By Ananda-USA
October 28, 2011African immigrants are OSTRACIZED and LEFT TO DIE in LIBYA in the wake of "Victory for Democracy" by Libyan rebels.
With Moammar Gaddafi who welcomed them, gave them jobs, and protected them now DEMONIZED and EXECUTED at the URGING of the Neocolonialists of the West, they are left to the VULTURES by the RACIST Islamists who inherited the new "Democratic Libya"!
What will NATO, in its infinite wisdom, that bombed Libya into this REGIME CHANGE, do to "Protect Civilians" now that the Islamists who inherited the new "Democratic Libya" does not want them?
I SUGGEST to these "bleeding heart" Western Neo-colonialist SERIAL BUNGLERS, who in their "democratic fervour" created this "humanitarian crisis", that they MAKE AMENDS by transporting these people to EUROPE.
In EUROPE, lovingly take care of them, restore to them their lost jobs, and grant them permanent resident visas in European Countries to boot.
YES, ALL 2,000,000 of needy Black Africans that Moammar Gaddafi provided for in the past!
How will they transport them to EUROPE you ask?
Use PLANES, Dear Henry, Use PLANES!
REMEMBER those vast Armadas of High Tech planes that NATO used to Bomb Libyan Government Forces and lavishly transport Weapons of War, and insert Special Forces Troops to win the "Democracy War" for the Islamists ... err, pardon me ... I mean the "Democratic Forces" ... in Libya?
Don't let them fly home empty ... you FOOLS; now transport the Black African refugees in LIBYA to EUROPE in them!
OR, will NATO undergo an ephiphany and JOIN FORCES IN COMMON CAUSE with the reviled ISLAMISTS on this ONE ISSUE, and REFUSE TO FLY THE REFUGEES TO EUROPE because, after all, these PEOPLE ARE BLACK? Who wants Black People, eh?
Oh My God, was that DEVIL INCARNATE Moammar Gaddafi the only man of COMPASSION who CARED for BLACKS, the destitute, the needy in this world?
AMAZING revelation, a'int it ... that the REAL DEVILS always were the HYPOCRITES of the Neocolonialist West?
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Libya's African migrants face harder life post-Kadhafi
By Simon Martelli
October, 2011
On the coast outside Tripoli, a squalid refugee camp shelters hundreds of African migrants who found work under Libya's former regime, but are now jobless, discriminated against and unable to return home.
Squatting in the derelict buildings of what was once a training centre for the ousted Libyan leader's special forces, they face racist abuse, attacks and robberies as they wait each day, hoping someone will offer them work or bring emergency food handouts. Clothes hang on makeshift washing lines. Piles of rubbish lie everywhere.
"Since we came here... we've been hoping, praying to God, believing one day maybe help will come from somewhere, because all we had has been taken," said Anthony, who worked on a building site before the conflict forced him to seek refuge in Sidi Bilal. "I've been beaten and robbed several times, even in the camp here... Sometimes, when we go out onto the streets, people start throwing stones at us because we're black," he added.
The camp's 700 residents are mostly young Nigerian men who fled the capital two months ago when it fell to the revolutionary forces that last week crushed the final pockets of resistance by Moammar Kadhafi loyalists. They are a tiny fraction of the number of people displaced by the conflict.
Over 700,000 migrant workers have left Libya since February, according to the International Organisation for Migration, but tens of thousands remain.
The Nigerians, the largest migrant community in Tripoli, found casual work before the city fell,washing cars or labouring on farms and building sites, jobs shunned by most Libyans.
But with many locals angered by claims that sub-Saharan mercenaries supported Kadhafi's regime, they now face hostility in their host nation.
"It is a problem having the Africans here," said Adil, one of the camp's security guards. "It's not healthy. They don't eat good food, they fight each other, and some of them came without passports, bringing diseases with them, only to cross into Europe." "The best solution is to send them back to their country," added the former fighter from Zawiyah.
Most of the camp's residents say they plan to return home following Kadhafi's ouster, because they no longer feel safe. But without cash or passports -- Nigeria does not have a consular representative in Tripoli -- they are currently unable to do so, stuck in a limbo with no way forward or backwards.
