Via Spencer Ackerman, I see that White House National Security Council aid Samantha Power is part of an American delegation to Bosnia for the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. Spencer highlights an excellent interview that Power gave to a Bosnian publication in which she discusses why justice and accountability are crucial underpinnings to any lasting peace.
Hot off the presses, ten embassies in Colombo issue a joint statement on the protests that forced the UN to close it's offices in Sri Lanka.
STATEMENT BY HEADS OF MISSION OF GERMANY, UK, US, FRANCE, ITALY, SWITZERLAND, THE NETHERLANDS, ROMANIA, NORWAY AND THE EU DELEGATION
We are deeply dismayed by the blockade of the UN-compound this week in Colombo and the role played in it by a Government minister.
This is bad news. The United Nations is shuttering its offices in Sri Lanka amid days of protests against UN attempts to take preliminary steps to investigate alleged atrocities committed last year during the waning days of Sri Lanka's civil war.
There is a stunning anti-UN protest underway in Columbo, Sri Lanka. Nationalist protesters led by a government official have blockaded scores of UN employees inside a UN compound. Outside, protestors have burned Ban Ki Moon in effigy.
From the New York Times' travel section, where Sri Lanka tops the list of "31 places to go in 2010."
For a quarter century, Sri Lanka seems to have been plagued by misfortune, including a brutal civil war between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority. But the conflict finally ended last May, ushering in a more peaceful era for this teardrop-shaped island off India’s coast, rich in natural beauty and cultural splendors.