Donald Trump Jr faces calls to testify before Senate over Russia meeting

President’s son tweets he is ‘happy’ to provide information on meeting with Russian lawyer who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton

The revelation that Donald Trump Jr attended a meeting with a Russian lawyer is the first public evidence that members of the Trump campaign were willing to accept Russian assistance. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPA

An image from Rob Goldstone’s Instagram account, posted after Trump’s election victory, that has since been removed. Photograph: Instagram

David Smith in Washington and Jon Swaine in New York-Monday 10 July 2017

Donald Trump’s son is facing calls to testify before the US Senate about his meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton during last year’s presidential election.

Trump Jr attended the meeting – allegedly brokered by a British music publicist – with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer who reportedly has ties to the Kremlin. Paul Manafort, who was the Trump campaign’s chairman at the time, and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were also present.

The revelation, first reported by the New York Times, was the first public evidence that members of the Trump campaign were willing to accept Russian assistance. A senior Republican on the Senate intelligence committee demanded that Trump Jr appear on Capitol Hill and testify under oath.

Susan Collins of Maine told reporters that “our intelligence committee needs to interview him and others who attended the meeting” as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, has made a similar demand.

Later Monday, Trump Jr tweeted: “Happy to work with the committee to pass on what I know”.

At the White House press briefing on Monday, the spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted “the only thing inappropriate” about Trump Jr’s meeting was “the people who leaked” the details.

She added that she did not know of any other meetings about Trump Jr and Russian nationals and that Donald Trump had only learned of the meeting “in the last several days”.

Reuters reported Monday that Alan Futerfas had been appointed Trump Jr’s lawyer to represent him in the Russian investigations.

Alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow is also the subject of an investigation by a special counsel. The president, who met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for the first time last week, has dismissed the claims as “fake news”.

Trump Jr, one of his father’s fiercest defenders on social media, has come under particular scrutiny as he appears to offer shifting explanations for the meeting. On Monday, the 39-year-old businessman tweeted sarcastically: “Obviously I’m the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent ... went nowhere but had to listen”.

That appeared somewhat at odds with his first statement on Saturday when, confronted with a New York Times report of the June 2016 encounter at Trump Tower in New York, he omitted any mention of Clinton from his account of the meeting, saying the discussion focused on a defunct programme that had allowed American adoptions of Russian children.

Then, on Sunday, as the Times broke fresh details, Trump Jr admitted that after an exchange of pleasantries, Veselnitskaya told him that “she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee [DNC] and supporting Ms Clinton”.
He added: “No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

He said he concluded that claims of information on Clinton had been a “pretext” for setting up the meeting to talk about adoptions, and that his father had been unaware of the meeting.

On Monday, he posted on Twitter: “No inconsistency in statements, meeting ended up being primarily about adoptions. In response to further Q’s I simply provided more details.”

Trump Jr also said he was approached about the meeting by an acquaintance from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at that time. He did not name the acquaintance, but Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist and former tabloid journalist, told the Associated Press that he set up the meeting on behalf of a client in Moscow named Emin Agalarov, the son of a Moscow-based developer who tried to partner with Trump in a hotel project.

Trump appeared in a music video with Agalarov in 2013 that featured several Miss Universe contestants. In November that year, Trump tweeted to Agalarov: “I had a great weekend with you and your family. You have done a FANTASTIC job. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next. EMIN was WOW!”

Goldstone’s statement added that the Russian lawyer claimed she had information about alleged illegal campaign contributions to the DNC that she thought Trump Jr might find helpful. Trump Jr agreed to fit the meeting into a busy schedule.

Trump raised the hacking issue with Putin in their talks on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hamburg last week, but critics say he failed to press it sufficiently or confront Moscow with any meaningful punishment. The US president was forced to backtrack on a promise of a joint “cybersecurity unit” after it was widely derided.

The New York Times said the Trump Jr meeting was disclosed in recent days to government investigators when Kushner filed a revised version of a form needed to obtain a security clearance. Manafort also recently disclosed the meeting to congressional investigators, the paper said.

The role of Goldstone provided further intrigue. Hours after Trump’s shock victory in the 2016 election, he posted a photograph to Instagram in which he wore a T-shirt with a large “RUSSIA” logo. He captioned the picture: “Hedging bets”. After a Guardian reporter posted the picture to Twitter late on Sunday, it was erased from Goldstone’s account and the account was locked from public view.

