Greece accepts harsh new bailout terms, vows swift vote

Greek Economy Minister George Stathakis (L) and Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos leave a hotel following an overnight meeting with representatives of the International Monetary Fund, European Commission, European Central Bank and the eurozone's rescue fund on Aug. 11. (Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

By Elena Becatoros and Derek Gatopoulos-AP August 11

ATHENS, Greece — Greece agreed to harsh terms for a new three-year bailout Tuesday and vowed to push it through parliament this week, despite mounting dissent in the ruling left-wing party.

With the country facing the risk of a debt default next week, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had sought to speed up the talks and get approval of a deal this week.

After Greece and its creditors reached an accord on the main points on Tuesday, Tsipras called for an emergency session of parliament for a vote late Thursday.

Greece needs to start tapping the new bailout — worth 85 billion euros ($93 billion) — so that it can make a key debt repayment next week and secure its future in the euro.

The draft agreement forces Tsipras to accept what he had vowed to resist only months ago: the sale of some state property and deep cuts to pensions, military spending and ending tax credits to people considered vulnerable.

 

Officials in Athens and the European Union said a few issues were left to be ironed out Tuesday.

“We are very close. Two or three very small details remain,” Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said as he emerged Tuesday morning from all-night discussions with creditors.

The European Commission, a key negotiator in the talks, confirmed the progress. Annika Breidthardt, the Commission’s spokeswoman for economic affairs, said the details were expected to be cleared up later in the day.

Dissenters in Tsipras’ left-wing Syriza party, who want to end bailout talks and return to a national currency, promised to fight the deal, describing it as a “noose around the neck of the Greek people.”

Tsipras requested an end to the summer recess to allow for the two-day approval procedure and to get a vote before a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Friday.

The agreement still requires approval from higher-level representatives, and senior finance officials from the 28 EU nations were holding a conference call Tuesday.

Germany, the largest single contributor to Greece’s two previous bailouts and among the toughest negotiators so far, remained cautious on the timing for a final deal. “We will have to examine the results that come in the course of today,” deputy finance minister Jens Spahn told n-tv television.

Investors cheered the news of progress.

Greece’s government borrowing rates fell, a sign investors are less worried about a default. The 2-year bond yield dropped by 4.2 percentage points to 14.73 percent. The Athens Stock Exchange, which reopened recently after being shut for five weeks during the most severe part of Greece’s financial crisis closed up 2.1 percent.

Cash-strapped Greece needs more money by Aug. 20 at the latest, when it has a debt repayment of just over 3 billion euros to make to the European Central Bank.

The government insisted it has also gained key concessions from lenders: greater control over labor reforms, avoiding a “fire sale” of state assets, and softer deficit targets.

It said it had agreed to have a 0.25 percent government deficit this year and a 0.5 percent surplus next year, when not counting the cost of servicing debt. Those so-called primary surpluses would rise to 1.75 percent in 2017 and 3.5 percent in 2018.

The surpluses are more ambitious than those of many European countries — Spain, for example, is not expected to achieve a primary surplus before 2018. That’s largely because the creditors want to make sure Greece is able to start paying off its debt load as soon as possible.

The government claims the creditors wanted even more ambitious surplus targets, and that the targets it agreed to mean it has will be able to spare the country budget cuts worth about 20 billion euros.

“This practically means that with the current agreement there will be no fiscal burden — in other words new measures — in the immediate future,” the government said in a note.

Banks will be strengthened with new cash infusions by the end of the year and will have an immediate boost of “at least 10 billion euros,” it said. The government insists this means there is no longer any danger that the banks may have to raid bank deposits to restore their financial health.

The government also said that banks will not make repossessions and auctions of primary residences will not occur within 2015.

Greece has relied on bailouts worth a total 240 billion euros ($263 billion) from eurozone members states and the International Monetary Fund since concern over its high debts locked it out of bond markets in 2010. To secure the loans, successive governments have had to implement spending cuts, tax hikes and reforms.

While the austerity has reduced budget overspending, the measures compounded a deep recession and pushed unemployment to a record high. Figures next week are expected to confirm that Greece’s recession deepened in the second quarter.

Though the government was elected on a staunchly anti-austerity platform in January, it has been forced into a policy U-turn after bailout talks came close to collapse last month.

While Greece’s parliament ratified further tax hikes and reforms, the rebellion by hardline Syriza lawmakers has left Tsipras’ party with only a nominal parliamentary majority.

