SRILANKA’S AIRLINE LOSSES ARE BIGGER THAN THE SPENDING ON HEALTH OR EDUCATION

24/03/2016

CONOMYNEXT – Colossal losses that state-run SriLankan Airlines was made to suffer since ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa chased away Emirates Airlines, and a questionable aircraft deal, is a national financial crime, Deputy Minister Eran Wickramaratne said.

SriLankan Airlines, which made profit of 4.4 billion rupees in 2008, the year in which the management agreement with Emirates Airlines ended, has lost 107 billion rupees since, then.

The Rajapaksa administration had cancelled the visa of then Chief Executive Peter Hill because he did not bump enough paying passengers to accommodate a large entourage of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a single aircraft, he said.

“The CEO had said ‘We should not offload all these passengers since they are citizens and they are paying passengers where there is a contract’,” Wickramaratne told parliament.

“The next day his visa was cancelled in 2007.”

Emirates exited the airline after 2008 sold their 40 percent shares to the government.

National Crime

“From then on it became a loss-making airline. It made colossal losses. Its losses are bigger than the spending on health or education.”

“This is a national crime. We may get a benefit when we travel on SriLankan but every citizen pays. When they buy even a small item from a shop that tax is used to cover the cost of these flights.

“Is this fair? That is what I am asking.”

In 1998, the then administration of Chandrika Kumaratunga had decided to sell 40 percent of the equity of SriLankan and give management to Emirates after it suffered years of losses.

“This was a good decision. I must say this even if it was done by a different administration.”

Wickramaratne said an idea was spread that the companies should be state-owned and that they should be kept going at whatever cost and people were shown beautiful aircraft with the national flag flying.

“But it actual fact there are more debts than assets behind those aircraft,” he said.

Hole in balance sheet

By 2015 accumulated losses of 128 billion rupees, debt of 76 billion rupees (542 million dollars) and a hole in its balance sheet of 74 billion rupees.

The hole in the balance sheet would have been bigger if not for capital injections by the Treasury from taxes collected from the people.

“Airlines are a competitive business, it is not a monopoly like Ceylon Electricity Board,” Wickramaratne said.

“When people travel abroad, it can be our sister or our mother they have to count the rupees. If some other airlines offers them a better price, they will take it. That is the truth.”

Ultimately losses have to borne by people who pay taxes when they buy everyday goods, he said.

Its staff which was 5,113 in 2008, had been increased to 6,987 by 2015 increasing operating costs.

“We (parliamentarians) are asked to give jobs. I am also a parliamentarian. But we have to think of the country before ourselves,” Wickramaratne said.

“What happened here? The staff went up by 30 percent. There are about 300 workers to every aircraft. These aircraft do not even have that many seats. Many have only about 140 seats.”

Financial Crime

Sri Lankan Airlines had been given 100 million dollars each year to cover losses by the Treasury.

SriLankan’s management had then decided to buy A330 and A350 aircraft in a reckless manner, he charged.

The Airbus A350-900s aircraft were made to travel 17 hours at a stretch, when the longest direct flight was about 11 hours.

The final board decision to buy the aircraft had been made at the residence of the Speaker (who was President Rajapaksa’s brother) in the absence of three directors.

The Chairman of SriLankan was President Rajapaksa’s brother-in-law.

“This is not connected to the Speaker. I am not saying the Speaker was connected to this matter, but the meeting should not have been held there,” Wickramaratne said.

“There is a suspicion why the board meeting was held at place like this. Who else was there?

He said according to documents 780 million dollars in government support was needed in the three years after acquisition.  An 80 million dollar deposit had been paid.

“Aviation experts have told us that the lease contract terms are 25 percent more expensive than normal and it needs to be looked into.

“The present value of the lease liability over the next 12 years is 1.5 billion US dollars.

“This is a financial crime. We have to investigate this. (Colombo/Mar24/2016 – Update III)

(Original Caption: Colossal SriLankan Airlines losses, Airbus deal, a financial crime: Minister)
EconomyNext

Buddha Sasana faced with threats from 

within - PM 

March 23, 2016, 10:07 pm

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, on Wednesday, said that the biggest threat the Buddha Sasana was faced with came from within.

