Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Four large blasts rock Baghdad in just a few hours, at least 75 killed
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Shia neighbourhood of al-Shaab and in al-Rasheed

Iraqis look at the damage following a car bomb attack in Sadr City, a Shiite area north of the capital Baghdad (AFP)

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Baghdad came under attack again on Tuesday with four separate blast rocking the city, killing at least 75 people, medics have said.

The two initial blasts were reported around midday. The first and deadliest killed 39 people at an outdoor market in the predominantly Shia neighbourhood of al-Shaab, a security source told Iraqi news site Sumaria News. A second blast, believed to be a car bomb, happened shortly after, killing at least two people in the southern neighbourhood al-Rasheed.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced after the bombing al-Shaab that a security official in charge of the area had been sacked, but gave no more details.

A few hours later two blasts hit the largely Shia suburb of Sadr City in the north-east of the capital. The first killed 25 people at a crowded market, while a separate attack targeted a restaurant, killing nine.

The Associated Press

✔‎@AP

BREAKING: Iraqi officials say a suicide car bombing has hit a crowded market in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City area, killing 14.

7:42 AM - 17 May 2016

At least 90 other people have also been injured in the blasts which took place at around midday, officials told AFP.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the first two attacks.

The bombings are the latest in a string of high casualty attacks, which has now seen more than 160 people killed in and around Baghdad since last week.

Abadi on Tuesday afternoon vowed a strong response to the attacks, pledging to make sweeping changes to the city's security apparatus.

The influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, has slammed Iraq's politicians for their "inability to protect" Iraqi civilians.

"These explosions...are the clearest evidence that your government has become unable to protect you and offer you security," Sadr said in a statement.

Sadr City, which was targeted with a double bombing on Tuesday, is a stronghold of support for the firebrand cleric, who recently led a wave of anti-government protest over corruption and the formulation of a new government.

Imad Alou, an expert on security affairs, told the Al-Monitor website that the bombings were a result of both the losses IS was facing on the battlefield and the current political instability in Iraq.

“Whenever a political crisis emerges, the security situation in the country is negatively affected,” he said, referring to the continued wrangling in the Baghdad parliament over the introduction of a technocratic government.

“IS has moved its sleeper cells as it has been facing major pressure on the battle fronts. The government ought to activate its intelligence efforts and find out where these sleeper cells are located in the provinces and cities. [The government] should spare no effort to put pressure on these cells and arrest them.”

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, and later made further advances in Anbar, seizing its capital Ramadi in 2015.

On Monday, the Pentagon said that IS has lost almost half of what it had once held in Iraq.

The Defense Department previously estimated that IS fighters had lost control of about 40 percent of the territory they claimed in Iraq and about 10 percent of the land they held in Syria, but has now revised the estimates.

Kenyan police fire teargas during protest over election watchdog

Officers use water cannon and protesters throw stones during clashes outside electoral commission offices in Nairobi

Crowds flee from teargas grenades fired by riot police during the protest in Nairobi. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP-- A man covers himself as a riot police officer beats him with a baton during the demonstration against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. Photograph: Dai Kurokawa/EPA

Protesters run from water canons. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images--A woman caught up in the clashes holds her hands in the air as riot police approach amid clouds of teargas during the protest in Nairobi. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

Monday 16 May 2016

Police fired teargas and water cannon at stone-throwing crowds protesting in central Nairobi against an election oversight body that they say is biased and should be scrapped, a Reuters witness has reported.

Officers armed with batons confronted hundreds of demonstrators outside the offices of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the third clash over the issue in less than a month.

Kenya does not hold its next presidential and parliamentary polls until August 2017, but politicians are already trying to galvanise their supporters in a country where violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the opposition disputed the 2013 result.

The opposition CORD coalition, led by Raila Odinga, who lost the 2013 vote and unsuccessfully challenged the result in court, has accused the IEBC of bias and said its members should quit. IEBC officials have dismissed the charge and say they will stay.

“For free and fair election, IEBC must go,” read a banner held aloft by one demonstrator on Monday.

As numbers grew, police fired teargas and water cannon from trucks parked nearby at protesters. A Reuters witness saw one protester carrying a bag of stones, while others threw them at police ranks. Officers struck some protesters with batons.

