Carrying out resettlement projects around the Wilpattu National Park has proved to be a short-sighted, unsuccessful decision
A petition filed against these practices stated that an area of 2000 hectares adjoining the Wilpattu National Park has been cleared
Upon clearing, 1500 families were allegedly settled by Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen
Currently, 650 acres of land have been cleared to resettle people and it has been found that 706 plots of land have been cleared
2018-01-02
Changing ecosystems have become a tough challenge to face. While there’s a need to restrict global warming, increasing population figures and other external factors prevent these attempts. Although Sri Lanka has numerous national parks, forest reserves and sanctuaries- protected under various acts and ordinances- these areas too have faced various man-made threats. As deforestation became a major concern with the approaches taken to settle illegally around the Wilpattu National Park, the weak laws and acts printed in statute books remained unchanged. On another contradictory note, Sri Lanka also signed the Paris Agreement for Climate Change in April 2016 thus joining a list of countries to follow an action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Hence, the sheds light on the current situation at the Wilpattu National Park and threats identified due to massive deforestation practices.
Wilpattu National Park
The Wilpattu National Park has been in the news for the past couple of years due to the rapid deforestation practices that took place in its surrounds. Forest reserves including Kallara, Madu and Periyamadu were severely deforested for these purposes. A petition filed against these practices stated that a vast area of 2000 hectares in the forest complex adjoining the Wilpattu National Park has been cleared in addition to another 1000 hectares in several other forest reserves. Upon clearing, 1500 families were allegedly settled by Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen under the pretext of resettlement for internally-displaced people.
Currently, 650 acres of land have been cleared to resettle people and it has been found that 706 plots of land have been cleared while 131 houses are partly being constructed.
Evidence-based scientific research has clearly shown that forests and forested watersheds play a crucial role in mitigating natural disasters. Forests therefore act as giant sponges, absorbing rainfall, thus ensuring a sustained supply of water during the dry season. Therefore with deforestation and other malpractices, droughts and floods should be expected.
Vehicles travelling at unregulated speeds and killing wild animals, haphazard dumping of polythene and other forms of garbage and people alighting from vehicles to engage in illegal activities are some of the threats that have been identified
Threats identified by EFL
According to the research conducted by Environmental Foundation Limited (EFL), a non-profit public interest law group committed to securing Sri Lanka’s environmental rights, several threats have been identified. They include:
Deforestation in the Kallaru (Marchchikaddi-Karadakkuli) Veppal and Villaththaikulam forest reserves for new human settlements in the guise of resettlement. There is evidence to show that the Forest Department recommended the release of 770 acres and a 650 acres land, but procedures were not followed for the releasing of these lands. Forest clearing is still underway in violation of the Forest Ordinance (FO). There is an illegal road across the Wilpattu National park that has violated the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance (FFPO). Soon after the war, two roads, cut through the park, were opened for public use. The coastal road has been abandoned. But the other road from Eluwankulam to Pukulum is used with no regulations imposed on the activities inside the park. Vehicles travelling at unregulated speeds and killing wild animals, haphazard dumping of polythene and other forms of garbage and people alighting from vehicles to engage in illegal activities are some of the threats that have been identified.
The Pallekhandal Church is located within the Wilpattu National Park. Claiming customary rights and traditional use, the catholic church is said to have expanded its operations; enhancing both its physical structures and activities. The rules and regulations that govern national parks are flouted.
A Private farm has encroached into the Tabbowa Sanctuary and Weerakkodicholai Forest Reserve in the Eluwankulam area. Despite the illegal encroachments that took place in the early and mid-2000s, the Government has handed over 175 acres of forest land from the sanctuary and forest reserve to the Private farming project without adhering to a proper procedure. The land has been handed over violating the FFPO and the FO. Prior to this latest land violation, employees of its parent company had allegedly cleared 35 acres from these reserves and from the Raalmaduwa - Achchimale archaeological reserve to carry out a pilot project for fruit cultivation.
Unregulated tourism activities are taking place in the Gangewadiya area, Kala Oya, in the buffer zone of Wilpattu National Park, with construction taking place along the river reservation. Some of these operations are being carried out with the patronage of the local Governmental authorities.
Plans are being drawn to issue permits for permanent structures/houses in the Pookulam fishing village within the WNP.
Marine resources including the bar reef and species like dugongs are exposed to destruction or local extinction due to unregulated activities. Most of the Bar Reef sanctuary is ‘dead’ and unless urgent measures are taken, Sri Lanka’s largest marine reserve will be lost.
There is evidence to show that the Forest Department recommended the release of 770 acres and a 650 acres land, but procedures were not followed for the releasing of these lands.
No deeds for houses
The learned that many houses have already been built within two kilometres of the buffer zone at the Wilpattu National Park. In his comments, Chamath Lakshman, Park Warden at the National Park said that the houses have been built within the Kallara Forest Reserve. Although people have settled in these houses they do not possess deeds. “Some of the houses are yet to be given away to the people, but right now most of them (houses) look as if they have been abandoned altogether,”he said.
“This report does not belong only to the President. The responsibility of the President is to first make the report available to the masses so that they could get information. As presidential commissions are maintained with people’s money to investigate regarding people’s money people have a right to know the information in these reports. We demand the President not to keep the report for himself but to reveal it to the country.
Secondly, the President should implement recommendations of the Commission,” says the Leader of the JVP Anura Dissanayaka.
He was speaking at a press conference held at the head office of the JVP at Pelawatta today (1st). The Member of the Central Committee of the JVP and Kalutara District parliamentarian Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa too was present.
Speaking further Mr. Dissanayaka said, “The biggest dialogue that surfaced in the country in electing President Maithripala Sirisena was on frauds, corruption and waste. There were two objectives in such a dialogue. The first is the arrest of those who were involved in frauds and corruption and punish them. The next is to stop committing frauds and corruption of future administrations. On 3rd January this government has been in office for three years. A three year period is more than enough to decide the good and the bad of a government. This government has a path that goes against the mandate it received on 8th January. The biggest fraud of this government is the Central Bank bond scam. This dealing takes place on 27th February 2015 after the government was formed on 8th January – less than 50 days of forming the government. After this fraud was committed we, of the JVP, revealed the fraud to the masses and demanded the government to punish the perpetrators. A report was presented despite obstructions in Parliament and in COPE. In spite of the fraudsters had been exposed in COPE and Audit reports, the government failed to bring the perpetrators before the law. The government paid scant attention to those reports.
