Federico Santi, Eurasia Group Europe analyst, comments on the Barcelona terror attack. He speaks with Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Abigail Doolittle on 'What'd You Miss?' (Source: Bloomberg)
By Esteban Duarte Todd White and Rodrigo Orihuela-August 17, 2017
Police in Spain are still hunting the suspected terrorist who killed 13 people by ramming a van into pedestrians on Barcelona’s most iconic avenue before fleeing the scene.
With about 100 more people injured, Catalonia’s regional government said the death toll could rise. Police arrested two people outside the city in connection with the carnage, but the perpetrator wasn’t among them, Catalan officials told a news conference. Police also raised the possibility that an explosion earlier on Thursday that killed one person and brought down a building may be connected to the attack.
The driver mowed into the pedestrianized section of Las Ramblas, knocking people down as he continued for hundreds of meters down the avenue. He then jumped out of the van and fled, according to police. The busy street known for outside cafes and street artists in the heart of Barcelona was strewn with bodies and debris as passersby ran to help the wounded.
“The car came toward me, people were flying in the air -- there were bodies everywhere,” Shari Weise, a 54-year-old visitor to Barcelona from California, said by telephone. “The man next to me got hit and I jumped behind a pole, and pulled a 15 year-old boy behind the pole with me.”
Images of victims being tended to on the sidewalk are all too familiar in Europe. Terrorists in London drove into pedestrians on bridges in two deadly incidents this year. There was also an attack using a commercial vehicle in Stockholm. Last year, trucks plowed through crowds in Berlin and Nice.
In London, authorities responded by fortifying barriers designed to protect pedestrians. Concrete and metal blocks were erected to separate sidewalks from traffic. In Madrid -- which lived with Basque terrorism for decades before Islamist terrorism became the main threat -- most tourist thoroughfares don’t have the barriers that are used to protect institutional targets.
Madrid Bombing
Islamic State claimed the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. Spain has been a target of Islamist-inspired terrorism before. One of the worst incidents in Europe was in Madrid in 2004 when about 200 people were killed by bombs on early morning commuter trains just days before a general election.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy traveled to Barcelona with his deputy and interior minister. Catalan National Assembly, a separatist group, meanwhile halted campaigning ahead of an independence referendum planned for October.
“Terrorists will never defeat a united people that loves liberty in the face of barbarity,” Rajoy said in a Twitter posting.
Spain is the world’s biggest tourist destination after France and the U.S. and the Catalan city of Barcelona is among its star attractions. Spain received more than 75 million foreign visitors last year and tourism is a key provider of jobs.
— With assistance by Chris Kingdon, Nour Al Ali, Rodrigo Orihuela, and Macarena Munoz Montijano
A policeman gives a glass of water to a man as he comforts him after his brother was killed in what police said a spate of drug-related violence overnight, in Manila, Philippines, on Aug 16, 2017. Source: Reuters/Dondi Tawatao
THE Philippines government’s war on drugs has seen its bloodiest days on record since it began in June last year, with at least 58 alleged drug suspects killed so far this week.
Police launched a major operation last night across the capital city Manila in which some 26 people were killed, as President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown intensifies. Manila police spokesman Colonel Erwin Margarejo applauded the raid and said those killed were resisting arrest.
“We are operating also against other street crimes, like robbery, but these people could also be under the influence of drugs,” he said.
“If they resisted violently, our police have to defend themselves.”
It was not immediately clear what was behind the step-up in the number of coordinated police operations this week, but Duterte gave a clear indication on Wednesday it had his blessing.
On Wednesday, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said 32 drug suspects were killed and 109 arrested in Bulacan from the police’s anti-drug operations conducted in a span of 24 hours between August 15 and 16.
Margarejo said it was good 32 criminals had been killed in Bulacan, then added: “Let’s kill another 32 every day. Maybe we can reduce what ails this country.”
Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde said there had been no instruction to change or increase the scale and scope of the anti-drugs campaign.
“This is just part of our ‘one-time, big-time’ operations against illegal drugs,” he told Reuters.
