STATS
70,172
Net population gain of Tokyo in 2013—the most of any prefecture in Japan, according to the internal affairs ministry
¥20 million
Price reportedly paid by former Rakuten Eagles pitcher Masahiro Tanaka earlier this month to charter a JAL 787 Dreamliner from Tokyo to New York for his first press conference as a Yankee
5
Total passengers aboard the flight, not including Tanaka’s poodle, Haru
BIG BROTHER IN THE NEWS
The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology is deploying 90 cameras in and around Osaka station as part of “an unusually large study on tracking location data using facial-recognition technology.”
Authorities at the Fire and Disaster Management Agency say they want to develop a search-and-rescue helicopter operated by remote control.
The government announced that, to celebrate the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, it will authorize the issuance of commemorative license plates for the first time ever.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have ranked the Tokyo-based Japan Institute of International Affairs the top think tank in Asia.
S Korea chides Japan over 'comfort women' apology review POLITICS MAR. 01, 2014 - 06:35AM JST South Korea hit back at Japan over its plan to consider revising a landmark apology for its wartime system of sex slavery, accusing Tokyo of “insincerity”, a report said.
Japan announced Monday that it would re-examine evidence given by “comfort women”—those forced to work in military brothels—that forms the basis of a 1993 Kono Statement of apology.
“The more Japan denies its historical truth, the more it will be isolated from the international community,” the South Korean foreign ministry said in a press release cited by Yonhap news agency late Friday.
We examine the dominance of the US entertainment industry and its power to shape perceptions about culture and society.
Entertainment is part of our American diplomacy," US President Barack Obama told a crowd last year at a DreamWorks Animation facility. In 2013, it was the Hollywood production Iron Man 3 that made the biggest splash globally, bringing in over $1bn at the box office. In fact, the top 500 grossing films of all time are Hollywood productions.
Hollywood has increasingly made huge inroads into other countries’ box office markets with its blockbusters and studio investments. While countries like China limit the number of foreign films that can be shown at theatres annually, and other countries rely on government assistance to buoy local industries and counter Hollywood’s influence, the US still finds a way to woo non-American audiences.
But at a time when Hollywood’s global reach has never been greater, and as it rakes in millions of dollars each year, what does the dominance of the US entertainment industry say about its power to shape perceptions about society, culture and history? And does this economic and diplomatic might make Hollywood a chronicle of American power?
Following the withdrawl of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 Pakistan's government sought ways to not only influence the next government of that country but to bring it under its sphere of control. Desisions were made within the Pakistani government that would give control of its Afghan policy over to Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) (Pakistan's CIA) which sought out groups within Afghanistan it was believed would help facilitate these initiatives. Thus Mullah Omar a little known imam in Kandahar was sought out by the ISI and with their help and his leadership was the Taliban created.
Pakistan created the seeds for the current crisis facing Afghanistan and Pakistan because they through the ISI not only help create the Taliban but, trained, provided weapons and monentary assistance all in an effort to disrupt any political outcome which didn't favor its policy and political future for Afghanistan. Under the control of Islamabad.
So, Pakistan is crying wolf over a problem they created but can no nolonger control and would now like American combat forces to remain in Afghanistan to help stabilize the country and keep it from sliding into civil war.
If theObama administration follows through with threats for a “zero option” in Afghanistan, meaning no US troops would be left on the ground after 2014, the move could usher in civil war, a senior Pakistani official warned Tuesday.
The departure of US forces would likely create “mayhem” in the country, which could ultimately prompt one-third of Afghan security forces to desert their posts in the Army and police, the official said in remarks at the
Center for Media and Security in Washington, D.C.
“The zero option means a civil war in Afghanistan,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official’s remarks followed a White House announcement earlier Tuesday that President Obama has directed the Pentagon to begin preparing now for a complete drawdown in Afghanistan by the end of the year.
The move was widely seen as a warning to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who “has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign” the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), which lays the legal framework for US troops to remain in the country after 2014, according to the White House statement.
Ukraine Accuses Russia of 'Invasion' Over Airport Blockade
BY JAMES NOVOGROD, JASON CUMMING, MARIA STROMOVA AND ALBINA KOVALYOVA
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's interior minister accused Moscow's military of blockading an airport near a Russian naval base on Friday and armed men took control of another airport in Ukraine's Crimean capital of Simferopol.
