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Voting begins in Sudan election

April 12, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Polls have opened in Sudan where people are voting in the first multi-party elections in 24-years.

Elections are being held as part of a peace deal which ended two decades of civil war between the north and south of Sudan.

Millions of Sudanese will vote for the first time ever but there are real doubts about whether they will take part in credible elections.

Several major opposition politicians are among those who are boycotting, alleging rigging.

President Omar al-Bashir needs a democratic mandate after he was indicted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur.

The polls are extremely complicated too, including presidential, parliamentary, regional and state elections.

But many people are already looking beyond the elections to next January’s referendum when southerners will vote on possible independence.

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Voting begins in Sri Lanka poll

April 9, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Voting is underway in Sri Lanka’s first parliamentary election since the end of the nation’s civil war less than a year ago.

Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa cast his ballot in his home district in the south of the country.

Mr Rajapaksa is confident his ruling alliance will win a comfortable majority, after his victory in the presidential poll earlier this year.

More than 80,000 police and soldiers have been deployed as more than 14 million Sri Lankans have their say at the ballot box.

Former army chief General Sarath Fonseka is a candidate in the poll, but remains in detention.

His supporters say the lead-up to the election has been undermined by violence and intimidation.

The first results are expected tomorrow.

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Cine star Manisha Koirala unhappy over Nepal becoming a secular state

March 27, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Kathmandu (Nepal), Mar 27 (ANI): Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala has expressed displeasure over Nepal being declared a secular nation.

Manisha is the granddaughter of Nepal’s first elected Prime Minister B P Koirala.

Addressing a news conference here on Friday evening, Manisha said there was no need to change the Nepal’s Hindu nation status.

“Nepal never had any dispute over the issue of religion. There was no need to change the status of the Hindu state, as there was no problem in it. I don”t understand why a peaceful Hindu state Nepal was converted into a secular state,” Manisha said.

Commenting about reports of her marriage, Manisha said everyone would know when that happens.

“Something is brewing, well I don”t know, when it happens everybody will know. Okay, I will not say anything more,” she said.

Nepal became a secular state three years ago after a decade-long civil war with Maoists ended.(ANI)

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Nominations open in Bougainville election

March 27, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Nominations have opened in what could be the last elections on the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville before a referendum on independence.

Writs have been issued for the autonomous Bougainville government’s second elections since a peace agreement ended a decade-long civil war in 2001.

The agreement allowed for a referendum on independence from PNG to be held sometime in the next five years.

President James Tanis is hoping to retain his position and says the referendum will be a major issue.

“The way the vote goes will give an early indication of how the referendum might shape up,” he said.

The future of the derelict Panguna copper mine, which was at the heart of the civil conflict, is also expected to be an important issue during the campaign.

Voting is due to start on May 7.

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Pak Army’s offensive in tribal areas pushing country towards ‘civil war’: Imran Khan

March 19, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, Mar.19 (ANI): Criticising the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led government for launching military operations in country’s tribal regions, cricketer turned politician Imran Khan has warned that the Pakistani army”s offensive is pushing the country to the brink of “civil war”.

“It”s civil war in the making,” Imran told London”s Evening Standard newspaper.

He also blasted the joint operation of Pakistani and the US forces in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, saying the offensive were actually turning more people against the government and America.

“They were like a bull in a china shop, fighting one or two guerrillas with aerial bombing of villages.That turned people against the army and a new phenomenon was created: the Pakistan Taliban,” The Dawn quoted Imran, as saying.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said instead of waging a war against its own people, the government should work for the development of the deprived strata of the society, which would help in preventing people from taking to militancy.

“You will have no problem with extremists in Pakistan if you have democracy with a welfare state,” Imran said. (ANI)

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Sri Lankan Tamil party to adopt Gandhi-style campaign for equal rights

March 15, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Colombo, Mar 15(ANI): Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), has vowed to launch a Gandhi-style civil disobedience campaign to press for equal rights for the community.

In a manifesto for parliamentary elections on April 8, the TNA also pledged to lobby the international community to help the islands’ Tamil ethnic minority following the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last year.

The TNA used to be the political wing of the LTTE, but has been forced to alter its ideology since the end of the 26-year civil war.

“If the Sri Lankan state continues its present style of governance without due regard to the rights of the Tamil-speaking peoples, the TNA will launch a peaceful, non-violent campaign of civil disobedience on the Gandhian model,” The Times quoted the party, as saying.

“Power sharing arrangements must be established… based on a federal structure in a manner also acceptable to the Tamil-speaking Muslim people,” it said. (ANI)

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Tamils say lives at risk if sent home

March 15, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Tamil groups say the Australian Government is putting lives at risk by starting to send some asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka.