Subsequently, a Presidential commission was appointed. The details discussed in the Commission were reported by the media. Finally, on 30th December the report on the bond transaction was handed over to the President.
This report does not belong only to the President. The responsibility of the President is to first make the report available to the masses so that they could get information. As presidential commissions are maintained with people’s money to investigate regarding people’s money people have a right to know the information in these reports. We demand the President not to keep the report for himself but to reveal it to the country.
Secondly, the President should implement recommendations of the Commission. There would be several recommendations in the report. According to these recommendations, they should be referred to the Attorney General and take legal action against perpetrators. This report should not be allowed to be swept under the carpet. What has taken place in our country until now is that a fraud committed later obscures a fraud committed earlier, one commission report veils and earlier commission report and a fraudster is hidden by another fraudster. This is the drama acted in our country until now.
Also, a special presidential commission was appointed at BMICH to investigate and inquire into serious acts of fraud, corruption and abuse of power, state resources and privileges. Its term ended on 3rd December. During the term of this Commission, several investigations were carried out on the plunder of state assets, abuse of power, misappropriation of state funds and the President was handed over 17 reports on their findings.
Among them were the report on Rs.110 million financial misappropriation was handed over in May 2016; the investigation report on Avant Garde was handed over in October 2016; the investigation report on the loss of Rs. 200 million by importing outdated explosives was handed over in October 2016; the report on SriLankan air Lines in January 2017 and the report on Basil Rajapaksa deploying aircrafts for his journeys.
However, the country is not aware of the action taken regarding these reports. We made a special request in parliament to make them available to Parliament. They have not been presented to Parliament either. We have a suspicion these reports would suffer the same fate as the earlier reports.Hence we demand the President put these reports before the country.
We, according to the ‘Right to Information act’ hope to make a special request to the Presidential Secretariat. We would request them to give us copies of the reports of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed to investigate and inquire into serious acts of fraud, corruption and abuse of power, state resources and privileges and the copy of the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry investigating into the Treasury Bond issue. For, there is a tradition in the country which sweeps under the carpet any commission report. Committing frauds, investigating them, sweeping reports under the carpet, using money plundered in politics have become episodes of a drama. The biggest parasite in our country is frauds and corruption. The biggest danger is the existence of fraudsters in the government and the government conducting investigations on its own frauds and corruption.
Today, opposing corruption has become a fashion. The President, Ministers and MPs of the SLFP gave an oath not to indulge in frauds and corruption. The President should have made his oath at the presidential election. Now, he has to make a pledge to punish those who are involved in frauds and corruption. Also, S.B. Dissanayake, Nimal Siripala, Jagath Pushpakumara, Susil Premajayanth, Duminda Dissanayake, Anura Yapa and other ministers and MPs who took the oath should have first apologized for the people for the frauds and corruption committed until now. Also, they should promise that they would not commit any frauds or corruption hereafter. They attempt to make use of the people’s opposition to frauds and corruption to their advantage deceivingly.
There are several investigations being carried out by the FCID. A financial fraud of Rs.1.5 million that had been committed in Dehiwela – Mt. Lavinia Municipal Council. Rs. 373 million fraud committed in Mahiyangana Pradeshiya Sabha, A dealing of Rs. 64 million in Katharagama Pradeshiya Sabha, against the Mayor of Moratuwa Municipal Council, the Chairman of Palinda Nuwara Pradeshiya Sabha, Rs.10.5 million illegal transaction in Kesbewa UC and frauds in Kelaniya PS, BandaragamaPS, Benthota PS, Colombo MC and Peliyagoda UC are some investigations being carried out by the FCID. Those who ruled these local government councils are now with President Maithripala Sirisena and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. These suspects have become candidates of their parties. Large-scale fraudsters and the corrupt have become organizers of Mr. Maithripala Sirisena’s party. As such, our country has reached a stage where a genuine voice against frauds and corruption should be raised. There are many factors to show that the Prime Minister is involved in the Central Bank bond scam. Also, the Prime Minister and several ministers have been summoned to the commission and were questioned. As such, the report of this commission should not be allowed to be swept under the carpet.
We ask the citizens of this country to use all their might against fraudsters and the corrupt which is to vote against them on 10th February. We ask the masses to use the election held on 10th February against fraudsters, their henchmen, those who protect them. We also ask journalists to use their pen against fraudsters and the corrupt.”
Within the next few days, nearly 181 beggars from Colombo are to be sent to the rehabilitation centre set up in Rideegama in Ambalantota, where they will be rehabilitated so that they may be gainfully employed later.
Project Director, Ranjith Meegaswatte speaking to the Daily News reiterated that the project is aimed at giving beggars a better lease of life through education, community engagement, empowerment and self-employment.
“The Government has spent 8 crores in setting up 10 buildings at Rideegama for the purpose of rehabilitation and looking out for the social welfare of these individuals,” he said.
“A sum of Rs. 1.5 million is spent every month to ensure that all their needs are met including food, medicare, education, clothing and shelter,”Meegaswatte said.
He added that there are 480 beggars at the centre who are being well looked after.
“Some of the beggars are not only destitute but individuals who are intellectually disabled. Since they are also unskilled, finding them employment in alternative occupations is very challenging. Some of them chose to stay at the centre, and the Government has no qualms about it.”
The Government declared January 1st as the last day for beggars to willingly to get themselves registered so that they could be sent to this centre.
“They are free to come to the office at Deans Road in Maradana or the Ministry of Megapolis, where we will do the needful. There are however those who need care, attention but are too stubborn to seek help and it is here that the police will take them and produce them to courts under the Police ordinance and Vagrants Ordinance.
Once that is been done, they will be taken to the centre,”Meegaswatte addedd.
