Basil Rajapaksa remanded until August 01



July 18, 2016

Former Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa, who was arrested by the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID), has been remanded until August 01. 

The former Minister was arrested on charges of misappropriation of Divi Neguma funds earlier on Monday (19). He was remanded after being produced before the Kaduwela Magistrate, Ada Derana reporter said. 

  Basil Rajapaksa’s lawyer, Jayantha Weerasinghe, told Reuters police had taken his client to court regarding the supply of building materials to district councils when he was a minister. “There is nothing illegal and it is an utterly false allegation,” Weerasinghe said. Neither Basil Rajapaksa nor his family members were immediately available for comment. 

Rajapaksa and three other senior ministry officials were also arrested on April 22, 2015 in connection with a complaint alleging financial fraud in the Divi Neguma Department, which came under the purview of the Economic Development Minister. 

    Rajapaksa, who left the country for the US on 11 January, 2015 following the defeat of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the January Presidential Election, returned to the island on April 21, 2015.

 (With inputs from Reuters) 

Promotion for bribery-accused Royal principal! 

Jul 18, 2016

The education ministry has given a promotion to Upali Gunasekara, former principal of Royal College, Colombo, who was sent to the ministry pool last January over bribery accusations.

On the 15th, he assumed duties as administrative director of the National Institute of Education.

Gunasekara stands accused of having opened an additional class for grade six at Royal College and accepted money to admit students to that class.

He was sent to the ministry pool, purportedly while under investigation.

Parents wonder as to whether he has been appointed to the NIE, which even advises the subject minister, in recognition of his ‘deed.’

The most amusing part of the story is that newspaper advertisements had been published to fill that particular position, but the applicants had not been asked to be present for interviews.

The other applicants are planning to lodge complaints with the Human Rights Commission, according to reports reaching us.

Individuals who get promotions to the NIE are the ones who stand accused of one wrongdoing or another. Its director general Dr. T.A.R.J. Gunasekara faces an accusation of examination fraud, and an investigation is pending against her.

Await details of many other irregularities at the NIE….

Complexities and uncertainties

By Amita Batra-2016-07-19

Brexit, that is, Britain's decision to leave the European Union, was announced on the 23 June. The announcement led to an immediate and sharp decline in the value of the British Pound (GBP). The stock markets in Britain and around the world followed suit with major losses incurred in the initial couple of days after the announcement.

While pressure on the GBP continued, the stock markets recovered partially by the end of the working week. The political scenario in the UK is now in the process of getting reconfigured. The timing of the initiation of Brexit from the EU is not yet known even though the EU has shown a firm response and desired that the UK actualize its decision at the earliest.
From announcement to initiation to exit, the time it may take to accomplish the task of Britain's withdrawal from the EU may be long drawn and uncertainty may prevail in the interim.

How is the Brexit decision likely to impact the UK economy, its trade and economic cooperation with the EU in future, EU stability and its integration in the global economy, are among the many questions that the world has since been grappling with.
Economic uncertainty
As an immediate consequence of the weakened GBP and associated economic uncertainty, global investors in a risk-off mode are seeking safer currencies like the US Dollar (USD) and Yen.

In the process, the USD has strengthened and allowed the Chinese to undertake depreciation of the Renminbi (RMB). The magnitude of RMB depreciation has been small so far. However, if USD continues to gain strength and there is corresponding and large depreciation in the RMB, speculative forces may trigger potentially destabilizing capital outflows not unlike those experienced earlier in the year in January-February.

The stability of many emerging market economies could be further endangered by appreciation in their large USD denomination debts. As a positive for the Chinese economy, RMB devaluation may help push Chinese exports in the immediate short run but over the longer run may lead to competitive devaluation in the region. Indian exports that have seen a steady decline for over a year now may find it difficult to reverse the trend under these circumstances.

Capital outflows may also impact the Indian economy and it could as a consequence see lower portfolio inflows. Uncertainty in general will dampen investor sentiment, postpone large investment decisions such as in infrastructure projects and consequently adversely impact growth prospects in the region.

