Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Sudan's security forces killed, raped and burned civilians alive, says rights group

Human Rights Watch report catalogues appalling acts carried out by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces during two military campaigns in Darfur

Members of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Daldako area, South Kordofan. Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

Clár Ní Chonghaile-Wednesday 9 September 2015

Sudanese security forces gang-raped women in hospital, shot and burned civilians alive, and committed other appalling acts of torture during two military campaigns in Darfur, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday, urging international peacekeepers to do more to stop the atrocities.

Sudan's Security Forces Killed, Raped and Burned Civilians Alive, Says Rights Group by Thavam Ratna

Weak EU move too late for family burned alive by Israeli settlers

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters clash as Netanyahu visits London

A petition with over 100,000 signatures had previously called for the Israeli PM to be arrested for war crimes

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather outside Downing Street (Alex MacDonald/MEE)

Alex MacDonald-Wednesday 9 September 2015

Hundreds of protesters assembled outside Downing Street in London on Wednesday to both oppose and support the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the UK.

Both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators eventually joined in:

There were a large number of Jewish activists in the pro-Palestinian camp, ranging from from the left-wing Jewish Socialist Group and JFJFP, to the anti-Zionist religious fundamentalists Neturei Karta.

Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israel Protesters Clash as Netanyahu Visits London by Thavam Ratna

Free Tibet — From Our Own Emotional Needs

How to think rationally about fighting for Tibetans.

BY KERRY BROWN-SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

In the 1990s, it was much easier to feel moral superiority over Beijing. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, along with the Berlin Wall. Francis Fukuyama had declared the end of history, with liberal democracies overseeing the hegemony of perpetual peace. And the Western world was counting down the hours until communist China joined the fold. In this context, deciding about highly contentious matters between China and the outside world — and in particular the United States and the European Union — was simple. Beijing was wrong; those who opposed it were right. Perhaps the starkest case was with Tibet: Heavy-handed security clampdowns in 1987 and 1989, coupled with the presence of Tibet’s hugely charismatic spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama — awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for “nonviolent opposition to China’s occupation of Tibet” — made Beijing’s rule over Tibet seem like a clear-cut case of Chinese wrongdoing.

But did that feeling of moral superiority actually accomplish anything? The Tibetan situation still remains dangerously unresolved. On Sept. 8, Beijing celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, its name for the territory that makes up much of the Tibetan plateau, with a vow to strengthen the “war” against those fighting for Tibetan independence. And in July, the Dalai Lama celebrated his 80th birthday — he seems no closer to returning to his homeland, which he fled in 1959. China is now a far stronger global economic and diplomatic player, and wields exponentially more influence than it did in the 1990s. Tibet itself, a massive plateau many times the size of France but with a population of just several million people, remains repressed. Since riots erupted across Tibetan areas in March 2008, the region has been visibly restive: More than 140 Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009, and the few foreign journalists who manage to gain access to the region report a heavy police presence. The recent controversy over the death and hasty cremation of the unjustly imprisoned monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche brings the complexity and trauma of modern Tibet to the fore: Many Tibetans view their history since 1959 as one of a tragic loss of that identity, with long episodes of clampdowns and denial.

The issue still tears Western policymakers and politicians between their head and their heart. How do you solve a problem like Tibet? In the 1990s, the default position on the most contentious international issue — foreign political leaders meeting the Dalai Lama — was usually that they were meeting the Dalai Lama in his capacity as a “religious leader.” This didn’t fool anyone, although it saved face for both sides. But since the late 2000s, China has grown increasingly intolerant toward this argument. European leaders like former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German ChancellorAngela Merkel, and, most famously, British Prime Minister David Cameronmet with vehement condemnation from Beijing. After Cameron’s 2012 meeting with the Dalai Lama, Beijing retaliated by freezing high-level political contact for almost a year.

Foreign, and in particular European, positioning on this issue was often incoherent and sometimes hypocritical.There is no rule that a head of state needs to meet with a religious leader. Beijing had a legitimate point when they accused outsiders of using this as an excuse for meddling. But on the other hand, the Chinese were also reluctant (and sometimes unwilling) to allow any other space for dialogue on the issue between them and the outside world. And their argument that Tibet was an internal matter — one which foreigners should keep out of — would have been more credible if their policies in Tibet weren’t so ineffective.

As global citizens, these issues should concern us all. And yet, the costs of confronting Beijing about them have risen steeply. For 2015, the better question is not who is right and who is wrong. Rather, we should ask: With the constraints we currently face, how can we help? And more specifically, does a foreign leader meeting with the Dalai Lama make the situation better or worse?