Police officers write a report of a man, who police said was killed in a spate of drug-related violence overnight in Manila, Philippines, on Aug 16, 2017. Source: Reuters/Dondi Tawatao
‘Grave danger’
Duterte also chided human rights groups on Wednesday for getting in the way of his anti-drugs campaign and said police should shoot them if they obstructed justice, a remark the New York-based Human Rights Watch said puts activists “in grave danger.”
Its deputy Asia director, Phelim Kine, described the comments as “like painting a target on the backs of courageous people working to protect the rights and upholding the dignity of all Filipinos.”
The exact number of people killed during the war on drugs is difficult to quantify, with no independent statistics available and police providing comprehensive data only for deaths during anti-drugs operations, where official accounts typically say suspects resisted arrest.
From the start of the drugs war to the end of July, police said over 3,400 people were killed in their operations. Police said about 2,100 deaths among some 13,500 murders over the same period were drugs-related, attributed to turf wars, informants being silenced, or vigilantes killing drug users.
A total of 65 policemen have been killed on the job during this time.
Critics maintain police officers are executing suspects and say it is likely they have a hand in thousands of unsolved murders of drug users by mysterious vigilantes. The PNP and government reject that accusation.
Although the violence has been criticised by much of the international community, Filipinos largely support the campaign and domestic opposition to it has been muted.
Several Senate hearings into allegations Duterte operated a death squad when he was a city mayor and was now using the same approach on a national scale have been inconclusive, while an impeachment complaint filed earlier this year was dismissed by Congress.
National police chief Ronald dela Rosa told reporters on Wednesday there would be no let-up in the war on drugs.
“This is unrelenting, we will continue to operate until the end,” he said.
People cheer as a missile is driven past the stand with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other high ranking officials during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang April 15, 2017.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea's nuclear weapons programme will never be up for negotiation as long as the U.S. government's "hostile policy and nuclear threat continue,"
Pyongyang's deputy U.N. ambassador told United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Guterres spoke by telephone with Deputy Ambassador Kim In Ryong on Tuesday, the North Korean mission to the United Nations said in a statement on Thursday. North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Ja Song Nam is currently in North Korea, also known as DPRK.
"As long as the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat continue, the DPRK ... will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiation table or flinch an inch from the road chosen by itself, the road of bolstering up the state nuclear force," Kim told Guterres according to an account of the phone call given by the North Korea U.N. mission.
Guterres said on Wednesday it was time to "dial down rhetoric and dial up diplomacy" on North Korea and that he had told Russia, Japan, the United States, China and North and South Korea that he was available to help broker talks.
U.S. President Donald Trump warned North Korea last week it would face "fire and fury" if it threatened the United States, prompting North Korea to say it was considering plans to fire missiles towards Guam.
But North Korean media reported on Tuesday that Kim delayed the decision while he waited to see what the United States did next, prompting Trump to praise Kim's "wise" decision.
"As the U.S. launched full-scale provocation against the DPRK across all fields of politics, economy and military, nothing can alter the will and resolve of the army and people of the DPRK to respond by taking resolute retaliatory measures," Kim told Guterres according to the North Korean statement.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously a U.S.-drafted resolution to impose new sanctions on North Korea on Aug. 5 that could slash by a third the Asian state's $3 billion annual export revenue.
Kim told Guterres the resolution "constitutes a flagrant infringement upon (North Korea's) sovereignty and an open challenge to it."
North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and four long-range missile launches.
"The DPRK will make the U.S. pay dearly for all the heinous crime it commits against the state and people of this country," the North Korea U.N. mission said Kim told Guterres.
Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio
Robert Kuttner, co-editor of the American Prospect, got an unexpected interview with White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon on Aug. 15. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist, seemed to take issue with President Trump on North Korea, attacked white supremacists as “clowns” and “losers” and described his efforts against administration rivals in an unusual interview Wednesday with The American Prospect, a progressive magazine.
The interview with magazine co-editor and columnist Robert Kuttner was initiated by Bannon, Kuttner said, in an Anthony Scaramucci-style phone call out of the blue in response to a column Kuttner had written on China.