In a Facebook post, Arsen Avakov called the seizure of the Belbek international airport in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol a "military invasion and occupation." He added: "It is a breach of all international agreements and norms."
The Interfax news agency quoted Russian military sources as saying the incident at Belbek airport was intended to stop "fighters" flying in. However, Interfax later quoted a Russian official as saying that no units had approached the airport or blockaded it. NBC News was unable to independently verify either account.
As Antarctica opens up, will privateer explorers be frozen out?
The dramatic rescue of 52 people from a ship in the Antarctic has raised questions over who can explore the continent. Alok Jha, who was on the vessel, reports
Antarctica is the Earth’s last pristine, untouched and most epic wilderness. A key area for the world’s climate and wildlife, it is, for now, also a place of unparalleled international co-operation and negligible commercial exploitation. It has enjoyed more than a century of peace, since explorers first discovered it.
But the Antarctic is also a place of great danger, a remote location where humans are almost never in control, where nature’s rule is absolute. On Friday, making exploration of this part of the world safer is high on the agenda of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Its members will come together to discuss the adoption of a polar code to ensure that expeditions to the extremities of the world abide by a set of technical and operational standards.
New tape purports to show Erdogan dismissing bribe as insufficient
Turkish government claims smear campaign behind new recording
Daniel Dombey
The Turkish government has said a smear campaign is behind a new recording that purportedly shows prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissing a bribe as insufficient, as Ankara turns up the heat on its foes in a deepening corruption scandal.
Since it erupted in December, the scandal has hit Turkey’s economy, with figures released yesterday showing consumer confidence at its lowest for four years. Justice minister Bekir Bozdag said the latest in a series of recordings, in which a voice resembling Mr Erdogan’s appears to tell his son Bilal to reject an initial payment, was the most recent instalment in a “chain of slander”.
The recording suggests a figure called Mr Sitki offered the payment; the accompanying text on YouTube alleges $10 million (€7.3 million) was profferred by Sitki Ayan, a businessman. Mr Ayan was unavailable for comment.
Syrian family of seven forced to rely on 13-year-old breadwinner
Chhime, Lebanon:It’s a wet, miserable day in Lebanon’s Chouf Mountains and 13-year-old Mohamed is running the coffee machine at the local café in the town of Chhime.
His co-workers towering over him, Mohamed stands at the machine, its buttons and levers at chest level, and quickly makes three coffees, his arm stretched high to reach the coffee press.
A refugee from a village outside Syria’s capital, Damascus, Mohamed is an old hand at the café – although he’s only 13, he’s already been working there for a year and bears an extraordinary responsibility as his family’s sole breadwinner. He earns $US133 ($148) per month.
A combination of his father’s heart condition and his struggle to find work in Lebanon has left his family with few options to survive.
Burundi crisis may stir unrest but not by me, says ex-rebel
(Reuters) - Burundi's worst political crisis since the end of its 12-year civil war risks unleashing a new wave of unrest before next year's presidential election, the main opposition leader said on Thursday.
Agathon Rwasa, the last rebel commander to lay down arms in 2009, accused President Pierre Nkurunziza of seeking to rewrite the constitution for his party's own gain and of behaving increasingly like a dictator.
The turmoil in the east African country centers on a row between Nkurunziza's Hutu-led CNDD-FDD party and its junior coalition partner, Uprona, over constitutional amendments proposed by the president that could allow him a third term.
Reporter's notebook: How has Mexico City changed?
From 1994 to 2001, The Christian Science Monitor's Howard LaFranchi ran the Mexico City bureau. Back in the city on a reporting trip, he counts the changes.
Recently back in Mexico City for some reporting more than 12 years after I left my post as the Monitor's Latin America correspondent here, I had my eye out for what had changed – the good and the bad.
After a few days it struck me that most of the changes I was noticing were for the better.
One was the proliferation of bicycles. Just a decade ago bicycles were pretty much for little kids, a few Tour de France wannabes, or the poor. As a mode of transportation, bicycles were often used by modest local vendors: the gardener who pedaled over to cut our patch of grass every couple of weeks, or the knife sharpener who announced his arrival in the neighborhood by blowing on a whistle.
