More than 1,000 civilians killed in Russia's Syria strikes 

Russian advances in Syria - and disagreement over who should be invited - have thrown next week's peace talks in Geneva into doubt 
A Syrian father cries after losing his child in the Russian air strikes targeting opposition-controlled Sukeri neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria on 16 January 2016. (AA)

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Russian bombs have killed more than 1,000 civilians in nearly four months of air raids in Syria, an activist group said on Wednesday.

The raids, which started on 30 September, have killed 1,015 civilians, including more than 200 children, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The group, which relies on a network of sources in Syria for its reports, said Russian strikes had also killed 893 Islamic State fighters and 1,141 other opposition militants, including members of al-Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front. The total toll of was out at 3,049, including 700 in the last three weeks.

The tally comes as Russia's advances in Syria have thrown next week's talks between the Syrian opposition and the government into serious question.

The talks, due to begin on 25 January in Geneva, are reportedly held up because the countries involved, namely sponsors US and Russia, have yet to agree which opposition groups will be invited.

Russia has called some of the groups on a US-backed list made in an opposition meeting in Saudi Arabia last month "terrorists" and has refused to negotiate with them.

A man holds up the body of his dead baby after the Russian air strikes targeting opposition-controlled Sukeri neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria on 16 January 2016 (AA)

Instead, Moscow wants the inclusion of opposition figures who have remained loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, as well as Kurdish groups fighting IS, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

The Saudi-backed opposition coalition on Wednesaday said it would accept no such interference as it announced its negotiating team for the Geneva talks.

Mohammed Alloush, a political leader of as the Saudi-backed armed group Jaish al-Islam, was announced as chief negotiator by the coalition's general coordinator, Riad Hijab.

Asaad al-Zobi, a general who defected from the Syrian army, will serve under Alloush as head of the delegation, with Syrian National Council chief George Sabra his deputy.

Jaish al-Islam is designated a terrorist organisation by Moscow.

Sabra said that no one had "the right" to object to or interfere with the opposition's choices, and that any attempt to do so would end talks before they began.

Russia: Talks to go ahead as planned

Separately Russia's foreign minister said on Wednesday that talks were scheduled to go ahead as planned next week.

"We do not have any kind of thoughts about changing the beginning of the talks from January to February," Sergei Lavrov said after meeting his US counterpart John Kerry in Zurich. "This is the position of Russia and the USA." 

"The political process will begin, we hope, in the nearest future, during January. Various dates have been named, but the final decision will be taken by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the advice and recommendations of his special envoy Staffan de Mistura."

But even beyond struggles over the invite list, Russia's air strikes have helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hold enough ground that it is not clear, as Western governments had once hoped, that he can be removed from power.

“Russia’s strategy is to weaken the Syrian opposition to the point of elimination, so that in the future Russia may well be able to argue that there is no one to negotiate with,” Lina Khatib, a senior research associate at the Arab Reform Initiative, told the Washington Post on Wednesday.

Washington and Syrian opposition activists have accused Moscow of focusing more on opposition fighters than IS, claims Russia has denounced as absurd.

The Observatory says it differentiates between strikes by Russia, US-led coalition warplanes and the Syrian government based on the type of aircraft and the munitions used.

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/over-1000-civilians-dead-russias-syria-strikes-monitor-1825543962#sthash.ipQ7iael.dpuf

Pakistan: students and police killed in attack on university

Militants open fire on students and staff at a university in Charsadda, in north-west Pakistan, killing at least 19 and injuring scores more.

WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY 2016

A senior Pakistani Taliban commander initially claimed responsibility for the attack, but this was later contradicted by the official Pakistani Taliban spokesman Muhammad Khorasani, who denied involvement. The reasons for the conflicting statements are not clear.

The gunmen used the cover of thick fog to climb the walls of the Bacha Khan University before entering classrooms and hostels and beginning their attack.

Security officials warned the death toll could rise as the army worked its way through student hostels and classrooms. Among the dead were students, guards, policemen and at least one professor. Four militants were also killed.

Police and troops rushed to the scene and a violent gun battle followed. Shooting continued for several hours.

A senior security officer at the scene said 51 people had been wounded.