The music publicist has for several years shuttled between the US and Russia while representing Agalarov. According to his Instagram account, Goldstone has made at least 19 visits to Russia since the spring of 2013. In one post he described Moscow as his second home.

He has also made at least eight trips to Baku, the capital of the former Soviet state Azerbaijan, where his client Agalarov was born and retains a large fan base.

Goldstone’s posts indicate that he was in Moscow 10 days before the 9 June meeting at Trump Tower, and then returned to spend most of that July in Russia and Azerbaijan. When Trump announced his campaign for the US presidency in June 2015, Goldstone claimed to have already been briefed on Trump’s intentions during a meeting he and Agalarov enjoyed at Trump Tower the previous month, writing: “He talked about his planned run for President of the USA – which became official today!”

The music publicist continued to support Trump’s campaign. Around the time of the early presidential primary contests, he posed for a photograph in one of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” red baseball caps, which Goldstone described as “My Iowa hat”. In March 2016, Goldstone posted a photograph of himself, Agalarov and Trump “deep in discussion over dinner in Vegas”.
Goldstone championed Putin in another Instagram post during the US presidential election. He posted a photograph of the Russian president featuring a quotation that was falsely attributed to the Russian president about killing terrorists. “Well said VVP”, Goldstone said in his own caption, using Putin’s initials.

In March, Trump Jr told the New York Times that he had never met Russians in a campaign capacity. Other senior figures have repeatedly said there were no contacts between the campaign and Russians.
On Monday, the White House vehemently denied that Trump Jr’s meeting was improper. Kellyanne Conway insisted that “there’s no evidence of collusion” between Trump Jr and Veselnitskaya. “No information was received that was meaningful or helpful and no action was taken,” she said on ABC television’s Good Morning America. “There was no follow-up whatsoever.”

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team, said: “The president was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.”

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday the Kremlin did not know Veselnitskaya and “cannot keep track” of every Russian lawyer who holds meetings in Russia or abroad.

Federal prosecutors step up probe of land deal pushed by wife of Bernie Sanders

Jane Sanders, wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), stands by her husband after a rally in 2015 during his presidential campaign. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

A rendering of the proposed Burlington College campus. (City of Burlington)

By Shawn Boburg and Jack Gillum July 10 at 11:12 AM

A federal investigation of a land deal led by Jane Sanders, the wife and political adviser of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has accelerated in recent months — with prosecutors hauling off more than a dozen boxes of records from the Vermont college she once ran and calling a state official to testify before a grand jury, according to interviews and documents.

Federal prosecutors step up probe of land deal pushed by wife of Bernie Sanders.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

India: Justice as a healing force — An Interview with George Pulikuthiyil

Rev. Fr. George Pulikuthiyil is the Executive Director of Jananeethi, a Kerala, India, based non-governmental organisation advocating human rights throughout the country as well as in the region. In this interview, he has elaborated the area he worked in last few decades.

We need strong funding support for these developmental plans. My dissociation with the church has closed all my avenues for resources. Lots of negative campaigns had gone worldwide.

Interviewed by Nilantha Ilangamuwa-Jul 9, 2017

Jul 10, 2017

( July 9, 2017, Kerala – Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) “To my information, there are around 3.5 million NGOs in India and according to reports, over 70% of them are fake. I understand those “fake” organisations never file necessary documents to the government, no proper auditing, no properly constituted governing body, no annual returns, no audit reports etc.,” Reverend Father George Pulikuthiyil, an eminent human rights defender told the Sri Lanka Guardian in an exclusive interview.

India Justice as a healing force — An Interview with George Pulikuthiyil.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Evacuees want a voice in rebuilding of embattled Marawi City

Anisah, 43, poses at an evacuation centre outside Marawi City, Philippines July 4, 2017. Picture taken July 4, 2017. Source: Reuters/Jorge Silva

By Bong S. Sarmiento | 10th July 2017

WITH the Philippine government setting aside P20 billion (USD 395 million) for Marawi City to rise from the ashes of war, civil society groups are pushing for the inclusion of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the decision process to rehabilitate the battered Muslim-majority city.

