Solar Impulse waits out bad weather in Nagoya

The, Solar Impulse 2 touches down at Nagoya airport Monday night during an unscheduled stop after mission controllers decided the weather was not right for the sun-powered plane to cross the vast Pacific Ocean. | AFP-JIJI

AFP-JIJI, STAFF REPOR-JUN 2, 2015

The pilot of the sun-powered Solar Impulse 2 airplane said it was a “great pleasure” to be in Japan after making an unscheduled pit stop at Nagoya Airport toward midnight Monday, and pledged to continue his record-breaking voyage to Hawaii as soon as the weather clears.

Swiss aviator Andre Borschberg, who lived in Japan 30 years ago, arrived from Nanjing, China, after notching up the aircraft’s longest nonstop flight to date, lasting one day and one night. He opted to divert to Nagoya to wait out a difficult weather front he would otherwise have to cross on the way to Hawaii.

“Fighting against the clock. Waiting to build the mobile hangar to protect @solarimpulse against bad weather,” he tweeted Tuesday afternoon as a support crew worked to erect a giant inflatable tent brought in on a separate flight.

“We are working on the mobile hangar and it should be erected this evening,” spokeswoman Elke Neumann told The Japan Times.

The inflatable hangar is assembled in sections to cover the plane and protect its lightweight, 72-meter wings from wind and rain damage. A reflective material was draped over its cockpit and solar cells while the tent was being built.

Solar Impulse 2 was trying to fly continuously from Nanjing to Hawaii, and planners had expected the 8,500-km distance to take six days and six nights nonstop, with onboard batteries charging up during the day.

But a developing cold front in the Pacific Ocean that forecasters said Borschberg would encounter as he neared Hawaii made the crossing risky, mission controllers decided, ordering the pilot to divert to Japan instead.

At an impromptu news conference around an hour after he touched down, Borschberg told reporters that the diversion was no problem for the success of the mission.

“I would say it has no impact,” he said.

Curious locals gathered in a park near the airport Tuesday, hoping to get a glimpse of the record-breaking plane, which has 17,000 solar cells and weighs just 2,300 kg.

LEDs that festoon the huge wingspan gave the plane an ethereal look as it glided in to land Monday night, turning multiple times over Nagoya, and at least one taxi driver commented that it looked like a UFO.

The landing was live-streamed on the project’s website, with viewers treated to scenes of jubilation and relief from the Monaco mission control room as the plane touched down.

Despite having been cut short by several days, the flight from China notched up at least one first — Solar Impulse 2 managed for the first time to fly day and night powered only by sunshine.

The round-the-world attempt began in Abu Dhabi in March and was originally intended to be completed in 12 legs, with a total flight time of around 25 days.

It was not supposed to include a stop in Japan, but, as the last bit of land before the vast stretch of the open Pacific, it had always been a possible backup destination.

The mission’s well-oiled PR operation wasted no time, posting messages on their Twitter feed in Japanese, thanking the nation for its support.

The plane is the successor to Solar Impulse, which managed a 26-hour flight in 2010, proving its ability to store enough power in lithium batteries during the day to keep flying at night.

Ridiculed by the aviation industry when it was first unveiled, the venture has since been hailed around the world.

Is India’s Deadly Heat Wave Global Warming?

In one of the hottest cities in India, residents blame overcrowding, rapid urbanization, and pollution for record-breaking temperatures.

BY VIVEKANANDA NEMANA-JUNE 1, 2015

HYDERABAD, India — Laxmi Koddala, a 45-year-old construction worker at a housing development on this southern city’s outskirts, doesn’t blame climate change for India’s heat wave. “I tell you, the summers are getting hotter,” said Koddala, dressed in a cotton sari and a thin scarf, as temperatures edged past 110 degrees Fahrenheit. “It’s because of all these new buildings. There are no more trees, and no more water in the ground.”

Temperatures were so high in India in May that roads melted in the capital New Delhi, heatstroke patients overwhelmed hospitals, and at least 2,200 people died due to heat-related causes — making this one of the worst heat waves ever recorded. Nearly all of the deaths occurred in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, which share Hyderabad as a capital, and where some places sizzled at over 117 degrees Fahrenheit. Though Y.K. Reddy, Hyderabad director of the India Meteorological Department, said that heat wave conditions (temperatures at least 9 degrees Fahrenheit above normal) have ended in most places, the mercury will still regularly rise past 107 degrees Fahrenheit in both states until the monsoon season arrives sometime in June.