"Some of them don't want to go back. They've risked everything to make it this far," said Jeremy Haslam, the IOM's chief of mission in Libya. "But there are others who are eager to return, and they are desperately hoping that their temporary travels permits will be issued soon."
There are growing concerns among the humanitarian community that Libya's immigration policy will be tightened by the National Transitional Council. The new regime is already believed to be restricting aid to the camp, fearing that it may become a permanent settlement.
"We believe that since Libya is free from the past government, it should be a free Libya for everyone," said Anthony, one of the few residents who plans to tough it out. "Going back to my family empty handed would not be a good idea for me. So I think I prefer to stay here, to try to make some money to take care of them," he said.
But most in the camp see no future for themselves in the new Libya. "I came here to work and make money for my family. But when the crisis started everything changed. Now I just want to go home and start my life afresh," said Larry, a 33-year-old father of three.
13 comments:
The DEMONIZATION of Muammar Gaddafi CONTINUES after his DEATH.
DEMONIZATION of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi continues in Western Media after his DEATH perhaps to justify his KILLING after CAPTURE by those who engineered that REGIME CHANGE.
For example, here are some excerpts from the October 31, 2011 issue of NEWSWEEK:
The text accompanying a photograph of smiling Hillary Clinton in Tripoli giving the V-sign entitled A Tyrant Meets his Fate reads
"We came, we saw, he died" Secretary Hillary Clinton uttered those words Thursday upon learning that Muammar Gaddafi had been killed- but before the gory photographs of his demise appeared. Earlier in the week, when Clinton landed at Tripoli airport, she was greeted by zealous Libyan revolutionaries smiling and shouting, "God is great." All the while the craven dictator-the self styled "king of kings of Africa" was hiding in his hometown of Sirte, hunted on the ground and by NATO planes overhead. Thought Gaddafi's death was closer than crowds cheering Clinton might have imagined, she nonetheless warned Libyans that the hard part of the job-building a functional government- remains ahead.
What is not mentioned here is that Hillary declared in Tripoli "the US wants Gaddafi killed ...." on October 19th, and he was indeed killed on October 20th as requested, evoking shades of Archbishop Thomas Becket's murder at the behest of King Henry II in June, 1170 when he queried "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" That was certainly less direct than Hillary Clinton's suggestion.
Other passages accompany a gory fullpage photograph of the dead Gaddafi entitled The Obscenity of Death and a photo of the culvert from whose cover Gaddafi and his defenders made their last stand entitled The Hole Where "the Rat" hid .
I can tell you that if armed enemies were after me, I certainly would fight my last battle from hiding under cover ... as Gaddafi did. In which world do we demean fighting to the very last as he did?
Other examples of Gaddafi's biased demonization abound.
Gaddafi is sneered at for lionizing the bedouin culture of his country, and for erecting temporary tents to reside in whenever he travelled to other countries. He did so to publicize and respect for Arab culture.
Since when did adopting and promoting aspects of one's own culture, one's own roots, become unworthy of respect ... even if it were offbeat to Western eyes?
Do we make fun of the love affair some Americans have with their Western cowboy life style? No, we honor it as we did President Ronald Reagan's adoption of it, as a lifestyle that harks back to a simpler age when the virtues of personal independence, courage and self-reliance were a norm.
Gaddafi lionized the ancient nomadic bedouin heritage that evokes the same emotions in Libyans. Gaddafi only brought it out to the forefront in his role as the Leader of Libya.
If both Westerners, and those who slavishly ape the West demeaning their own roots, shed their blind prejudices, they will not find Gaddafi's lionization of his cultural roots all that different from their own worship of their own cultural roots.
The DEMONIZATION of Muammar Gaddafi CONTINUES after his DEATH.
.....continued....
Gaddafi is also mocked for having a team of women security guards to protect him, as if that is yet another "quirky" aspect of his "dissolute" character.
On the CONTRARY, Gaddafi lived a completely decent and god-fearing life unlike many of his foreign detractors. Published accounts reveal that Gaddafi was held in great respect and affection by the women in that security phalanx, devoid of any dimension of sexual misconduct.
