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Washington (CNN)Virginia McLaurin waited all her life to see an African-American in the White House. So, when she finally got a chance to meet President Obama, the 106-year-old woman couldn't contain her excitement. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/22/politics/virginia-mclaurin-obama-meeting-video/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/22/politics/virginia-mclaurin-obama-meeting-video/index.html

In the early 19th century, Travancore had a barbaric and oppressive law that was highly degrading for its women. The Mulakkaram, or the 'breast tax,' was a tax to be paid by the Dalit women of Travancore per the size of their breasts. Source: Induviduality via Facebook As the law did not allow Dalit women to cover their breasts, the tax was meant to add insult to their injury of being easily identifiable in the most demeaning way. The regime subjugated the lower castes and ensured they stayed in debt with barbaric laws and taxes on things as trivial as the right to wear jewellery and, for men, the right to grow a moustache. …

Just a little over a year ago, voters in Sri Lanka rallied to elect a new president, with high hopes that he would usher in a new era of government accountability and bring healing to a country fractured by the brutal civil war that ended in 2009. President Maithripala Sirisena has taken bold steps to fulfill those hopes since his election last January. But the wounds of war cannot be healed until a transitional justice process demanded by the United Nations in a resolution last October moves forward. On that score, Mr. Sirisena says his government will not act “in haste.” This is unacceptable. Atrocities were committed by both Tamil rebel troops and the Sri Lankan A…

The Russian Mafia Documentary 2015 ] [

Muslims challenge extremist preachers

Debate Ananda Sagara Thero And rishard badurdeen

Legalizing marijuana could violate global treaties, Trudeau warned Canada faces a long, hard slog in the global arena before it can legalize marijuana at home. Share on Facebook PATRICK DOYLE / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO A briefing note prepared for Justin Trudeau warns Canada will have to find a way to tell the world how it plans to conform to its treaty obligations if it follows through on the plan to legalize marijuana. …

Posted by Administrator on 18 December 2015, 4:03 pm By D.B.S.Jeyaraj CV Wigneswaran “How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you find the word that means Maria? A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!” “Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her Many a thing she ought to understand But how do you make her stay and listen to all you say How do you keep a wave upon the sand?” “Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” – Oscar Hammerstein in “Sound of Music”. Veteran Indian Journalist P.K.B…

Meet the new leader of Pegida UK https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/10153371042471939/

By S. I. Keethaponcalan – Dr. S. I. Keethaponcalan The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) emerged as the chief political entity representing the Tamil community in Sri Lanka with the downfall of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. Despite the lack of meaningful political achievements in the last six years, the party seems to be gaining more acceptance within the Tamil community. This is evident from the fact that in the last general election, the party managed to increase its parliamentary representation by two more seats. Therefore, the developments and/or issues within the party have the capacity to impact the int…

The best speech ever in court? Some say, yes!

One Word: Christopher Columbus (Native Americans) https://www.facebook.com/storiesbycut/videos/522456597917232/

To End a Civil War: Norway's Peace Engagement with Sri Lanka Book Launch Time: 02 November 2015 13:00-14:30 Place: PRIO, Hausmanns gate 3, Oslo Please register here. Between 1983 and 2009 Sri Lanka was host to a bitter civil war fought between the Government and the LTTE (Tamil Tigers), which sought the creation of an independent Tamil state. The war ended violently in May 2009 with the crushing defeat of the Tamil Tigers by the Sri Lanka Army amid the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. But prior to this grim finale, for there had been hope for a peaceful end to the conflict. Beginning with a ceasefire agreement in early 2002, for almost five years a series of …

TORONTO—A member of the Tamil Tigers who was allegedly sent to Toronto to run the Sri Lankan guerrilla group’s Canadian front organization has been ordered deported for terrorism, according to documents filed in the Federal Court. The government has been trying to deport Manickavasagam Suresh since 1995, when he was first arrested in Toronto. The case was thought to have languished but last week the case reappeared on the court docket. The Immigration and Refugee Board declined to comment Tuesday. But in an application filed in Toronto on Oct. 5, Suresh asked Federal Court to overturn an IRB decision “in which Mr. Suresh was found inadmissible to Canada.” The decision …

This Tory Donor Was Secretly Filmed Dropping Cash-Stuffed Rucksacks At Post Offices BuzzFeed News followed three bagmen from Lycamobile as they made “deeply suspicious” six-figure daily cash deposits at the Post Office. posted on Oct. 5, 2015, at 6:57 p.m. Getty / i-images / Lynzy Billing / Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed One of the Conservative party’s biggest corporate donors, Lycamobile, is facing serious questions over its finances after three bagmen were secretly filmed dropping off rucksacks stuffed with hundreds of thousands of pounds twice a day at Post Offices across London. A five-month investigation by BuzzFeed News has revealed that the Lyca telecoms group dep…