Students targeted

Just over a year earlier Taliban gunmen attacked a military-run school in nearby Peshawar, killing 141 people, including 134 schoolchildren aged from eight to 18.

The target of the latest attack, a university in the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, is named after the founder of a liberal anti-Taliban political party.

Several other schools around Peshawar, the capital of the province, had closed early at the weekend after rumours circulated about a possible attac

The Case Against Saakashvili

It’s temping to see Georgia’s crusading former president as the solution to all of Ukraine’s problems. Here’s why caution is in order.

BY ADRIAN KARATNYCKY-JANUARY 20, 2016

Mikheil Saakashvili is back. Having left his native Georgia after voters repudiated his party and his term as president expired, Saakashvili has revived his political fortunes on a much larger playing field — Ukraine. The former Georgian president has taken Ukrainian citizenship and rapidly emerged as one of the country’s most popular political figures. And with good reason: he has bravado; he is a vast storehouse of energy; and he is tempting Ukrainians with an easy solution to poverty and corruption — namely, him.

Saakashvili’s Ukrainian career began in May 2015, when the country’s president, Petro Poroshenko, appointed him governor of the Odessa region, which is renowned for its corruption and organized crime. A master of public relations, Saakashvili threw himself into this role, promising to clean up Odessa and, in particular, its notoriously corrupt port. As part of that effort, he fired a number of top- and mid-level officials and replaced them with young, Western-educated Ukrainians, inexperienced but telegenic young activists, and a small coterie of political loyalists from Georgia.

Soon, however, Saakashvili began to test the limits of what could be attained in Odessa, and started to argue that his battle against corruption was being stymied by the central government in Kiev. He also began to spend less time in his region and more in the capital, where his infectious spirit and charisma added a new vigor to Ukraine’s popular and boisterous political talk shows. Even as he vociferously denied having any higher political ambitions,Saakashvili was clearly setting his sights on Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk and entering the arena of national politics. 
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My birth is my fatal accident: Full text of Dalit student Rohith’s suicide letter

V Rohith, a Dalit PhD scholar committed suicide on Sunday, leading to protests across Hyderabad Central University. Here's the letter he wrote before committing suicide.

A file photo of V Rohith. Facebook image

By: Express Web Desk-January 19, 2016

Dalit PhD scholar V Rohith was found hanging at a central university’s hostel room located on the varsity campus on Sunday, police said.

“V Rohith (around 26) was found hanging in the hostel room. He was among the five research scholars who were suspended by Hyderabad Central University (HCU) in August last year and also one of the accused in the case of assault on a student leader,” Cyberabad Police Commissioner C V Anand told PTI.

Read: Dalit student’s suicide takes political turn; Opposition, BJP trade charges

The suspension was later revoked. Earlier, the five research scholars were suspended from the hostel for the rest of their study period for allegedly attacking an ABVP leader.

Below is the full text of Rohith’s suicide letter (The letter has been published as is)

Good morning,

I would not be around when you read this letter. Don’t get angry on me. I know some of you truly cared for me, loved me and treated me very well. I have no complaints on anyone. It was always with myself I had problems. I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body. And I have become a monster. I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.

I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan.

I loved Science, Stars, Nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs colored. Our originality valid through artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt.

The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.

I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense.

My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

May be I was wrong, all the while, in understanding world. In understanding love, pain, life, death. There was no urgency. But I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life. All the while, some people, for them, life itself is curse. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this.

People may dub me as a coward. And selfish, or stupid once I am gone. I am not bothered about what I am called. I don’t believe in after-death stories, ghosts, or spirits. If there is anything at all I believe, I believe that I can travel to the stars. And know about the other worlds.

If you, who is reading this letter can do anything for me, I have to get 7 months of my fellowship, one lakh and seventy five thousand rupees. Please see to it that my family is paid that. I have to give some 40 thousand to Ramji. He never asked them back. But please pay that to him from that.

Let my funeral be silent and smooth. Behave like I just appeared and gone. Do not shed tears for me. Know that I am happy dead than being alive.

“From shadows to the stars.”

Uma anna, sorry for using your room for this thing.

To ASA family, sorry for disappointing all of you. You loved me very much. I wish all the very best for the future.