Task Force Bangon (Rise) Marawi, which President Rodrigo Duterte formally created through Administrative Order No. 3 released last week, convened for the first time over the weekend to chart the rehabilitation plan for the war-torn city.

The task force, chaired by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, was organised to lead the recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts for communities affected by the war in Marawi, which continues to wear on after erupting on May 23.

SEE ALSO: Philippines: Speaker Alvarez wants Mindanao martial law extended until 2022

Duterte placed the entire Mindanao island under martial law after clashes broke out between government troops and the ISIS-linked Maute Group and Abu Sayyaf.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines reported Monday that as of Saturday evening, 367 terrorists have been killed and 367 firearms recovered from them. There are 39 civilians that have been executed or killed in the crossfire. Meanwhile, 1,722 civilians who were held hostage or trapped behind the front line have been rescued.

Lorenzana, a retired military general and martial law administrator, could not say how long will it take to rebuild Marawi, as he revealed that he will use the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) “as the vehicle to implement the rehabilitation of Marawi because we consider the events in Marawi as man-made disaster.”

“So that we do not need anymore to designate additional or other people to be members of the NDRRMC, we will use the current mechanism of the NDRRMC,” said Lorenzana, who also chairs the council.

The official noted that rehabilitation and recovery will start as soon as the fighting stops in Marawi, with one Army engineering ready to move in to commence the repair works.

“(It) may take a lot of time for recovery and rehabilitation because there are lots of buildings destroyed because of our aerial bombings, and also because of the actions of the enemy blowing up buildings as well as burning houses,” he said.

Lorenzana asked the government to be ready to infuse more funds as the P20 billion allocation to restore Marawi may not be enough.

The official said they are expecting foreign governments, including the United States, to also help in the rehabilitation of Marawi, on top of their immediate assistance for the humanitarian needs of the evacuees.

Displaced men attend the Friday prayers at a mosque next to an evacuation centre outside Marawi city, Philippines, July 7, 2017. Source: Reuters/Jorge Silva

‘Hear our voices’

As the rehabilitation works for Marawi have yet to start, civil society organisations (CSOs) called on the task force to provide spaces for dialogues where participation and representation of internally displaced peoples, including women and traditional and religious leaders, are heard.

“We wanted to see the stakeholders actually taking part in the decision-making to chart the rehabilitation and reconstruction of their respective homes and the city,” the CSOs said in a manifesto.

They also stressed the need for the task force to be culturally-sensitive in carrying out the rehabilitation plan for Marawi, whose inhabitants are mostly Maranaos or the “people of the lake.”

The CSOs placed the number of evacuees in Marawi at 84,856 families or 400,432, of which 3,982 families or 18,335 persons are languishing in 78 evacuation centers while 70,895 families or 335,064 individuals are home-based or staying with their relatives in 409 villages across seven regions in the Philippines.

With no place like home, the evacuees, locally called “bakwits,” have been desperate to return to their city to restart their lives afresh. They have thus far been away from their homes for 49 days since the clashes erupted on May 23.

“We civilians want to return to Marawi … [the government] should allow the safe return of civilians on cleared areas so that normalcy may phase in,” said Samira  Gutoc-Tomawis, co-convenor of the Ranao Rescue Team, a group helping to rescue civilians trapped in the Marawi war zone.

“Tears were the usual daily fare here as daily sirens pass us at Tubod, Iligan City, our new home away from Marawi City,” she added, referring to the ambulances carrying wounded soldiers that passed them by.

Many evacuees have sought refuge in evacuation centers or stayed with their relatives in Iligan, a neighboring city.

But the bakwits remain unable to return home in the absence of approval from government. The military claims only around 80 Maute Group members are holed-up in a small pocket of the city, down from the estimated 700 fighters at the height of the violence.

Lorenzana conceded that the army had initially underestimated the strength of the Maute Group. Military clearing operations remain ongoing.

Maranaos are resilient people

Haroun Al Rashid Alonto Lucman, Jr., vice governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the region’s social welfare secretary, expressed optimism the displaced Maranaos could rise from the tragedy.

He cited the “time-honoured” close family ties of the Maranao tribe as one of the factors that make them a resilient people.