The fact that this team represents a very visible declaration of his support for equal opportunity for women in employment in Libya ... even in areas typically dominated by men ... is lost on his critics blinded by their own agendas.
It is only after much struggle, spanning many decades ... even centuries, that American women were granted equal opportunity in society, and to serve in combat roles in the US military.
The admission and elevation of the roles of women in the military by the US Govt is held up as a great advance in the treatment of women in the US ... and indeed it is. But why do we disparage Gaddafi's parallel policies granting equal opportunity to women to serve in Libya's military and security organizations? It smacks of double standards of the worst kind.
Gadaffi's policies towards women were enlightened, and far ahead of other Arab countries.
For example, in Moslem Libya under Gaddafi, a man could have two wives, but he could marry the second wife ONLY if the first wife gave HER CONSENT. In contrast, the victorious "democratic" leaders of the new Libya want to base Libyan law on Moslem Sharia Law, and LEGALIZE POLYGAMY and ad-hoc divorce by intoning "I divorce thee" three times! A Libyan man may have Up to four wives under the new laws.
Is this indicative of the "human rights" we can expect in the new "democratic" Libya? It seems as if Libya is regressing into feudalism.
Yet, the much demonized Muammar Gaddafi was monogamous all his life.
His first wife Fatiha al-Nuri (1969–1970) bore him one son, while his second wife Safia el-Brasai (1971–2011) bore him six sons and one daughter.
Clearly, if he wanted to be polygamous ... he could have enshrined Sharia law and had a whole harem of wives. But, this he did not do given his CHARACTERISTIC generally progressive outlook on social issues and on women's role in society, in particular.
In fact, Gaddafi moderated the extreme aspects of Islamic culture in Libya, even as he transformed Libya from a feudal backwater into a relatively modern state in which the citizens had a far-higher standard of living than in most other Arab countries.
This is the man the Western Neo-Colonialsts DEMONIZED, TOPPLED and KILLED in Libya for their OWN GAIN.
Sadly, the World Watched and allowed a SCAM OF MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS to HAPPEN!
SHAME upon ALL of US!
Protestors bring Nuclear Power Plant Construction to a HALT in Tamil Nadu.
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India’s decision to stop nuclear program may trigger problems
Kudankulam NPP
By Konstantin Bogdanov, RIA Novosti commentator
October 27, 2011
India is experiencing a wave of protests against the construction of Russian nuclear power plants. Public fears, fuelled by the Fukushima accident and exacerbated by the regional politicians’ populist slogans, may provoke a chain reaction of problems, hampering power generation development and depriving the Indian economy of its critical advantages over China.
Russian and Indian nuclear experts cannot meet to discuss the launch of Kudankulam NPP’s first unit because of public protests, Alexander Glukhov, the head of the Russian contractor, Atomstroyexport, told the media. This could set back the deadline for the launch of the plant, which is being built with Russia’s assistance.
Tensions in Tamil Nadu, where the nuclear power plant is being built, started growing early this year and resulted in a public blockade of the construction site by local public activists in the fall. They are protesting for environmental reasons, and their concerns have only grown following the Fukushima tragedy in Japan. Unsure of what would happen next, the Indian regulators are procrastinating with the issue of permits to commission the power plant.
Delegation of responsibility
The situation is further complicated by political maneuvers in Indian parliament, which has been amending and augmenting the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill for years. The current wording includes unusual provisions, in particular on the division of responsibility for the plant’s hypothetical operational accident between the operator and the general contractor. In other words, reactor suppliers will have to pay damages in case of a nuclear or radiation accident even though they have no connection to the causes of the accident.
This provision has caused great irritation among foreign operators on the Indian nuclear market, including Russia, the United States and French group Areva. The three parties, once bitter rivals on the Indian nuclear market that is too big to be serviced by any one supplier, are now unanimous in their refusal to acknowledge additional expenses.
The Indian government is advocating a balanced approach to the bill based on respect for international law, but the opposition-led parliament is unlikely to approve amendments beneficial for foreign businesses.
Indians have been eco-conscious since one of the world's worst industrial accidents at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal in 1984, when over 3,000 people were killed on the spot and at least 15,000 died from diseases caused by chemical poisoning.
The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill may become effective in December 2011.