“Through the same programme, we are offering an employment scheme where a beggar can earn Rs. 1500 a day through a selection of jobs offered through the Ministry. We have already received a positive initiation to this scheme,” he said.
He added that women are also housed in the same location with separate hostel facilities while street children are sent to correction facilities through which they attend schools and find placements and vocational training centres.
Over the last few weeks, the government’s programme to evict beggars from Colombo has drawn flak by sections of the society who have termed it as unjust.
Meegaswatte explained that the government would rather have these individuals, many of who are impoverished and helpless placed into homes where they are not only offered food, clothing and shelter but care and concern.
“This is the only way we can reduce their numbers. We are providing provisions for vocational training within this centre. These individuals have a right to life, and to be productive and valued,” he added.
“The country needs socio-economic welfare measures to help alleviate these individuals from their impoverished lives.
This calls for a comprehensive programme, reorientation of existing programmes and policies. The rehabilitation center in Rideegama is one of many such plans,” Meegaswatte said.
Tuesday, 2 January 2018
A refreshing 31,557,000 seconds in 2018 are with us. A brand new year invites us not only to have brand new thoughts but to convert them into grand actions. As usual, people tend to have New Year resolutions. My suggestion is to go beyond resolutions, to have specific reinforcements. As an appetiser for a productive new year, I would like to share 18 elements for excellence, especially with the Sri Lankan managers in mind.
Efficient
We all complain about lack of time. Even though, there are seminars, workshops, trainings and lectures on “time management”, we really cannot manage time. It is finite and fixed. Instead what we can do is to “manage ourselves” in getting the best out of the given limited time. Only way to do that is to be efficient in our tasks. It involves minimising the wastages, reducing the defects, curtailing the deviations etc. Let’s be efficient in the year 2018.
Effective
Being efficient is not enough. We can efficiently climb a ladder placed against a wrong wall. Effectiveness is results related. It deals with the outputs and the outcomes. That’s where we need to being with the end in mind. The mistake we do sometimes is trying to be super-duper efficient, losing track of the larger goal. Let’s be effective in the year 2018.
Empathic
As we know, empathy is getting into others’ shoes and walking like them. In other words, it means having the ability to look at a problem or an issue from the other’s frame of view. Sri Lankan managers and administrators can improve vastly on this. Rather than jumping to conclusions merely looking at one side of the story, a mature broad approach of being empathic is required. Let’s be empathic in the year 2018.
Energetic
We need to be “corporate athletes” in maintaining healthy mind-body balance. Energy flows out not by consuming more “energy drinks” but committing to exercise regularly. Unfortunately we see quite the contrary in the corporate world, where most of the things are remote-controlled. Finding quality time for physical exercises on a regular basis will be one sure cure for physical inactivity. Having a healthy dietary pattern, in opting to be fit than fat, is another vital need. Let’s be energetic in the year 2018.
Enthusiastic
Happy employees are productive employees. That’s what the research says. Interestingly, that’s why some enthusiastic enterprises have resorted to measure “laughs per hour”. There are ground realities one cannot ignore. Either one has to find the work he/she loves to do, or love the work he/she has to do. Having a positive approach to work is an absolute must. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “do what you can, with what you have, wherever you are”. Let’s be enthusiastic in the year 2018.
Envision
“Dare to dream, dare to act, dare to fail, dare to succeed”. So goes an old saying. Everything begins with envisioning. As Walt Disney said, if you can dream it, you can deliver it. Unfortunately we see more “day dreams” in Sri Lankan workplaces, especially after lunch. The need of the hour is to be more growth-oriented in terms of working towards long-term goals. Let’s envision in the year 2018.
Enhance
We need to enhance our knowledge and skills. With internet as a vast ocean of knowledge offering a variety of informal learning approaches, learning has become a part and parcel of our lives. Unfortunately, we visit internet to find “figures” instead of “facts and figures”. Sharpening ourselves with cutting-edge knowledge is an absolute must in facing competition. As Socrates said a long time ago, we learn from “the womb to the tomb”. Let’s enhance ourselves in the year 2018.
Engage
Employee engagement has already become a buzz word in the business circles. It captures the essence of employees’ head, hands and heart involvement in work. It refers to employee’s psychological state (e.g. one’s identification with the organisation), his/her disposition (e.g. one’s positive feeling towards the organisation) and performance (e.g. one’s level of discretionary effort). In brief, it captures affective (feeling), cognitive (thinking) and behavioural (acting) dimensions of an employee. We need to engage more in order to excel. Let’s engage more in the year 2018.
Explore
This is essentially about being creative, in thinking “out of the box.” It reminds me of what our veteran writer Kumaratunga Munidasa said a long time ago. “A nation without innovation will not prosper, but will lie lamenting, being unable to beg”. Innovation has paved way for many a country to succeed in becoming globally competitive. Where are we with regard to innovation? How many new patents Sri Lankans register annually? Nanotechnology can be sited as one promising area where innovation has begun to yield dividends. Let’s explore in the year 2018.
Empower
As Lao Tsu said a long time ago, great leaders are “leader breeders”. Such a transformation can only be possible through empowerment. It involves, on the one hand, delegation, assigning tasks to others to handle, whilst being accountable. On the other hand, it involves development. The fundamental mistake we do is to simple delegate tasks without developing the team. Let’s empower in the year 2018.
Endure
This is all about continuation. We start things with a big bang and discontinue half-way through. Sustainability has become a critical factor in the midst of business failures. Chaotic weather patterns across the globe are a grim reminder that eco-friendly practices of work need a lot more attention. What matters are not only profits and people, but planet as well. Let’s endure in the year 2018.
Embrace
In a rapidly-changing well-connected world, we need to embrace best practices, and perhaps the “next” practices. Take recruitment for an example. Rather than having an interview by a panel of senior members who have no idea about what real interviewing is all about, the time has come to move towards professionalism. There are new techniques to conduct behavioural interviews. Required competencies to a job against actual competencies of a candidate can be accessed through a well-designed assessment centre. The starting point is to acknowledge the need to change in appropriately adapting the new practices. Let’s embrace more in 2018.
