Indigenous leader urge to protect the Vedda community

 Jan 29, 2016

Indigenous leaders in the Nilgala and Athugala area Mahabandaralage Sudha Vanniya and Dhanigala Mahabandaralage Hemapala has met speaker Karu Jayasuriya in the parliament and submitted a letter urging him to protect its indigenous identity.

The indigenous leaders handed over a collection of photograph’s belonging Mahabandara generation ancestors to the speaker.

Sinhala Fundamentalism Tries A Fast One-Once Again

By Shyamon Jayasinghe –January 29, 2016

Shyamon Jayasinghe

Writing to The Colombo Telegraph, Sharmini Serasinghe, well-known journalist, has this to say:

“It is indeed ironic and tragically hilarious, that while Sri Lanka boasts of a 2500 year-old culture, and one of the highest literacy rates in Asia (the ability to read and write), those claiming relationship to a four-legged beast (lion) today; its ‘Sinha-Le’ tribe, is unable to separate allegory and myth, from fact. After all, the ability to read and write doesn’t guarantee intelligence, common sense or wisdom, does it?

What is most hilarious is that, by claiming bloodline to a beast, they are also admitting to being subhuman, the qualities of which, they have no qualms about displaying unashamedly, in the public arena. Is this what our 2500 year-old culture has produced?”

Sharmini picks the latest searing slogan in Sri Lanka: “Sinha Le” (blood of the Sinha or lion). It is not really the latest. It is, rather an old war cry of the fundamentalist mindset.

To a people who have restricted economic opportunities around to seize and grow personally this kind of war cry does appeal from time to time. In wealthy countries like Australia individuals are too busy working in profitable ventures and seeking chances to enrich themselves and their families and trying to enjoy the good life that comes in its wake.

On the other hand, most Sri Lankans have plenty of time to waste and hang around. As prosperity grows in a country its people find their horizons widen and they tend to realise that even in a finite world there is room for everyone to practice the common social life-sustaining philosophy of “live and let live.”

                                                                               Read More

Get national priorities and values right 

by Fr. Augustine Fernando,-January 28, 2016, 9:02 pm

Diocese of Badulla

We have democratically chosen to uphold human dignity and human rights and follow a sober path of living in mutual concord, mutual forgiveness, reconciliation, justice and peace, after a fratricidal war. Yet we seem to have only begun this path of progress and advancement. While the majority of the people have clearly opted to strike out on a new path some politicians now ensconced in power seem to be hesitant and reluctant to take the decisions they very well know to be right as there are many challenges that need to be faced and obstacles to be overcome. Politicians who have lost power are happy to muddy the water further and fish in it. This is so because complete sanity has not been recovered and trust restored and not all are fully sober and calm. All do not have a long term vision of national solidarity that transcends narrow divisions. Some are self-righteous, blind and obstinately biased. They need education and enlightenment on the truth of humanness, solidarity, justice, fairness and unity in humanity and avoidance of long-drawn recrimination. The Government as a whole need to unitedly educate and persuade the people to face the bitter truths of the present state of affairs if they wish to set Sri Lanka on a path of recovery.

NO ONE IS BORN RIGHTEOUS    

No one comes into the world with an inborn righteousness. Though everyone is born with a potential capacity for reasonableness and virtuous living and even to strive towards bravery, courage and heroism, human beings are also prone to evil, even of the highest magnitude, unless the upbringing fashions a social being to mature in rhythm with the better part of humanity. Just as 1% of humanity have gained control of the resources equal to that of the rest of humanity, a few Sri Lankans too have amassed wealth to be in the company of the unmindfull rich 1%. Evidently this highly lop-sided human situation is a phenomenon of not only injustice and extremely unfair distribution of wealth, it is a result of ignorance based on an under-developed and indifferent social consciousness. This type of consciousness leaves the well-to-do smugly self-satisfied. It is a situation that calls for rethinking and reordering the fundamentals of human living on the planet earth which has to be immediately attended to by nation builders and statesmen who look on humanity as a whole, assisted by economists, sociologists, community and religious leaders, if humanity is not to face a desperate blind alley with unimaginable consequences.