That has stoked speculation that Tsipras will call early elections after the bailout deal is signed. Tsipras still retains strong personal support in opinion polls, which show Syriza heading for a potentially big victory.

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Lorne Cook in Brussels, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

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Follow Becatoros at http://twitter.com/ElenaBec and Gatopoulos at http://twitter.com/dgatopoulos

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Making of a Chinese Nationalist Internet User

One teenage boy’s journey from casual web surfer to pro-party digital vigilante goes viral.

 BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN-AUGUST 10, 2015

On July 22, a group of teenage assailants attacked a student named Hou Jusen outside his high school in China’s eastern Shandong province, beating him with sticks and dousing him with pepper spray. The assault quickly went viral on microblogging platform Weibo after it was revealed that Hou was a self-styled “patriot” whose acerbic online nationalism had earned him digital enemies — who had in turn uncovered Hou’s personal information and lain in wait for him at his school.

Grassroots nationalism is a potent force in China today, and, fed by state media which often panders to such sentiment, it thrives in online spaces. While Chinese authorities have even been known to recruit Internet users to post comments favorable to the government and ruling Communist Party, much of online nationalist sentiment is genuine, and those nationals can exchange vicious insults with more liberal, sometimes pro-Western users. A July 24 interview with Hou syndicated by state agency Xinhua reveals one teenage boy’s transition from casual Internet user to digital vigilante, who hopped from forum to forum and traded insults with other web users who strayed from the official party narrative. Below is an excerpt featuring some of Hou’s responses. Foreign Policy translates, with edits for clarity.

***

I began going online in the beginning of 2013, usually on Baidu Tieba [a popular web forum] and Su 27 Ba [a sub-forum dedicated to discussing the Soviet Su-27 fighter plane]. I like military affairs, and I would mainly go online to look at posts about the Su-27. Because I like history, I would also go on forums about the Soviet Union and the Soviet Red Army. Later when I went to [Japanese culture-focused] forums such as [now-shuttered] Hefengwu and saw their rhetoric, I thought it was just unbelievable. 

The users there said Japan’s imperialism was good and said bad things about the Chinese Communist Party. I felt they were online traitors. So I cursed them, I called them “dog traitors.” Slowly I became well-known in some forums.

I didn’t start getting on Rabbit Bar until 2014, but I didn’t go on it often, just to doodle around. Rabbit Bar is a place where people frequently post a lot of nationalist opinions. I also would get on two forums directed at Rabbit Bar — they were essentially the same site, a back-up in case the other gets shut down. All run by the same person. In these forums, they are constantly doing “human flesh searches” and hurling all kinds of insults, in order to intimidate patriots. As soon as they find someone patriotic, they post the name in the forum and curse them. They would also promote some reactionary rhetoric, the same as those Internet public intellectuals who promote tearing down the Great Firewall. They would obscurely satirize the social system, the ruling party system, the state, the forced demolition of homes, and other hot-button social issues.

In the middle of 2014, I switched mostly to [web forum] Qzone. There, I was debating and refuting rumors, mostly historical rumors. For examples, others made the argument that the army of the Kuomintang [which vied with the Communist Party for control of China, lost, and later retreated to Taiwan] made a large contribution to defeating the Japanese during World War II; praised the KMT army to the skies; said that in eight years, the People’s Liberation Army only killed 300 Japanese devils themselves — this kind of historical nihilism. They also advocated American-style democracy and overthrowing the Communist Party.

Comebacks against my arguments were usually personal attacks, sarcasm, or ridicule. Responses were usually a few sentences of ridicule. Sometimes if I was in a bad mood, I would also curse them out. On Qzone, the people who liked me really liked me, but the people who hated me really hated me. After I became popular there, people started to harass me. At first they didn’t have my personal information, so they would just curse at my Internet alias. At first I didn’t respond much, but after they kept cursing me, I learned from them how to curse back. Someone also opened a Weibo account under the name “self-five Hou Jusen” [a term referring to a reflexively pro-government commenter] to deride me. The account has been closed now, since it posted some illegal content.

So much of the rhetoric is reactionary; they even admit they are reactionary.

Flight MH17: possible parts of missile system found at Ukraine crash site

Dutch prosecutors caution that conclusion cannot yet be drawn of causal link to crash that killed 298 people

Debris from Malaysia Airlines MH17 on the ground in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Photograph: Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17-Tuesday 11 August 2015

Parts suspected of belonging to a Russian missile system have been found at the site where Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was downed last year, Dutch prosecutors have said.