Enrich
It is a broad term capturing the physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual facets of life. We need enrichment in a balanced manner on all above fronts. Sadly but surely, what we see in the world is quite the contrary. There is imbalance with the mad rush for material acquisition. As I saw in a poster somewhere, “we gain wealth by sacrificing our health and we regain health by spending our wealth”. Let’s enrich more in 2018.
Engross
It refers to get involved totally, with complete participation. It differs from engagement to the extent where you need to be holistic and be willing to capture the fullness of a situation. Half-hearted, half-baked approaches with shabbily completing tasks are quite the opposite. The Asian term mindfulness aptly captures what you need to do fully in living in the moment. Let’s engross more in meaningful activities in 2018.
Erase
When Nelson Mandela was released from 27 years of rigorous imprisonment, the first thing he did was to forgive his enemies. Then he said, “Reconciliation begins now”. It invites us to forgive and forget. In brief, it refers to the erasing of negative memories. The sooner we erase the negative memories, yet retaining the lessons learnt, the better it is for us to experience inner freedom. Let’s erase the past negativities in 2018.
Elevate
We need to continuously elevate our standards in order to stay competitive. It is voluntarily raising the bar. “Kaizen” invites us to continuously improve in challenging our past performance and raising the targets for future performance. As the famous quote goes, “Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling; Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor.” Let’s elevate ourselves in 2018.
Emancipate
This is comparatively a subtle aspect. It deals with practicing the values. The numerous stories we heard, ranging from the global credit crunch to Golden Key chaos, call for the need of ethicality. It is not achieving short-term gains “either by hook or by crook” but something much deeper, grounded on solid principles. Ethics is difficult to define in a precise way. In a general sense, ethics is the code of moral principles and values that governs the behaviours of a person or a group with respect to what is right or what is wrong. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, says the golden rule of ethics. Let’s emancipate in 2018.
Excel
This is the culmination of all above Es. Excellence is all about being exceptionally good. When applied to enterprises, it involves exceptional achievements in a consistent manner. “We are what we repeatedly do; Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” So said Aristotle a long time ago, which has much relevance for today and tomorrow.
The dawn of 2018 offers us another opportunity to have a fresh look at our lives. Embracing the 18 elements for excellence will ensure the exceeding of expectations. May 2018 be a year of excellence for you, as an individual, as an interactive team member, as well as an institutional employee. Let’s excel in 2018.
(Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri can be reached through director@pim.sjp.ac.lk, president@ipmlk.org or www.ajanthadharmasiri.info.)
The New Year 2018 dawned today with the usual mixture of virtue and vice. Joy and goodwill, understanding, sharing and caring were among the virtues we show to a large extent among the people. The vice came largely in the form of wasteful expenditure, luxury and extravagance such as five-star balls for which people paid between Rs.10,000 and Rs.20,000 for one night of revelry.
Whatever the start, we need to reflect on the virtues of what will make 2018 a better year. As in all good things it needs to start in the family -- the nucleus of society. History has shown us that good families will make good societies. If there is love, peace and joy in the families, we will see these virtues in society also. In the family we should have care and concern for each other’s needs and wishes, understand each others falls and weaknesses and appreciate what is good and nice in each other, the father and the mother need to set the example to the children, instead of just preaching and forcing them to be obedient.
From a spirit of service, self-sacrifice and self-donation, the parents by example need to teach the children to be good and responsible citizens, getting actively involved in the key issues of poverty alleviation, the battle against climate change or global warming and the campaign for a ban on nuclear weapons.
When responsible and duty conscious families are moulded in these and other ways, we will be laying the foundation for a country, committed to the creation of a peaceful, just and all-inclusive society.
Expecting the politicians and the political system to change from self-centredness to other-centredness is somewhat of an illusion because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. President Maithripala Sirisena, speaking to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) candidates last week insisted he would not tolerate anyone who indulged in bribery, corruption, frauds or other political crimes. Addressing party candidates for the February 10 local council elections, he insisted that the battle against bribery and corruption would be at the forefront of the polls campaign.
The president’s comment came a day before a comprehensive report was handed over to him by the presidential commission which probed alleged bond scams at the Central Bank. The 1400-page report with annexures and recommendations is now being studied by top legal officials of the presidential secretariat. There is speculation that the commission has made strong indictments on the Central Bank’s former governor Arjuna Mahendran and some UNP members including former minister Ravi Karunanayake, who was forced to resign recently. But there are different opinions as whether the President will publicly disclose the presidential committee report before the February 10 local council elections.
The President also has pledged to expedite legal action against the former regime’s VIPs and officials who are alleged to have plundered billions of rupees in public funds. However, there are corruption allegations even against SLFP or UPFA ministers or senior members.
Thus, instead of expecting an immediate switch to sincere politics and integrity, it would be better for parents to foster such virtues in their families, then these virtues could go to school levels. For Sri Lanka and the world, the three main issues this year are poverty alleviation, the battle against global warming or climate change and the campaign to ban nuclear weapons. A civic action group yesterday launched a New Year mission to plant tens of thousands of trees as part of the battle against global warming, because deforestation is known to be one of the main causes. In a similar way we all could contribute towards poverty alleviation and the battle against global warming.
By learning to manage with our basic needs and living in a simple and humble way, we could save more and share more with those in desperate need. By planting a tree, saving electricity and clean water and taking other eco-friendly or green initiatives we could make 2018 a better year for us and the whole world.
After a delay last year, Knesset was scheduled to vote on legislation which would reduce Jerusalem's Palestinian population by a third
Behind Israel's separation barrier, the Palestinian refugee camp of Shuafat in East Jerusalem (AFP)
Monday 1 January 2018
The Israeli Knesset on Monday was scheduled to vote on a bill which observers say is designed to disconnect Palestinian neighbourhoods from Jerusalem.
The bill would require 80 members of the 120-member Knesset to approve relinquishing parts of the city under any future agreements, including those with the Palestinian Authority.