Climate experts believe that this heat is part of a pattern of worsening summers around the globe. Dr. Hem Dholakia, a research associate with the Council on Energy, Environment and Water in Delhi, pointed to a series of unprecedented — and deadly — heat waves in recent years: Europe in 2003,Greece in 2007, Russia, and the Indian city of Ahmedabad in 2010, among others. “There is enough evidence to suggest that human-induced climate change is leading to heat waves around the globe,” he wrote in an email. “Therefore we can be reasonably confident that the current heat wave is a manifestation of a changing climate.”

But for residents of Hyderabad, a sprawling city of over 7 million that is home to the Indian headquarters of major tech companies like Google and Facebook, the blame — and the frustration — is directed not towards climate change, but to the city’s rapid growth. Hyderabad’s population has doubled since 2001, resulting in a dramatic expansion that has swallowed up farmland and polluted or shrunk dozens of lakes. And as afternoon temperatures consistently crossed into triple digits in May, causing traffic to thin and businesses to shut their doors, many residents complained that pollution, excessive construction, and depleted natural resources were making the city hotter.

“There aren’t any more trees anywhere in the city. It’s just buildings everywhere now,” said Nagaraj Chinnapalli, a 29-year-old professional driver who says he can’t work between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. anymore. “People have to realize that the destruction of trees is driving temperatures up. I put the air conditioning on full blast in the car, but it barely gets cooler.”

Koddala, a slender woman with reddish skin toughened by the sun, said she starts work at 8 a.m. and continues until 4 p.m., laboring through the hottest parts of the day. All around her, teams of workers toiled away on an endless landscape of new construction sites, pouring concrete and assembling brick walls. A few people napped in the shadows, covering their faces with wet towels and fanning themselves with newspapers. “We take a short nap after lunch to cool off,” she said, squatting in the doorway of an unfinished villa. “Today, I’m lucky because I’m working mostly in the shade. But usually we work in the direct sunlight. It can get unbearable, but what choice do I have?”

Whether daily-wage laborers or white-collar professionals, Hyderabadis seem to be in unanimous agreement that rapid urbanization was making it harder to stay cool. As he stopped at a roadside stall sellingmatkis, the pear-shaped earthen pots traditionally used in South Asia to keep water cool, Sudhir Purancha, an IT professional, argued that intense migration to the city was driving up the heat. “The summers were never this hot 10 years ago, but the population has just exploded in the city,” he said. “We’ve been trying to cut down on air-conditioning since it releases too many greenhouse gases. Instead we wear loose clothing, stay indoors, and drink a lot of water.”

There is evidence that backs up these assertions. Onerecent study by the India Meteorological Department, the country’s official weather service, found that the five biggest Indian cities, including Hyderabad, now annually experience more days above 98 degrees Fahrenheit than ever before. And research by the Indian nonprofit The Energy and Resources Institute has found evidence of an urban heat island effect in New Delhi and Bombay, in which concrete and asphalt surfaces trap heat during the day and release it at night, making cities feel hotter. Researchers told the Guardian that urban heat island effects were “directly related to and worsened by climate change,” as higher average temperatures increase the intensity of the effect.

Still, most of the heat wave deaths have been in rural parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — whereas Hyderabad recorded just 10 deaths due to the heat, and the city has often faced similar temperatures in the past. Anant Maringanti, director of the think tank Hyderabad Urban Lab, said that while rapid urbanization may not have directly raised temperatures, it was likely making it harder for people to escape the weather: green spaces are harder to access, congested developments trap more heat, and drinking water is more difficult to come by. “So it’s not just the temperature,” he said. “It’s the impossibility of access to open areas, the stress of the traffic, the air pollution, all these irritations that add up and people associate with urbanization. And over the last 20 years, it’s has definitely become much more difficult for poor people to cope.”

In these extreme conditions, heat relief varies dramatically by what you spend. Upscale restaurants like the franchise Café Coffee Day advertise expensive “summer special” beverages, while roadside stalls have mushroomed all over the city that, for roughly 15 cents a glass, peddle cool lemonade of far more dubious quality. Many families seem to have finally splurged on their first air-conditioners, long considered a luxury in India. Sudhir Kumar Allam, the department manager of one Hyderabad outlet of Reliance Digital, an appliance store, said that he sold 675 new air-conditioner units this season — a record and triple the number sold in 2014.

Meanwhile, malls and multiplexes have become sanctuaries for those who can’t get air-conditioning at home. Ticket sales of the daily matinee show at the Sri Devi Cinema Hall, an air-conditioned movie theater in Hyderabad that plays regional Indian films, rose by 50 percent as college students and families sought refuge from the afternoon heat. “They’re coming here more for the air-conditioning than for the movie,” said C. Sudhakar, the theater’s assistant manager. “By the time the movie gets over it cools down outside, and they can go do their other errands.”

