A new Palestinian leader will emerge from a new intifada, says top Hamas member 

Ahmed Yousef calls on Palestinian youth to lead their struggle for statehood but says declarations of third uprising are premature 

A file photo shows senior Hamas member Ahmed Yousef at a press conference (Facebook) 

Rori Donaghy-Friday 23 October 2015

The leader of a new intifada will come from among Palestinian youth currently leading popular unrest across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a senior member of Hamas has told Middle East Eye.

“The youth is leading everybody at the moment, with no particular person in charge,” said Ahmed Yousef, a former political advisor to the deputy chair of Hamas’ political bureau Ismail Haniyeh.

“I believe that once this [popular unrest] has grown into an intifada they will find someone among the youth who will create a name for themselves. The [Palestinian] people will follow whoever that is and everybody will join from all the political factions.”

Yousef is seen by Hamas as a gateway to the West and regularly receives international delegations in Gaza. He spent many years living in the United States before returning to Gaza in 2005, following Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave.

The 65-year-old is now head of the Palestinian Institute for Conflict Resolution and Governance in Gaza, after serving Hamas in numerous senior positions and remains an influential figure within the movement.

Speaking to MEE by phone on Thursday, Yousef urged Palestinians not be “stuck in the mindset” of looking for leadership from the current crop of politicians. He said it was time for the younger generation of Palestinians to take control of the struggle for statehood.

While many commentators have described violence gripping Israel and Palestine – 50 Palestinians and eight Israelis have been killed in October – as the beginning of a new intifada, Yousef said it was still too early to declare a third Palestinian uprising.

The last intifada, which lasted for five years and ended in 2005, saw the deaths of over 3,000 Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis.

'Three stages' to an intifada

Yousef argued that there were three stages that must be completed before an intifada could be said to have begun.

“Now we have popular unrest – this is stage one,” he said. “Maybe after a couple of months, if more people get involved, it will spread more inside [Israel] and we will move to stage two. The second stage will be when all the political factions will be part of it and organise it.”

“The third stage is finding a leader – someone who can represent all the factions, nationalist and Islamist groups. This person needs to be able to articulate a vision for what we would like to achieve out of an intifada.”

Yousef has a long history of being an independent voice within Hamas. His view that an intifada has not started goes against other senior members, who as recently as 20 October declared the start of a new uprising.

The latest spike in violence has seen numerous knife attacks by Palestinians against Israelis. While some elements of Hamas have expressed support for knife attacks, Yousef said “this is not a Hamas tactic”.

He did not criticise knifings, however, and instead sought to explain the political and social context that he believes is causing them.

“What we are seeing are desperate, humiliated people using the only tool available to them,” he said. “They don’t have any other means to defend themselves. There have been many non-violent initiatives for years but perhaps this hasn’t been very effective.

“Perhaps the only thing Palestinians have been left with is a knife, a digger, a car. These attacks are a message to the international community that ‘We are the Palestinians still suffering occupation and we need the world to do something’.”

Videos of Palestinians attacking Israelis with knives have brought widespread condemnation. It comes after international support for the Palestinian cause soared in the wake of Israel’s brutal assault on the Gaza Strip last summer.

Yousef was unconcerned that knife attacks may negatively impact Palestinian image in the international community. He said that social media had allowed people to gain independent insight into the conflict in a way not possible in the past.

Social media 'breaking down barriers'

“The Israelis are used to controlling the narrative of the conflict,” he said “Today social media breaks down the barriers and people are able to hear the Palestinian narrative. I do believe people understand the level of suffering we are going through.”

Viral videos of Palestinian attacks have been matched by ones carried out by Israelis, including footage of a recent mob attack on an Eritrean asylum seeker.

Yousef said the latest unrest was sparked by Israeli settler violence, pointing to the attack on a Palestinian home in the West Bank that saw a toddler burned to death.

He argued that a third intifada could be avoided if Israel “disciplined the settlers and genuinely sought to find a political solution to the conflict”. He called on the international community to intervene and “tell Israel enough is enough and the Palestinians should have their own state”.