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The Embilipitiya death, GSP Plus and a challenge for Yahapalanaya

Photo courtesy News1st

• by Harim Peiris 
• - on 01/29/2016 

Sumith Prassana Jayawardena would not normally be a household name. But his sudden and violent death in Embilipitiya following an altercation and clash between guests and the Police at a social function, has become an issue of national interest and indicates the challenges of implementing Yahapalanaya. The story line in Embilipitiya is not unfamiliar in Sri Lanka. There is a clash between citizens and agents of the state, a citizen (or citizens) dies and life goes on. Occasionally as in Embilipitiya, as with Weliveriya and the Free Trade Zone, before this, there is a social outcry for justice, multiple investigations are launched until public attentions drifts and nothing comes out of it. The “Trinco Five” and the Prageeth Eknaligoda case are different because they seem prima facie to be abduction and murder and both are now before the Magistrates Courts, the former proceeding much slower, than the later.

However these issues come at a time, domestically and internationally when the status quo of a culture of impunity, is being challenged and is due for a change. Domestically the election of President Maithripala Sirisena in January last year and the subsequent election of Ranil Wickramasinghe as Prime Minister on a platform of good governance and state sector (as well as economic) reform means, that there is a serious reconsideration of the nature of governance of the country. Basically post the war, the Mahinda Rajapakse Administration continued to govern Sri Lanka, as if a war was still on, with the same mindset, the same restriction on civil liberties, the same ethnic polarization and the same primacy or mantra of national security above all else. It was a formulae that wore thin among a majority of Sri Lankans, despite heated nationalist rhetoric as the election results of January and August, last year bear out.

Another fundamental difference since August last year, has been the establishment of the Independent Commissions, including the Independent Human Rights and Police Commissions. These two institutions have already started to act genuinely independent of the Executive and the difference from the Rajapakse years, is that there is no overt or covert pressure on them to white wash wrongs and sweep things under the carpet. Accordingly Independent Institutions, often now headed and staffed by civil society actors and those who genuinely believe and are committed to the principles of good governance and institutional reform are holding the executive branch including law enforcement and the security establishment to account. What state agents are finding is that the usual political pressure brought upon independent institutions to back off, beyond the farcical charade required to demonstrate some actions for international and domestic consumption, is missing this time.

                      Continue Reading →

Cases to be filed against Gnanassara henchmen too – Bar Association takes action

(Lanka-e-News-28.Jan.2016, 11.30PM) It is not only Galagodaathe Gnanassara who was remanded yesterday on charges of committing contempt of court after the Ekneliyagoda case was concluded , even action is to be taken against the Gnanassara robed henchmen ‘Henchasaras’ who  broke into the court when Gnanassara was brought to court , and forcibly removed the official  cap of the policeman based  on  contempt of court  charges . The SL Bar association is making preparations to file action against them too.

Under charges of contempt of court , the magistrate court as well as the appeal court can hear the trial . In the magistrate court the sentence if found guilty is , 6 months rigorous imprisonment (RI) and a fine , or  in the Appeal court the sentence can be 7 years RI plus a fine.

In the circumstances, the true peace loving Buddhists who are ashamed beyond measure at the conduct of Gnanassara and his Henchassaras who are disgracing Buddhism despite being monks wearing the saffron robes, are demanding in one voice that they must be meted out the maximum punishment , so that it will deter and daunt other misled monks too  who are following in their footsteps .

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by     (2016-01-28 23:30:26)

Gnanasara Should Not Be Allowed To Gain Martyr Status

By Harishchandra Lokumanna –January 29, 2016

Harishchandra Lokumanna

After hypocritical rounds of cries about the supremacy of Sinha Ley and displays of ‘Sinhala flags denoting unfounded patriotism, the Nation has now been given the next dose of entertainment – Arrest of Gnanasara and the unruly behaviour of so called ruffians in saffron clothing. In fact, this is not the first time where he has been taking both Buddhists in particular and Sri Lankans in general on a jolly good ride into make them believe as if he is some sort of born again reformist working to protect the interests of this country. Neither will this be the last, knowing his desire to a ‘card board martyr’ to a pseudo cause. Gnanasara ( Apologize! I hesitate to use ‘Prefix ‘Ven’ as I do not consider him as a Buddhist monk) after the infamousAluthgama attack said that what he follows is Sinhala Buddhism, and not Buddhism, exposing his actual personality and reinforcing the view that Sinhala Buddhism since Independence has mostly taken a violent direction.

