Monday, November 3, 2014

Ukraine pro-Russia rebels hold elections in the east, fueling conflict

A pro-Russian separatist casts a ballot during elections at a polling station in Novoazovsk, Ukraine, in the eastern region of Donetsk, on Nov. 2. (Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

By Michael Birnbaum November 2 at 4:19 PM

MOSCOW — Residents of rebel-held eastern Ukraine voted for leaders on Sunday, taking another step toward establishing an independent enclave and exacerbating tensions between Russia and the West.

Ukraine Pro-Russia Rebels Hold Elections in the East, Fueling Conflict by Thavam

The rising tide of change in Vietnam

Tom Malinowski. Pic: AP.

The US and Vietnam remain at an impasse despite Washington’s partial lifting of an arms embargo, write Asia Sentinel’s Khanh Vu Duc and Duvien Tran

By Asia Sentinel Nov 03, 2014

US Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski did not mince words when he urged Vietnamto improve on human rights at the end of his five-day tour of the country late last week.

It may or may not have been a warning to the communist government, but the implication was clear: US–Vietnam relations will likely remain in neutral until Hanoi undertakes much needed reforms. Of particular concern to Malinowski were the Vietnamese government’s restrictions on freedom of expression and association.

While not the first time the US has expressed its concerns on human rights in Vietnam, this may be the first time when Washington possesses the necessary leverage to influence Hanoi. From its hoped-for membership in the TPP to maritime security in the South China Sea, Vietnam requires US support.

The US has certainly not lacked in outreach to Vietnam. From extending a hand to join the TPP to announcing the partial lifting of its arms embargo, the US has made its intentions clear on deepening ties with its former foe.

Arguably at an earlier point, such overtures, although significant, would not have carried the same weight. However, for Vietnam, now faced with regional uncertainty and insecurity, the time may have come for it to compromise on issues it once considered off-limits.

Prison Service Officials Re-Arrest 12 Inmates #PrisonBreakKotonKarfe

Operatives of the Nigeria Prison Service, have re-arrested 12 inmates out of the 144 that escaped from the Koton-Karfe Prisons, Kogi State, Sunday night.

It was gathered that unknown gunmen who attacked the prison, around 9.30 pm, released the 144 inmates in the facility comprising 26 convicts and 119 awaiting trial inmates.

The NPS Public Relations Officer, Ope Fatinikun, who confirmed the development to our correspondent on Monday, explained that the Police have begun an investigation into the jail-break.

He stated that an inmate died during the attack while another one who was injured had been taken to the hospital for treatment.

Fatinikun said a prison officer who suffered a gunshot injury, has also been hospitalized and is responding to treatment.

He said,”Unknown gunmen invaded Koton- Karfe priso between 9.30 and 10 pm and immediately it happened, the acting Controller-General of Prisons, Aminu Suley informed the Inspector-General of Police, and the Chief of Defence Staff and they ordered policemen and soldiers to beef up security around the prison and to arrest the fleeing inmates.

Suicide blast kills 23 in Nigeria, prison attack frees 144

BY JOE HEMBA-YOBE Nigeria Mon Nov 3, 2014

(Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least 23 people in a procession of Shi'ite Muslims marking the ritual of Ashoura in northeast Nigeria's Yobe state on Monday, witnesses said.

In a separate incident overnight in central Kogi state, gunmen using explosives blew their way into a prison in the city of Lokoja, killing one person and freeing 144 inmates, Adams Omale, prisons coordinator for the state, told Reuters.

In the suicide bombing in Potiskum in Yobe state, a territory at the heart of an insurgency by Sunni Muslim Boko Haram rebels, the attacker joined the line of Shi'ites before setting off his device as they marched through a market in the town, resident Yusuf Abdullahi said.

"I heard a very heavy explosion as if it happened in my room. It took place just 200 metres from my house," he said. Another person carrying an explosive that did not go off was arrested, he said.