Yousef warned that in Gaza, which Hamas has ruled since 2006, an unemployment rate of over 60 percent among young people was turning the enclave into a “pressure cooker” of frustration that was ready to burst.

“Hamas can’t do that much for the people, as long as there is occupation and siege,” he said. “We can’t do anything to serve this new generation to make their lives better.”

Yousef said he was not worried Palestinians in Gaza would turn their anger against Hamas, arguing that locals “know it is Israel who is behind their suffering”.

“The people are angry with the Palestinian Authority too, who have not done anything to improve the lives of people in Gaza. They are also angry at Egypt – they think that Egypt is also part of the problem,” he said, referring to how Cairo has maintained a blockade on Gaza in conjunction with Israel.

Amid a range of problems facing Gaza, in recent months the Islamic State group appears to have emerged in the enclave, claiming a spate of rocket and car bomb attacks.

Yousef said that the ability for IS to recruit Palestinians was down to the Israeli siege on Gaza.

“It is easier for these people to recruit when there are no jobs. This makes it possible for them to brainwash the people in a very negative way,” he said.

However, Yousef was unconcerned by the IS threat, which he said was being handled by Hamas.

“[IS] is here [in Gaza] but they are limited in number,” he said. “These people [IS] are still under control - they know the wrath of Hamas.

“I don’t think any of them will dare to do anything other than maybe firing the occasional rocket to give the impression they are there. I don’t think they can do anything to harm the stability and security of Gaza.”

Hebron activist showed Israel’s crimes to the world

Hashem al-Azzeh harvests his family’s olives directly beneath the Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida in the West Bank city of Hebron in October 2012.

Ryan Rodrick BeilerActiveStills

Ryan Rodrick Beiler-The Electronic Intifada-23 October 2015

Hebron resident and anti-occupation activist Hashem al-Azzeh died Wednesday after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli forces.

According to Palestinian media reports, al-Azzeh, who suffered from a heart condition, began feeling chest pains while in his home in the Israeli-controlled Tel Rumeida neighborhood of the occupied West Bank city.

Hebron Activist Showed Israel’s Crimes to the World by Thavam Ratna

Can This Man Save Yemen?

Vice President Khaled Bahah is trying to push back the Islamic State and make peace with his Houthi rivals. But progress is hard to come by in war-wracked Yemen these days.


BY ADAM BARON-OCTOBER 23, 2015

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – The Riyadh Conference Center, a building that appears inadvertently caught in the 1970s, serves as a guesthouse for much of Yemen’s exiled government since the takeover of much of the country by Houthi rebels and allied forces within the military. I had come here to speak with a government minister about the various tensions within the anti-Houthi coalition, the increasing power of extremist groups in the south, and the worsening humanitarian crisis. As has been true of many conversations regarding Yemen as of late, it was about as fascinating as it was depressing.

After about an hour, the minister excused himself, and mentioned that Yemen’s current prime minister and vice president, Khaled Bahah, might have time to meet with me. I knew it was far from an off-the-cuff statement, as I had been hinting at my interest in doing so through intermediaries for some time. Ten minutes later, the door slid open. It was the man himself, casually announcing that he’d been able to make some time for me in his schedule.

Bahah has been touted as a key figure in Yemen’s future.Western diplomats have increasingly dropped even the pretense of coyness in private, casting the removal of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi — and Bahah’s ascension to the powers of the presidency — as a key goal. But Bahah doesn’t pull his support only from the West: He has appeared to earn the trust of key Gulf actors, while remaining one of the few generally respected political figures among Yemenis — both among opponents and supporters of the ongoing Saudi military action. Notably, at the start of the conflict, even the Houthis offered him a position as the head of a presidential council under their auspices.

In many regards, this is more about what Bahah isn’t than about what he is. Because he was out of the country when the internationally backed transition that saw Yemen’s Arab Spring devolve into a civil war took place, Bahah wasn’t a party to the bulk of the Hadi-led orders’ failures.