But for daily-wage laborers like construction worker Koddala, even staying indoors — much less accessing air-conditioning — is not an option. Authorities said most victims of the heat wave were working class, unable to afford missing a day of work and with far less access to water and cool spaces. “A lot of people faint on the job, and then they have to go to the hospital and get saline,” said Koddala, who earns just under $4 a day. “If the manager is good person, they’ll give us water and juice. If not, then we don’t get anything to drink.”

There was little water and electricity in the slum where she lives, Koddala added, and the nights got so hot that many people numbed themselves on cheap liquor in order to fall asleep. Roughly 33 percent of Hyderabad’s population lives in slums — which have grown rapidly in both number and population as the city expanded, resulting in greater congestion and acute water shortages, especially during heat waves. “Many slums used to have public water taps that provided clean, free water,” said Varghese Theckanath, director of the Montfort Social Institute in Hyderabad, a nonprofit that works with the city’s slums and homeless. “But now most slum households have to buy drinking water at steep prices. We’ve seen a steep increase in diarrhea this year, which means that many people are drinking water from contaminated sources to deal with the heat.”

The states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have yet to develop a comprehensive Heat Action Plan like the northern city of Ahmedabad, which provides “cooling spaces” and water stations for people to escape the heat. But, apparently sensing growing frustration with urbanization, the Telangana government is planning to plant 2.3 billion trees across the state.

Until then, one of the most reliable ways to stay cool is also the simplest. As the heat diminished slightly around 6 p.m., Laxman Rao Vallichetti, the beefy proprietor of a long-running coconut stand, couldn’t serve a growing line of customers fast enough.

“There’s no more water left in the ground, that’s why it’s been getting so hot,” he said, swiftly hacking at green coconuts with an old machete, for which he charged 44 cents. “But more people have been buying coconut water. It’s pure and made by god.”

Even if it gets hotter, he said, his business would do just fine.

NOAH SEELAM/AFP/Getty Images

South Korea confirms first 2 MERS deaths

A Chinese tourist wears a mask as she visits Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, Monday. Pic: AP.

By Asian Correspondent Staff Jun 02, 2015

South Korea’s Health Ministry has confirmed that two people have died there from the deadly MERS virus. The number of infections has risen to 25 and almost 700 people have been placed in isolation.

The victims were a 58-year-old woman and a 71-year-old man. The woman had contact with the original case, a man who returned from the Middle East with the illness last month.

The first fatality from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was recorded in Saudi Arabia in June 2012. Hundreds of people have died of the disease there since, with more cases in neighbouring countries.

South Korean Health Ministry officials said Monday that 682 people who had close contact with MERS patients, such as their family members and their medical staff, were isolated at their homes or state-run facilities.

A thermal camera monitor shows the body temperature of passengers arriving from overseas against possible MERS infection at Incheon International Airport, South Korea. Pic: AP.

The virus in South Korea has been largely limited to medical staff who treated the first patient and who stayed at the same hospital with him, as well as his family members.

However, there is increasing alarm over the spread of the illness in South Korea, despite the assurances from authorities that it has been contained.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong quarantined 18 people at the weekend who traveled to the city with a South Korean man infected with the MERS virus last week.

The 44-year-old South Korean man flew from Seoul to Hong Kong last Tuesday and has since been placed in quarantine in a hospital in southern China.

The 18 people who traveled from Seoul to Hong Kong with him have been quarantined in the Lady MacLehose Holiday Village resort in a remote part of Hong Kong for two weeks, according to authorities.

MERS belongs to the family of coronaviruses that includes the common cold and SARS, and can cause fever, breathing problems, pneumonia and kidney failure. There is no cure or vaccine for the illness to date.

The virus has a death rate of 27%, according to the World Health Organization.

Additional reporting from Associated Press

Cancer breakthrough after 'spectacular' melanoma results

Tom Clarke-Science Editor-MONDAY 01 JUNE 2015

Experts have hailed a new era for cancer treatments after "spectacular" results were achieved in treating skin cancer by harnessing the body's immune system to attack malignant cells.

Immunotherapy is proving so effective that in one British-led trial, more than half of patients with advanced melanoma saw tumours shrink or brought under control, researchers said.

A number of trials of the drugs have been presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual conference in Chicago.

Professor Roy Herbst, of the Yale Cancer Centre in the US, called some of the findings "spectacular".