Mohammed Gana, whose brother was killed in the attack, said he counted 23 bodies at the scene.

Another Potiskum resident, Abubakar Saliu, said soldiers started shooting immediately after the explosion, but it was not clear who they fired at or if anyone was hit by the gunfire.

Ashoura marks the death in battle more than 1,300 years ago of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein.

Boko Haram's five-year-old campaign for an Islamic state, which has killed thousands, is seen as the main security threat to Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy and leading oil producer.

Omale said 26 of the Lokoja prison inmates freed in the Kogi raid had been recaptured. He did not comment on whether any of the escaped prisoners were Boko Haram members.

QUESTIONS OVER "CEASEFIRE"

Nigeria's government announced last month that a ceasefire had been agreed with Boko Haram and that talks were underway in neighbouring Chad for the release of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted in April by the Islamist rebels.

But although mediator Chad has said the negotiations are still on, a spate of recent attacks across Nigeria's northeast by suspected Boko Haram fighters has raised serious doubts about whether a lasting peace pact can be achieved.

Prospects for this took another hit at the end of last week when a man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in a video recording the kidnapped girls were "married off" to his fighters, contradicting Nigerian government statements that they would soon be freed.

Nigeria's military says it killed Shekau a year ago, and authorities said in September they had killed an impostor posing as him in videos.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking a second term in elections in February, has faced rising criticism at home and abroad for failing to halt the Boko Haram insurgency and obtain the release of the schoolgirls.

In a statement on Monday, Nigeria's opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) accused Jonathan's government of misleading the public over the reported peace deal.

"The president has failed in his most scared duty, protecting the safety and well being of Nigeria's citizens," the APC party said.

(Additional reporting by Isaac Abrak in Abuja and Lanre Ola in Maiduguri; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

'Be in Love With Them, but Don't Marry

Them'

How Jack Ma partnered with local government to make e-commerce giant Alibaba, and Hangzhou, a success.

BY SHUJIE LENG-OCTOBER 31, 2014

Before Alibaba settled in Hangzhou 15 years ago, the city of 8 million people in eastern China was best known for its silk, its scenic West Lake, and its signature dish, noodles with sautéed shrimp and eel. Now, Hangzhou is seen as China's e-commerce capital. And it's not just home to Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce platform, which on Sept. 19 had the largest U.S. IPO in history, or the birthplace of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, now China's richest man. It also has roughly 15 percentof the nation's e-business platforms, including 96188.com, an online market selling fresh produce; and Xiami.com, a music-streaming website.

But Alibaba is the jewel in Hangzhou's crown. For millions of Hangzhou natives like me, who have witnessed Alibaba transform from a team of 18 since its founding in 1999 to a titan with 26,000 employees, it's not surprising that "second-tier" Hangzhou -- and not the "first-tier" megacities of Beijing and Shanghai -- is home to Alibaba's gargantuan headquarters, a 1,615,000-square-foot campus that houses more than 10,000 employees.

In the beginning, Ma flirted with Beijing and Shanghai. He went to Beijing in 1996 to promote China Pages, his first (failed) start-up and a precursor to Alibaba. Shortly after founding Alibaba in Hangzhou in 1999, Ma raised $25 million in venture capital, and in 2000 he moved the company to Shanghai, 100 miles northeast of Hangzhou. But Ma soon found that Shanghai -- packed with state-owned enterprises and multinational companies -- didn't care about an Internet start-up like his. Within a year, Ma hauled Alibaba back to Hangzhou, whose city government "gave us more attention," he told state-run outlet Beijing Youth Daily in 2008.

The Hangzhou city government embraced Alibaba even when it was scrappy and inconsequential. Between March and November 2003, an outbreak of the viral respiratory disease SARS swept through China, terrifying a populace that suddenly became afraid to venture outside. That development brought an unexpected opportunity to the country's budding e-commerce industry -- if people couldn't go outside to shop in person, maybe they would shop online instead. On April 30, 2003, Hangzhou Mayor Mao Linsheng visitedAlibaba, and soon after introduced a series of policies to encourage companies to adopt platforms like Alibaba to promote their trade business online. In January 2004, the Hangzhou government provided a piece of land on which Alibaba built a $37 million research and development center.