On the day that I met him, he had just arrived from the city of Aden, where the compound he was staying in had been damaged by a deadly attack by the Yemeni branch of the Islamic State. And Bahah was blunt regarding the challenges facing the government — even as he swore to me that the government would be returning to the war-torn port city as soon as possible.

“It was a wakeup call,” the vice president said of the October attack. “We have experienced this before…but for them to expand their operations in Aden in this way is something that we must confront.”

Bahah served as oil minister under then President Ali Abdullah Saleh from 2006 to 2008 and was later appointed ambassador to Canada – because of, rumor has it, official dissatisfaction with his firm stance against the corruption rife in Yemen’s oil and gas industry. He defected from Saleh’s administration during Yemen’s 2011 uprising, and was later appointed ambassador to the United Nations by Saleh’s successor, Hadi. From there, he climbed the ranks of the new government: In October 2014, Bahah was named prime minister as part of a cabinet formed after the seizure of the Yemeni capital by the Houthi rebels, and was appointed Hadi’s vice president earlier this year in an apparent gesture toward an as-yet elusive political solution to Yemen’s conflict.

As Yemen’s government-in-exile tentatively agreed to peace talks this week, Bahah has distanced himself from the maximalist rhetoric of many in his camp toward negotiations with its Houthi rivals. The implementation of Security Council Resolution 2216, which calls on the Houthis and their allies to withdraw from areas they’d seized during the recent conflict, has been at the center of the government’s demands – and Bahah affirmed his belief that it was necessary for a true political settlement to take place. But while hard-line elements in the government have demanded full implementation prior to any negotiations, Bahah personally endorsed unconditional talks with the Houthis, saying that Resolution 2216 could function as a viable roadmap for a solution to the crisis.

“I don’t think things will stop on the ground until we sit around the table,” he said.

Such comments — uncontroversial as they may seem — mark a key difference between Bahah’s views on how to end the conflict and those of President Hadi and his closest aides. While Bahah pushed back against suggestions of any tensions with Hadi, other officials I met from the exiled government — both those close to Bahah and from other factions — frequently slammed the president and his allies as incompetent holdovers from Yemen’s failed post-Saleh transition.

“For the sake of our country, we have to stand with ending this war,” he told me, saying that when the time comes, “We will shake hands with those who would like see their country at peace.”

Bahah also appeared to subtly break with more hard-line elements of the Saudi-led coalition that has launched a six-month-long bombing campaign in the country. He appeared deeply cognizant of the humanitarian crisis the campaign has contributed to, and called for the opening of seaports, airports, and land routes — which, according to international aid groups, remain impeded by the actions of both Houthi and allied fighters and the Saudi-led coalition.

But the question of whether productive change is even possible in Yemen at this point remains an open one. Bahah and his allies remain outside of the country owing to a security vacuum in Aden that has seen violent jihadist groups enjoy a disturbing freedom of movement. Fanned by humanitarian crisis and political deadlock, the conflict continues to burn on, destroying not just Yemen’s buildings and infrastructure but the very fabric of its society.

I left Bahah and thanked him for the fortuitous interview, even as the same questions I had before the interview continued to rifle through my mind.

Can this man bring Yemen back together? Like much in Yemen these days, there is no obvious answer. Perhaps the more important question is: Can anyone?

MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images

Sharif says India arms buildup compels Pakistan countermeasures

U.S. President Barack Obama meets Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington October 22, 2015.

 BY IDREES ALI AND DAVID BRUNNSTROM-Sat Oct 24, 2015

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Friday Pakistan would be forced to take "countermeasures" to deter against any attacks, given a major arms buildup by neighbouring India and its refusal to resume talks over Kashmir.

"While refusing dialogue, India is engaged in a major arms buildup, regrettably with the active assistance of several powers," Sharif said in a speech to the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington.

"It has adopted dangerous military doctrines. This will compel Pakistan to take several countermeasures to preserve credible deterrence."

Sharif charged that a "cancellation" of talks between the nuclear-armed countries had been followed by increased ceasefire violations by India across the Line of Control dividing Pakistani and Indian Kashmir.