Here are some things worth thinking through while deciding. Foreign leaders’ justification for meeting the Dalai Lama is to show support and sympathy for the Tibetan cause — which in turn, or so the thinking goes, convinces Beijing to improve conditions for people living there. Has this been successful? Economically, Tibet — like the rest of China — is much wealthier than it was in the 1990s, but the conditions for people living in the region seem to have worsened. Self-immolations, for instance, barely occurred before 2009. And since the 2008 uprising, activists for even seemingly benign causes, like the environment, have been given harsh sentences for alleged “splittist” activities. Nor does the future look brighter: Envoys of the Dalai Lama and Beijing have not met for formal dialogue since 2010, when they held their ninth and last round of talks.

Another reason that foreign leaders meet with the Dalai Lama is to satisfy domestic constituencies. The Dalai Lama enjoys huge moral standing and great international sympathy. So it’s not difficult for politicians to justify their meetings as an obligation to supporters in their own country. Prioritizing one’s domestic audience, however, undermines the argument that the emphasis should be on improving the situation in Tibet. So, does the benefit accrued to, say, Britain’s supporters of Tibetan independence outweigh the economic repercussions Beijing doles out for revenge? In most cases, probably not.

That leads to the question of whether it is intrinsically right for foreign leaders to meet with the Dalai Lama. If the Dalai Lama is met on the grounds that it is the morally right thing to do, then this should hold true for similar cases: It’s a justification based on principles of universalizability. And yet, modern political leaders often refuse to meet many other religious or secular leaders of areas under contested rule. Consider, for example, Rebiya Kadeer — the head of the exile movement for Xinjiang, the massive region in northwest China whose people face arguably the same level of repression as Tibet. Kadeer does not get meetings with top Western officials. Is there a moral reason why the Dalai Lama is more deserving?

The fourth, and most important, question is whether there are more effective ways to achieve the desired outcome. Might supporting issues of civil society, the environment, and sustainability, more directly benefit Tibetans living in the region? Ever since November 2014, when the United States and Chinasigned an agreement to jointly fight climate change, there has been ample room for cooperation between the two countries on environmental issues. Why not address how to sustainably use Tibet’s natural resources? Or the melting ice caps on the Tibetan plateau, which could flood parts of the region? Tying the challenges in Tibet to broader reform issues where there is less sensitivity by Beijing — including issues like the environment, healthcare, or substandard infrastructure — might be a more effective route for foreign involvement and input.

Going through this broad set of considerations might allow politicians and policymakers to be a little clearer about why they are taking a course of action, what the risks are, and what they are aiming to achieve. The Tibet issue is laden with emotion and feeling. There may be strong reasons for showing solidarity with Tibetan groups by meeting the Dalia Lama. But wouldn’t it be smarter to really think through the reasons and consequences first?

Teh Eng Koon/AFP/Getty Images

Thai university introduces mandatory class on transgender issues

Kritipat Chotidhanitsakul (Jimmy) lectures on transgender issues at Thailand’s Thammasat University.

By Saya Oka-Sep 08, 2015

AS the academic school year gets into full swing in Thailand, Thammasat, one of the country’s most prestigious and progressive universities is making a Social Life Skills class mandatory for its incoming freshman. This new course aims to ensure students have the skills to lead a successful life and covers a wide range of subjects, including music, art, sports and a three hour session on sex, where part of the focus is on gender identity.

Kritipat Chotidhanitsakul (Jimmy) has been invited to sensitize students about transgender issues and by the end of the school year is expected to have lectured to 8,000 students. This is the first time Thammasat has made such a topic mandatory for new students.

Jimmy, a transgender man and the President of the Transmen Alliance of Thailand, is glad to be a guest lecturer: “I am very happy to be teaching so many students. I hope they will mature into adults who understand transgender issues and set a new trend for society.”

On the first day of the course in early September, Jimmy stood before nearly 300 students and was interviewed by Associate Professor Atiwut Kamudhama about what it was like to be a transgender person. He spoke about his struggle with his own gender identity and explained the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation.

Like many other transgender people, Jimmy remembers a painful childhood. He grew up in Bangkok, with parents who constantly tried to make him conform to the traditional ideal of a girl. His time in university was difficult, as he tried hard to become a perfect girl, wearing skirts and the uniform for female students.

SEE MORE: Did Thai university reject transgender lecturer because of an Instagram post?

“In a Thai family, there is a strong pressure to respect your parents and to pay back all that they have done for you,” he said. But then one day, when he was 20-years-old, Jimmy couldn’t take it anymore. “I woke up and said to myself, ‘enough’. I cut my hair, I threw out my dresses and I started going out with a girl.”