Now Mexico City is teeming with bicyclists. And it’s not just on Sundays, when the monument- and fountain-studded Paseo de la Reforma, a grand boulevard rivaling any in the world, is closed to automobile traffic.
A UN report into human rights in North Korea has recorded systematic and appalling abuses including torture, rape and murder. Staffan Thorsell entered the country on a tourist visa during a weekend of commemorations for the late supreme leader, Kim Jong-il. He found a desperately poor country in thrall to its latest dictator, Kim Jong-un
Restraints on foreign tourists fail to mask the hardship and mind control in country UN likened to Nazi Germany
A stunningly beautiful,twentysomething woman dressed in black performs her death wail in the main hall of an obscenely luxurious palace in central Pyongyang. Her face seems to contort as her voice breaks over and over again. Speaking in a monotone, a guide translates the weeper's words into English: "The departed supreme leader's love will fill our hearts for eternity …" The voice just keeps going, and in a glass cage in the middle of the room lies the embalmed body of Kim Jong-il.
The weeper is here to preach the everlasting omnipotence of North Korea's second leader and to express the grief of a nation more than two years after his death. Everyone in the mausoleum bows their heads before the body – or perhaps the wax doll – flanked by North Korean army officers at attention. Anything else would be intolerable and would result in immediate arrest.
It's all part of the baffling experience that awaits the visitor to the world's most closed country, which was recently compared to Nazi Germany. Mass dancing, synchronised swimming, ritual bowing and weeping – all are de rigueur on certain days of the year when the country's first family are to be remembered and revered. Otherwise public spaces are vast and eerie.
Across Japan, there are signs that the collective mood—long shaped by pangs of regret over World War II—is changing as tensions with rivals, especially China and South Korea, escalate. The WSJ's Michael Arnold finds out more from Yuka Hayashi.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Ashraf Ghani, the apparent front-runner in the Afghan presidential race this year, was once unstinting in his opinion of one of the country’s most prominent warlords, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, calling him a “known killer.”
He said that in 2009, when General Dostum was supporting President Hamid Karzai for re-election. Now, Mr. Ghani simply calls General Dostum his running mate.
In fact, of the 11 campaigns in the April 5 presidential election, six include at least one candidate on the ticket who is widely viewed as a warlord, with pasts and policies directly at odds with Western attempts to improve human rights here.
South Korean missionary 'confesses' to spying in North
Baptist evangelist Kim Jeong-wook, arrested in October, reads statement detailing anti-government activities
A South Korean missionary arrested in North Korea in October has said he had sought to establish underground churches while operating under the orders of South Korea's intelligence agency.
At a news conference in Pyongyang, Kim Jeong-wook, wearing a dark suit and in apparent good health, read a statement which detailed a number of anti-government activities.
No questions were taken at the event, footage of which was broadcast on South Korean television.
Foreigners arrested in North Korea are often required to make a public "confession", which can expedite their eventual release.
Gunmen seize government buildings in Ukraine
Russian flag raised as protesters blockade themselves inside HQ in Crimean capital
Armed men seized the regional government headquarters and parliament on Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula today and raised the Russian flag.
A Reuters correspondent on the scene in the Crimean capital, Simferopol, said the door of the parliament was blockaded from inside by tables and chairs and no one was now able to enter.
Interfax news agency quoted a witness as saying there were about 60 people inside and that they had many weapons. It said no one had been hurt when the buildings were seized in the early hours of Thursday.
“I heard gunfire in the night, came down and saw lots of people going in. Some then left. I’m not sure how many are still in there,” a 30-year-old man who gave his name only as Roman said.
'A Perfect Storm':The Failure of Venezuela's New President
He was hand-picked by Hugo Chávez, but Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has lost control of the country's economy. Vast protests have been the result, but the government in Caracas has shown no signs of bending.
The smell of smoke wafts over Caracas. A group of young women have built a barricade of wooden pallets and garbage bags and lit it on fire on the main street running through Bello Monte, a middle-class quarter of the Venezuelan capital.
A petite university student named Elisabeth Camacho fiddles with a gas canister and clutches a stick bristling with nails. She is wearing a white T-shirt and a baseball cap in Venezuela's national colors, a kind of uniform worn by many of the demonstrators. She appears relaxed and ignores the curses coming from drivers struggling to turn their cars around. "We demand security," she says. "The government needs to finally stop the violence."