"I think we are seeing a paradigm shift in the way oncology is being treated," he said. "The potential for long-term survival, effective cure, is definitely there."

Patient, heal thyself. But it's not a miracle yet
There are two reasons why today's findings on skin cancer are so exciting, writes Channel 4 NewsScience Editor Tom Clarke. First, and most obviously, people with untreatable melanoma who would otherwise have had months to live, now might now live a lot longer. But second, and most importantly, we now know that an entire field of scientific endeavour looks like it will pay off - and change the way we treat cancer for good.

For decades scientists have known the immune system can slow the spread of cancer. But they have had to spend years tinkering with ways to make the immune system specifically target cancer, without turning it against every cell in our bodies. The potential benefits are huge. Conventional cancer treatments like radiotherapy and chemotherapy kill rapidly dividing cells - that includes health ones. Using them to fight cancer is usually a balance between giving enough to kill the cancer, but not so much that you kill the patient.

Because the immune system is so very targeted, and it can "remember" what it is supposed to be attacking, tricking it into attacking cancer has the potential to eliminate tumours anywhere in the body with far less damaging side-effects. "Immunotherapy" is the next big thing in cancer care - and today's findings show it's starting to deliver.

But we're not quite there yet. In trials of immunotherapy drugs (there are currently three licensed for use in the US, including both the ones in today's trial and one in the UK, with several more on the way), many of the patients don't respond to them at all. Scientists still have a lot to learn about why some patients respond well to immunotherapy and others don't. But the field of cancer therpay is taking major steps forward.

'New era'

Professor Peter Johnson, director of medical oncology at Cancer Research UK, said: "The evidence suggests we are at the beginning of a whole new era for cancer treatments."

An international trial on 945 patients with advanced melanoma, led by the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, saw them treated with the drugs ipilimumab and nivolumab.

I think we are seeing a paradigm shift in the way oncology is being treated.Prof Roy Herbst, Yale Cancer Center

The treatments stopped cancer advancing for nearly a year in 58 per cent of cases, with tumours stable or shrinking for an average of 11.5 months, researchers found.

This was compared to 19 per cent of cases for ipilimumab alone, with tumours stable or shrinking for an average of 2.5 months, according to the research published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Severe side-effects?

Dr Alan Worsley, Cancer Research UK's senior science information officer, said: "This research suggests that we could give a powerful one-two punch against advanced melanoma by combining immunotherapy treatments.

"Together these drugs could release the brakes on the immune system while blocking cancer's ability to hide from it.

"But combining these treatments also increases the likelihood of potentially quite severe side effects. Identifying which patients are most likely to benefit will be key to bringing our best weapons to bear against the disease."

Below: left CT scan shows melanoma pre-treatment, in red circle; right image shows melanoma post-treatment

Article Tags

Channel 4 News, Health, Science, Tom Clarke

Wigneswaran speaks on The Long Shadow of War

Eye Sri Lanka

Sunday, May 31, 2015
Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, C.V. Wigneswaran has expressed his dissatisfaction over the domestic investigation mechanism into the war crimes and emphasised that there should be an international dimension in the investigation process as the domestic mechanism would not bring about the expected results.

Wigneswaran, who was answering the questions of journalists during an international tele-press conference on Thursday night and discussing the findings of “The Long Shadow of War” that was published by the Oakland Institute,  stated that he doubts if the army would ever leave the lands due to  the business aspect.

Highlighting on the number of soldiers who are stationed in the Northern Province, Wigneswarn said that though there had been a general call urging soldiers to get back to the barracks, there were “no exodus of soldiers from the northern province which is perceivable by anyone.”

“Though they are talking in terms of reduction of army, what really happens is, some camps are closed, and they are moved into larger camps e.  I don’t think there has been any significance reduction with   the number of soldiers in the North” He said.

The Recording of the press call is available at http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sri-lanka-press-conference-audio

Excerpts of the answers of Wigneswaran:

As far as we are concerned there are  certain minimal things which we wanted. For example, with regard to the land that has been released, first they said it was about 1000 Acres, but only around hundred Acres was released. The lands that were given back were not fertile and they were not really useful to the people.

As far as the Tamils are concerned, there has been no political will to help Tamils except when they are forced to do something. This has been one of the characteristics of what has been taking place. The central government in Sri Lanka will not do anything towards the minorities or towards the Tamils, unless they are forced to do something. So, the fact that  the matters are being brought up  into the open by the Oakland institute is definitely useful in order to bring about the international pressure that is necessary with regard to the government of this sort.

