Hebron bears brunt of Israel’s crackdown

Israeli soldiers at the northern entrance of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in early November.-Wisam HashlamounAPA images

Protesters call on Israel to transfer the bodies of slain Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron in early November.-Anne PaqActiveStills

Charlotte Silver-10 December 2015

“The main goal is to make Tel Rumeida as Shuhada street: empty from Palestinians,” Issa Amro of the activist group Youth Against Settlements told The Electronic Intifada.

Late last month Israeli settlers stormed the offices of Amro’s group in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, demanding that the army shut it down.
Hebron Bears Brunt of Israel’s Crackdown by Thavam Ratna

Syrian rebels end talks with demand for Assad to step down 

Talks in Riyadh end with statement saying president should go before any transitional period, after one of largest factions withdrew 

Members of Ahrar al-Sham, one of the biggest forces on the ground in Syria (AFP) 

Thursday 10 December 2015

Syrian rebel factions have demanded that President Bashar al-Assad have no part in any transitional government, issuing a joint statement on Thursday after two days of crucial talks in Riyadh.

"Participants have insisted that Bashar al-Assad and his aides quit power with the start of the transition period," said the statement, referring to a plan set out in Vienna last month to have a "credible, inclusive and nonsectarian" transitional government in place in the country by June 2016.

Participants, however, did say there that they are ready to negotiate with representatives of the Syrian regime... within a specific timeframe that would be agreed on with the United Nations," the statement added. 

The talks were the largest between rebel factions since the outbreak of war in 2011. But the result - a demand for Assad to quit as president of Syria - keeps them firmly at odds with the President's backers, Russia and Iran, exacerbating a key issue in ending the war and echoing previous rebel demands that contributed to the failure of talks in Geneva last year.

The statement came after a day of apparently fractious talks with one of the participants, Ahrar al-Sham, withdrawing saying it had a "religious and national obligation" to refuse to work with "regime sympathisers". It also complained that those at the table included only a "small number of jihadi rebel factions" and "people who do not hide their support for the Syrian regime".

"As we withdraw from the conference, we are calling on other Mujahedeen and revolutionary groups to make a historic stance on the side of their religion, nation and people," Ahrar al-Sham said in a statement. 

"[Other groups] must take into consideration the sacrifices that were made to achieve their goals."

Reports later said Ahrar al-Sham had returned to the fold and would attend future negotiations with Assad, although this was not confirmed.

PT: I’m now hearing [unconfirmed] reports that Ahrar al-Sham have reversed & agreed to sign the #Riyadh statement. Unclear if it’s amended.

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) December 10, 2015

'Stronger position'

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister had earlier said the talks put Syria’s opposition in a “stronger position” ahead of peace talks scheduled to take place in New York later this month.

But Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said President Assad had two choices - he must either leave power after negotiations or be forcibly removed.

Speaking in Riyadh, Jubeir said the Syrian people would not accept any other outcome after years of devastating war.

New negotiations on Syria’s future must take place before a 1 January deadline set last month during a landmark meeting of 20 states in Vienna.

US Secretary of State John Kerry had also hailed the talks as “very constructive,” saying he hopes they will help in the progress towards finding a political solution to the conflict ahead of the New York talks.

Points of principle

The Riyadh talks brought together 103 delegates from armed and non-armed groups – but excluded Kurdish groups.

On Thursday, the final day of the talks, delegates agreed on seven key “points of principle” as a starting-point for ongoing negotiations.

The first of these, agreed without a strong Kurdish presence at the table, is the “unity of Syria as a land and as a people”.

Delegates also agreed on the civilian and democratic nature of a future Syrian state, which would retain the current state’s apparatus but completely restructure the army and security force.

A source from the Free Syrian Army delegation also confirmed to Associated Press that the participants agreed to demand the withdrawal of all foreign fighters from the country. Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iranian militias, and Russian special forces are now known to be fighting for Assad. American and UK special forces have also been authorised to target the Islamic State group in Syria with the US-led coalition bombing IS since last year. 

US-based intelligence services organisation The Sufan Group this week announced that up to 30,000 foreign fighters have joined jihadist organisations across the world, including some 8,000 in the Middle East. 

The committee was to be made up of 23 people – six from the Syrian National Coalition, six from various rebel groups, six from local activists from across the country and five independent officials, according to a source quoted by Al-Jazeera.

In the wake of Ahrar al-Sham’s withdrawal from the talks, it remains unclear whether the seven points of principle remain binding. 