Last week, police fired teargas and water cannon at hundreds of protesters, some of whom threw stones. Police also used teargas to disperse a protest last month.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is expected to seek re-election next year for a second and final term, has urged opponents not to take to the streets.

Despite the 2013 legal challenge, that vote proceeded smoothly and Odinga accepted the court ruling in a country where ethnic loyalties usually trump policy among voters.

After the disputed 2007 vote, about 1,200 were killed in ethnic fighting. Western diplomats have urged the authorities to work carefully with citizens to ensure peaceful elections in 2017.

Member of UK Parliament Rupa Asha Huq (file photo)

Sun May 8, 2016

UK Labour politician Rupa Asha Huq has suggested that Britain could apologize for helping to create Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, a new report claims, further fueling an ongoing row over Israel that has seen senior Labour members suspended by the party.

Huq, a member of Parliament (MP) who represents the London borough of Ealing, made the remarks at a meeting with the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign last year, the Daily Mail reported Sunday.

In response to a question about whether London should make an apology, Huq said: “1948; that happened under a British government. To my mind, an apology – yes. You could do one. A Labour Government could probably get that through.”

However, she noted that an apology would be subject to criticism similar to those former Prime Minister Tony Blair faced for bringing up long-past historical events, including the Irish potato famine and slavery.

The revelation comes shortly after Huq was attacked for defending fellow Labour MP Naz Shah, who was forced to apologize for backing calls for Israel’s “relocation” to the United States.

The former mayor of London Ken Livingstone (pictured below) became the most prominent Labour figure to face the same fate as Shah after defending her and adding that Adolf Hitler was a Zionist.

“The creation of the state of Israel was fundamentally wrong, because there had been a Palestinian community there for 2,000 years,” Livingstone recently told Arabic TV station al-Ghad al-Arabi.

The illegal Israeli regime was established in 1948, when it occupied Palestinian land along with expanses of other Arab territories during full-fledged military operations. The occupied lands also include Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms and Syria’s Golan Heights.

In 1967, it occupied the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East al-Quds (Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip. It later annexed the West Bank and East al-Quds in a move never recognized by the international community.

The Labour Party has suspe

nded as many as 50 members over allegations of “anti-Semitism” and racism in the past two months.

Last month, Corbyn ordered an inquiry into the issue and said he would propose a new code of conduct banning any forms of racism in the party.

Hybrid War Hyenas Tearing Brazil Apart

Brazil’s revolution starting to reveal its true colors

Brazil, like Russia, under attack by Hybrid War--Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. © Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters

By Pepe Escobar-May 17, 2016

The gloomy and repulsive night when the female president of the 7th largest economy in the world was the prey of choice fed to a lynch mob of hyenas in a drab, provincial Circus Maximus will forever live in infamy.

By 367 votes for and 137 against, the impeachment/coup/regime change-light drive against Dilma Rousseff cleared the Brazilian Congressional circus and will now go to the Senate, where a “special commission” will be set up. If approved, Rousseff will then be sidelined for 180 days and a low-rent tropical Brutus, Vice-President Michel Temer, will ascend to power until the Senate’s final verdict.

This lowly farce should serve as a wake-up call not only to the BRICS but to the whole Global South. Who needs NATO, R2P (“responsibility to protect”) or “moderate rebels” when you can get your regime change just by tweaking a nation’s political/judicial system?

The Brazilian Supreme Court has not analyzed the merit of the matter – at least not yet. There’s no solid evidence anywhere Rousseff committed a “crime of responsibility”; she did what every American President since Reagan has done – not to mention leaders all across the world: along with her vice-president, the lowly Brutus, Rousseff got slightly creative with the federal budget’s numbers.

Brazil, like Russia, under attack by Hybrid War

The coup has been sponsored by a certified crook, president of the lower house Eduardo Cunha; reportedly the holder of several illegal accounts in Switzerland, listed in the Panama Papers and under investigation by the Supreme Court. Instead of lording over near-illiterate hyenas in a racist, largely crypto-fascist circus, he should be behind bars. It beggars belief that the Supreme Court has not launched legal action against Cunha. The secret of his power over the circus is a gigantic corruption scheme lasting many years, featuring corporations contributing to his and others’ campaign financing.