The Government says three Tamils were recently sent home and another 38 may be returned shortly as the situation improves following the end of the civil war last year.

The decision has been made ahead of new refugee guidelines from the United Nations, which are expected to reflect the improvements in Sri Lanka.

But Dr Victor Rajakulendran from the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations says the Tamils are likely to be arrested as soon as they return home.

“Even the opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka is under arrest and under investigation and all kinds of things are happening even for the powerful people like that,” he said.

“If that is the case, what would happen to an ordinary Tamil that is a suspected ex-LTTE [Tamil Tiger]? Their life is in danger.”

He says the Government is putting lives at risk by refusing to wait for the new UN guidelines.

“[The] Foreign Minister would say always that ‘We have our own advice, our High Commissioner there, she gets all the information and we base our assessments on those information’,” he said.

“But are they correct? Are they free to move around and get all this information which we get from relatives and other people?

“They should be calling us and talking to us too, but they never do that.”

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China expresses anger over Dalai Lama’s trip to Taiwan

August 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Aug.28 (ANI): China has reportedly warned Taiwan not to entertain Tibetan spiritual leader, The Dalai Lama.

The Government of Taiwan has extended an invitation to the Dalai Lama to take part in a prayer meeting with survivors of this month’s typhoon, a move that has angered Beijing, reports The Independent.

A spokesman for the Dalai Lama said details were being finalized and he hoped to travel to Taiwan as soon as possible, perhaps as early as next week.

A spokesman for the Chinese Government’s Taiwan Affairs Office said it “resolutely opposed” the decision by Taiwan’s President to allow the Dalai Lama to visit “in whatever form and capacity,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

The invitation was “an attempt to sabotage” the current good relations between the two countries, he said.

China still claims the self-governing island of Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war, as part of its territory.

A spokesman for the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Takhla, said: “The Chinese must understand that his holiness is going to offer his support and to share in the sorrow.” (ANI)

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Ruling UPFA wins Jaffna, but loses Vavuniya in Lanka post-war polls

August 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Colombo, Aug.9 (ANI): President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) has won Jaffna but lost Vavuniya in the first polls after the civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) concluded in May this year.

According to the BBC, the turnout for the polls has been low and ballots are still being counted in the southern province of Uva.

The local elections came a day after the defence ministry said it had arrested the new head of the Tamil Tigers, Selvarasa Pathmanathan.

According to preliminary results, the UPFA secured 13 of the 23 seats available in Jaffna on Saturday. he Tamil National Alliance, a fractious but broadly pro-LTTE parliamentary grouping, came second with eight seats.

In Vavuniya, where turnout was 52 percent, the UPFA was pushed into third place, winning only two seats. The TNA came first with five of the 11 seats on the council, followed by a moderate Tamil grouping.

It was generally believed that the government would do well, having a broad coalition led in the north by a powerful and stridently anti-Tiger Tamil party, and having promised a “northern spring” of major development projects that would gradually return the region to normality.

As a result of its victory in the war, the government is expected to have done well in the Sinhalese-dominated southern province of Uva. (ANI)

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Mia Farrow warns online spies trying to derail her efforts to help Sudan refugees

July 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 12 (ANI): Actress and activist Mia Farrow has revealed that an online spy is threatening to overturn her efforts to help refugees in Sudan, and has claimed that this won’t budge her from standing for the cause.

The ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ star has been working hard to highlight the plight of those effected by civil war in the country’s Darfur region, and encourage governments to do more to help them.

In fact, the actress had recently fasted to raise awareness of the cause and even runs a daily blog showing pictures as well as up-to-date news on the situation in the Sudan.

And now Mia fears that spies are targeting her blog and are tipping off the British government about her actions.

“I have been notified today that someone has been faxing the contents of this site to members of the House of Commons in England.” the Daily Star quoted the American actress as saying in her latest updates.

She added: “I hope whoever is doing this will cease as this sort of harassment is counterproductive to all we are hoping to accomplish for the people of Darfur… Shame on you.” (ANI)

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Kirk Douglas wins slavery apology from American politicians

June 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Jun 19 (ANI): Veteran actor Kirk Douglas recently won a campaign to get an official apology for slavery from America’s politicians.

Douglas, 92, who has played a slave in his most famous film Spartacus, had launched the campaign years ago, and on June 18, the Senate agreed to the apology.

“In my last book, ‘Let’s Face It’, I wrote about the importance of our country showing the world that we are capable of humility by making an apology for our behaviour towards African-Americans before and after the Civil War,” Contactmusic quoted him as having written on his MySpace.com website this April.

“I think this action is more important right now,” he wrote.

The resolution passed by the Senate will now go before the House of Representatives.