North Korea hints it has a hydrogen bomb, but skepticism abounds

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Phyongchon revolutionary site. (KCNA/Reuters)

By Anna Fifield-December 10

TOKYO — North Korea has hinted that it has built a hydrogen bomb to “defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation,” a development that, if true, would mark an alarming step in its nuclear capabilities.

It is the first time that the regime, which has already conducted three atomic tests, has claimed to have built an exponentially more powerful hydrogen bomb. But analysts were doubtful of Kim Jong Un’s latest bellicose claim, saying the young leader appeared primarily concerned with trying to bolster his legitimacy.

“Do I think they have the capacity to make a hydrogen bomb? I think that’s virtually impossible,” said Daniel Pinkston, an expert on North Korea’s nuclear weapons who is currently at Babes-Bolyai University in Romania.

Kim, the third-generation leader of North Korea, made the claim while visiting the site of a former munitions factory in central Pyongyang. North Korea has become “a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation,” he said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

[Kim says North Korea ready for any kind of war with U.S.]

What life looks like inside North Korea

 Scenes from inside the hermit kingdom.

An atomic bomb uses fission to break up the atomic nucleus and release energy, while a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb uses fusion to add to the nucleus. This leads to an enormous explosion resulting from an uncontrolled, self-sustaining chain reaction.

The installation that Kim was touring, known as the Phyongchon revolutionary site, was visited several times by founding president Kim Il Sung, the current leader’s grandfather, and by Kim Jong Il, his father. Kim Il Sung reportedly test-fired a submachine gun at the shooting range at the site soon after the division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945.

The site routinely appears in official documentaries about revolutionary history and on North Korea’s military industrial complex, according to Michael Madden, an expert on North Korea’s leadership. Photos showed Kim Jong Un inspecting rifles inside a building and speaking outside the building, his aides with notebooks at the ready taking down his every word.

The fact that the statement came not from the National Defense Commission or the politburo, which usually make major pronouncements, but from Kim while he was extolling the achievements of his grandfather and father suggested that he was trying to burnish their legacy and his legitimacy, said Pinkston, a fluent Korean speaker.

Parsing the Korean version, which was slightly different from the English, he said Kim claimed that the sound of his grandfather’s gun was heard at the site 70 years ago, while today North Korea has become a nuclear state “that can make the boom of a hydrogen or atomic bomb.” It did not necessarily mean that North Korea had developed a bomb, he said.

“I'm super-skeptical that they’ve been able to make this scientific advancement,” Pinkston said.

South Korean intelligence specialists also were skeptical and dismissed Kim’s words as rhetoric. “We don’t have any information that North Korea has developed an H-bomb,” Yonhap News Agencyquoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying. “We do not believe that North Korea, which has not succeeded in miniaturizing nuclear bombs, has the technology to produce an H-bomb.”

North Korea has a history of making ostentatious claims that cannot be substantiated. In recent months, Pyongyang said it could launch a submarine ballistic missile, had made nuclear warheads small enough to fit on a missileand had restarted its key nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. None of these assertions have been proven. In fact, North Korea appears to have disproved the first claim with a failed missile launch from a submarine last month.

Satellite images suggest that North Korea might be preparing to conduct a nuclear test again, or at least be ready to test again.

North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006, but despite plenty of saber-rattling, it has not detonated a device since the beginning of 2013. Under Kim Jong Un, however, North Korea has repeatedly asserted itself to be a nuclear state and has refused to return to multilateral talks aimed at persuading it to disarm.

[North Korea builds new tunnel at test site]

North Korea appears to be building a new tunnel at its nuclear test site, making it more likely that it will test again in the next year, said Jeffrey Lewis, a nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, although there are no signs that a test is imminent.

The International Atomic Energy Agency suggested in September that North Korea appeared to be strengthening its nuclear program, although the agency has not been allowed access to the nuclear facilities.

Using satellite imagery, the IAEA observed renovation and construction activity at the main Yongbyon plant, which appears to be consistent with the country’s statements that it is further developing its nuclear capabilities, said Yukiya Amano, director general of the IAEA.

Read more:

What life looks like inside North Korea

In a Seoul coffee shop, onetime North Koreans enter the 21st century

Anna Fifield is The Post’s bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

India to press for implementation of Bali deal at Nairobi trade talks

A labourer removes dust from wheat crops at a wholesale grain market in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh November 6, 2013. India's move to cut wheat export prices has curbed a rally in U.S. wheat futures and cheap cargoes are expected to enter the market after tenders...