For one last time,

Jai Bheem

I forgot to write the formalities. No one is responsible for my this act of killing myself.

No one has instigated me, whether by their acts or by their words to this act.

This is my decision and I am the only one responsible for this.

Do not trouble my friends and enemies on this after I am gone.

India can still emulate China's export miracle - Panagariya

Arvind Panagariya, head of the government's main economic advisory body, gestures during an interview with Reuters in New Delhi, India, January 18, 2016.REUTERS/ADNAN ABIDI

 BY MANOJ KUMAR AND DOUGLAS BUSVINE-Tue Jan 19, 2016

India has every chance of becoming an export powerhouse, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's top economic adviser told Reuters, despite an ill wind blowing from China that has hurt the ability of Asia's third-largest economy to compete.

ALSO READ
Q&A with Arvind Panagariya, Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog

Arvind Panagariya, the Columbia University economics professor tapped to run the government's policy think tank last year, said in an interview he had seen China's slowdown coming as wage costs there grew.

"It was only a matter of time," said Panagariya, 63, describing "miracle" growth rates sustained by China for decades as without precedent.

The natural slowdown in the Chinese economy offered an opportunity, he said, because rising wages and an ageing workforce will encourage manufacturers to move to places where labour costs are cheaper - like India.

From parity in 1980, China's economy has outgrown India's fivefold to $10 trillion.

India's best choice would be to emulate China, said Panagariya, disagreeing with naysayers who argue that advances in labour-saving technology make that impossible.

"Many pessimists think that manufacturing is now passe, that the robots are coming, 3D printing is coming," said Panagariya. "None of those factors is going to be a barrier to India becoming a manufacturing hub right now."

COMPETITIVE PRESSURE

In the short run, though, China's slowdown and weakness in its yuan currency are creating headwinds.

India would be "very concerned" if China were to allow a major devaluation in the yuan currency, said Panagariya, who is also India's negotiator for the Group of 20 summit being hosted by China this year.

"In the end, that not only makes Indian goods less competitive in the Chinese market, but also India's ability to compete with the Chinese in third markets is impacted," he said.

Figures this week showed that India's merchandise exports fell in December for the 13th month - and were down by nearly 15 percent from a year earlier.

That meant India was losing its share of the global trade pie, said Panagariya, attributing some of those losses to the appreciation of the rupee against currencies other than the U.S. dollar.

He highlighted Modi's decision to build out India's coastal ports to improve access to the world market for goods as one key initiative to expand India's 1.7 percent share of world exports.

Modi has also promoted a "Make in India" drive that, after a slow start, has attracted U.S. auto makers and Chinese consumer electronics firms.

LOOSER MONEY, TIGHT BUDGET

India is the world's fastest growing large economy - outpacing even China - with the government forecasting real GDP growth of 7.0-7.5 percent in the fiscal year to March 31.

But a collapse in prices for oil and other commodities has meant that nominal economic growth is only half the level factored into Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's plans. That has cut into revenues.

Ahead of Jaitley's budget next month, Panagariya urged the Reserve Bank of India to cut interest rates and called for a less ambitious inflation target to underpin growth.

At the same time, he advised against "tinkering" with borrowing targets, saying the government's credibility was riding on its commitment to bring down the budget deficit to 3 percent of GDP over the medium term.

While no comment was available from the RBI on Panagariya's call for easier monetyar policy, private sector economists said Modi should instead focus on policy execution on the ground.

That includes reviving stalled infrastructure projects and helping farmers recover after two years of drought.

"We believe progress on implementation should get expedited," said Shubhada Rao, chief economist at Yes Bank in Mumbai. "Interest rates alone are not holding the growth recovery to ransom."

(Additional reporting by Neha Dasgupta in Mumbai; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Martin Luther King

King was only 39 years old and had established himself as a civil rights leader. The FBI convinced itself that King had communist connections and that the movement he led would develop into a national security threat. In those days, emphasis on civil rights implied criticism of America that many confused with communist propaganda.

by Paul Craig Roberts

( January 19, 2016, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) Like all false flag attacks and assassinations, the 1968 murder of Martin Luther King was covered up. In the King case James Earl Ray was the framed-up patsy, just as Oswald was in the case of President John F. Kennedy and Sirhan Sirhan was in the case of Robert Kennedy.