The Indian government claims that the bill will not affect nuclear power plant projects, but the international nuclear businesses have hinted broadly that India will have to pay for its decision – construction costs will have to be raised to include payment for potential damage.
“To a large extent it'll come down to individual companies making individual decisions – to evaluate the risks in this market and whether they want to be in this market or not,” The Wall Street Journal quotes Vijay Sazawal, director of government programs at the U.S. Enrichment Corp. and also a member of the U.S. Civil Nuclear Trade Advisory Committee.
India’s decision to stop nuclear program may trigger problems
Kudankulam NPP
......continued 1....
Selective anti-nuclear panic
Anti-nuclear sentiments started growing in India in spring 2011, when the world was shocked by reports from the Japanese Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant damaged by a tsunami after a destructive earthquake. At that time, people in Kudankulam elected a new mayor, who promised to stop the construction of the nuclear plant.
Tensions came to a head in the fall, when protesters barricaded the construction site and local workers started leaving the unfinished plant. This has had a sobering effect, because local residents’ incomes from renting out housing and selling basic necessities to the plant’s workers have plummeted over the past few months.
It is interesting that public wrath in Tamil Nadu is highly selective: people are barricading the unfinished Kudankulam power plant but feel quite indifferent about the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS), which has been in operation in Kalpakkam since the mid-1980s.
The MAPS has two heavy-water CANDU type reactors that are not as safe as Russia’s AES-92 pressurized light water reactors built for Kudankulam. It appears that people in Kalpakkam have grown used to the benefits of having a nuclear power plant, the taxes it pays to the local budget and its positive influence on the region’s economy.
Nevertheless, anti-nuclear protests in India have almost provoked a chain reaction. The authorities of West Bengal, which Communists had governed for more than three decades until May 2011, have been fighting against the Russian nuclear project in Haripur since 2009. According to the latest media reports, the West Bengal government has announced that it will not allow the construction of nuclear power plants in the province.
Everyone will suffer, but to a different degree
The local authorities, which are using populist slogans to stop the construction of nuclear plants, are depriving municipal governments of potential tax revenues and stunting economic growth in their far from rich provinces.
Refusal to modernize the nuclear industry could have far-reaching consequences for the whole of India, such as growing system-wide disproportions in the economy due to the hampered development of the power industry.
The world’s nuclear corporations will lose a prized client. What other country will have enough funds to build several dozen power units? But a much stronger blow will be delivered to India’s interests.
India has set the goal of priority industrial development, in particular in high-tech sectors, which is impossible without modern power generation, especially amid growing rivalry with China for influence in South Asia and in the global division of labor.
The views expressed in this article are the author's and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Tiger Nominated Agents of the TNA engage in their USUAL ANTI-NATIONAL TREASON and CONNIVE with foreign powers against Sri Lanka.
By not holding these TRAITORS responsible for their TREASONOUS ACTIVITIES of the past 30 years, we encourage them to persist in their TREACHERY!
CRIMES without PUNISHMENT will ALWAYS do that.
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TNA leaders meet U.S., U.N. officials
By R. K. Radhakrishnan
TheHindu.com
October 30, 2011
Even as Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and its diplomatic corps douse the many fires at the Perth Commonwealth summit, the Tamil National Alliance leaders are in the United States, meeting ranking leaders in the Obama administration and the United Nations to press for an amicable political solution.
Mr. Rajapaksa had travelled to New York to address the U.N. General Assembly too, last month. He held a series of bilateral meetings with leaders to impress on them the progress Sri Lanka had achieved since the conclusion of the bloody war with the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. In Australia too, he is in the same mode, even as the Tamil diaspora has tried to approach the courts to bring him to justice over alleged war crimes.
While the efforts of the diaspora have at best been irritants, the decision of the TNA to travel to the U.S. to engage the State Department, and the U.N. has been viewed with hostility in the Sri Lankan administration. It has made it clear that the TNA is not the sole representative of the Tamil people, and hence, a meet with the U.N. officials is unnecessary. The TNA, however, has the support of the main Opposition party, the United National Party. According to media reports, the UNP has held that there was nothing wrong in the TNA meeting U.N. Secretary-General and the others to help speed up a political solution.