With regard to the domestic investigation, right at the start there were a lot of shortcomings. We are not certain that the domestic investigation would bring about desired results; because number of things that have proceeded should be taken into account. There had been international experts who were brought in  to  investigate earlier,  found, conflict of interest,   of the State and of those who were accused of the offenses.

Right from the  beginning we have had number of cases, where there had not been any proper investigation. Therefore, the domestic inquiry will not bring about the necessary expected results. I agree there should be an international dimension in the investigation process. I don’t think we can expect anything out of domestic investigative process with no international dimension at all.

Release of lands in the high security zones are completely in the hands of the army. Most of the lands you will see that the original holders of the houses cannot see their houses as they had been completely demolished. The manner in which things are taking place is that the army is not returning the lands to the owners. Even the lands that had been released are not fertile  lands, but the good fertile lands are still being cultivated by the army.

I have my doubts that the Army would ever leave those areas, with regard to the business aspect of it and they are doing so much of business activities. Complete control in the economic activities in those areas. They are bringing in Sinhala people from outside to do illegal fishing, and  the people of those areas are being prevented by army or navy from fishing.

The information that we received was that the government wanted to handover thousands of acres of land, but only around two hundred acres were given out, because the army simply refused to give back the land to their owners.   It was only through various processes that they were able to increase the land release from around two hundred to around thousand.

 In fact we were expecting 5,500 acres to be returned out of 6,500 acres. Army having got used to all the benefits   of  being there  do not like to leave the lands. Unless there is some pressure put on by the international community, there is going to be difficulties in releasing anything.

With regard to the number of soldiers, there had been a general call on the army to get back to their barracks. Therefore, there is no ostensible presence of the army, except during the recent incident. There had been no exodus of soldiers from the Northern Province that had been witnessed  by people.

Though they are talking in terms of reduction of the army, what really happens is some camps are closed, and the army  is moved  into larger camps and they are left there.  I don’t think there has been any significance reduction in  the number of soldiers in the North.

Just two days after the 8th of January, I had an opportunity  to meet the Prime Minister, and he made a definite statement that he was going to inform  the Buddhist priests that no army camp in the northern province was going to be taken away from there. There after it was stated by Defense Minister Ruwan Wijeyaewardane.

Therefore, it is very clear that there is no intention on the part of the government to remove the army. Sometimes, various statements are made, so we had been always look out to see whether there had been  any mass exodus of soldiers from the North, but we found none. Definitely few camps are closed, all the soldiers are taken over into the larger camps, and they are still continuing to be there. The chances are that over 150,000 soldiers are still  in the Northern Province.

Desperate Rajapakses and desperadoes to ignite a black July riot: Conspiracy detected by intelligence division

(Lanka-e-News-01.June.2015, 6.00PM)  A most cruel traitorous conspiracy has been planned for  July (second black July)  this year in order to tarnish the international image of Sri Lanka (SL) , and to capture power forcefully and brutally  by creating racial and religious riots  within the country , based on urgent and vital information gathered by the State security intelligence services, according to reports reaching Lanka e news. Soon after the president Maithripala categorically announced as leader of the SLFP and UPFA that no nominations will be allowed under the SLFP or UPFA at the forthcoming general  elections, the bestial ,corrupt and deceitful Rajapakse and his clan who are in utter  desperation  having no place in the party and among the people of the country, have already begun  laying the groundwork to provoke racial and religious unrest in the country  as their last resort to capture power brutally and illegally.                                

The currently deposed , dejected and discarded Mahinda Rajapakse has already taken  initial steps in this wicked traitorous direction by spreading false and vicious tales that the country is right now facing a massive security threat .After his religious observances at Anuradhapura Sri Maha Bodhi deity , Mahinda  Rajapakse who is notorious going by his putrid past record of engaging in all the cruelties and atrocities like a devil incarnate soon after performing pooja and invoking blessings of the deities to commit murder and mayhem , stated the country’s security is at stake and in great peril.  

The state security intelligence services have received copious information that under the leadership of Wimal Weerawansa and Gammanpila ,already basic information at grama niladhari division levels is being collected  regarding activists of the minority races  and the UNP who steered president Maithripala Sirisena to victory .UPFA member of western provincial council and a pioneer of the Samurdhi officers’ association , Jagath Kumara who participated in the meeting had stated , the officers of the Samurdhi and Divi Neguma who received  appointments during the Mahinda Rajapakse reign can also be enlisted for this evil program.