PM Wickremesinghe was addressing a gathering after unveiling newly built Buddha statue at Hiddelana Sri Maha Viharaya, Ratnapura

Praising the conduct of Ven. Indrarathana Thera of Hiddelana Sri Maha Viharaya, PM Wickremesinghe said there had been no allegations that the Nayake Thera had sold elephants to other monks. Ven. Indrarathana hadn’t been accused of using state power to take over temples in Colombo, PM Wickremesinghe said, adding that he was not a monk who had obtained money from gem dealers. "He has led an exemplary life as a true Buddhist," PM Wickremesinghe said, adding that Ven. Indrarathana, the President and others, including him, did not apply cream bought from the UK and France.

The appointment of an individual with allegations of examination fraud against her to the Director General post of the National Institute of Education

(Lanka-e-News -24.March.2016, 6.30PM) The Anti Corruption Front expresses regret over the sudden removal of Prof.  Gunapala Nanayakkara from the post of the Director General of the National Institute of Education, during a press briefing held by ACF chairman Ven. Ulapone Sumangala Thera.  

Prof. Nanayakkara came to Sri Lanka at a time when he was employed for a very high salary at the National Education Development Institute in Ottawa, Canada as its Head, with the aim of doing a service to/for the country's education. 

For the vacancy created by the removal of Prof. Gunapala Nanayakkara, Jayanthi Gunasekera has been appointed as the Director General.

During the time in which Jayanthi Gunasekera served as the National Institute of Education's Deputy Director General and the Vice-Chairperson of the National Education Commission, various allegations were leveled against her. The Anti-Corruption Front expresses displeasure over the appointment of such an individual by the present Government to the post of the Director General of the National Institute of Education.

At the time when she was being appointed to the National Education Commission, there was an allegation leveled against her that she was involved in an examination fraud with regards to the final Master of Education test conducted by the National Institute of Education. With regards to this, with the approval of the National Institute of Education, a three-member committee conducted a basic, initial inquiry into the matter. The investigation revealed that the examination papers of the final Master of Education test for the years 2010/2011 had been leaked in prior/beforehand. Thereby, it was proved that a female candidate who was expecting to be a teacher but had sat for the said exam in a previous year and had failed, was given the examination paper in prior and a prepared answer paper had been included in the file with the answered examination papers and had been subsequently given marks.

As per the recommendations made in the basic, initial investigation report put out by the three-member committee appointed to look into the said examination fraud, several persons involved were suspended from work. 

Jayanthi Gunasekera was in charge of the setting of the examination papers concerning this problematic examination. The investigation report revealed that she had given and presented false information with regards to the examination papers being leaked. The report outlines details that there is suspicion regarding her role in the matter.

Further investigations in order to uncover details with regards to the examination fraud were to be conducted and further action was scheduled to be taken and pertaining to this a complaint had been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department through the Inspector General of Police. The Criminal Investigation Department had conducted the said investigations.

Jayanthi Gunasekera during the period in which she was employed at the National Institute of Education had gone overseas to study for a Doctor of Philosophy degree. For this she was abroad for three years. Even though she had obtained the approval of the Ministry of Education to go abroad on an unpaid basis, she had not obtained the Ministry's approval when she came back and started receiving her salary. The Ministry conducted an inquiry about her having obtained a salary for the period during which she was to be on an unpaid basis. The Ministry concluded that the officials who approved of the payment of the salary were the ones to be held responsible. 

It is problematic that the incumbent yahapalana (good governance) Government is appointing a female officer who has had such allegations leveled against her to a top position in an institution related to education. It is the Anti-Corruption Front's belief that urgent attention must be paid in this regard and the necessary actions, steps and measures be taken.

By The Anti-Corruption Front

---------------------------
by     (2016-03-24 13:23:08)

Dhammika Ranatunga granted bail



March 24, 2016
The Chairman of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) Dhammika Ranatunga has been granted bail by the Colombo Magistrate’s Court in connection with the case filed against him for allegedly intimidating journalists. 