“(Congress) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery… and apologises to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors,” the bill stated. (ANI)

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Tamil refugees plead for help to find missing relatives

May 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Vavuniya (Sri Lanka), May 27 (ANI): Tamil refugees are reportedly pleading for help to find missing relatives.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph at Vavuniya, where 210,000 people are being held in five camps for “internally displaced people”, ragged Tamils said they had come under attack from both sides as the 26-year civil war reached its conclusion last week.

Many clutched a razor wire fence, desperately searching the crowds on the other side for a familiar face as they tried to discover whether their loved ones were still alive and at liberty, or in another of the camps, where the overcrowded conditions and made worse by poor sanitation, inadequate food and severe water shortages.

The refugees are not allowed to leave the camps even if they are not suspected of being Tamil Tiger fighters.

Colombo says that it will clear the camps during the course of the year, and is anxious not to allow separatist fighters to evade their reach by posing as civilians and simply walking free.

An army spokesman said that up to 6,000 families had been reunited to date, and that they were working to bring separated families together. (ANI)

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Sri Lanka accused of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Tamil areas

May 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Trincomalee (Sri Lanka), May 26 (ANI): The Sri Lankan government has been accused of launching a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” following its victory over the Tamil Tigers in the country’s 26 year civil war.

According to The Telegraph, aid officials, human rights campaigners and politicians claim Tamils have been driven out of areas in the northeast of the country by killings and kidnappings carried out by pro-government militias.

They say the government has simultaneously encouraged members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the vacated villages.

One foreign charity worker told the Daily Telegraph the number of Tamils disappearing in and around Trincomalee, 50 miles south of the final conflict zone in Mullaitivu, had been increasing in the last three months.

He claimed to have known 15 of the disappeared, three of whom had been found dead. He said all three bodies showed signs of torture, while two were found with their hands tied behind their backs and single bullet wounds in their heads.

Another aid worker said the killings were part of a strategy to drive out the Tamils.

Many Tamils have sold their homes and land at below-market prices after members of their families had been killed or had disappeared, he said.

Since the victory earlier this month, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government has been under pressure to ‘win the peace’ with a generous devolution package for Tamils in the north.

Ministers have said they want to break the identification of the Tamils with the northern and eastern provinces and integrate them into the Sinhalese majority population throughout the country. (ANI)

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UN secretary general arrives in Sri Lanka

May 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Colombo – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Sri Lanka late Friday night on a one day to assess the humanitarian needs of around 300,000 people displaced in the recent conflict with Tamil rebels in the north of the island, government officials said.

Ban arrived just after midnight local time and was due to spend Saturday visiting emergency camps for the displaced.

He will also meet with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, before leaving the country on Saturday night.

President Rajapaksa on Tuesday declared that the long-running civil war with Tamil rebels that lasted over 25 years has been brought to an end.

This was after the leadership of the rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam including its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was shot dead, according to the military. (dpa)

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Americans examining satellite images for evidence of war crimes in Sri Lanka

May 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 22 (ANI): US military satellites secretly monitored Sri Lanka’s conflict zone through the latter stages of the war against the Tamil Tigers and American officials are examining images for evidence of war crimes.

The images are of a higher resolution than any that are available commercially and could bolster the case for an international war crimes inquiry when the UN Human Rights Council holds a session on Sri Lanka next week, The Times reports.

The National Geo-spatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), based in Bethesda, Maryland, which is part of the Department of Defence, is said to have undertaken this task.

Marshall Hudson, a spokesman for the NGA, told The Times that the agency had been monitoring the conflict zone and had provided images to the State Department, some of which were released to the media in April.

“It’s a safe assumption that we didn’t release everything that we have,” he said.

He declined to give further details.

Sri Lanka declared victory in its 26-year civil war on Tuesday after killing or capturing the last of the Tigers.

Britain, the EU and Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, have called for an investigation into allegations that both sides committed war crimes repeatedly, including firing on civilians.(ANI)

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Louis XVI’s final testament discovered two centuries after his death

May 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 21 (ANI): “Declaration to all the French”, the final testament written by Louis XVI shortly before his execution, has been recovered more than two centuries after it disappeared during the French Revolution.

The king wrote the testament the day before fleeing Paris in 1791.

Louis along with Marie-Antoinettte tried to reach the royalist fortress town of Montmédy on the northeastern border of France, however, while on the way, he was arrested at Varennes-en-Argonne. Later, he was brought back to the French capital, reports The Telegraph.

The royal couple was imprisoned. During the trial, prosecutors cited the declaration as proof that he wanted to “plunge France into the horrors of civil war”.

He was found guilty of treason and guillotined in 1793.

