Berlin Brandenburg airport corruption 'whistleblower poisoned'

It remains unclear when the airport will eventually open, 10 years after construction began

A former chief planner at the site said last week he doubted whether the airport would ever open

2 May 2016

It remains unclear when the airport will eventually open, 10 years after construction began

German prosecutors are investigating allegations of grievous bodily harm, amid reports that an engineer working on Berlin's troubled new airport was poisoned.

German media say the man was a whistleblower in a corruption scandal involving an airport construction firm.

He was said to have been sick for months after his coffee was poisoned.

Berlin Brandenburg airport was due to open in 2011 but has been dogged by problems.

'Deadly substance'

Prosecutors refused to give details about the case, saying only that "we're investigating because of a suspicion of grievous bodily harm", DPA news agency reports.

Bild am Sonntag newspaper said that the engineer's coffee had been mixed with a "deadly substance" in 2015, as investigators were looking into allegations of bribes handed to airport officials.

When he collapsed at work, his illness was initially blamed on circulation problems but a medical report stated several days later that it was caused by poison, German media said.

The man, aged around 50, was off sick for three months.

No suspects have been identified, officials told Bild.

Four people were charged last year as part of the investigation into construction firm Imtech Deutschland.

Imtech, given the task of overhauling the airport's fire and smoke detection system, filed for bankruptcy in August.

The airport, also known as Willy Brandt airport, is due to replace the ageing hubs at Tegel and Schoenefeld but has run over-budget by billions of euros.

Construction at the airport, south of Schoenefeld, began in 2006 but repeated delays have pushed the opening date well beyond the original 2011 deadline.

Airport officials had hoped to open the airport in 2017, however latest indications suggest 2019 is a more likely date.

A former chief planner on the site, Dieter Faulenbach da Costa, told Berliner Morgenpost last week he doubted the airport would ever open.

Berlin Brandenburg airport is co-owned by the city of Berlin and the state of Brandenburg, as well as the German government.

Should India Go Ahead With Shale Gas Exploration, Or Will It Be Wasted Effort? – OpEd

BY N. S. VENKATARAMAN MAY 1, 2016

Shale is a fine grained sedimentary rock that can be a rich resource for petroleum and natural gas, and as such shale gas is the natural gas that is trapped within shale formations.

The Government of India had announced policy guidelines on October 14, 2013, whereby national oil companies ONGC and OIL were to take up shale gas and oil exploration activities in their nominated blocks.

While the ultimate success of shale gas exploration efforts in India remains to be seen from the point of view of technological and economic feasibility, the fact remains that very large quantity of water has to be injected for shale gas exploration. Such water will have to be pumped from running river or ground water sources. Depletion of ground water resources can be a scary situation.

Given the fact that several parts of India are already suffering from severe water scarcity due to frequent drought like situation and “water war” between the states are becoming very frequent, the question is whether India should go ahead with shale gas exploration at all that would require huge quantity of fresh water and result in large quantity of used waste water that would be chemically contaminated.

Should India spend energy, time, efforts and resources in what appears to be a negative project?

Global trend

Though the USA has been the forerunner in shale gas exploration in the world, shale gas will not be uniquely American phenomenon. There is similar geology in several countries around the world.

The UK Parliament recently voted narrowly to allow fracking to extract shale gas under the country’s national parks and certain other protected sites. The new legislation, which permits drilling at least 1,200 meters below the surface in national parks, was approved by 298 votes to 261.

China is taking steps to exploit shale gas resources. China plans to produce 6.5 billion cubic meter of shale gas by 2016, 15 billion cubic meter by 2017 and more than 30 billion cubic meter by 2020.

While the examples of the initiatives of the above countries are there, India has to approach shale gas exploration issues with great caution, considering the ground realities in the country, where water shortage is becoming increasingly evident. A blind following of the approach of the other countries could prove to be counterproductive for India.

