AUSTRALIA – The Australian government vetoed on 25 October an attempt to bring a private war crimes prosecution against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa while he is visiting the country.
Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard however, urged Sri Lanka to address claims of serious human rights violations. In addition, Australia urged the UN to probe alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has persistently denied that its troops committed atrocities while battling the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who were crushed in an offensive that ended in May 2009, bringing the 26-year conflict to a close.
Link to: Khaleej Times Online, AFP
International sports, World Cup cricket
Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, India (GenevaLunch) - India won the World cup in a canter with a six wicket victory over Sri Lanka, 2 April. However the much awaited battle of the “little masters” was not part of the action. Sachin Tendulkar scored just 18 before being caught in the slips while Muttiah Muralitharan struggled to play in the match and had none of the normal control and guile in his bowling. Instead it was a true team victory for India: they bowled, batted and fielded better than Sri Lanka. They were also helped by Sri Lanka’s bizarre decision to drop Mendis in favour of the mediocre bowling of Perera, Randiv and Kulasakara. Sri Lanka won the toss and started badly but then made a respectable total of 274 for six, with 103 not out from Mahela Jayawardena. India’s response was similar: the loss of two early wickets, but was followed by a disciplined batting display by Gaulam Gambhir and captain MS Dhoni, who struck the winning runs with an emphatic six.
Links to other sites: Times of India,Guardian
International sports, World Cup cricket
Mohali, India (GenevaLunch) - India beat Pakistan by 29 runs to go into the finals of the cricket World Cup 31 March. The final will be against Sri Lanka Saturday 2 April from 09:00 GMT, 11:00 Swiss time.
India won the toss, chose to bat and Sehwag soon started to smash the ball around the park, scoring five boundaries in Gul’s second over, but then he fell lbw after scoring 38 from 25 balls. Sachin Tendulkar topped the scorecard for India with 85 runs but it was not one of the little master’s better displays. He was dropped four times, survived two umpire reviews and failed in his bid to reach his hundred centuries in one day games
India ended on 260 for 9 after a middle order batting collapse but the total proved too much for the Pakistani batsmen, who ended on 231 all out.
The prime ministers of India and Pakistan sat together to watch the early stages of the match in a clear gesture to reduce the tension between the two countries, but Manmohan Singh may have enjoyed the game more than Yousuf Gilani.
Links to other sites: Times of India, Yahoo Cricket, Guardian, Telegraph
Background story, GenevaLunch
The Globe & Mail in Canada puts it best: “If you do business in South Asia, well, don’t expect anyone to take your calls, unless you’re ringing to share invective on the shocking performance of India’s spinners.”
Forget about world crises, making money or sorting out family problems, for today is a cricket day. India versus Pakistan, to be precise, playing Wednesday in a match that has brought both countries to a halt. The G&M notes that Sri Lanka is nearly shut for business as well, since the winner of today’s match will face Sri Lanka Saturday in the cricket World Cup finals.
Everyone who counts is at the match (likely to last several hours), including the two countries’ prime ministers, who last met for any length of time over Pakistan’s alleged involvement in the Mumbai bombings in 2008.
The match is taking place near the border between the two countries, in India’s Punjab.
The match: details are headline news, as the match unfolds, but if you don’t follow cricket you might find it hard going to discover who is ahead and why: Times of India and The Jang, Pakistan.
2010 equal to 2005 and 1998, confirms global warming trend
Extreme weather events listed but no direct link made
Australian desert (photo: ©2010 Peter Brodbeck, flickr)
(video, El Niño, La Niña) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Those who thought 2010 was hotter than usual were right: it was one of the warmest years on record, sharing the top hot slot with 2005 and 1998, the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) said in Geneva 20 January.
But if you were sitting in Scandinavia or the eastern US in December 2010 you’ll be right in thinking you’ve just experienced exceptional cold, with parts of Norway and Sweden having temperatures -10C below normal.
Eastern Canada and Greenland had unusually warm weather in December, however.