As the UK pulls out of the EU, losing its advantage of access to the single EU market and large investments are postponed owing to the uncertain economic environment the possibility of a slowdown in the UK economy looms large. In the process, the EU's growth prospects are also likely to be adversely impacted. The EU is a major trade partner for the UK even though the UK's trade with non-EU countries has been increasing since 1999.
The EU is also a major investor and a major recipient of UK investment. In 2014, the EU accounted for 44.6 per cent and 53.2 per cent of UK exports and imports of goods and services respectively.
In 2013, 43.2 per cent of UK overseas assets were held in the EU, whereas 46.4 per cent of assets held in the UK by overseas residents and businesses were attributable to the EU (www.ons.gov.uk).
The writer is a Professor of Economics, Centre for South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi.
The economic slowdown will exacerbate the existing woes of the EU which is still struggling with the post 2008 financial crisis outcomes, the travails of the periphery economies and the more recent migration crisis as also of the world economy that has yet to register a sustained recovery from the global financial crisis. For Asia, the slowdown will imply further loss of export demand in its traditional EU market.
Economic entities
Transaction costs of trade with, and investment in, the UK and EU will now be higher as both will have to be dealt with as independent economic entities. This may not be so easy. In the case of trade and investment, EU laws, standards and rules are likely to remain the same but the UK will have to negotiate afresh with the WTO. The nationalistic sentiments that have defined the exit campaign may now imply the imposition of higher tariff and other trade barriers by the UK. Asian exports may suffer as a consequence.
Stricter provisions with regard to movement of people could be another consequence of the Brexit. Asian economies could be particularly adversely affected with a change in these provisions. A majority of the 42 million international migrants born in Asia were living in Europe in 2015 (International Migration Report 2015 Highlights, UN, 2016).

For India, Brexit may not be an immediate concern. The central bank made careful interventions in the currency market allaying fears of volatility induced costs and it is expected that stable macroeconomic fundamentals and its fastest growing economy status will help India sail through the uncertain economic environment post Brexit.

India's total trade
While among the top 20 trading partners for India, UK has a small share of about 2 per cent in India's total trade. This has not changed much in the last half a decade. How tariffs and other trade regulations alter in the wake of Brexit and hence impact on India's trade with the UK, while not immediately clear, may also not be immediately critical for India's trade prospects. EU is a more significant trade partner for India, with a 16 per cent share in exports and around 11 per cent in imports in 2015 (dgft.gov.in).

Finalizing the India-EU FTA, under negotiation now for almost a decade, should be India's priority. The issues that have been at the heart of prolonged negotiations such as IPR, migration and movement of people may now acquire new dimensions. At the same time, a separate FTA with the UK may not be immediately possible and certainly not till the UK undertakes its negotiations with the WTO on trade treaties and rules.

For all South Asian economies that are beneficiaries of the non-reciprocal preferential trade treatment under the EU General Scheme of Preferences/Everything But Arms/General Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP/EBA/GSP Plus) scheme/s, benefits will continue. Though, without the friendly supporting voice of the UK, continued GSP plus preferences to South Asian exports by the EU may not be easily ensured in the future.
Apparel sector
This is significant as the EU is a major export market for South Asian exports in the labour intensive and revenue generating textiles and apparel sector. Also, in the absence of the UK, Sri Lanka which has been keen on getting back the GSP plus status (suspended in 2013) with the EU may now find it more difficult. Additionally, a slowdown in the UK economy may lead to depressed grants and remittances for the Pakistan economy with consequent adverse implications for its external position. As for trade with UK, much would depend on how far the UK will retain its pre-exit trade rules once the exit is formally complete.

Of course, all of the above uncertainties would be compounded and the ramifications far more complex were instability in the EU to become reality and if the Brexit was to trigger other such reactions from significant other members of the EU. It is also possible that Brexit may play out differently; and as many are hoping, the invocation of Article 50 may be indefinitely delayed or the UK may retain access to the EU.

What can however be said without doubt is that the Brexit outcomes are complex, not yet fully comprehensible and uncertainty reigns supreme. In these circumstances it would be best for Asia to strengthen its intra-regional growth impulses, supply chain networks and trade agreements to successfully counter global uncertainties.

REVEALED: How Palestinian president made an enemy of the UAE

Emirates withholds $500m in funding for Palestinian Authority as row boils over between its president, Mahmoud Abbas, and UAE crown prince

Mahmoud Abbas and Mohammed Bin Zayed al-Nahyan in January 2005 (AFP)

Rori Donaghy-Monday 18 July 2016

An escalating five-year row between the United Arab Emirates and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is behind the Gulf state's recent decision to withold hundreds of millions of dollars from the Palestinian Authority, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Lebanese columnist Jihad al-Khazen published an interview in June with an unidentified Gulf official who described the PA as a “hodgepodge of failure and corruption” and called on it

to resign.

