Muslim Issues

  There is a growing feeling and fear among Sri Lanka's Muslims that a sinister campaign has been underway inciting the Sinhalese against them. The campaign portrays Sri Lanka's Muslims as a threat to Buddhism, the Sinhala people, their culture and the country as a whole. While 18 websites – eight in Sinhala and ten in English — have been …

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16, 2011 (IPS) – "Syria is on fire," says one exasperated U.N. diplomat, "while the Security Council fiddles." The revolt and the bloody street demonstrations are nearly six months old but the U.N.'s most powerful political body continues to remain paralysed – unable and unwilling to help resolve the spreading crisis.  At last count, the number of …

At a time when our memories have been refreshed with what happened ten years ago on September 11, discussing political terrorism by the very country which is prosecuting the global war on terror is timely. The victims of the US political terrorism are the Palestinian people. They are unable to free themselves from the yoke of Israeli occupation largely because …

Turkey had no other option but to escalate before an obstinate 'ally.' The UN Palmer Report, which largely exonerated Israel for murdering nine unarmed Turkish civilians in international waters on May 31, 2010, seemed in some ways like the last straw. Prior to its publication, the camel’s back had already mostly broken, and a collapse in Turkish-Israeli ties was looming. Turkey’s …

  Before 2002, Maldives was over the horizon and off the radar of the American embassy in Colombo charged with following Sri Lankan and Maldivian affairs. Busy with the Sri Lankan civil war at its doorstep, the embassy kept no representative in Maldives. Following the 2001/9/11 attacks, US anti-terrorism responses required the Colombo embassy to fully engage with Maldives for …

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 14, 2011 (IPS) – When a landmark world conference against racism adopted a historic political declaration in the South African port city of Durban back in 2001, the 62-page document covered virtually every conceivable act of racism, xenophobia and racial intolerance worldwide. The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) identified discrimination of all political stripes, including …