Once Palestinians are in a separate local council, Israel will say the centre of their life is no longer in Jerusalem
- Daoud Alg'ol, Palestinian researcher on Jerusalem
Initiated by Israeli ministers Naftali Bennett and Ze’ev Elkin and ratified by a committee in 2017, the legistlation would also establish a new local council for the Palestinian neighbourhoods cut off from Jerusalem - and reduce the city's Palestinian population by a third.
In an interview in November, Elkin told The Jerusalem Post that initially, the Interior Ministry will appoint a committee to govern the new council.
Areas impacted by the bill are located on the far side of the concrete separation wall which Israel installed a decade ago. They include Kafr Akab, Shuafat refugee camp and parts of Walaja, Sawahra and a-Sheik Sa'ad.
Even though their residents pay taxes to the Jerusalem municipality, Palestinian areas outside the barrier are already “twilight zones” of neglect and lawlessness.
Residents in those area have been effectively abandoned by the Jerusalem municipality, and have found it ever harder to access the rest of the city, Daoud Alg’ol, a Palestinian researcher on Jerusalem, told MEE in November.
“Once Palestinians are in a separate local council, Israel will say the centre of their life is no longer in Jerusalem and their Jerusalem residency papers will be revoked,” said Alg’ol. “This already happens, but now it will be on a much larger scale.”
Since 1967, Israel has revoked the residency permits of more than 14,000 Palestinians, forcing them to leave Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postponed an earlier vote on the bill, but reportedly postponed after US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
Plural marriage, bred of inequality, begets violence
CAIRO, LAHORE AND WAU-Dec 19th 2017
IT IS a truth universally acknowledged, or at least widely accepted in South Sudan, that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of many wives. Paul Malong, South Sudan’s former army chief of staff, has more than 100—no one knows the exact number. A news website put it at 112 in February, after one of the youngest of them ran off to marry a teacher. The couple were said to be in hiding. To adapt Jane Austen again, we are all fools in love, but especially so if we cuckold a warlord in one of the world’s most violent countries.
Men in South Sudan typically marry as often as their wealth—often measured in cattle—will allow. Perhaps 40% of marriages are polygamous. “In [our] culture, the more family you have, the more people respect you,” says William, a young IT specialist in search of his second wife (his name, like some others in this article, has been changed). Having studied in America and come back to his home village, he finds that he is wealthy by local standards. So why be content with just one bride?
Few South Sudanese see the connection between these matrimonial customs and the country’s horrific civil war. If you ask them the reason for the violence, locals will blame tribalism, greedy politicians, weak institutions and perhaps the oil wealth which gives warlords something to fight over. All true, but not the whole story.
Wherever it is widely practised, polygamy (specifically polygyny, the taking of multiple wives) destabilises society, largely because it is a form of inequality which creates an urgent distress in the hearts, and loins, of young men. If a rich man has a Lamborghini, that does not mean that a poor man has to walk, for the supply of cars is not fixed. By contrast, every time a rich man takes an extra wife, another poor man must remain single. If the richest and most powerful 10% of men have, say, four wives each, the bottom 30% of men cannot marry. Young men will take desperate measures to avoid this state.
This is one of the reasons why the Arab Spring erupted, why the jihadists of Boko Haram and Islamic State were able to conquer swathes of Nigeria, Iraq and Syria, and why the polygamous parts of Indonesia and Haiti are so turbulent. Polygamous societies are bloodier, more likely to invade their neighbours and more prone to collapse than others are. The taking of multiple wives is a feature of life in all of the 20 most unstable countries on the Fragile States Index compiled by the Fund for Peace, an NGO (see chart).
Because polygamy is illegal in most rich countries, many Westerners underestimate how common it is. More than a third of women in West Africa are married to a man who has more than one wife. Plural marriages are plentiful in the Arab world, and fairly common in South-East Asia and a few parts of the Caribbean. The cultures involved are usually patrilineal: ie, the family is defined by the male bloodline. And they are patrilocal: wives join the husband’s family and leave their own behind. Marriages are often sealed by the payment of a brideprice from the groom’s family to the bride’s. This is supposed to compensate the bride’s family for the cost of raising her.
A few men attract multiple wives by being exceptionally charismatic, or by persuading others that they are holy. “There may be examples of [male] cult leaders who did not make use of their position to further their personal polygyny, but I cannot think of any,” notes David Barash of the University of Washington in “Out of Eden: The Surprising Consequences of Polygamy”. However, the most important enabler of the practice is not the unequal distribution of charm but the unequal distribution of wealth. Brideprice societies where wealth is unevenly distributed lend themselves to polygamy—which in turn inflates the price of brides, often to ruinous heights. In wretchedly poor Afghanistan, the cost of a wedding for a young man averages $12,000-$20,000.
By increasing the bride price, polygamy tends to raise the age at which young men get married; it takes a long time to save enough money. At the same time, it lowers the age at which women get married. All but the wealthiest families need to “sell” their daughters before they can afford to “buy” wives for their sons; they also want the wives they shell out for to be young and fertile. In South Sudan “a girl is called an old lady at age 20 because she cannot bear many children after that,” a local man told Marc Sommers of Boston University and Stephanie Schwartz of Columbia University. A tribal elder spelled out the maths of the situation. “When you have 10 daughters, each one will give you 30 cows, and they are all for [the father]. So then you have 300 cows.” If a patriarch sells his daughters at 15 and does not let his sons marry until they are 30, he has 15 years to enjoy the returns on the assets he gained from brideprice. That’s a lot of milk.
Valerie Hudson of Texas A&M University and Hilary Matfess of Yale have found that an inflated brideprice is a “critical” factor “predisposing young men to become involved in organised group violence for political purposes”. Terrorist groups know this, too. Muhammad Kasab, a Pakistani terrorist hanged for his role in the Mumbai attacks of 2008, said he joined Lashkar-e-Taiba, the jihadist aggressor, because it promised to pay for his siblings to get married. In Nigeria, Boko Haram arranges marriages for its recruits. The so-called Islamic State used to offer foreign recruits $1,500 towards a starter home and a free honeymoon in Raqqa. Radical Islamist groups in Egypt have also organised cheap marriages for members. It is not just in the next life that jihadists are promised virgins.
