Sri Lanka will not be part of a process that comes in the form of an investigation on the extension of the GSP + facility to Sri Lanka, observed Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama during his discussions today (24th October 2008) with the Ambassador of France, Michel Lummaux. France is the current Chair of the European Union (EU). He further reiterated that the route of an investigation to assess Sri Lanka’s compliance on the requisites for extension of this facility would not be accepted and therefore an alternative process should be …

A senior western diplomat has warned that living conditions are deteriorating for tens of thousands of civilians displaced inside Tamil Tiger rebel-held areas in northern Sri Lanka. It is a humanitarian disaster waiting to happen, he says.
“We have one of the biggest humanitarian problems emerging in the north at the moment. Unfortunately it’s not attracting enough international attention,” the diplomat, who’s familiar with the Sri Lankan situation, told the BBC.
Sri Lankan security forces are carrying out a multi-pronged offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels in the north and some army …

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 24 (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council will likely authorize deployment of some special forces and new military hardware to help U.N. troops better protect civilians from increasing violence in Congo, diplomats said.
Earlier this month Alan Doss, head of the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), asked the Security Council for more troops, including forces with special skills and training, as well as drones and other military hardware that can improve MONUC’s intelligence gathering capabilities.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world’s nuclear powers on Friday to take steps to abolish their atomic arsenals and outlined a set of proposals for eliminating all weapons of mass destruction.
The permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — signed the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which they pledged to negotiate steps on scrapping their nuclear weapons.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council is considering stepping up the pressure on Eritrea to avoid a renewal of fighting in the Horn of Africa between Asmara and its neighbor Djibouti, diplomats said on Friday.
Djibouti accused neighboring Eritrea of moving troops across the border in June, triggering several days of fighting that killed a dozen Djiboutian troops and wounded dozens. Eritrea denies making any incursions.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council will likely authorize deployment of some special forces and new military hardware to help U.N. troops better protect civilians from increasing violence in Congo, diplomats said.
Earlier this month Alan Doss, head of the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), asked the Security Council for more troops, including forces with special skills and training, as well as drones and other military hardware that can improve MONUC’s intelligence gathering capabilities.

MANILA, (Reuters) – The Philippines is open to calls to halt an army offensive against rogue Muslim rebels, the most senior military commander in the south said on Thursday, adding that the conflict was taking a large toll in lives and money.
“We are open to a ceasefire because we realise that we can’t end this problem by annihilating each other,” Lieutenant-General Cardozo Luna, the military’s vice chief of staff and commander of all military forces on southern Mindanao island, told reporters.

An explosion has destroyed a key bridge linking Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia with the rest of the country.
Georgian officials and Abkhazian authorities blamed each other for the blast. Residents of Abkhazia’s Gali district had used the bridge to reach Georgia’s Zugdidi region. Georgian authorities have called the explosion an effort by separatist and Russian officials to cut off Abkhazia and another breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, from the rest of the country.
Meanwhile, the chief of the European Union monitors in Georgia, Hansjoerg Haber, asked Russia to give specific …