The TNA's concerns are in three major areas: the militarisation of the North and the East, the lack of economic opportunities, and the slack attempts at rehabilitation.
According to TNA leader M.A. Sumanthiran, after May 2009, the defence forces have occupied more than 7,000 sq km of land owned by Tamil people. There is one member of the armed forces for approximately every 10 civilians in the Jaffna Peninsula. The heavy presence of the military continues to be the most serious concern in the North and East. More than two years since the conclusion of the war, the government has still failed to facilitate the proper transition of these areas from a situation of conflict to a ‘normal' environment.
TNA leaders meet U.S., U.N. officials
.....continued......
A cursory drive through the A-9 highway to Jaffna, or anywhere in the North will reveal that the military is increasingly involved in economic activity in the North and East. Mr. Sumanthiran says that the military has established a string of restaurants along the main Jaffna highway. An entire military tourism industry catering to Southern visitors is run by the military establishment. The Navy uses state resources to run ferry services for the Southern tourist industry.
Progress in the resettlement of Tamil communities displaced due to the war has been extremely slow. This is a fact that has been independently verified and reported on by the UNHCR too. “According to the government's own figures as at 1st July 2011, 258,446 had been ‘returned' or ‘resettled' from welfare camps, leaving 12,661 in the Kadirgamar, Anandakumarasawmi (Zone 1), Arunachalam (Zone III) IDP camps. The most current figures suggest that only 7,440 persons remain in these camps, insinuating that all others have been returned or resettled. What the statistics do not reveal is that over 200,000 persons in the North and East have not been returned to their places of origin. These persons either continue to be confined in transit camps or have been compelled to take shelter with host families. Such persons include those displaced from Valikamam North in the Jaffna Peninsula, Sampur in the Trincomalee District, and several other areas in the Vanni,” Mr. Sumanthiran said.
In distant Germany, LTTE lives
By Kanchan Gupta
Mid-Day.com, Mumbai
October 29, 2011
I have not met Herr Biswajit Mukhopadhyay, but by all accounts he did a fine job supervising this year's Durga Puja in Berlin. I had expected the annual festival to be organised by the local Bengali Association. Any city with Bengali immigrants, which would mean virtually all cities around the world, inevitably has a 'Bengali Association' which shares a common feature with the lowly amoeba: It splits and multiplies with amazing rapidity.
Bengalis in Berlin have surprisingly settled for a name that is stunningly non-denominational: 'Durga Puja Berlin'. I am told there are more Bangladeshis than Indian Bengalis at the weekend festivities that mark Durga Puja in this city.
The Bangladeshi presence in Berlin (or anywhere else in Germany) is hard to miss. At Wiesbaden, lost in a maze of byzantine lanes and lashed by a bone-chilling wind while looking for a place that would serve us an authentic German meal, we chanced upon three young Bangladeshi men outside Sushi One, a restaurant with a self-explanatory name and a neon-lit signboard scrawled with bold letters that read:
"Eat as much as you can!" One of the Bangladeshis wore a chef's hat; the other two wore waiter's aprons. Sushi at Wiesbaden prepared by a Bangladeshi chef and served by Bangladeshis would have been a gastronomic adventure, but prudence prevailed over hunger-induced recklessness.
Berlin has a surfeit of Indian associations, each distinctly different from the other. Berlin Kerala Samajam stands apart from Bharat Majlis; the India Unity Centre has clearly done little to unite non-resident Indians or else there wouldn't be a Punjabi Association which is not to be confused with the Sikh Association, just as patrons of New Delhi Shop try not to step into Punjab Stores. Pakistan could learn a lesson or two from Ind & Pak Bazar whose owner obviously believes in economic integration.
South Asians are instinctively splittists, largely because they carry their cultural and political baggage along with them even while disowning their motherland. Pakistanis are aligned along fiercely expressed political loyalties although supporters of the PPP, who are not on talking terms with Nawaz Sharif's followers, are loath to return home now that their party is in power. Persecution in perpetuity is the mantra of immigrants seeking political asylum by claiming manufactured victimhood.