Hangzhou is situated in Zhejiang, a province that, more than any other, exemplifies how China's 35 years of economic liberalization have unlocked the entrepreneurial energies of its people. According to government figures, at least one in four people born in Zhejiang has started his or her own small or medium enterprise somewhere in China --reportedly the highest ratio in China. A September 2014 report in Hurun, a business and finance monthly, lists more Zhejiang natives among China's richest 1,000 people than from any other single province. (Ma ranks first in that group of 164.)

It also couldn't have hurt that in November 2002, Xi Jinping, now China's president, took the helm as Zhejiang's Communist Party chief, the highest-ranking position in the province. During his five-year tenure, Xi's focus on bolstering private economic activity catalyzed the growth of e-commerce companies like Alibaba. (Xi's achievement in Zhejiang was one of the major reasons for his promotion to the central government in July 2007.)

According to the Hangzhou government's 2013-2015 agenda, Hangzhou plans to invest $50 million in Alibaba's cloud-computing project that brings big data into e-commerce, and another $800 million in 44 public service platforms that share resources with other people and companies, including Alibaba's "Taobao City," a 450-acre technology campus in northeastern Hangzhou. Shenzhen and Guangzhou, two giant southern Chinese cities that invest around $80 million each in e-commerce annually, can barely compete.

Ma and China's central government have managed to get along pretty well, too. A number of princelings, the well-connected grown children of China's top party leaders, were among Alibaba's investors and thus also counted as winners in its historic IPO; in July 2014, Ma accompanied Xi on a state visit to South Korea. As an ambitious job creator locally and a business reformer nationally, he has confidence and shrewdness in dealing with both the central and Hangzhou government. In a recent panel discussion organized by the Wall Street Journal, Ma characterized his relationship with the Chinese government this way: "As always, be in love with them, but don't marry them."

190mph Super Typhoon Nuri from space: a beautiful beast

rb animated nuri NOAA 190mph Super Typhoon Nuri from space: a beautiful beast

Liam Dutton on Weather

Monday 03 Nov 2014

Nuri, yet another powerful super typhoon, is currently roaming the vast expanse of water in the north west Pacific Ocean.

supertyphoon nurispace NASA wp 190mph Super Typhoon Nuri from space: a beautiful beast

Thankfully, it is what is sometimes referred to as a fish storm – one that will only bother fish out at sea, rather than make landfall.

190mph Super Typhoon Nuri From Space a Beautiful Beast by Thavam

Ebola in Liberia: Malaria must be treated, too

Liberia, 2014. © Armelle Loiseau/MSF
On October 25, MSF started a distribution of anti-malaria treatment in Monrovia to 300,000 people. The distribution targets the poorest and most densely populated areas, where access to health care is very limited due to the collapse of the health system caused by the Ebola crisis. The objective is to eliminate malaria and to keep families from entering Ebola centres and becoming contaminated.

MSB13855.jpg

30.10.2014 - 12:45

Every year, malaria claims victims in Liberia. The disease is endemic there. However, with the Ebola epidemic, it has become very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain treatment. In response, MSF has begun distributing anti-malarial kits in the capital city, Monrovia. Approximately 300,000 people will benefit.
On October 25, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)’s teams began distributing anti-malarial treatment in the western part of Liberia’s capital city. This distribution is taking place in the poorest neighbourhoods, where population density is very high and where access to care, which was already very limited before the Ebola epidemic, barely exists any longer.
To address the collapse of the health care system, MSF is distributing antimalarials to 300,000 people in Monrovia. This treatment – artesunate and amodiaquine – is intended for children over the age of six months, but also for adults.

