Azerbaijan’s President Calls for Renewed Nagorno-Karabakh Talks. It’s Not That Simple.

BY EMILY TAMKIN-MARCH 15, 2017

Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev has called for renewed talks with Nagorno-Karabakh, the separatist region in Azerbaijan’s southwest.

Nagorno-Karabakh is populated by mostly Armenians who say they are a sovereign state, separate and apart from Azerbaijan. The breakaway region is a source of tension between the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan (and the people in Nagorno-Karabakh itself) since long before 1994, when the all-out post-Soviet clash over Nagorno-Karabakh region came to a halt.

“At the first stage, the negotiations should resume as soon as possible. Armenia should not elude the talks,” Aliyev said during a visit to France, which is co-chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Aliyev also noted that France — as well as the group’s other co-chairs, Russia and the United States — are pushing to resolve the dispute.

“We say that too, and we want the status quo to be changed as soon as possible, we want this conflict to end. We want peace in the region, allowing Azerbaijani refugees to return to their homeland,” Aliyev said.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence is not recognized by the international community. The country, however, claims sovereignty, and has its own parliament — which, last May, voted for Ruben Melikyan as its ombudsman for human rights.

Melikyan was brought in from Armenia the month after some of the worst fighting the region had seen since 1994. Each side maintains the other started last spring’s fighting.

“It’s not frozen,” Melikyan said of the conflict, in an interview with Foreign Policy. A frozen conflict is one in which both sides are at a tense but calm standstill. But in the past 10 months, Melikyan noted, 20 soldiers from the Nagorno Karabakh side were killed, and 95 were wounded. He said he knew that the Azeri side suffered losses, as well.

“People are dying” was also Melikyan’s response when given the question of whether both sides might use the issue of Nagorno Karabakh to stir up political fervor back home (which is, incidentally, exactly what Vugar Gurbanov, counselor at the Embassy of Azerbaijan, said Armenia is doing).  “People are dying,” Melikyan said. “How can we say we benefit from that?”

Melikyan said he is a human rights defender, “not an Armenian rights defender,” and points to efforts he made to get an Azeri man accused of entering Nagorno Karabakh to foment unrest the lawyer of his choice. But Azerbaijan, he says, does not recognize the rights of those in Nagorno Karabakh. Azerbaijan does not recognize Nagorno Karabakh the humanity of the people therein, he told FP, adding, “rights must be universal.”

Unsurprisingly, the situation is viewed somewhat differently from the Azeri side. Gurbanov noted that Azeris were expelled from Nagorno Karabakh and surrounding areas. “It’s not only about the occupation of territories, but how they are occupied,” he told FP.

And the talks themselves are also seem a point of contention. Melikyan said talks and statements will be futile unless Azerbaijan changes its “Armeniphobia.” Meanwhile, Gurbanov dismissed that as Armenian nationalism, and cited OSCE co-chairs as saying, “Without starting talks, no one should expect peace in the region.”

That things should change is the one thing on which both sides agree. “Of course” the people of Nagorno Karabakh “deserve a better life,” Gurbanov said.

Melikyan, meanwhile, wants to bring the international human rights community to the region, so that the conflict won’t only be a back and forth between the two sides. He is also focused on creating a mechanism to investigate the sequence of violent, often contested events in the region.

“Otherwise, it’s a vicious cycle,” he said.

Photo credit: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

Cameroon says regional forces free 5,000 from Boko Haram-held villages

By Sylvain Andzongo | YAOUNDE- Wed Mar 15, 2017

West African forces freed 5,000 people being held in villages by Boko Haram, in an operation that killed more than 60 fighters and destroyed the Islamist group's hideout along the Nigeria-Cameroon border, Cameroon said on Wednesday.

"(The) hostages freed consisted mostly of women, children and elderly people," Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary told a news conference.

He later clarified that "the 5,000 people were saved after a sweep at the border within Cameroonian territory ... who were hostages that could not leave the villages," adding that "more than 60 terrorists were ... neutralized."

In addition, 21 Boko Haram suspects had been arrested in the raid in the Mandara Mountains between Feb. 26 and March 7, which destroyed a fuel depot and recovered weapons, motorcycles, around 50 bicycles, flags and "various propaganda objects".

Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram has been fighting since 2009 to try to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Lake Chad region, where Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad join.A coordinated push by the militaries of the four nations has dismantled much of the territory Boko Haram once held, but the group remains capable of launching lethal attacks, often targeting the civilian population.