Colombo Chief Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya ordered that the defendant be released on two personal bails of Rs 100,000 each and also severely warned him.  

Ranatunga, who is the brother of Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranatunga, was caught on camera allegedly threatening media personnel at the Colombo High Court premises when the bail application of former CEO of CSN television channel Nishantha Ranatunga was taken up on March 16. 

Dhammika Ranatunga had threatened several journalists who were at the court premises to cover the case and even captured the faces the journalists present using his mobile phone.  

  A complaint was lodged with Keselwatta Police on the same day accusing the SLPA chairman of verbally abusing and threatening the journalists from electronic media who were recording video footage of the former arriving at the court. 
 The following day court notice issued on the SLPA Chairman to appear in court while on March 18 he had reported to the Keselwatte Police station along with his lawyer and undertaken to appear before court today (March 24). 

Who Is Winning The ‘War On Terrorism’?

By Amer Ali –March 24, 2016

Dr. Ameer Ali

David Kilgullen, an Australian expert on counterinsurgency and military strategy, after surveying the fifteen-year vicissitudes of the so called War on Terror was more than candid when he concluded his latest book, Blood Year: Islamic State and the Failures of War on Terror, Black Inc., UK, 2016, with the following words: “No amount of high-tech weaponry will help, because the problem isn’t one of technology or intellect, but of character and will, and the harsh reality is that you can’t win without fighting. The Islamic State understands that; so do the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Do we?”

The IS attack on Brussels is the latest of that criminal state’s destructive agenda and once again IS has succeeded in distracting the Western powers to spend their time, resources and energy in upgrading and tightening domestic security while continuing with their half-hearted measures to fight IS on its own turf.

The main target of IS is not Europe or America, UK or Australia but Iraq and Syria, two countries that have fallen into the hands of the Shiah who are only fifteen per cent of world Muslim population. The political implications of this sectarian dynamics in the Middle East are largely being forgotten in the current debates over War on Terrorism.

Photo – The three men captured on CCTV camera at Brussels airport, who are believed to have been identified, and went on to carry out the attacks

When the British created Iraq from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire they deliberately installed in 1921 a Sunni Muslim, King Faisal, to rule over the Shia majority – just as they chose a Hindu to rule over the Muslim majority Kashmir in India in 1846. Sunni rule over the Shia majority continued in Iraq until it was reversed after the U.S. invasion in 2003 and subsequent withdrawal in 2007-8. IS is now fighting to bring Iraq back under Sunni rule.

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VIDEO: Israeli soldier 'executes' injured Palestinian after stab attack

Footage released by rights group B'Tselem shows soldier shooting wounded man in head after attempted stabbing in Hebron


A still from the B'Tselem video, which the Israeli human rights group said showed a wounded Palestinian man being shot in the head (YouTube)

WARNING: Video contains graphic footage.

Sheren Khalel-Thursday 24 March 2016

Bethlehem, occupied West Bank -  The Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem on Thursday released video which it said showed an Israeli soldier "assassinating" an injured Palestinian as he lay in the road after an alleged stabbing attempt in the West Bank city of Hebron.

The shooting on Thursday morning of the injured man followed an attack by two Palestinians on an Israeli solider. The Israeli was injured in the shoulder, and both Palestinians were shot, one of whom died.

The video shows the injured Palestinian, named as Abed al-Fatah a-Sharif, lying injured on the ground for nearly two minutes as medics attend to the injured soldier.

Then an Israeli soldier, surrounded by dozens of others, lifts his gun and shoots the 21-year-old Sharif in the head.

The soldier can clearly be heard cocking his weapon before the shot is heard.

Dozens of other Israeli soldiers, medics and settlers do not seem to respond to the execution.

“The incident happens in the plain view of many other soldiers and officers, who do not not seem to take any notice,” B’Tselem said in a statement.

The video was taken by Emad abu-Shamsiyah, a B’Tselem member.

A witness told local Palestinian news agency Maan that the two Palestinians were left dead and covered in black plastic for more than half an hour before being taken to an “unknown" location.

An Israeli army spokesman told MEE that the soldier who shot the injured Palestinian had been detained by military police.