Inside Monrovia’s ‘Hotel Tent’, where Ebola’s orphans wait for someone to take them home

Similarity to Ebola causes suspicion

“The first symptoms of malaria are the same as those of Ebola,” says Dr. Chibuzo Okonta, MSF’s deputy director of emergency programs. “They include fever, headache and overwhelming fatigue. We decided to give this antimalarial treatment to both children and adults. It treats and prevents the disease. The objective is also to eliminate the risk that patients with fever, suspected of having Ebola, will end up in Ebola treatment centres in contact with infected persons.”
Before the distribution, volunteers who live in the neighbourhood and have been trained by MSF visit families to explain how the distribution works. They give each family a ticket indicating the number of people living in the same room, which will authorize them to obtain the drugs. A female family member comes to the distribution site to pick up a packet that contains the treatments.

Aerial video of MSF’s Ebola management centre in Monrovia — the largest ever built

Preventing and curing a devastating illness

On October 29, 20,000 families – 100,000 people – living in the New Kru neighbourhood had already received one treatment. The distribution will continue for several days in other neighbourhoods. It will be repeated the next two months at the same locations, with the same treatment and mosquito nets.
Given the backdrop of Ebola, vigilance is essential. To protect both the population and health care workers against the risk of infection, the distribution takes place early in the morning, when the streets are still empty. Participants keep their distance from each other to avoid any physical contact. The operation is divided among 55 sites.
After each distribution, the MSF-trained volunteers ensure that the message has gotten through, going door-to-door to confirm that all family members have taken the drugs even if they are not ill, because the treatment both cures and prevents the illness.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Putting the 18th Amendment at the core of the debate

Sunday, November 02, 2014

For decades, advocates working on Sri Lanka’s deficit of justice had to cope with manifest reluctance on the part of many well intentioned minds to question and critique the national legal process. This reluctance was perhaps understandable. Complex questions of law were at issue. Then again, conventional wisdom assumed that Sri Lanka’s legal institution, with all its cosmetic trappings of a functional adversary system worked, if not all the time, then at least some of the time.

A calamitous collapse
So constitutional checks and balances were assumed to be in proper order and departures thereof were treated with a casual shrug of the shoulder. For example, the deliberate undermining of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution by the Government and the opposition after just three years of its enactment occasioned scarcely a whimper at the time.

The point was not that the 17th Amendment was perfect. Yet this amendment constituted the one rational check on extraordinarily wide Presidential powers mandated by the 1978 Constitution. As such, the national effort should have been to fine-tune its content rather than to belittle it, paving the way for the diabolical 18th Amendment to be approved by a compliant Supreme Court presided over by Justice Shirani Bandaranayake.

Ironically Justice Bandaranayake later became a victim of this same political mala fides when, as Sri Lanka’s 43rd Chief Justice, she was thrown out of office with less ceremony than that afforded to a common thief. Juxtaposed with the ending of war in 2009 amidst the anguish of Tamil civilians caught in conflict, this set the stage for a calamitous collapse of the domestic process of justice under the Rajapaksa Presidency.

Not impressed with government defences
This week, the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s Concluding Observations on Sri Lanka’s Fifth Period Report constitutes a refreshing change from this general reluctance to critique the national legal process. Obviously not impressed by the shrill tone of the Government defences, the Committee’s Observations laid bare the reality in several important respects.

As this column has noted previously, the Committee should not be confused with the United Nations Human Rights Council before which a current investigation on Sri Lanka’s war time actions is being conducted by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. These are parallel procedures that take place quite independently of one another. In terms of the Committee’s functions, States are required to report to it periodically in regard to their compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In an extension of this mandate and where a State party agrees to the Protocol to the ICCPR, the Committee also considers individual complaints submitted to it by aggrieved citizens. Sri Lanka had acceded to both these processes some time ago.