The call by the United Nations’ top human rights officer for a domestic-international hybrid court to address allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka should receive strong endorsement by members of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva, Human Rights Watch said today. On September 16, 2015, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, released a report on human rights abuses by Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during Sri Lanka’s civil war. His report calls for the establishment of a special court “integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators” …

The first draft of the resolution on Sri Lanka to be tabled at the UN Human Rights Council next week recommends a mechanism to address allegations of war time abuses that includes international judges and independent prosecutors, Daily FT learns. The initial draft was handed over to the Government of Sri Lanka yesterday, authoritative sources told Daily FT. The early draft appears to take into account the recommendation by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for a hybrid special court to try potential war crimes cases, Daily FT reliably learns. The Government, which obtained a draft of the OISL report last Friday (11), held discussions spearheaded by Foreign Minis…

The United Nations on Wednesday pointed the finger at Sri Lankan forces over the killing of 17 French charity workers on the island nine years ago, despite repeated denials by the military. A UN war crimes report on Sri Lanka said the 2006 attack against Action Against Hunger (ACF) staff was "the most significant case of humanitarian workers killed" in the country. "Based on the information (the investigation) has compiled, there are reasonable grounds to believe that members of the security forces committed the extrajudicial executions of the ACF staff," the report said. It is the first time a UN organisation has placed blame for the aid workers' deaths on Sri Lank…

India is not likely to make a response to the contents of the report of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights on Sri Lanka, as it mainly waits for the language of the resolution being drafted by US and western nations. On Wednesday, the landmark report on the last few years of Sri Lanka’s civil war was tabled in Wednesday, which called upon the setting up of “hybrid” courts with international and Sri Lankan lawyers and jurists to probe and address human rights violations by security forces and Tamil tigers. Incidentally, the UN human rights commissioner Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said that the report does not conclude that a “genocide” had been committed …

Despite many expecting a ‘naming and shaming’ in the content of the UN report on Sri Lanka, UN sources in Geneva state that the names of individuals accused of perpetrating the alleged abuses during the final phases of the conflict in Sri Lanka were never intended to be published in the report. Sources told Daily Mirror that the names of the accused were never intended to be included as part of the report as the OISL (OHCHR investigation on Sri Lanka) was a human rights investigation and not a criminal inquiry. It was pointed out that in the case of Sri Lanka; comparatively few lists were submitted to the investigation panel and that too through zonal investigation …

Sri Lanka promised to deliver justice after a United Nations human rights report called on Wednesday for a special court to be set up to prosecute war crimes committed during the nation's 26-year civil conflict. The Foreign Ministry stopped short, however, of directly addressing the U.N.'s proposal to set up a special court to prosecute those from the government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels suspected of atrocities. "The government of Sri Lanka will ensure dialogue and wide consultations with all stakeholders ... in putting in place mechanisms and measures that will facilitate the right to know, right to justice, reparations and guaranteeing non-recurrence with the …

The United Nations released a report Wednesday saying Sri Lanka cannot rely on its own justice system and instead should use a special court to achieve accountability for violations that took place during the country's 26-year civil war. The recommendation came as part of a report on what the U.N. Human Rights office said were possible war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict that pitted government forces against rebels seeking independence for the nation's Tamil minority. The fighting killed up to 100,000 people, according to widely accepted estimates. Sri Lanka, the report said, should look to the way other countries have used international judges…

No “outside force”, including India, played any role in Sri Lankan presidential Elections that saw the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa, says Chandrika Bandarnaike Kumaratunga. Ms. Kumaratunga, who is in India as the representative of the Sri Lankan government to attend the Hindu-Buddhist conclave held in Bodh Gaya also denied allegations by Mr. Rajapaksa and international agency reports that the RAW had supplied DRDO-made telephones to her in order to allow her to communicate with then-presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena. “We were using Viber. And the government didn’t know how to tap Viber. Sri Lanka didn’t have that technology, otherwise we would have all been …

United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPF) member of Parliament and Government Minister S B Dissanayake today blamed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa for the loss suffered by the UPFA at the last election. Dissanayake said that Rajapaksa should not have contested the Parliamentary election which the UPFA eventually lost by a slim margin. He noted that Rajapaksa failed to get the full support of the Muslims, Tamils and Catholics. The Minister, speaking to reporters in Kandy today, said that if President Maithripala Sirisena led the UPFA campaign instead of Rajapaksa the UPFA would have secured more votes and regained the votes it lost even at the Presidential election. …

Tigers as Spiders! Ex – LTTE Cadres Contesting as Independent Group in Jaffna D.B.S.Jeyaraj 6, 151 Candidates from 21 registered political parties and 201 independent groups are contesting the Sri Lankan Parliamentary elections scheduled for August 17th 2015. Of these 3, 653 are from the 21 parties and 2,498 from independent groups. Predictably the spotlight in general has been on the major political parties both nationally and regionally in g. However a particular group of independents contesting in the north has also attracted much attention. This is because the group comprises former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). An assortment of ex – tig…