In 2014 Boko Haram gunmen abducted 276 schoolgirls from the Nigerian village of Chibok, to worldwide horror, and some 200 of them are thought to still be in captivity.

The Lake Chad region has witnessed an increase in attacks bearing the hallmarks of Boko Haram in markets and refugee camps since late 2016, and the United Nations says more than seven million people risk starvation owing to insecurity there.

As its fighters have been increasingly been killed or locked up, the militants have sometimes resorted to using female captives as suicide bombers.

Four female teenage suicide bombers killed two people and injured 16 others on Wednesday in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, where the uprising first began.

Bakary said no Cameroonian soldiers had been killed in the raid, although one had been wounded.

(Reporting by Sylvain Andzongo; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Amid mounting criticism, is Aung San Suu Kyi still a noble Nobel winner?

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Commander in Chief of the Burmese military, shakes hands with National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Source: AP.

Lee addresses a news conference after her report to the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 13, 2017. Source: Reuters/Denis Balibouse

By Emma Richards | 15th March 2017 

THE plight of the Rohingya was brutally summed up by UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee when she told of horrific allegations from the community of children being thrown into fires, people tied up indoors while their homes were set ablaze and last but not least, the violent raping of local women.

At the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, Lee also accused Burma of using bureaucratic means to “expel” the Rohingya minority from the country altogether.

The accusation of such unabashed brutality is the latest in a long line of accusations that reflect badly on Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has led Burma since her party’s resounding election victory back in 2015.

Suu Kyi’s government rejected Lee’s bid to set up a Commission of Inquiry into the abuses and insisted its own national probe could uncover the facts in Rakhine, leading critics to believe not enough is being done to combat the problem.

As allegations of abuse in Rakhine state and ethnic clashes in Burma’s northern states mount, Suu Kyi is coming under growing international pressure to take action. But these calls have been for naught, as they are often met with silence and denial.

Regarded for years as a beacon of hope in a country torn apart by the struggle against oppression, could Suu Kyi, the once golden child of democracy, be losing her shine?

Early “golden” years

As the darling of the West, Suu Kyi courted almost unanimously positive press from the western media at the beginning of her political career.

Her powerful, unrelenting resolve along with her undeniable allure and storybook-like post-colonial upbringing made her revered around the globe. Hundreds of thousands attended her rallies at home and her collections of writing became bestsellers abroad, drawing mass global attention to her message.

Amnesty International made her a prisoner of conscience and Vanity Fair dubbed her ‘Burma’s Saint Joan’, labels repeated countless times in news reports and speeches across the world.

SEE ALSO: Burma seeks to ‘expel’ Rohingya Muslim minority – UN expert

In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in honour of her “unflagging efforts” and her resolve to strive for “ethnic conciliation by peaceful means”.

Then India’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru award for international understanding was given the following year.

Politicians lauded her with praise and she was often mentioned in the same context as fellow freedom fighters such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.

While under military-enforced house arrest in Rangoon, reporters took great risks to speak to her, to hear her courageous story of resistance.

Portraits of her were seen all over the world, and celebrities clambered to jump on the Suu Kyi bandwagon.

It seemed there was no limit to her global popularity.

But there has been a notable shift in opinion of late amid mounting reports of rights abuses coming out of Burma, putting her status as exemplar of democratic values under threat.

Turning tides

Since the military launched a crackdown back in October following the death of nine policemen in Rakhine state, it is believed that 75,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled across the border to neighbouring Bangladesh with another 20,000 being displaced within Rakhine state, the UN reported. Claims of rape and murder, and accusations of ethnic cleansing, at the hands of the armed forces have been rife.

Rohingya children gather at the Dar Paing camp for Muslim refugees, north of Sittwe, western Rakhine state, Myanmar, June 24 2014. Source: AP/Gemunu Amarasinghe

Rather than end this cycle of persecution and violence, Suu Kyi is being accused of pandering to Burma’s Buddhist majority in an attempt to court votes rather than assert her principles. She is also yet to visit the area, which has been sealed off under a military directive designed to keep out foreign aid workers and journalists.

SEE ALSO: Burma: Army defends Rohingya crackdown, denies abuses

While Suu Kyi has taken steps to set up several commissions to review the situation in the Rakhine state, their impartiality have been questioned.

UN rapporteur Lee has stated that she does not believe that they have discharged their investigative obligations and questioned to what extent the investigations will be prompt, thorough, independent and impartial. She has also accused them of not having a “robust methodology or policies in place to address key issues such as witness protection or documentation of evidence.”