It is under the periodic reporting procedure that Sri Lanka’s report was considered last month. First, the Committee situated the repeal of the 18th Amendment and ensuring the independence of the judicial institution fairly and squarely at the core of Sri Lanka’s dysfunction. Crucially it recommended that Sri Lanka ensure a transparent and impartial process for appointments to the judiciary and other independent bodies. It asked that concrete measures be taken to ensure that judges are protected from improper influences, inducements, pressures, threats or interferences exerted by the executive and/or legislature. Secondly, it refused to believe that the withdrawal of the Emergency Regulations had resulted in an improved human rights climate given that the Prevention of Terrorism Act continues to be in place.

Exasperation with the Government’s lack of good faith
Thirdly, the Committee was unimpressed by the disingenuous if not facile explanation by state representatives that the Singarasa Case (2006, per ex-Chief Justice Sarath Silva’s ruing on the unconstitutionality of the Optional Protocol’s individual complaint procedure) was being ‘reviewed’ by the Supreme Court. There is a particular context to this issue. Individual communications had been filed by Sri Lankans from about 2000 onwards complaining that not only the law but also judicial action had violated rights.

The Government was asked by the Committee in response, to ensure that persons be tried without undue delay, that confessions of tortured detainees should not be used against them and that atrocities be properly investigated. Sri Lanka was also asked to enact a Contempt of Court law which would not allow for judicial abuse. Even by the most ludicrous stretch of the imagination, these were not recommendations that endangered the safety and security of the State. Rather, they enhanced the rights of citizens and put the judiciary on notice. But the views were pushed aside or glossed over.

And clearly piqued by being called to order, the Supreme Court declared in the Singarasa Case that Sri Lanka’s very act of accession itself to the Protocol was unconstitutional. Thus, the Committee’s exasperation at the lack of good faith on the part of the Government in remaining within the ambit of the treaty body procedure whilst violating it in spirit and substance was marked.

The slow building up of adverse pressure
The Government may scoff at these findings which it would see as not having any direct enforceable force. But this week’s Concluding Observations will contribute substantially to the body of critical opinion that is being steadily formed.

Notably, those who observed the Committee sessions would have seen that its Asian jurists were insistent questioners of the integrity of Sri Lanka’s constitutional process. Full implementation of the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was emphasized. These are pointers to the fact that this Government’s best loved strategy of lies and bluster is no longer working.

The 18th Amendment which set the seal on a monarchic Executive President managed by one political family holding the reins of government and needless to say, the finances must be repealed. The Committee’s call in that regard must be welcomed. The slow restoration of constitutional equilibrium can only begin thereafter. For enlightened Sri Lankans, this bare minimum must surely be self-evident, without a doubt.

You Do Not Care What Indignity Tamils Suffer Because You Do Not Consider Them Your Own – Sumanthiran

02/11/2014 -[HON. M. A. SUMANTHIRAN – SPEECH ON SECOND READING OF BUDGET DEBATE 28TH OCTOBER 2014]
Thank you, Hon. Presiding Member, for the opportunity given to speak at the Second Reading of the Budget this year. As I have done in all of the Second Reading Debates since 2010 including the Vote on Account of that year, I wish to commence with a particular Observation. This year I have support for that observation from a Frontbencher from the Government ranks, the Hon. (Ven.) Athuraliye Rathana Thero. Just after the Budget Speech by the Hon. Minister of Finance, the Venerable Thero was asked by the press about his comments on the Budget Proposals and his response was, “We hope next year the Budget will be presented by a Member of the House”. Now, this is something that I have said for four years; that if Parliament is to exercise total control over public finance as mandated by Article 148 of the Constitution – the Hon. (Ven.) Athuraliye Rathana Thero was also pleased to mention that Article in his comment – then, it is necessary that the Minister of Finance is a Member of this House. We have the sad spectacle yet again this year of the Debate continuing without the Minister who proposed it being in the House as a Member of this House accountable and responsible to respond to several vital comments that are being made. I too wish, like the Government Frontbencher, that this will be remedied at least by next year.
You Do Not Care What Indignity Tamils Suffer Because You Do Not Consider Them Your Own – Sumanthiran by Thavam

