humankind’s transition to agriculture.

Two relatively recent gene variants help humans survive with deficiencies characteristic of agricultural  diets; another genetic shift appears to help fight the dental cavities that arose with farm-based staples; another changes the way humans digest fats; dozens of others help fight the diseases that came with living at higher densities.

Those new findings add to previously known adaptations to mankind's changing diet. After the domestication of milking animals, many humans evolved to digest milk. Humans also appear to have developed better ways to digest the starches characteristic of agricultural diets.

Read More

Drinking Water on Empty Stomach

We publish below a description of use of water for our readers. For old and serious diseases as well as modern illnesses the water treatment had been found successful by a Japanese medical society as a 100% cure for the following diseases:

Headache, body ache, heart system, arthritis, fast heart beat, epilepsy, excess fatness, bronchitis asthma, TB ***(verify from a consultant)***, meningitis, kidney and urine diseases, vomiting, gastritis, diarrhea, piles, diabetes, constipation, all eye diseases, womb, cancer and menstrual disorders, ear nose and throat diseases.

METHOD OF TREATMENT

1. As you wake up in the morning before brushing teeth, drink 4 x 160ml glasses of water.

2. Brush and clean the mouth but do not eat or drink anything for 45 minute.

3. After 45 minutes you may eat and drink as normal.

4. After 15 minutes of breakfast, lunch and dinner do not eat or drink anything for 2 hours.

5. Those who are old or sick and are unable to drink 4 glasses of water at the beginning may commence by taking little water and gradually increase it to 4 glasses per day. 

6. The above method of treatment will cure diseases of the sick and others can enjoy a healthy life.

The following list gives the number of days of treatment required to cure/control/reduce main diseases:

1. High Blood Pressure (30 days)

2. Gastric (10 days)

3. Diabetes (30 days)

4. Constipation (10 days)

5. Cancer (180 days)

6. TB (90 days) ***(verify from a consultant)***

7. Arthritis patients should follow the above treatment only for 3 days in the 1st week, and from 2nd week onwards – daily.

This treatment method has no side effects, however at the commencement of treatment you may have to urinate a few times. It is better if we continue this and make this procedure as a routine work in our life. Drink Water and Stay healthy and Active.

This makes sense .. The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals not cold water. Maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating!!! Nothing to lose, everything to gain…

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion.

Once this ‘sludge’ reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

A serious note about heart attacks.

1. Women should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting.

2. Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line.

3. You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack.

4. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms.

5. 60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

6. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive. A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this mail sends it to everyone they know, you can be sure that we’ll save at least one life.

Please be a true friend and send this article to all your friends you care about. 

source:

whydontyoutrythis.com

New Constitution: Need To Address Post-War Challenges Effectively

By Lukman Harees –February 16, 2016

Lukman Harees

“Constitutional design processes are loaded with expectations about endurance, efficacy, the resolution of conflicts, and political reconstruction. In the real world, however, most constitutions fail” (Ginsburg et al. 2009: 22;).

Ever since the political changes which ensued in 2015, there appears to be another social contract between the government and the people of Sri Lanka in the forming. Clear signs are there in the horizon that people are now waking upto the reality that country needs a qualitative change of the political culture and a national reconciliation platform, in order to go forward, and that such changed realities are calling for their active participation, inclusion, and transparency to overcome many socio-political challenges including ethnic discord, widespread corruption and abuses. Thus, it is not possible for the drafters to ignore these realities, when the country is in the process of drafting another constitution , to ensure that it incorporates and reflects the needs and aspirations of the citizens it is intended to govern. How the government responds to these calls for public participation and inclusion ,may determine whether constitution-making process unites or further divides this society, whether they help or hinder the creation of a national consensus on fundamental principles and values, and whether the processes and documents that result from them will be deemed legitimate.

There is no single blueprint for how to make a viable constitution, but our Post –Independence decades of constitution-making experience and from elsewhere, underscore that mere top down approaches are rarely effective , without a supportive inclusive and participatory constitution making approach. There should therefore be a healthy blend of an expert- based drafting process, with adequate public consultation, which would more effectively address root causes of conflict and sectarian divisions, and ensure that the political process benefits from the full contribution of all citizens, including women and youth.. To achieve optimal results, constitution makers must have the political will to carry out a genuine process of civic education and consultations, in which not only the views of citizens are carefully considered, but also educated in the process as well, on the national priorities and inherent dangers of following partisan policies. The constitution makers must carefully apply guiding principles, such as transparency and inclusion, and ensure that sufficient time and resources are allocated to the process. Otherwise, political opportunism will take root and people will once again be taken up a blind path to oblivion. We cannot afford to have repeat 1972s/1978s which has polarized our communities and divided our nation.                            Read More

 EU to closely follow Sri Lanka's efforts in addressing human rights issues

Feb 15, Brussels: The European Union Foreign Affairs Council Monday said that it will closely follow Sri Lanka's efforts in addressing human rights issues.

