AN EXCITING, BRAND NEW, Tamil Channel Tharisanam TV - Channel 1 Commences on THAI PONGAL DAY! This Primary Channel will be a Tamil TV Channel dedicated to the requirements of the Sri Lankan Tamil Community. Sri Lankan content will focus on news and current affairs and programs reflecting our culture and aspirations of our community.

HIV infection is rising in every region of the world, especially in east Asia and in eastern Europe/central Asia, according to the latest UNAIDS/WHO report. "Accountability -- the theme of this World AIDS Day -- requires every president and prime minister, every parliamentarian and politician, to decide and declare that 'AIDS stops with me,'" U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

Scientists are going too far in creating mixed human-animal organisms, a Scottish organization is warning. The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, a professional group based in Edinburgh, has published a report on the ethical implications of the practice in the journal Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics. The report is online at www.schb.org.uk.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today condemned the capital punishment awarded to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and said death sentences were akin to "tearing some pages from human lives."

LONDON: A British Hindu convert to Islam of ethnic Indian origin has admitted and been convicted by a London court for plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb and other explosive devices to commit mass murder in UK and US.

The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: “We are watching the world of yesterday.”

Excerpted from Thom Hartmann's newest book, Screwed; The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class -- And What We Can Do About It. One of the most pernicious claims the corporatocracy makes is that business flourishes best in a perfectly "free" market.

The Refugee Board has decided to let a 15-year-old Sri Lankan remain in Denmark after he was scheduled to be deported. The ongoing saga of 15-year-old Ramis Ramachandran from Sri Lanka, better known as 'Rams', took a new turn Monday, when his pending deportation case was temporarily put on hold.

For the first time, women in India have legal protection against abuse in their own homes under a law which came into force yesterday. It is the first time Indian law has recognised marital rape, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse of a woman by her husband as crimes. India is a country where the streets are safe - but a woman is not safe inside her own home.

There was an almost forgettable exchange earlier this month in the Iraqi National Assembly, itself on the fringe of relevance in today's disintegrating Iraq. Lawmakers debated whether legislation should be submitted to a committee to determine if it was compatible with Islam. Ideas were put forth, as well as criticism.