Meeriyabedda Landslide Tragedy: Politicians fail to prevent, despite professional warnings

by Rajan Philips-November 1, 2014

This is not the time to say, "We told you so." But when is it not the time to warn of potential but preventable disasters, such as floods and landslides? We mourn the dead at the Meeriyabedda estate and feel the pain of those who have lost their parents, siblings and spouses. We must also raise the alarm that more flooding and landslide disasters are in the offing if preventative actions are not taken, and not taken promptly.

Meeriyabedda Landslide Tragedy Politicians Fail to Prevent, Despite Professional Warnings by Thavam

On A Fearful Road

By Ranil Senanayake -November 2, 2014

Ranil Senanayake

One of the observations that with climate change comes an increase in peak weather events, became a horrible reality to us last week. Our mountains, bearing soil on a rocky base, was once stabilized by the unbroken blanket of forests that covered it have become destabilized. The tragedy of the loss of life at Meeriyabedda is a warning, we have to change the way in which we treat our soils and landscapes.

The erosion of our soils and the loss of both soil nutrients and biodiversity have forced us into the current chemical basis of agricultural production. The chemical methods of agriculture do not build up populations of soil bacteria, soil bacteria that produce the polysaccharide gum that binds soil particles and soil without good structure quickly dissolves when wet.

But we are proud of a chemically maintained monoculture over our mountains, a monoculture that precludes the use of trees, a monoculture that does not lend stability to the soil. This is our tea country.

by Dr Reeza Hameed
- on 11/02/2014

I

have discussed in these columns some days ago the contention that President Rajapaksa is not qualified to fight an election for a third term by virtue of the operation of Article 31(2) of the Constitution. The repeal of that article by the Eighteenth Amendment does not remove the past operation of anything suffered under the repealed law.

Mahinda Rajapaksa Cannot Succeed President Rajapaksa by Thavam

Gota to move to Catholic Church

SUNDAY, 02 NOVEMBER 2014

Defense Secretary convening members of the Catholic Bishops Conference to Bishops House on the 21st has stated Pope’s visit to Sri Lanka should somehow or other take place before the presidential election as the President would not be happy if that doesn’t happen.
Catholic Bishops' Conference Sri Lanka is an independent, impartial body and it functions without any pressure. The Council was surprised by the stern request made by the Defense Secretary and they say never had a defense head of the country addressed the Catholic Bishops' Conference Sri Lanka in that manner.
Meanwhile, Catholic priests from the Western Province were convened by the Defense Secretary to Naval Club House at Uswetakeiyawa on the 23rd at 6.00 p.m. The defense Secretary has addressed about 50 to 60 Catholic priests here and had spoken about the development projects of the government and beautification of Colombo city.
The priests for this meeting have been convened through head priests and priests had thought they were called to discuss Pope’s visit to Sri Lanka.
The attempt is to use Pope’s visit to boost Mahinda’s image for the presidential election and pressurize Catholic Church and make the visit a project of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
After the incident Catholic priests in Sri Lanka have been thoroughly disappointed and question whether Pope’s visit is managed and arranged according to the wishes of the government.
Meanwhile, His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo said that the Bishops' Conference will stick to the dates as announced in the Vatican itinerary and the Bishops are doing their utmost to prepare everything for the Pope’s visit, His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, presiding at the Presbyteral meeting of the Archdiocese of Colombo on Monday 27th October 2014 confirmed the visit of Holy Father Pope Francis to Sri Lanka on 13th & 14th January 2015.

Beware JHU pseudo reforms sham

The long simmering disquiet over the 1978 constitution and the need to abolish the executive presidency by amending the constitution and introducing a more democratic form of government more in accord with the aspirations of the Lankan people, have now risen to the boil.