The Foreign Affairs Council which met in Brussels Monday reaffirmed its strong commitment to the United Nations bodies tasked with the promotion and protection of human rights.

The Council said the EU will follow closely Sri Lanka's efforts in addressing human rights issues and in establishing a credible process of transitional justice, accountability, and reconciliation.


The Council said the EU will again actively engage with the Human Rights Council and General Assembly Third Committee to defend and promote the universality, indivisibility, and interdependence of human rights, and will continue to draw the attention of these fora to human rights violations and abuses worldwide.

Singing our National Anthem in our National Languages | Part 2

Image courtesy Narenthiran-

by Devanesan Nesiah 

- on 02/15/2016 

Read Part 1 here. 

There have been diverse responses to the singing of our National Anthem in both our national languages; some sensible, some stupid; some patriotic, some racist. Among the questions that arise are the following:

• If the National Anthem depicts the unitary character of the state, do states that are expressly federal, or de facto federal or quasi federal have no right to a National Anthem? Many countries around the globe fall within these categories but all of them have National Anthems.
• Do those multi lingual countries that have National Anthems that are sung in their National Languages fail to inspire their citizens when their National Anthem is sung in those Languages?
• If the National Anthem cannot be sung in two National languages what of countries which have more than two National Languages in all of which the National Anthem is sung?
• Who are war heroes? Do they include those who committed criminal acts in the course of or in the wake of the war? If we do not differentiate our war heroes from the war criminals, we would be defiling the reputation and honour of our armed personnel, most of whom fought bravely and honorably and suffered much in consequence.
• Why did Tamil separatists oppose the singing of our National Anthem in Tamil? Singing the National Anthem in Tamil would promote National Integration and undermine the cause of the Tamil separatists. The Tamil separatists were intelligent enough to understand this, unlike some of their majoritarian counterparts who oppose the singing of our National Anthem in our National languages thinking that it would lead to secession.
• In fact the LTTE and its hardline supporters were consistently opposed to federalism, even though they may have appeared to be supportive of federalism in some of their negotiations. They too were aware that successful federalism would undermine the case for secession.

Sri Lanka And ‘Misinterpretation’ Of ‘Sovereignty’? – Analysis

By N. Sathiya Moorthy*-FEBRUARY 16, 2016

UNHRC chief Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein’s declaration that it’s for Sri Lanka to decide on an ‘accountability’ probe hides as much as it says. It could not have been otherwise, given that human rights has become a global political tool – and by extension a subject of divisive national discourse nearer home.

The question is this: Who rang the bell in the first place, and who should bell the cat, now. The follow-up query is which bell to tie and around which cat. It’s here, ‘misinterpretations’ are being made from within the present-day Maithiri-Ranil leadership of their ‘National Unity Government.’ At present criticism and misinterpretations from their political opponents is relatively limited and less troubling than might have been thought-to-be.

Having sounded the bugle on ‘war crimes’ and ‘human rights’ violations in Sri Lanka, as yet another means of targetting the post-war Rajapaksa Government, the international community does not know how to handle the situation under a friendlier regime now. Having sympathised with the international community’s position without saying so when President Mahinda Rajapaksa was in power, and purely for extraneous reasons, the UNP majority in the present dispensation has problems carrying the ‘other’ from within.

It can easily be argued that the ‘Combined Opposition,’ under the Rajapaksa tutelage, was at it owing to the political embarrassment and the legal ‘harassment’ being faced by him and his family members. Just now, it is son, Yoshitha, an officer of the Sri Lankan Navy (SLN). President Rajapaksa, wife Shiranthi, brothers, Gota and Basil, have been presenting themselves for investigations into corruption charges flowing from his/their years in office. Before Yoshitha, Basil had spent time in prison.

The sub-text implies if the Rajapaksas or the Combined Opposition, a motley group of parties and MPs that has continued to be with the former President, would have started off on the ‘sovereignty’ issue had it not been for the harassment and embarrassment? The fact is that twice in eight months last year, nearly a half of the nation – and thus, more than a substantial portion of the majority Sinhala community – voted for him and with him. It’s doubtful if they would have done so for the Sirisena-led SLFP but for the greater identification with Mahinda Rajapaksa.READ MORE