That would be equally true for most Indians, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans. There are two factions of the Awami League in Berlin, each headed by a desi restaurant owner, both sworn enemies. Earlier this week BNP supporters staged a raucous protest outside the plush hotel where Sheikh Hasina Wajed was a guest. The two factions of her Awami League came to blows in her presence.
Berlin was the preferred destination of 'Jaffna Tamils' during the years when the LTTE was on the rampage and V Prabhakaran led a brutal campaign, testing the loyalty of his cadre by asking them to turn into human bombs. Once they landed in Berlin, or West Berlin in the pre-reunification days, they claimed "terrible persecution" at home and insisted they would be tortured and killed if forcibly repatriated. Liberal Berlin not only gave them shelter but turned a blind eye to their activities to raise funds for the LTTE.
In distant Germany, LTTE lives
.....continued.....
The immigrant 'Tigers' indulged in ruthless extortion, forcing indigent fellow Tamils to part with their meagre earnings; ran a flourishing trade in human trafficking, extracting a hefty fee from those whom they helped enter Germany illegally; and, were involved in a variety of crimes ranging from peddling drugs to pimping for minor Tamil girls forced into prostitution. An apocryphal tale is still told of Berlin's 'Tigers' gifting a made-to-order Mercedes car to a certain mayor of the city.
It's only after May 2006, when the European Union declared the LTTE a terrorist organisation, that measures were adopted by German authorities to restrict the activities of the organisation's fund-raisers. Those measures could not have been strictly implemented or else the Tamil Coordination Committee, a LTTE front organisation, would not have succeeded in 'collecting' a whopping 3 million euros between July 2007 and April 2009. The TCC men are now being prosecuted. But that's too little, too late.
It's been two years since the Sri Lankan Army smashed the LTTE. Prabhakaran is dead, so are his lieutenants. But in Germany the LTTE lives, its slain leader lionised as 'National Hero' by Tamils who "thirst for a Tamil homeland". I picked up the accompanying poster from a Tamil-owned grocery store in the heart of Berlin. The poster bears testimony to Sri Lanka's separatist war still raging in distant Europe. Such are the wages of misplaced liberalism. The writer is a journalist, political analyst, and activist.
Good Decision by the GoSL not to get involved in fighting in Afghanistan.
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US wanted SL troops in Afghanistan
DailyMirror.lk
October 29, 2011
The United States in December 2009 raised the possibility of Sri Lanka contributing to US-led coalition operations in Afghanistan, but Sri Lanka had declined the offer, a leaked US diplomatic cable cited by Wikileaks revealed.
The leaked ‘Confidential’ cable stated that this was revealed in a meeting US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake had with Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa on December 8, 2009.
“Blake raised the possibility of Sri Lanka contributing to US-led coalition operations in Afghanistan, noting that would be a significant step in support of improving military-to-military engagement. Rajapaksa replied that contributing forces for combat operations right now would be too politically sensitive during the current election season in Sri Lanka. He added that the Sri Lankan Government would have to consider seriously the implications for its Muslim minority as well as the danger of drawing the ire of groups like Al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Taiba by becoming a force provider.
He said a possible alternative for Sri Lanka might be to provide training assistance to Afghan security forces under the auspices of a non-governmental organisation or private company. He recalled a local precedent for this approach, dating back to 1985-1986 when a South Africa-based company had provided security assistance to Sri Lanka in the early years of the war with the LTTE. He said the company had provided military and security experts from a host of countries, including the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth nations, and even some Russians. For four or five years, the company was based in Jaffna and had trained Sri Lankan pilots and taught infantry tactics, including close quarters combat skills. He said that while the South African company had not participated in combat operations, it had closely monitored Sri Lankan military operations, assisting in de-briefing patrols and conducting after action reviews,” the cable stated.
It said Blake had warned that Lakshar-e-Taiba, which had used Nepal and Bangladesh as staging posts to attack India, could next turn to Sri Lanka.
“Rajapaksa said the Sri Lankan Government has arrested two men transiting Sri Lanka to Nepal based on information provided by India’s research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The Sri Lankan Government has since turned them over to RAW. Rajapaksa noted that the Sri Lankan Government has assigned separate officers to watch extremists. Blake suggested that the Sri Lankan Government exchange further information about LTTE networks with US counter-terrorism experts,” the cable stated.