Dinesh Gunawardena , Vasudeva Nanayakkara, Prasanna Ranatunge , Ranjith Soysa M.P., Ratnapura , Manusha Nanayakkara,Udith Lokubandara , Lohan Ratwatte , Dallas Alahaperuma , Kumara Welgama , Bandula Gunawardena ,Gamini Lokuge ,Rohitha Abeygunawardena and  Renuka Perera ,part of the discarded Rajapakse group who have no place in the sun unless they cling like leeches to the  cursed shawl of Mahinda Rajapakse, even when they  know they are in a rudderless sinking ship , have suggested a desperate remedy to overcome their acute frustration and disastrous plight ; their remedy is as wicked as their minds are warped- their suggestion is , the only way they can extricate themselves from their dire predicament is to stir up racial and religious unrest , hatred and animosity , and through that de stabilize the country. 

It was also decided that this July , based on the information garnered through the grama niladhari levels , the houses and properties of Tamil and Muslim communities be set on fire Island wide within a day, thereby creating mayhem and a  grave riotous situation . It is significant to note this proposition that was advanced by the universally known racist Gammanpila  was most welcome by the so called Leftist stalwart of SL , Vasudeva Nanayakkara who is by now well known among all as suffering from senile decay and has lost his utility not only in his party  but even on earth. Indeed , he has become a burden to his own beard for that poor beard too is cursing him for the shabby treatment  he metes out to it  by not attending to its needs –allowing it to stink without cleansing and trimming .

Vasudeva had also pointed out that when the communal riots are raging , a plan must be formulated ahead to bring back the ex president urgently in order to control the situation before it spreads and the international community focuses attention on it.

The State  security intelligence service has also unearthed information that Dr. G.L. Peiris has been entrusted with the task  of keeping the international community  informed , while Dallas Alahaperuma and Bandula Gunawardena  shall be responsible for instant media operations which will be publishing news biased in favor of the Mahinda Rajapakse clan . The necessary international media co ordination in this regard is to be under the charge of Mohan Samaranayake.

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by     (2015-06-01 12:30:35)

Uprooted Musali Tamils demand lands back, SL Navy ignores Minister Swaminathan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 May 2015, 20:15 GMT]
Mu'l'ikku'lam has become a strategic point of occupation to the Sri Lankan forces that aim to Sinhalicise and colonise the land and the historic waters of Eezham Tamils. More than 4,500 Eezham Tamil civilians, evicted from Musali division in Mannnaar district in September 2007, are still refused entry to their village by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy, which has changed their village into a military cantonment. On Saturday, SL Minister of Resettlement, Reconstruction and Hindu Religious Affairs D.M. Swaminathan (UNP) was forced to wait in front of the gates of the cantonment called ‘Command Headquarters - North Western Naval Area’ for more than 40 minutes by the occupying Sinhala Navy. 

Uprooted Musali Tamils Demand Lands Back, SL Navy Ignores Minister Swaminathan by Thavam Ratna

Parliamentary Elections Stall Giving Back Lands To Tamils

By P.K.Balachandran-31st May 2015

COLOMBO: The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government is unlikely to hand back large chunks of land back to the Tamils until after the parliamentary elections in September this year, a highly placed official source said.

Land is a sensitive subject in Sri Lanka, which is why power over it is held by the Central government in Colombo, even though it is a Provincial subject under the 13 th. Amendment of the Constitution. Sensitivity is particularly high in the case of lands seized from the Tamil-speaking Northern and Eastern Provinces for strategic reasons during the war.

Handing back lands seized by the military for strategic reasons is fraught with great political risk, especially when a general election is round the corner. Therefore, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government, which is committed to handing back lands which are not actually used by the military, will wait until the parliamentary elections are over in September, the source said.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Resettlement, D.M.Swaminathan, told Sunday Observer that as per Defense Ministry figures, the armed forces hold 44,548 acres of land in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Out of these, 9,000 acres are in Jaffna district, and 9,000 acres are in Mullaitivu district. About 1,000 acres have been released in Jaffna, and 818 acres are to be released in Sampur in Trincomalee district.

Speaking to Express on Sunday, Swaminathan said: “We are not asking for all the lands taken by the armed forces. We are conscious of security imperatives. We only want lands which are not being used by the forces directly, and lands which are not used at all. We are also not asking for State lands, but privately owned lands for which the original owners have deeds.”

The Minister further said: “We may or may not get all the 18,000 acres we want now, but we are optimistic. This is because President Sirisena, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga (who heads the Taskforce on Reconciliation), are genuinely interested in giving back lands seized from the Tamils.”