“We see it as a grave breach of the [Israeli army] conduct and standard military operations,” the spokesman said, adding that the investigation began “prior to the surfacing of the video”.

The Israeli soldier cocks his gun before shooting the injured Palestinian

Issa Amro, a resident of Hebron and leader of Youth Against Settlements activist group, told MEE that the incident amounted to "a war crime and an extrajudicial execution".

“I was not surprised when I saw the video... it’s not the first time, it’s just the first time that it was caught clearly on video. We know this happens often,” Amro said.

In October, at the start of the current wave of upheaval sweeping through the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, Amnesty International called on Israel to end its “pattern of unlawful killings”.

The group accused Israeli forces of committing “extrajudicial killings” against Palestinians.

“There is mounting evidence that, as tensions have risen dramatically, in some cases Israeli forces appear to have ripped up the rulebook and resorted to extreme and unlawful measures,” said Philip Luther, 

Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

“They seem increasingly prone to using lethal force against anyone they perceive as posing a threat, without ensuring that the threat is real,” he added.

The Israeli defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, said his country would treat the shooting with "utmost severity".

Clowning away fear and anxiety

Gaza’s clown doctors during a recent visit with young patients. (Courtesy Clown Doctors Team)

Hamza Abu Eltarabesh-23 March 2016

It’s not unusual to pass a ward at the Abdelaziz al-Rantisi pediatric hospital in the center of Gaza City and hear the trill of a child’s laughter.

It is a welcome sound in a place that is too often one of pain and fear and the occasional flight attempt from a doctor’s office.

On one recent winter morning, it was Rafat al-Satari who was laughing out loud on a hospital bed, preparing for dialysis treatment. The cause? Two red-nosed clowns pulling funny faces and doing magic tricks had just

delivered a cake to his room on the occasion of his sixth birthday on 26 February.

The clown cake delivery is a result of a 2013 initiative by Majed Kalloub, who founded the “Clown Doctors Team,” to pay visits to child patients around the Gaza Strip. The idea, he said, was not only to provide some relief to the children, but to help medical staff do their work.

“Who is the clown doctor,” Kalloub told The Electronic Intifada. “A helping hand for the real doctor. Our work doesn’t only make the children happy, it also helps them accept what their doctors do.”

The initiative has been popular with patients and hospital staff alike. According to the director of the Abdelaziz al-Rantisi hospital, Dr. Mustafa al-Ayla, the initiative has changed the atmosphere at a hospital more used to the sound of crying.

“The clown doctor team created a comfortable environment for the patients, and they’ve became a major addition to our treatment besides the usual medication,” he said.

Laughter is best medicine

“Laughter helps the respiratory and cardiovascular system,” Dr. Ayla added. “It relaxes the muscles, lessens stress and reduces pain. So we are keen to exert all possible efforts to enable the team to do their work here.”

Kalloub — Dr. Nuts to the children — is in little doubt as to the benefits his team bring.

“Imagine being a child in hospital away from the familiar surroundings of home and friends and relatives,” the 24-year-old said just after delivering the cake to Rafat. “You’ll be anxious and lonely and probably also in pain. This is where we help.”

Kalloub and fellow clown Ala Miqdad — Uncle Aloush to the children and one of six other clowns on the team — have worked with a number of organizations in the Gaza Strip, including the Italian human rights group International Cooperation South South (CISS). They didn’t stop their work during Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2014, when they worked not only hospitals, but shelters where people had sought refuge, trying to ease the fears of young children.

They take as their inspiration the Big Apple Circus, which was set up by two American street performers who, after returning from a tour of Europe in the 1970s, were inspired to start a circus in New York. In 1986, they began providing entertainment to children in hospitals there.

Changing attitudes

Rafat enjoyed his birthday. Speaking softly, the boy said “Dr. Nuts and Uncle Aloush” had helped him not fear the doctors.

Next to his bed, his initially skeptical mother was also won over.

“I found it strange at first,” said Ayat Mansour, 37. “Here my child is crying and then these two come and play silly games for him. But I could see how his face changed. I could hear him laugh again. Now I think it’s essential.”