Progress in northern Kachin and Shan states, which have seen rebel fighting for decades, has also been almost non-existent despite promises from the National League for Democracy (NLD) to make it a priority following their election victory, with the aim of achieving a nationwide ceasefire by February 2017.

Following the NLD’s peace conference in late August, the military ramped up attacks in Kachin, intensified operations in neighbouring Shan state and began a hunt for a rebel splinter group in southern Karen state, an area that had seen little fighting for years.

Thousands of civilians were displaced and reports emerged of torture, extrajudicial killings and indiscriminate shelling of villages, for which the army has long been notorious.

Suu Kyi’s muted responses to the allegations of killings and abuse have largely consisted of defending or denying the actions of the military.

Burma security forces patrol along the border fence. Source: AP

“Show me a country without human rights issues,” she said in October, as reported by New York Times.

“Every country has human rights abuses.”

A few weeks later during a visit to Tokyo, she said, “We have been very careful not to blame anyone until we have complete evidence about who has been responsible.”

In response to the Kachin problem, Suu Kyi’s office issued a statement claiming that the “information is absolutely not true.”

SEE ALSO: Burma: Fresh fears for freedom of speech under Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration

Suu Kyi has repeatedly tried to downplay the accusations and the scale of the military operations in both regions, drawing condemnation from rights groups and leaders alike.

Amid the escalating human rights abuses, she is also cultivating a reputation for being above public scrutiny and highly anti-media.

And gone are the days of courting international journalists; Suu Kyi now rarely gives interviews to the Burmese press and carefully handpicks her encounters with international media. There is no regular questioning from MPs in Parliament and there has not been a proper press conference since just before the election 14 months ago.

Her government has also taken full advantage of the controversial Telecommunications Law that polices online defamation of the regime, jailing 38 people since her election victory in 2015.

Toeing the line?

Suu Kyi’s almost steadfast refusal to criticise the military now that she is in power, after being a vocal critic whilst in opposition, has raised the question – is she toeing the line or does she believe what she says?

As the civilian leader of the government, Suu Kyi shares power with the military. The army controls the vital cabinets of defence, home affairs and border affairs. Notably, these are the ministries that are running the anti-insurgency operation in Rakhine State.

Suu Kyi has in the past vowed to change this but so far no clear intent towards that has been displayed.

Given the military’s pervasive power, Suu Kyi is forced to work with the men in uniform, rather than against them. The relationship remains tenuous and there continues to be a substantial sources of friction, however, it is a relationship born out of necessity, said Larry Jagan, a former BBC World Service journalist.

“They are working closely together on the peace process, and understand they need each other for this,” he said.

SEE ALSO: Burma: Military has ended operations in restive Rakhine state – govt

This has led many to believe that Suu Kyi may be biding her time until she is able to curtail the military’s power and shift the balance of power in her direction.

Some believe, however, that Suu Kyi may believe what she says due to the source of her information.

Most of the information she receives on the Rohingya and northern states come from military leaders, leading to some analysts in Burma to believe the army may have convinced her that Rohingya in Rakhine are terrorists.

Her government advisers are also mostly former military officers, or veteran civil servants with firm beliefs about the superiority of Buddhist values over all others, they say.

This theory is supported by comments from U Zaw Htay, spokesman for Suu Kyi, saying she was “standing” with the military.

“She knows everything,” he said, “The military has been briefing her on every important issue.”

What now?

Once the lionised freedom fighter, Suu Kyi now finds herself leader of a country responsible for the most persecuted minority in the world.

“Aung San Suu Kyi was held as this Joan of Arc figure and was such a beacon of hope for the Myanmar people that, in any other country, she was almost bound to fail,” argued Andrew Jaggard of consulting firm Mekong Economics.

SEE ALSO: Burma: Suu Kyi’s govt proposes to keep junta restrictions on free speech

Many who admired her resolve throughout the years of house arrest, and those Burmese that believed she was the symbol of hope, remain disillusioned in her failure to act in the face of wrongdoing.

Perhaps Suu Kyi is laying the groundwork and biding her time until an opportunity shows itself to make real change. Or perhaps she is a cynical politician who is willing to put votes ahead of principles.

But as Harvard Law Professor Tyler Gianni told the New York Times:

“She says she is a politician [but] you can have politics and you can have protection of the civilian population at the same time.”