Higher temperatures did not affect the world evenly, but 2010 was exceptionally warm in much of Africa, southern and western Asia, Greenland and Arctic Canada, “with many parts of these regions having their hottest years on record” since the start of what the WMO calls instrumental climate records.
Greenland's snow and ice suffered from unusually warm weather in Decembe 2010
“The 2010 data confirm the Earth’s significant long-term warming trend,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. “The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.”
The WMO is a United Nations organization that provides a place where member states’ national weather and meteorological services work together.
Arctic sea-cover at all-time low in December
Huge money-laundering “pyramid” operation uncovered
Police seek local Tamils who were victims to give evidence
Bern and Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Ten members of LTTE, the Sri Lankan Tamil independence movement, who are resident in Switzerland were arrested Tuesday 11 January after police in several cantons raided 23 locations across the country. The sweep, coordinated by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s office, is the culmination of investigations that began in 2009 into money laundering operations and extortion of Tamils living in Switzerland.
The 10 have been charged with threatening behaviour, extortion, forgery of a document, money laundering, membership of, and aiding and abetting, a criminal organization. Victims in Switzerland were put under severe pressure, threatened, or subjected to extortion, according to Bern.
Police have set up a special phone line for victims and witnesses:
“who have knowledge of the operating methods of some members of the LTTE or similarly acting organizations. A special toll free phone line 0800 10 20 60 has been established for receiving relevant information. This number must only be used for relevant information in the aforementioned proceedings.”
The federal prosecutor’s office has provided a description of how the group worked, collecting millions of francs that were then used for their personal gain as well as to buy arms for Tamil Tigers, through what Bern calls an effective pyramid scheme in Switzerland:
“The money was obtained through various methods and involving different companies. The accused persons forced their fellow countrymen to borrow excessive amounts of money and to hand over the funds to the LTTE. The loans were mostly taken out based on falsified salary statements and the loan amounts considerably exceeded the actual financial means of the individual borrowers. Those who refused to help with the raising of funds were threatened and faced the prospect of reprisals. The bulk of the money, totalling several million Swiss francs, was transferred to Sri Lanka, primarily with the help of couriers via third states, or in small amounts through bank transactions. To disguise the true origin of the funds, they were invested in companies with connections to the LTTE conducting legal business.”
The raids took place in cantons Graubuenden, Zurich, St Gallen, Lucerne, Solothurn, Bern, Fribourg, Vaud, Geneva and Basel.
Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh, has purchased 10 tons of gold worth $403 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The sale 9 September is part of the IMF’s plan to sell 403.3 metric tons of gold, approved of by the Fund’s board late 2009. The Fund has sold 212tn to the Reserve Bank of India, the Bank of Mauritius and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka so far this year.
The IMF held 3005tn of the yellow metal in January 2010, worth $105bn at today’s prices. The IMF’s balance sheet has exploded since the onset of the global financial crisis, from $2bn in 2007 to more than $195bn today.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, IMF, New York Times
From "Esclavage domestique", portraits of domestic slaves, photos by Raphael Dallaporta, Imaginaid 2010
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Stories of household slaves make headlines only sporadically, such as this one 25 August 2010, where a Sri Lankan woman who had worked for one month as a maid in Saudi Arabia had 23 nails removed from her body. Her employer had tortured her before she escaped and returned home. The reality is often less dramatic, yet traumatic, within arm’s reach and a part of what on the surface is mundane daily life in cities like Geneva, Lausanne and Zurich.
Expect to see it all around you soon in Geneva, thanks to a public spaces exhibit, “Esclavage Domestique”, portraits (12 photos and 12 stories) of household slaves who have escaped, from 6-29 September.
The United Nations offices in Colombo, Sri Lanka, were under siege from the local population Tuesday 6 July after Housing Minister Wimal Weerawansa, member of an ultranationalist party, led thousands of protesters there to argue that the UN has no business investigating possible human rights abuses by the government during the final days of the country’s long and bloody civil war. The protests have continued, with threats of hunger strikes, but UN personnel were able to leave the buildings by the end of Tuesday. The situation remains tense, with UN staff reportedly working from home Wednesday. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in June set up an investigative panel charged with reviewing possible abuses.