“For a start, we invest in the education of a relative needing financial support because of our fealty to the family. Also, ‘he might succeed in the future and become somebody and (can) help us too’,” he noted.

SEE ALSO: ‘Imbecilic’ to listen to army on martial law, Filipino communist party tells Duterte

Marawi is also known as the “City of Streamers” because, according to Lucman, the people take pride of a relative’s achievement. “In a Maranao family, we rejoice and suffer together,” he said.

Lucman noted the Marawi seige has shown the unique closeness of the Maranaos, stressing that majority of the IDPs are home-based while only a minority stayed in evacuation centers.

“People tend to take in their relatives to their households to help ease their suffering. This duty is sustained by reciprocal relations between and among Maranao relatives,” he added.

World’s first whisky-powered car goes on its first successful debut drive

Jul 09, 2017

By Kalendra Withana,  Scotland has unveiled the world’s first car that successfully functions on a biofuel made from pure whisky residue.

The assigned name for this type of fuel is ‘biobutanol’ and it is known to be an eco-friendly replacement for petrol and diesel.

The fuel itself is specifically made from a yeasty liquid left over from the distilling and fermentation process. It is reported that it is not a requirement for vehicles to be modified in order to take on the fuel.

Picture photographed by Lesley Martin - Edinburgh News

The actual car was manufactured by Scottish spinout company, Celtic Renewables Ltd.

The firm’s leading founder and President, Professor Martin Tangney, issued the statement:

"What we developed was a process to combine the liquid with the solid, and used an entirely different traditional fermentation process called ABE, and it makes the chemical called biobutanol.

"And that is a direct replacement, here and now, for petrol".

He added: "This is the first time in history that a car has ever been driven with a biofuel produced from whisky production residues.

"It is fitting to do this historic drive in Scotland, which is famous not just for its world-renowned whisky but also for being a powerhouse for renewable energy."

The car embarked on its first ever test drive at Edinburgh Napier University and BBC Scottish reporter Lisa Summers was behind the wheel.

She commented on the smoothness of the car’s motion and pointed out that she did not notice there to be any difference between this car and a petrol or diesel-fuelled vehicle.

In terms of the funding for this type of vehicle to have a potential global market, Celtic Renewables Ltd have received a £9m government grant to build a commercial demonstrator plant in Scotland. It is hoped that this plant will be fully functioning by 2019.

It is believed that ‘biobutanol’ could potentially create an industry in Scotland worth £100m.

Furthermore, other whisky-producing countries, such as India, Japan and the US are hoped to be targeted and therefore be benefited from this uprising market.

Sources – BBC News, The Scotsman

Yemen cholera cases pass 300,000 as outbreak spirals - ICRC

Inside the Yemeni hospital battling the world's worst cholera outbreak

10 July 2017

A cholera outbreak in war-torn Yemen is thought to have infected 300,000 people in the past 10 weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross says.

The situation has continued to "spiral out of control", with about 7,000 new cases every day, the ICRC warned.

More than 1,700 associated deaths have been reported, according to the UN.

Yemen's health, water and sanitation systems are collapsing after two years of conflict between pro-government forces and the rebel Houthi movement.

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera.

Most of those infected will have no or mild symptoms but, in severe cases, the disease can kill within hours if left untreated.

• The horrors of Yemen's spiralling cholera crisis
• How bad is the humanitarian crisis?
• Yemen conflict: Who is fighting whom?

On 24 June, the World Health Organisation declared that Yemen was facing "the worst cholera outbreak in the world", with more than 200,000 suspected cases.

In just over two weeks, another 100,000 people have been infected - an increase the ICRC's Middle East regional director Roberto Mardini called "disturbing".

The war has left less than half of Yemen's medical facilities functional

The WHO said on Saturday that 297,438 cases had been recorded, but the agency was still analysing the latest figures from the Yemeni health ministry on Monday.

The outbreak has affected all but one of Yemen's 23 provinces. The four most affected provinces - Sanaa, Hudaydah, Hajja and Amran - have reported almost half of the cases.

UN agencies say the outbreak is the direct consequence of the civil war, with 14.5 million people cut off from regular access to clean water and sanitation.

More than half of health facilities are no longer functioning, with almost 300 having been damaged or destroyed, and some 30,000 local health workers who are key to dealing with the outbreak have not been paid for 10 months.

