U.S. expresses concern over the consolidation of executive power in Sri Lanka

The United States while commending the Sri Lankan government for its development and reconciliation efforts expressed serious concern over the consolidation of executive power, especially in light of Thursday's impeachment motion against the Chief Justice.

Libya's new rulers should control arms: US

The United States and the international community believe Libya's new rulers are responsible for preventing weapons proliferation in a region battling terrorism, the top US general in Africa said on Thursday.

US distances itself from Defense Attaché's comments on Sri Lanka war

The United States distanced itself from comments made by the U.S. Embassy's Defense Attaché in Colombo on Sri Lanka's war at the just concluded Defence Seminar held in Colombo.

U.S. military team concludes humanitarian mission in Sri Lanka

United States service members who arrived in Sri Lanka along with the representatives of Mongolia, and the Maldives concluded Operation Pacific Angel-Sri Lanka a six-day combined medical and engineering training mission with the Sri Lankan government.

No blank cheques for Pakistan: US

Downplaying the WikiLeaks revelations about links between Pakistan's spy agency and terrorist groups, the United States has said there are no blank cheques for Islamabad and it must do more to eliminate terrorist safe havens.

UN panel is an opportunity for Sri Lanka to hold an accountable process ' US

The United States Thursday said the expert panel appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to advise him on Sri Lanka's alleged human right violations is an opportunity for Sri Lanka to hold an accountable process and Sri Lanka should take advantage of the experts panel.

US to review its GSP benefits to Sri Lanka

The United States announced yesterday that its Trade Representative (USTR) has accepted a petition to review whether Sri Lanka met Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) eligibility criteria related to worker rights in 2009.

Pak Taliban behind failed NY bombing: US

United States has claimed that it has evidence to prove Pakistani Taliban links behind that the failed Times Square bombing and said that Faisal Shahzad, Pakistani-American, arrested in connection with the case was "working at their direction".

Refugee jailed as US fights asylum grant

Baskaran Balasundaram arrived at Logan International Airport in summer 2008 with a story of torture and survival, seeking refuge from a violent civil war in his native Sri Lanka.

He told immigration officials that he had been kidnapped from his parents’ farm by a terrorist group that forced him to live like a slave at a training camp. He said he escaped, only to be captured by the Sri Lankan Army and tortured repeatedly because he is an ethnic Tamil.

Tamils press Kerry over Sri Lanka report

Ethnic Tamils in Boston protested yesterday in front of Senator John F. Kerry’s office against a report that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released earlier this month that calls for friendlier relations between the United States and Sri LankaSix months after the Sri Lankan army defeated a Tamil rebel army that had controlled the northern part of the island for decades, many Boston-area Tamils complain that the Sri Lankan government is still keeping more than 100,000 Tamils in camps for internally displaced people and not allowing them to leave. (The Sri Lankan government has pledged to close the camps next month.)

The Boston-area Tamils association has been urging Kerry and other US officials to open a war crimes investigation, charging that the Sri Lankan army shelled hospitals and killed civilians.

But two Senate Foreign Relations staffers who traveled to Sri Lanka in November say that the United States must improve its relations with the tiny island nation, which is crucial to protecting shipping lanes in the region.

The report recommends resuming military training for Sri Lankan officials, reinstating the Peace Corps, and giving humanitarian assistance to all areas of the country, not just to Tamil areas in the north.

“The United States cannot afford to ‘lose’ Sri Lanka,’’ the staffers wrote in their report, which noted that Sri Lanka is beginning to cultivate closer ties with some nondemocratic countries, including China, Iran, and Libya.

Yesterday, members of the Boston Tamil group gathered outside Kerry’s office in Bowdoin Square and handed over about 45 letters of complaint to one of Kerry’s aides. The protesters claimed that the report was biased toward the Sinhalese ethnic majority that rules Sri Lanka, and against the Tamil minority that has been fighting for a separate homeland for decades.

“The report falls short on presenting the Tamils’ grievances,’’ said Siva Sivalogan, the association’s secretary.

But Frederick Jones, Kerry’s spokesman, said the bipartisan report “does not take sides between the different ethnic groups.’’ - -FARAH STOCKMAN

Obama denies he’s not doing enough for blacks
WASHINGTON - President Obama yesterday rebutted critics who say he isn’t showing enough compassion toward black America, citing his health care effort as one example he says “will be hugely important’’ for blacks.
Obama said another example is the billions of dollars in aid to states included in the economic stimulus bill that was used to save the jobs of thousands of teachers, firefighters, and police officers.

“So this notion, somehow, that because there wasn’t a transformation overnight that we’ve been neglectful is just simply, factually not accurate,’’ Obama said in an Oval Office interview with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks.