He said there had also been "a stream of hostile statements by the Indian political and military leadership."

Sharif, who held talks with President Barack Obama in Washington on Thursday, said there was a need to resume dialogue with India and urged the United States to be more understanding of Pakistan's position in the interests of regional stability.

"I believe a close review of some of the existing assumptions and analysis and greater attention to Pakistan's views and interests would be useful in enabling Washington to play a constructive role in averting the ever present danger of escalation and promoting stability in South Asia," he said.

Sharif did not define "countermeasures," but on Thursday, Obama urged Pakistan to avoid developments in its nuclear weapons program that could increase risks and instability.

Washington, which like Russia is major arms supplier to India, has been concerned about Pakistan's development of new nuclear weapons, including small tactical nuclear weapons.

It had been trying to persuade Sharif to make a unilateral declaration of "restraint" on nuclear development, but Pakistani officials said Islamabad will not accept limits to its weapons program and argued that smaller tactical nuclear weapons are needed to deter a sudden attack by India.

Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed in July to revive talks, but escalating tensions over Kashmir, which both countries claim in full but rule only in part, derailed the plans.

Earlier on Friday, India's foreign ministry spokesman welcomed Pakistan's pledge in a joint statement with the United States on Thursday to fight militant groups Delhi suspects of attacking Indian targets, but ruled out any third-party mediation to end the Kashmir dispute.

The spokesman, Vikas Swarup, said India "remains open" to talks between the two countries' national security advisers.

Mark Toner, a U.S. State Department spokesman, told a regular Washington news briefing that Pakistan's tensions with India needed to be addressed and this would be best done "through continued dialogue between the two countries."

In Thursday's statement, the United States and Pakistan expressed their commitment to the Afghan peace process and called on Taliban leaders to enter direct talks with Kabul, which have stalled since inaugural discussions in Pakistan in July.

On Friday, Sharif said he had told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Pakistan was prepared to help revive the talks. But he added: "We cannot bring the Taliban to the table and be asked to kill them at the same time."

Sharif did not elaborate, but was apparently referring to U.S. calls for Pakistan to crack down on Taliban sanctuaries within Pakistan.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Richard Chang and Tom Brown)

The great jade heist and the quiet theft of Burma’s billions

 

Freelance jade miners collect jade stones near a mine in Kachin State, Burma. Pic: AP.

By Francis Wade Oct 23, 2015

A report just released by Global Witness illuminates the staggering theft of billions of dollars worth of jade revenue by a nexus of military and business tycoons, and drug lords, that have long dominated Burma’s legal and illegal economies. The vast majority of Burmese jade goes to China, yet around 50 to 80 percent of this is smuggled illicitly over the border. In effect then, only around a third to a half of the entire revenue from jade, or $12.3 billion, ends up in state coffers — the remaining $20 billion or so is sold off illegally. Rather than contributing to public spending, it goes straight into the pockets of dominant figures in this nexus, and helps sustain their position as key power brokers in Burma.

The jade industry is referred to by Global Witness as the “big state secret” in Burma, and for good reason. Several of the biggest companies in the trade are patronized by figures right at the top of the politico-economic hierarchy — former dictator Than Shwe, current Livestock Minister Ohn Myint, and drug lord and financier of the United Wa State Army, Wei Hsueh-Kang, to name but a few. Together their companies recorded hundreds of millions in official pre-tax sales in 2014, a figure that doesn’t include the greater revenue earned from unofficial sales.

Those who profit most from jade have something of a symbiotic relationship with the trade. For people like Ohn Myint, a former military commander-cum-politician, the wealth they have accrued has helped to buy a degree of power that ensures their continued access to the industry’s profits. The wealth-power relationship that underpins the economic hierarchy in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, means that to lose this access to jade profit, possibly as a result of a more level economic playing field, could threaten their political preeminence and, ergo, future economic wealth. It is therefore in their strongest interests to ensure the industry maintains the veil that has allowed billions to be quietly siphoned out of the state budget, and hence why efforts to open it up to scrutiny will meet with heavy resistance.

