Day: 11 March 2016

If the junior doctors are right and Jeremy Hunt is wrong, the NHS is in serious trouble

Karu

The Health Secretary’s pitch is that the same number of doctors with a lower limit on maximum hours provide the same level of care across more days. Something has to give. By Jason Sarfo-Annin Doctors spend years training to analyse and interpret information. The idea that 54,000 such people can all be misled by the British Medical Association is absurd. Indeed, a generation of older junior doctors, who still remain highly critical of the BMA, can recall a former Chair being forced to resign due to apparent incompetence. Whilst James…

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Zeid tells UNHRC next few months important for Sri Lanka

Karu

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein today told the UN Human Rights Council that the next few months will be important for Sri Lanka. Addressing the Council during its 31st session after submitting his annual report,  Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said that Sri Lanka is on its own journey towards accountability, reconciliation and durable peace. He said that important steps have been taken to reform the Constitution, revive independent institutions, and restore an environment for free expression and debate. “Powerful symbolic gestures of reconciliation have been made, for…

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‘Killing Rajiv Gandhi was LTTE’s biggest mistake’

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New Delhi, March 10 (IANS) Assassinating former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was the Tamil Tigers’ biggest mistake, a new book quotes the late LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham as saying. Balasingham told Norway’s former Special Envoy to Sri Lanka Erik Solheim that LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his feared intelligence chief Pottu Amman initially denied their involvement in the killing. But they admitted the truth to Balasingham “a few weeks” after the May 21, 1991 assassination, says Mark Salter’s book “To End A Civil War” (Hurst & Company, London). The…

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Fonseka wants international monitors for war probe

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Former army commander, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka today called for international monitors and foreign advisers to be invited to be involved in the investigation over the war. Speaking in Parliament, Fonseka, who is now a Minister in the Government, said that international participation is vital in order to ensure there is transparency and credibility in the investigation. “I led the war in line with the accepted laws and regulations. It was in line with Geneva protocols.” he said. However he said that if there was anyone who abused human rights and violated…

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Activist discharged, acquitted over Sri Lankan civil war documentary screening

Karu

KUALA LUMPUR: Activist Lena Hendry Rasathi Hendry was freed by the magistrate’s court without having her defence called over her uncensored Sri Lanka genocide documentary screening three years ago. In delivering his verdict, magistrate Mohd Rehan Mohd Aris said the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case against the accused. “After considering the evidence presented before the court during trial, the court finds that the prosecution failed to prove its case. The accused is therefore acquitted and discharged,” he said. A total of eight prosecution witnesses were called…

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White Flag Killings Raised Again

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5 years on: The White Flag Incident (2009 — by Easwaran Rutnam The much talked about and possibly most controversial incident related to the war known as the ‘white flag’ incident has been brought to the notice of the Presidential Commission on Missing Persons by people who witnessed the final stages of the war. The matter was raised when the Presidential Commission on Missing Persons led by Retired judge Maxwell Paranagama held public sittings in Kopai in the North last week. A woman who appeared before the Commission to make…

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Yoshitha Finds Himself On A Sinking Ship?

Karu

With revelations his school buddy too got a free ride in the Navy, the former President’s son is diving deeper into trouble Startling details of how taxpayers had to bear the cost of a British naval training not only to Yoshitha Kanishka Rajapaksa but also to his school friend D. A.K.V. Dissanayake amounting to millions of rupees have now come to light. Although it is common knowledge that Yoshitha Rajapaksa received training in the United Kingdom with public money, it is now revealed that Dissanayake too had received the same…

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