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Chinese President Praises ‘Unyielding Marxist Atheists’ as Christian Woman Bulldozed to Death

by FRANCES MARTEL25 Apr 2016

The Chinese Communist Party held its first conference on religious freedom in fifteen years this weekend, in which President Xi Jinping demanded that “unyielding Marxist atheists” impose communism onto the nation’s religious groups. The meeting follows months of growing tensions between the communists in Beijing and blossoming Christian and Muslim underground communities.

“We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists,” Xi said at the meeting, according to the state-run People’s Daily newspaper. Members of the Chinese Communist Party, he warned, must be “unyielding Marxist atheists, consolidate their faith, and bear in mind the Party’s tenets.” “We should guide and educate the religious circle and their followers with the socialist core values, and guide the religious people with ideas of unity, progress, peace and tolerance,” he added.

Communists have a special responsibility to steer “teenagers” away from religion, he added, while religious leaders are obligated to “dig deep into doctrines and canons that are in line with social harmony and progress, and favorable for the building of a healthy and civilized society, and interpret religious doctrines in a way that is conducive to modern China’s progress and in line with our excellent traditional culture.”

All religions should promote “Chinese culture… Chinese laws and regulations” for the imposition of “socialist modernization” on society, he continued.

Another state-run publication, the Global Times, notes that communist officials found such a meeting necessary because “religions have developed fast in China,” and are subject to non-communist world views which could endanger the power of China’s embedded communist elite. Such a meeting — especially in light of recent Chinese crackdowns on Muslims in the west, Christians in the east, and Buddhists in Tibet — may be a sign that the communists increasingly fear a religiously-inspired rebellion.

Adding to the impression that the Chinese government increasingly fears religion are repeated assurances in communist media that Beijing is properly handling religious threats. “It has been 15 years since the last national religious working conference was held in 2001. The unusually long interval shows that the country’s religious situation is good in general,” Zhu Weiqun, chairman of the Ethnic and Religious Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is quoted as saying in the Global Times.

“Hebei Province has a large number of Catholics, while Ningxia is home to many Muslims. The arrangement shows the government’s intention to unite different religious groups, as well as to help them adapt to the socialist society,” a theology professor identified as Li Xiangping adds.

Estimates using information smuggled out of China by pro-religious freedom NGOs estimate that there are up to six million Chinese Catholics nationwide, who do not identify as members of the communist-controlled Patriotic Church but recognize Pope Francis as their ultimate religious authority on earth. They worship in secret “house churches,” hidden to the best of their ability from government officials. “They want to lead us. But those who don’t believe in God cannot lead us,” Father Dong Baolu, a Catholic priest, said in an interview earlier this month.

Those who do not conform are subject to torture in “reeducation” programs or simply disappear. At least five priests have been “disappeared” across China in April alone. A sixth was found dead, a death ruled a “suicide” but widely considered an act of state aggression against the Church by those who knew him.

Most recently, a report surfaced this weekend of an incident occurring on April 14, in which Chinese authorities buried a Christian woman alive with a bulldozer. The woman, a pastor’s wife named Ding Cuimei, was suffocated after standing before a church the Chinese government had decreed must be demolished. Pastor Li Jiangong was buried with his wife, though he managed to survive, clawing his way out.

Muslims, mostly located in Western Xinjiang province, are mostly forbidden from practicing their religion openly, as well. While Beijing allows Muslims of the ethnic Hui minority greater freedom to practice openly — and has even paid for collective voyages to Mecca — ethnic Uighurs face legal repercussions for wearing Islamic garb on public transportation, openly fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, or wearing a burqa. Stores in Xinjiang are mandated to sell multiple varieties of alcohol and cigarettes, both forbidden by the religion. Earlier this month, Chinese officials began advocating “ethnic unity” in Xinjiang, calling for Uighurs to dilute their culture for the traditions of the nation’s majority Han ethnic group.