“Bannon was in high spirits when he phoned me Tuesday afternoon to discuss the politics of taking a harder line with China, and minced no words describing his efforts to neutralize rivals at the Departments of Defense, State and Treasury,” wrote Kuttner.
“’They’re wetting themselves,’ he said, proceeding to detail how he would oust some of his opponents at State and Defense.”
On North Korea, Bannon said: “’Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.’”
President Trump’s political rhetoric on North Korea has differed from before he declared his candidacy to now. (Taylor Turner/The Washington Post)
That comment seemed at odds with Trump’s “fire and fury” threats to use military force against North Korea.
On China, Bannon told Kuttner that the United States was at “economic war” and warned that “one of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it’s gonna be them if we go down this path,” according to the article.
“On Korea, they’re just tapping us along. It’s just a sideshow,” he said.
Bannon was also asked by Kuttner to comment on the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last weekend and President Trump’s reluctance to condemn the participants.
President Trump on Aug. 15 said that “there’s blame on both sides” for the violence that erupted in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
“Ethno-nationalism — it’s losers. It’s a fringe element,” Bannon told the magazine. “I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, eh, help crush it more.”
“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added.
The remarks were startling coming from Bannon, who spent more than four years running the far-right website Breitbart News before he was tapped to join Trump’s campaign.
Bannon, the site’s former executive chair, has called the Breitbart “a platform of the alt-right.”
The alt-right, by some definitions, is a small, deeply conservative movement that seeks a whites-only state. It was his strategy to use the site to channel white supremacist support for Trump and provide a mouthpiece for his populist message during the 2016 election, a move that helped secure him a senior role in the administration.
In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, which left a counterprotester dead and others injured, civil rights leaders have called on Trump to fire Bannon over his ties to the white nationalist community, as The Washington Post has reported.
Asked by reporters Tuesday if he still had confidence in his chief strategist, Trump deflected.
“He’s not a racist, I can tell you that,” Trump said. “But we’ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon.”
Kuttner wrote in Wednesday’s article that he was surprised when he got an email from one of Bannon’s assistants saying he wanted to arrange a meeting. The two ended up speaking by phone on Tuesday afternoon, according to the article.
When the conversation turned to race and the events in Charlottesville, Bannon dodged questions about his role in cultivating the alt-right, according to the article. He also faulted Democrats for focusing on identity politics.
A car plowed into crowds at a white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, killing one person and injuring 19 others. (Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/The Washington Post)
“The longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em,” he said. “I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”
Kuttner said he was puzzled by the fact that Bannon would call an editor at a progressive magazine and “assume that a possible convergence of views on China trade might somehow paper over the political and moral chasm on white nationalism.”
“The question of whether the phone call was on or off the record never came up,” he said. “This is also puzzling, since Steve Bannon is not exactly Bambi when it comes to dealing with the press. He’s probably the most media-savvy person in America.”
War crimes court orders Mali radical to pay €2.7m for Timbuktu rampage Judges order Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi to pay damages for destroying 10 mausoleums and religious sites in 2012 Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, left, at the international criminal court in The Hague. Photograph: AFP/Getty
A 15th-century mosque that has been restored to its former glory after being attacked by militants in 2012. Photograph: AFP/Getty-Video shows militants destroying an ancient shrine in Timbuktu. Photograph: AFP/Getty Agencies in The Hague-Thursday 17 August 2017
A former Islamist militant who was jailed for destroying holy sites in Timbuktu is liable for damages of €2.7m (£2.5m), judges at the international criminal court (ICC) have ruled.
Jihadis used pickaxes and bulldozers to attack the mausoleums and the centuries-old door of the Sidi Yahya mosque.
The sites were built during Mali’s golden age in the 14th century as a trading hub and centre of Sufism, a branch of Islam seen as idolatrous by some groups.
The assault on a world heritage site triggered global outrage, and Mahdi’s case was the first to come before the Hague-based court as a crime of cultural destruction.
Alina Balta, who works at the International Victimology Institute at Tilburg University, said Mahdi’s custodial sentence sent a strong warning that destroying cultural heritage would not go unpunished, and reparations would help “alleviate the lasting imprints” of the crime.