They say the parts, possibly from a Buk missile system “are of particular interest” and could help identify who was behind the crash that killed all 298 people on board.

Ukraine and the west have accused pro-Russia separatists of shooting down the plane with a surface-to-air missile supplied by Moscow. There have been suggestions the missile was fired in the belief it was a military plane.

Russia has denied responsibility, blaming Ukrainian government forces for the attack on the plane that was heading to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam.

Prosecutors have previously said that a missile strike was the most credible explanation for the crash on 17 July last year but this is the first time they have confirmed they have potentially corroborating physical evidence.

They will now enlist the help of weapons and forensics experts to further investigate the suspected missile parts, said spokesman Wim de Bruin. However, the prosecutors warned that it was too early to say “that there is a causal connection between the discovered parts and the crash of flight MH17”.

The disaster, and the accusations that have flown back and forth over who was to blame, have contributed to a deterioration of relations between the west and Russia, with mistrust at levels not seen since the end of the cold war.

Two weeks ago, Russia used its veto power to block a United Nations proposal – introduced by Malaysia – to establish an international criminal tribunal into the disaster. It suggested the measure was a biased and politically motivated propaganda move to implicate the Kremlin or the Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists in control of eastern Ukraine.

The parts were found during Dutch recovery missions to the crash site. Dutch authorities have conducted several missions to the site to recover human remains, victims’ belongings and parts of the downed Boeing 777.

A joint statement by the Dutch Safety Board and Joint Investigation Team, which comprises representatives from the Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia, Britain, the US and Russia, said the fragments “can possibly provide more information about who was involved in the crash of MH17. For that reason the JIT further investigates the origin of these parts.”

A report by the Dutch Safety Board into the cause of the crash is expected by the end of October, while the separate international criminal investigation is likely to take months more to complete.

Japan restarts first nuclear reactor since Fukushima disaster

A protester shouts slogans during an anti-nuclear rally in front of Prime Minister’s official residence in Tokyo, Tuesday. Pic: AP.

By Asian Correspondent Staff Aug 11, 2015

A power plant operator in southern Japan has restarted a reactor, the first to begin operating under new safety requirements following the Fukushima disaster.

Kyushu Electric Power Co. said Tuesday it had restarted the No. 1 reactor at its Sendai nuclear plant as planned. The restart marks Japan’s return to nuclear energy four-and-half-years after the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan following an earthquake and tsunami.

The disaster displaced more than 100,000 people due to radioactive contamination in the area and spurred a national debate over this resource-scarce country’s reliance on nuclear power.

The Fukushima disaster displaced more than 100,000 . Pic: AP.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority affirmed the safety of the Sendai reactor and another one at the plant last September under stricter safety rules imposed after the 2011 accident.

The return to nuclear power has met with stiff opposition in Japan as authorities still struggle to get the situation at the damaged Fukushima plant under control.

About 2,000 people protested outside the Sendai plant on Sunday, and there were reports that hundreds of protesters had returned for a sit-in Tuesday morning.

Thoton & The News @Thoton

#Sendai nuclear power plant in #Japan's south will soon be restarted. Hundreds of protesters are staging sit-in outside the station.

8:34 PM - 10 Aug 2015

Some anti-nuclear activists have raised concerns about evacuation plans for the nine towns and cities situated withing 30 kilometers of the plant.

A NHK News survey showed that “six of the nine municipalities have acknowledged problems including traffic jams that might occur during evacuations”.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Pic: AP.

Japanese Prime Minister says the restarting of the reactor will provide an essential boost to the nation’s economy, which has been crippled by expensive gas and oil imports. Japan has no fossil fuel resources to speak of and green energy projects have failed to make up the shortfall.

It has been a tough sell for Abe whose approval rating is at an all-time low. Protesters also rallied outside his official residence in Tokyo Tuesday morning.

Additional reporting from Associated Press

5 Natural Ways To Quit Smoking (Scientifically Proven)

June 3, 2015

Although most smokers are aware of the dangerous effects that smoking has on their health, quitting is still very difficult. Smoking is not only a bad and unhealthy habit, it is also highly addictive. The raised prices work for some, but true addicts will do anything to get their smoke and will need all the help they can get to quit this nasty habit.

Here are a few scientifically proven all-natural ways to help you quit smoking once and for all. These proven natural methods will help you to break through the addiction, ease withdrawal symptoms, and help you to quit smoking for good:

1. Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an effective, drug-free way to stop your smoking habit. It calms your mind, enhances the levels of serotonin, helps you through withdrawal symptoms from the nicotine addiction (jitters, restlessness, and irritability), and has shown long term effects which makes it easier to permanently stop. The only downside is that these treatments are quite expensive.

2. Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is a psycho-therapeutic way of bringing you in a trance-like state to help you realize your true feelings about smoking, and the hypnotherapist will plant the seed in your mind that gives you negative feelings towards smoking and will help you to stay motivated.

However, scientific studies and patients contradict each other. Many experts disagree about the effectiveness, while many patients swear by it. Several studies found that it can be effective for a short while, but doesn’t work long term for most patients, while other studies claim it to be the other way around.

One study conducted at the San Francisco VA Medical Center found that hypnotherapy showed some great results for smokers who had a history of depression or struggled with other psychiatric conditions.

Although hypnosis has helped many people to quit smoking, science is still not sure about its effectiveness.

3. Herbal Remedies

Many herbs can help you to quit smoking, reduce the cravings for a cigarette, or ease withdrawal symptoms.

Black Or Cayenne Pepper

Black or cayenne pepper helps to control nicotine cravings. Add a couple of pinches to your water on a daily basis to benefit from its effect. You can find here 10 more ways in which cayenne pepper can revolutionize your health.

Licorice

Chewing on licorice root can help you to quit smoking by satisfying the oral fixation of smoking. But don’t use it for more than 6 weeks as it may deplete potassium levels and raise blood pressure.

St. John’s Wort

This herb is mostly used to treat depression, but has now shown some beneficial effect to help people fight their nicotine addiction in combination with smoking cessation counseling. St. John’s Wort raises your dopamine levels, just as nicotine, and gives you the same happy or excited feeling as smoking a cigarette. Make sure to use St. John’s Wort under guidance of an herbalist or health care provider as there can be a few side effects.

Rhodiola rosea

Some studies show that Rhodiola may reduce withdrawal symptoms. It helps your body cope with stress, improves your mood, increases energy, and reduces the levels of cortisol. Although these studies look very promising, they were conducted on mice and never been repeated on humans.

Herbal Cigarettes

Herbal cigarettes can help you to break through the oral addiction of smoking. Smokers are not only addicted to the nicotine, but to the habit of smoking itself. These cigarettes don’t contain nicotine and are made of mint, cinnamon, clover, licorice, passionflower, or lemongrass. They should be used as a short-term aid to break through your nicotine addiction, but you shouldn’t use them long term.

Further reading: If you are interested in herbal remedies, you can find more useful information in the e-book The Herbal Remedies Guide. This e-book will teach you how to treat common ailments using herbs.

4. Massage

Self-massage can help you to curb nicotine cravings. Simply touching your ear or hand can calm your mind and keep carvings at bay. Studies found that people who gave themselves a massage for about 2 minutes when they were in need of a smoke showed lower anxiety rates, improved their mood, had less withdrawal symptoms and smoked less.

5. Mindfulness meditation

People who practice mindfulness meditation are more likely to succeed in smoking cessation. They are encouraged to start living a healthier lifestyle. People who meditate are able to regulate their cravings, experience less withdrawal symptoms or stress, and are able to get their emotions under control.

These natural remedies are all proven to be effective in some way. However, it is important to remember that all of them will not cure the addiction by itself. Your will-power to quit and stay off them is equally important to fight the addiction once and for all. To learn more about meditation, you can find here 7 simple and effective meditation techniques without actually sitting down to meditate. Meditation is one of the 70 habits featured in the e-book 70 Powerful Habits For A Great Healthwhich will guide you how to take positive steps to improve your wellness and overall health.

Withdrawal symptoms are worse within the first week of quitting, after that it will get easier, so hang in there and don’t give up your good intentions to quit smoking and add some years to your life. Be proud of what you are attempting to do. Your body will thank you for that.

Sandya Eknaligoda blames MR regime

2015-08-10

Missing journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda's wife Sandya today requested the Army to handover any army officers connected to the disappearance of her husband to the CID.

She told a news conference that she had received information regarding an army officer connected to her husband’s disappearance imprisoned in a camp at either Girithale, Minneriya or Batticaloa.

“The Rajapaksa regime is connected to the disappearance of my husband. We fear that he may have been bumped off and we would not be able to listen to his story. Therefore I request the Army Commander to hand over any officer connected to my husband’s disappearance to the CID for further investigations,” she said.