The Chinese government has also had a long-standing feud with the Buddhists of Tibet. In order to control Buddhism, the government has set up an official database of “living buddhas” sanctioned by the Communist Party. The list excludes the head of the religion, the Dalai Lama, considered the chief living buddha by believers. China’s government has previously accused the Dalai Lama of sympathizing with the Islamic State terrorist group.

Stealing Food if You’re in Need Is Not a Crime, Italian Court Finds

BY BENJAMIN SOLOWAY-MAY 3, 2016


Roman Ostriakov, 36, couldn’t afford anything to eat, so he stole less than $5 worth of cheese and sausage from a supermarket in Genoa, Italy, in 2011. He was caught, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine of 100 euros and serve six months in prison. An appeals court upheld the decision.

This week, Ostriakov’s fate changed. Italy’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Cassation, issued a broad ruling that the theft of essential sustenance out of dire necessity is not a crime — even though Ostriakov had originally tried to overturn the conviction as an “attempted” theft, since he never made it out of the store with food, rather than argue that he had been in the right all along.

In a front-page opinion piece, Italian newspaper La Stampa lauded the court’s endorsement of the view that the “right to survival prevails over property.”

The decision, which the Telegraph called “unusual,” seemed particularly so in contrast to the U.S. criminal justice system’s response to crimes of necessity.

Alec Karakatsanis — a former Washington, D.C., public defender and co-founder of Equal Justice Under Law, a nonprofit that fights inequality in the U.S. legal system — told Foreign Policy that Ostriakov’s appeal brought to mind the case of Michael Riggs, who stole vitamins from a California grocery store.

Riggs, who took the pills in what California’s Court of Appeals said was “a petty theft motivated by homelessness and hunger,” received a 25-year sentence under the state’s three-strikes law. The U.S.
Supreme Court declined to take up the case. Only one justice voted to hear the appeal.

“It’s incredible to me that American courts think of the crime as the homeless person stealing, not as the fact that we live in a society where there are hundreds of thousands of homeless people,” Karakatsanis said.

The Italian court’s decision was an uncommon one, he said, because it reflected a line of moral logic that held the potential to challenge structural assumptions.

“There’s something fundamentally threatening to the capitalist economic order in a ruling like this — the idea that a person is not personally responsible for an action they take out of economic necessity — because capitalism is based on creating that necessity for millions of people around the world,” he said.
In the United States and countries with similar criminal justice systems, in which most cases never go to trial, such rulings are also uncommon for procedural reasons.

“In America, a lot of these cases get disposed of either through a dismissal, or more likely, the person will just take a guilty plea right away,” Karakatsanis said. “Very, very rarely would an appellate court in the United States ever get to rule on a case like this.”

Photo credit: TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty Images

Nobel laureate urges PM Modi to curb child slavery as India reels from drought

Kailash Satyarthi, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, takes part in a panel during the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York, September 27, 2015.REUTERS/LUCAS JACKSON

Buffalos graze in dried-up Chandola Lake in Ahmedabad, March 30, 2016.REUTERS/AMIT DAVE

BY NITA BHALLA-Wed May 4, 2016

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has appealed to the prime minister of India to prioritise children and ensure they are not trafficked, forced into marriage or put into bonded labour as the country reels from its worst drought in decades.

In a letter to Narendra Modi, the child rights activist urged him to declare the drought a national emergency, saying that the lives of more than 160 million children were at stake.

"Reports of children being forced into child labour, trafficking, child marriage, and the devadasi (dedicating girls to service in temples) system are coming to light with children increasingly dropping out from school ... and large scale migration due to this crisis," Satyarthi wrote.

The letter was circulated to the media on Tuesday by his office.

"Owing to this drought and the on-going water crisis, children are becoming increasingly vulnerable. In the coming months, there is an increased risk of lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of children becoming victims of these circumstances."

The government estimates more than 330 million people - almost a quarter of India's population - have been hit by the scarcity of water in states such as Maharashtra in the west and Karnataka in the south.

