Syrian refugees struggle to return to Tal Abyad

Kurdish YPG militia deny preventing Arabs and Turkmen from returning to their homes in Tal Abyad after town was liberated from IS militants 
Syrians at the Turkish Akcakale gate say Kurdish YPG militia on the Syrian side of the border has prevented them from returning to their hometown of Tal Abyad on 18 June, 2015 (AA)

Friday 19 June 2015 
Refugees seeking to return to the Syrian town of Tal Abyad after fleeing fighting there last week were stuck on the Turkish side of the border amid conflicting accounts over who closed the frontier.

Turkish authorities said refugees were not able to cross because Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia had closed the gate on the other side of the border.

But the YPG, who now control Tal Abyad, denied they were responsible for the border closure.

"From our point of view, the border is open... It's the Turks who closed the border from their side," YPG spokesman Redur Khali told AFP in Beirut, adding that people were continuing to return through unofficial crossing points.

Earlier this week the YPG – backed by Free Syrian Army rebels and US-led airstrikes - ousted Islamic State (IS) militants from Tal Abyad after fighting that prompted some 23,000 Syrian refugees to flee into Turkey.

"If the Turkish government did not open the doors to us, we would have died in Syria," Ali Berho, a 48-year-old Syrian civil servant, told Anadolu Agency. "No other country has done the same thing for us."

Hundreds of Syrians returned home on Wednesday as calm returned to their hometown. But on Thursday some 200 others were unable to cross the border.

A Turkish official told AFP that while a total of 1,000 Syrians had returned home on Wednesday across the border, the YPG was not allowing any crossing on Thursday.

"The Turkish side has no objections" to opening the border, the official stressed.

"We haven't closed the gate, but YPG has not been allowing anyone in as of today," added the official.

US: 'unacceptable' if Kurds displacing local Syrians

The refugees said they had been told the border would not open until Monday, meaning they will miss celebrating the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at home.

"Today we came to the gate hoping we can cross into Tal Abyad, I have been waiting since 7am in the morning but they are not letting us in," said Emine, 60. 

"If they have some mercy, they let us go back to our home. It's Ramadan for god's sake!"

YPG spokesman Redur Khali said that "life is normal today in Tal Abyad. We are continuing to check houses that we did not enter yet and looking for unexploded mines."

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that it is "unacceptable" if Syrian Kurdish fighters push Arabs and Turkmens out of their lands, following accusations of "ethnic cleansing" in a number of towns following their liberation from IS.  

"We certainly have seen these reports, and it is something that we are watching for," said Pentagon spokesman Col Steve Warren. "Without question it is something that we'll find out unacceptable, if true."

Turkey, which has taken in some 1.8 million Syrian refugees since the conflict started in 2011, has repeatedly complained that it has been left to shoulder an unfair burden.

According to government figures, Turkey has spent more than $6 billion so far for refugees while the international community's help has amounted to $300 million.

But it has also faced accusations itself of letting IS fighters cross back and forth across its borders, accusations Ankara vehemently denies.

UN: Turkey hosts largest number of refugees in world

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late Wednesday held an unannounced meeting in Ankara with top officials, including Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and the head of Turkey's emergency aid agency Fuat Oktay, about the Syria crisis.

They discussed the latest influx of migrants into Turkey but no more details were released, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Turkey shelters the largest number of refugees in the world but gets very little support from other countries.

"We estimate more than two million refugees are today in Turkey. Turkey very generously opened its borders to such a large number of Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans," Antonio Guterres said during a launch of the UN agency’s 2014 Global Trends report in Istanbul.

"That has a special meaning in a world where so many borders are closed or restricted and new walls are built," Guterres said.

The report claims that Syria is “the world’s biggest producer of both internally displaced people (7.6 million) and refugees (3.88 million at the end of 2014).”

In contrast to perceptions that refugees from African or Middle Eastern countries flee into the developed world, Guterres revealed that 86 percent of refuges are actually in the developing world.