In the text, Louis accused revolutionary lawmakers of attacking the “dignity of the French Crown” and defended the king’s right to an absolute veto.

“French people and above all Parisians… return to your king. He will always be your father, your best friend,” he writes.

The testament will be on public display by the end of the month at Paris’ Museum of Letters and Manuscripts. (ANI)

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3 senior LTTE leaders killed: Sri Lanka army

May 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Colombo, May 18 (ANI): The Sri Lanka army has claimed to have killed three senior Tamil Tiger leaders, as its fight against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam continued in the northern part of Sri Lanka on Monday.

Sri Lanka’s government said troops were engaged in “final brushing up” hours after a website linked to the rebels said the Tigers were laying down arms.

The three dead were stated to include the head of the Tigers’ political wing, Balasingham Nadesan. But there was no word on LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, stated a BBC report on Monday.

However, the Sri Lankan army has claimed to have found the body of his son, Charles Anthony.

Sri Lankan army says that the last LTTE (Tamil Tiger) fighters have been penned in a 1.5 square kilometre patch of jungle.

The military says that the head of rebels’ peace secretariat Seevaratnam Puleedevan and military leader called Ramesh were the other two killed and that their bodies had been recovered.

Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) ministers are expected on Monday to call for a probe into claims civilians have been targeted.

The inquiry calls come as the final act appears to be being played out in a long and bitter 26-year civil war which has left some 70,000 people dead. (ANI)

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Prachanda says Maoists won’t block govt formation

May 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Kathmandu, May 15 (ANI): Nepal caretaker Prime Minister and Maoist chairman Prachanda has said that his party would not pose obstructions in the new government formation and wanted the new government to take shape at the earliest.

Speaking at a book launch her on Thursday, Prachanda said the Maoists were in favour of a government with civilian supremacy that could stand up to foreign intervention.

Prachanda, who had resigned from his post slamming foreign intervention, said, “remote controlled government cannot safeguard democracy.”e further announced all the political parties to forge a broader political understanding in order to accomplish the tasks of writing new a Constitution and peace process.

“Let’s sit together, review the situations and let’s conclude the issues of Constitution drafting and peace process,” Kantipur quoted him as, saying.

Saying that conspiracies are being hatched to drag the country towards autocracy, Prachanda warned that the country could plunge into a disaster due to civil war.

Meanwhile, the Madhesi Janadhikar Fourm (MJF) leaders have finally projected itself as the party to lead the new government.

In a statement issued by Co-chairman Jay Prakash Prasad Gupta, the party said it would take initiatives to gather support and solidarity from other parties for formation of a new government under its leadership.

The statement further said that it would support the party of coalition agreeing in written to implement eight-point -demand signed with the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) on Madhes issues incase the party fails to garner much support for formation of the government under its own leadership.

Meanwhile, other two alliance of UDMF including the Tarai Madhesh Lokltantrik Party and the Sadbhawana Party (SP) have already agreed to support CPN-UML in heading the new government

The Central Committee (CC) meeting of MJF had laid out options such as either all the Madhes-based parties would participate in the UML-led government, or form the new government in the leadership of Madhesi parties, or to support the government from outside the government. (ANI)

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Tamils in London now attack Chinese embassy

May 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 7 (IANS) British police made three arrests after Sri Lankan Tamil protesters attacked the Chinese embassy in central London, smashing windows.

Reports said the protest action took place Wednesday when some 150 supporters of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam arrived at the embassy carrying LTTE flags.

Tamils are said to be angry at China’s role in the current civil war in Sri Lanka, with one recent newspaper report saying China had emerged as the biggest aid donor and a major arms supplier to the Sri Lankan government.

Sri Lankan Tamil protesters in London have so far targeted the Indian High Commission in London for their protests and attacks, alleging that India was helping the Sri Lankan armed forces in its current war on the LTTE.

Both India and Sri Lanka deny the allegation.

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EU police in Kosovo use tear gas to prevent unrest

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Pristina – Policemen with the EU Kosovo mission EULEX in the city of Mitrovica deployed tear gas to prevent a potential violent confrontation between ethnic Serbs and ethnic Albanians on Saturday. According to local media, police were acting to prevent rioting in the majority Serb city against ethnic Albanians who had returned to repair their homes destroyed in the 1998-99 civil war.

The ethnic Serbs had demanded a ban on ethnic Albanians rebuilding their homes.

EULEX police were supported by units from the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR.

The Serbs announced they would continue protests and threatened to employ violence to stop the Albanians. Around half of the Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority of 100,000 people live in Mitrovica.

Kovoso, which a year ago declared independence from Serbia, is inhabited by around 2 million ethnic Albanians. (dpa)

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