Every morning now, Rafat waits eagerly for the clown. “He is much less anxious after they visit,” she added.

Rafat’s loud birthday celebration also drew in Dr. Ayla, who not only came to see what the brouhaha was about, but even joined in the games — and had some cake.

Successive Israeli military assaults on Gaza and a nearly 10-year blockade has had a hugely negative impact on both the psychological and physical health of children, and Dr. Ayla suggested that long-term health impacts of Israeli warfare were just beginning to show.

“We’ve estimated a seven-fold increase in the number of chronic diseases among children, especially in cancers and heart diseases, that we think is due to the use of gas and chemical residue resulting from the illegal use of prohibited weapons,” he said.

A recent study by a Gaza doctor found a statistically significant spike in the incidence of congenital heart disease in babies born directly after a major Israeli onslaught, of which there have been three in less than a decade.

Opposite Rafat’s room, two other clowns from the team were doing their thing for 10-year-old Mariam al-Quqa.

Reaching Mariam

Mariam’s mother said that her daughter refused to speak at hospital until she was visited by the clowns. (Courtesy Clown Doctors Team)

Mariam had kidney failure and comes now for regular dialysis treatment. But she is not fond of being at the hospital. “At home, she’s a normal happy child,” said Sanaa, her mother. “Here, she refuses to speak.”

Until, that is, Zakia al-Bayoumi and Bisan al-Surdi, both 21, got hold of her. The team’s two female clowns have proven hugely popular among the children and tend to dialogue with the young patients as much as they perform for them.

When “Dr. Ziko” and “Dr. Biso” first met Mariam, she had been receiving regular treatment at hospital for three years. Then, hospital time was silent time, said her mother: Mariam simply wouldn’t talk.

And when their usual performance failed to elicit much of a response, al-Surdi tried something different. She took off her clown doctor costume, lay on the bed beside Mariam and whispered to her for 15 minutes, while Zakia continued to pull faces.

It worked. At one point, Mariam’s face lit up and she urged the two clowns to continue.

“This was the first time Mariam talked in hospital,” said a grateful Sanaa. “Apparently nothing eases her fear of hospital except the clown doctor. I’m happy they’re here for her and the other children.”

The team’s work is not limited to hospitals. They also pay visits to patients’ families and organize parties for those who have been successfully treated.

It is rewarding work, say the clowns, but it carries emotional risk.

“We are welcomed by staff and families. The children look forward to our visits,” said Kalloub. “The work presents no challenge on that front.”

“But we can’t escape reality: the hardest part of the job is when we receive a call from the hospital informing us that one of the children we performed for and made laugh is no longer with us.”

Hamza Abu Eltarabesh is a journalist from Gaza.

U.N. tribunal finds former Bosnia Serb leader guilty of genocide

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is sentenced to 40 years in jail by U.N judges who found him guilty of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and nine other war crimes charges. (Reuters)

By Brian Murphy-March 24

A former Bosnian Serb leader was found guilty of genocide and other charges on Thursday for his role in deadly campaigns during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, including the massacres of thousands in Srebrenica, as an international tribunal announced a long-awaited reckoning in Europe’s bloodiest chapter since World War II.

Radovan Karadzic was found guilty of 10 charges that touched on many of the atrocities and ethnic-cleansing policies that stunned the world as Bosnia became a crucible for the rivalries and fears that tore apart Yugoslavia.

Central to the case was Karadzic’s role in the worst systematic slaughter of the war: the slayings of 8,000 Muslim men and boys outside the Srebrenica enclave near the close of the three-year Bosnian conflict.

[Karadzic remains a hero for some]

Karadzic, 70, was sentenced to 40 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which is nearing the end of its investigations of alleged atrocities and other crimes from the country’s meltdown. In total, more than 100,000 people died in the three-sided Bosnian conflict among Bosnian Serbs, ethnic Croats and Muslims.

The court’s ruling placed widespread blame on Karadzic, who it said directed murders, purges and other abuses against civilians, including the 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in which Serb gunners and snipers fired nearly daily from surrounding ridges.