The King family, along with everyone who paid attention to the evidence, knew that they and the public were officially handed a cover-up. After years of effort, the King family managed to bring the evidence to light in a civil case. Confronted with the real evidence, it took the jury one hour to conclude that Martin Luther King was murdered by a conspiracy that included governmental agencies.

For more information see: Here

Martin Luther King, like John F. Kennedy, was a victim of the paranoia of the Washington national security establishment. Kennedy rejected General Lyman Lemnitzer’s Northwoods Project for regime change in Cuba, opposed the CIA’s invasion plan for Cuba, nixed Lemnitzer’s plans for conflict with the Soviet Union over the Cuban missile crisis, removed Lemnitzer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and negotiated behind the scenes with Khrushchev to tone down the Cold War. Consequently, members of the military/security complex had it in for Kennedy and convinced themselves that Kennedy’s softness toward communism made him a security threat to the United States. The Secret Service itself was drawn into the plot. The films of the assassination show that the protective Secret Service personnel were ordered away from the President’s car just before the fatal shots.

King was only 39 years old and had established himself as a civil rights leader. The FBI convinced itself that King had communist connections and that the movement he led would develop into a national security threat. In those days, emphasis on civil rights implied criticism of America that many confused with communist propaganda. Criticizing America was what communists did, and here was a rising leader pointing out America’s shortcomings and beginning to foment opposition to the war in Vietnam.

The conflation of justified criticism with treason is always with us. Not long ago Obama appointee Cass Sunstein advocated that the 9/11 truth movement be infiltrated and discredited before Americans could learn that they had been deceived into accepting wars and the loss of civil liberties. Before Janet Napolitano left her post as head of Homeland Security to become chancellor of the University of California, she said that the focus of Homeland Security had shifted from terrorists to “domestic extremists,” which included war protesters, environmentalists, and government critics.

Throughout history thoughtful people have understood that truth is the enemy of government. Most governments are privatized. They are controlled by small groups who use the government to pursue their private agendas. The notion that government serves the public interest is one of the great deceptions.

People who get in the way of these interests are not treated kindly. John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were murdered. Robert Kennedy was murdered, because he knew who the government operatives were who murdered his brother. Robert Kennedy was well on his way to becoming the next President and implementing his murdered brother’s plan to “break the CIA into a thousand pieces.” If Robert Kennedy had become president, elements of the national security state would have been indicted and convicted.

The Warren Commission understood that Oswald was a fall guy, but the commission also understood that at the height of the Cold War to tell the Americans the truth of the assassination would destroy the public’s confidence in the national security state. The commission felt it had no alternative to a coverup.

Experts’ dissatisfaction with the Warren Commission led to a second inquiry, this time by the Select Committee on Assassinations of the US House of Representatives. This report, released in 1979, 16 years after JFK’s assassination, was also a coverup, but the Select Committee could not avoid acknowledging that there had been a conspiracy, more than one gunman, and that “the Warren Commission’s and FBI’s investigation into the possibility of a conspiracy was seriously flawed.”

In 1997 the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board released the top secret Northwoods Project submitted to President Kennedy in 1962 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Pentagon plan was to murder US citizens and to shoot down US airliners in order to blame Castro and create public support for an invasion that would bring regime change to Cuba. President Kennedy rejected the report, a decision that increased the doubts of the national security state that Kennedy had the strength and conviction to stand up against communism.

Washington’s response to the government’s murder of Martin Luther King was to create a national holiday in his name. Honoring the man that elements of the government had murdered was a clever way to bring the controversy to an end and dispose of troublesome questions.

New evidence suggests a ninth planet lurking at the edge of the solar system
Astronomers say they have evidence of a ninth planet in our solar system. Here's what they say they know about it. (Joel Achenbach,Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

By Joel Achenbach and Rachel Feltman-January 20

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology announced Wednesdaythat they have found new evidence of a giant icy planet lurking in the darkness of our solar system far beyond the orbit of Pluto. 

They are calling it "Planet Nine."

Their paper, published in the Astronomical Journal, describes the planet as about five to 10 times as massive as the Earth. But the authors, astronomersMichael Brown and Konstantin Batygin, have not observed the planet directly.