In this instance in Homagama Courts, the only good indication was that it has nothing to do with his oft repeated racist outbursts against Muslims. It was a ‘home and home’ match where he once again displayed his nasty and foul mouthed verbal diarrhoea, this time within the 4 walls of a court of justice and desecrated the course of justice, when the case of an abducted person Prageeth Ekneligoda was taken up for hearing. He also insulted a woman too (Prajeeth’s wife), in very disparaging terms, which further speaks of his low bred character ( in ordinary parlance, Sinhalese people call such characters who show their macho powers to women by various names).

It is no secret that ISIS has always been an embarrassment to Muslims in general whether in ME or elsewhere in view of the fact that they try to hide behind Islam and its’ teachings hypocritically and distorting its’ true message, in order to justify their disgusting violent conduct. The same applies to Gnanasara and his group of hooligans too , who also hide behind their yellow robes to break the law, disrespect the process of law and even to violate basic norms of civility and acceptable behaviour in a society. In the case of Gnanasara, his behaviour has been light years from what can be called Buddhist conduct as we have seen from his drunken behaviour not only in Sri Lanka in the streets, offices and meetings , but even from the recent video about his drunken dance in Japan as well.                                                          Read More

Sand removed from ASP’s swimming poolf

2016-01-29The sand placed in the swimming pool at Sri Lanka Labour Party Leader and Businessman A.S.P. Liyanage’s residence in Rajagiriya was removed this morning under the supervision of Colombo Crime Division (CCD) Chief Vijith Gunaratne and the Rajagiriya Police.

Mr. Liyanage had on an earlier occasion complained to the police about reports that gold and cash bags were hidden under sand.
 He requested the IGP to investigate whether former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had hidden the gold and cash packed in polythene bags before placing them in the swimming pool. However, no gold or cash bags were found from the pool today.

Mafia bosses caught in Italian police raid on mountain hideout

Giuseppe Ferraro and Giuseppe Crea, members of ‘Ndrangheta organised crime group, discovered ‘living like animals’

Police arrest a man during the anti-Mafia operation near the town of Maropati in the Reggio Calabria region of southern Italy. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Agence France-Presse in Rome-Friday 29 January 2016

Italian anti-mafia police have caught two fugitive mobster bosses after discovering them “living like animals” in a mountain hideout stocked with an arsenal of weapons.

Giuseppe Ferraro, 47, and Giuseppe Crea, 37, both high-ranking members of the ’Ndrangheta organised crime group, had been on Italy’s list of most dangerous fugitives, police said.

Ferraro, found guilty in absentia of a string of brutal murders and described by the police as extremely dangerous, had been on the run for 18 years. Crea, wanted for mafia association and extortion, disappeared 10 years ago.

Ferraro’s clan is also believed to have been involved in the gunning down of a rival boss, Domenico 

Bonarrigo, in a turf war. Bonarrigo’s men got revenge by feeding the suspected gunman, Francesco Raccosta, alive to pigs in 2013.

 Police said the two men were living in a concrete bunker hidden by bushes and trees. Photograph: EPA

“They were living in a concrete bunker hidden by dense bushes and trees,” said the prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho, describing the hideout in the mountains near the town of Maropati, in the Reggio Calabria region of southern Italy.

Maropati was founded in the 10th century after being used as a hideout by those fleeing Saracen pirates on the coast.

“They were living like animals, a cold life cut off from society,” but with enough contact with the underworld to rule on gang matters when necessary, De Raho told a press conference. Police raiding the bunker found a submachine gun as well as a collection of rifles and pistols hung on the wall.

The men were “still actively managing the clan’s affairs and had a military control over the territory,” said Rosy Bindi, head of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission.

Crea is suspected of having gunned down Francesco Inzitari, the teenage son of a rival, in 2009. The murder returned to the headlines in 2014 after Italy’s L’Espresso magazine claimed that Inzitari’s killer was known to a local priest who worked as a spy for the Vatican’s secret services.

Arms found during the anti-mafia operation in Maropati. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

“Now that the territory has been freed of these two dangerous fugitives, I invite people to come forward and collaborate to throw light on their crimes, like the murder of Francesco Inzitari,” De Raho said.

Photographs released by the police showed one of the men in a black jumper and brown fleece at the moment of his arrest, with boxes of cherry tomatoes and a flask visible next to the kitchen sink behind him.