He left home and with no means of support initially dropped out of university. After a few years of doing odd jobs he entered Ramkhamshaeng, an open-admission university in Bangkok. While struggling with gender identity is difficult for young people in many countries, for Thai university students it is complicated, because they are usually required to wear an approved uniform, which is different depending on the student’s gender.

Jimmy was allowed to wear what he wanted when attending classes, but when it came to the final examination he was required to wear the uniform of a female student. He went to the National Human Rights Committee and with their support was able to obtain permission to take the exams wearing a male uniform. However, this did not extend to the graduation ceremony, where he was still required to wear a female uniform.

“I decided not to attend because graduation should be the best day of your life. I just couldn’t be happy when I didn’t feel I was myself,” said Jimmy. “To wear a female uniform would have been lying to myself and I didn’t want to do that.”

Some universities are moving towards easing the regulations around uniforms. This year Bangkok University announced that it was allowing transgender students to dress according to their chosen gender and still stay within the official dress code. At Thammasat, while each faculty has different rules, transgender students can generally wear the uniform they want.

Bangkok University introduced approved uniforms for transgender students earlier this year. Images via Bangkok University’s Facebook Page.

Cartoon Benyapon is a transgender woman who just graduated from Thammasat. She said: “I didn’t feel any discrimination at school. I think it is a lot more liberal than the work place. My family also put pressure on me, so I pushed myself in school to show that I could excel in my classes and prove that a transgender person can succeed.”

There is little data on transgender people and it is hard to know how many live in Thailand. Transgender people often face discrimination, violence and lack of access to appropriate health care. All of these factors contribute to increasing the vulnerability of transgender people to HIV. According to Thailand’s Bureau of Epidemiology, epidemiological surveys of transgender women at five sites report high HIV prevalence ranging from around 9 percent to 17 percent in 2014.

Associate Professor Atiwut, who invited Jimmy to lecture at Thammasat, believes the new class will help address widespread misunderstanding and misconceptions and enable students to understand transgender people. “I hope it will create an environment that is more welcoming.”

The initial feedback is encouraging. Vichaya Chaovanasrimanont, a first year landscape architecture student who listened to Jimmy said, “I didn’t understand transgender people before. I thought they were weird. Now I understand they are not different. We are all the same.”

About the author:

Saya Oka is UNAIDS regional communications advisor for Asia and the Pacific.

More babies born at 23 weeks are surviving, study shows

By Lenny Bernstein-September 8

Doctors have made substantial progress in saving the earliest premature babies, with fewer illnesses and disabilities among them, according to a report issued Tuesday by an agency of the National Institutes of Health that looked at two decades of developments in the field.

Babies born between 22 and 28 weeks of gestation and who weighed 400 to 1,500 grams (14.1 to 52.9 ounces) have benefited from new practices instituted between 1993 and 2012, the period of the study, said Rosemary Higgins, program scientist for the neonatal research network at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, who was senior author on the paper. Normal gestation is 40 weeks, and the vast majority of full-term babies weigh between 5.5 and 10 pounds at birth.

"Extremely pre-term babies born before the 28th week are now surviving in greater numbers, and their outcomes are better when you look at the illnesses they have" in neo-natal intensive care units, Higgins said in an interview.

Between 1993 and 2012, the study found a "significant increase in survival" of infants born at 23, 24, 25 and 27 weeks, according to results published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Infants born at 25 to 28 weeks also showed major improvement in survival without significant disease or disability, according to the paper, though few surviving infants born sooner than that were able to avoid those illnesses. The study looked at more than 34,000 pre-term infants born at academic medical centers between 1993 and 2012.

[Study on premature infants raises questions about abortion and medical care]

The overall rate of pre-term birth peaked at 12.8 percent in 2006, then eased to 11.39 percent by 2013.

The prevalence of late onset sepsis, a complication of infection, declined between 2005 and 2012, for example, despite little progress before then. The rate of severe bleeding in the head also dropped. But one condition,bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a lung condition, saw a sharp increase during the period studied, possibly because of improvements in care that allowed more infants at risk for the illness to survive, Higgins said.

Higgins pointed to a number of advances in the care of severely pre-term babies. Increased use of surfactant has offered better protection for the newborns' lungs, and steroids given to mothers in the hours or days before a pre-term birth promote development of lungs, which normally don't mature until 34 to 36 weeks of gestation, she said.

Fewer pre-term newborns are now placed on ventilators to help them breathe because doctors can rely more on continuous positive airway pressure machines, which blow air into the lungs to help infants breath, but are gentler on them.