Rising rates of malnutrition have weakened the health of vulnerable people - above all children under the age of 15 and the elderly - and made them more vulnerable to the disease.

Last week, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator in Yemen warned that humanitarian organisations had been forced to divert resources away from combating malnutrition to deal with the cholera outbreak, raising the risk of a famine.

"If we don't get these resources replaced, then using those resources for cholera will mean that food insecurity will suffer," Jamie McGoldrick said. "We're trying to do our best, but it's very much beyond what we can cope with."

Navaly Church bombing remembered 22 years on

09 Jul  2017

The Church of St Peter at Navaly remembered over 140 Tamil civilians killed in its premises by Sri Lankan Air Force bombs 22 years ago.

Hundreds attended the remembrance service which included special prayers led by the parish priest, Father Roy Ferdinand, and tributes led by families of the victims at the memorial monument in the church grounds.

On 9th July 1995, the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed the St Peter’s Church in Navaly and the nearby Sri Kathirgama Murugan Kovil, which were both sheltering displaced Tamils from army bombardment.

A total of 13 bombs were dropped on the sheltering shrines, killing 147 on the spot with many more succumbing to injuries later.

Read More

ULF can ride on social democratic resurgence

United Left Front recognised by Elections Commission

by Kumar David-July 9, 2017, 10:12 am 

"The United Left Front (ULF), composed mainly of LSSP members who defied the Tissa Vitarana leadership, and dissidents from the Communist Party and Vasu’s Democratic Left Front, has been recognized as a political party. This is a major victory for left".

- Jayampathy Wickramaratne

The division of the LSSP into two factions, a majority led by Dr Jayampathy Wickramaratne (MP), Attorney Lal Wijenayake (Party Secretary) and Professor Vijaya Kumar, and the left-behind formal faction led by Dr Tissa Vitarana, is unfortunate and was avoidable. It is aggravated by permanent suspension without inquiry of those who later emerged as the Majority Group (MG) from party positions and membership. Their offence was to have opposed the Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) Presidency and at the January 2015 Presidential Elections supported Common Candidate Maithripala Sirisena. But the conflict goes further back. It originates in the revulsion of most LSSPers at the regime’s corruption, economic mismanagement, racism and family cronyism and the unquestioning obedience of the Vitarana faction to MR and his clan. The majority refused to endorse this and demanded a conference to realign and reflect public outrage. Then pressure on Vitarana became unbearable leading to suspensions to forestall policy reversal and prevent loss of his Cabinet post. (This writer declares, for reasons of transparency, that he is a supporter of LSSP(MG)/ULF).

The split was unnecessary and could have been avoided by the simple expedient of conforming to well-established left-party norms. Vitarana should have agreed to a conference with the majority present to debate differences and explore compromises. If conciliation failed two political resolutions would have been put to the party conference. Thereafter the losers could organise itself as an internal faction if they wished. Vitarana et al turned their back on this and organised a fake event flooded with new "members" brought by Padmasiri now being groomed by Vitarana and Basil (influential behind the scene) to take over as leader when Vitarana makes a hiatus. A ULF source called it "a fake event to pre-empt appalling decisions to support 18th amender, white van abductor and rogue impeacher MR".

The next step

The next step for the ULF is to hold a party conference as expeditiously as possible and formalise its programmes and policies. Till then there is no formalised position though its views are well known in political circles. What appears in the rest of this essay should be read in this light. I will take up a few points in this and the next subsection. This subsection is about how the left should position itself in the short to medium term, conveniently identifiable with the remaining period of this government. The next subsection of this essay deals with one longer term perspective.

The medium-short term highlights three issues: The constitution, the government’s economic performance and left unity. Take left unity first, it is straightforward. The option before the left from the largish JVP to sects, shrivelled, withered or atrophied – USP, NSSP, Maoists nodules and tinier cults – is stark. There is no prospect, absolutely none whatever, that any will capture state power or emerge as a large and significant national force in isolation by itself. This is a consequence of splits and harebrained divorces from the 1960s if not earlier. Lanka is not alone in this asylum; it was the experience of Greece before Syriza, Spain before Podemos, France even today and others.