Life had become increasingly difficult for the pair since June last year, when a police crackdown severely weakened the network of clan members helping them survive in the woods, investigators said.

The ’Ndrangheta is credited with controlling much of the world’s cocaine trade. Police describe the group as the most active, richest and most powerful syndicate in Europe.

“Today is another great day for the country, because today justice once again has won, and done so impressively,” Italy’s justice minister, Angelino Alfano, said in a statement

Syrian opposition to send delegates to Geneva talks 

Leading Syrian opposition delegation will send a team to Geneva, but not immediately clear if group will participate in negotiations

Riad Hijab, head of the Syrian opposition negotiating committee, earlier this month (AFP)

Friday 29 January 2016

Syria's largest mainstream opposition group said on Friday it would attend UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva, a senior delegate told AFP after four days of discussions in Riyadh.

The delegate said the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC) will send "about 30, 35 people" in all to the Geneva talks, which got underway on Friday. 

Over the past four days, HNC delegates have been in negotiations in Riyadh deciding whether to attend the UN-led talks. 

On Wednesday night, Riad Hijab, head of the HNC, had indicated to reporters that the delegation would not attend the talks until an agreement was reached to allow aid to enter Syrian towns where at least a milion people are currently undersiege. 

A UN resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in 2014 gives international aid agencies the right to access besieged areas in Syria without permission of the Syrian government, and the delegation has been asking for the international community to implement the resolution head of joining the talks.

Late on Thursday, Asaad al-Zoabi, head of the HNC delegation, told Sky News Arabia that the opposition had received the guarantees it sought for an end to bombardment of civilians, and aid access to besieged areas.

Those guarantees came from the United States and Saudi Arabia, Zoabi said, adding the delegation would arrive Saturday evening or Sunday morning.

In a tweet, however, the HNC said it would not be taking part in actual peace negotiations in the Swiss city. 

"HNC confirms it is coming to #Genevaiii to participate in discussions with the @UN, not for negotiations," the tweet said.

HNC coordinator Riad Hijab was to issue a statement on the decision, which came after Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir met with them on Friday evening.

Fuad Aliko, who is due to represent the HNC if it formally takes part in the talks, said earlier on Friday that only a small delegation would travel to the Swiss capital.

"A media delegation from the HNC has decided to go to Geneva," adding that it would be made up of three HNC members who also serve as the group's spokesmen.

But the other delegate said all of the Committee would travel to Switzerland. 

British and US intelligence 'hacked into Israeli drones'

The Israeli Super Heron drone Photo: Rex

By Raf Sanchez, Jerusalem-29 Jan 2016

GCHQ and the NSA 'watched in real time' as Israel bombed Gaza and monitored for any sign of any Israeli attack against Iran, according to reports

British and US intelligence hacked Israeli drones' video feeds, allowing them to watch in real time as Israel bombed Gaza and spied on Syria, according to documents leaked by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.

GCHQ and its US counterpart, the NSA, also monitored the drone footage in the hope of getting an early warning if Israel was attacking Iran's nuclear facilities.

An Israeli soldier with a drone during a military operation to search for three missing Israeli teenagers in 2014  Photo: EPA

The revelations, reported by The Intercept, are the latest in a series of examples of how the US and Israel profess friendship in public but also spy intensively on each other.

They may heighten tensions between the two countries, which are already at odds over the Iranian nuclear deal and Israel's settlement policy in the occupied West Bank.

The hacking programme, codenamed Anarchist, also appears to confirm a badly kept secret: that Israeli drones carry missiles and are used in lethal strikes.

Israel has never publicly confirmed it has armed drones but the footageappears to show a Heron drone, one of the world's largest unmanned aircraft, carrying missiles.

Britain, the US and Pakistan are the only other countries thought to have carried out deadly drone strikes.

The data for the hacking programme was collected by a GCHQ monitoring station at RAF Troodos in the mountains Cyprus. The base is only around 200 miles from the coast of Israel.

An Israeli Heron TP surveillance drone  Photo: AFP or licensors
The hacked feeds were then monitored at RAF Menwith Hill, an NSA base in North Yorkshire, according to the Intercept.

In at least one instance, the hackers were able to access the feed of a manned Israel F-16 fighter jet. The interception was made in January 2008, as Israel exchanged fire in Gaza with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.