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syrian-refugees-struggle-return-tal-abyad-593131591#sthash.kI9co3s0.dpuf

Heathrow plane stowaway's body found on shop roof

A stowaway who fell from a Heathrow-bound plane was found dead on a shop roof in south west London, while another man is in hospital after surviving.

FRIDAY 19 JUNE 2015

Both men are believed to have clung on to a British Airways plane as it flew more than 8,000 miles from Johannesburg in South Africa to Heathrow.

The victim fell on to a shop roof in Richmond, which is below the Heathrow flight path, on Thursday morning.

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: "The death is currently being treated as unexplained. A post-mortem examination will be held in due course and inquiries are ongoing to establish the male's identity. No arrests have been made.

"In regards to the male who survived, police were alerted at 8.28am on 18 June to reports of a suspected stowaway on a flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow."

The man who survived is aged between 25 and 30 and in a serious condition in hospital.

A British Airways spokeswoman said: "We are working with the Metropolitan Police and the authorities in Johannesburg to establish the facts surrounding this very rare case."

There have been other cases of stowaways plunging to their deaths from the undercarriages of Heathrow-bound flights, being found dead at the airport, or even surviving.

September 2012

Jose Matada was found dead on the pavement in East Sheen, near Richmond and also under the Heathrow flight path. He is believed to have died after stowing away inside the wheel recess of a British Airways plane travelling from Angola.

Matada, who died on his 26th birthday, was either dead or near death due to hypothermia and lack of oxygen when he fell from the undercarriage of a Boeing 777 as it was descending.

August 2012

A month before Matada's death, another stowaway was found dead in the landing gear of a Boeing 747 at Healthrow that had flown from Cape Town in South Africa.

June 2010

A 20-year-old Romanian man survived a flight from Vienna to Heathrow while hiding in a private jet's wheel recess. He was suiffering from hypothermia after enduring temperatures as low as -41C.

He avoided death because the plane, owned by an Arab sheikh, had flown at a low altitude due to bad weather. He was arrested as a stowaway, but later freed after being cautioned.

December 2002

The bodies of two boys aged 12 and 14 were found at Heathrow in the undercarriage of a Ghana Airways DC10 flight from Accra.

April 2002

The body of a man in his 20s, believed to be African, was found in a plane's wheel arch at Heathrow.

June 2001

A 21-year-old stowaway from Pakistan, Mohammed Ayaz, was found dead in a Homebase car park near East Sheen. He had hidden above the wheels of a BA Boeing 777 flight from Bahrain to Heathrow.

Korean TV show removes Thai monk satire from Facebook page

Image via YouTube.

By Asian Correspondent Staff Jun 19, 2015

South Korean TV show ‘Comedy Big League TV’ has removed a short parody depicting two Thai monks from its Facebook page after netizens in the Southeast Asian nation voiced their outrage online this week.

The video, which can be seen below, depicts two buffoonish Thai monks, before taking a dig at Thailand’s love of K-Pop. The Facebook video clocked up 14 million ‘likes’ before it was removed.

Later in the video one of the monks, a woman, is seen slapping a man made to appear like the Buddha image over the head. It is strictly forbidden for women to make any contact with Buddhist monks in Thailand.

Many Thais expressed their outrage in the comments on the Facebook post, calling the skit “bad-mannered”, “stupid”, and other things we won’t republish here. While angry Thais argued that their, or any, religion should not be made fun of, Korean commenters hit back saying Thai people should respect their freedom of expression.

The Bangkok Post reported Wednesday: “One Thai commenter said he will petition the South Korean embassy to order the programme to delete a record of the show, said a report on Matichon Online.”

It seems like he got his way, as the original post was “unavailable”, Friday morning.

