By Charles.S.Perera

The war in Iraq and Afghanistan continues without an end in view. America and the West are apprehensive of another attack by the Al Quaida terrorists, without any knowledge of which Western Capital would be their next target .
 In Afghanistan the Western high power nations with supposed to be well experienced Armed Forces, with [...]

Reading CNN News on my internet this afternoon my eye struck two items of relevance to us. The first was a news item about the change of command of the US forces in Afghanistan, where the departing commander Gen. McKiernan had said that “while the Taliban and other terrorist groups offer only lies and fear, [...]

 
by Dayan Jayatilleka
It is heartening that the Tamil Tigers have retained a sense of humor under extreme pressure. It is a lesson to us all. The Tigers have declared a unilateral ceasefire and promised not to engage in any offensive military operations. The joke is in two parts. Firstly, they are in no shape to [...]

 
A statement from the office of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon said he welcomed the escape of tens of thousands of civilians from Sri Lanka’s conflict zone.
He also condemned the attempts of the LTTE to prevent the civilians to leave the war zone.
The statement said, ” The Secretary-General welcomes the [...]

The Sri Lankan government has rejected an international call for an immediate ceasefire on the Vanni front to facilitate a meeting between UN representatives and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in the civilian safety zone on the Mullaitivu coast.
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa Thursday evening told the visiting Chief of Staff of the UN Secretary General, Vijay [...]

(By: Lucien Rajakarunanayake)
Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had more than her day in the local limelight as one who, despite her legal background and being an international civil servant of the world body, does not take the trouble to double check information. What is worse is that being [...]

Some time back I wrote an article about what I termed the interlocking directorates of non-Governmental organizations which, while pretending to be objective assessors of aid work, ended up giving each other lots of money. As it turned out, I did not then know the half of it. Discussing with a distinguished ambassador of another [...]

Defence spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella at yesterday’s weekly defence briefing accused the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethan Pillai of “unsubstantiated allegations” on the figures of the number of civilians killed and wounded in the embattled zone in Sri Lanka, and high ranking officials of certain reputed international organisations assisting the LTTE in disseminating [...]

By Shenali Waduge
To the OHCHR, the UN, the Peace Activists, the NGOs/INGOs & all those who steer the bandwagon of ceasefires is asked a simple question - how can a ceasefire release civilian hostages especially those being forcefully kept by the LTTE & condensed to 28sq.km.
It will be very interesting to hear how they propose [...]

The LTTE has graduated from taking UN workers hostage to forcibly recruiting their offspring as cannon fodder. It has already conscripted a 16-year-old daughter of a UN staffer. If the UN workers and their children are not safe from the LTTE, the vulnerability of others goes without saying.
Ironically, the forcible conscription of the UN worker’s [...]