As crops wither and livestock perish, ten of thousands of people are migrating in search of food, water and jobs, leaving behind women, children and older family members who are vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers.

Figures given by Satyarthi's office showed the number of children dropping out of school in the ten drought-affected states had risen by 22 percent, while child trafficking cases had increased by 24 percent.

Satyarthi, who was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, ended his letter calling upon Modi make children "a top priority" in the government's relief and rehabilitation efforts.

(Reporting by Nita Bhalla, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

Global water shortages to deliver 'severe hit' to economies, World Bank warns

The Middle East, north Africa, central Asia and south Asia due to suffer biggest economic hit from water scarcity as climate change takes hold, report finds

 Across the Horn of Africa, millions have been hit by the severe El Niño-related drought. The region is among those projected to take a big hit to GDP by 2050 because of water scarcity. Photograph: Feisal Omar/Reuters

Suzanne Goldenberg-Tuesday 3 May 2016

Water shortages will deliver a “severe hit” to the economies of the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa by the middle of the century, taking double digits off their GDP, the World Bank warned on Tuesday.

By 2050, growing demand for cities and for agriculture would put water in short supply in regions where it is now plentiful – and worsen shortages across a vast swath of Africa and Asia, spurring conflict and migration, the bank said.

Water shortages could strip off 14% of GDP in the Middle East and nearly 12% of GDP in the Sahel – without a radical shift in management, according to the bank’s projections.

Central Asia could lose close to 11% of GDP and east Asia about 7% under business-as-usual water management policies, according to a new report.

Taking into account all regions, the mid-range toll of water shortages on GDP was about 6%.

“There is a severe hit on GDP,” said Richard Damania, lead environmental economist for the Bank and author of High and Dry: Climate Change, Water and the Economy.

Global water scarcity impact on GDP. Photograph: World Bank

Governments have grown increasingly concerned about the threat to water supply because of a combination of climate change and increasing demand.

Barack Obama invited business leaders to the White House last March for a business summit aimed at protecting California from the next drought – by mobilising investment in data and other technologies that would promote more efficient use of water.

The biggest economic hit due to water deficits were expected to occur in the Middle East, north Africa, central Asia, and parts of south Asia, the report found. There would be virtually no impact on the economies of North America and western Europe.

Much of the world faces a hotter and drier future under climate change, according to scientists. Rainfall – including the monsoons that fortify agriculture in south Asia – will become more unpredictable. Storm surges could contaminate freshwater reservoirs.

But there will also be pressure on water supply from rising populations – especially in cities – and increased demand from agriculture. “It turns out that economic growth is a thirsty business,” Damania said.

Some cities could see water availability drop by two-thirds by 2050, the report found. Water shortages could have rebounding effects on food production, public health, and household incomes – with families forced to pay more for a basic necessity.

But, the report said, encouraging more efficient use of water could make a big difference in the mid-century economic scenarios for regions threatened by water shortages.

In some countries, about two-thirds of water is lost to old and leaky pipes.

Good water management policies would add more than 11% to the GDP of central Asian countries and blunt the impact of water shortages in the Middle East, the report found.

 

Leading Causes Of Joint Pain And Natural Treatments To Relieve It

 April 29, 2016

If you suffer from joint pain, whether temporarily or permanently, you’ll know how this can affect your quality of life. Our joints connect our bones, support our bodies, and help us move. If our joints are damaged due to disease or injury, it interferes with our movement and causes pain.

According to a national survey, a third of all adults experience joint pains. Knee pain is the most common, followed by shoulder and hip pain, but any part of your body that houses joints can be affected. As we get older, our risk for developing joint pain increases along with its severity.

Causes Of Joint Pain

There are two leading causes of joint pain: an injury affecting the ligaments, bursae, or tendons either surrounding or within the joint.

Joint pain can be mild and go away within a few weeks (acute), or it can be a long-term or permanent condition (chronic).

The two most common chronic joint diseases are Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid arthritis.