The ULF and indeed the whole non Dead-Left needs to think through its 2019-20 strategy; right now it is sleepwalking. Will it remain hitched to Ranil and/or Sirisena as national leader; will the UNP and/or the SLFP be the link to national-level politics? Alternatively, does the left intend to act on its own; in which case first it must become united and second it must develop its programmes.

The condition of the Lankan left is unlike that of the British Labour Party which for historical reasons evolved differently. Labour is broad-based, ideologically plural, and has internalised a range of currents – Trotskyites, Marxists, radicals, liberals, environmentalists, greens and progressive. The minimum "qualification" seems to be a sort of generic social-democracy. And how is that to be defined? It is not set in any rule book or formalised in definitions; it flows from traditions that evolved through the history of the Party – trust the Brits to muddle along!

Although the LSSP in its heyday did accommodate a range of class, trade union, ideological and intellectual currents, for reasons too complex to explain here it did not become a sufficiently omnibus vehicle of left, radical, minority and progressive-liberal politics. Hence by its mere existence it could not avert the fission of the national left into a thousand fragments that sectarianism is heir to.

What did not happen organically has to be done by exertion. The first imperative of the ULF is to place on its programmatic agenda a commitment to left unity. Collaboration will enter the currency of its day to day discourses and percolate further into broader left rhetoric. Such preparation will be fertile soil when opportune events materialise. I emphasise this because some doltish leaders think the left must wait for the right event (nishchitha sidiyak) before opening up the discourse on unity.

The principles that the left espouses on the Constitution are known and don’t need elaboration. In a few words they are: erecting barriers to authoritarianism and militarisation, devolution of power to the periphery, secularism and pluralism, a favourable climate for the protection of less privileged classes and populations (women, children, castes),directive principles on socio-economic rights, repeal of the PTA and repressive laws. (Pity kicking out Wijeyadasa can’t be made a constitutional clause!). Some of this will for sure be reflected in the constitution now being drafted.

There is a critical imperative relating to enactment; a matter of very short-term strategy. The country faces a dilemma at this moment. Negotiating patiently to win wide consensus is essential since the constitution must be acceptable to a large majority of people and all communities. This takes time and I am realist enough to know that could take months. But there is a time bomb ticking – provincial council (PC) and local government elections. Grant for arguments sake that the pro-constitution side suffers a setback at the PC polls. God forbid, but if this happens it can be fatal for enactment. Everyone (except the JO which is bent on sabotage) says "Now is a once in a lifetime chance", "It’s now or never" and so on. Then the conclusion is inexorable; a stratagem must be found to get the constitution signed, sealed and enacted before the polls. Risking the constitution is unthinkable. What is more pernicious, deferring the PC/LG polls till afterwards, or the monumental blunder of aborting the constitution? Dogs will bark that democracy is being toyed with; let them, the caravan must move on.

The third item for a putative ULF conference is a stance on government economic programmes. Let’s face it, the left including the JVP, is cohabiting with this government for two reasons; turning back the Rajapaksa juggernaut hurtling to dictatorship and enacting a new constitution. Once the latter is done both objectives are fulfilled. No one in the left had illusions of socialistic economic achievements issuing from a Sirisena-Ranil-led UNP-SLFP outfit. If something useful comes of it – which seems unlikely the way things are going – it is a bonus. If not, I guess, we will be politely told to bugger off. Conditional support, critical support or parting of the ways are all options in respect of the economy after the big one, the constitution, is cleared. Let’s not make the mistake (one of the many) the LSSP made in the 1970s – not knowing when enough is enough.

The return of Social Democracy in Europe

I may be the only person in Lanka and one of the few in the world who has attempted to theorise and explore the rise of neo-populism in the Twenty-first Century and its acceleration after the 2008 global debacle of finance capital. If you have done me the favour of glancing at my etchings you would have noticed that recently I have been taking another step and suggesting that neo-populism may have peaked and is on a downward path. It is true the neo-populist surge was a disappointment for the left. We imagined that if the failure of the ‘system’ was apparent to the population and the working class, there would be a mass shift to the left. But hell, history is not linear! UKIP, Duterte, Trump, Le Pen and their ilk sneaked in and managed to get themselves a prologue.