According to the cable they also discussed accountability and reconciliation, the State of Emergency; disarmament of ex-combatants and paramilitary groups; reconstruction in the North, rehabilitation of LTTE ex-combatants; LTTE child soldiers; access to LTTE ex-combatants for the ICRC; potential Sri Lankan contributions to peacekeeping operations and to US-led coalition efforts, and Sri Lankan military expansion plans.
Reprehensible and Counter Productive!
Usually, the UN complies with all US wishes including setting up FAKE "war crimes" trials at will.
However, on the few occasions the UN acts contrary to US wishes, the US walks away with its ALL OF ITS MARBLES like a spoiled brat.
This kind of behavior will REBOUND on the US in the future as the ECONOMIC CENTER OF GRAVITY shifts away from the Western World.
The US should change its ways before it becomes marginalized and alienated in the TRUE world community comprising the GREAT MAJORITY of its people.
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U.S. cuts UNESCO funding after Palestinian membership vote
By Josh Levs, CNN
October 31, 2011
(CNN) -- The United States is cutting funding to the U.N. education and science agency UNESCO after the agency voted to accept a Palestinian bid for full membership, the U.S. State Department said Monday.
"Today's vote by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as member is regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive just and lasing peace in the Middle East," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
"The United States will refrain from making contributions to UNESCO," she said.
The United States was going to make a $60 million payment in November, and will now not do so, she said.
Palestinians bid for statehood at U.N.
Some U.S. lawmakers had called on the Obama administration to withhold funding to UNESCO if the measure was approved.
How the U.S. decision could be counterproductive
The lawmakers cited U.S. law, which states that funds must be denied to any organization granting the Palestine Liberation Organization "the same standing as member states."
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Mission to UNESCO -- the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -- said the United States contributes $80 million a year.
The U.S. contribution comprises 22% of the agency's funding in its regular budget, a spokeswoman for UNESCO said.
The vote, which required two-thirds approval by UNESCO members, passed with 107 in favor, 14 against, and 52 abstentions.
It was the first such vote by a part of the world body.
The vote is separate from the Palestinian bid for full membership in the United Nations. Representatives of several countries pointed out that currently that bid is being discussed by members of the U.N. Security Council.
Huge applause broke out at the meeting in Paris when the results of the vote were announced.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, speaking after the vote, said she is concerned for the financial stability of the organization.
"I believe it is the responsibility of all of us to make sure that UNESCO does not suffer unduly," she said, specifically citing concerns about losing funding from "our largest contributor, the United States."
Bokova said the "admission of a new member state is a mark of respect and confidence."
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon addressed the concern as well, saying "we will need to work on practical solutions to preserve UNESCO's financial resources." Ban said he had no further comment, although he noted "the urgency of a negotiated solution of the Middle East peace process."
U.S. cuts UNESCO funding after Palestinian membership vote
.....continued 1.....
Susan Rice, the U.N. ambassador to the United Nations, posted on her Twitter account: "Today's vote to grant Palestinian membership in UNESCO is no substitute for direct negotiations, but it is deeply damaging to UNESCO."
UNESCO, which is headquartered in Paris, works to promote peace and sustainable development through education, the sciences and culture.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the vote "is premature and undermines the international community's shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East. Today's vote distracts us from our shared goal of direct negotiations that results in a secure Israel and an independent Palestine living side by side in peace and security."
Palestinian leaders celebrated the vote.
"This is a significant victory and sends a clear message to those who are trying to hold history and deny the rights of Palestinians that there are a majority of nations with conscience who refuse to be intimidated and blackmailed," said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, speaking by phone from Ramallah, in the West Bank.
"The ones who voted negatively are isolating themselves along with Israel on the wrong side of justice and the law. And if the U.S. continues to threaten to boycott or withdrawal from organizations that recognizes Palestine it might find itself outside most global institutions with diminishing influence and standing," she said.
Sabri Saidam, adviser to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, said, "This is a historic moment, a moment of jubilation on route to full recognition of Palestinian independence and self-determination, that's equally a call for reconsideration of positions to those wavering on the Security Council vote.