A source close to Khazen told MEE on condition of anonymity that the Gulf official was Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan – a claim also made by official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Bin Zayed told Khazen that the UAE had given the authority $500m every year for four years and that he had “personally wore a badge bearing the Palestinian keffiyeh (scarf) as a symbol of solidarity”.

But this funding has recently been stopped because of an escalating row between Bin Zayed and Abbas, which has seen former PA prime minister Salam Fayyad investigated for alleged money laundering over his financial links with the UAE.

In June last year the Palestinian attorney general, Abdul Ghani Oweiwi, ordered a $700,000 donation from the UAE be confiscated from Palestine Tomorrow for Social Development - a development organisation founded by Fayyad that seeks to alleviate poverty in the occupied West Bank.

Fayyad was accused of money laundering and using Emirati money for political purposes as part of a soft coup to overthrow the PA’s leadership.

However, a month after the donation was confiscated, the Palestinian Supreme Court ordered it to be returned to the former prime minister’s organisation.

Despite the money being returned Bin Zayed has not forgiven Abbas and he, according to Khazen, is demanding the Palestinian president publicly apologise for the allegations made against Fayyad and the UAE.

“Do you believe the UAE would choose to launder through Palestine, and that amount would be just $700,00?” the Crown Prince told Khazen, who said the UAE leader spoke “with his anger plain to see”.

Bin Zayed said Abu Dhabi has given $10m to Fayyad’s organisation, which he established after resigning as prime minister in June 2013.

The Emirati royal went on to say that the PA “in its entirety must resign, as there is no trust in it”.

At the root of the row between Bin Zayed and Abbas is exiled former Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan, who was expelled from the Palestinian president’s movement in June 2011 after being accused repeatedly of murdering the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Dahlan moved to the UAE after his expulsion where he works as an adviser to Bin Zayed, with who he has built a close personal and professional relationship.

A source close to Dahlan told MEE the Palestinian has impressed Bin Zayed with his “intelligence and ability” and also his “good relationship with the Israelis”.

However, before Dahlan’s UAE move, Bin Zayed attempted to stop Abbas from expelling him and instead urged the Palestinian president to heal the rift.

In a trip to Abu Dhabi in 2011 Abbas promised Bin Zayed he would solve the disagreement with Dahlan and that he would not expel him, a senior Palestinian source told MEE.

But when Abbas returned to the West Bank he went back on his word and threw Dahlan out of Fatah.

“[Bin Zayed] reacted angrily,” the Palestinian source said. “He said Abbas is not a man, has no dignity or respect, and that it was over between them. He told Dahlan that the UAE was now his country.”

In an attempt to avoid making a powerful enemy Abbas tried to mediate with Bin Zayed through his son Yasser, who he sent to Abu Dhabi to try and convince the Emiratis that they should not give Dahlan refuge.

These attempts proved futile and Bin Zayed told Yasser Abbas to return home and tell his father: “Look boy, the home of Zayed is the home of all Arabs. Go and tell your father this.”

After Yasser Abbas was sent home Dahlan quickly made Abu Dhabi his home and over the course of the past five years he has been allowed access to the UAE’s sizeable financial coffers, which he has used to build influence back at home in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

A senior Hamas source told MEE that in in 2014 and 2015 Dahlan spent $25m in Gaza. The money, the source said, has been used to support families who lost relatives in Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza as well as to pay for mass weddings.

When asked why Hamas would allow Dahlan – a long-time opponent of their Islamist movement – to operate in Gaza the source said: “There are two reasons: The first is that we are poor and the second is to provoke Abbas.”

Abbas has been in open conflict with Hamas since 2007, after the latter defeated the former’s Fatah movement in the previous year’s general election, leading to violence between the two groups causing a political split that continues to be unresolved.

Dahlan has also been spending an unknown amount of money in the West Bank, principally in refugee camps, where he has been building support for a long suspected bid to be the next Palestinian president.

A source close to Dahlan said he has constructed a parallel Fatah leadership system in the West Bank that mirrors the movement’s organisational structure.

He chairs the “system within a system” and personally oversees an 18-person revolutionary council. Local branches based in refugee camps operate under the council, electing their own leaders and possessing a budget provided by Dahlan.

This structure is being developed in preparation for Dahlan’s plans to eventually return home and takeover from Abbas, the source said.

“He wants to be president. Dahlan said ‘I come next but not immediately’. He thinks there should be an interim leader who will quickly hand over power to him,” the source said.

Dahlan’s ability to spend large sums of money in poor Palestinian communities has allowed him to build significant public support, but his increasingly powerful position was far from inevitable.