According to the ICC’s 1998 founding accord, the Rome statute, judges can determine that victims are entitled to reparations including “restitution, compensation and rehabilitation”.
The court can also hand out an order against a convicted person, demanding similar reparations.
However, the type and level of compensation awarded on Thursday will be scrutinised amid doubt over whether substantial funds can be secured, and the time it will take to reach victims.
The security situation in northern Mali posed serious challenges, said the Trust Fund for Victims, an agency that will implement the judges’ order.
It has also pointed to a dilemma – the risk in the future that rumours of hefty compensation could provide an incentive for similar attacks in poor countries with cultural treasures.
The reparations ruling is only the second such award handed down by the court since it began work in 2002.
In March, the ICC awarded symbolic damages of $250 to each of the 297 victims of former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga, who is serving 12 years for an attack on a village in 2003.
The court estimated the damage from the attack to be $3.7m, and found Katanga liable for $1m of that total, but it also acknowledged he was penniless.
Mahdi was a member of Ansar Dine, one of the al-Qaeda-linked jihadi groups that seized territory in northern Mali before being mostly chased out by a French-led military intervention in January 2013.
A former teacher and Islamic scholar, he was leader of the so-called Hisbah(Manners Brigade).
Mahdi pleaded guilty to the crime and apologised. He said he had been overtaken by evil spirits and urged Muslims not to follow his example.
The shrines have been restored using traditional methods and local masons, in a project financed by several countries as well as Unesco, the UN agency for education, science and culture.
The bottom line which is yet to be unearthed is that the communications division of this organisation is a clear cut indication of nepotism and the elimination of every principle of management. We have adequate information to reveal how this division was cynically manipulated in order to eliminate those who genuinely supported the cause of human rights. We will reveal a detailed account when the situation arises.
by A Special Correspondent-
( August 17, 2017, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The executive director of a regional human rights organisation who is alleged to have harassed a number of female staff members has attempted to file a fabricated complaint against an ex-employee. This was revealed by a reliable source.
Despite taking the necessary step of resigning as the first step to protect the good name of the organisation which was one time a highly influential human rights entity in the region, the man has spared no expense in trying to assault the sources who revealed the story.
According to the sources; the executive director, along with his long term mentor and protector, yet another director, called the police forces to check the possibilities of “shooting the messengers” who spread the truth about them. But the police were sensible enough to ignore explain the baseless arguments.
As the next step of this emotional, destructive and desperate motivation, the directors are trying to find every possible way to file a case against an ex-employee who was arbitrarily and unfairly terminated from the service with the blessings of the the man hidden behind the screen. “They called it data stealing, but there is not a single complaint against the ex-employee by anyone during his tenure. His work records were absolutely clean,” a reliable source said.
The bottom line which is yet to be unearthed is that the communications division of this organisation is a clear cut indication of nepotism and the elimination of every principle of management. We have adequate information to reveal how this division was cynically manipulated in order to eliminate those who genuinely supported the cause of human rights. We will reveal a detailed account when the situation arises.
However, in the meantime, the directors are spending desperately needed donated financial resources to hunt down those who are revealing the truth about the organization.
After everything is said and done, “This award winning organisation are advocating justice for the victims of human rights abuses in the targeted countries, but in practice, they are producing victim after victim”, a source who worked a decade in the organisation expressed displeasure.
Meanwhile, we would like to inform our readers that we received numerous emails and hate messages from various sources including the child of one of the directors in this organisation. We, at the moment, are compiling all those messages and verifying the sources, before publishing them on the public domain, as we are finding those messages contain the element of intimidation, defamation, extortion, browbeating and threats. Legal action is not being ruled out.
Americans are exhausted keeping up with Donald Trump’s every tweet. People in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Yemen are exhausted by violence and hunger.
Americans are exhausted by political infighting, government inaction, and tweets. In East Africa, the Lake Chad basin, and Yemen, people are exhausted by violence and hunger. Millions have fled their homes to escape deadly conflicts, walking hundreds of miles and eating just one meal per day, if they are lucky. Malnutrition is making them susceptible to life-threatening illness, and they are forced to watch their livestock — the only way to make a living in many of these communities — starve to death. The United Nations has called this the worst humanitarian emergency since World War II, with 20 million people at risk of starvation in just four African and Middle Eastern countries.