A GCHQ report said the move allowed Britain and the US to monitor one of the world's most volatile regions in real-time.

“In times of crisis this access is critical and one of the only avenues to provide up to the minute information and support to US and Allied operations in the area.”

The US and UK appear to have monitored Israeli drones during the 2008-2009 Gaza War, in which 13 Israelis and more than a thousand Palestinians were killed.


A Super Heron HF drone, manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd, is displayed at the 2015 International Paris Air Show in Paris  Photo: Bloomberg Finance

The hackers were also tasked with accessing Israeli drones flying over the Golan Heights but also unmanned aircraft belonging to the Syria regime.

In one case in early 2012, the Anarchist hackers got footage from an Iranian-made drone operated by the Assad regime. An accompanying US document says there was "Presidential level interest" in the intercept.

British and American military planners were deeply concerned that Israel might carry out a unilateral strike against Iran's nuclear programmes and saw the hacking programme as a way to get an early warning.

“Our ability to collect and track and report this activity is important for the initial detection and tip-off for any potential pre-emptive or retaliatory strike against Iran,” according to one GCHQ document.
The Foreign Office declined to comment. Israel's foreign ministry declined to comment.

Survival Day Australia's Dark Secrets and Dishonest Politics

By John Pilger Australia is a version of apartheid South Africa? Ask a black South African who has looked behind the facades. On 26 January 2016, John Pilger spoke at a rally at Sydney Town Hall on the hidden meaning of 'Survival Day'. Why are we here? Why are we doing this every 26th January - year after year? Of course, we know why - Indigenous people are saying to Australia: 'Look, we are still here. We have survived the massacres and the cynicism. We have survived.' But is that enough, I wonder? Is survival without action ever enough? The sources of power in Australia - especially political and media power -- draw both comfort and delusion from the very idea of Survival Day. Yes, yes, they say, we understand. We have a place for you on the great Australian facade, next to Qantas and Anzac and Fair Go. Their delusion is that as long as Indigenous people have a token role in the theatre of Australia Day, then all is well. As long as there's a bit of dancing and a smoking ceremony down by the Harbour Bridge, then all is well. Societies like Australia - with dark secrets and dishonest politics - feed off image and tokenism. They admire their own image of gormless, unthinking patriotism, while secretly admiring their capacity to silence and divert dissent and to control and co-opt people and never to change. It's a clever system of divisiveness. How does it work? Take the idea of 'reconciliation'. It sounds good, but what does it mean? What is there to reconcile between oppression and suffering, poverty and privilege? Does it include 'justice'? Of course not. Reconciliation is to make the majority feel good with symbolic gestures and symbolic speeches. Nothing more. Is this acceptable to us, here today? Is this acceptable to those of us who know that Australia is a version of apartheid South Africa? Ask a black South African who has looked behind the facades. Is the idea of Survival Day enough for the young Indigenous men who die before they reach the age of 40? Is it enough for those who succumb to terrible sadness and violence in prison and police custody? Is it enough for a 22-year-old Indigenous woman from Western Australia - her name was Ms. Dhu - who died in custody and who was laughed at by police officers as she lay in her own vomit? Is it enough for the children who go deaf and blind from diseases of poverty? Is it enough for the hundreds of families who are raided in the early morning and their children stolen from them? The Australia Day banners out there in George Street, Sydney, tell us to: Chill. Enjoy. Reflect. I would add another banner, blood-red in colour, on which is printed the following: 'No country since apartheid South Africa has been more condemned by the UN for its racism than Australia.' It's time to tear down the facades. The image is a lie. No other settler nation has done so little to come to terms with its indigenous people. No other settler nation has done so little to discharge the colonial mentality that imprisons all of us in the past. What I find especially tragic is the unspoken fear instilled into the tiny Indigenous educated class. This fear says that that, unless they wave the flag, however defensively, they'll be dropped off the bus of white privilege. For until a moral and legal treaty is signed with the first nations of this country, there'll be only pockets of privilege, and no justice whatsoever. By treaty, I mean an historic series of laws that return to Indigenous people power over their own lives and communities, and a rightful share of the vast wealth of Australia... a treaty that carries the legal obligation of education and housing and health care. And this will happen only if every day is not just survival day, but a day of action. Direct action. The kind of direct action that horrifies the media that guards a system of divide and rule. Above all, you must not be afraid. Direct action is the only reason we have certain freedoms in Australia. Read the high court judgement of Lionel Murphy, the great reformer and jurist, who in 1982 said that Aboriginal people had every right to fight back. Murphy quoted Oscar Wilde that without what he called "agitation" - direct action - "there would be no advance towards civilisation." It's up to you how you take action. But you must do it. There is no alternative now. One thing is absolutely certain: no matter how many flags are waved today, until Indigenous Australia can take back its nationhood, the rest of us can never claim our own. Follow John Pilger on twitter @johnpilger

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Freedom by the Numbers

Freedom House’s index of freedom in the world is flawed — but the story it tells is indispensable.