And that’s the beauty of a regime change-light/color revolution of Hybrid War when staged in such a dynamically creative nation such as Brazil. The hall of mirrors yields a political simulacrum that would have driven deconstructionists Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco, if alive, green with envy; a Congress crammed with fools/patsies/traitors/crooks, some of whom are already being investigated for corruption, has conspired to depose a president who is not under any formal corruption investigation – and has not committed any“crime of responsibility”.

The neoliberal restoration

Still, without a popular vote, the massively rejected tropical Brutus twins, Temer and Cunha, will find it impossible to govern, even though they would perfectly incarnate the project of the immensely arrogant and ignorant Brazilian elites; a neoliberal triumph, with Brazilian “democracy” trampled down six feet under.

It’s impossible to understand what happened at the Circus Maximus this Sunday without knowing there’s a gaggle of Brazilian political parties that are seriously threatened by the non-stop overspill of the Car Wash corruption investigation. To ensure their survival, Car Wash must be “suspended”; and it will, under the bogus“national unity” proposed by lowly Brutus Temer.

But first, Car Wash must produce a high-profile scalp. And that has to be Lula in jail – compared to which the crucifixion of Rousseff is an Aesop fable. Corporate media, led by the noxious Globo empire, would hail it as the ultimate victory, and nobody would care about Car Wash’s enforced retirement.

This U.S. Navy handout image shows Baker, the second of the two atomic bomb tests, in which a 63-kiloton warhead was exploded 90 feet under water as part of Operation Crossroads, conducted at Bikini Atoll in July 1946 to measure nuclear weapon effects on warships. © U.S. Navy

A world war has begun. Break the silence – John Pilger

The 54 million-plus who voted for Rousseff’s reelection in 2014 voted wrong. The overall “project” is a government without vote and without people; a Brazilian-style parliamentary system, without bothering with pesky “elections” and crucially, including very “generous” campaign financing flexibility not bound to incriminate powerful companies/corporations.

In a nutshell, the ultimate aim is to perfectly “align” the Brazilian Executive, Legislative, Judiciary and corporate media interests. Democracy is for suckers. Brazilian elites remote controlling the hyenas know very well that if Lula runs again in 2018, he will win. And Lula has already warned; he won’t buy any “national unity”crap; he’ll be back in the streets fighting whatever illegitimate government pops up.

We’re now open for plundering

As it stands, Rousseff runs the risk of becoming the first major casualty of the NSA-originated, two-year-long Car Wash investigation. The President, admittedly an incompetent economic manager and lacking the right stuff of a master politician, believed that Car Wash – which practically prevented her from governing – would not reach her because she is personally honest. Yet Car Wash’s not so hidden agenda was always regime change. Who cares if in the process the nation is left on the verge of being controlled exactly by many of those indicted by the anti-corruption drive?

Lowly Brutus Temer – a vanity case version of Argentina’s Macri – is the perfect conduit for the implementation of regime change. He represents the powerful banking lobby, the powerful agribusiness lobby and the powerful federation of industries in Brazil’s economic leader, the state of Sao Paulo.

Brazil’s revolution starting to reveal its true colors

The neo-developmentalist project for Latin America – uniting at least some of the local elites, invested in developing internal markets, in association with the working classes – is now dead, because what may be defined as sub-hegemonic, or peripheral, capitalism is mired in crisis after the 2008 Wall Street-provoked debacle. What’s left is just neoliberal restoration. TINA (“there is no alternative”). This implies, in the Brazilian case, the savage reversion of Lula’s legacy; social policies, technological policies, the drive to globally expand large, competitive Brazilian companies, more public universities, better salaries.

In a message to the nation, Brutus Temer admitted as much;“hope” after impeachment will be absolutely swell for “foreign investment”, as in let them plunder the colony at will; back to the trademark history of Brazil since 1500.

So Wall Street, US Big Oil and the proverbial “American interests” win this round at the circus – thanks to the, once again proverbial, vassal/comprador elites. Chevron execs are already salivating with the prospect of laying their hands on the pre-salt oil deposits; that was already promised by a trusted vassal in the Brazilian opposition.