Links to other sites: Associated Press, CNN
International sports, cricket
Kensington Oval, Barbados (GenevaLunch) - Chris Gayle smashed away India’s hopes of Twenty20 World Cup glory with a magnificent 98 in 66 balls, including seven sixes, 9 May. The West Indies ended with 169 for six. India never really got going and lost by 14 runs.
Australia thrashed Sri Lanka by 81 runs.
Links to other sites: Times of India, BBC, Guardian
International sports, cricket
Bridgetown, Barbados (GenevaLunch) - Australia humiliated the Indian stars in a one-sided game at Bridgetown, 7 May. The Australian opening batsmen rushed to a century in the first 10 overs of their Twenty20 match. Ajay Jadeja was hit for six successive sixes, the first three by Shane Watson and the others a few overs later by David Warner. The Australian assault slowed down after Watson was caught for 72 but the total still reached 186. India’s batsmen failed spectacularly against the opening fast bowlers, reaching 23 for four before Rohit Sharma, with 79 not out, added a bit of respectability to the final score of 135 which left them 49 runs short.
In the other game the home team was also undone by an awesome display of power batting, this time by Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene.
Former president and scion of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SFLP), Chandrika Kumaratunga, has endorsed the opposition candidate, former general Sarath Fonseka, in his bid against SFLP candidate and current president, Mahinda Rajapaksa. The move Sunday 24 January is seen as a major blow to the re-election bid by Rajapaksa in a close and increasingly violent campaign. It is the first election following the government’s victory in the long war against the Tamil Tigers last year.
Opposition parties have rallied around the former general, and accuse the ruling party of electoral fraud, of hogging the state media, and of planning a coup to seize power if the vote goes against Rajapaksa.
Links to other sites: Al-Jazeera, The Guardian, New York Times
Sri Lanka’s voters go to the polls next Tuesday 26 January in elections that were called almost two years early by the country’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa. They are almost evenly divided between supporters of the president and his main opponent, former army chief Sarath Fonseka.
Both the president and his opponent are claiming to be national heroes after last year’s victory over the separatist Tamil Tigers in the country’s decades-long war. The Tamils of the north and east are eagerly courted by both sides in the race, and presidential politics have arguably speeded up the government’s dismantling of the remaining displacement camps, set up to house and screen the hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians displaced by the civil war.
The Tamil Tigers were fighting for a separate homeland, arguing that Tamils suffered discrimination and neglect at the hands of the majority Sinhalese.
Links to other sites: AFP, Al-Jazeera, Sri Lanka Guardian
Durban, South Africa (GenevaLunch) - The England captain showed a previously unseen side to his game when he scored 50 runs in only 49 balls in reply to South Africa’s score of 343 all out in the second test at Durban. The home team made that many largely thanks to the late assault on Graeme Swann’s bowling by Dale Steyn. England ended the second day on 103 for one.
The main interest of the day was focused on the system of referring umpiring decisions to television replay: this led to Mark Boucher being given out lbw to Swann after the umpire’s “not out” was reversed.
About 40 people have been injured in brawls between Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers being held at a holding centre on Christmas Island over the past few days. Three people were evacuated to Perth for treatment. The center holds more than 1,000 people, mainly from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, while their applications are processed. Several Sri Lankans have had their applications denied and were sent home, increasing tensions, although human rights groups blame the tension on overcrowding. The Australian government has said it will increase capacity at the centre by 800 this year.
An Australian navy ship intercepted a boat with 56 suspected asylum-seekers on board 100 nautical miles norwest of Derby, Western Australia, Monday afternoon. It is the 46th ship intercepted this year, and the second in two days.
Many boats are organized by people-smugglers from Indonesia who organize the trip from the country of origin, and then hide people on small boats. Once they reach Australian waters, the boat sends out a false distress signal to alert rescue ships in the hope of being taken to the detention centre, Al-Jazeera reports.
