A series of powerful earthquakes killed at least four people and injured
\ndozens more in remote eastern Indonesia, cutting power lines and destroying
\nbuildings.<\/p>\n
The loss of Kilinochchi, its capital, is a major blow to the Tamil Tiger
\nmovement fighting for autonomy in the Sinhalese-dominated country. But the
\narmy’s success in capturing the town does not mark the death of the
\nLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).<\/p>\n
Thailand’s new prime minister was under pressure to answer allegations that
\nhundreds of Burmese and Bangladeshi migrants were set adrift at sea with
\nlittle food and water by the armed forces.<\/p>\n
One of the quakes \u2014 a 7.3-magnitude tremor \u2014 sent small tsunamis into
\nJapan’s southeastern coast, but there were no reports of damage there and
\nno tsunami in Indonesia’s impoverished Papua area.<\/p>\n
Kilinochchi was the LTTE’s political headquarters, strung out on the main
\ntarmac road from Colombo to Jaffna. The government could always strike it
\nat will by air, as it did when aircraft bombed the offices of SP
\nThamilselvan, the man with whom foreign diplomats as well as the government
\nhad frequently negotiated.<\/p>\n
Abhisit Vejjajiva met with officials from the country’s human rights
\ncommission amid claims that up to 1,000 migrants, mostly from the Rohingya
\nethnic minority from western Burma, were towed out to sea and abandoned on
\nboats without engines. At least 300 remain unaccounted for. Human rights
\ngroups allege four migrants were thrown into the sea to encourage others to
\nclimb aboard the vessels.<\/p>\n
The first 7.6-magnitude quake struck on land about 85 miles (135
\nkilometers) from Manokwari, Papua, at a depth of 22 miles (35 kilometers),
\nthe U.S. Geological Agency said. It was followed by 10 aftershocks.<\/p>\n
By advancing into the town by land the army has forced any remaining LTTE
\npoliticians to withdraw altogether. But the movement’s military HQ and its
\nlogistical bases are hidden well to the east near its coastal stronghold of
\nMullaitivu. The whereabouts of the Tiger’s ruthless leader, Velupillai
\nPrabhakaran, has never been clear.<\/p>\n
Vejjajiva stressed the alleged abuse of the migrants ran counter to
\ngovernment policy, and that the military had confirmed to him that it
\nrespected all migrants.<\/p>\n
At least four people died in Papua, and the airport runway nearest the
\nepicenter was cracked, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters.
\nCommercial flights to the area were canceled.<\/p>\n
Seizing Kilinochchi was done at a fearful human cost. Comparisons with Gaza
\nare not amiss, down to the censorship that prevented journalists entering
\nthe area while the fighting was underway. Several days of unopposed
\nairstrikes and artillery fire killed civilians as well as Tiger militants,
\nand forced tens of thousands of families to flee into the jungle en masse.
\nHundreds of troops have died on both sides in the offensive, which has
\ntaken months to reach its goal.<\/p>\n
However, Thailand’s foreign ministry has launched an inquiry into the
\ndamning allegations that the navy and the army had imprisoned and
\nmistreated the migrants on the southern Thai island of Koh Sai Daeng before
\nabandoning them to die in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n
“I’ve instructed emergency steps be taken to help our brothers and to
\nrestore power and other vital utilities,” he said without commenting on how
\nwidespread the damage might be.<\/p>\n
Among the dead was a 10-year-old girl whose head was crushed, said local
\nhospital director Hengky Tewu.<\/p>\n
If the survivors’ tales prove correct the expulsions are a reversal of a
\npolicy Thailand followed for years, allowing the impoverished and stateless
\nMuslim Rohingya to land on their way to Malaysia. Many were said to have
\nbeen turned over to human traffickers.<\/p>\n
“We have our ambulances picking up two more,” he said. Another 19 patients
\nat the hospital were treated for broken bones, cuts, crushed fingers and
\nother injuries.<\/p>\n
Like Gaza too, this is asymmetrical warfare and the Tigers were quick to
\ntake the shine off the government’s victory by sending a suicide bomber
\ninto the heart of Colombo to kill two airmen at the air force headquarters.
\nThis has always been the Tiger tactic in extremis, and they will probably
\nrevert to more of it in the aftermath of losing Kilinochchi.<\/p>\n
Indian authorities on the Andaman Islands say they have rescued 446
\nrefugees lately.<\/p>\n
Papua police chief Maj. Gen. Bagus Ekodanto said he received reports that a
\nhotel and rice warehouse had been “destroyed,” but he did not know if
\nanyone had died. A search for possible victims was under way.<\/p>\n
Several stories of the Mutiara Hotel in the main city Manokwari collapsed,
\nsaid Ina, a nurse at a navy hospital treating 20 quake patients. Like many
\nIndonesians she goes by a single name.<\/p>\n
In one incident, the Thai navy allegedly set adrift an open-topped,
\nengineless barge loaded with 412 people. Those aboard had just four barrels
\nof water and two sacks of rice.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the government hopes to move on to capturing the Elephant Pass,
\nthe last Tiger bastion on the road to Jaffna. If it falls, this will make
\nit easier to re-supply the island’s second largest town, which at the
\nmoment has to get its provisions by sea and air. The army boasts of seizing
\nthe ultimate prize, Mullaitivu.<\/p>\n
Electricity was cut off and people in the coastal city of 167,000 fled
\ntheir homes in the dark fearing a tsunami, said Hasim Rumatiga, a local
\nhealth official. The Indonesian Meteorology and Seismology Agency issued a
\ntsunami alert, but it was revoked within an hour after it was determined
\nthe epicenter of the main quake was on land.<\/p>\n
After they drifted at sea for 15 days, the Indian coastguard rescued 107
\npeople near the Andaman Islands, where they are being held in camps. But up
\nto 300 are missing after they tried to swim ashore.<\/p>\n
Capturing it would certainly weaken the Tigers severely. But guerrilla
\nmovements have the capacity to go underground and reemerge, as long as they
\nremain popular in their own communities. The government calls the LTTE
\nterrorists, and they have been designated as such by the European Union.