US charges two Russian spies and two hackers in Yahoo data breach

Four indicted in conjunction with the hack of a billion Yahoo accounts, amid intense political controversy over Russian interference in the US election

 Justice department charges Russian spies and hackers over Yahoo breach

Sam Thielman and Spencer Ackerman in New York-Wednesday 15 March 2017

The US has announced charges against two Russian intelligence officers and two hackers over a massive Yahoo data breach that affected at least 1 billion user accounts.

The indictment, unveiled by the justice department on Wednesday, said that the hack targeted the email accounts of Russian journalists and opposition politicians; former government officials in neighboring countries; and several US government figures, including “cyber security, diplomatic, military and White House personnel”.

At a press conference in Washington, the acting assistant attorney general for national security, Mary McCord, said: “The department of justice is continuing to send a powerful message that we will not allow individuals, groups, nation-states, or a combination of them to compromise the privacy of our citizens, the economic interests of our companies or the security of our country.

The justice department has previously charged Russian hackers and hackers sponsored by the Chinese and Iranian governments, but Wednesday’s indictment marked the first criminal case for cybercrimes brought against Russian government officials.

It comes amid intense political controversy over Russian interference in the US election, including a data breach of the Democratic National Committee.

McCord declined to comment on whether there was a link between the Yahoo hack and Russia’s alleged attempts to sway the election in Donald Trump’s favour.

But the indictment provides the latest indication that the US is willing to retaliate against data thefts with foreign ties in a criminal forum.

The two Russian intelligence agents were identified as Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin, both of whom work for the FSB, the Russian spy agency successor to the KGB.

Dokuchaev was described as an officer in the FSB Center for Information Security, known as “Center 18”, which is supposed to investigate hacking.

According to the Washington Post, which first reported news of the charges, he began working for the agency to avoid prosecution for credit card fraud.

Dokuchaev was one of two FSB agents arrested in December, according to Russian news agencies, and charged with treason over alleged cooperation with the CIA.

The two freelance hackers were named as Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov, a Canadian citizen, who was arrested in Toronto earlier this week. Russian authorities are protecting Belan from extradition, it was reported.

Other law enforcement agencies, including M15, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Toronto police department participated in the investigation.

McCord declined to comment on any connection between the group’s activities within Yahoo and very similar activities on the servers of the Democratic National Committee during the election. “Our indictment does not have any connection between this intrusion and the intrusions into the DNC,” she said. “That is a separate investigation.”

McCord said the attack was aimed at gathering information “clearly some of which has intelligence value”. But she added that “the criminal hackers used this to line their own pockets for private financial gain.”

The attack on Yahoo was exposed partially in September, but in December the company discovered the extent of the intrusion which was described as one of the largest hacking attacks in history.

The justice department indictment shed significant light on the hackers’ tradecraft.

The team financed its efforts in part by forcing Yahoo’s search engine results to point to a specific erectile dysfunction pill manufacturer for targeted users. The impotence pill manufacturer paid Belan for this fraudulent traffic by the click. McCord said that, unorthodox funding methods aside, the two intelligence officers “were acting in their capacity as FSB officials”.

When news of the Yahoo breach broke last year, the company itself was widely condemned for what technologists called improper security – the breach was possible because the hackers were able to forge “cookies” that told Yahoo’s servers to allow them full access to vast numbers of private email accounts.

That Yahoo’s authentication cookies could be forged at all struck many experts as proof of the company’s negligence. According to the indictment, the hackers were also very careful, uploading a program that cleaned evidence of the intrusion to Yahoo’s servers.

According to the indictment, not only did the hackers write authentication cookies for use on their own computers, they were also able to forge cookies, upload them to Yahoo’s system and push them to individual users they wished to target, according to the indictment.

The FSB-led team monitored more than 6,500 accounts with the technique, which was markedly similar to the activities of the “Cozy Bear” hacking team found lurking in the servers of the Democratic National Committee last year. Cozy Bear’s activities have been widely attributed to the FSB.

According to the justice department, the hackers forced surreptitious entry to Yahoo networks in early 2014 to begin reconnaissance but did not begin stealing user data until October or November of that year.

Theft continued into 2016, a persistence unusual for money-motivated thieves and reminiscent of the patience demonstrated in the DNC intrusion.

Initial news of the breach in September caused friction between Yahoo and Verizon, which cut a $4.83bn deal for the company earlier in 2016. When, in December, Yahoo admitted that the breach was far wider than even the historic 500m accounts it had originally reported, Verizon’s general counsel began to suggest to reporters that the effects of the breach might materially diminish the agreed-upon value of the company.

Yesterday, Yahoo discounted the price of its core assets to Verizon by $350m.