Osteoarthritis is caused by wear-and-tear around the joints from repetitive stress or excess weight. The cartilage between the bones wears down causing bone to grate on bone. The joint space becomes damaged in the process.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory process. Our own immune system begins to attack our own joints by creating excess inflammation in the tissue that protects the joints. The inflammation eventually leads to the surrounding bones being damaged.

Other causes of joint pain include bursitis (a.k.a., inflammation in the bursa, cushion around the joint), toxins collecting in the joint space (a.k.a., gout), strains/sprains of ligaments around the joints, or bone cancer.

Joint Pain Symptoms And Signs

Here is a list of symptoms that are associated with joint problems:

• Redness of the joint
• Swelling of the joint
• Joint tenderness
• Joint warmth
• Limping
• Locking of the joint
• Loss of range of motion
• Stiffness in the joints
• Weakness in the joints

Joint Pain Treatments

Treatments are geared towards reducing pain, inflammation, and preserving joint function. The following joint pain remedies may help to alleviate the pain and improve your condition:

1. Avoid repetitive stress of the joint. In acute cases one may need to temporarily refrain from using the joint so that the injury has time to heal.
2. Apply ice packs or a pack of frozen peas to the joints for 15-20 minutes sessions multiple times per day.
3. Soak your joints in a warm tub filled with 2 cups of Epsom salt and a pinch of baking soda for 15 minutes. If you can’t soak in a tub place your joints in a bowl filled with ½ cup Epsom salt and a pinch of baking soda.
4. Take a warm shower to relax the muscles and increase blood circulation.
5. Maintain a healthy weight relative to your height so excess pressure is relieved off of joints. For example, for each extra 5 pounds you are carry is 20 additional pounds placed on the knee. Just losing 5 to 10 lb can completely resolve many joint problems.
6. Exercise regularly. Physical activity such is biking, walking, and swimming are essential to strengthen the muscles that support the joints as well as to lubricate the joints. However, if you suffer from knee joint pain, run on a soft surface such as grass. Exercise also helps control weight.
7. An anti-inflammatory diet is central to decreasing joint pain. Drink turmeric and ginger tea throughout the day. Mix 2 cups of hot water with ½ teaspoon of ground ginger, ½ teaspoon of ground turmeric, and some lemon. Sip this tea 4 times per day. Refrain from consuming sugar, artificial sweeteners, processed food, pre-packaged ready-made items, red meat, white rice, and bread. Limit your intake of wheat, soy, and corn. Stick to have mostly green vegetables, legumes, seeds, and whole grains like brown rice, millet, barley, amaranth, and buckwheat.
8. A person who is weak and has trouble getting out of a chair may need to work with a physical therapist experienced in joint issues. The therapist can teach you proper techniques on how to correctly move and strengthen your body.
9. Assistive devices, such as shoe inserts, canes, splints, and braces can help distribute your weight more equally and take the load off your joints. Always check with your doctor first before you get an assistive device.
10. Magnesium relaxes the muscles and nerve endings, and relieves stiffness and pain. Take 300 to 600 mg of Magnesium powder just before bedtime. Drink fresh leafy green vegetable juice all morning long. Have small beans (i.e., lentils, split peas, moong dal) instead of red meat or chicken. These are all great natural sources of obtaining Magnesium.

What If The Joint Pain Persists?

If your joint pain doesn’t go away and it’s extremely uncomfortable, swollen, red, and tender, it is time to see your doctor. If you had an injury which is accompanied by intense pain, swelling, joint deformation, or inability to use, you need to see a doctor immediately.

Sri Lanka military enrol pre-school Tamil children in Vanni

02 May 2016

The Sri Lankan military's civil security division enrolled pre-school children in Vanni, forcing children to wear uniforms bearing the Sri Lankan military emblem. 

Parents have been instructed they must send their children to school in that uniform, whilst being asked to pay 600 rupees towards the cost of it. 

