A round-up of today's other world news in brief
UN sending humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka
COLOMBO – UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon says he is sending a humanitarian team to Sri Lanka’s war zone, where thousands are trapped while troops push to end to a 25-year war with Tamil Tiger rebels.
Mr Ban’s decision yesterday came after the military said an exodus of 103,000 people from the tiny coastal strip had slowed, four days after troops blew up an earthen barrier the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam built to stop them escaping.
– (Reuters)
Berlusconi wants G8 held in L’Aquila
L’AQUILA – Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to move July’s Group of Eight summit to the earthquake-hit area of LAquila, acknowledging logistics and cost problems at the original venue on a Sardinian island.
The decision – which could affect more than two years of planning for the event – is dependent on approval from other nations attending the summit scheduled for July 8th-10th on the Mediterranean island of La Maddalena. – (Reuters)
Griffin defends BNP leaflets
LONDON – British National Party chairman Nick Griffin has spoken of a “bloodless genocide” as he defended a party leaflet which says that black Britons and Asian Britons “do not exist”.
The BNP leader was referring to the party’s Language and Concepts Discipline Manual, which says the term used should be “racial foreigners”.
In a BBC interview, Mr Griffin said to call such people British was a sort of “bloodless genocide” because it denied indigenous people their own identity.
The leaflet was leaked to an anti-fascist group and seen by the BBC. – (PA)