Mothers are now routinely screened for strep infections and given antibiotics if it is found, Higgins said. And providers now emphasize feeding severely pre-term newborns with breast milk instead of formula, even if they are only able to deliver a few drops through a feeding tube, because of the protections it provides the child, she said.

The study did not examine whether the new techniques have affected length of stay in hospitals, which averaged 93 days for newborns who survived, or costs.

Autism, creativity and divergent thinking may go hand in hand

Even preschoolers are ingesting a lot of caffeine these days - How America's love affair with caffeine has sparked a crisis in overdoses

Teens find creative and potentially dangerous use for e-cigarettes: smoking pot

Lenny Bernstein covers health and medicine. He started as an editor on the Post’s National Desk in 2000 and has worked in Metro and Sports.

Alzheimer’s disease: can you really catch it?

Evidence emerged today that Alzheimer’s disease might have the potential to spread from one person to the next. Should we be terrified? In short: No.

09 alzheimers g w Alzheimers disease: can you really catch it?

Wednesday 09 Sep 2015

But the finding could still be game changing because it provides an important clue about how Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease may destroy brain tissue.

Writing today in the journal Nature, a team of scientists from London present evidence that proteins linked to Alzheimer’s – though not the disease itself – may have been passed from person to person. They argue that there is a theoretical risk that such transmission could also happen in the real world through medical procedures.

But their study, limited to just eight people, and proving no link to Alzheimer’s disease itself, is a long way from proving any risk.

According to Prof John Collinge, at University College London, who led the research: “What we’ve found shouldn’t be any cause for alarm. It’s relevant to a very special and rare situation. It’s telling us something about the underlying mechanisms of how these diseases might occur but we’re not saying in any way Alzheimer’s is an infectious disease. You can’t ‘catch’ Alzheimer’s.”

Their conclusions are based on an analysis of a very small, but very unique, group of people. Collinge’s team study the devastating brain-wasting disorder Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which can pass from one person to the next via tissue infected with “prion” proteins.

One group of patients they work with got the disease from human growth hormone injections they received as children between 1959 and 1985. The practice was stopped when it was discovered some batches of hormone – made from the brains of people who donated their bodies for medicine – were contaminated with infectious prions.

A small percentage of patients who received the hormone have gone on to contract, and die, from CJD and their brain tissue has been closely studied by Collinge’s team. While analysing eight recently deceased patients Collinge’s team noticed they had deposits of a protein called amyloid beta in their brain. This is one of the characteristic proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

The patients involved were all far too young to have amyloid protein build-up naturally in their brains – though it is common in elderly brains of people with (and sometimes without) Alzheimer’s. Other patients with CJD who didn’t receive hormone injections had no sign of amyloid. The researchers are concluding that the best explanation for how they got abnormal amyloid in their brain is that it was also transmitted to them via the contaminated hormone injections.

This finding suggests – though it is far from proof – that amyloid could be passed from one person to another. Prion proteins are known to stick very well to stainless steel. As such, an operation using medical instruments on the brain tissue of someone with Alzheimer’s could carry the proteins across to someone without the disease, Collinge warned.

This conclusion is supported by work from Germany which has shown that amyloid protein from mice with a disease similar to Alzheimer’s can be used to “infect” other mice with healthy brains. However, this work only shows the amyloid “pathology” being transferred, not the disease itself. Alzheimer’s disease in humans is characterised by another protein called “tau” – none of which was found in this study. There is still considerable debate as to whether amyloid protein actually “causes” Alzheimer’s or is merely a symptom.

“There is no evidence that Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted from one person to another, or through use of contaminated surgical instruments, and these results should be interpreted with a great deal of caution,” said Prof David Allsop at the University of Lancaster.

Certainly studies of Alzheimer’s disease in the real world – and there are many – don’t hint at any other causes other than lifestyle factors, genetic risk and age. Studies looking at blood transfusions in people with and without Alzheimer’s, for example, have found no evidence of an effect. Most experts conclude if Alzheimer’s proteins were in some way being transmitted from person to person through some other medical procedure it would likely be at extremely low levels.

But what it does hint at is a possible “paradigm shift,” according to Collinge, in the way a number of degenerative brain diseases work. In recent years there have been a number of experiments showing how Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and forms of motor neurone disease may spread through brain tissue after being “seeded” by a misshapen form of a normal protein. Until recently the only disease known to behave this way was CJD. Prof Collinge is calling for more research to be done on whether contaminated surgical instruments could present a risk.

