Muslim Issues

  Defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has said it is not appropriate to view the north of the country, over which a separatist war was fought, as a predominantly Tamil area. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who many credit with defeating Tamil rebels, also told the BBC there were few civilian casualties in the war's closing phase. Human rights groups say tens of thousands …

The US government is the second worst human rights abuser on the planet and the sole enabler of the worst–Israel. But this doesn’t hamper Washington from pointing the finger elsewhere. The US State Department’s “human rights report” focuses its ire on Iran and Syria, two countries whose real sin is their independence from Washington, and on the bogyman- in-the-making–China, the …

  Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks at the General Assembly's debate, "The Road to Rio+20 and beyond", on May 22.  Credit:UN Photo/JC McIlwaine UNITED NATIONS, May 23, 2012 (IPS) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has invested heavily in the success of the upcoming U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), is publicly expressing his frustration at the lack of substantial progress on …

The United States has completed its planning for a military strike on Iran, the US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro said in remarks at a closed conference in Tel Aviv that were broadcast on Israel TV on Wednesday night. “It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically, and through the use of pressure, than to use military force,” Shapiro said …

The Dambulla mosque fracas engineered by the militant elements of Sri Lankan Buddhists, the reaction to it by local Muslim politicians and Muslim religious leaders, the former threatening to withdraw their inconsequential support to the government while the latter urging Muslim masses to pray to Allah to restore the status quo, and the conflicting messages from the nation’s prime minister …

  The Security Council meets to consider the maintenance of international peace and security, but political wrangling often prevents swift action.  Credit:UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras UNITED NATIONS, May 15, 2012 (IPS) – The 193-member General Assembly is expected to vote on a resolution – described as "historic" – requesting the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council to consider "refraining …