European Central Bank agrees emergency funding for Greece

ECB’s decision-making governing council on Friday agreed that Greek banks could draw on extra funds

Jennifer Rankin-Friday 19 June 2015 14

The European Central Bank has agreed to pump more funds into Greek banks to prevent a full-blown financial emergency in the eurozone’s crisis state.

The decision – taken at a hastily convened conference call on Friday – comes after the acrimonious breakdown of talks between finance ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday night raised the prospect of Greece’s exit from the single currency bloc.

The ECB’s decision-making governing council on Friday agreed that Greek banks could draw on extra funds from an emergency facility. However, it was unclear whether Greece had got the full €3.5bn (£2.5bn) it was hoping for under the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) programme, or whether it has been given only enough to see it through until Monday’s meeting of EU leaders.

A spokesman at the ECB declined to comment.

The ECB has set another meeting for Monday, suggesting that the latest cash injection will only see Greece through the weekend.

Monday is shaping up to be a red-letter day in the five-year old Greek debt drama. The ECB meeting will be followed by yet another gathering of eurozone finance ministers in the afternoon, topped by an emergency summit of European leaders scheduled for the evening.

European leaders agreed to the special summit after a meeting between Greece and its eurozone creditors broke up amid recriminations over who was responsible for the impasse. The timing of the emergency leaders’ summit - just three days before a scheduled meeting of all European Union leaders - was determined by fears of a run on Greek banks.

The ECB has warned finance ministers that Greek banks may not open on Monday. According to Reuters, when asked whether the banks would be open on Friday, ECB executive board member Benoit Coeure said: “Tomorrow yes. Monday I don’t know.”

The decision to increase emergency funds means that Greece’s ELA cap now exceeds €84.1bn. It was raised to this level on Wednesday when the ECB agreed to a €1.1bn in funds.

But since that midweek decision, the pace of withdrawals from Greek banks has accelerated.

Greek depositors have withdrawn more than €3bn since Monday, including €1bn on Thursday alone, deepening fears of a run on the banks. Greece is shut out of international credit markets and dependent on central bank finance to replace deposits withdrawn from cash machines and counters.

Greece’s current bailout expires on 30 June, when the Greek government is due to repay the International Monetary Fund €1.6bn.

Talks between finance ministers on Thursday broke down after barely an hour of discussions on the Greek crisis. Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said there was an urgent need for dialogue with adults in the room.

Greece’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has insisted that only a political deal at the level of heads of state and government can end the crisis. Speaking in Russia on Friday morning, he said Monday’s summit was a positive development on the road towards a deal.

“All those who are betting on crisis and terror scenarios will be proven wrong. There will be a solution based on respecting EU rules and democracy which would allow Greece to return to growth in the euro”

European stock markets opened flat on Friday morning, reflecting the fact that investors have already priced in the chaotic negotiations over the five-year Greek debt crisis.

The UK chancellor, George Osborne, has urged Greece to come to a deal with its creditors. Arriving in Luxembourg for a meeting of EU finance ministers, he said: “We have entered the eleventh hour of this Greek crisis and we urge the Greek government to do a deal.”

“We hope for the best, but we now must be prepared for the worst.”

India proposes gold-linked bonds to lower bullion imports

A customer looks at gold ornaments on display inside a jewelry showroom in Kochi April 21, 2015.-REUTERS/SIVARAM V/FILES

MUMBAI/SINGAPORE | BY RAJENDRA JADHAV AND A. ANANTHALAKSHMI-Fri Jun 19, 2015

India is planning to issue sovereign bonds linked to the bullion price in an effort to divert some of the estimated 300 tonnes of annual demand for gold bars and coins, and reduce bullion imports that can push up the trade deficit.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will issue the bonds for the government, with a minimum interest rate of 2 percent, according to a draft outline issued by the government late on Thursday.

"The main idea is to reduce the demand for physical gold," the draft said.

Indians prize gold as gifts and as a way of storing wealth. The country consumes nearly 1,000 tonnes of gold every year, most of it imported, and gold is the second-biggest expense on its import bill after oil.

