Feature – News Updates

Mao wrote famously, “Power flows through the barrel of a gun.” So do Constitutions. It is true that a Constitution, the fundamental law of the people, should have behind it a broad consensus among the people, but that consensus will mean nothing at all unless it is backed by the gun, with the means of legitimate violence in the hands …

The mess in Pakistan’s western areas is not just a battle with religious extremism. A larger part is a battle of proxies. There are credible reports that Indian and Israeli intelligence involvement in U.S.-controlled Afghanistan has deepened in the past seven years. American military and intelligence officials are impressed with the record of both countries in fighting Islamic groups in …

THE MAINSTREAM media narrative of events unfolding in Iran has been set out for us as clear as a fairytale: an evil dictatorship has rigged elections and now violently suppresses its country’s democrats, hysterically blaming foreign saboteurs the while. But the Twitter generation is on the right side of history (in Obama’s words), and could bring Iran back within the …

Listening to people talk since the vote in the Human Rights Council, anybody would think that Sri Lanka’s approach to international relations was now clear. Newspapers have been full of praise for Dayan Jayatilleka and the principles he has been advocating. If they were genuinely convinced, I’d be delighted. I’ve always believed that a foreign policy based on solidarity with …

I refer to Demos’ comment under the above heading in the Island of June 22 on my article and that of Kath Noble in The Island of June 15 and 17 respectively. There has been much confusion about what has been meant by what came to be called megaphone diplomacy. It referred to statements made both by bureaucrats and politicians …

The statement emphasized that the Election Law strongly protects the rights of the voters and the candidates. The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday in a communiquŽ said the cheap and lowly attitude of a few western governments cannot undermine the democratic nature of the presidential election. It called on the said regimes to review their faulty approach to Iranian developments. Part …