Portrait of despair: Thousands queue for UN food parcels in Yarmouk, Damascus
Beirut:Scared and desperate, their bodies ravaged with hunger, a heartbreaking tide of people crowds into the space between the devastated buildings of Yarmouk in Syria in the hope they will receive a UN food parcel that will stave off death for another week.
Many have already starved to death in Yarmouk, once home to 160,000 Palestinian refugees and an unknown number of Syrians. After three years of war, that number has dwindled to around 18,000, the United Nations says, with many fleeing to other countries or displaced within Syria itself.
On the outskirts of Syria’s capital, Damascus, Yarmouk has been under bombardment for almost a year, its residents hiding in rubble as aid groups struggle to negotiate access to the area.
Uganda shrugs off aid cuts over anti-gay law
AFP | 27 February, 2014 10:03
Uganda shrugged off Thursday foreign aid cuts and international criticism of its tough new anti-gay law, saying it could do without Western aid.
"The West can keep their 'aid' to Uganda over homos, we shall still develop without it," government spokesman Ofwono Opondo said in a message on Twitter.
On Monday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed a bill into law which holds that "repeat homosexuals" should be jailed for life, outlaws the promotion of homosexuality and requires people to denounce gays.
The signing of the law came despite fierce criticism from Western nations and key donors, including US President Barack Obama, who has warned that ties between Kampala and Washington would be damaged.
Over the last hundred years countries have enacted laws which specifically targeted minority groups in an effort to limit their rights.
Turkey which has a large Kurdish population has over the last 50 years used various legal means to limit their rights. One of the most continuous is the Turkish government's banning of Kurdish language through publication or education believing that it would harm Turkey and its identity.
Forced assimilation program, which involved, among other things, a ban of the Kurdish language, and the forced relocation of Kurds to non-Kurdish areas of Turkey.
The banning of any organizations opposed to category one.
The violent repression of any Kurdish resistance.
In 1956 Sri Lanka enacted the Sinhala Only Act which removed English as the country's official language replacing it with Sinhala which is spoken by 70% of the population, but excluded the Tamil language which is spoken by 29% of the population.
In the 1956 parliamentary elections, the SLFP campaigned on largely nationalist policies, and made the one of their key election promises. The result was electoral victory for the SLFP, and The Ceylon (Constitution) Order in Council or Sinhala Only Bill was quickly enacted after the election. The bill was passed with the SLFP and the UNP supporting it, with the leftist LSSP and Communist Party as well as the Tamil nationalist parties (Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi and All Ceylon Tamil Congress) opposing it
Now a human rights group has released documents which show that the government of Myanmar has systematically discriminated against its Muslim Rohingya minority which lives in the west of that country in the state of Rakhine. Though the Rohingya have lived in Burma for more than a century the government of Myanmar doesn't consider them to be citizens but illegal immigrants and has does Bangladesh which shares a border with Rakhine state. Because of these policies the Rohingya are considered a stateless people by the United Nations.
'Marriage restrictions'
In a report, Fortify Rights said it had analysed 12 government documents from 1993 to 2013, and found that government policies imposed "extensive restrictions on the basic freedoms of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state".
The policies restricted Rohingya's "movement, marriage, childbirth, home repairs and construction of houses of worship", it said.
Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state were also prohibited from travelling between townships, or out of Rakhine, without permission, the report said.
The report said a government order stipulated that married Rohingya couples in parts of Rakhine state could not have more than two children, while another document said Rohingya had to apply for permission to marry, in what the report described as a "humiliating and financially prohibitive" process.
One document published in the report said officials should force a woman to breastfeed her child if there were doubts over whether she was the birth mother.
The restrictions have been known about for some time, but what is new is that campaigners say they have the official orders issued by the Buddhist-dominated local government in Rakhine state, the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Rangoon reports.
It is an oft-stated fear of Myanmar's Buddhists that the larger families of Muslims mean they will one day be in the majority, our correspondent adds.
President tells Afghan counterpart about US contingency plans, but does not rule out making deal on post-2014 mission.