The coup goes on. The real hyenas haven’t yet pounced. So it’s far from over.

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he’s been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of “Globalistan” (2007), “Red Zone Blues” (2007), “Obama does Globalistan” (2009) and “Empire of Chaos” (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is “2030″, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.

The original source of this article is RT

American Isolationism, With a Very, Very Big Stick

Polls show that U.S. voters want to focus on domestic issues, and yet support for defense spending is at its highest level since 9/11.

BY BRUCE STOKES-MAY 17, 2016

In a modern-day melding of the worldviews of Charles Lindbergh and Teddy Roosevelt, Americans in this election year want to step back from the world but carry a big stick, according to a recent Pew Research Centersurvey.

As the presidential primary election campaign winds down and the general election season nears, the American public views the U.S. role in the world with considerable apprehension and concern. Nearly half say the United States is a less powerful and important world leader than it was 10 years ago. A majority of Americans say it would be better if the United States just dealt with its own problems and let other countries deal with their own challenges as best they can.

At the same time, public support for increased defense spending has climbed to its highest level since a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Not surprisingly, given presidential campaign rhetoric to date, voters’ views of America’s place in the world are highly partisan, with Republicans more inward-looking than Democrats, but also more willing to use force when they perceive U.S. interests being threatened abroad.

Nearly six-in-10 Americans (57 percent) want the United States “to deal with its own problems and let other countries deal with their own problems as best they can.” This sentiment has increased since 2010, when 46 percent held such views. In part this may be because more Americans think the United States does too much (41 percent) in terms of solving world problems compared with those who think it does the right amount (28 percent) or too little (27 percent).

Moreover, it is clear that the public wants the next president to focus on issues at home.Seven-in-10 Americans say it is more important for whoever wins in November to focus on domestic concerns rather than foreign policy. Just 17 percent say the next president’s main focus should be on international affairs. Such sentiment is not new, but it has grown. In September 2008, six-in-10 said the next president should focus on domestic issues more than foreign ones.

Despite the public’s ambivalence about U.S. global involvement, a majority of Americans (55 percent) support policies aimed at maintaining America’s status as the only military superpower. Only about a third (36 percent) say it would be acceptable if another country became as militarily powerful as the United States.

Opinions on defense spending lend further support: 35 percent say Washington should increase spending on national defense, 40 percent say defense spending should be kept about the same as today, and only 24 percent say it should be cut back. The share favoring more defense spending has increased 12 percentage points since 2013.

The public suggests one thing they would do with a stronger military. Eight-in-10 Americans say the Islamic militant group in Iraq and Syria (the Islamic State) is a major threat to the well-being of the United States. And 47 percent voice the view that using overwhelming military force is the best way to defeat terrorism around the world, up from 37 percent in 2014. An equal proportion (47 percent) believes that relying too much on military force to defeat terrorism creates hatred that leads to more terrorism, but that reluctance is down 10 percentage points from two years ago.

The pairing of inward-looking sentiment with renewed bellicosity is largely, but not solely, a partisan affair.

Some 62 percent of Republicans, compared with 47 percent of Democrats, want to let other countries deal with their own problems while the United States focuses on its own challenges. Yet large majorities of both Democrats (73 percent) and Republicans (65 percent) say it is more important for the next president to focus on domestic policy rather than foreign policy.

Fully 70 percent of Republicans say the use of overwhelming military force is the best approach to defeating global terrorism, including 77 percent of Donald Trump supporters. By contrast, 65 percent of Democrats, including 75 percent of Bernie Sanders backers and 64 percent of Hillary Clinton partisans, say relying too much on military force to defeat terrorism only creates hatred that leads to more terrorism.

Support for more defense outlays has increased across the partisan spectrum. But the gap in support for higher military spending between Republicans and Democrats, which was 25 percentage points three years ago, now stands at 41 points. Among those who identify with the GOP, roughly six-in-10 (61 percent) want to boost the Pentagon budget. But just 20 percent of Democrats agree.

Among Democratic voters, Sanders supporters are far more likely than those who support Clinton to favor cutting back U.S. defense spending (43 percent versus 25 percent).