 

To reduce imports, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unveiled plans in February for a sovereign gold bond and a bullion deposit scheme.

While the deposit scheme aims to mobilise idle household gold, estimated at more than 20,000 tonnes, the sovereign bond would allow consumers to invest in 'paper' gold rather than physical gold.

The bond would pay an interest rate linked to the international rate for gold borrowing.

"An indicative lower limit of 2 percent may be given but the actual rate will have to be market-determined", the proposal said.

The bonds would be issued in denominations of two, five and 10 grams of gold or other sizes for a minimum term of five to seven years and they can be used as collateral for loans.

"The provision of a 2 percent interest rate and use of bonds as collateral are among the things that should attract investors," said Prithviraj Kothari, vice-president of India Bullion & Jewellers' Association.

However, Indians prefer to hold gold in physical form and might not embrace the proposal. Bullion-backed exchange-traded funds, which issue shares backed by the precious metal, have not been very successful in India.

The industry has also raised concern about the proposed deposit scheme, as consumers might not part with their jewellery in return for relatively low interest rates.

The government aims to issue bonds worth 135 billion rupees ($2.12 billion) or the equivalent of 50 tonnes of gold in the first year.

For easy and wide access, the government plans to market the bond through post offices and various brokers and agents.

One constraint could be the tax aspect. The draft notes that capital gains tax on the bond will be similar to that imposed on physical gold purchases. But Indian consumers typically buy gold coins and bars in cash, with very few paying tax.

These investors are unlikely to shift to gold bonds, economists said.

India has invited the public to comment on the plans by July 2.

($1 = 63.6588 rupees)

(Additional reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi and Suvashree Choudhury in Mumbai; Editing by Alan Raybould)

Egypt’s Quiet Social Revolution

The generation that launched the Tahrir Square revolution in 2011 is changing the country again.

BY KOERT DEBEUF, AYMAN ABDELMEGUID-JUNE 18, 2015

CAIRO — Four years after Egyptians ousted longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, many people, especially in Europe, have lost hope in the country. Its only democratically elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, was swept from power in a military coup — and his death sentence has just been confirmed. Headed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the armed forces, elements of the Mubarak regime are back in power with a vengeance. Meanwhile, many leaders of the Tahrir Square protests are in jail. Egyptian political freedom and democracy seem to be farther away than ever. But what’s happening now is much deeper than a so-called Arab spring or winter:Hidden from the public eye, a social revolution is transforming Egypt.

For the first time in fifty years, women have started to take off their hijabs. Every Egyptian seems to know at least one woman in his or her family or circle of friends that has committed this small but significant act of revolt. And this is not the only secular act gaining currency among Egyptians. In private, more and more people are discussing taboos like atheism — or even sexual identity. In this way, they are defying not only the strict fundamentalism of Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood, but also the “establishment” Islam defended by the current regime.

This silent revolution contradicts the daily news we get from the Arab world. All eyes are focused on the Islamic State. After the horrors of the Taliban and al Qaeda, the world is shocked to see an even more extreme and barbaric version of Islamist rule carrying out a reign of terror. But are more people becoming extremists, or are the extremists becoming more extreme? No doubt some Egyptians have become more extreme since the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Some Brotherhood recruits may even be joining the Islamic State or other Islamist groups.

But much more important is what’s happening among Egypt’s silent majority. Here, the opposite trend is becoming clear: Fewer taxi drivers are prominently displaying the Quran in their cars. Hijabs are coming off. And the young revolutionary generation is attending prayers less often. Egyptian columnist Rana Allam wrote how shocked she was when her “12-year-old suddenly started disrespecting sheikhs” and her friend’s 13-year-old son stopped going to the mosque “because the imam kept slandering unveiled women and the boy couldn’t take any more insults to his mother.” Most only denounce the political Islam that is preached at many mosques. Others go further and flirt with atheism.

