Sri Lanka cannot escape scrutiny over war crimes

An important editorial in the Financial Times: Last year, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, commissioned a report into human rights violations in the closing months of the decades-long Sri Lankan civil war that ended in 2009. The report points to credible evidence of mass shelling of civilians and summary executions. It also concludes that…

All hail Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa, man of war and war crimes

What a lovely photo of Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa’s family that appears in the country’s Sunday Observer newspaper today. I wonder if they drink Tamil blood with a glass of red wine. As the UN releases its report on Colombo’s murder of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians during the country’s civil war – and…

Australian media on Palestine; ignore the Palestinians

Satire is clearly dead. Weeks of media coverage of Israel/Palestine in Australia and the BDS campaign pushed by the NSW Greens and Sydney’s Marrickville council and not a peep from Arabs or Palestinians. I mean, why should they be heard? It’s only about their land in the Middle East but let’s not focus on details.…

Dear TIME; are war criminals now worthy of praise?

Bless the corporate media. Here’s the 2011 TIME 100 Poll featuring Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Whoever wrote this blurb clearly doesn’t care about the serious war crimes allegations against his government: Since ending Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long war against the Tamil Tigers in 2009, and grabbing control over once independent institutions like commissions on human…

Bradley Manning is suffering so stand up for him

At least a few are but where are the major political and media elites? Silence: British diplomats will express with officials in Washington for a second time MPs’ concerns about the treatment of a US soldier charged with leaking thousands of sensitive cables to WikiLeaks, the government has confirmed. Foreign Office minister Henry Bellingham said…

Anti-Semitism charge only card Zionists can throw at Greens activists

As the New South Wales election approaches, Marrickville Greens candidate, Fiona Byrne – who has bravely led a campaign of BDS against apartheid Israel – is smeared by Murdoch hack David Penberthy in today’s Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Advocating for human rights in Palestine is like Nazis killing and bashing Jews before the Holocaust? Yes, charming:…

US Senate furthers call for taking Colombo to court over mass killings

The following news is undoubtedly positive as a first step to holding the Sri Lankan government accountable for war crimes during its war against the Tamil people but is this really about payback against China for becoming too close to Colombo? The US government has passed a resolution calling upon Colombo, the international community and…

Of course Sri Lanka should pay a price for murdering countless Tamils

These are encouraging noises from Washington but one can’t help but wonder if it’s because China has essentially bought off Colombo and locked out the US. Payback time? Sri Lanka could be hauled before a war crimes tribunal over the killing of ‘many thousands of civilians’ in the final months of its separatist war with…

Israel should be given the South African treatment

My following article is written with Australians for Palestine co-founder Moammar Mashni and published in Online Opinion: “I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, the description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would be a description of what is happening in South…

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