With the likely Democratic nominee to be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the presumptive GOP standard-bearer to be Donald Trump, who advocates what he calls an “America First” foreign policy, international issues are likely to play a larger than normal role in the fall presidential campaign. The two candidates will be trying to woo an electorate that is neither isolationist nor interventionist, but an amalgam of both sentiments. And whoever prevails in the election will need to formulate a U.S. foreign policy that appeals for public support by weaving together these differing strains.

Photo credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Canadian wildfire shifts north, prolonging oil sands shutdown

A wildfire burns near Highway 63 south of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, May 8, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

BY NIA WILLIAMS- Wed May 18, 2016

A massive wildfire around the oil sands hub of Fort McMurray, Alberta, moved towards energy production facilities on Tuesday, extending a shutdown that has led to lost Canadian output of one million barrels a day.

The fire jumped a critical firebreak area where plants and trees had been removed to stop its spread late Monday, moving north of Fort McMurray into oil sand camp areas. Some 8,000 workers were evacuated in the heavily forested northern part of the province.

The wildfire was taking a toll on the province's economy, with one study estimating the lost oil production would cut gross domestic product (GDP) by more than C$70 million a day.

The uncontrolled blaze covered 355,000 hectares (877,224 acres), up from 285,000 hectares on Monday. High temperatures and winds were working against firefighters, officials said.

None of the oil sands have caught fire, and the industry was redoubling efforts to ensure facilities were well-protected, said Alberta wildfire manager Chad Morrison.

"Experience has taught us because of the cleared vegetation, lots of gravel on site and because they have an industrial firefighting service on site that understands this ... we feel fairly confident the sites themselves will be okay," Morrison told a news conference.

The lost Canadian production of 1 million barrels a day represents about one-quarter of total Canadian output. Global oil prices touched a six-month high on Tuesday, with the Canadian outages among factors lending support. [O/R]

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said westerly winds were expected to push the fire closer to facilities operated by Suncor Energy Inc (SU.TO), one of the area's biggest operators, and Syncrude, majority owned by Suncor, on Tuesday.

Suncor started a staged and orderly shutdown of its base plant operations, while Syncrude has evacuated the majority of its workforce to Edmonton but left a minimum staff of about 100 people at its Mildred Lake upgrader and Aurora Mine.

The fire also threatened Enbridge Inc's (ENB.TO) Cheecham crude oil tank farm south of Fort McMurray, but Notley said the fire line built there has held and winds were blowing away from the facility.

TransAlta Corp's (TA.TO) Poplar Creek cogeneration power plant, which provides power to Suncor, was also shut by early Tuesday due to the wildfire.

Prior to the latest setback, lost oil production was expected to average about 1.2 million barrels a day for 14 days, or roughly C$985 million ($763 million) in lost real GDP, according to the Conference Board of Canada.

Notley said the Conference Board's numbers were in the range of the government's estimates.

The premier added that the province has not underestimated the fire and had the resources to fight the fire.

Canada has declined help from allies including the United States and Australia. Federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Ottawa had full confidence in Alberta's ability to fight the blaze.

Fort McMurray's roughly 90,000 residents were forced to flee nearly two weeks ago as the fire raged through neighbourhoods and destroyed about 10 percent of the city's structures.

With new explosions in the city damaging 10 homes and hot spots still a risk, Notley is not yet allowing residents to return.

Roughly a million barrels per day of oil sands crude production was shut down as a precaution and because of disruptions to regional pipelines. Much of that production remains offline.

(Additional reporting by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Burma: Jade mining companies forced to suspend operations after arson attacks

Freelance jade miners collect jade stones in an earth dump of a companies' mining field in Hpakant area, Kachin State, Northern Burma. Pic: AP.

17th May 2016

TWO jade mining firms in the township of Hpakant in the Kachin State, Burma (Myanmar), have been forced to stop operations after being hit by numerous hand-made bombs in suspected arson attacks, following similar attacks a week before.

The Yadanar Moe Myay Co. Ltd. and Lin Htet Aung Co. Ltd. companies were both operating in Hmaw Si Sar village, according to The Irrawaddy newspaper.