The tables seem to be turning on Trump and Duterte. Emmanuel Macron is only a halfway house; hand in hand with Angela Merkel the two are a roadblock to the advance of global neo-populism. The huge event in this discourse is Jeremy Corbyn and the rise of Labour; that is the rise of modern, active social-democracy to centre stage. A Labour government and Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister within two years, I am persuaded, is a certainty. What I have my fingers crossed about is whether this is also the harbinger of the resurgence of social democracy across Europe. Forget the yanks for now; they have always been politically backward.

You know where I am going; I don’t need to spell it out. The rise of European social-democracy will be an event of significance that the perspectives the ULF should incline towards. I spent two days at seminars at the BMICH where liberal after liberal was squealing that liberalism is under attack on all sides. Poor sods! They still can’t figure out that liberalism is finished; 2008 finished them. They have no answer to the frustration and misery of millions that brought about Brexit and propelled Trump to the presidency. Liberal values without a socio-economic programme is a dead duck; add the programme and you have social-democracy. I rest my case.

FREE PRESS IN SRI LANKA UNDER THREAT FROM REGULATION

09/07/2017

UNP or UNP-led Governments of the past and of the present, though able to deliver, both from a political and economic sense, relative to their peers in their various manifestations in coalitions formed under the auspices of their historical arch rival the SLFP, nonetheless have a penchant for blunderbussing.

This history of blunderbussing is, in particular, in respect of enforcing laws and regulations pertaining to the curbing of press freedom, which had its beginning 38 years ago in 1979.

Those laws however, may not necessarily have had been laws passed by UNP Governments, but by their predecessor governments led by the SLFP, to which successive UNP Governments had only worked to give teeth, more often than not by threat and not by implementation.

The threat is stronger than the execution.

The first move was in 1979 or thereabouts, when the then newly elected UNP Government of J.R. Jayewardene introduced a Cabinet Spokesman for the very first time in Sri Lanka, in the shape and form of the then State Minister Anandatissa de Alwis, Jayewardene’s good friend, and former private secretary to Sir John Kotelawala, Premier from 1953 to 1956.

After Jayewardene made de Alwis his Cabinet Spokesman, he tried to give teeth to an old Press Council law passed by the government of his immediate predecessor Premier Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1973, which, among other things made it an offence for the media to publish ‘Cabinet secrets.’ The Press Council Act which brought these draconian laws was passed by Bandaranaike in 1973, a few months before she nationalized Jayewardene’s first cousin, Ranjith Wijewardene’s newspaper, better known as the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd (ANCL) or Lake House for short, in July 1973.

Jayewardene in 1979, tried to give teeth to Bandaranaike’s old law, by threatening to enact Section 16 of this Press Council Law of 1973, which among other things, made it an offence for a media institution to publish Cabinet news, other than which was dished out by de Alwis, in his weekly Cabinet news briefings.

But certain media outlets, despite Jayewardene’s threat, continued to publish “Cabinet Secrets” outside the domain of what was faithfully mouthed by Jayewardene’s Cabinet Spokesman de Alwis in his weekly Cabinet news briefings. However, neither of those media outlets, nor the journalists responsible for publishing those ‘Cabinet Secrets,’ were ever prosecuted by Jayewardene, for contravening that 1973 law, to the credit of the much wrongly maligned, Jayewardene.

It was a case of a law hanging over the heads of media institutions and journalists by a thread, similar to that of the Sword of Damocles, but never implemented during the Jayewardene regime of 1977 to 1988.

However, successive SLFP or SLFP-led Governments of the past, beginning with the Bandaranaike Government’s abortive bid to takeover ANCL in 1964, which they ultimately successfully did in July 1973, five months after passing the Press Council Law in February 1973 and ending up with ‘The Sunday Leader’ allegedly being bought over by one of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s stooges 39 years later in 2012, not forgetting the murders, threats, abductions, assaults, bodily harm caused to journalists and attacks on media institutions that took place during the subsequent regimes of the SLFP-led PA/UPFA Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga Government of 1994 to 2005 and the Rajapaksa Government of November 2005 to January 2015, previous UNP Governments however, avoided contravening the laws to harass the free press, the possible exception, albeit to a ‘lesser’ extent being Ranasinghe Premadasa’s UNP Government of December 1988 to May 1993.