BY ILYA LOZOVSKY-JANUARY 29, 2016

It’s January, which means we’ve just learned that freedom around the world is declining. This — for the tenth year in a row — is the conclusion of an annual report released earlier this week by Freedom House, the venerable human rights and democracy organization. Freedom lost ground in 72 countries in 2015, the report somberly concludes. This is the largest such number over this gloomy ten-year period, during which the percentage of the world’s population that lives in “free” countries declined from 46 to 40 percent.

These annual “Freedom in the World” reports, which describe and numerically rate the state of freedom in every country on earth, inevitably generate buzz, and this year will be no exception. And it’s not just the media. Ministers, diplomats, Washington policymakers, U.N. bureaucrats, and other international wheelers and dealers will be paying close attention. There’s little doubt that diplomatic cables reporting the latest scores are already flying — and in some capitals (I’m looking at you, Budapest) you can almost hear the gnashing of teeth.

In spite of all this commotion, the ivory tower regards the exercise with a mixture of skepticism and exasperation. Over the last decade, political scientists have produced a wealth of literature documenting the annual reports’ biases and methodological problems. Their conceptual basis is flawed; the data collection is opaque; the results are overly simplified; Freedom House has a neo-liberal bias. Jay Ulfelder, a political scientist and independent consultant, has convincingly disputed Freedom House’s overall findings — that freedom in the world is steadily declining — for two years in a row.

And yet, flawed as they may be, Freedom House’s ratings still matter. They are a crucial tool for pro-democracy activists. They drive dictators crazy. And, perhaps most important of all, they get worldwide attention. The reason is simple: Unlike the number crunchers, Freedom House knows how to tell a story. And in the world of international human rights advocacy, one good story is worth a thousand finely tuned disaggregated indicators.

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The Davos Blind Eye: How the Rich Eat the Poor and the World

The Big Lies

by Prof. John McMurtry

Courtesy: Global Research

( January 28, 2016, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) The just-released Oxfam Davos Report which the mass media have ignored arrestingly shows that 62 individuals – 388 in 2010 – now own more wealth than 50% of the world’s population. More shockingly, it reports from its uncontested public sources that this share of wealth by half of the world’s people has collapsed by over 40% in just the last five years.

Yet the big lies persist even here that “the progress has been made in tackling world poverty” and “extreme poverty has been halved since 1990”.

Reversing Undeniable Fact as Ultimate Justification

Unbelievably, the endlessly repeated assertion of the form that ‘the poor are being lifted out of poverty in ever greater numbers’ continues on untouched despite the hard evidence that, in fact, the poorer half of humanity has lost almost half of their wealth in just the last five years.

This big lie is significant in its implications. For not only is a pervasive claim about the success of globalization undeniably falsified while no-one notices it. Basic market theory and dogma collapses as a result. What is daily claimed as an infallible benefit of the global market is shown to be the opposite of reality. What does it mean for “trickle-down theory” when, in truth, the trickle down goes up in hundreds of billions of dollars to the rich from the already poor and destitute?

What can we say now of the tirelessly proclaimed doctrine that the global market brings “more wealth for all” when, in fact, unimpeachable business evidence shows the opposite reality on the ground and across the world. For the poor have undeniably lost almost half their share of global wealth while the richest have multiplied theirs at the same time.

The evidence proves, in short, that the main moral and economic claims justifying the global market are very big lies becoming bigger all the time.

Worse than delusional, the lived reality of impoverishment of billions of people is reversed, the victims are continually proclaimed to be doing better under the system that increasingly deprives them of what little they have, and a trillion dollars worth of loss to the poorer half of humanity ends up in the pockets of the rich within only five years.