Village administrator Lama Tu Ja told the newspaper that about eight people entered the mining compound around 8pm on Sunday. After telling people present to stand aside, they began to light and throw “hand-made bombs wrapped in tape”.

Trucks damaged by explosives in Hpakant. Image via DVB Multimedia

An official from the Yadanar Moe Myay company arrived at the site in response to the explosions, but the assailants reportedly pulled him from his vehicle and threw a bomb inside it, “totally destroying it”.

Local media reported machinery being damaged from the attacks, as well as some employee housing. The attack was repeated at the other company’s compound, forcing over 200 workers to find shelter at nearby villages.

Authorities do not know who is responsible for the attacks, and are still investigating the scene.

Burmese news channel DVB Multimedia also reported an attack in a different village, destroying at least 10 vehicles and other mining equipment.

The apparently separate attacks took place at the Yumar village, and targeted the warehouses of the Kyal Lin company.

According to the news channel, locals say the attacks were an “act of punishment” for the company refusing to give in to extortion demands from an armed group.

SEE ALSO: The great jade heist and the quiet theft of Burma’s billions

The attacks follow five bombings in the same region a week ago, which resulted in one woman being injured.

Jade mining is a contentious issue in Burma, with locals staging demonstrations frequently to protest companies’ exploitation of the gem and their lack of care for the environment or their workers.

Housewife has giant 7lb hairball removed from her stomach after it left her barely able to swallow water

A 31-year-old woman had a hairball weighing almost 7lbs (3kg) from her stomach - which left her unable to eat or even take a sip of water---Surgeon Dr Hardeep Singh said: ‘Her stomach and intestines were filled with hair so there was no way she could’ve digested food or water. Whatever she consumed was not getting absorbed and she would vomit’

Surgeon Dr Hardeep Singh said: ¿Her stomach and intestines were filled with hair so there was no way she could¿ve digested food or water. Whatever she consumed was not getting absorbed and she would vomit¿

She had surgery to remove the 17cm wide mass of hair

The woman was diagnosed with Rapunzel syndrome, a rare condition in which a hairball (called a trichobezar) is found in the stomach, with its tail in the colon. She had surgery to remove the 17cm wide mass of hair

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Unnamed woman was rushed to hospital with a severe stomach ache
Was unable to eat and vomited every time she took a sip of water
Eventually she admitted she had been eating her own hair for 20 years
Had an operation to remove the 7lb (3kg) mass which was 40cm long

By MADLEN DAVIES FOR MAILONLINE-16 May 2016

A 31-year-old woman had a hairball weighing almost 7lbs removed from her stomach - which had left her unable to eat or even take a sip of water.

The woman, from a small village in Punchkula, near Chandigarh, northern India, was admitted into a local government hospital last week with severe stomach pain.

After scans revealed the mass she admitted she had been pulling out and eating her own locks for two decades, doctors discovered.

She couldn't let anything pass through her lips without immediately vomiting.

After surgery to remove the 3kg ball of hair, doctors were astonished to find it was 40cm long - and she is now finally able to eat proper meals again.

Dr Hardeep Singh, 30, a general surgeon said: ‘When she came to hospital we asked her if she had a habit of chewing her hair to which she said no.

'But when we got her ultrasound done, it confirmed a huge mass in her stomach that demanded immediate attention.’

After surgery last Friday, the mother-of-three confessed she had been chewing her hair since she was nine years old.

Dr Singh said: ‘Her stomach and intestines were filled with hair so there was no way she could’ve digested food or water.

'Whatever she consumed was not getting absorbed and she would vomit.’

Dr Singh said he’d never seen anything like it. ‘It was around 40 cm long. She is now having proper meals without any issue and will be discharged from hospital after three days once her stitches are removed.’

And after the mother's hair-eating addiction was revealed, one of her children went on to confessed to eating large quantities of cement every day.

Monday, May 16, 2016

Involuntary Disappearances – The North South Divide

KUSAL PERERA-on 05/16/2016

Featured image courtesy oneworld.org

Sure, I heard

Someone tap on the wooden door

At the rear of our house.

Sure, I heard

Some one call your name.

Ruben he called you,

One night, last year.