The location of the most lucrative jade mines adds another sinister dimension to the industry. Billions of dollars of jade are mined each year from a site in Kachin State that is contested by both the government/military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). They have been fighting one another since 2011, when a 17-year ceasefire broke. A principle reason for the resumption of fighting rested on the destructive nature of the 17 years of “peacetime”experienced in Kachin State, during which the government (and Chinese companies) took control of much of the region’s natural resources, jade included, yet distributed virtually none of the revenue gained back to Kachin civilians.

A woman checks the quality of jade stones in Burma’s Kachin state. Pic: AP.

Amid a push over the past two years by the government to broker another ceasefire, extraction of jade soared, with 2014 seeing the some of the highest output on record. One explanation is that those with vested interests in the industry knew that any ceasefire would result in stronger demands for revenue sharing by the Kachin, and therefore upped their operations to extract as much as possible before the competition widened. If true, this gives weight to theories that the conflict is highly profitable for those with stakes in jade — any ceasefire backed by the Kachin would have to have enshrined fairer revenue distribution, something that would have cut heavily into the interests of those currently in control of the mines. Hence there are powerful forces in the jade industry that have vested interests in keeping the conflict going, as do the lower-rung officers stationed in Kachin State to fight the KIA who extort significant amounts of money from the jade miners that pass through military checkpoints en route to markets in China.

Global Witness has questioned whether the siphoning off of jade revenue could be the “biggest natural resource heist in modern history”. The vast polarization that results from the disenfranchisement of millions civilians to benefit a small elite network will be largely unchanged by whatever limited shift towards civilian rule results from elections next month. Whoever moves into positions of influence after the vote will know that any real attempt to upend this hierarchy of power will invite the fiercest of resistance.

As the report notes, the estimated $31 billion gained from jade sales in 2014—both officially and unofficially—equates to around 48 percent of Burma’s official GDP. But only one percent of state spending is sourced from the mining sector—more comes from oil and gas, despite revenue from these paling in comparison to Global Witness’s estimations of jade revenue. This gives some indication of the inordinate amount of wealth being mined from Burma’s north that completely bypasses the public. Viewed against the backdrop of the World Bank’s independent assessment last year that 37.5 percent of the country lives in poverty, the figures show how significant the human cost of state-sanctioned corruption in Burma can be.

Justin Trudeau: Low Expectations, High Relief

Justin Trudeau on Tuesday. CreditChris Roussakis/European Pressphoto Agency

The Opinion Pages

By HEATHER MALLICKOCT. 22, 2015

Toronto — THE Monday night election defeat of Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister of Canada, and the triumph of his most hated rival, the Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, gave many Canadians that rush of feeling they so rarely enjoy: “It’s a girl.” “The lab says it’s benign.” “Your long national nightmare is over.”

But after what was seen here as a painfully protracted 11-week campaign,we are more relieved than triumphant. (It’s a different high than Americans might have after an election: How do you tolerate an almost permanent level of high-cortisol stress?)

It’s not that Canada has the same impossibly high expectations of Mr. Trudeau that Americans had of President Obama. At the risk of sounding like a broken human after almost 10 years of Harper rule, I suspect that Canadians simply ask that Mr. Trudeau, a centrist, not be like his predecessor. Behold, we are already pleased!

For Mr. Harper began turning Canada into a place we didn’t recognize. It wasn’t Trudeaumania, it was Harper-phobia, as one writer said the morning after.

It’s too simple to say that Mr. Harper was trying to Americanize Canada. That is rather insulting to Americans, and anyway Mr. Harper, no internationalist, seemed bored by Americans, although he tagged along with them on their pointless bombing wars.

In the United States, divisions between, say, regions or parties seem reasonably matched. Mr. Harper was doing something different. He was enabling bullying on a national scale. He won three elections because he relied on his full right-wing base but also pressed buttons Canadians don’t like to admit they have: lowering taxes, deploring immigrants, sidelining women and hyping militarism.

