| Moss singled out in drug campaign | ||
Colombia's vice president has accused coke-using celebrities of fuelling the country's civil war, singling out Kate Moss for criticism. Francisco Santos said it was "baffling" that Moss had won so many new contracts following allegations she used cocaine. He told the Associated Press that the model's success was indicative of European attitudes towards drugs, which finances armed drug groups in Colombia. Mr Santos is launching an ad campaign under the banner "the cocaine curse". "We need to tell Europeans that that line of coke they snort is tainted in blood," he said. Moss lost several modelling contracts, including Burberry and H&M, after a newspaper photographed her allegedly taking cocaine.
No criminal charges were brought and she publicly "accepted responsibility" for the scandal. She entered a rehabilitation clinic for a month of therapy. She has since gone on to secure a number of lucrative contracts and was recently hired as a designer for high street retailer Top Shop. But Mr Santos said: "To me it's baffling, that somebody who helps cause so much pain in Colombia is doing better than ever and winning more contracts than ever." | ||
| Kerry under fire for Iraq 'joke' | ||||
Former Democratic US presidential candidate John Kerry is facing angry criticism for comments made to students about the war in Iraq. On Tuesday the White House demanded he apologise for saying failed students could get "stuck in Iraq" as soldiers. But Mr Kerry refused, saying the target of his "botched joke" was Mr Bush's "broken policy" and not US troops. The war of words comes just days ahead of US mid-term elections, which could hinge on the issue of the war in Iraq. Mr Kerry, speaking to a group of California university students on Monday, said: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well."
He added: "If you don't you get stuck in Iraq."  It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did  John Kerry  | ||||
The buses, targeted at a site near the town of Habarana, 190km (120 miles) north-east of the capital Colombo, were carrying unarmed navy servicemen on leave, the military said.
COLOMBO, Oct 16 (Reuters) - A Sri Lankan air force fighter jet crashed into a lagoon on the outskirts of the capital city, Colombo, on Monday, a military spokesman said. "A Kfir (fighter jet) has crashed into the Negombo lagoon. We are investigating whether it was an attack or a technical fault," the spokesman said, referring to a township about 30 km (20 miles) north of Colombo. News of the crash came hours after suspected Tamil Tiger rebels rammed a truck loaded with explosives into a Sri Lankan naval convoy, killing at least 92 people and wounding over 100.
LTTE officials said the SLAF bombers targeted a cultivation site in Muttayankattu.
At least 10 cows were killed and a large area of arable land was damaged in the aerial bombardment.
"US officials will now only be able to access data by having information "pushed" from airline computer systems.Previously the US could "pull" data from the systems whenever it was needed. US officials will now only be able to access data by having information "pushed" from airline computer systems.
Previously the US could "pull" data from the systems whenever it was needed.
| AANIVAER - "TAP ROOT" - Movie A Brief Eye View |  |  |  |
 "AANIVAER" which is a full length film shot and produced in the Tamil homeland of Sri Lanka. It unfolds a love story through which courses turbulent and continuing scenes of political current seriously affecting the very existence of the indigenous Tamils of Sri Lanka.
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"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
| 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin killed | ||
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CALGARY -- This week's arrest of six Canadians of Tamil origin on terrorism charges reminds me of Sir Peter Ustinov's brilliant maxim: "Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."
In an apparent rush to U.S. President George Bush's ideology and policies, the Harper government recently added Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers guerillas to its terrorism list. The U.S. added the group last year.
In 1983, civil war erupted in Sri Lanka after decades of growing strife between majority Sinhalese Buddhists and minority Hindu Tamils. Tamil Tigers guerillas have waged a ferocious, bloody struggle against the Sinhalese government for an independent Tamil state. Over 65,000 Sri Lankans have died. The war continues in spite of foreign mediation.
Sri Lanka's Sinhalese control the army, navy and air force. The Tigers have only small arms, in large part purchased with money raised by Canada's 250,000 Tamils.
Canada's Irish did the same for the IRA. Canadian Jews raised funds to buy arms for Israel's independence struggle from Britain. Sikh separatists in Punjab were funded by Canadian Sikhs.
The Tigers are courageous, highly effective fighters -- call them the Hezbollah of South Asia. They used their bodies as human bombs to fight first the government army, then India when it invaded Sri Lanka in the 1980s in an effort to annex the island. A female Tiger blew up Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
The Tigers are exceedingly brutal and often murderous. They are a fanatical, highly dangerous totalitarian organization. But they are not "terrorists," as the U.S. and now Canada claim.
Terrorism is generally defined as "attacks on civilians for political purposes." Mad dogs who blow up airliners, trains and schools are terrorists, no question. But under this definition, then what do we call the Allied mass slaughter of civilians in Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
Or Russia's massacre of 100,000 Muslim Chechens a decade ago; Israel's 1982 bombardment of Beirut that killed 18,000 civilians; U.S. destruction in 1991 of Iraq's water treatment plants, creating an epidemic that killed hundreds of thousands of children?
What about the indiscriminate bombing of Afghan villages by U.S., Canadian and NATO forces? Or the recent killing of over 1,000 Lebanese and Israeli civilians, denounced by Amnesty International as a war crime?
Those accusing others of terrorism are often far more guilty of it themselves.
Tamil Tigers ably govern a third of Sri Lanka. Dismissing them as "terrorists" is as meaningless and misleading as calling Hezbollah, which is Lebanon's only effective, non-corrupt government, "terrorist thugs."
Enough with propaganda labels. I detest this deceitful, poisonous term, "terrorism," which has become a propaganda weapon to demonize political opponents.
Canada has recently made itself an enemy of the Muslim world and now faces attacks on its citizens and business interests abroad. This is not a good time to kick the Tamil Tigers hornet's nest. Sometimes it's better to avert your gaze, as previous Canadian governments did, and not seek trouble -- particularly when the Tigers have committed no hostile acts against Canada or the U.S.
Terrorism is a tactic, not a thing. Tamil Tigers are fighting for independence after decades of oppression. We westerners have forgotten that armed resistance to intolerable oppression is a legitimate right of all peoples.
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Four Kfir jet bombers of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) dropped 16 bombs on the premises of the Sencholai children's home in Vallipunam on Paranthan-Mullaithivu road, killing at least 61 schoolgirls who were attending
33 bodies have been taken to Puthukudiyiruppu hospital. Other bodies, in severely damaged state, were being identified.
More than 400 schoolgirls were staying in Chencholai. Kfir bombers were flown to the target without circling over the attack site, civilian sources said.
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52 wounded girls were rushed to Mullaithivu hospital. 13 were admitted at Puthukudiyiruppu hospital. At least 64 wounded were taken to Kilinochchi hospital.
Girls from various schools in the Mullaitivu district were staying overnight at the compound, attending a course in first-aid, LTTE officials in Kilinochchi said.
The officials at the LTTE Peace Secretariat denounced the Sri Lankan airstrike as "a horrible act of terror."
They condemned the "deliberate, cold-blooded and inhumane" targeting of the schoolgirls compound by the daylight air raid.
The LTTE Peace Secretariat urged representatives of international agencies in Kilinochchi, including UNICEF, to visit the site of the bombing.
They also urged the international Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM), overseeing the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) to attend the site.
In September 1999, SLAF jets killed 21 people in a similar daylight raid.
Commenting at the time, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said: "We can confirm that 21 civilians were killed consequent to the air strike at Manthuvil junction …The ICRC deplores the fact that the air strikes were carried out in a civilian area."
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Kerry's comments 