The source close to Dahlan said when he was expelled in 2011 he was not in a strong position – and that in expelling him Abbas made his enemy stronger than he was likely to have ever become.

“Dahlan was helpless, he was a wounded lion,” the source said. “When he was kicked out [of the West Bank] he had been marginalised.”

However, since 2011, Dahlan has transformed into one of the most influential power brokers in the region, advising the UAE on how to “make money and grow their influence”.

Dahlan’s ever increasing power has bred a sense of paranoia in Abbas, who now sees his enemy’s influence everywhere he turns. And wherever he sees Dahlan plotting he also believes he sees Emirati money.

The accusations against Fayyad were not surprising to those aware that the former Palestinian prime minister is known to have a good relationship with Dahlan – although multiple sources told MEE that Fayyad is not part of any claimed plot against the PA.

“But Abbas thinks Fayyad is Dahlan’s man,” the source close to Dahlan said. “This problem with the UAE is personal for Abbas. He sees anyone with ties to the UAE as his enemy.”

Another prominent Palestinian official who has fallen foul of Abbas’ spat with the UAE is former Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Secretary-General Yasser Yasser Abed Rabbo.

Rabbo was sacked from his position in June last year, accused in private by Abbas of disappearing for a month to go to the UAE, where the president believes he was conspiring with Bin Zayed against the PA.

“But Rabbo wasn’t in the UAE, he was on a Greek island with his family,” said a source close to the former PLO secretary-general.

In June Fatah demanded that Bin Zayed take a “clear position” on Khazen article, but the Abu Dhabi leader has not commented on it.

Dahlan, Fayyad, and Rabbo all declined to comment on this article. Several aides to Abbas said they would not comment on the spat, arguing that anything they might say would “only make the situation worse”.

However, Fatah official Muwaffaq Matter recently told Al Monitor that Dahlan has been seeking to cause problems between the PA and the UAE since his move to Abu Dhabi.

“We are not concerned with any dispute with any Arab country,” the Fatah Revolutionary Council member said.

“However Dahlan – who serves as a security consultant in the UAE, which contributed to strengthening his ties with Egypt – has been seeking, since he sought refuge to the UAE, to stir sedition between the PA leadership and the Arab countries, namely the UAE.”

Gaza’s rich history is potential tourism draw

Palestinian workers excavate a mosaic in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, in September 2012.Ashraf AmraAPA images

Palestinian workers excavate the Maqam al-Khader in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, in March 2016.Ashraf AmraAPA images

Rami Almeghari-18 July 2016

On a sandy Rafah hilltop in mid-April, a few workers were digging carefully into the dry land.

The excavators, their tools basic, were from Gaza’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The site they were digging — at 40 acres, Tel Rafah is among the largest of Gaza’s 30-odd archaeological sites — is believed to contain evidence of human settlement going back more than 4,000 years.

It is sites like these that make Gaza unique, a treasure trove for archaeologists, historians and, potentially, the local economy. Military occupation, economic warfare, violence and a blockade going back nearly a decade mean that potential lies untapped even as it points to a possible way forward for one of the world’s most impoverished areas.

A crossroads for civilizations trading with each other for thousands of years, Gaza’s history is storied. Palestinians in Gaza will proudly tell you that no one has managed to rule them long. They will cite the Ottomans, the British, the Egyptians and now the Israelis.

But they could go back even further. Settlement can be traced as far back as 3,500 BCE to an ancient Egyptian maritime settlement that itself was preceded by a local Canaanite population. Gaza (Hazzatu) was mentioned in the Amarna letters, ancient correspondence from the 14th century BCE. It is depicted, too, on the 6th centuryMadaba Mosaic Map in Jordan.

An important center for trade, many fought over Gaza. The Philistines, the Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzar all invaded, Gerald Butt notes in his book Life at the Crossroads. Alexander the Great laid siege for two months and destroyed Gaza City in 332 BCE. The Romans took the city and gave it to Herod. Arabs, Turks and Mamluks all had their time there. Egypt’s Muhammad Ali controlled it in 1771 and Napoleon in 1799.

It is not surprising that scholars of the ancient Middle East and archaeologists want to go there and get their hands dirty. This history could be of immense benefit to Palestinians in Gaza with the potential tourism industry it might create.

Untapped potential

But that is only what could lie ahead. Occupied by Israel since 1967, mostly Israeli archaeologists have enjoyed the chance to explore Gaza. Outside of a brief period after the signing of the Oslo accords in the mid-1990s, the tourism industry has not thrived here in recent years. The land remains occupied, fought over and out of bounds.