Links to other sites: Al-Jazeera, BBC, News Sun, Radio Australia
South Africa (GenevaLunch) – The English batsmen put on a rare display as they beat South Africa in the ICC Champions Trophy. Andrew Strauss won the toss and decided to bat but lost the opening batsmen quickly. Owais Shah (98) and Paul Collingwood (82) then gradually took control and Eoin Morgan added 67 in just 34 balls. England reached an impressive 323 for 8: the second highest score in the tournament’s history.
An Australian border protection patrol intercepted a boat with 60 suspected asylum-seekers on board about 420 km north of the Australian city of Broome, Western Australia late Tuesday 15 September. It was the fourth such interception in two weeks. The asylum-seekers will be sent to a detention centre on Christmas Island. Their nationality was not immediately known.
Immigration policy under the previous Australian government of John Howard was widely criticized for letting illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers, including children, languish in camps on the islands of Nauru and Manus. The current Rudd government has continued the robust interdiction of people-smuggling, but detainees who pose no threat to the community must be processed within six months.
The government blames the continued flow of people on conflicts in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. BBC, Sydney Morning Herald
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Monday 14 September that an “intolerable” number of displaced people continue to live in camps”, and added that in the case of Sri Lanka “internally displaced persons are effectively detained under conditions of internment”. Some 280,000 civilians are interned in government-run camps waiting to be screened. In a reply to the council, Sri Lanka’s minister of disaster management and human rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, said that “this is furthest from the truth “, and pointed out that the civilians will be allowed to leave the “relief villages and welfare centers once they are screened”. The government is worried that former Tamil Tiger fighters may flee disguised as civilians. Samarasinghe said that almost 170,000 people had been registered and that 45,000 had been cleared to leave the camps or had already left.
The UN’s head of political affairs, Lynn Pascoe, arrived in Sri Lanka for two days of talks with the government on the slow pace of releasing Tamil civilians from camps where they have been held since the end of the war in May against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam separatist group. The BBC quoted Pascoe as saying, “We’re very concerned about the pace of progress,” before leaving New York. BBC, Bloomberg
Lords/London, England (GenevaLunch) – Shahid Afridi was the star as Pakistan at last was in the news for a celebration of victory. The Pakistan team has played little cricket in the last few years as other teams have refused to travel to Pakistan because of security concerns. The last team to visit was the Sri Lankans who were forced to end their tour by a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team bus.
London, England (GenevaLunch) – Sri Lanka put in a great team effort to demolish the West Indies in the second of the semi-finals, payed at the Oval. The Windies won the toss and put Sri Lanka in to bat but the Sri Lankans started well, reaching 73 before the first wicket fell. Two more wickets went quickly but the runs kept coming for the innings to end at 158-5 with Dilshan on 96 not out: a competitive total.
The West Indian innings started disastrously, with three wickets falling in the first over, all out from playing the ball onto the wicket.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has rejected claims that the UN had purposefully withheld casualty figures in the final phase of Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tigers. “I categorically reject – repeat, categorically – any suggestion that the United Nations has deliberately underestimated any figures,” he said in a speech to the General Assembly Monday 1 June. The rebuttal comes after claims made last week by France’s Le Monde newspaper that the UN under-reported figures of civilian deaths in order to maintain a presence in the country. Reuters
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – World headlines about endless casualties and aid organizations being kept out of Sri Lanka’s conflict area have died away, last week’s news, but the battle to find out what really happened and how many died may be only beginning, media reports 29 May show. Le Temps and Le Monde jointly carry an article by reporter Philippe Bolopion in Colombo that accuses the Sri Lankan government of hiding the real number of deaths and the UN of collusion out of fear that its ability to work in the country would be compromised. In the UK, The Times front-page story Friday 29 May says that 20,000 civilians – three times the official number – were killed.
The Times story is based on photos taken on the beaches in the conflict area, UN documents as well as “witness accounts and expert testimony.” The numbers are in fact the same as those published a day earlier by Le Monde, which also cites UN sources. The photos were taken for The Times. Le Monde refers to satellite images taken by Unosat of the conflict area, which reportedly show shelling damage, possibly after the date when the Sri Lankan government said it had stopped.