Instead, they have inferred its existence from the motion of recently discovered dwarf planets and other small objects in the outer solar system. Those smaller bodies have orbits that appear to be influenced by the gravity of a hidden planet – a "massive perturber." The astronomers suggest it might have been flung into deep space long ago by the gravitational force of Jupiter or Saturn.

Telescopes on at least two continents are searching for the object, which on average is 20 times farther away than the eighth planet, Neptune. If "Planet Nine" exists, it's big. Its estimated mass would make it about two to four times the diameter of the Earth, distinguishing it as the fifth-largest planet after Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. But at such extreme distances, it would reflect so little sunlight that it could evade even the most powerful telescopes.

[Q&A: The ‘Pluto Killer’ who thinks he’s found the true ninth planet]

Confirmation of its existence would reconfigure the models of the solar system. Pluto, discovered in 1930, spent three-quarters of a century as the iconic ninth planet. Then, a decade ago, Pluto received a controversial demotion, in large part because of Brown.

His observations of the outer solar system identified many small worlds there – some close to the size of Pluto –and prompted the International Astronomical Union to reconsider the definition of a planet. The IAU voted to change Pluto's classification to "dwarf planet," a decision mocked repeatedly last summer when NASA's New Horizons probe flew past Plutoand revealed a world with an atmosphere, weather and a volatile and dynamically reworked surface.

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Slump in oil prices drives green energy takeup in top exporting nations

With oil at below $30 a barrel, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Kuwait are looking to curb fossil fuel use at home to maximise export profits

Visitors at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2016 where global leaders in policy, technology and business discuss new ways of shaping the future of renewable energy and sustainable development. Photograph: Ali Haider/EPA

A field of solar panels at the King Abdulaziz city of Sciences and Technology, Al-Oyeynah Research Station in Saudi Arabia. Photograph: Fahad Shadeed/Reuters

Suzanne Goldenberg, Abu Dhabi-Wednesday 20 January 2016

The oil price slump below $30 barrel is spurring some of the world’s biggest oil exporters to curb domestic consumption of fossil fuels and invest in wind and solar power, according to government officials meeting in Abu Dhabi.

A month after the historic climate agreement in Paris, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and other oil exporters are in the midst of overhauling domestic energy policies and seeking alternatives to oil and gas for electricity.

The main motive is not reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but cutting back on domestic energy demand that is taking up a rising share of production. Oil exporters would rather sell their fossil fuels abroad than burn them at home, government officials attending meetings of the International Renewable EnergyAgency (Irena) said.

Since oil prices began their precipitous slide, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, the UAE and other big oil producers have cut electricity and water subsidies, imposed energy conservation measures, and encouraged homeowners to install solar panels in an effort to cut back on domestic consumption.

Speaking on the sidelines of Irena’s annual meetings and Abu Dhabi’s sustainability week, officials said the slide in prices offered further incentive to get off oil – at least as a source of electricity.

“It is just common sense in my opinion,” said Saad Salem Al Jandel, a research scientist at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and a delegate to the Irena meeting.

“We are spending so much, something like $8bn (£5.6bn) to $10bn on fuel and power stations, so we want to replace part of it with renewables, and we can also do better with energy conservation and energy efficiency.”
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'Natural' fertilisation device for IVF

By Michelle Roberts-19 January 2016

A private UK fertility clinic is offering couples a new form of IVF treatment that lets conception occur in the womb rather than in the lab.

Doctors hope that making fertilisation more natural will mean healthier pregnancies.

The Complete Fertility clinic in Southampton is first in the UK to use the AneVivo device method.

It is a tiny tubular capsule that is loaded with the sperm and egg before being placed into the uterus.

Prof Nick Macklon, head of the clinic, insisted it was not a gimmick.

'No gimmick'

He told the BBC: "At this stage we are just offering it to private patients. If the NHS want to use it then they would need to know that it is cost effective. We do not know that yet.

"But that doesn't mean new technology like this can't be introduced in a cautious manner. I'm very keen that we study new innovation in IVF."

The technique, which costs around £700 per go, has been approved by the UK's fertility watchdog, the HFEA.