There are no reliable surveys on these trends. A religious institution in Cairoclaimed that there were precisely 2,293 atheists in the Arab world, with 866 of them living in Egypt. But Moroccan journalist Ahmed Benchemsi has been able to find “over 250 pages or groups, with memberships ranging from a few individuals to more than 11,000,” on Facebook alone. There are no statistics at all of how many women have taken off their hijabs or how many people who have come out as LGBT. For the time being, we can only fall back onpersonal stories that might be representative of what is unfolding in Egypt.

One such story is about a conservative family in the city of Port Said. Two sisters in their thirties, Marwa and Heba, discovered just after the fall of President Morsi that the books they grew up reading were printed and distributed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Shocked to learn this, they began to rethink their worldviews and ended up questioning the very basis of their religion. “Only after Morsi fell, I discovered that Hassan al-Banna [founder of the Muslim Brotherhood] wrote the foreword to the book Living Along the Sunni Lines,” Marwa said. “I grew up with this book. Now I begin to doubt everything.” The sisters’ hijabs became more fashionable and less conservative. Then they disappeared altogether.

Amira, 28, had a less political, more personal story. She told me that she started wearing the hijab at the age of 12 because she wanted to avoid attracting sin. Her upper class parents couldn’t live with this, so she went to live with her grandparents. Twelve years later, her parents have become more conservative. Her mother is now wearing a hijab herself. But Amira has taken hers off, wanting to “feel the wind in her hair.”

Donia, 35, decided to take her hijab off right after the 2011 revolution. After her first swim without it, she said: “I could feel the water on my body — such a liberation. It was the second-best liberating feeling after the fall of Mubarak.”

Egyptian youth are now taking this silent revolution to social media as well. Grindr, a dating app for gay men, and its lesbian counterpart, Wapa, have taken the country by storm. Thousands of gays and lesbians are willing to put their names and photos into the public sphere in order to meet each other. We tested this by joining these dating apps ourselves — our mailboxes were full within a single week.

“I felt like finally finding myself,” says Islam, a gay man who just came out. “I’m being accepted, and I’m grateful for this, especially among my female friends.” It’s even becoming trendy among women to have gay friends, especially among those who spent their youth watching the American series Sex and the City.

Houda, a 30-year-old marketing manager, found a way to live as a lesbian even after being pushed into marriage. “I’m finally in love. My girlfriend understands it, and my husband accepts it,” she said. “He literally lit the way for me as I was about to kill myself.”

Ahmed, a 34-year-old gay man, came out in 2011. He struggled with his family and with their refusal to accept his openness about his sexual identity. At one point, he even requested sexual asylum in Europe, but being the fighter he is, and believing in freedom, he decided to stay in Egypt — and ended up becoming a famous artist. Eventually, his family accepted him and embraced his lifestyle.

The Egyptian regime doesn’t like this new trend. The government and its supporters may be the arch enemies of the Muslim Brotherhood. Nevertheless, they see themselves as guardians of the conservative Islamic society they know and are doing everything they can to halt a transformation they view as going too far.

In Alexandria, a special police task force has been created to arrest atheists. On Jan. 10, Karim al-Banna, a 21-year-old student, was sentenced to three years in prison for posting that he was an atheist on Facebook. Last December, police arrested 26 men in a bathhouse and charged them with debauchery after being tipped off by a prominent television anchor. The men were only acquitted after an anal examination proved they had not “committed” any homosexual acts. In the same month, police closed a bar in downtown Cairo because “it had been housing groups of atheists.”

These crackdowns — as well as the personal stories of liberation — are just a few of many. But they demonstrate what’s happening on the ground in Egypt. It’s a battle between the conservative establishment employing the old tools of dictatorship and the young, revolutionary generation taking to social media and other innovative platforms. A battle between a society that is used to telling people who they should be and a generation that wants to be what it is.