Karadzic — a Bosnian Serb political leader and commander of military forces — claimed he was seeking only to protect ethnic Serbs during the war. A legal adviser to Karadzic said he will appeal the court ruling.

[Timeline for Karadzic at war and on the run]

The proceedings of the tribunal at The Hague, which is backed by the United Nations, have been closely watched as a potentially significant step in applying international law to investigations of alleged war crimes and other abuses against civilians.

“This is a momentous day for international justice, but also for those in Bosnia who lost husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters in a coordinated campaign of violence,” said Susannah Sirkin, director of international policy and partnerships at Physicians for Human Rights, a group that was involved in exhuming some of Srebrenica’s mass graves.

Karadzic — who was indicted in 1995 but was on the run until his capture in 2008 — was the most senior Bosnian Serb figure to face prosecution at the court, which has spent more than two decades probing the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

The trial revisited the horrors of Srebrenica, in which Bosnian Muslims were herded from U.N.-designated “safe havens” into killing fields over several days in July 1995 and their bodies dumped into shallow pits. Investigators later uncovered many bodies with the hands still bound behind their backs and shots to the back of the head, evidence of execution-style slayings.

[Srebrenica’s sad legacy: Case study in investigating genocide]

At a U.N. meeting last year marking the 20th anniversary of the slaughter, Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson said the atrocities will remain a stain on the world body.

“We gather in humility and regret,” Eliasson said, “to recognize the failure of the United Nations and the international community to prevent this tragedy.”

Still awaiting trial are Karadzic’s military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, and ethnic Serb political firebrand Vojislav Seselj.

In 2006, former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic died in his cell at The Hague before judges could deliver verdicts in his trial.

Karadzic was among the most-wanted fugitives from the Balkan wars. When he was captured in Belgrade in 2008, he was posing as a New Age healer — with a beard, shaggy hair and oversize glasses — and using the alias Dragan Dabic.

The Karadzic convictions could serve to strengthen the credibility and reach of other international tribunals, including the International Criminal Court. On Monday, the ICC convicted a former Congo militia leader of war crimes carried out in the neighboring Central African Republic.

But some believe it is too soon to judge whether pan-national courts can adequately hold war criminals accountable.

“We must redouble our efforts to ensure that the prosecution of Radovan Karadzic does not stand as an isolated island of accountability in a sea of impunity,” said Nancy Combs, a professor at the College of William and Mary Law School and specialist in international criminal law.

After the verdicts on Thursday, the top U.N. human rights official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said the decisions also send a wider message about the dangers of nationalism and ethnic vilification.

In a statement, he said the trial “should give pause to leaders across Europe and elsewhere who seek to exploit nationalist sentiments and scapegoat minorities for broader social ills.”

Dilma Rousseff defiant amid calls for resignation over corruption scandal

Brazilian president stands firm, saying in an interview she is ‘not a weak woman’ and any attempt to remove her would be illegal and harmful to the country

Dilma Rousseff has said she would never resign despite corruption allegations, as the scandal threatening her government escalated with dozens of new arrests. Photograph: Roberto Stuckert/Filho/PR

Bruce Douglas in Brasília and Jonathan Watts, Latin America correspondent-

Thursday 24 March 2016

A defiant President Dilma Rousseff has insisted that there is no legal justification for her impeachment and warned that any attempt to remove her from power illegally would leave lasting scars on Brazilian democracy.

In a 90-minute interview with six foreign media organizations in Planalto, the presidential palace, Olympic Games, due to take place in Rio de Janeiro in August.

Rousseff stated that “peace would reign” in Brazil by the start of this year’s

Over the past few weeks, Brazil has been shaken by huge anti-government protests, as revelations over the country’s worst-ever corruption scandal add momentum to an impeachment process that began in December.

The president’s attempt to appoint her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to cabinet last week – in what critics argue is a move to shield him from prosecution – added to widespread public outrage at politicians’ impunity and prompted calls for Rousseff’s resignation.

“Why do they want me to resign? Because I am a weak woman? I’m not,” she said, arguing that her political rivals wanted her to stand down “to avoid the difficulty of removing – unduly, illegally and criminally – a legitimately elected president from power”.