The Israeli-imposed siege, almost a decade long, has undermined the economy of the coastal enclave and wrought damage to Gaza’s ancient sites, said Jamal Abu Raida, a director at the tourism ministry in the territory.

“Over the past nine years, the ministry has not been able to reconstruct, repair or properly excavate archaeological sites in Gaza,” Abu Raida told The Electronic Intifada. “This is mainly because of the border closures and frequent Israeli wars against the territory. We lack modern tools, we lack materials to help preserve what is excavated.”

During the same period, Gaza suffered three devastating military assaults. Damage to archaeological sites was inevitable. Abu Raida said Israeli bombardments in both the 2012 and 2014 campaigns near the Mamluk al-Basha Palace, for example, in the heart of Gaza City, caused cracks in the walls of the nearly 800-year-old structure.

Also damaged, said Abu Raida, was the Tel Umm al-Amr site, some six miles south of Gaza City and home to, among other priceless ruins and relics, the fourth century Saint Hilarion monastery.

Despite these remarkable sites, there is virtually no tourism industry at present in Gaza. Crossing to and from the coastal enclave is determined by Israel in the north and Egypt in the south and is mostly prohibited. Sea access remains patrolled and prevented by Israel. The airport is a bombed ruins.

More surprising, perhaps, is that a tourism industry started to sprout after the Oslo accords and the advent of the Palestinian Authority. According to Abu Raida at the tourism ministry, tourism contributed some five percent of the GDP in the years 1995 to 2006, mostly made up of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

A hopeful industry

Asad Ashour, a retired Gaza historian, told The Electronic Intifada that during this period foreign archaeological delegations, mainly French, came to Gaza to discover and dig sites. It was in collaboration with one of these teams that local excavators found the Tel Umm al-Amr site.

Indeed, hotels proliferated on Gaza’s beachfront in preparation for visitors that since 2007 simply haven’t been able to come.

“Our business has been decimated [by the 2007 siege],” said Raed Hussein, the manager of the five-story Adam Hotel on the Gaza City beachfront.

“It used to be different. We had hundreds of Palestinians from Israel, and Palestinians from other countries as well. Even locals would stay here in holiday times. Business was good.”

There is still business, but it is what Hussein refers to as “political tourism”: journalists, solidarity teams, international humanitarian workers.

The downturn hasn’t stopped some from planning for the future.

“We are in the process of developing, as best as we can, our human resources and facilities, said Samir S. Skaik, deputy chairman of a hospitality industry association in Gaza.

“We have the potential to be one of the foremost tourist destinations in the region. We hope for the best and for peace to replace tension here.”

Ashour said Gaza’s rich history could act as a magnet for tourism, though he acknowledged that such prospects were entirely unrealistic absent any political solution to secure Palestinian rights. He also held out hope for a proper national museum in Gaza to host the coastal enclave’s many treasures, even though it might be damaged in any new Israeli assault.

There is currently no such publicly funded museum. There are, however, an increasing number of private ones, set up by individual collectors and enthusiasts.

Private treasures

In Khan Younis, in Gaza’s south, Marwan Shahwan, a 49-year-old carpenter, opened a private museum in his basement 13 years ago.

Showing this reporter around, Shahwan clearly delighted in pointing out what he said were ancient clay pots and swords. And it is nothing if not an eclectic collection.

“Over here,” Shahwan said, pointing to items at a corner of the basement, “is part of the Ottoman railway from the start of the last century.”

There are “at least” four privately owned museums in Gaza, said Abu Raida of the tourism ministry. But he brushed off concerns that such private initiatives — where priceless artifacts are handled by untrained hands — could do more harm than good.

“The ministry is aware of every single object in these museums. In addition, owners are very cooperative. If the ministry holds exhibitions, they will lend their items,” he said.

Ultimately, said Abu Raida, the aim is to build a proper national museum. There are, however, simply no resources for such a project in Gaza.

“The ministry itself shares offices with the ministry of agriculture,” lamented Abu Raida, who estimated the cost of a national museum to be “at least” $10 million.

“We have been in constant contact with potential donors such as UNESCO [the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural agency] with our proposals for such a museum. But since 2007 there has been no progress.”

In 2007, Hamas, after winning parliamentary elections the year prior, ousted disgruntled Fatah fighters from Gaza in an eruption of internecine fighting that left a political division yet to be properly addressed. A faltering 2014 unity government has not seen convincing steps toward bridging the divide, though Abu Raida still voiced shock at how little effect that government has had.