In 2014, the justice department indicted five Chinese military officers, believed to be serving in China’s military hacking efforts, for the theft of hundreds of terabytes of data from several US companies and unions.

The then attorney general Eric Holder said the indictment, the first ever that targeted a foreign military engaged in hacking, signaled an “aggressive [US] response” to large-scale hacks.

How to Build a Consumer Trusted Digital World!

The article written on the occasion of commemorating the World Consumer Day 2017. This year theme is Building a Digital World Consumer Can Trust. Views expressed in this article are author’s own. 

by Sarath Wijesinghe-Mar 14, 2017

Mar 14, 2017

“World Consumer Day”

( March 14, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) World Consumer day (WCD) is an annual event on 15th March every year for celebrations, activism, and solidarity, among the consumer and consumer organizations worldwide. Consumerism has a historical significance until WCD was originated in 1983, and subsequently the Consumer rights were elevated to a position of international recognition and legitimacy by adopting the guidelines by the United Nations. John Kennedy said on 15/2/1962 that consumer by definition includes as the largest economic groups effecting and affected by almost every private and public economic decision, yet they are the only important group whose views are often not heard. Today things have changed as in the “West “where the consumer is organized and powerful. WCD is one of those events of showing strength and power of the consumer. Seminars, workshops and show of activism give a sense of power and strength to the consumer. Junk Food Generation which has an adverse effect on the health of the human being -especially children has been a popular and important topic of the Day. Some topics chosen before were Unethical Drug Promotion (2007), GM Food (2005) Consumers and Water (2004) and Control of Food Chain (2003). Selection of the same topic Junk Food consecutively for two years indicates the importance of the issue. Twenty two million children around the world are already overweight. Mostly children are targeted by multinational organizations as victims. As a result there is a strong campaign to urge the world to introduce an international code on the marketing unhealthy food to children. Consumer rights day depends on initiatives, planned functions and projects carried out by consumer organizations on every continent. This takes the shape of special campaigns press conferences exhibitions, workshops publications and similar events. There are websites, Magazines, books, and on-2going activism worldwide in promoting the activism in the interest of the citizen. Unfortunately in Sri Lanka there is less activism leaving the helpless consumer alone in the hands of errant trader, and industrialist continue to exploit freely despite inactive regulators led by the Consumer Affairs’ Authority.

“CONSUMER”

Consumer is defined in the Consumer Affairs Authority Act No 9 of 2003, as “any actual user of any goods or services made available for a consideration by a trader or manufacturer” which is a unique and a broader definition from the common law perspective. In a literal sense, a consumer is “one who preachers goods or services” (Longman Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd Ed.) (Harlow: Longman1991) For the purpose of the English consumer protection law, the term consumer has narrower meaning which is based on the capacity in which the consumer and the supplier of the goods and supplied have acted. Until the introduction of the CAA act of 2003-hereafter known as the Act-, by replacing Consumer Protection act, no 1 of 1979, Fair Trading Commission act, no 1 of 1987, and the control of prizes act ( chapter 173) , consumerism in Sri Lanka was primarily governed by English Law principles. Act desires to provide for better protection of consumers through the regulation of trade and the prices of goods and services and to protest traders and manufacturers against unfair trade practices and restrictive trade practices, and promoting competitive pricing wherever possible and ensure healthy competition among traders and manufactures of goods and services. This is a complete transformation of the principle and procedure of price control to Regulation and Competitive trade, which is a mixture of the basis of USA, Australian and European models in practice.

“Definition”

The definition covers actual and potential users of goods and services which gives a further and broader meaning and an area including every citizen worldwide in the definition who is a potential consumer in this competitive and developed world. The standard perception of a consumer is of an individual purchaser of goods or services and in most cases it will be the case. Most of the provisions of the Consumer Credit Act, 1974 (CCA) (U K) only apply where the debtor is an individual under English Law, and generally a non-business purchaser. In Sri Lankan context “any actual user “could be a company or a juristic personality. In the UK much of the legislation can be regarded as being directed towards fair trading rather than consumer protection. Many modern consumer protection measures no longer require proof of fraud. A trader can be found guilty of a criminal offence without proof of criminal intention.