The deepest deprivation
In South Sudan, brideprices may be anything from 30 to 300 cows. “For young men, the acquisition of so many cattle through legitimate means is nearly impossible,” write Ms Hudson and Ms Matfess. The alternative is to steal a herd from the tribe next door. In a country awash with arms, such cattle raids are as bloody as they are frequent. “7 killed, 10 others wounded in cattle raid in Eastern Lakes,” reads a typical headline in This Day, a South Sudanese paper. The article describes how “armed youths from neighbouring communities” stole 58 cows, leaving seven people—and 38 cows—shot dead “in tragic crossfire”.
Thousands of South Sudanese are killed in cattle raids every year. “When you have cows, the first thing you must do is get a gun. If you don’t have a gun, people will take your cows,” says Jok, a 30-year-old cattle herder in Wau, a South Sudanese city. He is only carrying a machete, but he says his brothers have guns.
Jok loves cows. “They give you milk, and you can marry with them,” he smiles. He says he will get married this year, though he does not yet have enough cows and, judging by his ragged clothes, he does not have the money to buy them, either. He is vague as to how he will acquire the necessary ruminants. But one can’t help noticing that he is grazing his herd on land that has recently been ethnically cleansed. Dinkas like Jok walk around freely in Wau. Members of other tribes who used to live in the area huddle in camps for displaced people, guarded by UN peacekeepers.
The people in the camps all tell similar stories. The Dinkas came, dressed in blue, and attacked their homes, killing the men and stealing whatever they could carry away, including livestock and young women. “Many of my family were killed or raped,” says Saida, a village trader. “The attackers cut people’s heads off. All the young men have gone from our village now. Some have joined the rebels. Some fled to Sudan.” Saida’s husband escaped and is now with his other wife in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Saida is left tending five children. Asked why all this is happening, she bursts into tears.
“If you have a gun, you can get anything you want,” says Abdullah, a farmer who was driven off his land so that Dinka marauders could graze their cattle on it. “If a man with a gun says ‘I want to marry you’, you can’t say no,” says Akech, an aid worker. This is why adolescent boys hover on the edge of battles in South Sudan. When a fighter is killed, they rush over and steal his weapon so that they can become fighters, too.
Overall, polygamy is in retreat. However, its supporters are fighting to preserve or even extend it. Two-fifths of Kazakhstanis want to re-legalise the practice (it was banned by the Bolsheviks). In 2008 they were thwarted, at least temporarily, when a female MP amended a pro-polygamy bill to say that polyandry—the taking of multiple hubands—would be allowed as well; Muslim greybeards balked at that.
In the West polygamy is too rare to be socially destabilising. To some extent this is because it is serialised. Rich and powerful men regularly swap older wives for younger ones, thus monopolising the prime reproductive years of several women. But that allows a few wives, not a few dozen. The polygamous enclaves in America run by breakaway Mormon sects are highly unstable—the old men in charge expel large numbers of young men for trivial offences so they can marry lots of young women themselves. Nevertheless, some American campaigners argue that parallelised polygamy should be made legal. If the constitution demands that gay marriage be allowed (as the Supreme Court ruled in 2015), then surely it is unconstitutional to disallow plural marriage, they argue. “Group marriage is the next horizon of social liberalism,” writes Fredrik deBoer, an academic, in Politico, on the basis that long-term polyamorous relationships deserve as much legal protection as any others freely entered into.
Proponents of polygamy offer two main arguments beyond personal preference. One is that it is blessed in the Koran, which is true. The other is that it gives women a better chance of avoiding spinsterhood. Rania Hashem, a pro-polygamy campaigner in Egypt, claims that there is a shortage of men in her country. (There is not, but this is a common misconception among polygamists.) If more rich, educated Egyptian men take multiple wives, she says, this will make it easier for women to exercise their “right to have a husband”. Mona Abu Shanab, another Egyptian polygamy advocate, argues that polygamy is a sensible way to assuage male sexual frustration, a common cause of divorce. “Women after marriage just disregard their men [and] focus on their kids. They…always have an excuse for not engaging in intimate relations; they are always ‘tired’ or ‘sick’. This makes the men uncomfortable and drives them to…have a girlfriend.”
Some men see polygamy as a pragmatic response to female infertility. “My first wife was issueless,” says Gurmeet, a 65-year-old landlord in Lahore, Pakistan. At one point “she said our inability to have a child was because of my medical condition, not hers. I was enraged. I turned to religion and was guided [by God] to take a second wife.” He had been planning to try in-vitro fertilisation but God’s advice looked like a sounder investment. Initially, his first wife was “unwilling to share my affections with another woman”. But as time passed, she accepted the situation, says Gurmeet. He divided the house into two parts, so his wives could live separately. He divided his time equally between them. “It worked,” he says. The second wife had six children. But Gurmeet grumbles that she dressed less elegantly than his childless wife and did not keep her rooms as tidy.
Polygyny is hard work for men but good for women, says Gurmeet, because it is “undesirable” for a woman to be unmarried. Asked about polyandry, Gurmeet says, “I strongly disapprove. It is against nature for a woman to have multiple partners.” He elaborates: “As a young man I kept chickens. The cock has many hens, but he does not allow the females to mate with more than one partner. So it’s against natural law.”
Bad for brides
Polygamy “can work fine, provided you do justice to [all wives] equally,” says Amar, a Pakistani judge with two wives. “If you do not prefer any one over the others, no problem arises.” He admits that if two wives live together in the same home, “a natural rivalry” arises. Dividing property can also be complicated and leads to a lot of litigation.
But Amar thinks he gets it right. “My routine is: I spend one night with one wife and one night with the other. That way, nobody feels treated badly. And I give them exactly the same amount of money to spend: they get one credit card each. As a judge, it is [my] foremost duty to deliver justice.” One of his wives enters the room and offers to give her side of the story. Her husband banishes her, with visible irritation, before your correspondent can ask her anything.