And yet most Americans have only a vague idea this is happening. A recent poll by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) showed that only 15 percent of Americans had “a lot” of awareness of the ongoing global hunger crisis. Aid organizations like mine are struggling like never before to get people to pay attention. We just can’t seem to cut through the daily onslaught of U.S. political news.
In drought-stricken northern Kenya last month, I met mothers who were forced to make decisions that no mother should ever have to make: Which of their children should they try to save? Many brought only their healthiest kids for treatment at our outreach clinic in Turkana County, the ones they thought could survive. They had left the sickest ones at home to die. Families in this region have raised livestock for hundreds of years, but this year’s drought has been the longest and most severe that they can remember. Many have watched their herds of sheep and goats die off — both because of a lack of water and, in a cruel twist, because on the rare occasion that it does rain, the animals drown in flash floods or drink too much and die of water intoxication.
In the long term, these communities need help adapting to a changing climate that is fast making traditional ways of life impossible. Encouraging children to enroll and stay in school and helping communities better prepare for and recover from future droughts will be key. But the immediate priority for aid organizations must be saving lives, which means helping families and livestock survive until the next growing season this fall.
In Turkana County alone there are 60,000 children who could die in the next three months unless we deliver additional aid
In Turkana County alone there are 60,000 children who could die in the next three months unless we deliver additional aid. The data shows that this drought is proving to be worse than the devastating 2011 drought in nearly Somalia, where a quarter of a million people died— half of them before the U.N. famine declaration. According to UNICEF, nearly 1.4 million children are at imminent risk of death in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen; that’s more children than are enrolled in school in all of New York City.
A critical lesson from the 2011 drought was that we have to act early — and humanitarian groups have. Save the Children is screening children for malnutrition, providing supplemental feeding and water purification tablets, and trucking in water, as are other nongovernmental organizations and aid agencies. The U.S. government has also stepped up. In May, Congress appropriated an additional $990 million for emergency aid to Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Those funds bring the total U.S. humanitarian relief budget to $9.3 billion this year. And one bright spot in an otherwise dire story is that U.S. humanitarian assistance continues to be a bipartisan cause.
But the scale of the need continues to dwarf the scale of the assistance. The U.N.’s $4.9 billion humanitarian appeal is just 50 percent funded — and that’s only for Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Eight of the largest U.S.-based humanitarian NGOs have responded by forming the Global Emergency Response Coalition to raise awareness and funds to help those in desperate need in 10 countries impacted by drought and conflict.
When Americans know about crises, they are unbelievably generous. We saw this generosity after the earthquake in Nepal and during the Ebola crisis in West Africa. But while the media and much of the American public was obsessing about President Donald Trump’s tweets, rains and harvests were failing, conflict was escalating, and mothers were losing their children in places like northern Kenya.
It’s time to log off Twitter and do something about it. No child should die of malnutrition in 2017.
15 AUGUST 2017 A human rights activist leading a continuous campaign seeking information on thousands of disappeared Tamils has been threatened with death by men who assaulted her.
Two men, who came in a motor bicycle on Monday (14) night, threatened Mariyasuresh Easwary of Mulaitivu who has been in the forefront of a vigil that has been going on for over five months.
Her husband has disappeared in 2009 after being arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy during the final stages of Sri Lanka's civil war.
'Severe consequences'
The men who came in the motorbike stopped her near Theerthakarai cemetery in Mullaithivu, while she was travelling alone in the night. The unidentified men groped and slapped her after demanding her to stay away from the campaign so that others will not carry on with the search for their loved ones.
"If you leave the campaign, the others will follow. If you don't, you will have to face severe consequences," the men threatened.
The relatives of the disappeared in Mullaithivu recently marked 150 days of protest with special prayers at Wattrapaalai Kannagi Amman Kovil in Mullaitivu.