Pre-schools in the region, which remains severely impoverished since the end of the armed conflict and affected by extensive militarisation, remain under the army's control. 

The parents have urged the Northern Provincial Council's education minister, T Kurukularasa to take measures to ensure pre-schools are brought under the control of the provincial government. 

Older youths who are unemployed in the Vanni are also being enrolled into the Civil Security Division under the guise of employment. 

The once transparent militarization policy during the regime of former President Mahinda Rajapakse, is now being implemented through well planning and in an inconspicuous manner, parents said.

A note on casteist racism

by Izeth Hussain-April 29, 2016

The material provided by attacks on my articles in the Colombo Telegraph by Tamil racists over a long period prompts the thought that there could be a case for establishing a special category of racism that might appropriately be called "casteist racism". We can safely assume that practically every ethnic group in the world could produce its quota of racists, and that the extent of the racism and its intensity could vary due to many factors. It also seems reasonable to think that the caste system according to which some castes are born inferior and will remain inferior throughout their lives can conduce to particularly nasty and virulent forms of racism. Earlier I have sought to explain the fact that Tamil anti-Muslim racism has been much worse than that of the Sinhalese on the ground that the Tamils are far more caste conscious than the Sinhalese.

I must briefly recapitulate some of the essential facts that led me to that conclusion. Earlier I listed many details to establish that I should be counted as among the most pro-Tamil of all the non-Tamils in this island. Not one of those details has been refuted, but – true to form – about a couple of Tamils have jeered and sneered over my claim to be pro-Tamil. The insistence has continued that I have been for several decades an extreme anti-Tamil racist. What is most interesting is that there has been no serious attempt to substantiate that charge, none whatever.

One Tamil has argued that the concerted attacks against me by around seven to ten Tamils that went on week after week for several months were the work of just one individual who assumed several Tamil nom de plumes. His argument was that all the attacks showed an identical style. It is possible that the concerted attacks had behind them a foreign Islamophobic group or a state. But since then practically every article of mine has provoked attacks by one or more Tamils, exhibiting the same hysterical hatred and mad dog rage. One Tamil held that the attacks were because I had infamously advocated famine as a weapon to subdue the Tamil rebellion. But I have shown more than once that I was outspokenly against that. It is known of course that part of the explanation for Tamil anti-Muslim hatred is that the Muslims consistently took the Sinhalese side against the Tamils. But I believe that I am the only Muslim to have consistently berated the Muslim politicians for their support for every bit of Sinhalese racist idiocy against the Tamils.

I and others have not been able to make out the rationale behind the Tamil attacks on me except on the ground of an intense caste mentality among the Tamils. Relevant in this connection is my last article on Muslim identity in relation to caste. It is known that many Tamils believe that the Muslims have very little Arab blood in them and that they are predominantly the descendants of Tamil converts to Islam who mostly married low caste Tamils. This kind of idiocy about the Muslims has evidently been prevalent among Tamils after the notorious casteist racist Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan – widely regarded by Muslims as anti-Muslim – propounded his theory that the Sri Lankan Muslims are really Tamils.

I and others have not been able to make out the rationale behind the Tamil attacks on me except on the ground of an intense caste mentality among the Tamils. Relevant in this connection is my last article on Muslim identity in relation to caste. It is known that many Tamils believe that the Muslims have very little Arab blood in them and that they are predominantly the descendants of Tamil converts to Islam who mostly married low caste Tamils. This kind of idiocy about the Muslims has evidently been prevalent among Tamils after the notorious casteist racist Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan – widely regarded by Muslims as anti-Muslim – propounded his theory that the Sri Lankan Muslims are really Tamils.