In a statement the Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies said: “This was a small study on only eight samples. We monitor research closely and there is a large research programme in place to help us understand and respond to the challenges of Alzheimer’s. I can reassure people that the NHS has extremely stringent procedures in place to minimise infection risk from surgical equipment, and patients are very well protected.”

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Opinion: US stand on Sri Lanka perverts international justice

Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena. Pic: AP.

A protestor wears a mask of U.S. President Barack Obama, while holding a puppet of former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during a rally in 2013. Pic: AP.

By JS Tissainayagam Sep 08, 2015

AT the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva next week, the US is to sponsor a resolution on war crimes in Sri Lanka, in collaboration with the Colombo government. This is despite wide recognition that Sri Lankan leaders are implicated in these war crimes.

Opinion US Stand on Sri Lanka Perverts International Justice by Thavam Ratna

The Sampanthan Hour

By Chaminda Weerawardhana –September 8, 2015

Dr. Chaminda Weerawardhana

Rajavarothiam Sampanthan MP (RS) has been appointed as the Leader of the Opposition of the Eighth Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. MP since 1970, RS also deserves the title ‘Father of the House’. Even analysts not generally sympathetic to the political ideology of Tamil self-determination concur that RS has a track record of acting with decorum and dignity in debate. This also applies to his party colleagues, who, unlike many a Sinhalese and Moor MP, conduct themselves gracefully inside and outside Parliament.

TNA: the strongest ‘Tamil’ voice?

Since the War’s end, the RS-led TNA has been successful at each and every election held in the two provinces. The absence of credible political alternatives, other than the EPDP that tarnished its reputation through its [in Tamil eyes] unholy alliance with the Rajapaksa regime, UNP’s Vijayakala Maheswaran factor in Jaffna and the SLMC in the East, there is no political movement in the two provinces that can equal, in any significant terms, the TNA’s electoral strength, the reasons for which ought to form the topic of a separate article.

Some Sinhala nationalists question RS’s positions on the rights of his community, his emphasis on ensuring the Tamils’ political aspirations and right to live as equal citizens. That RS’s voice on the rights of his people needs to be heard, respected and honoured is a given. It is the primary means through which, post-war, the dignity of Tamil society can be restored and more importantly, the Tamils’ position as full-fledged citizens of Sri Lanka can be enhanced and enlivened. Those being elected to Parliament by Tamil voters have every right to raise issues that concern their voters, constituencies and electoral districts.

New responsibility of ‘national’ relevance? Read More

After 25 Years was Navy Handed Over Land in Jaffna to the Owners

08/09/2015

The land that had been being as a naval camp for 25 years was handed over to the respective owners

The land that had been being as a naval camp for 25 years have been handed over to the respective owners at Keerimalai.

The people in this area were uprooted due to the war in 1990. An acre of land near the Keerimalai Naguleshwaram temple were seixzed by the navy to set up a massive navy camp.

This particular land that had been being as a naval camp for 25 years have been handed over by the navy to the respective owners on last Wednesday.

This particular land belongs to three persons. Despite there were three houses in this land, only one house is now there as other two houses were demolished and flatten, the owners of this land stated.

Bund built with the demolished wastes of their houses

In addition, they demanded the massive soil bund set up across their land made out of the rubble taken from the demolished wastes of their houses to be removed by the respective ones.

Meanwhile, they demanded the two drinking water wells located in this land, to be re-ecavated as these two wells were closed by the navy.

- Global Tamil News

TNA wants International Court, not International Probe

September 8, 2015
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) wants an international court to try cases of war crimes identified by the investigations conducted by the Office of the High Commissioner’s Investigation for Human Rights on Sri Lanka (OISL) and not another international “investigation”, senior TNA leader, Mavai Senathirajah, clarified on Monday.

Speaking to Express about the popular Tamil demand for an “international investigation”, the Jaffna district MP said that the investigation conducted by the OISL following the March 2014 resolution of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), was an international investigation.

“As such, there is no need for another international probe,” Senathirajah said

The report of the OISL is expected at the end of this month. The High Commissioner’s office had conducted it under the supervision of distinguished persons.

“What is needed now is a judicial follow up, and this has to be an international court with the involvement of foreign judges, Senathirajah said.

However, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has already rejected an international court saying that Sri Lanka has not signed the Rome Statute accepting the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

But Senathirajah is confident that the UNHRC investigation’s report will necessitate an international judicial process. “We will reply to Wickremesinghe after the OISL’s report is out,” he said.

The report is expected to be hard on Sri Lanka and the TNA believes that it can press its case for an international judicial process, arguing that the Tamils had never secured justice under the Lankan legal system. The Northern Provincial Council recently passed a resolution seeking an international judicial process on the same grounds, the New Indian Express reports.