Ms. Ekneligoda said even though an investigation had begun under the Maithripala-Ranil government, the CID had not submitted its report Prageeth’s disappearance.

“I request the President to direct the CID to do a thorough investigation the incident into the disappearance of my husband. The Rajapaksa government did nothing about investigating my husband’s disappearance when they were in power. Now they are talking nonsense saying if the UPFA wins the election, it will investigate the disappearance,” she said.

Two military intelligence officers were arrested in connection Pragneeth Ekneligoda's disappearance last week and The CID is expected to question two army officers in the North Central Province based on the information given by the two suspects.

The veteran journalist went missing on January 24, 2010 in what was believed to have been another of those abductions which were rampant at the time.(Darshana Sanjeewa)

Tamil Nationalism Under The Scanner

By Mahendran Thiruvarangan –August 10, 2015

Mahendran Thiruvarangan

The election campaign of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) in the Tamil-majority regions in the Northern and Eastern provinces has re-animated the discussions on the political solution to the national question. While the major political parties in the south have rejected national self-determination and federalism, the solutions presented by the two major Tamil political groups are, for the most part, in line with the fundamental principles of Tamil nationalism put forward by the collective of Tamil groups during their peace negotiations with the Sri Lankan government in Bhutan’s capital Thimpu in 1985. These fundamentals include the recognition of the Tamils as a nation, their right to self-determination and the merged northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka as their homelands. The TNPF has stated that it seeks the people’s mandate for these principles in the upcoming elections. The election manifesto of the TNA includes a slight variation of these fundamentals. Instead of nation, the TNA manifesto describes the Tamils as “a distinct People with their own culture, civilization, language and heritage [who] from time immemorial have inhabited [the] island [of Sri Lanka] together with the Sinhalese People and others” or, as stated in the Tamil version of the manifesto, as a “Thesiya Inam” meaning nationality.

Rajavayothi Sampanthan – The Leader TNA

The polarization of communities that politics grounded on notions like ethnic self-determination and autonomy has brought about in Sri Lanka and elsewhere behooves us to place them under careful scrutiny. Framing self-determination in an ethnicized or national collective sense indeed generates an oppositional consciousness among oppressed communities at the receiving end of majoritarian, nationalistic states and strengthens them in their pursuit of emancipation. But ethnic self-determination alone would not lead to the harmonious cohabitation of different communities in a shared territory. This is why it is important for us to discuss the inadequacies of the Tamil nationalist constructions of identity and territory and Tamil nationalism’s skewed vision for ethnic cohabitation. Calling attention to the exclusivist predilections of Tamil nationalist politics, however, does not imply that all is well with the manner in which Sinhala-based political parties and social movements approach the national question. The JVP’s indifference to ethnicity in Lankan politics and its outright rejection of federalism, for instance, deserve as much criticism as the narrow, ahistorical articulations of national self-determination by the TNA and the TNPF.        Read More

His election has also offered voters a middle path

By Jehan Perera-August 10, 2015

It is just a week more till the general elections. Two salutary features have stood out at this election. Both are evidence that the principles of good governance are getting more deeply embedded in the minds of the electorate as well as in the political system. The first is the decrease in the level of violence and generally low profile of the election campaigning. This has not been due to any lack of passion or eagerness to win on the part of individual contestants or their political parties. Rather, it has been due to the strict implementation of laws by the election authorities and the police, without interference from the government. The credit for this sharp turnaround from the no-holds barred nature of previous elections must go to President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who have been true to the adage that the rule of law and not the rule of men should prevail.

His Election Has Also Offered Voters a Middle Path by Thavam Ratna

Sri Lanka’s UNP Likely to Get Most Seats in August Polls: Scenario Analysis

SCENARIOS:  Possible scenarios for Sri Lanka’s parliamentary polls

10/08/2015

ECONOMYNEXT – In a scenario analysis by our political correspondent on the 2015 parliamentary polls, the United National Party is leading on three probable outcomes but without a simple majority of 113 in the 225-member parliament.

Our political correspondent has analysed three scenarios covering the best case for the United People’s Freedom Alliance, the best case for the United National Party and a conservative view.

In each model, the ruling UNP is in the lead, but without a simple majority of 113.

However, given that the 13 to 14 seats that will go to the Tamil National Alliance, will remain neutral in a future parliament without siding with any national party to form a government, any party securing 106 seats will have a comfortable working majority in the House.

Our correspondent says the UNP is the only party which would reach the 106 level on its own (in the best case for the UNP). With the support of five more Muslim seats, the UNP will be able to form a stable government.