REUTERS/AJAY VERMA (INDIA - TAGS: AGRICULTURE BUSINESS)

BY MANOJ KUMAR AND RAJESH KUMAR SINGH- Thu Dec 10, 2015

India will push for implementation of the Bali trade deal at the World Trade Organisation talks in Nairobi next week and remain open on all other "non-binding" issues, its Trade Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday.

Trade ministers from 162 WTO countries will gather in Kenya's capital from Dec. 15-18 to work on an agreement to liberalise global trade and give a push to the Doha round of trade talks stuck since 2001.

The 2013 Bali Ministerial Declaration included a temporary deal to allow India to hold high grain stocks for food security in return for its support for the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) that was struck at that meeting.

Last year, Sitharaman stared down a United States-led group of countries to have India's food stocks deal made into a lasting concession despite accusations that New Delhi's brinkmanship threatened the viability of the WTO.

"I am not looking at the permanent solution to public stockholding as a demand because I presume it's been agreed in Bali," she said. "Let's honour Bali ... let's deliver Bali."

She told reporters the agreement on public stockholding should find a mention in the Nairobi declaration.

"It has to be a part of the declaration because it was agreed in Bali," Sitharaman said. "I don't need to put it as a demand, but I will remind you if you haven't put it."

Aside from the focus on the implementation of the Bali deal, she said non-differential treatment among emerging economies and the freedom to raise tariffs temporarily to deal with import surges are on India's "wish-list".

Sitharaman said she was going to the trade talks with a "very open and positive approach".

Analysts reckon the WTO meeting will struggle to reconcile the demand of developing countries for a special safeguard mechanism (SSM) to impose emergency import duties, with the push from developed countries to eliminate farm export subsidies.

WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo has urged members to show flexibility for a successful meeting as several countries, frustrated by a persistent deadlock at the WTO, move towards regional trade pacts.

India and many other countries have been left out of emerging regional trade pacts such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreed by the US and 11 other countries in October.

Earlier, the European Union, Brazil and four other countries proposed to end farm export subsidies.

The proposal would ban subsidies within 11 years and introduce new rules and transparency requirements for state trading enterprises, non-emergency food aid, and export credits, guarantees and insurance.

Abhijit Das, head of the Delhi-based think-tank Centre for WTO studies, doesn't expect India to obstruct the talks.

"The central issue at Nairobi will be the reaffirmation of the Doha round," he said, adding most of the developing countries were in favour of continuing negotiations.

(Editing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Venezuela : Election is Over — What Next?

The struggle over the future of Venezuela is now entering a new and entirely unpredictable phase, the outcome of which will be of tremendous importance for Venezuela, Latin America and the world. All those who stand for revolutionary internationalism must stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan revolutionaries at this critical time.

The following statement issued on the Venezuelan election by the Party for Socialism and Liberation ( PSL)

( December 9, 2015, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The outcome of the December 6, 2015, National Assembly elections in Venezuela is a major victory for the right-wing forces of counter-revolution and U.S. imperialism, and a severe blow to the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the Left in Latin America.

Venezuela Election is Over — What Next by Thavam Ratna

Cuban dissidents say 100 detained in Human Rights Day protest crackdown

Police detain at least six protesters in Havana on charges of disturbing the public order as the Ladies in White say others are intercepted at home or en route

 Cuban security personnel detain a member of the Ladies in White dissident group during a protest in Havana on International Human Rights Day. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

Reuters in Havana-Thursday 10 December 2015

Cuban police have detained at least six protesters in Havana and dissidents reported 100 detentions nationwide on UN Human Rights Day, when some Cubans call unauthorized demonstrations.

Protesters shouting “Freedom!” and “Long live human rights!” tussled with police on Thursday in plain view of journalists as they have each 10 December in recent years. As usual, pro-government counter-demonstrators hurled insults at them as the protesters were shoved into patrol cars and taken away.

The Ladies in White dissident group organized the demonstration at a busy square near the entrance to the popular Coppelia ice cream parlor, but few of its members arrived on the scene. Dissidents report that they are typically detained at home or en route to protests.

The Havana clashes briefly interrupted traffic and led to pushing and shouting, but there were no noticeable injuries.

Reporters witnessed six people detained for what a government spokesman said was the offense of disturbing public order. The Cuban government considers the dissidents paid mercenaries of the US government, and says its critics on human rights overlook Cuba’s guaranteed healthcare and education.

The dissident Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation estimated 100 detentions on Wednesday and Thursday and expected that number to double, leader Elizardo Sánchez said.