Last updated: 26 Feb 2014 01:26
The US president, Barack Obama, has told his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai that he is preparing a contingency plan to withdraw all US troops, as a post-2014 security pact remains unsigned.
The message, delivered on Tuesday, however did not rule out making a deal on a post-2014 mission with the next Kabul government.
Obama told Karzai by telephone that the Pentagon had little option but to draw up a contingency plan for a full withdrawal because the Afghan leader had refused to sign a Bilateral Security Agreement with Washington.
"Specifically, President Obama has asked the Pentagon to ensure that it has adequate plans in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year," the White House was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The US has been pushing for legal immunity for its soldiers and contractors, a point resisted by Karzai.
Adidas to stop selling Brazil World Cup T-shirts that 'encourage sexual tourism'
Sportswear maker to stop selling T-shirts before World Cup after Brazil's ministry of women's affairs said shirts were offensive
Adidas agreed on Tuesday to stop selling two raunchy T-shirts months ahead of the World Cup in Brazil after the government complained that they associated the country with sexual tourism.
One shirt shows a bikini-clad woman with open arms on a sunny Rio de Janeiro beach under the words "Looking to Score". The other has an "I love Brazil" heart resembling the upside-down buttocks of a woman wearing a thong bikini bottom.
Adidas – the world's second-largest sportswear maker – said the shirts would not be sold any more, adding in a statement that they were from a limited edition that was only on sale in the United States.
Ukraine's new rulers disband riot police squad
Force blamed for deaths of almost 100 in clashes in Kiev is ‘liquidated’, minister says
Ukraine’s riot police force, held responsible for the deaths of most of the 100 people killed in unrest and clashes in Kiev, has been disbanded, acting interior minister Arsen Avakov said today.
Snipers from the Berkut force - whose name means golden eagle and signifies a predator capable of swooping quickly on to its prey - are blamed for the deaths of most of the protesters in a three-day spasm of violence last week.
“The Berkut no longer exists”, Mr Avakov wrote in a post on Facebook.
“I have signed an order ... for the liquidation of the Berkut special police units,” he said.
Nigerian Islamists kill 59 pupils in boarding school attack
BY JOE HEMBA
DAMATURU, Nigeria
(Reuters) - Gunmen from Islamist group Boko Haram shot or burned to death 59 pupils in a boarding school in northeast Nigeria overnight, a hospital official and security forces said on Tuesday.
"Some of the students' bodies were burned to ashes," Police Commissioner Sanusi Rufai said of the attack on the Federal Government college of Buni Yadi, a secondary school in Yobe state, near the state's capital city of Damaturu.
Bala Ajiya, an official at the Specialist Hospital Damaturu, told Reuters by phone the death toll had risen to 59.
"Fresh bodies have been brought in. More bodies were discovered in the bush after the students who had escaped with bullet wounds died from their injuries," he said.
Venezuela's opposition opts out of government talks. Missed opportunity?
Taking part in a government dialog could serve as an endorsement of the Maduro administration's 'repression,' opposition leader Capriles said.
good," said Mr. Capriles at a press conference just hours before the meeting was scheduled. "How am I going to go [to the Miraflores Presidential Palace] while there is a situation of repression and violations of human rights?"
The meeting between state and local officials was touted as a chance for dialog in the troubled nation, but Capriles, the governor of the state of Miranda, said that taking part would look like an endorsement of government "repression."
Southeast Asia
Feb 26, '14
New fault lines in the South China Sea By Richard Javad Heydarian
MANILA - After a months-long failed attempt to revive diplomatic channels with China's leadership, Philippine President Benigno Aquino upped the ante in their simmering territorial conflict by likening China to Nazi Germany.
To the surprise of many analysts who expected Manila to focus this year on improving strained bilateral ties with Beijing, Aquino argued in an exclusive interview this month with the New York
Times that China's increasing territorial assertiveness in the South China Sea is comparable to Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in 1938.
Aquino has sought greater international support, particularly from the United States, for his country's claims in the contested waters, a dispute it has submitted to the Hague for international arbitration. Aquino warned in the interview that appeasing Beijing on the issue could ultimately lead to a new world war.
The draft, presented to the cabinet on Tuesday for approval expected in March, says Japan's nuclear energy dependency will be reduced but that reactors meeting new safety standards set after the 2011 nuclear crisis should be restarted.