Ultimately Mr. Harper’s problem in this election was that he couldn’t win nationally with just an older, white male, rural base. He had to extend his reach, was weirdly unwilling to do that and ended up holding tiny rallies of Conservative voters, while Mr. Trudeau was meeting everyone, anyone. Two days before the election, a desperate Mr. Harper was reduced to appearing in public with Rob Ford, the notorious ex-mayor of Toronto. The photos were excruciating.

Mr. Harper’s bullying was extreme, and it was high schoolish. In 2011, his government barred women from wearing niqabs, the face-covering scarves, during citizenship ceremonies. The problem was that there appeared to be only one or two women trying to do this. The one giving interviews seemed quite nice. Then, more recently, women in niqabs began to be tormented on the streets. This shocked us.

The scroll of what Mr. Harper didn’t like grew longer as the years passed. It comprised scientists, environmentalists, returning veterans, urbanites, immigrants, then immigrants with accents, refugee claimants, then claimants needing health care, and so on. Bubbles of despised people began popping up. At some point the bubbles would have joined up and made Canada a vast blister for Mr. Harper to target. It was becoming absurd.

For Canadians are different from Americans, and we like it that way. We don’t think we’re exceptional; in fact, it’s rather important to us that we’re not, because that would imply that other nations are below par, which would be quite rude. We are a vast, cold country with a small population of about 36 million (Mr. Harper canceled the mandatory census, so we’re not sure about the number), and it is essential for Canadians to connect with and help one another. Mr. Trudeau understands that; Mr. Harper did not.

Mr. Harper fatally referred to “old-stock Canadians,” which was taken to mean “white” in a young country that has been peopled by immigrants, with many more being welcomed to come here. In his victory speech, Mr. Trudeau said definitively “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” a charming contrast to Mr. Harper’s classifications of lesser citizens.

It’s also too easy to say that Mr. Harper was dour and that the younger Mr. Trudeau was cheerful. Mr. Harper spent government money on a grand scale while cutting business and personal taxes. But money doesn’t come first here. We’re ambitious. We pay healthy taxes to support a national single-payer health care system, the jewel of our country.

We want more. As drug prices soar, we need a universal drug plan, too. It will have to be paid for, and a national plan will provide it in the cheapest and most efficient way. Mr. Harper wouldn’t do that. While handing out a great deal of pork, it sometimes seemed he killed more useful spending out of doctrinaire spite.

Take guns, and you may. We have rifles and other long guns but spend time alone with them in the woods to kill wild animals. What other purpose would there be for rifles? Our gun control included a national long-gun registry that assisted battered women and local police forces; Mr. Harper killed it, saying it was an invasion of privacy.

Mr. Trudeau is different. He is a better match for Canadians’ vision of themselves: peaceable, educated, emotionally stable, multicultural.

Mr. Harper always seemed like the unpopular kid standing on the sidelines planning his revenge on a nation. He wasn’t brilliant, he was cunning. He took his revenge. We’re done.

“It’s not about me,” Mr. Harper said bleakly as the campaign neared its end, knowing that it was in fact all about him.

We are not seeking grandeur with Mr. Trudeau. What we want is an honest repairman, and we’ll take it from there. Americans, thank you for your patience.

Heather Mallick is a staff columnist for The Toronto Star.

'Introduce sugar tax', health officials tell government

THURSDAY 22 OCTOBER 2015
To tackle the obesity crisis, a "sugar tax" should be levied, alongside other measures to restrict the marketing of high sugar foods and drinks to children, health officials recommend.

In a report, Public Health England (PHE) said that the prices of products such as full-sugar soft drinks should be increased by 10 to 20 per cent by means of a tax or levy.

The report, which was supposed to be published in July, was delayed to give the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt more time to build support for the government's obesity strategy.

Under pressure from MPs, it was finally published on Thursday - the same day that it was confirmed that David Cameron had rejected its recommendation of a sugar tax without reading it.

A Number 10 spokesman made clear that Cameron does not want a sugar tax to feature in the government's national obesity strategy, telling reporters: "The prime minister's view remains that he doesn't see a need for a tax on sugar."