The UPFA is seriously handicapped as this is the first time in 20 years the party has to campaign without the support of the State media and state resources at its disposal. The UPFA is also suffering from a lack of campaign funds unlike the UNP which is attracting serious money from the private sector.

In the best case for the UPFA, our correspondent expects the UPFA to win the districts of Gampaha, Kalutara, Matale, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Ampara (Digamadulla), Kurunegala, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Moneragala and Ratnapura. The UPFA would end up with 93 against the UNP’s 98.

In the best case for the UNP, the party will win Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Hambantota, Ampara (Digamadulla) Trincomalee, Puttalam, Polonnaruwa, Badulla and Kegalle. The UNP will get 104 compared to 87 for the UPFA.

In both scenarios, the TNA is expected to secure 13 seats, EPDP 1 and a smaller Tamil party 1. The JVP could end up with 14. The Muslim Congress and the ACMC will get about five between themselves apart from their candidates contesting as UNP candidates in several districts.

One of the most deciding factors at this election will be the voter turnout. Between the January 2010 presidential election and the parliamentary elections that followed in April 2010, the turnout dropped from 74.5 percent to 59.31 percent.

A higher turnout favours the UNP, while a lower turnout is bad for the UPFA at the August 17 vote. However, in the event of a very low turnout as in the case of the 2010 parliamentary elections, these projections could change.

These forecasts assume that there will be no major change in the political landscape and does not take into account political assassinations, bomb blasts or any form of violence that could directly impact the elections as in November 1999, when President Chandrika Kumaratunga survived a suicide bomb attack and went onto win an election she was widely expected to lose, up to the point of the bombing.

A district by district breakdown of possible outcomes will be sent to readers, who are subscribing to EconomyNext’s daily Executive Brief. (Colombo/Aug10/2015)

ENS

Sri Lanka’s Intensified History In Nine Months, 2014-2015

By S. Sivathasan –August 10, 2015

S. Sivathasan

In a flash we have seen phenomenal changes within a span of nine months. From nominations for Presidential to Parliamentary elections in a week, events have moved with wholesome rapidity. Called silent or bloodless, glorious revolution or intensive evolution, it has inspired hope and purpose. Defeat and despair stand dispelled.

The national polity which had grown defiant together with a political leadership with its sense of power brought this turn around. A change in the making many would say in January 2010 itself. An election betrayed then, they may reaffirm. So be it. Will the fruits of January 2015 be lost facilely in August? Will there be zero tolerance to a vulgar usurpation? Never, is the rejoinder. Why?

The fruits are too precious to be frittered away. The people were heaving and gasping under a heavy dictatorship. It was becoming more brutal by the day. To the populace of every hue, ethnic, religious and political the regime had become insufferable. Those with governance in their hands, found allegiance of the governed slipping away. They took their inevitable refuge in ‘patriotism’. An ‘ism’ that portrayed glory in blood-letting among Tamils. It was an ‘ism’ viz Fascism that destroyed the Jews in Europe. It was such a relapse of Mahinda that infuriated Ven Sobitha Thero to work so adversely against him as of now.

After demolishing Hindu icons, perhaps having no more temples to destroy, they forayed into burning Mosques. The persecuted minorities joined hands to remove the tyrant out of their way. Will they ever again brook his return? Never in their lives will they accommodate any of the Rajapaksas and the country knows it. Their henchmen stand next in line to be forcefully rejected. In this regard the benefits of January call for defense with an endorsement of UNF policies and programmes. Implicit in the stance is to bring forth the same formation in larger numbers. Herein lies an area of strength for Ranil to lead that formation and to be Prime Minister.

Read More

Gota’s (other) War

2015-08-10

he former Defence Secretary and the former president’s brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa is touted for giving leadership to defeat the Tamil Tigers.
After the then government jailed and stripped military honours of former army chief Sarath Fonseka, Gotabaya and his elder sibling, ex-president Mahinda claimed for the exclusive rights of the military victory.

 Gotabaya, indeed, played a major role in the military success; more than anything, he, somehow, managed to formulate a unified military strategy involving three forces; no mean feat when his commanders of the army and navy did not see eye to eye. He also defended senior military officials who were unduly victimised, thereby serving as a bulwark against personalised witch-hunts that occurred time and again in the military establishment. That helped the security forces retain experienced senior officers, some of whom later served as division commanders during the final phase of the war.

Gota’s (Other) War by Thavam Ratna