Pushed as to why it was necessary for Lula to become a minister, rather than serve as an adviser, Rousseff said he had repeatedly turned down her requests to join her government, but now that the crisis had deepened he was doing it as a service for Brazil.

“I became his cabinet chief in 2005 in the middle of the mensalão [cash-for-votes scandal],” she said. “I know I helped him then, and I know he can help me now.”

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After $17 Million, Ponytail-Pulling New Zealand Prime Minister Loses Flag Referendum

BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY-MARCH 24, 2016
What New Zealand Prime Minister John Key wanted was simple: a new national flag that would remove the British Union Jack and keep him from being seated under Australia’s similar-looking flag by mistake. So he launched a $17 million, 10-month-long project to try to make it happen — and he lost.

On Thursday, New Zealand announced that according to preliminary results, 56.6 percent of its citizens wanted to keep the old design.  The national referendum had pitted the original flag against a new black, white, and blue design that included the silver fern, an important plant in Maori traditions.

The rival flag was designed by Kyle Lockwood, a New Zealander who submitted his designs to the judges charged with narrowing the some 10,000 submissions down to a list of 40 last August. The panel cut the list of contenders to four in September before a fifth was added after a social media campaign complained all of the options looked too much alike. Two of Lockwood’s designs — which to be fair were nearly identical– made the final cut before voters chose one as a finalist in December.

In an opinion piece published in the New York Times earlier this month, New Zealand native Steve Braunias likened Lockwood’s winning design to a beach towel.

“The redesigned flag — a white fern leaf laid over a black-and-blue background — looks happy and foolish, not unlike our prime minister, John Key,” he wrote, noting that Key is well-known for his complicity in repeatedly pulling a waitress’s ponytail every time he went to the café where she worked. The woman revealed his curious habit in a blog post last year, claiming that he apologized with two bottles of wine after she told him she would hit him if he did it again.

“I shouldn’t have to tell THE PRIME MINISTER that I don’t like it when he pulls my hair,” she wrote. “Talk about stating the obvious!”

Thursday’s loss will probably hurt no one more than Key, who was very excited by the possibility of a flag with a silver fern and stood by his aggressive push for a redesign even as the opposition Labour leader mocked it, claiming last year that there was a “spectacular lack of interest and support” and it was “time to just call a halt to the whole thing.”

Key’s main talking point for selling the redesign was how it would free New Zealand from its history of colonialism. At one point, probably while feeling especially sensitive about how he was mistaken for an Australian, he tried to make the sell by pointing to Canada’s decision to change their flag to the maple leaf in 1965.
“Show me a single Canadian on the planet who would go back to their old flag,” he said. “Not a single Canadian would, because if I walked in with a sweatshirt on with a maple leaf on, you would say instantaneously that person lives in Canada, is a Canadian or has been to Canada.”

Still, on Thursday, Key tried to keep his chin up about the whole thing, admitting he was a “bit disappointed” but calling the $17 million process one that was worth it for the learning experience. “Just because it’s not the outcome I wanted doesn’t mean it wasn’t a worthwhile process,” he said.

Lewis Holman, chairman of the country’s Change the Flag campaign claimed Tuesday that most New Zealanders were likely in favor of changing the design, just not to Lockwood’s fern design.
“I do think it [a flag change] will happen in the next decade,” he said. “This has kicked off the debate. This isn’t the end, just the beginning.”

If there’s one person who would be delighted to see another flag debate, it’s comedian John Oliver. In a recent segment about New Zealand’s Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce being hit in the face with a dildo during a news conference, Oliver got beloved New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson to film himself dramatically waving a massive flag. It featured only two things: the Union Jack and the moment the dildo hit Joyce’s face.

Photo Credit: MARTY MELVILLE/AFP/Getty Images

The Muslim world is going backwards – and the West isn’t to blame

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

Friday, 11 March 2016

Turkey and Malaysia have long been regarded as the most developed countries in the Muslim world. Through a historic commitment in the C20th to modernisation and development, they have achieved standards of infrastructure, education, healthcare but also industrialization and economic output that compare favorably to that of many of the newer members of the European Union.