'Sugar tax'

The PHE report also calls for efforts to "reduce and rebalance" the number and type of price promotions on foods and to "significantly reduce opportunities to market and advertise high-sugar food and drink products to children and adults across all media including digital platforms and through sponsorship".

The health officials say food retail price promotions "are more widespread in Britain than anywhere else in Europe" and "higher sugar products are promoted more than other foods".

The report, called Sugar Reduction: The Evidence For Action, warns that average sugar intake is 12% to 15% of people's energy intake instead of the 5% government advisers say it should be.

"Research studies and impact data from countries that have already taken action suggest that price increases, such as by taxation, can influence purchasing of sugar-sweetened drinks and other high-sugar products at least in the short term with the effect being larger at higher levels of taxation," it says.

'Reduced portions'

In other recommendations, the report says steps should be taken to create a clear definition of what high sugar foods are.

It also calls for the "introduction of a broad, structured and transparently monitored programme of gradual sugar reduction in everyday food and drink products, combined with reductions in portion size".

The government must also continue to "raise awareness of concerns around sugar levels in the diet to the public as well as health professionals, employers, the food industry etc, encourage action to reduce intakes, and provide practical steps to help people lower their own and their families' sugar intake."

Attacking price promotions in supermarkets and other outlets, the report says: "Price promotions increase the amount of food and drink people buy by around one-fifth. These are purchases people would not make without the in-store promotions.

"They also increase the amount of sugar purchased from higher sugar foods and drinks by 6 per cent overall and influence purchasing by all socioeconomic and demographic groups."

'Childhood obesity'

The Number 10 spokesman defended Cameron's position, saying "he very much sees that it is really important for us to tackle childhood obesity".

Some of the proposed measures such as restrictions on advertising unhealthy products to children, or lowering sugar content in food and drinks would be taken into account as the strategy was drawn up, he said.

But he added: "The prime minister's view remains the same: that he does not see the need for a tax on sugar, but that it is important to remember that that is not the only part of this debate, that there are a large number of different elements to it... The prime minister thinks there are more effective ways of tackling this issue than putting a tax on sugar."

MRSA superbug found in supermarket pork raises alarm over farming risks

Fiona Harvey, Mary Carson,Maggie O'Kane and Andrew Wasley-Thursday 18 June 2015

The discovery on UK shelves of pork contaminated with a livestock strain of MRSA prompts calls to curb misuse of antibiotics in intensive farming

Pork sold by several leading British supermarkets has been found to be contaminated with a strain of the superbug MRSA that is linked to the overuse of powerful antibiotics on factory farms, a Guardian investigation has revealed.

MRSA Superbug Found in Supermarket Pork Raises Alarm Over Farming Risks by Thavam Ratna

Sri Lanka Sends War Crimes Denier Medawela to UN, UNCA "Lies Agreed To"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 15 -- While Sri Lanka at the UN and elsewhere says it is putting the slaughter of 2008-09 behind it, the government is sending as its Military Adviser to the UN none other than Major General Ubaya Medawela, who in classic “Lies Agrees To” fashion not only denied the authenticity of footage of summary executions, but asserted that the killers spoke Tamil:

Sri Lanka Sends War Crimes Denier Medawela to UN, UNCA Lies Agreed To by Thavam Ratna

Video: Paranagama report more critical than 

UNHRC report: Rajitha 

2015-10-22
Cabinet spokesman and Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne today said the recommendations of the Paranagama Commission report was more critical on Sri Lanka than the UNHRC report and added if it was published before the UNHRC report, the situation would have been more precarious for the country.

Responding to a journalist, Minister Senaratne said Sri Lanka had to go a long way to finalize the domestic mechanism as there was a large number of stakeholders to the problem. 

"The process indeed is not an easy task because we have to put in place a mechanism acceptable locally and internationally while safeguarding our sovereignty, judicial independence and dignity of the country. That is why the government has given a two day debate in Parliament on the UNHRC report, Paranagama report and Udalagama report. President Maithripala Sirisena has called an all party confab to discuss the issue and reach a compromise. In addition, the government will talk to all those concerned on the matter before setting up the local mechanism that will probably need to introduce new legislation," he emphasized. 