Police searched six homes that serve as offices for the Patriotic Union of Cuba(Unpacu) – Cuba’s largest dissident group – confiscating computers and documents, said Unpacu leader José Daniel Ferrer.

Ferrer and Sánchez said police had been particularly aggressive with Unpacu and the Ladies in White in recent days. The human rights commission reported 1,447 short-term detentions of dissidents in November, the highest single monthly total since it started keeping records in 2010.

“I don’t criticize the Ladies in White, nor the Cuban government either,” said Orlando Rivero, 65, a retired teacher who witnessed the scuffling. “Differences of ideas should be respected. Cuba is a country that respects human rights, but the ideas of the dissidents should be respected as well.” 

Nepal’s most vulnerable are still at risk as quake relief effort stalls

Sindhupalchok district was one of the most heavily devastated areas, with nearly 3,000 deaths following the twin earthquakes. Plan International has established numerous Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) in affected areas, as venues for children to take part in fun activities that support their recovery and allow them to process their experiences through songs, dance and play.

In a Temporary Learning Centre in Sindupalchok district, children are learning proper hand washing techniques to prevent and lower the risk of water-borne diseases. Pic: Plan International

by Daniel Maxwell -9th December 2015

IN the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Nepal, which left over 8,500 people dead and 500,000 homes destroyed, the international community pledged more than $4 billion in aid to help the landlocked Himalayan nation recover and rebuild. During the first 6 months of the relief effort, essential progress was made with aid administered to the most needy, and shelters, health centers and learning centers established in affected areas, but as the Himalayan winter sets in, and temperatures begin to drop, relief organizations are now facing huge challenges with supply routes blocked and pledged funds still inaccessible.

Nepal’s Most Vulnerable Are Still at Risk as Quake Relief Effort Stalls by Thavam Ratna

Welcome to Canada, Where the Prime Minister Meets Refugees at the Airport

BY REID STANDISH-DECEMBER 10, 2015 

A young boy runs through a field carrying a Canadian flag, the sun lit behind him as the country’s red and white national colors flap in the wind. Above the photo, large text reads, “Welcome to Canada,” with the Arabic transliteration below: Ahlan wa sahlan. “Welcome.”

This is the cover of Thursday’s Toronto Star, Canada’s largest-circulation newspaper, as the country prepares to welcome the first tranche of Syrian refugees in the newly elected Liberal government’s resettlement program. The front-page photo is accompanied by a heartfelt editorialwelcoming the freshly arrived Syrians and briefing them on life in Canada.

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“You’ll find the place a little bigger than Damascus or Aleppo, and a whole lot chillier. But friendly for all that. We’re a city that cherishes its diversity; it’s our strength,” reads the editorial. “It’s been a long trek, but you are no longer refugees. Your days of being strangers in a strange land are over.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who plans to meet the refugees as they arrive, told the House of Commons on Wednesday that the first plane carrying 150 refugees was expected to land from Beirut at 9:15 p.m. Eastern Thursday at Toronto’s international airport. A second plane is scheduled to carry more refugees from Beirut to Montreal on Saturday.

“Resettling refugees demonstrates our commitment to Canadians, and to the world, that Canada understands that we can and must do more,” Trudeau said during the question period in Parliament.

Trudeau’s government committed to resettling 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February 2016, with 10,000 set to arrive by the end of this year. Canadian Immigration Minister John McCallum toldreporters at a news conference Wednesday that 11,932 refugee applications were already being processed in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey — the three countries with the largest populations of Syrian refugees. In preparation for the influx of newcomers, temporary processing centers have been set up at airports in Montreal and Toronto as Canadian authorities transition refugees into permanent housing across the country.

The first wave of Canada’s resettlement program comes as anti-Muslim rhetoric continues to rise in the United States in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California. On Monday, real estate mogul and Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump proposed “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

Trump’s comments have been met with both outcry and support in America and mark a major political shift as the nature of Islam, and Muslims in general, becomes one of the domineering topics of the U.S. election cycle so far. A new poll released Wednesday by the Washington-based Brookings Institution found that “American views of Muslims are strikingly partisan.” According to the poll’s findings, 67 percent of Democrats express favorable views of Muslims, contrasted with only 41 percent of Republicans. When asked about Islam in general, 51 percent of Democrats view the religion favorably, compared to 27 percent of Republicans.