While the ever bigger lies go on justifying the global system that eats the poor alive as “poverty amelioration”, ever more of the same policies of accumulation by dispossession justify still more stripping of the majority as more “austerity”, more “welfare cuts”, and more “labor flexibility” – in a word, more starvation and depredation of people’s lives and life conditions as “more freedom and prosperity for all”.

The Statistical Shell Game that Masks the Life-Devouring Reality

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Pollution: Is China’s air getting better or worse?

Awoman wears a mask as she visits Tiananmen Gate during a blue sky day in Beijing. Average concentrations of air particulates in 189 Chinese cities fell by 10 percent in 2015, according to a new Greenpeace report. Pic: AP.

by Graham Land-

29th January 2016 

IN mid-2014 China announced a series of pollution-fighting measures designed to improve air quality and lower greenhouse gas emissions. It would invest in clean energy and green tech and promised to US$275 billion towards improving air quality over a five-year period.

The benefits of these new rules would be manifold:

• Starting in 2015, banning the burning of the dirtiest coal would significantly reduce harmful sulfur and ash.

• Lower levels of mercury, arsenic, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur, ozone and nitrogen oxide emitted in China means lower levels in oceans and other countries. Up to 30 percent of these pollutants produced in China end up in the United States.

• If the world’s largest aggregate emitter of greenhouse gases cuts its output, it would have the most significant positive global impact of any single country.

• People in China’s industrial areas, as well as in nearby South Korea, would suffer less fromstrokes, heart attacks and respiratory diseases due to air pollution.

• China’s tourism economy, harmed by pollution, would improve as visitors flock to the country’s many amazing attractions, without the worry of getting sick from smog.

• A healthier working population would cost less in terms of medical care and take less sick days, thereby producing more.

What are the results of China’s anti-pollution measures so far?

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Sustainable Tech @SustainTechRR

Is China Burning Less Coal? : Greentech Mediahttp://www.rightrelevance.com/search/articles/hero?article=d3fc11b420eabaaabc36cbaa8fed769885395627&query=sustainable%20technology&taccount=sustaintechrr …

6:38 PM - 21 Sep 2015

According to China’s official state statistical agency, CO2 emissions probably fell in 2015 by around 3 percent. This is likely due to a decrease in heavy industry and a trend towards renewable energy.

While reducing greenhouse gas emissions isn’t exactly the same as reducing air pollution, there is significant crossover and the two are inextricably linked. Naturally, as China’s CO2 emissions are falling, so is pollution. Air particulate concentration fell by 10 percent in 189 cities last year, according to Greenpeace.

Yet how much does all this have to do with the slowing of China’s economy, rather than anti-pollution measures and a transition towards greener energy?

China’s economy grew less last year than it has in the last 25 years — but it still grew, meaning a country’s emissions can fall while its economy grows.

Jiang Kejun of the People’s Republic of China’s economic planning body, the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, is quoted in Scientific American:

“Our previous expectation was that China would peak its emissions before 2025. But now we are confident that the emissions peak would arrive somewhere between 2020 and 2022.”

Reactions: Could China be fudging the facts?

While Greenpeace hailed China’s official statistics regarding falling emissions, there is also skepticism about how accurate they can be.

A 2013 Chinese government audit showed that hundreds of electricity firms had provided false data on their emissions. Indeed, the main barrier to cleaning up China’s air and reducing its emissions hasn’t necessarily been policy, but rather a proper enforcement of policy.

A Reuters report quotes an unnamed manager of a state-owned power company:

“There is no guarantee of avoiding under-reporting (of emissions) at local plants located far away from supervisory bodies. Coal data is very fuzzy.”

An uphill battle

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Is China's Solar Energy Business Not-for-Profit? [VIDEO] panel of experts at Greentech ... - http://alternativeenergy.com.pk/international-news/is-chinas-solar-energy-business-not-for-profit-video-panel-of-experts-at-greentech-medias-solar-summit/ …

3:46 AM - 1 May 2013

Lately China has been cracking down on violators by creating stiffer penalties, including threatening to close coal plants that were inefficient, while increasing payments to those that upgrade their facilities.

However, according to China’s Environment Ministry, as recent as December, a “minority of firms” was still falsifying data on their emissions.

Let’s hope that China’s policies continue to impact pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and that their proper enforcement is stepped up, leading to a cleaner, greener PRC.