"UN chief closes office in Sri Lanka" by Associated Press | July 9, 2010
UNITED NATIONS — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon closed the main UN office in Sri Lanka and recalled a top official yesterday in a deepening standoff over the United Nation’s refusal to stop investigating alleged abuses in the country’s civil war....
The regional center houses other UN agencies that operate in Sri Lanka and coordinate other programs in 37 nations in Asia and the Pacific region.
Ban found it “unacceptable that the Sri Lankan authorities have failed to prevent the disruption of the normal functioning of the United Nations offices in Colombo as a result of unruly protests organized and led by a Cabinet minister of the government,’’ said Farhan Haq, UN associate spokesman.
Strange how they just accept it when it is the Israeli government that blocks investigation, 'eh?
The UN estimates that 7,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the last five months of the fighting, which ended last year.
Actually, if you see my Sri Lanka file you can read about the concentration camps and a whole lot more.
Some do not want to go back....
"Man held as security risk released; says he was tortured in Sri Lanka" by Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff | July 10, 2010
A native of Sri Lanka who fled a bloody civil war in his homeland only to end up in a Boston jail for almost two years was released yesterday after a court battle to win his freedom.
Baskaran Balasundaram still faces deportation and will return next month to US immigration court in Boston to argue that he should be allowed to stay in the United States, said Laura Rótolo, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, who fought for his release.
“The release is long overdue,’’ said Rótolo, who is also working on his case with the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project in Boston and the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco. “There’s a long way to go in order for him to feel like he’s safe, and he’s not going to be returned to a place where he feels like he’s going to be killed or tortured.’’
The 27-year-old farmer had entered the United States on July 14, 2008, using a fake passport, saying he was a victim of torture and kidnapping in Sri Lanka. Based on his account, a federal immigration judge granted him asylum in February 2009.
But immigration officials refused to release him from the Suffolk County House of Correction, saying he was a security risk who provided material support to a terrorist group in Sri Lanka.
Balasundaram said he was the group’s captive. He said the Tamil Tigers, which the United States and other countries have designated as a terrorist organization, kidnapped him and forced him to live like a slave. After he escaped, he said, the Sri Lankan Army caught him and tortured him repeatedly.
Oh, he got it from both sides, huh?
Sort of like being CAUGHT in the MIDDLE, huh?
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that he was released yesterday, but had no other comment, said agency spokesman Harold Ort....
Rótolo said she is appealing the board’s decision. Balasundaram will return to immigration court in Boston Aug. 10 to argue separately that he should not be deported under the UN convention against torture. “We feel he has a really good case and that if he were sent back, he would be tortured,’’ she said.
The US immigration agency’s decision to release him should bolster Balasundaram’s case, she said. “Clearly they have no security concerns about him if they’re letting him go on his own.’’
Was he ever one?
--more--"
You say goodbye, I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye....
"Endangered primate caught on camera" by Associated Press | July 20, 2010
Researchers snapped the Horton Plains slender loris, long feared extinct, in Sri Lanka’s central forests late last year. (Dulan Vidanapathirana/ Zoological Society of London via Associated Press)
GALLE, Sri Lanka — A nocturnal, forest-dwelling primate with orblike eyes and short limbs was photographed in central Sri Lanka late last year after being feared extinct, researchers said yesterday.
What this does is put another spike in the global-warming gassers and their alarmism.
A Horton Plains slender loris was caught on camera after lengthy surveys of the forest by researchers from the Zoological Society of London, the University of Colombo, and the Open University of Sri Lanka.
And I can't believe there is only one around.
Team leader Saman Gamage said the mammal was not sighted for more than 60 years until a researcher reported spotting its eyes in 2002 during a search — inspiring the effort to view it fully and photograph it to prove the primate existed.
“We are thrilled to have captured the first-ever photographs and prove its continued existence,’’ said Craig Turner, a conservation biologist with the Zoological Society.
The primate’s population is thought to have begun dwindling in the mountain forest habitat after British colonial rulers from the 19th century cleared large tracts of forest for coffee and tea plantations, Gamage said.
Yeah, empires suck! Always have, always will.
Logging, agriculture, and development made it hard for the lorises to find food, escape threats, or meet mates.
If so he (or she?) is a very old bachelor.