There are 32 refugee camps in Jaffna district and three in Trincomalee. Swaminathan wants to close these, and resettle the inmates over 2,000 acres of land which he hopes to get from the military in the near future.

Transfer Of Sampur Land On Hold

Meanwhile, the 2,000 families who were to reoccupy 818 acres in Sampur in the Eastern Province, had been prevented from doing so because of a Supreme Court order.

The apex court had asked the parties to the dispute to maintain the status quo until the case is heard again on June 15, which meant that neither the peasants to whom the land originally belonged, nor the private company Sri Lanka Gateway Industries (SLGI) to which the land had been handed over by the Board of Investment  (BOI), could take possession of the land for now.

The Lankan government had taken back the land from the SLGI to give it back to the original Tamil population because former had not made use of the land in any way, and the latter had lost the land because of the war.

Jaffna Library burns - May 31st 1981  01 June 2015 On 31st May 1981, the crucible of Tamil literature and heritage - the Jaffna Public Library - was set ablaze by state security forces and state sponsored mobs. Over 95,000 unique and irreplaceable Tamil palm leaves (ola), manuscripts, parchments, books, magazines and newspapers, housed within an impressive building inspired by ancient Dravidian architecture, were destroyed during the burning that continued unchecked for two nights. The library was one of the largest in Asia. The destruction took place under the rule of the UNP at a time when District Development Council elections were underway, and two notorious Sinhala chauvinist cabinet ministers - Cyril Mathew and Gamini Dissanayake - were in Jaffna. Earlier on the 31st May, three Sinhalese police officers were killed during a rally by the TULF (Tamil United Liberation Front). Nancy Murray, a western author, wrote at the time ''uniformed security men and plainclothes thugs carried out some well organised acts of destruction”. "They burned to the ground certain chosen targets - including the Jaffna Public Library, with its 95,000 volumes and priceless manuscripts…no mention of this appeared in the national newspapers, not even the burning of the library, the symbol of Tamils' cultural identity. The government delayed bringing in emergency rule until 2 June, by which time the key targets had been destroyed." Virginia Leary wrote in Ethnic Conflict and Violence in Sri Lanka - Report of a Mission to Sri Lanka on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists, July/August 1981, that“the destruction of the Jaffna Public Library was the incident, which appeared to cause the most distress to the people of Jaffna." The Movement for Inter-racial Justice and Equality said in a report, after sending a delegation to Jaffna, "If the Delegation were asked which act of destruction had the greatest impact on the people of Jaffna, the answer would be the savage attack on this monument to the learning and culture and the desire for learning and culture of the people of Jaffna... There is no doubt that the destruction of the Library will leave bitter memories behind for many years." Cultural Vandalism and Genocide The term genocide is only a recent one, having been coined in 1945 by Raphael Lemkin, lecturer on comparative law at the Institute of Criminology of the Free University of Poland and Deputy Prosecutor of the District Court of Warsaw. Since then, it has become a crucial term for understanding events, particularly ethnic violence, in the world. Lemkin defined genocide as "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." He said that the objective of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. For Lemkin, "genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group." Whilst genocide has come to be associated with the concentrated killings of large numbers of people, such as in a few bloody month in Rwanda recently or during the years of the Holocuast of WW2, Lemkin's concept is just as valid if it happens over decades. Furthermore, the destruction of a people's culture, whilst not given particular attention in the massive bloodletting which has characterised the well known instances of genocide, remains an integral part of the crime as Lemkin saw it. "An attack targeting a collectivity can also take the form of systematic and organized destruction of the art and cultural heritage in which the unique genius and achievement of a collectivity are revealed in fields of science, arts and literature," he wrote. "The contribution of any particular collectivity to world culture as a whole forms the wealth of all of humanity, even while exhibiting unique characteristics." "The [perpetrator] causes not only the immediate irrevocable losses of the destroyed work as property and as the culture of the collectivity directly concerned (whose unique genius contributed to the creation of this work); it is also all humanity which experiences a loss by this act of vandalism." "In the acts of barbarity, as well as in those of vandalism, the asocial and destructive spirit of the [perpetrator] is made evident,” said Lemkin. “This spirit, by definition, is the opposite of the culture and progress of humanity." (Adapted from Tamil Guardian edition 06 June 2001)

Can Sirisena ride the storm in Sri Lanka, or will Rajapaksa claw back?

The incumbent president is no showman like his predecessor. But he has showed his mettle.