“CAA- Consumer Affairs Authority – the Main Regulators in Sri Lanka”

The main legislations on consumerism in Sri Lanka before and during the introduction of the Act – some of which are replaced, amended, and replaced were, Consumer Protection Act, Fair Trading Commission Act , Control of Prices act , Trade Marks Ordinance, Prisons, Opium, and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Control of Prices Ordinance, Weights and Measures Ordinance, Food and Drugs act, Control of Prizes act, Food Control act, Licensing of Traders act, Bureau of Ceylon Slandered, National Prizes Commission Law, Consumer protection act, Code of Intellectual property act, Petroleum Products act, Food Act, Cosmetic Devoices and Drugs Act, Consumer Credit act, Sri Lanka Standards Institution Act, Fair Trading Commission act, Measurement Unite Standards and Services act, Unfair Contract Terms act. Today the concept of price control is replaced by regulatory powers where it is controlled by regulation indirect means and competition. How far and whether this is a success is a moot issue.

“Are We At The “Door Steps” Of The Digital Age?”

Consumer International selects timely topics in the process of activism for consumers worldwide. It was Fix your phones right, Healthy Dilates in 2015 and Antibiotic Resistance in 2016, which are current and timely then. World is fast reaching digital age with 3 billion world citizens online which is 30% of the world population,1.25 Face book users, when Sri Lanka has 23 million Mobile phomes,5 million internet users and 3.5 million Face Book users which is high on international standards, when almost every citizen has mobile phones with substantial decrease of land lines. E-Bay and online shopping is fast growing with an enormous future potential when consumerism in Sri Lanka is lagging behind with no amendments to the Consumer Affairs’ Authority act still old and archaic with no changes or improvements from 2003, with a question mark on legal protection from the main regulator of the country. Online shopping, credit cards, local digital platforms and worldwide platforms such as eBay, and major players are freely available in Sri Lanka with the clientele increasing fast unnoticed and untouched by the traditional regulatory procedures in the absence of a mechanism and lack of knowledge of the Sri Lankan regulators in the dark on the digital age.

“Building A Digital World the Consumer Can Trust-Theme On 2017”

CAA is the main regulator in the country on consumerism responsible for regulating quality, standards, prize, and access to consumer items and services at a reasonable prize without poisonous and hazardous consumer items and services of accepted standards to the consumer freely, through regulatory 2powers and activism via the CAA and the organization it is expected to supervise. This mechanism is important as it involves the future, health, wealth and the existence of the Nation. 2017 on the theme consumer in the digital age and we hope the momentum will be gathered and centralized from activism during this period will continue until next year. We wish and pray that all the parties concerned namely the consumer, trader, manufacturer, industrialist, and the State (CAA and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs) will work hand in hand realizing and aiming at their honourable aims and objects in making the consumer happy and satisfied.

“Consumer Trust”

Developing consumer trust is an arduous task in the highly complicated digital atmosphere, on the consumer now at the door steps of the digital age. Digital Storms is blowing away the human mind which is the most advanced computer now depending on artificial intelligence and advanced digital technological developments. We are at the door steps of the modern digital transforming the entire style on the modern advanced systems and innovations in all areas of human life. Consumers are inadequately protected by traditional safeguards provided by respective legal systems worldwide and out-dated regulatory powers in Sri Lanka incapable of meeting the modern challenges in the digital e-com age. Consumer trust will be developed with the modern trends with the success of a mechanism which is not introduced yet meeting the new trends needs and requirements. For example the world and local e- sale-business-transections platforms have their own regulatory powers and remedies due to ferocious competition and self-regulation to safeguard their present and future customers/ consumers in the hands of their mercy.

Sections 7,8,9,10,12,13,15,16,17,18,19,21,22,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,34,35,36,39,45, of the act which deals with the operational and conceptual matters have to be adopted/amended to meet the current challenges and a discussion and complete overhaul of the act and the working procedure is an urgent necessary to meet the digital challenges.

“Way Forward For The Happiness And The Satisfaction Of The Consumer”