In Europe, putting a veil on is considered rebellious, while in Egypt, the act of rebellion is taking it off. It’s not wearing the veil that makes one conservative — nor does not wearing the veil make one progressive. It’s the act of change and rebellion that makes the difference. Egypt’s 2011 revolution may have failed on many levels, especially politically. But it succeeded in convincing a young generation that it can be free if it really wants to be — at least in people’s minds and in their personal lives.

This generation of people younger than 25 is not a small group — it’s 50 percent of Egypt’s population. This was the generation that made the 2011 revolution happen. And now, in a different way, it’s transforming the country again. This social revolution is a silent one, so far — but in the long run, it may lead to a deeper change than anyone would expect.

Photo credit: flickr.com | aljazeeraenglish

The Mystery of a 8,000-Year-Old Skeleton Has Been Solved

Elaine Thompson—AP-A plastic casting of a controversial 9,200-year-old skull sits in the basement of archaeologist James Chatter's home July 24, 1997 in Richland, Wash.

• Alice Park @aliceparkny  

June 18, 2015

He may have lived a simple life back then, but Kennewick Man’s remains have sparked controversy and legal battles that the latest scientific investigation may finally put to rest

Finding a human skull doesn’t happen often, but the skull that two college students stumbled upon in the Columbia River in 1996 proved rarer still. It happened to belong to an ancestor that roamed North America nearly 8500 years ago. Near the skull were remains of practically an entire skeleton belonging to a male who was likely buried along the riverbank by his people in Kennewick, Washington.

Kennewick Man, as he is known, quickly became the subject of a custody battle between scientists eager to study his remains, which are among the oldest and most complete of a human ancestor in North America, and a group of five Native American tribes who claimed the bones as the Ancient One, one of their own forebears. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the land on which the remains were found, intended to return the ancient bones to the Native Americans. The archeologists sued for the right to study them, and in 2004, a judge ruled that the fossils should be studied further.

MORE: Ice Age Infant’s Genes Show That Native Americans First Came From Asia

The results of that analysis were published in a popular book that detailed the lifestyle that Kennewick Man likely led, but since then, advances in genetic sequencing made it possible to do a complete genome study of his DNA. And those results, published in the journal Nature, resolve a long-standing dispute over where Kennewick Man came from — Europe or Asia, or whether he was, as the Native American tribes claimed, an early ancestor who gave rise to some of the Native American populations that subsequently resided in North America.

His genes show that Kennewick Man was more closely related to Native Americans than to European or Asian populations. “It’s very clear the genome sequence shows that he is most closely related to contemporary Native Americans,” says Eske Willerslev, from the Center for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen, who led the analysis.

MORE: A Tale Told by Ancient Bones

Hints of these results first leaked in January, when emails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request by reporters at the Seattle Times revealed that Willerslev’s group shared some of their early findings with the Army Corps of Engineers to update them on the genetic analysis, which was done in Copenhagen. And presumably, it puts to rest any lingering questions about Kennewick Man’s origins.

Those began when the first archeologist to evaluate the skull’s anatomical features declared it to be more Caucasian than Native American, and continued when Douglas Owsley, a physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution who is considered the expert on North American human remains, agreed with that conclusion. Owsley pointed out that the prominent forehead of Kennewick Man and thinner brain case made him more like Japanese Ainu or Polynesians rather than Native Americans.

His genes tell a different story, however, and when Willerslev’s group also compared Kennewick Man’s DNA to that of the Ainu, Polynesians and Europeans, they found that it did not share the same similarities as it did with those of the contemporary Colville, a Native American tribe from the Columbia River area that agreed to provide DNA samples. No other Native American groups provided genetic material, so it’s possible that other tribes have an even closer connection to the ancient remains than the Colville.

The results do not show that Kennewick Man was a direct ancestor of any tribe living today, says Willerslev. It’s not known whether, for example, an older population of Native Americans living in North America then split into a branch that led to Kennewick Man, and another to the contemporary tribes such as the Colville, or whether Kennewick Man is the ancestor of the Colville and other modern Native Americans.