\nBut the EU also recognises that they speak for many, if not most, Sri
\nLankan Tamils in denouncing the discrimination that Tamils suffer on the
\nmultiethnic and multicultural island. The Tamil diaspora is unlikely to end
\nits funding for the Tigers any time soon.<\/p>\n
Japan’s Meteorological Agency said tsunamis of 4 inches (10 centimeters) to
\n16 inches (40 centimeters) in height splashed ashore in towns along the
\ncoast. It also warned that bigger tsunamis were possible later.<\/p>\n
In another incident just before new year, three overcrowded fishing boats
\nloaded with 580 Burmese migrants were intercepted off the Thai coast, but
\nwere towed back out to sea after their engines had been removed, according
\nto minority rights group the Arakan Project.<\/p>\n
The damage in Indonesia was still be being assessed.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka needs a just political settlement. There is no military solution.
\nYesterday’s army success is producing a triumphalist mood in Colombo, and
\nPresident Mahinda Rajapakse, who already holds the portfolios of defence,
\nfinance and nation-building, has just made himself minister of the media as
\nwell \u2013 an apparent sign that he wants even tighter control over the
\ncountry’s reporters. Sinhalese politicians will be in no mood for
\nconcessions for many months to come. Sri Lanka faces a grim new year.<\/p>\n
Two of the boats reached the shore; one with 152 people aboard landed on
\nthe Andaman Islands while another reached Aceh in Indonesia. One boat is
\nmissing. Another boatload of 46 migrants arrived on Thailand’s southern
\ncoast was seized by the military along with the occupants.<\/p>\n
“My son’s head was wounded when a cabinet fell on him,” said Ferry Dau, a
\nfather of two who said the walls in his house were cracked. “It was very
\nstrong and scary. The power and phones went dead after the utility lines
\nfell down.”<\/p>\n
A Thai court sentenced Mr. Nicolaides, an Australian, to three years in
\njail for offending the monarchy, a criminal offense in the Kingdom of
\nThailand. He had pleaded guilty, earning a sentence at the lower end of the
\nprescribed range for l\u00e8se-majest\u00e9.<\/p>\n
Rahmat Priyono, a supervisor at the National Earthquake Center, said there
\nwas no immediate information on casualties or damage. “But since the
\nepicenters were on land, they have a potential to cause significant
\ndamage.”<\/p>\n
The Rohingya are stateless and mostly have no rights in Burma, where they
\nare at the mercy of the military junta that curtails their movement while
\nusing them as forced labor.<\/p>\n
Quakes centered onshore pose little tsunami threat to Indonesia itself, but
\nthose close to the coast can still churn up large waves emanating out to
\nother countries like Japan.<\/p>\n
The crime was committed in a single paragraph in \u201cVerisimilitude,\u201d a 2005
\nnovel set in Thailand that is salted with social commentary. At the
\nsentencing, the judge read out the offending section to the court, which
\nwas packed with foreign reporters. The judge said the author had insulted
\nthe king and crown prince in the passage.<\/p>\n
Relief agency World Vision Indonesia was flying in 2,000 emergency
\nprovision kits, including canned food, blankets and basic medical supplies,
\nsaid spokeswoman Katarina Hardono.<\/p>\n
Papua is the Indonesian portion of New Guinea island, located about 1,830
\nmiles (2,955 kilometers) east of the capital Jakarta. It is among the
\nnation’s least developed areas, and a low-level insurgency has simmered in
\nthe resource-rich region for years. It is off limits to foreign reporters.<\/p>\n
Indonesia straddles a chain of fault lines and volcanoes known as the
\nPacific “Ring of Fire” and is prone to seismic activity. A huge quake off
\nwestern Indonesia caused the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed about
\n230,000 people, more than half of them on the western Indonesian island of
\nSumatra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A series of powerful earthquakes killed at least four people and injured dozens more in remote eastern Indonesia, cutting power lines and destroying buildings. The loss of Kilinochchi, its capital, is a major blow to the Tamil Tiger movement fighting for autonomy in the Sinhalese-dominated country. But the army’s success in capturing the town does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[50,53,10,12,14,17,18,23,30,37,38,46],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}