In the United Kingdom magazine “Which” media, Citizen Advice Bureaux, Legal Aid System, Consumer organizations, NGOs with the State is protecting the consumer with the network of the consumer organizations and consumer groups. Citizen is used to look upon which magazine for directions and information which is a medium for information, advice and guidance, available for the citizen. European Union spreads tentacles over the member countries in safeguarding consumer by/through directions. Consumerism in India is organized and powerful with governmental support, legislation, legal system and separate Consumer Courts for implementation with the Judiciary favouring public interest litigations and class actions as in USA and UK even against giant multinational Cola, and Junk food Chains poisoning and making the entire world potential patents. Consumerism and consumer protection models are organized and effective in the Socialist Block and the Commonwealth with different legal systems. There is uniformity in the Commonwealth including Canada, Australia, with similar legal systems and Sri Lankan model is a mixture of Australian, UK, models and European concepts. Consumer is powerful and considered to be a King in other parts of the world able to flex muscles on the parties concerned for just and fair treatment on consumerism, with the adage “Consumer is always Right” practised in the competitive trade. It is a satisfactory trend that the CAA, IPS and Consumer Organization led by powerful activists have organized events with the participation of Mr “Satya” representing the World Consumer Federation based in the United Kingdom and we hope a new chapter and a trend will emerge as a result with the influence and participation of the Consumer International , State, Trader, Industrialist, and the Consumer with a joint and a consorted efforts in achieving happiness and satisfaction of the consumer badly in need of assistance. We hope and pray Sri Lanka will have the strength and vision to set up a network of consumer organizations, a proper legal mechanism with amendments to meet the modern challenges, with the concept “alert consumer and just trader”, to work with all concerned parties namely consumer, trader, industrialist and the state hand in hand in the interest of the citizen deserves closer attention.

The author is a solicitor and Attorney-at-law. He is former Chairman Consumer Affairs Authority, former Sri Lankan ambassador to UAE and Israel. He could be reached on sarath7@hotmail.co.uk

B vitamins may have 'protective effect' against air pollution

Road dust and emissions from vehicles in cities like New Delhi make the air a threat to human health

By Matt McGrath-14 March 2017

B vitamins may offer some protection against the impacts of air pollution, a small scale human trial suggests.

Researchers in the US found that high doses of these supplements may "completely offset" the damage caused by very fine particulate matter.

The scientists involved say the effect is real but stress the limitations of their work.

Follow up studies are urgently needed, they say, in heavily polluted cities like Beijing or Mexico.

While the impacts of air pollution on health have become a cause of growing concern to people all around the world, the actual mechanics of exactly how dirty air makes people sick are not clearly understood.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 90% of the world's population live in areas where air pollution exceeds safety guidelines.

One of the pollutants that is considered the most dangerous is very fine particulate matter, referred to as PM2.5, where particles have a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres.

These complex particulates come from diesel cars, wood burning stoves and as a by-product of chemical reactions between other polluting gases.

At around 1/30 the width of a human hair, PM2.5 fragments can lodge deep in the human lung and contribute to lung and heart health issues in the young and old.

Wood burning stoves are also significant sources of particulate matter in the air

Scientists have long suspected that PM2.5 causes what are termed epigenetic changes in our cells that can damage our health.

The genes in our DNA contain the instructions for life, but epigenetics controls how those instructions are used - it's like the relationship between an mp3 track and the volume control, you can only hear the musical notes (genes) when you dial up the volume (epigenetic changes).

The study shows the very presence of environmental factors like air pollution seems to alter genes in the immune system at the epigenetic level - switching them on or off, and inhibiting our defences.

Researchers had already seen that nutrients could somehow stop this process in animal studies with the chemical Bisphenol A.

Now in this new human trial, an international team of scientists wanted to see if exposure to concentrations of PM2.5 could be mitigated by a daily B vitamin supplement containing 2.5mg of folic acid, 50mg of vitamin B6, and 1mg of vitamin B12.

Ten volunteers were tested initially exposed to clean air while given a placebo to measure their basic responses. The same volunteers were later tested with large doses of B vitamins while exposed to air containing high levels of PM2.5.

The researchers found that a four week B vitamin supplementation limited the PM2.5 effect by between 28-76% at ten gene locations. They found a similar reduction in impact on the mitochondrial DNA, the parts of cells that generate energy.

"Where we quantify the effect, it is almost close to a complete offset on the epigenome of the air pollution," said Jia Zhong from Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study.

"On the mitochondrial DNA side, it also offset a big proportion of it."

Image captionConcerns over air quality have seen street protests in many countries including Mongolia

However, the authors caution that their study, while observing a real effect, has many limitations. As well as the small number of participants, there was little information on the size of the B vitamin dose that elicited the response.

"We didn't have different doses and the doses we used were quite high, higher than a normal pregnancy suggested intake. So it is quite high but at the same we did observe this protective effect," said Jia Zhong.

Other scientists in the field, while welcoming the study, agree that caution is needed.

"The fact that they find a coherent story in only 10 subjects is promising, but clearly warrants further follow-up in larger populations especially considering the ethnic variability in this study," said Prof Carrie Breton from the University of Southern California, who wasn't involved in the report.

