American People Make History, Can We Sri Lankans Ever?

In April 2008 I met an American national in Colombo who works for the World Bank in Washington, DC. At that time both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were contesting the Democratic Party Presidential nomination and John McCain was already the sole contender for the Republican Party Presidential nomination. When we conversed about the upcoming American Presidential election he told me that, although in his opinion John McCain was too old for the office of the President, he believed American people are still not “ready” for a woman or non-white person to become the President of the United States.

Paradise in Tears: A Journey through History and Conflict

This book, encompassing several decades of forgotten history, immortalised through a compilation of photographs, depicts events from British Colonial times to 1993, including still photographs on some of the key issues that shaped the history of Sri Lanka’s conflict.

Why the LTTE do not want Ranil

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A SERIOUS public debate as to why the LTTE forced voters in the Wanni and the Jaffna peninsula to boycott the 2005 presidential election. It was clear that a vast majority of Tamils in the country would have voted for Wickremesinghe. By a large number of them not voting, Wickremesinghe lost by only 180,000 votes. In a nutshell, the LTTE wanted to see Ranil Wickremesinghe defeated and in fact, succeeded in doing so. Why?

Special Report

Battle Plans: How Obama Won

By Ryan Lizza Last June, Joel Benenson, who was Barack Obama’s top pollster during his Presidential run, reported on the state of the campaign. His conclusions, summed up in a sixty-slide PowerPoint presentation, were revealed to a small group, including David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, and several media consultnts, and, as it turned out, some of [...]

Snippets From Asia

• A suicide bombing in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, has killed at least five members of the paramilitary civil defence force, military officials said. (more...)
• Security is tight across Bangladesh for elections to return the country to democracy after two years of a military-backed interim government. (more...)
• (RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced its relief after journalist and writer Lenin Kumar Roy and his two assistants were granted bail by a judge in Bhubaneswar district on 17 December 2008 (more...)
• (FNJ/IFEX) - The Nepalese media has witnessed a series of attacks on media workers and media outlets over the past several days, most of them at the hands of ruling party unions. (more...)
• (FNJ/IFEX) - The premises of the Himal Media group, based in Hattiban, Lalitpur, a region in central Nepal, were attacked by two groups led by the Maoist-allied All Nepal Communications (more...)