They were not, of course, the only countries in the Muslim world to have attempted such development. But they have been by far the most successful. They were also quite fortunate to not end up as collateral damage in the Cold War struggle between the USSR and the West – as some other Muslim countries have been.

But ultimately, one feels that much of their success is down to their respective determination to build integrated, inclusive nations. Unlike in Syria, or Iraq, in Turkey one is not, first and foremost, a Sunni, or a Shiite, or a Christian. One is, before anything else, a Turk.

In Malaysia, the ethnic group of every citizen is something that is acknowledged and celebrated. But unlike in Afghanistan, the competition and the conflicts between groups is not settled through tribal warfare: it is settled through the political process. And when specific ethnic groups have been historically disadvantaged, like for example the indigenous Malays, this is acknowledged and there are quotas in place for access to higher education or to the institutions of political administration to redress historical imbalances in the representation of their interests.

Blame game

But right now, unfortunately, both of these countries are sliding backwards. And this time, I am afraid to say, the West is not to blame.

Turkey has been steadily becoming more and more illiberal in the last 14 years in which President’s Erdogan AK Party have been the dominant political force in the country. Press freedom, for example, has been eroded to the point where, in this past week, the government could simply take over the administration of the country’s largest opposition newspaper, Zaman, followed swiftly by the Cihan news agency. Any independent-minded journalists can expect to be sacked if they choose to not toe the party line. And now people are going to prison for the crime of “offending the President”.

Very many Muslim countries also have fractured populations who put parochial or tribal interests well above collective national concerns.

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

Meanwhile, Malaysia is being ruled by a prime minister who has distinguished himself through incompetence in public administration. Though it does seem that Najib Razak is quite able to line his own pockets an investigation by the Wall Street Journal and Sarawak has found that the PM may have managed to pilfer as much as $1 billion from Malaysian state coffers. Though, of course, this is just the tip of the corruption iceberg. In Malaysia, it seems, corruption is systemic, and the people are largely resigned to this fact.

Five years ago, the Islamic world was brimming with the hopes of the Arab Spring. Even though the rot at the heart of Turkey and Malaysia has been in place for well over 10 years, other Muslim and Arab countries were looking forward to a brighter future, as they sought to rid themselves of the same kind of authoritarian or corrupt leaders that the most Westernised countries in the Islamic world now tolerate.

But it was not to be. Libya and Syria are examples of how badly wrong things can go if you get rid of some of these corrupt leaders, and how badly things can go wrong if you do not. Tunisia stands alone as the only success story of the Arab Spring; at least for now. But ISIS already has it in their sights. And the internal politics of the country, though they have remained largely civil so far, are still volatile and can erupt into state-destroying conflict just like they did in neighbouring Libya.

Note, however, what proportion of these woes affecting the Muslim world is in fact to do with the West and how much more it has to do with local or transnational Muslim factors. The most frequent problem is corruption and economic mismanagement. Very often, there is a huge problem with large, young populations with poor education and virtually no economic opportunities.

Very many Muslim countries also have fractured populations who put parochial or tribal interests well above collective national concerns. And if that was not enough, you have militant Islamists, very often foreign, barging in left, right and centre and blowing things up. Is it any wonder that states in the region are so fragile? Is it surprising that so many have failed or are failing?

Everyone likes blaming the West for all this, of course. But if the West just suddenly stopped existing tomorrow, would any of this get any better? The West is responsible for plenty of debacles and foreign policy blunders in the region. But it cannot be held responsible for the fact that so many Muslims there cannot abide to live in peace and justice just because they are a different tribe, or sect, or have a different political ideology.

You have proper societies when you have a group of people who will work hard to live in peace and harmony with each other. There are virtually no societies left in much of the Muslim world and Muslims have only themselves to blame for that.
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Azeem Ibrahim is an RAI Fellow at Mansfield College, University of Oxford and Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College. He completed his PhD from the University of Cambridge and served as an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a World Fellow at Yale. Over the years he has met and advised numerous world leaders on policy development and was ranked as a Top 100 Global Thinker by the European Social Think Tank in 2010 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He tweets @AzeemIbrahim