Sri Lanka is a nation moving towards turmoil.A phenomenon which has not yet fully manifested itself but the subterfuge is slowly unfolding.To the masses, it is increasingly becoming evident that the rhetorics of the politicians on patriotism and nationalism are mere empty words.This nation has politicians the majority of whom are a set of liars, fraudsters, opportunists and confidence tricksters. This is not only in the government but includes those in the so called joint opposition. The few honest and sincere politicians are not able to withstand the tsunami of the corrupt.
Sri Lanka too, as in any democratic state, has enshrined in the Constitution the three arms of governance viz. the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary.Each to the best possible extent separated in the use of its powers.This doctrine of separation was blatantly diluted during the long rule of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.An era which witnessed the gradual precipitation in the breakdown of these institutions. Of special relevance is the consequential blow paralysing one of the fundamental pillars of good governance, the Rule of Law.As a natural extension of this paralytic condition was the growth in corruption, nepotism, violence of all sorts, unprecedented sycophancy and the ambitious angst of the then President to transform himself to the Maharajanani.How true is the statement, ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’?
Maha Raja
For those who have been at the corridors of power, the lust for power continues to intoxicate their minds.To achieve this all available tools of subtle insinuation, insidious misinformation, misinterpretation, fear mongering and outright condemnation are used appropriately.The Maha raja is a known strategist and has tons of patience. The Maha raja who during his rule deprived the citizens of their basic fundamental rights has now turned to be the saviour of the people.He is aware that until 2020 he cannot legally to do anything.The wait up to 2020 is a long haul, transcending his patience and that of the cohorts surrounding him. Perhaps the path for him now is to simply rely on ‘people power’ and attempt a ‘by pass’ to regain power.For this, of course, everything that is necessary to arouse the sentiments of the people has to be employed.Little wonder terms like ‘janatha theeranaya’, ‘janatha balaya’ meaning decision of the people, people’s power respectively and such other expressions have become part of the deceptive and tactical vocabulary.
Henahura
Maha raja’s 18th amendment which usurped and interfered with the judiciary, government service, the police, the Attorney General’s Department etc. is public knowledge.What is less known to the public is the extent of damage such action has brought about to these institutions.Once, the former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, during an emotional speech criticised the Supreme Court opinion given on the constitutionality to contest for a third term as per a request by President Rajapaksa, while he described the judgement as one ‘lacking in transparency’ and a ‘corrupt point of view’. He went on to criticise the judges who gave the verdict and he stated that such individuals need not station themselves at Hulftsdorp but should instead remain in a small room within the premises of Temple Trees so they can freely manufacture verdicts that suit the whims and fancies of the President. (Colombo Telegraph12 November 2014).
He also described President Mahinda Rajapaksa as ‘a harbinger of evil’ (Henahura) who has made a thundering blow against the law of Sri Lanka and added that this attack will surely boomerang.
I do not know what the former Chief Justice, himself a controversial figure, meant by ‘boomerang’.Sadly, what is experienced today is the integrity of the government service diminishing, deterioration of law enforcement, an inefficient justice system and the lackadaisical approach of the executive branch in conducting their affairs.The impunity with which those close to the portals of powers that be go about doing their things are further proof of such ruination and damnation.The government changed in 2015 but these institutions remain impaired.
Tamils around the world today remember the 11th anniversary of the massacre of 53 school girls by the Sri Lankan air force.
On August 14th, 2006 four Sri Lankan air force jets flew over the Vanni and dropped sixteen bombs were dropped over the Sencholai children's home for orphans, killing 53 school girls and 3 teachers.
To date, no-one has been held to account for the deaths.
The children's home had been designated a humanitarian zone and its GPS coordinates had been passed to the Sri Lankan military via the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC).
As news of the massacre broke, the Sri Lankan government initially denied the bombing had taken place. It later claimed it had bombed a training camp of the Liberation Tigers (LTTE) and killed “50-60 terrorists.”
“We have studied this for three years and know what was going on," claimed Sri Lankan government spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella.
"If the children are terrorists, what can we do? The fact is that gender or the age limit is of no concern when it comes to training and when it comes to soldiers, because they are carrying arms in order to kill the enemy."
That claim was rejected by international ceasefire monitors of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and UNICEF.
