Humanitarian Crisis:250,000 Civilians Are Trapped In The Crossfire In Sri Lankan War!

In a recent posting,I talked about the Tamil artist, M.I.A.This is what she's talking about. 250,000 innocent Tamil women,men,& children are trapped in the crossfire in Sri Lanka.It is a humanitarian crisis that only seems to grow worse.Here's more from the Times Online:

"As you read this, around 250,000 civilians are trapped in 115 square miles of jungle in northeastern Sri Lanka, where government forces have pinned down the last remnants of the Tamil Tiger rebels.

That's a quarter of a million innocent men, women and children cowering in an area smaller than the New Forest as fighter jets, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery thunder all around them.

Hundreds have already been killed and scores injured in the crossfire, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. More will die if urgent action is not taken. Regardless of who is to blame – each side accuses the other and there is damning evidence against both – this is a humanitarian crisis that deserves as much international attention as that in Gaza.

It also has important implications both for the future of the Indian Ocean island and for other separatist conflicts around the world.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa is on the brink of defeating the Tigers as a conventional military force and bringing a formal end to a 25-year conflict that has claimed 70,000 lives.

That is cause for celebration: the Tigers are among the world's most ruthless and highly organised terrorist groups.

Now that Mr Rajapaksa has the upper hand, however, the burden of responsibility is on him to prove his commitment to democratic principles and the welfare of Sri Lanka's 3.2 million ethnic Tamils.

The Red Cross and others have rightly urged both sides to spare the non-combatants, but the world has little leverage on the Tigers, who are proscribed as terrorists by the United States, the European Union and India.

Since they launched a violent struggle for an ethnic Tamil homeland in 1983, they have forcibly recruited children, pioneered suicide bombing, and killed two heads of state.

It is appalling, but no surprise, therefore, that rights activists accuse them of using civilians as human shields and the United Nations says that they prevented the injured from leaving the frontline."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5610412.ece

President Obama's Half Brother Arrested In Kenya For Marijuana Possession!

George Obama has been arrested for marijuana possession & resisting arrest in Nairobi,Kenya.Here's more from CNN:

"George Obama, the half brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has been arrested by Kenyan police for possession of marijuana, police said Saturday.

Inspector Augustine Mutembei, the officer in charge, said Obama was arrested for possession of cannabis, known in Kenya as Bhang, and resisting arrest. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday, Mutembei said.

He is being held at Huruma police post in the capital of Nairobi.

CNN Correspondent David McKenzie talked with George Obama at the jail where he is being held. Speaking from behind bars, Obama denied the allegations.

"They took me from my home," he said, "I don't know why they are charging me."

George Obama and the president barely know each other, though they have met before. George Obama was one of the president's few close relatives who did not go to the inauguration in Washington last week.

In his memoir, "Dreams from My Father," Barack Obama describes meeting George as a "painful affair."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here:http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/31/george.obama.arrest/

M.I.A. Is The Fabulous Sri-Lankan Artist Who Has Been Nominated For An Oscar & A Grammy! Plus, She's Pregnant!

Here's M.I.A. on Thursday's addition of Tavis Smiley talking about the "systematic genocide" of her people,the Tamil,that's going on in Sri Lanka.She is a very introspective person who makes music that has a social message,not to mention it's great to dance to.She is pregnant & her baby is due on the day of the Grammys.Too bad she's gotta miss it because she was nominated for both an Oscar & an Grammy for the controversial song,"Paper Planes"!Some folks claim that she's a terrorist but M.I.A. says she is not.There is so much speculation about the meaning of "Paper Planes" because of her background. Here's more on that from The Wall Street Journal:

"Hip-hop artist M.I.A. recently rocketed from the experimental underground to the pinnacle of the entertainment world. "O Saya," her collaboration with Indian composer A.R. Rahman from the "Slumdog Millionaire" soundtrack, is one of three nominees for the best-song Oscar. And her track "Paper Planes" is in contention at this year's Grammy Awards for record of the year -- the Recording Academy's top honor.

Born Mathangi Arulpragasam in Britain, the future singer returned with her family to her parents' native Sri Lanka when she was 6 months old. The family, who are members of Sri Lanka's ethnic-Tamil minority, moved to Jaffna, in the island nation's north. Not long afterward, the country erupted into civil war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, and violence consumed Jaffna.

As a child, Ms. Arulpragasam rarely saw her father, Arul Pragasam, who was involved in the Tamil-separatist movement -- though she says he was part of a more political faction than the violent and better-known Tigers.

At age 10 she fled with her mother, elder sister and younger brother first to India and then back to London, where her mother now works as a seamstress and M.I.A. attended art college.
Ms. Arulpragasam says her harrowing life has informed both the lyrics and sound of her songs. After her song "Paper Planes" was included last year in a trailer for the stoner comedy "Pineapple Express," it became M.I.A.'s first hit -- and an unlikely one at that. The song's signature element, gunshot sounds that are part of its rhythm bed, generated controversy. The song's refrain is the seemingly aggressive chant: "All I wanna do is" -- Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! -- "and take your money." But M.I.A. calls the song an ironic comment on the way Westerners perceive Third World immigrants.

Ms. Arulpragasam now lives in Los Angeles, where she is starting a family of her own under far gentler circumstances than the ones in which she was raised. She and fiancé Benjamin Brewer are expecting her first child as soon as this weekend."(END OF EXCERPT)Go here to read the rest of the article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123327207710830899.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

I really dig this chick's approach to life & music.Here's the video for the song "Boyz".The dance moves are off the chain!