But the president added, “I cannot pass laws that say ‘I’m just helping black folks.’ I’m the president of the entire United States. What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need. That in turn is going to help lift up the African-American community.’’

Black members of Congress have begun pressing their demands that the nation’s first African-American president do more for minorities hit hard by the recession.

Nationally, unemployment stands at 10 percent while 15.6 percent of blacks are jobless. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS

President credits efforts to save money on contracts
WASHINGTON - President Obama yesterday touted the federal government’s efforts to become more efficient, highlighting a new report that shows billions of dollars in savings on contract costs.
The report by the Office of Management and Budget shows that agencies have identified more than $19 billion in contract savings for fiscal year 2010, which began Oct. 1. Obama said that puts the government on track to meet its goal of saving $40 billion annually by fiscal year 2011.

“After years of irresponsibility, we are once again taking responsibility for every dollar we spend the same way families do,’’ Obama said at the White House.

In a contest among federal employees, more than 38,000 money-saving suggestions were submitted.

The first winner, Nancy Fichtner, a Veterans Affairs Department employee in Colorado, suggested that veterans leaving VA hospitals be able to take the medicine they’ve been using home instead of it being thrown away when they’re discharged. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS

U.S. Report on Sri Lanka Urges New Approach

A report on Sri Lanka to be released next week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urges a less confrontational approach to that nation, citing strategic American interests in the region.

The report says that while the Sri Lankan government has been widely criticized for its handling of the war against the Tamil Tigers, who were fighting for a separate state for the ethnic Tamil minority in northern Sri Lanka, the government has also achieved a measure of progress in resettling the conflict’s displaced and rebuilding the war-shattered east of the country.

“With the end of the war, the United States needs to re-evaluate its relationship with Sri Lanka to reflect new political and economic realities,” says the report, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “While humanitarian concerns remain important, U.S. policy toward Sri Lanka cannot be dominated by a single agenda. It is not effective at delivering real reform, and it shortchanges U.S. geostrategic interests in the region.”

The bipartisan report, which was endorsed by Senator John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the committee, as well as Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican, is being released as the Obama administration is preparing to announce its new policy on Sri Lanka. It also comes as questions persist about what Western countries can do to influence the government there.

Concerns about human rights and humanitarian aid for the people affected by the conflict have dominated the relationship between the United States and Sri Lanka over the past few years as the hard-line government in the capital, Colombo, pressed its military offensive against the Tigers.

The tough strategy of Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s president, and his two brothers, Gotabaya and Basil, helped defeat the insurgency in May after more than two decades of war. The rebel group used brutal tactics like the use of child soldiers and female suicide bombers. It was also responsible for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, a former prime minister of India who was hoping to return to power, in 1991.

Government troops overran a narrow strip of beach where the leaders of the rebel group were pinned down, along with about 300,000 Tamil civilians. Human rights groups have pointed to evidence of an indiscriminate use of heavy weapons by government troops in areas crowded with civilians in the last weeks of fighting. The United Nations documented at least 7,000 civilian deaths in a tally that does not include the last, and probably bloodiest, weeks of fighting.

The government also faced pressure to release nearly 300,000 Tamils it had held in closed camps since the end of the war. Officials said the displaced people needed to be screened to weed out fighters, but conditions in the crowded camps deteriorated as the monsoon rains arrived. On Tuesday , the government said the displaced were free to leave, with some limitations.

Sri Lanka has resisted calls for an international investigation of its conduct of the war, and has dismissed the demands of the Western countries that have bankrolled much of its humanitarian aid effort as imperialism.

Sri Lankan government officials have repeatedly pointed to growing ties between their country and China as a sign that the West’s influence there is on the wane. Mr. Rajapaksa, who is running for re-election in January — and is staking his campaign on the war victory — has accused foreign aid organizations and Western countries of meddling in Sri Lanka’s affairs.

More broadly, government officials have expressed dismay at the barrage of criticism they received abroad after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. Mr. Rajapaksa portrayed the conflict as part of a global fight against terrorism, and the victory over the Tigers as a model for anti-insurgency military campaigns elsewhere. Sri Lankan officials deny that large numbers of civilians were killed by government troops.

The United States and other Western countries abstained from a vote at the International Monetary Fund in July to lend $2.6 billion to Sri Lanka. The United States has also curbed military aid because of concerns about human rights abuses in the war against the Tamil Tigers.

But Sri Lanka is too important a country to be isolated from the West, the report argues.

“Sri Lanka is located at the nexus of crucial maritime trading routes in the Indian Ocean connecting Europe and the Middle East to China and the rest of Asia,” the report says. “The United States, India, and China all share an interest in deterring terrorist activity and curbing piracy that could disrupt maritime trade.”