International trials in around 250 women suggest that it achieves a similar pregnancy rate to conventional IVF, says Prof Macklon.

But it reduces how long the growing embryo is kept artificially outside of the womb in a dish of culture fluid.

Prof Macklon said: "The aim is to maximise the time spent in the body rather than in the lab. The immediate benefit is reducing exposure at this very vulnerable time of human development when genes are being switched on and off."

Some studies have suggested that growing embryos in a dish increases the risk of genetic and other health defects.

It is not yet known whether the womb device will be an improvement.

Although it allows fertilisation to occur within the body, the resulting embryo still needs to be removed and given a health check in the lab before being reimplanted (minus the device).

When the HFEA approved the technology, its advisory committee said there was no evidence that the device would be ineffective or unsafe.

However, it "did not feel that there was sufficient clinical data to say whether the process has a greater or lesser efficacy than that of traditional IVF methods" and it said the process "might add an unnecessary cost to patients".

Non-stop attempts to use ethnic nationalism as a political strategy

By Jehan Perera-January 19, 2016, 11:55 am 

Norhern Province Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran welcoming Prime Minister Ranil Wickreme singhe in Jaffna, where the National Thai Pongal festival was held recently. (File phto)

The participation of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and visiting British Minister Hugo Swire at the Thai Pongal celebration in Jaffna is an indication of the special attention that is being given to the northern polity by the government. The top leaders of the government have been making frequent visits to the north in a way that is unprecedented. During the years of the war it was dangerous for government leaders to visit the north as they were vulnerable to being attacked by the LTTE and other militant groups. But even prior to the war there was reluctance on the part of leaders of government to visit the north. Neville Jayaweera, in his memoirs of his time as a civil servant who dealt with the north five decades ago, writes about the petty manner in which the government leaders of those years turned down opportunities to visit the north. In contrast, President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe are frequent travelers to the north.

However, in his speech in Jaffna on the occasion of Thai Pongal, and with the Prime Minister and British Minister in attendance, Chief Minister of the Northern Province, C V Wigneswaran was extremely critical in his assessments, claiming the presence of 150,000 soldiers as particularly detrimental to the restoration of normalcy. He spoke of the failure to free more land held by the military and the failure to abolish the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He also blamed the government of interfering in the work of the Northern Provincial Council and complained over letters being sent to him from State institutions written in the Sinhala language. The slow progress made in terms of restoring normalcy to the lives of those large numbers of people living in the north and east who are war-affected has elicited sharp and strident criticism from a wide arrange of politicians and civil society activists.

In the absence of rapid and comprehensive actions on the ground that would assuage Tamil sentiment and doubt regarding the government’s seriousness to resolve these problems, the government has been attempting to demonstrate goodwill through symbolic actions, such as was manifested at the Thai Pongal celebrations in Jaffna. Another such symbolic act was the President’s gesture of reconciliation in granting a pardon to a former member of the LTTE Sivarajah Jeneevan, who had been convicted and imprisoned for having attempted to assassinate him in 2005 when he was Minister of Mahaweli Development. This symbolic and healing gesture coincided with the first year anniversary of his becoming President. While the State has the right to charge those who indulge in crimes irrespective of how long the time since the commission of the crime, it is not necessary that persons who are accused should be remanded for an indefinite period because they are alleged to have committed a crime unless they are a continuing threat to others.

GROWING IMPATIENCE

There has been great controversy for the past several years over the continued detention without charge or without trial of over two hundred alleged LTTE members. They need to be either charged and subjected to the legal process, or released without further delay. These are not only political issues, but are also issues of people’s lives where there is no closure and families cannot move on. The anguish of family members of disappeared persons and those held in custody for several years has become a common sight mainly in the former conflict affected areas and elsewhere. The government needs to take meaningful steps to ensure these cases are concluded expeditiously. This would enable those long term detainees and their families, and those of missing persons, to rebuild their lives and ensure that good governance is meaningful to them.