Involuntary Disappearances – the North South Divide by Thavam Ratna

Sri Lanka’s Indo-Tamil problem

By Izeth Hussain –May 14, 2016

Izeth Hussain

There is now an air of cautious optimism on the ethnic front because it seems that the Government and the TNA are at last moving towards a political solution. I will take this seriously only if the envisaged solution has the backing of India. My reason for saying this is that I have held for some time that Sri Lanka does not have a purely indigenous Tamil ethnic problem. There will be no such problem if not for the India factor, by which I mean this: no Government in Delhi can be expected to ignore the possible fall-out in Tamil Nadu of what is done to the Tamils in Sri Lanka. That is why the international community broadly sees Indian intervention over the Tamil ethnic problem as legitimate, not as amounting to interference.

Why do I say that if not for the India factor there would be no Tamil ethnic problem in Sri Lanka today? The LTTE was defeated militarily and no one in his right mind believes that Eelam can be established through further military struggle. We must bear in mind that the international community consists of nation states in which, with very rare exceptions, ethnic majorities are dominant over ethnic minorities. As a general rule, they cannot be expected to view minority separatist rebellions with too kindly an eye. In this case, the separatist rebellion has been defeated and the Government is offering 13 A without police and land powers, together with a fully functioning democracy which in the West meets the legitimate interests of the Tamil and other minorities. That would seem fair enough to the international community. But the problem is that the Tamils want more devolution and hopes that India will secure that for them. Consequently, what we have on our hands is not a purely indigenous Tamil ethnic problem but an Indo-Tamil problem.

There is no point in inveighing against India’s supposed hegemonic or imperialist drive. The point that we have to face up to is that India can harm us to a very terrible extent, even to the extent of breaking up this country – a very remote contingency certainly, but something that we will do well to always bear in mind. Those are stark facts, stark and unalterable geopolitical facts that won’t go away. But it is also a stark fact that India can help us to a great extent, including over the Indo-Tamil ethnic problem, and I believe that it has excellent reasons why it should want to do so.

One reason is that India covets the position of a permanent member of the Security Council, and will probably be prepared to do a great deal towards securing that end. A pre-requisite for that would be for India to have credibility as a peaceful nation and also as one that has the capacity to contribute meaningfully towards the establishment of an equitable new world order. But India has a rather horrible record of poor relations with practically all its neighbors, except that its relations with Sri Lanka have been for the most part excellent. It has had the image of an overbearing bully towards its neighbors, which may be unfair but such has been its image. Being really helpful in sorting out the Indo-Tamil ethnic problem could be very useful in correcting that image.

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN -May 16, 2016, 9:32 pm
Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, May 16: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has asked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convert the Sampur Power Station in Trincomalee from a coal power plant to one powered by liquified natural gas (LNG).

Modi has responded positively to Sirisena’s suggestion, and asked his officials to discuss the issue promptly with their Sri Lankan counterparts, and move forward.

This was revealed to The Island here today by Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Esala Weerakoon.

The Sampur project figured in the bilateral deliberations between the two sides on Friday. President Sirisena raised the issue, and Modi reacted to the former’s suggestion favourably.

Present at the bilateral talks were Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Esala Weerakoon, his Deputy MKR Lenagala, and Asoka Girihagama, Director General of the South Asia Division in the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry.

The Indian side included Foreign Secretary Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha, and Ms Renu Pall, Joint Secretary (Sri Lanka, Maldives and the Indian Ocean Region) in the Ministry of External Affairs.

The Sampur Power Station (also known as Sampoor Power Station and Trincomalee Power Station) was meant to be a coal-powered power station. The MoU for the first 500 MW phase was signed on 29 December 2006, between the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and India’s National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).

The Power Purchase Agreement, Implementation Agreement, BOI Agreement, Land Lease Agreement and Coal Supply Agreement were signed on 7 October 2013 by relevant parties including the Government the CEB and the Trincomalee Power Company Limited. The power station was expected to come online in late 2017.

However, there has been opposition to the coal-powered plant from people living in the area. Prominent leaders like R Sampanthan and Rauf Hakeem have expressed reservations about the plant.

In view of this and President Sirisena personally taking up the issue with Modi, India may now do what Sri Lanka desires.