SRI LANKA: Calls for Sri Lanka to release displaced Tamil refugees

CNN

By MONI BASU

The Sri Lankan government should immediately release more than 280,000 displaced Tamil civilians living in detention camps, a leading human rights group said Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch said the displaced Sri Lankans were already victims of a protracted and bloody civil war. Now they are victims again, confined against their will, like criminals, the global watchdog group said.

“Keeping several hundred thousand civilians who had been caught in the middle of a war penned in these camps is outrageous,” said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Right Watch. “Haven’t they been through enough?”

ISRAEL: Israeli army to give better warnings before attacks: report

By XINHUA

JERUSALEM, July 29 (Xinhua) — Israeli defense establishment has decided to give more accurate details in warnings issued to Palestinians before air strikes in order to help residents of the to-be-hit area to flee, local news service Ynet reported Wednesday.

In hearings held recently on Operation Cast Lead by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) earlier this year in Gaza, military sources, including representatives from the military prosecution’s international law department, agreed that more specific information, such as more accurate timetables for strikes to be carried out and escape routes, should be given, the report said.

PAKISTAN: Police Officer Found Dead in Swat Valley of Pakistan

By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH

Published: July 28, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The beheaded body of a police constable who was kidnapped last week in the Swat Valley was found Tuesday morning near the town of Mingora, the police said.