In Geneva Wednesday 28 the Human Rights Council, an independent inter-UN organization, rejected a Swiss-European draft resolution to investigate possible war crimes in Sri Lanka and instead adopted a Sri Lankan counter-resolution. Human Rights Watch condemned the UNHRC move, saying it had “passed a deeply flawed resolution on Sri Lanka that ignores calls for an international investigation into alleged abuses during recent fighting and other pressing human rights concerns.”
The Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in Sri Lanka have acknowledged that Velupillai Prabhakaran, their leader, was killed fighting the Sri Lanka army 17 May, according to the BBC and several other Western and Indian media, although TamilNet and EelamNation make no mention of it in their latest news reports Sunday evening (Swiss time). In a statement attributed by the BBC and Times of India to the LTTE’s head of international relations, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the Tamil Tigers also say they will now use “non-violence” to fight for Tamil rights.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Pakistan now surpasses two million people since August 2008, according to Geneva-based UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees). The figures correspond to those being issued by Pakistan’s government.
The total number of IDPs fleeing the conflict in in northwest Pakistan in the Swat, Buner and Lower Dir districts, and registered by UNHCR since the beginning of the month is close to 1.5 million.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has tried to reach civilians and wounded for nine consecutive days in the area of intense fighting in Sri Lanka’s northeast. It appealed again Monday 18 May to the government of Sri Lanka to facilitate access.
Update 21:55 Brussels, Belgium, Canada, Sri Lanka and Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Some 1,500 Sri Lankans gathered in front of the UN building in Geneva Monday evening 18 May were pushed back by police when they tried to enter the security gates of the “Palais,” report TSR and the Tribune de Geneve, citing a police spokesperson. The group had gathered Sunday to call for international diplomatic aid for their countrymen.
The Sri Lankan government broke into regular TV programming late Monday 18 May to announce that the leader of the Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran, has been killed, reports AP. No details were given, and initial reports from other international media are contradictory. Several news sources quote two anonymous officials who say they are not authorized to speak to media. According to one source he was in a van, accompanied by a busload of soldiers, and a two-hour gunfight ensued with government forces . Another source says he was in an ambulance that was ambushed as he tried to escape.
The Tamil Tigers announced Saturday on their web site that they were laying down arms after nearly 26 years of fighting, to save the many injured civilians who have been cut off from medical aid. The government said Sunday that fighting was continuing in cleanup operations.
© Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
UPDATE 07:45 The BBC reports the Sri Lankan government as saying bodies of Tamil Tiger leaders have been found as “brushing up” operations continue. The country’s Tamil Tigers have accepted defeat after 25 years of fighting, with their head of international relations saying on their web site Sunday 16 May that the “bitter end” had been reached. Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse told a group of G11 developing countries leaders meeting in Jordan Sunday that he is “proud” to have declared victory over the Tamil Tigers Friday 16 May, after cutting off rebel access to the sea. About 50,000 civilians fled the fighting in recent days, 36,000 on Saturday alone, reports the BBC, quoting army sources. The government had announced previously that no more than 20,000 civilians remained in the area, although 16 May the pro-Tamil tamilnet.com reported that fighting, including heavy artillery, continues in the area and that thousands of wounded civilians remain trapped. Al Jazeera, Christian Science Monitor
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “Our staff are witnessing an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe,” ICRC (International Red Cross) Director of operations, Pierre Kraehenbuehl, said in a statement 14 May from the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. “Despite high-level assurances, the lack of security on the ground means that our sea operations continue to be stalled, and this is unacceptable. No humanitarian organization can help them in the current circumstances. People are left to their own devices.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A local International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) employee and his mother were killed 13 May by an army shell, reports Le Temps, in the crowded and dangerous northeast corner of Sri Lanka, where government troops are battling Tamil Tigers.
A ferry boat contracted by ICRC to take essential food and medicine to the safe area and evacuate those civilians most at risk, especially the wounded, women and children, was unable to beach Monday 12 May due to the dangerous situation, according to Paul Castella, ICRC chief delegate in Colombo. The ICRC has called for a ceasefire to allow civilians trapped by the fighting to leave.