Japan has 48 commercial reactors, but all are offline until they pass the new safety requirements.
The draft of the Basic Energy Plan says a mix of nuclear, renewables and fossil fuel will be the most reliable and stable source of electricity to meet Japan's energy needs.
He’ll live to see another day – but one million babies do not, Save The Children study says
The first 24 hours of a baby’s life are the most dangerous. As Jonathan Brown discovers, new work by Save the Children identifies what can – and must – be done
A million children each year die on the first and only day of their lives, often after their mothers have been left to give birth alone and unaided in the world’s poorest and most remote regions, according to a major new study of global infant mortality.
Urgent action is desperately needed to end the “heartbreaking and unacceptable” toll which it is estimated could be reduced by half through free basic healthcare and midwifery provision.
Most of these babies die within 24 hours as a result of birth complications including prolonged labour and infection, which are treatable provided help is readily at hand.
But the research by Save the Children estimates that 40 million women receive no trained support during their labour. Two million mothers said they last gave birth completely alone.
Somalia's army invades homes in hunt for al-Shebab
Sapa-AP | 24 February, 2014 15:59
Hooded soldiers carrying sniper rifles have unleashed a sweeping crackdown across Mogadishu in a hunt for militants and weapons after the country's al-Qaeda-linked militants group's latest attack on the country's presidential palace.
Soldiers have been deployed on the city's key roads following the Friday attack, which saw multiple car bombs and seven gunmen try to penetrate the presidential palace. al-Shebab's spokesman vowed that the group would succeed in killing Somalia's president in a future attack.
"The operation is underway," police Capt. Mohamed Hussein said of increased security measures seen in the capital on Sunday and Monday. "We have rounded up many suspects, but the real criminals will be discovered after investigations."
The tightened security and the latest attack reflect the ongoing threat from al-Shebab, which has lost control of the capital and the port city of Kismayo since 2011 but still carries out suicide bombings against African Union troops, the UN, the Somali government and prominent Mogadishu businesses.
With ousted President on the run, Ukraine lawmakers aim to form new government
By Jethro Mullen and Nick Paton Walsh, CNN
February 25, 2014 -- Updated 0656 GMT (1456 HKT)
Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) -- Working to try to bring an end to months of instability, Ukrainian lawmakers are aiming Tuesday to assemble a full interim government.
A dramatic sequence of political upheaval has unfolded in Ukraine in recent days after months of anti-government protests. Last week, bloody street clashes between demonstrators and security forces left more than 80 dead, the deadliest violence in the country since its independence 22 years ago.
Parliament has ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, the focus of protesters' anger, and authorities have issued a warrant for his arrest over civilian deaths. But his current whereabouts are unknown.
Study finds bias in Internet postings about Syria’s civil war
BY LAUREN KIRKWOOD
McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON— YouTube videos and posts on Facebook and Twitter have made scenes from Syria’s civil war accessible to audiences thousands of miles from the conflict. But the version of events disseminated by social media is not a completely accurate picture of the war, according to a report from the congressionally funded U.S. Institute of Peace.
After reviewing more than 38 million Twitter posts about the Syrian conflict, a team of Middle East scholars from The George Washington University and American University concluded that rather than an objective account of what’s taken place, social media posts have been carefully curated to represent a specific view of the war. It said the skewing of the social media view of the conflict has been amplified by the way more traditional news outlets make use of the postings – for example, passing along social media posts written in English over those written in Arabic.
Sri Lanka rejects call for war crimes probe
Colombo says UN recommendations for inquiry into the civil war are "arbitrary, intrusive and of a political nature".
Last updated: 25 Feb 2014 05:13
Sri Lanka has rejected a United Nations call for an international investigation into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during Sri Lanka's civil war that ended in 2009.
The UN's human rights chief, Navi Pillay, called for an international inquiry on Monday, saying the government had failed to do its own credible investigation.
In a much anticipated report ahead of a UN Human Rights Council debate next month that could order action on the issue, Pillay recommended an "independent, international inquiry mechanism, which would contribute to establishing the truth where domestic inquiry mechanisms have failed".
President Mahinda Rajapaksa's administration, in 18 pages of comments as long as Pillay's report, rejected the recommendations as "arbitrary, intrusive and of a political nature".