Although women in a polygamous society find it relatively easy to get married, the quality of their marriages may not be high. Because such brides are often much younger, not to mention ill-educated, they find it hard to stand up to their husbands. And brideprice is not conducive to a relationship of equals.
In South Sudan, nearly 80% of people think it acceptable for a husband to beat his wife for such things as refusing sex, burning the dinner and so on. Divorce requires that the bride’s family repay the brideprice; they may thus insist that the abused woman stays with her husband no matter how badly he treats her.
Polygamy is also bad for children. A study of 240,000 children in 29 African countries found that, after controlling for other factors, those in polygamous families were more likely to die young. A study among the Dogon of Mali found that a child in a polygynous family was seven to 11 times more likely to die early than a child in a monogamous one. The father spends his time siring more children rather than looking after the ones he already has, Mr Barash explains. Also, according to the Dogon themselves, jealous co-wives sometimes poison each other’s offspring so that their own will inherit more.
For Akech, the South Sudanese aid worker, growing up in a polygamous family “wasn’t easy”. Her father, a former rebel commander, had eight wives and numerous concubines. She has 41 siblings that she knows of. When she was six, she used to fetch 20 litres of water each day for her mother to use to make siko, a form of moonshine. Sometimes her father would come round drunk, bang on the door and take her mother’s money to spend on another woman. Akech remembers her parents quarrelling a lot. That said, the extended family could pull together in an emergency. When her father was shot in the leg, his wives teamed up to bathe him, get him to hospital and pay his medical bills.
One day, when Akech was at university, her father asked her to come and see him. “We had never had a father-daughter bond, so I was excited,” she remembers. When she arrived, he introduced her to a fellow officer and ordered her to marry him. She was horrified. Her father’s friend was 65. Akech was 19.
She pretended to accept the proposal and said she just wanted to pop back to her college, which was in a neighbouring country, to collect her things. Her father agreed. She went back to college and stayed there.
That was more than a decade ago. Akech went on to complete university and find a good job. She recently bought her now-elderly father a house, partly to show him the value of her education, but also out of a residual sense of guilt at having once defied him. “In my culture, your parents are your earthly gods. I tried not to disappoint him,” she says. He has never said sorry for attempting to sell her.
Mon 1 Jan ‘18 14.13 GMT
At least 12 people have died in clashes between protesters and security guards in Iran since protests erupted across the country last week, officials said on Monday, as an intervention by the president failed to quell public anger.
Protesters defied warnings by the authorities to stay away or be confronted with an “iron fist” as demonstrations, in scenes that are increasingly becoming violent, continued on Sunday evening for the fourth day, hours after the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, acknowledged discontent.
The demonstrations began on Thursday after opponents of the moderate president gathered in north-eastern Iran, but soon spread nationwide, escalating from initial demands over economic grievances and taking on a political dimension.
At least two people were killed in the city of Izeh, in Khuzestan province, during protests on Sunday night, according to its member of parliament, who claimed it was not clear which side fired the shots. Two others were killed in Lorestan province.
There were turbulent scenes in a number of cities across Iran, including the capital, Tehran, Karaj, Tuyserkan, Hamedan, Arak, Saveh, Amol, Sari and Qazvin. Officials said on Monday 10 people died during protests on Sunday night and at least 400 people had been arrested over the past five days.
Videos posted on social networks appeared to show riot police becoming more confrontational. Similarly, protesters are seen attacking government buildings and shattering windows in an escalation of the unrest.
Iranians take to the streets for a third day of protests – video
Protests continued on Monday evening for a fifth day. Anti-riot police riding on motorbikes and wielding batons were unleashed on the streets of Tehran, observers said. Similar scenes were reported in other cities.
Rouhani spoke with a number of parliamentarians on Monday in a meeting officials insisted was planned before the protests began. The president said: “Not all protesters are receiving orders from foreign powers, some are ordinary people who have come to streets because of their problems and sentiments.”
The president said people wanted Iran’s political atmosphere to open up, but was adamant the Islamic republic would endure the turmoil without much difficulty.
“People will confront a minority and a small group who are chanting slogans against the law and the will of people and insulting sanctities and revolutionary values, destroying public properties,” he said.
A day earlier, in his first public comments on the protests, Rouhani acknowledged discontent in a video aired on state television, saying people had constitutional right to hold protests and criticise. But he also warned that criticism was “different from violence, destruction of public property”.
The president added: “Based on the constitution and citizenship rights, people are completely free in expressing criticisms and even their protests, but at the same time, we must pay attention to the way in which criticism and protest should be made to lead to better conditions for the country and people’s lives.”
Rouhani denounced comments made by the US president, Donald Trump, who tweeted on Sunday: “The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism.”
The Iranian president said Trump had no right to express sympathy with Iranians because “a few months ago, he called the Iranian nation terrorist” and was “against the Iranian nation from head to toe”.
Trump again tweeted on Monday, saying Iran was “failing at every level” as he reiterated his support for the protesters.
“Iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration.
The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!”
The scale and the speed at which the protests have spread across Iran has puzzled many in the country, including reformists who are critical of the country’s political atmosphere, but are wary of any move towards regime change.
Iran blocked access to social network sites including Telegram and Instagram on Sunday, but insisted the move was temporary. In contrast to their previous handling of such protests, Iranian officials appeared to be more conciliatory, at least towards some groups of protesters, acknowledging that they have legitimate economic grievances.
The head of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, a hardline cleric, said: “Attacking mosques, public buildings, banks, is unacceptable.” He vowed the perpetrators would be prosecuted.
Ahed al-Tamimi has been in Israeli custody since 20 December after she and her cousin were filmed confronting soldiers
Israeli lawyer Gaby Lasky speaks with her client Ahed Tamimi in the military court at Ofer prison on Monday (AFP)
Monday 1 January 2018
Israel on Monday indicted Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian teenager arrested after a video in which she and her cousin confronted two Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank went viral.
Tamimi was indicted on charges including assault for punching an Israeli soldier in the face two weeks ago, an incident which made her into a hero for Palestinians and was seen as humiliating by right-wing Israelis.