How would that Tamil caste consciousness about the Muslims apply to my case? The Tamil casteist racist would regard the Muslims as essentially low caste Tamils, though they have not been assimilated into the Tamil caste system. Consequently they are a people who should be constricted to lower positions in the society. It is alright for them to succeed in business because that has been their traditional occupation. But even in the field of business they should be petty traders, and leave big business to their betters. I am not being caricatural here because that is exactly how Ramanathan saw the Muslims of his time: as engaged in petty trade and menial occupations, ignoring the fact that the Muslim whom he was trying to prevent getting into the Legislative Council was immensely wealthy and lived in regal splendor in Mumtaz Mahal which later became the Speaker’s House. Today the Tamil casteist racist could find it acceptable if I am a big business man, a drug kingpin, or even if I am somewhere towards the top in some of the professions. But I had gained a certain kind of reputation – rightly or wrongly - as a diplomat, and subsequently as a writer, political analyst, a Westernised intellectual and so on. (At this point I can hear the Tamil howls and screams that I am a boastful liar who is trying to conceal the fact that I am third rate in every way). What has to be explained is not that my articles have provoked dissent: if articles provoke no dissent at all, it usually means that they are vacuous. What has to be explained is that they have provoked so much hatred and rage particularly among Tamils. I and others have found it impossible to explain this except on the basis of Tamil racism.

There are excellent reasons to believe that caste consciousness can aggravate racism to a very serious extent. First of all we must note that there is a powerful hierarchical drive in humanity. All complex societies that have a division of labour are organized hierarchically to varying degrees, and hierarchy can be the most extreme under a caste system. Louis Dumont in his famous book on caste Homo Hierarchicus argued that the Indian caste system is not just a system of social stratification like the Western ones. For one thing it valorizes inequality unlike the Western systems of social stratification: it is possible to move towards equality under the Western system but not under the Indian caste system. Furthermore, the Indian caste system is given a religious legitimation under Hinduism. It has to be expected that a mentality shaped by a caste system will be peculiarly prone to racism. It makes sense therefore to talk of a category of casteist racism.

Before concluding I must emphasize that I am not postulating anything like enduring hostility between the Tamils and Muslims because of Tamil casteist racism. For one thing - as the West has been showing us – racism can be combated, contained, and even be eliminated to a great extent. I believe that the majority of the Tamils are not racists but are decent and wholesome human beings just like most members of our other ethnic communities. It is up to that decent non-racist majority to combat, control, even eliminate the casteist racists in their midst. Those casteist racists must be made to accept that the Muslims too will be producing brilliant writers and intellectuals – brilliant figures in every field – and nothing in the world is going to stop that. Why should the Tamil casteist racists work themselves up into impotent hatred and rage over what is inevitable?

This article is no more than an introductory note on casteist racism, containing many points on which I hope to expand in the future. In the meanwhile I must point to a concrete instance of anti-Muslim casteist racism in action. A Tamil racist signing himself as Backlash has been letting off his babooneries in the Colombo Telegraph over practically every article I have written over a long period. He is possibly the agent of a foreign power who has been instructed to keep on throwing mud in the hope that some of it will stick. The Tamil attempts to stop me being published in the Island and the Colombo Telegraph have failed over a long period. Backlash, probably backed by others, has thought that it would be a better ploy to try to get Muslim leaders to stop me writing and being published on the ground that my writings are doing immense harm to the Muslims. He wrote some weeks ago that he had persuaded Muslim big shots to that effect and that they would be talking to me about my articles. None has done so up to now. Backlash has commented on my last article that it has a new note of sobriety which is the consequence Muslim notables having spoken to me. Nothing of the sort has happened. What is interesting is that Backlash has put himself in the position of a Tamil who is advising the Muslims on what is good for them, on the presumption that the Muslims don’t know what is good for them. He has put himself in the position of a superior to an inferior, of an elder brother to a younger brother, of a superior caste to a lower caste. That’s a clear example of Tamil anti-Muslim casteist racism in action.

izethhussain@gmail.com

Accountability For The Past Is Part Of Accountability In The Present & Future 

By Jehan Perera –May 2, 2016

Jehan Perera

The May Day performance of the government’s two main parties, the UNP in Colombo and the SLFP in Galle, will be reassuring to the leaders of the government. The large turnouts at their respective May Day rallies will give them the confidence that the mobilization capacity of their local level organizers is strong to meet the demands of electoral politics. Although the dissident faction of the SLFP led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa also posted an impressive turnout it could not match those of the government parties. The impression they attempted to create that despite being outside of the government they could mobilize people on the same scale if not better was shown to be unrealistic. President Maithripala Sirisena who, as leader of the SLFP, had warned the dissidents of strict action against those who held a rival May Day rally is now likely to feel confident enough to take the action against them that he has threatened.