Commenting on the allegations made by the opposition during the ongoing two-day debate in Parliament, Minister Senaratne reiterated that the local mechanism for a credible inquiry on alleged war crimes would be held under the provisions of Sri Lanka’s basic law and within the judicial parameters comprising judges, prosecutors and defense counsel chosen by Sri Lanka. 

“But we have been given the opportunity to obtain expert opinion, advice and know-how from foreign experts who are knowledgeable and experienced in this kind of investigations. But it is definitely not that Sri Lanka is going to have a hybrid court for the purpose,” he said and added foreign advice had been sought in the past in murder inquiries of Prime Minister S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike, Minister Lalith Athulathmudali and Major General Denzil Kobbekaduwa. 

Even, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has obtained the services of a team of four foreign eminent persons headed by Sir Desmond De Silva to assist the Paranagama Commission in the recent past, he said.before the UNHRC report, the situation would have been more precarious for Sri Lanka. 

opinion, advice and know-how from foreign experts who are knowledgeable and experienced in this kind of investigations. But it is definitely not that Sri Lanka is going to have a hybrid court for the purpose,” he said and added foreign advice had been sought in the past in murder inquiries of Prime Minister S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike, Minister Lalith Athulathmudali and Major General Denzil Kobbekaduwa. 

Even, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has obtained the services of a team of four foreign eminent persons headed by Sir Desmond De Silva to assist the Paranagama Commission in the recent past, he said.. 

Paranagama Commission Report in Full

22/10/2015

The Full report is here as a PDF.Paranaggama Commission report

Here is what the report mention as possible war crimes:

It is clear to the Commission that this doctrine may be engaged as it concerns the allegations relating to the ‘white flag killings’ of LTTE leaders and the images of executions that have formed the subject matter of a series of Channel 4 television broadcasts. The Commission is of the view, as found by the LLRC, that there are matters to be investigated in terms of specific instances of deliberate attacks on civilians. These matters must be the subject of an independent judicial inquiry. There are credible allegations, which if proved to the required standard, may show that some members of the armed forces committed acts during the final phase of the war that amounted to war crimes giving rise to individual criminal responsibility. These include such incidents as:

• The allegations of ‘white flag killings’ which led to the deaths of Balasingham Nadesan, the head of the political wing of the LTTE, and Seevaratnam Pulidevan, the LTTE’s head of the peace secretariat and others who surrendered, having allegedly been given assurances at a high level. The Commission is of the view that despite some conflicting evidence, the underlying matrix is such that these alleged illegal killings, together with other such killings of those who surrendered, must be the subject of an independent judge-led investigation. To that list for investigation, must be added the cases of all those who were hors de combat and allegedly perished while in the custody of the SLA.
• The alleged executions of individuals named in the various Channel 4 documentaries.
• The disappearance of busloads of persons who surrendered in the last days of the conflict. One such busload was accompanied by a Catholic Priest, Father Francis.
•  The credible evidence that hospitals, both makeshift and otherwise, were damaged by shellfire with civilian casualties to the point that this Commission is of the view that, bearing in mind the special protected status accorded to hospitals, there must be a judge-led inquiry into the circumstances attaching to each individual case. However, the Commission has to balance these allegations against the strong supporting evidence of the propensity of the LTTE to place weaponry and indeed even a tank in close proximity to hospitals as confirmed by the Darusman Report.

The Commission notes and believes it should underline the fact that the former Commander of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, now Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka as recently as May 2015, has himself, welcomed the need for a war crimes investigation into a number of incidents. In an interview recorded in the London Guardian newspaper on 27th May 2015, Fonseka maintained his innocence while being cited as ‘accepting that some crimes occurred during the war,’ albeit maintaining that such actions were done by individuals rather than as part of any widespread policy by the SLA.

Paranaggama-Commission-report.pdf-The Full report is here as a PDF.Paranaggama Commission report.pdf by Thavam Ratna