"These children are innocent victims of violence," said Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF said in a statement.
UNICEF’s Colombo chief, Joanna VanGerpen told reporters: "we don't have any evidence that they are LTTE cadres... From what we understand at this point, these children were from surrounding communities."
UNICEF staff from a nearby office immediately visited the compound to assess the situation and to provide fuel and supplies for the hospital as well as counselling support for the injured students and the bereaved families.
Ms Van Gerpen told reporters, “We visited the site and saw severed limbs that were there". Speaking to the BBC, she also said, "We did see more than 100 [wounded] in the local hospitals, some with loss of limbs, head and shrapnel injuries."
After visiting the site of the massacre, the Head of the SLMM, Ulf Henricsson said: “We couldn’t find any sign of military installations or weapons. … This was not a military installation, we can see [that].”
SLMM monitors said they found at least 10 bomb craters and an unexploded bomb at the site.
SLMM official inpsecting the site of the bombing in 2006.
A survivor of the attack, Paranthan Hindu Mahavidyalam student Mary Arulappan Juliet, recalled the horror of the massacre, in an interview just days later.
"As the bombs fell, the girls ran in all directions, and took cover by lying on the ground face down, hoping that the bombers will go away after attacking once. But the Kfir jets returned firing additional munitions directed to our facility," she said.
"There was chaos within the Sencholai premises with each round of bombing, as more students were getting wounded severely and getting killed. In between air strikes, the girls changed their cover locations by running to other positions to take better cover".
"In the aerial strikes, many died on the spot, and many were wounded, most had multiple injuries, some lost their limbs, some had severe burns. All the girls were pleading for help, pleading to be taken to a hospital."
See another survivor's account based on interviews with Together Against Genocide here.
The attack drew outrage from Tamils in the North-East and across the world. Protests and vigils were held across Europe, including in London, Geneva, Palermo and Oslo as well as in South Africa.
Meanwhile protests were held across the Tamil homeland, with hartals in Vavuniya, Trincomalee and Mannar.
Protestors in Geneva, Switzerland condemning the attack.
An interfaith vigil held in Durban, South Africa
Protestors in Batticaloa held a march condemning the attack.
In Kilinochchi, demonstrators gathered outside the UNICEF office the day after the bombing.
The Tamil Nadu State Assembly passed a resolution stating the bombing was an "uncivilised and inhumane act", with members of the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI) walking out of the legislature later in protest against the Indian government's silence over the attack. Parties across the political divide condemned the attack, with Chief Minister Karunanidhi saying the killing was "atrocious" and Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister Arcot N Veerasamy warning, "No political party in the state will accept the brutalities meted out to the Tamils by the island government".
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was described by a spokesman as “profoundly concerned at the rising death toll including reports of dozens of students killed in a school as a result of air strikes in the northeast.”
However, the air strike on the schoolgirls did not draw condemnation from the Co-Chairs of the peace process - US, UK, EU and Norway.
The Swiss government described the bombing as “an outrage.”
In a statement, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said:
“The heavy aerial bombardment on the premises clearly indicates that the attack was premeditated, deliberate and vicious. The heavy repeated aerial bombardment of the same premises clearly indicates the bombing was definitely not accidental. The ferocity of the attack clearly indicates that its objective was to cause the maximum possible casualties.The objective was to kill the maximum number of Tamil children.
“We appeal on behalf of the Tamil speaking civilian population to the International Community particularly to India, to take the earliest possible action to stop the Sri Lankan State from proceeding with its genocidal program.”
Police in Spain are still hunting the suspected terrorist who killed 13 people by ramming a van into pedestrians on Barcelona’s most iconic avenue before fleeing the scene.
As news of the massacre broke, the Sri Lankan government initially 
SLMM official inpsecting the site of the bombing in 2006.
A survivor of the attack, Paranthan Hindu Mahavidyalam student Mary Arulappan Juliet, recalled the horror of the massacre, in an 
Protestors in Geneva, Switzerland condemning the attack.
Protestors in Batticaloa held a march condemning the attack.
In Kilinochchi, demonstrators gathered outside the UNICEF office the day after the bombing.