Israeli authorities are pursuing a total of 12 charges against Tamimi, her lawyer said on Monday.
The lawyer, Gaby Lasky, spoke to journalists ahead of the hearing in a military court, saying the charges include assault and relate to six different incidents.
The accusations also include stone-throwing, incitement and making threats, Lasky said.
Prosecutors are also seeking five charges against her mother Nariman, and had on Sunday filed charges against her cousin Nour, 20.
Nour Naji al-Tamimi was arrested on 20 December after she and Ahed were filmed on a mobile phone slapping, kicking and hitting the soldiers in their village of Nabi Saleh. The soldiers were armed with M16 guns, helmets and body armour.
Nour al-Tamimi was charged with aggravated assault of a soldier and disturbing soldiers carrying out their duties, according to charges filed at Ofer military court.
The soldiers, according to the charges, were in the Tamimi's yard to prevent Palestinians from throwing stones at Israeli motorists.
Bassem al-Tamimi, Ahed's father and an activist opposing the Israeli Halamish settlement in Nabi Saleh, has said that his daughter's actions came soon after Israeli soldiers shot her 14-year-old cousin, Mohammed, in the head.
"The IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] raided my home and arrested my daughter Ahed Tamimi after the Israeli media attacked her after she stopped the soldier in front of our house when he shot a child in the head," he wrote.
Mohammed al-Tamimi, who was protesting against Trump's announcement on recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital when he was shot on 15 December, was placed into a medically induced coma.
Between 5 and 18 December, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) recorded at least 345 cases of Palestinian children hurt by Israeli forces.
More than a third of these injuries were from live ammunition. In a report by Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), six head injuries were documented as the most serious, including two children with permanent eye loss.
MANY observers of China’s escalating global programme of foreign investment and infrastructure development are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.
In an ideal world, China’s unbridled ambitions will improve economic growth, food security and social development in many poor nations, as well as enriching itself. Such hopes are certainly timely, given the isolationism of the US Trump administration, which has created an international leadership vacuum that China is eager to fill.
But a close look reveals that China’s international agenda is far more exploitative than many realise, especially for the global environment. And the Chinese leadership’s claims to be embracing “green development” are in many cases more propaganda than fact.
To help steer through the maze, I provide here a snapshot of China’s present environmental impacts. Are China’s assertions reasoned and defensible, or something else altogether?
For a start, China is overwhelmingly the world’s biggest consumer of illegally poached wildlife and wildlife products. From rhino horn and pangolins to shark fins and a menagerie of wild bird species, Chinese consumption drives much of the global trade in wildlife exploitation and smuggling.
The author examining a Forest Elephant gunned down by ivory poachers in central Africa. Source: Mahmoud Mahmoud
But even before China’s ban has taken full force, a black market for ivory is developing in neighbouring Laos. There, Chinese entrepreneurs are churning out great quantities of carved ivory products, specifically designed for Chinese tastes and openly sold to Chinese visitors.
More damaging still are China’s plans for infrastructure expansion that will irreparably degrade much of the natural world.
China’s One Belt One Road initiative alone will carve massive arrays of new roads, railroads, ports, and extractive industries such as mining, logging, and oil and gas projects into at least 70 nations across Asia, Europe, and Africa.
China’s President Xi Jinping promises that the Belt and Road initiative will be “green, low-carbon, circular and sustainable”, but such a claim is profoundly divorced from reality.
A partial representation of China’s One Belt One Road scheme, circa 2015. Source: Mercator Institute for China Studies
As my colleagues and I recently argued in Science and Current Biology, the modern infrastructure tsunami that is largely being driven by China will open a Pandora’s box of environmental crises, including large-scale deforestation, habitat fragmentation, wildlife poaching, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
China’s pursuit of natural resources is also escalating across Latin America. In the Amazon, for example, big mining projects – many of which are feeding Chinese industries – don’t just cause serious local degradation, but also promote widespread deforestation from the networks of roads bulldozed into remote areas to access the mines.
Beyond this, China is pushing to build a 5,000km railroad across South America, to make it cheaper for China to import timber, minerals, soy and other natural resources from ports along South America’s Pacific coast. If it proceeds, the number of critical ecosystems that would be impacted by this project is staggering.
A World Bank study of more than 3,000 overseas projects funded or operated by China revealed how it often treats poor nations as “pollution havens” – transferring its own environmental degradation to developing nations that are desperate for foreign investment.
Finally, much has been made of the fact that China is beginning to temper its appetite for domestic fossil-fuelled energy. It is now a leading investor in solar and wind energy, and recently delayed construction of more than 150 coal-fired electricity plants in China.
These are unquestionably pluses, but they need to be seen in their broad context. In terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, China has exploded past every other nation. It now produces more than twice the carbon emissions of the United States, the second-biggest polluter, following the greatest building spree of coal, nuclear, and large-scale hydro projects in human history.
Despite its new post-Trump role as the world’s de facto climate leader, China’s overall agenda could scarcely be described as green.
A tiger relaxes along a grassy bank. Matt Gibson/Shutterstock
Some would say it’s unfair to criticise China like this. They would argue that China is merely following a well-trodden path of exploitative development previously forged by other nations and colonial powers.
Xi admits that many Chinese corporations, investors and lenders operating overseas have often acted aggressively and even illegally overseas. But he says his government is powerless to do much about it. The most notable government response to date is a series of “green papers” containing guidelines that sound good in theory but are almost universally ignored by Chinese interests.
Xi speaks during the opening of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Source: Reuters/Aly Song
Are Xi’s assertions of powerlessness believable? He increasingly rules China with an iron hand. Is it really impossible for China to guide and control its overseas industries, or are they simply so profitable that the government doesn’t want to?
Of course, China’s huge international ambitions will have some positive effects, and could even be economically transformative for certain nations. But many other elements will benefit China while profoundly damaging our planet.
By Bill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook University. Originally published on The Conversation.
2018-01-02 
Currently, 650 acres of land have been cleared to resettle people and it has been found that 706 plots of land have been cleared while 131 houses are partly being constructed. 