"While I think it is great that doing something as easy as taking a vitamin would help protect against air pollution harm, the public health goal still needs to be one of reducing air pollution to a level that is not harmful," she said in a statement.

The authors acknowledge that this was a pilot study to test a hypothesis and they are not in a position to make any deductions about whether B vitamins could be used in clinical practice as a means of protecting against air pollution.

More and bigger studies are needed - and they need to be done in environments where people have a major exposure to PM2.5.

"I think that B vitamins are a likely hope that we can potentially utilise as an individualised treatment to complement the policy regulations to minimise the impacts of air pollution," said Jia Zhong.

"A more sophisticated study is urgently needed in Beijing or India or Mexico just to see whether those who are chronically exposed, if the protective effect can still be effective."

The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Follow Matt on Twitter and on Facebook.

TNA insists on international mechanism to probe war crimes

Mar 14, 2017

Sri Lanka's main ethnic Tamil party TNA today asked the government to fulfil its commitments to the UN Human Rights Council through an appropriate mechanism to probe into the alleged war crimes committed during the civil war with the LTTE.

The Tamil National Alliance legislators and other elected representatives met in the northern town of Vavuniya today and insisted on international intervention.

The call came despite the Sri Lankan government's continued policy of opposing an international hybrid court to probe the war crimes allegations.

"All Sri Lanka s obligations in terms of UN Human Rights Council Resolution...co- sponsored by the Sri Lankan Government, must be fully implemented. These obligations must be fulfilled under strict conditions, under the monitoring of an office of the UN High Commissioner for Human rights, which must be established in Sri Lanka," a statement said.

It said if the Sri Lankan Government fails to fulfil the obligations by way of an appropriate mechanism, the UN Human Rights Council must ensure that victims will receive the intended benefits of the fulfilment of such obligations, through international mechanisms.

Sri Lankan government has rejected the call for a hybrid court of local and international judges to probe alleged war crimes.

Sri Lanka faced three consecutive adverse UNHRC resolutions since 2012. In 2014, the resolution prescribed an international investigations into human rights abuses blamed on both the LTTE and the government troops.

Since the change of the government in January 2015, the rights body has shown leniency in allowing the new government more time to get its reconciliation house in order.

According to the UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by the security forces during Mahinda Rajapaksa's regime that brought an end to nearly three-decades long civil war in Sri Lanka with the defeat of LTTE in 2009.

http://www.dnaindia.com

IFJ AND FMM CONDEMN SIRISENA’S STATEMENT ON ENSURING IMPUNITY FOR SRI LANKAN MILITARY

Journalists and activists take part in a vigil against impunity led by the Free Media Movement (FMM) in Viharamahadevi Park, Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Jan. 21, 2016. Credit: FMM.

14/03/2017

The Free Media Movement and the International Federation of Journalists have condemned the statement made  by president Sirisena he will protect the members of the armed forces and police, claiming that such allegations are made by NGOs and United Nations.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)  has joined its affiliate the Free Media Movement (FMM) Sri Lanka, in expressing its dismay over the statement made by President Maithripala Sirisena discouraging investigations into crimes against journalists by the security forces. The IFJ urges the Sri Lankan government to ensure that crimes against journalists are thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators speedily prosecuted.

In its statement the IFJ says that “The statement by the President of Sri Lanka hints at the government’s unwillingness to deliver justice to journalists who were victimized by the earlier regime. With the Sri Lankan government needing to expedite criminal investigations to end impunity for crimes against journalists, such a statement by the head of state is a matter of concern. The IFJ urges the Sri Lankan government to move ahead with investigations of crimes against journalists, especially those committed by the security forces, and deliver justice.”

FMM says that the statement made by the President Maithripala Sirisena that leads to discourage such investigations. Free Media Movements observes that the recent statement made by the President at Palali Air Force Base is an extension of similar statements that were issued by the President and several other leaders.

Impunity prevents justice

Further the FMM says that “some names of the members of security forces are mentioned in relation with certain crimes perpetrated against journalists and media institutions. Today, all the investigations seem to be in a stalemate. The demand for expedite investigations and deliver justice for victims cannot be condensed to a mere request of a few NGOs; It is a broad social demand. In this context, such sporadic statements that condemn the above broad social demand and certain parallel actions taken might lead to further discourage stalemate investigations; also to breach the trust of people for the justice. ”

President Sirisena on March 4 while referring to the allegations made against the security forces, stated that he would protect them. While speaking at the Palali Air Force Base, the President said such allegations are made by NGOs, referring to the latter in a derogatory manner, adds the IFJ statement.