But, 38 years down the line since 1979 and 44 years since 1973 to the present, a new government in power, co-headed by Jayewardene’s nephew, Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe from the UNP and President Maithripala Sirisena from the SLFP, are planning to replace Bandaranaike’s draconian Press Council Law of 1973, with a new law, as equally draconian, if not worse (See this newspaper’s 6 July 2017 edition).

Nonetheless, in a rare show of political bonhomie, the country’s two major political parties, in order to defeat Rajapaksa, got together and at the 8 January 2015 Presidential Poll, the strongman from Hambantota who was allegedly promoting his family over his Party the SLFP, was sent packing home, with Sirisena, backed by Wickremesinghe, winning the polls.

But it was not for this proposed new press law titled ‘Independent Council for News Media Standards’ (ICNMS) that the people elected the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo, beginning with the 8 January 2015 poll to power

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They were elected to ensure the implementation of their promised ‘Yahapalana Government” by the masses of this country.

Nevertheless, some of the harsh penalties proposed under the ICNMS are a fine of rupees one million to any media institution which does not subscribe to the ICNMS’ proposed laws and a fine of Rs 100,000 on and imprisonment of a journalist, publishing false news.

However, it’s hoped that the UNP which has a long history of fighting and protecting media freedom, beginning with 1964, will lead the way by amending the provisions of the ICNMS to make it look more democratic and fair, the very purpose for which, they together with the SLFP were elected to power in the first place in 2015, to usher in a new round of democracy and freedom to the people of this country, whose rights were clipped in the near 10 year long reign of the Rajapaksas.

Freer the press, greater are freedoms protected, leading to prosperity of the people and of the country.

• Editorial, Ceylon Today/ 09 July 2017 ( original caption: Free Press)

DISAPPEARANCE BILL TO DEAL WITH FUTURE ONLY

TIMELINE

Disna Mudalige-Monday, July 10, 2017

December 10, 2015: Sri Lanka signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

May 26, 2016: The Government ratified the international convention

February 9, 2017: The Government gazetted the Bill to give effect to the international convention

March 7, 2017: Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe presented the Bill to Parliament

July 5, 2017: The Bill was scheduled to be taken up in Parliament, but the Government announced that it would be moved at a future date

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The proposed Bill for protection against enforced disappearances provides only for the future and it has nothing to do with the past incidents, Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera said.

Samaraweera made this clarification issuing a media communique yesterday to counter the allegations against the proposed legislation.

The Government presented the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance Bill in Parliament on March 7.

The Bill was to be taken up for debate last week, but the Government at the last moment announced that it would be moved at a future date.

Samaraweera was the Foreign Minister when Sri Lanka signed ‘International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance’ on December 10, 2015 ratified the same on May 26, 2016.

The Minister’s strongly worded statement came in the wake of allegations mainly by the Joint Opposition led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa that the proposed Bill was an attempt to betray the War Heroes.

“The proposed legislation is to safe guard a fundamental human right of every citizen in a just, free and civilised society. The main intention of the Bill is to ensure that every Sri Lankan citizen gets the freedom to live without fear of being a victim of enforced disappearance or abduction. All citizens must be happy about this progressive legislation that will put an end to while-van culture and the trend of enforced disappearances and abductions carried out with the connivance of the State,” he noted.

The minister, hitting hard at the Joint Opposition led by Rajapaksa, said power-hungry politicians who were architects of the infamous white-van culture were deliberately trying to mislead the public. Samaraweera asked as to how anybody could speak against the proposed move to put an end to white-van culture in the country.

“Rajapaksa loyalists, with their very claim that this Bill affects the War Heroes, admit before the world that the Security Forces during the period of their rule committed enforced disappearances, abductions and extra judicial killings. By saying so, aren’t they tagging the War Heroes as war criminals?” Samaraweera questioned.

According to the Draft Bill,any person who is found guilty of the offense of enforced disappearance can be imprisoned for a term not exceeding 20 years, and also be liable to pay a fine not exceeding Rs 1million and compensation not less than Rs 500,000 to a victim.

As of the Act, “a superior who knows, or consciously disregards information which clearly indicated, that subordinates under him were committing or about to commit an act of enforced disappearance” or “fails to take reasonable measures to prevent or repress it or submit the matter to a law enforcement authority for investigation and prosecution” is also guilty of the offense of enforced disappearance.