Canadians generally have more positive views. Polls in September found that three-quarters of Canadians wanted to accept more refugees into the country. However, a November poll conducted after the Paris attacks and the announcement of the Liberal government’s new policy saw a drop in support, with 51 percent opposing Ottawa’s measures.

Trudeau had made the 25,000-refugee target an important element of his campaign platform as early as last March and doubled down as Canada’s October election approached. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party had maintained a hard line on Syria refugees, claiming national security was more important than the humanitarian crisis. However, popular sentiment began to shift after the photo of a dead Syriantoddler, who had washed ashore in Turkey as his family began to make their way to Canada, grabbed international headlines in September. Yet Harper did not change his tone, deriding the use of the niqab, or Islamic face veil, during a debate and railing against the dangers of Muslim immigration. Trudeau and other Harper critics seized upon this, describing the Conservative leader’s statements as un-Canadian.

In the wake of the Paris attacks that killed 130, the Trudeau government has slowed — but not discarded — the refugee policy that originally planned to bring 25,000 Syrians to Canada by Jan. 1, 2016.

Photo credit: Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images

Being unhappy or stressed will not kill, says study

By James Gallagher-10 December 2015

Being miserable or stressed will not increase your risk of dying, according to the UK's Million Women Study.

It had been thought that being unhappy was bad for health - particularly for the heart.

But the decade-long analysis, published in the Lancet, said previous studies had just confused cause and effect.

However, experts argued that unhappiness in childhood may still have a lasting impact.

A series of studies had shown that how happy people are, strongly predicts how long they are going to live.

Ideas included detrimental changes in stress hormones or the immune system resulting in a higher risk of death.

But the research team in the UK and Australia said those studies failed to deal with reverse causality - namely, that people who are ill are not very happy.

Entrenched

Participants in the Million Women Study were asked to regularly rate their health, happiness and levels of stress.

The results showed that whether people were "never", "usually" or "mostly" happy had no impact on their odds of dying during the duration of the study once other factors such as health or whether they smoked were taken into account.

Dr Bette Liu, one of the researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said: "Illness makes you unhappy, but unhappiness itself doesn't make you ill.

"We found no direct effect of unhappiness or stress on mortality, even in a 10-year study of a million women."

Co-author Prof Sir Richard Peto, from the University of Oxford, said light smokers had double the risk of an early death and regular smokers had three times the risk of dying during the study period, but that happiness was "irrelevant".

He said it could have indirect effects if people started consuming large amounts of alcohol or massively overeating, but happiness itself "does not have any material, direct, effect on mortality".

But he warned the myth may be too entrenched to shake off: "People will still believe stress causes heart attacks after this story has been and gone.

"It isn't true, but it suits people to believe it."

In a commentary, Dr Philipe de Souto Barreto and professor Yves Rolland from the University Hospital of Toulouse in France, said: "Further research from a lifecourse perspective is needed since happiness during critical periods, such as childhood, could have important consequences on health in adulthood."

Four years completed of Lalith & Kugan disappearance

Dec 09, 2015

Today marks the fourth year of the disappearance of the human rights activists Lalith Kumar Weeraraj and Kugan Muruganandan in Jaffna. Both Lalith & Kugan left Kugans house on December 9th on a motor bike and never returned home on a day before the international human rights day to organize a media discussion.

Lalith & Kugan who was a full time member of the JVP left the organization and joined the Peratugami Socialist Party. Kugan Muruganandan was a person who was earlier had links with the LTTE and later resigned. Following the end of the war both these activists were promoting human rights under a very strong military occupation.

However following the disappearance the former media minister Keheliya Rambukwella said both Lalith and Kugan are under custody.

Since a court case going on in search of Lalith and Kugan Keheliya Rambukwella’s statement is a significant factor. However a warrant was issued against Keheliya failing to appear before the courts twice. Although this disappearance was highlighted during the last president election against the Rajapaksa regime now the people campaigned has forgotten the issue.

The pain of the death caused by murder is long lasting for the people who lived with them only. At a time when their partners too forget them it is their families who tear for them till last.

Relatives of disappeared to boycott Presidential Commission, protest in Jaffna  09 December 2015 Families of missing Tamils have decided to boycott Sri Lanka’s presidential commission into disappearances, and staged a protest in Jaffna to express their disappointment with the commission. Photographs Tamil Guardian Members of the organisation representing the relatives of missing persons in the North-East agreed to fully boycott the Presidential Commission’s inquiries, demanding instead that any further investigations should be carried out by independent, international actors. The The decision was reached ahead of the Commission’s impending visit to the North to carry out inquiries.