The genetic analysis does little to change archeologists’ current theories about the first North Americans. The first people to spread into the Americas likely came 5,000 to 6,000 years before Kennewick Man’s time, probably from Siberia via a now non-existent land bridge that allowed them to traverse the Bering Strait.

As for Kennewick Man’s future, Willerslev says that he has been in contact with several members of the Colville throughout the analysis and says that “To me, they seemed pretty excited, and found it interesting.” Whether the remains will now go back to the Native American groups under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act isn’t clear. But Willerslev acknowledges the irony in the findings. “The reason why we came to this conclusion scientifically speaking is because the remains were almost kept out of science,” he says.

Roommates’ toothbrushes likely contain each other’s fecal matter, study says

Published June 08, 2015

If you share a bathroom with a roommate or a partner, there’s a good chance your toothbrush contains that person’s fecal matter, a new study suggests. 

Researchers at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., studied undergraduate students’ communal bathrooms and found that more than 60 percent of toothbrushes collected tested positive for fecal matter, according to Medical News Today. Study authors noted that among those toothbrushes, there was an 80 percent chance that the contamination was from someone other than the user himself or herself, which may pose a health risk to the toothbrush owner.

Two species of bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonadaceae, may contaminate toothbrushes, researchers noted. Although the bacteria are found in the gut flora, some of their forms may be pathogenic.

"The main concern is not with the presence of your own fecal matter on your toothbrush, but rather when a toothbrush is contaminated with fecal matter from someone else, which contains bacteria, viruses or parasites that are not part of your normal flora," study author Lauren Aber, a graduate student of Quinnipiac University, told Medical News Today.

A toothbrush can become infected with another person’s fecal matter when the brush is openly stored and exposed to microorganisms from the toilet.

Study authors found that each communal bathroom at Quinnipiac University had an average of 9.4 users and that there were no differences in how people sanitized their toothbrushes, such as by rinsing them with mouthwash, or hot and cold water.

The researchers say their findings suggest people who share bathrooms can prevent exposure to contamination by not sharing toothbrushes, replacing toothbrushes every three to four months at minimum, and rinsing toothbrushes thoroughly with tap water after use and allowing them to air dry, according to Medical News Today.

Aber noted that using toothbrush caps or storing toothbrushes in closed spaces is actually less sanitary than leaving them out to dry.

"Using a toothbrush cover doesn't protect a toothbrush from bacterial growth, but actually creates an environment where bacteria are better suited to grow by keeping the bristles moist and not allowing the head of the toothbrush to dry out between uses," Aber said.

Aber’s team presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.

Memory and Mullivaikal: Survivors’ Views on Peace and Change in Sri Lanka

by Campaign Director | Jun 18, 2015 

Exactly one month ago, on 18th May, a member of the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice participated in a war remembrance service at a church on the fringes of Mullivaikal beach. Situated on the North Eastern coast of Sri Lanka, Mullivaikal is an area that experienced the most intense military onslaught of the civil war. As the Sri Lankan army made their final push into the shrinking territory held by the LTTE in early 2009, tens of thousands of civilians are believed to have perished on this thin water-locked stretch of land in a matter of mere weeks. The overwhelming majority of those individuals were killed by the government shells that rained down upon the densely populated, and appallingly squalid, encampments and makeshift bunkers in which many sought refuge. In one of the most heinous – yet by no means isolated – incidents of the war, scores were killed by aerial shelling as they received treatment in two of Mullivaikal’s hospitals. Some were shot by Tiger forces as they attempted to flee.