The main complaint against the government is not its regression into the practices of the past, but its slowness in implementing its promises which would be good and beneficial to the people. However, this grievance is not specific to the north or to the Tamil people, although they are the most vocal about the failings of the government to deliver on its promises. The complaint regarding the slowness of the government is more widespread. Those who voted for the government to ensure that there would be good governance and economic prosperity from all over the country are dissatisfied with the progress that has been made so far. They see the failure of the government to take those accused of corruption and abuse of power to trial and to prison as indications of infirmity of those who may do the same in the future. The larger population whose main priority is to improve their standard of living, and get out of the poverty traps they are in, are disappointed that the government has patently failed to jump start the economy.

It is noteworthy that visiting British Minister Hugo Swire who briefed the media at the end of his three day visit to the country said that Sri Lanka will need to demonstrate its progress in addressing the issues raised by the UNHRC resolution in Geneva by June and that they were serious about the government meeting its commitments. He added that the government was making several proposals for the mechanisms to satisfy the commitments it has made, which were most likely to be reviewed and discussed with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein during his forthcoming visit to Sri Lanka. He said, "It will be a Sri Lankan process with an international element, but what that means remains to be discussed and seen. It is not an international system that is being imposed on Sri Lanka." While the downplaying of the international aspect of the mechanism is going to be advantageous to the government, the fact that Sri Lanka is answerable at all to the international community on the issue of the war has the potential to be a volatile political issue within the country.

MAIN SAFEGUARD

The sudden display of "Sinha le" posters and stickers in public places, private motor vehicles including buses and three wheelers, and on social media, gives the appearance of being part of an organized political campaign that seeks to exploit nationalist emotions. The term "Sinhale" was used during the early colonial period in the 16th century to represent that part of the country that remained free of colonial rule. However, today it being given the meaning of "Sinhala blood" by being broken into two parts as "Sinha le" with the second part being depicted in red. When these words are spray painted on the properties of ethnic and religious minorities it constitutes hate speech which is prohibited in international law to which Sri Lanka is signatory. This emphasizes the need for new legislation as the "Sinhale" campaign demonstrates the law is not enforced when it is infringed by politicians, religious leaders or others with political influence. That is why specific laws have to be introduced so that these law breakers could be targeted.

It is necessary to be mindful of the aggressive campaign against the ethnic and religious minorities, in particular the Muslims in the period immediately prior to 2015 when the use of Sinhalese nationalism by the former government was high. In some instances it resulted in extreme violence where sections of towns were subjected to arson attacks. This campaign was led by Buddhist clergy belonging to the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and supported by a section of the former government, which ensured that they obtained impunity. Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other trait. However, racism and intolerance based on blood ties are not part of the Buddhist ethos. Therefore the motivating force behind the ‘Sinhale’ campaign has to be partisan politics that seeks to use narrow ethnic nationalism to its advantage.

Therefore it appears that a section of the opposition is trying to mobilize the forces of Sinhalese nationalism. The trump card that they seek to utilize is the international intervention that has come in the form of the resolution of the UN Human Rights Council to cast its shadow over the war victory which the majority of people rejoice in for having freed the country from protracted war and terrorism. However, despite the complaints against the government for its slowness, and the efforts by a section of the opposition to mobilize ethnic nationalism and hate speech, the government’s hold on power remains secure as the opposition to it has neither the numbers in Parliament nor credibility with the general population due to their own poor and unsavory track record of corruption and abuse of power when they were in government. So long as the UNP led by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and the SLFP led by President Sirisena continue to work together in the National Unity Government, the opposition is unlikely to pose a threat to them.

What Happened to the ‘Code of Ethics’ for Parliamentarians?

It is true that a Code of Ethics alone cannot correct MPs’ or Ministers’ misbehaviour. The Minsters obviously should have higher benchmarks. There should be a proper implementation mechanism and other measures and improvements. In almost all countries where there are ‘codes of ethics’ or ‘codes of conduct’ there are inside and/or outside monitoring and implementation mechanisms

by Laksiri Fernando

( January 19, 2016, Sydney, Sri Lanka Guardian) The introduction of ‘Code of Ethics for Parliamentarians’ was an election promise given by the President at the presidential elections in January 2015. This is not yet fulfilled. It is obvious that the same ethics should apply also to the President. That is a lesson. Even if we understand the circumstances under which that promise could not be fulfilled, it should not be delayed any longer.

What Happened to the ‘Code of Ethics’ for Parliamentarians by Thavam Ratna