COLONEL R HARIHARAN @colhari2

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, or Mi3, as scribes refer to him, is continuing his perilous political journey of going ahead with the constitutional reform process though it has overshot the 100-day deadline he had set. His episodic journey, not unlike Tintin, Herge’s immortal comic book hero, is moving from crisis to crisis. Most of his political problems emanate from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which he is supposed to lead. It is behaving very much like Captain Haddock, the tipsy master of Tintin’s ship.

Sirisena needs the support of his party to sail through the last two eddies of the reform process - to get the Parliament to pass the 20th Constitutional Amendment (20A) to reform the electoral system, and constitute the Constitutional Council (CC) – before he can hold an election for a new Parliament. The CC is supposed to be in place before the election so that it can ensure that the structural reform process culminates in a system wherein the accountability of the executive president to the Parliament and greater powers to the prime minister are enshrined in order to ensure highest standards of governance for a corruption-free society.

This is the complex solution that seems to be taking shape after the people voted out their Eelam War hero Mahinda Rajapaksa who was seeking a third term as president. The people found that his autocratic regime was run as his personal fief where fundamental freedoms were curbed and law and order became a joke while allegations of corruption against his family and siblings mounted.

The SLFP though in majority, has about 40-50 Rajapaksa-loyalists in the Parliament who have been trying to pull the rug from under Sirisena's feet at every step. Rajapaksa’s immense popularity in the rural southern Sinhala region is their trump card though its charm seems to be fast fading. The other is to play upon the traditional animosity of the SLFP rank and file to their opponents in the United National Party (UNP), now in power despite lacking a majority in the Parliament. The UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, the current prime minister, in league with Sirisena and former president Chandrika Kumaratunga masterminded the downfall of Rajapaksa that resulted in a win-win situation for both the UNP and Sirisena, though not for the SLFP.

But Sirisena has a strong suit in the anti-corruption investigation he is carrying out into the various cases of serial corruption across the board during the Rajapaksa regime. If he gets enough evidence to prosecute the Rajapaksas, many SLFP leaders would also be sunk like bumboats going down when a large ship sinks. So the SLFP leaders are not averse to break bread with Sirisena who seems to be determined to unravel the evidence of corruption and sleaze against the Rajapaksas. Basil and Gotabaya are being grilled by the anti-bribery commission. The two Rajapaksa brothers who controlled development finance and defence respectively are facing inquiries into their personal dealings and official projects. The commission is planning to pose Mahinda uncomfortable questions. India and the US are assisting the government to look into secret Sri Lankan bank accounts in tax havens across the globe. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Homeland officials have visited Sri Lanka in this connection. A former Sri Lankan ambassador to Russia and Ukraine has gone into hiding to escape inquiries into his alleged gunrunning and secret deals made in arms procurement.

It would be a dream solution for the SLFP and the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) leaders including the Rajapaksa-loyalists if they can replace Prime Minister Wickremesinghe to grab power in the present government. Then they can hold the election while in power and the 20A and CC can be moulded to their comfort. So elements within the SLFP and UPFA have brought a no-confidence motion against Wickremesinghe. It will come up in the Parliament shortly; two other no-confidence motions - against Finance Minister Karunanayake and Public Order Minister Ameratunga - are also awaiting disposal. Thus Sirisena has a major problem on his hands. He will require the SLFP's support to get the 20A passed in the Parliament while retaining the collaboration of Wickremesinghe to take the reform process forward.

The president’s internal conflict with the Rajapaksa-loyalists within his party is continuing. Four ministers belonging to the SLFP dramatically have resigned to affirm their allegiance to former President Rajapaksa. The loyalists want the SLFP to nominate Rajapaksa for prime minister. However, Sirisena has put his foot down. According to the local media, this has infuriated Rajapaksa who had said he would contest the election even if the SLFP did not nominate him. But Rajapaksa, the street-smart kung-fu fighter of Sri Lankan politics, knows doing is much more than talking.

In the midst of all this, can Sirisena come out smiling? Sirisena is no showman like Rajapaksa. But he showed his mettle when he managed to get the SLFP to support the passing of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution to clip the powers and increase the accountability of the executive president. But 20A is proving to be more difficult; there has been no agreement within the ruling coalition as well as the opposition on the draft of the 20A as yet. And things are no better on the forming of CC.

But all the song and dance are part of the Sri Lankan political theatre, where the popular hero comes out smiling in the end. In this respect, Sri Lankan politicians are very much like their Indian kin. Sirisena’s deadline has been passed sometime back; much water may still flow in Kelani river before the Colombo leadership successfully manoeuvres through the political tides. The next three weeks will tell which way the tide is turning. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe must be keeping their fingers crossed. And Rajapaksa is probably vigorously praying.