Rajapakse seeks ‘snap’ election after party wins
Taleban infiltrator kills 16
COLOMBO, Feb 12, (Agencies): Sri Lanka’s former leader Mahinda Rajapakse on Monday demanded a snap general election and challenged his successor’s right to govern after drubbing the ruling coalition in crucial mid-term polls.
Rajapakse’s new party secured two-thirds of Sri Lanka’s councils in a surprise blitz of local elections, humiliating the governing alliance as it reels from internal crises and divisions over leadership.
“The government no longer has a mandate,” said Rajapakse, who lost presidential and parliamentary polls in 2015 after ruling the island with an iron fist for a decade.
“I ask the president to call a general election.”
Rajapakse, whose family wields enormous influence in Sri Lanka, staged a dramatic comeback at the weekend as his Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna — SLPP or People’s Front — pulled off the landslide victory.
Tribute to Jahangir:
The United Nations Secretary-General has paid tribute to Pakistan’s “human rights giant” Asma Jahangir following her death by cardiac arrest at the weekend, praising her courage in campaigns for justice and equality for all.
Antonio Guterres issued his “heartfelt condolences” to those grieving the 66-year-old lawyer, who co-founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and also once served as UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran.
“We have lost a human rights giant,” the UN chief said in a statement released after Jahangir’s death was announced on Sunday.
“She was a tireless advocate for inalienable rights of all people and for equality — whether in her capacity as a Pakistani lawyer in the domestic justice system, as a global civil society activist, or as a Special Rapporteur. Asma was brilliant, deeply principled, courageous and kind.”
Pakistan social media has been flooded with an outpouring of grief for the loss of what many described as the country’s “moral compass”, while on Monday newspaper front pages were dominated by tributes to the nation’s leading human rights activist.
Infiltrator kills 16:
A Taleban infiltrator killed 16 members of a progovernment militia force in the insurgency ridden southern province of Helmand when he turned his gun on men who he had worked with for months, officials said on Monday.
The Afghan security agency had set up the militia to infiltrate the Taleban, a security official told Reuters, though a spokesman for Helmand’s governor was unable to identify the group.
“We know that a Taleban fighter killed 16 militiamen fighting alongside government forces, but who these forces belong to, we don’t know yet,” said the spokesman, Omar Zwak.
The Taleban claimed responsibility for the killings in the province’s Gereshk district on Saturday, saying two of its fighters were involved.
‘Drone killed Taleban deputy’:
The Pakistani Taleban confirmed on Monday that their deputy leader was killed in a suspected US drone strike last week and said they had appointed a new deputy in his place.
A pair of suspected US missile strikes killed the militant leader, Khalid Mehsud, also known by his alias Sajna, on Thursday last week in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, near the border with Pakistan, Pakistani security officials said. But there were conflicting accounts of the drone attack from Pakistani intelligence officials and militant sources.