"It is also a foundation stone for what's to come at the (Security Council) and other international organizations. Today's experience is a manifestation of ability of the international community to defy occupation and practically work towards ending it."
The Israeli representative, Nimrod Barkan, addressing the meeting after the vote, called the decision "a tragedy for UNESCO" and "a great disservice to international law."
UNESCO has now "adopted the science fiction version of reality by admitting a nonexistent state to the science organization," he said.
In a statement, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, "This is a unilateral Palestinian maneuver which will bring no change on the ground but further removes the possibility for a peace agreement. This decision will not turn the Palestinian Authority into an actual state yet places unnecessary burdens on the route to renewing negotiations. Israel believes that the correct and only way to make progress in the diplomatic process with the Palestinians is through direct negotiations without preconditions."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the vote during remarks at the start of the Knesset winter session. "Instead of sitting around the negotiating table," Netanyahu said, Palestinian leaders "have decided to make an alliance with Hamas and are carrying out one-sided endeavors in the U.N., including today. We will not sit with folded arms against these measures which are hurting Israel and are violating bluntly the most basic obligations the parties took in the peace process, to solve the conflict between us through negotiations. Sadly, during the time we are trying to form a Palestinian state with a peace agreement they are trying to form a state without an agreement."
U.S. cuts UNESCO funding after Palestinian membership vote
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David Killion, the U.S. permanent representative to UNESCO, said the United States "cannot accept the premature Palestinian admission for membership in a United Nations specialized agency such as UNESCO."
"Despite the challenges ahead, we pledge to continue our efforts to find ways to support and strengthen the important work of this vital organization," he said, addressing the UNESCO meeting after the vote.
Killion did not say what could happen to U.S. funding for UNESCO.
The Pakistani representative called the decision "momentous."
"For over six decades, Palestinians have proven to be superb human beings but have regrettably remained without their rights," she said, adding that "today this wrong has been righted."
She referred to the longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as an "inimitable hero."
The representative from Sri Lanka said that with its vote, UNESCO "acted precisely as the conscience of the world community."
"I think that by showing Palestine's independence is an idea whose time has come and that this has brought recognition in the world community, we have in fact bolstered all the efforts which with respect towards a negotiated peace and towards the recognition that is sought in the Security Council," he said.
Earlier, as the vote was under way, applause broke out after some countries voted in favor of the bid.
There was laughter in the room after Israel voted no.
In September, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas launched the bid for the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state. UNESCO is the first agency the Palestinians have sought to join.
The Palestinian Authority-run Wafa news agency reported late on Monday that Palestine is preparing to apply for full membership in the World Health Organization.
Since Palestinian leaders made the request for membership in UNESCO earlier this month, U.S. lawmakers have urged the agency to reject it.
"Any recognition of Palestine as a Member State would not only jeopardize the hope for a resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but (it) would endanger the United States' contribution to UNESCO," said an October 13 letter signed by members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, which appropriates UNESCO's U.S. funding.
Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, who chairs the subcommittee, said she will "advocate for all funding to be cut off."
"This is consistent with current law, and I will consider additional actions as needed," she said this month. "There are consequences for short-cutting the process, not only for the Palestinians, but for our longstanding relationship with the United Nations."
U.S. cuts UNESCO funding after Palestinian membership vote
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She was referring to a provision of U.S. code which states: "No funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed Monday's vote.
In a statement before the State Department announced it was cutting funding, Ros-Lehtinen said, "Today's reckless action by UNESCO is anti-Israel and anti-peace. It rewards the Palestinian leadership's dangerous scheme to bypass negotiations with Israel and seek recognition of a self-declared 'Palestinian state,' and takes us further from peace in the Middle East."
"Existing U.S. law mandates that we cut off funding to any U.N. body that approves such a request. The administration must stop trying to find ways not to fully implement this law, and instead cut off funding to UNESCO immediately," she said. "And Congress must pass pending U.N. reform legislation to cut off funding to any U.N. entity that grants any upgraded status to 'Palestine.' Such strong action is the only way to deter other U.N. bodies from following in UNESCO's footsteps, and to prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from paying for biased entities at the U.N."
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