Six years on, the scale of that violence, and the brutality of those crimes, is difficult to comprehend. The stories and images from that time are belied by the outstanding natural beauty that characterises Mullivaikal today. Whilst a few visible traces of that period remain – bullet-shot homes, shell craters, and reams of humanitarian signage – much of the landscape has been healed, a result of community-led rebuilding efforts in combination with and a huge army-led campaign to clean up the wreckage prior to the visit in 2014 by former UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay. Prior to that, told one participant, beach combings would often turn up family photo albums and other personal items left behind during those desperate times.

Yet whilst local effort and international pressure may have partly succeeded in returning the physical landscape to some degree of normalcy, the psychological and social devastation wrought by the war remains. On 18 May, as survivors congregated across the North and East to remember the war dead, the ongoing trauma was readily apparent. At the Mullivaikal beach service, mothers, widows, and children wept inconsolably across improvised graves, the styrofoam headstones a terrible reminder of the unceremonious circumstances in which many of their loved ones died.

That this event and others took place at all is an indication of the very modest freedom that has been regained by ordinary Tamils under the new government. In previous years, participants and organizers of such events have been threatened with their lives. This year, security forces mostly refrained from acts of obstruction. Yet despite the slight opening, the overbearing sense of fear and oppression that characterized the Rajapaksa years has not markedly faded. The ugly presence of undercover police and informant photographers at Mullivaikal beach on 18 May was a disturbing reminder of how limited the change has been in the North and the deeply authoritarian environment in which war-affected communities still live. The stationing of a group of uniformed police a mere 40 yards from the service very clearly spoke to the fact that the Sri Lankan government’s post-war peace has been one built on force and intimidation, rather than meaningful reconciliation.

The sustainability of that model remains difficult to envisage. As our recent report examining the views of war survivors in Northern Province underscored, restrictions on the freedom to mourn openly are not simply an obstacle to catharsis for war-affected people – they also pose the risk of further grievances and resentment. As several commentators have highlighted, the deleterious social effects of “blocked grief”resulting from ongoing restrictions on the freedom to mourn are already widespread.

Meanwhile, hopes that the new government would lead a break with the past by taking meaningful first steps towards the establishment of a credible mechanism for truth and justice have largely been dashed. Despite early overtures towards the international community, concrete progress under the new regime has remained scarce. Events of the past few months have indicated an alarming lack of genuine commitment. In March, President Sirisena precluded the possibility of UN investigators being substantively involved in any war crimes inquiry. And in May, in a devastating blow for victims and survivors, the government sent a strong signal about its commitment to dealing with crimes committed by the Sri Lankan security forces with the appointment of Major General Jagath Dias – an individual credibly accused of involvement in the commission of war crimes on a mass scale – as head of the Sri Lankan army.

Many have broached considerable optimism about recent change in Sri Lanka – particularly in relation to the significant progress that has been made in the area of good governance and media freedom. Yet such hopefulness – epitomized by the conciliatory speech made last month by Secretary of State John Kerry in Colombo – stands in stark contrast to the outlook among victims and survivors. Still unable to mourn freely, and with little confidence that their basic demands for truth and justice will be met under current circumstances, the need for international support to provide the momentum for change remains as strong as ever.

The 30th Session of the Human Rights Council in September, which will see the presentation of the UN investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka, presents an historic opportunity for states to bring pressure to bear to ensure that war-affected communities are heard. To send a message to the international community and the Sri Lankan government that they must not – and cannot – be ignored, please sign the Manifesto for Peace today.

(Photographs © Sebastian Brixey-Williams)

The emerging crisis of cohabitation

Thursday, 18 June 2015

As the Sirisena-UNP cohabitation crosses the six-month mark, the minority Government formed on 9 January faces a struggle for survival against an increasingly assertive SLFP. At the mercy of the presidency once again, the UNP looks set to relive its 2003 nightmare, when then SLFP President Chandrika Kumaratunga ended an uneasy political cohabitation with an elected Ranil Wickremesinghe administration by grabbing three key ministries and calling snap polls that the UNP lost badly.

The Emerging Crisis of Cohabitation by Thavam Ratna