Long Way to Go on Rights for All
In an oral update session on progress in Reconciliation and Accountability in Sri Lanka Maarit Kohonen Sheriff, Director of the Global Operations Division in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for…
International
Arab Counter Plan for Gaza: An Exercise in Futility
Gaza, a thriving cosmopolitan trading town along Via Maris trade route between Egypt and Turkey until 1948, became the Gaza Strip since then and remained the largest refugee camp for two million…
President Donald Trump’s Gaza Riviera: Madness or Calculated Ploy?
To Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his circle of Zionists, not to mention the Christian evangelists in the US, US President Donald Trump’s announcement to acquire the Gaza Strip – a…
President Donald Trump, Oil and Palestine
The second term of President Donald Trump, a convicted felon and a man of contradictions with fascist traits, is proving to be a bonanza to American billionaires and corporate moguls and disaster…
On the US Foreign Assistance Pause
US President Donald Trump has ordered a 90 day pause on all foreign assistance and aid programmes, with a few exceptions. The pause is supposedly for the US government to take an…
Vulnerable Visitors: The Test of a Nation’s Conscience
The recent arrival of a boat full of Rohingyas in the country raises some associated questions. What is the responsibility of the government towards such vulnerable visitors and what was the fate…
Chasing the Elusive Rainbow
news click What does a second Donald Trump presidency really mean, especially for women and minority rights not only in the US but also globally? (Un)fortunately, we have a considerable number of…
Outside the Oval Office
I make poems constantly about oddities and offenses in American political practice, how one president sent bombs, jets, and drones for use by a rogue state and its murderous army, …
Self Help Words for the Inauguration
The name is vital. Spell it right. If you err, apologize and correct. Then go on as the matter becomes urgent, to speak poems that soar from memory and emotion, rise…
Rohingyas: Why are They in Sri Lanka and What Should We Do?
Rohingyas are an ethnic community from Myanmar’s Rakhine province. They have been facing severe persecution for decades, which continues until today. Myanmar’s government doesn’t accept them as citizens, so they are stateless….
Deadly Desires of Demagogic Twins
US president-elect Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the demagogic twins, seem to be on parallel paths with deadly desires to expand the borders of their respective countries. While Trump wants…
Mullivaikkal War Survivors Assist Rohingya Asylum Seekers
Mullivaikkal is a remote coastal village in the Mullaitivu and its ethnic composition is predominantly Tamil. It is significant as it is where Sri Lanka’s 30 year civil war came to a…
The Ghosts of Constitution Hill
I sense I’m standing on hallowed ground. A place searing with warnings, some heeded, many forgotten. Here the weight of history lays heavy on me, the solemn, searching, haunted visitor. I’ve never…
Jimmy Carter
Forbes Jimmy Carter has died, after one hundred years, after healing river blindness, ensuring fair elections, negotiating the release of prisoners, calling out tyranny, assuring that to love your neighbor…
Christmas, Palestine, Rohingyas and Sri Lanka
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Palestine, during a time of colonization and political and economic oppression by Roman imperialism. Those who dared to call for freedom and justice were brutally crushed….