But it is not only on the dissident faction that the President needs to focus. He also needs to take action along with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe against those within the new government who deviate from the norms of good governance they have been promising. On the morning of May 1, one of the red clad members of the JVP who was supervising the arrangements for its May Day rally in Colombo recognized me and wished to speak. He said that the corrupt and inequitable system of government and economy needed to be changed. He did not see much of a difference between the present and previous governments, though he acknowledged that political activists like him felt safer these days to express their views. What he said was similar to the views I hear at the community level civil society meetings I attend out of Colombo, which focus on the post-war inter-ethnic reconciliation process.

On April 30, the day before May Day, I was in Polonnaruwa, the home district of President Sirisena to attend a meeting on the reconciliation process and explain the needs and requirements for reconciliation within the country, and with the international community, in the aftermath of the resolution of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. During the period of the previous government, Polonnaruwa was seen as a stronghold of Sinhala nationalism, in part due to it being on the border with the war zones of the North and East, and where numerous massacres of civilians had taken place. It was generally regarded as an inhospitable place for peace organizations to work in, as they could face the wrath of the nationalists, and even be subjected to physical assault and be left to fend for themselves due to police inaction.

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NO LTTE IN SRI LANKA TO SUPPORT – PRESIDENT CTC

02/05/2016

(Canadian Tamil Congress with the support of Trincomalee Welfare Association (Canada) committed to build temporary houses for these 41 women headed families. A little over $100,000 was raised through the Tamil Canadian Walk-a-thon for the Sampur housing project which was held on September 13th 2015. TNA leader R.Sampanthan delayers them open)

By Sulochana Ramiah Mohan.

President of the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) Raj Thavaratnasingham in an interview with Ceylon Today said he was pleased that the government has delisted CTC and a few other Tamil diaspora organizations.

No Ltte in Sri Lanka to Support – President Ctc by Thavam Ratna

Proposals for new power plants: With or without pollution?

By Dr. Janaka Ratnasiri-May 2, 2016, 7:50 pm 

Continued from yesterday

Discrepancies in CEB estimates

One of the key components in the infrastructure required to import LNG is the terminal to be built at the jetty where the LNG carrier is berthed. The jetty has to be at least 16 m deep to accommodate large LNG carriers and there has to be cryogenic tanks built on the jetty itself into which the liquefied gas could be transferred through a solid arm extended from the carrier. Alongside the LNG storage tank, a facility to covert the liquid into a gas has to be built with sufficient capacity, with send-off terminals to which pipelines could be connected which has been the traditional method of transferring the gas to a consumer. Such terminals are costly, and according to the World LNG Report 2015, published by International Gas Union, the costs are likely to be about USD 300 per tonne of throughput.

In the computation made by CEB for the LNG case, it has added the terminal cost to the power plant cost, which is not the correct practice. What is normally done is to amortize the cost of the terminal into an annual expenditure per unit amount of gas delivered expressed in million British thermal units (MBtu) and add that value to the cost of the gas, which in this case is USD 0.8 per MBtu. Furthermore, CEB has used an outdated value of USD 12.63 per MBtu for the cost of the gas which has come down drastically in recent years. According to a LNG supply contract India has entered into with Qatar last December, the price negotiated was USD 6-7 per MBtu. Hence, a price of USD 6.5 per MBtu was assumed, on the understanding that the Government of Sri Lanka could enter into a similar contract with Qatar Government directly.

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