“Even after the establishment of a consensus government in 2014, nothing has changed. No one has even contacted us about [the national museum].”

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.

Arrest of several dual-national Iranians could be politically motivated

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her daughter Gabriella pose for a photo in London, Britain February 7, 2016. Picture taken February 7, 2016. Karl Brandt/Courtesy of Free Nazanin campaign/Handout via-REUTERS

Siamak Namazi is shown in this handout photo May 18, 2012. Picture taken May 18, 2012. Handout via-Baquer Namazi is shown in this handout photo. Handout via

BY BABAK DEHGHANPISHEH AND YEGANEH TORBATI-Tue Jul 19, 2016

Montreal academic Homa Hoodfar was preparing to return to Canada from Iran in March when agents from Iran's powerful paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps raided her Tehran home and took her laptop, phone, books and passport, her family said.

Over the course of the next three months, Hoodfar, an Iranian, Canadian and Irish citizen, was called in regularly for day-long interrogations. On June 6, she went in for yet another interrogation session but was not released.   

   Nine days later, the hardline Mashregh site, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, published what it alleged were her crimes: creating security problems within the Islamic Republic by taking part in feminist activities.

It pointed to her link with Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), a network of women and organisations that do advocacy and academic work.

Hoodfar's niece said the 65-year old anthropology and sociology professor at Concordia University in Montreal was in Iran on a personal trip.

“Those allegations are not backed with any facts and they’re baseless,” Amanda Ghahremani told Reuters by phone from Canada.

   Attempts to reach the Revolutionary Guards via their official news site and the media office of the Iranian judiciary for comment were unsuccessful. There was no immediate comment from Iran's U.N. mission in New York to Reuters about the arrest of dual-national Iranians.

   In the past nine months, the Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least six dual-national Iranians, their friends and family members say, the highest number of Iranians with dual-nationality detained at one time in recent years to have been acknowledged. The government has confirmed most of the detentions, without giving details of any charges.

    Analysts say the circumstances are often similar: arrest on arrival or departure from Tehran’s airport, the announcement of a period of interrogation followed by a hardline website publishing a list of alleged crimes, usually plotting to overthrow the government, before they set foot in court.

The Iranian government does not recognise dual nationality, which prevents relevant Western embassies from seeing individuals who have been detained.

    In March, the U.S. State Department issued a warning noting that Iranian-Americans are particularly at risk of being detained or imprisoned if they travel to Iran.

According to former prisoners, families of current ones and diplomats, in some cases the detainees are kept to be used for a prisoner exchange with Western countries. In January, the United States and Iran reached a historic prisoner swap deal that saw Iranians held or charged in the US, mostly for sanctions violations, released in return for Americans imprisoned in Iran.

Among the dual-nationals currently being held is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British citizen, 

who was detained at Tehran's airport in April while travelling with her two-year old daughter. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, works for the Thomson-Reuters foundation, a London-based charity that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News.

Monique Villa, the foundation's CEO, said Zaghari-Ratcliffe had no dealings with Iran in her professional capacity.

   Last month, the Revolutionary Guards in a statement accused Zaghari-Ratcliffe of trying to topple the government, a charge that her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, called “preposterous”.

   In late June, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lead interrogator presented an unusual proposal: her husband should pressure the UK government "to reach an agreement" and in exchange her case would be closed before going to court. The interrogator did not give any further details on what the agreement would entail, Ratcliffe told Reuters.

He said he relayed the proposal to the UK Foreign Office and was told they had no information about any agreement.

    The interrogator also told her mother during a visit to Evin prison last Wednesday that the agreement he was referring to was an "exchange," Ratcliffe added.

The UK Foreign Office has raised Zaghari-Ratcliffe's case with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other senior Iranian officials but its representatives in Tehran have not been granted access to see her, according to a Foreign Office spokeswoman who replied to a query from Reuters.

The timing of the detentions appears to undermine President Hassan Rouhani’s outreach to the West after signing the nuclear deal last summer, analysts say.

    In October, Siamak Namazi, former head of strategic planning for Crescent Petroleum in Dubai, was arrested in Tehran. The Iranian American had previously worked as a consultant in Iran for years encouraging foreign firms to invest in the Islamic Republic.

   Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Namazi's arrest appeared to be designed to send a signal to other dual-nationals who could potentially help foreign firms invest in the country.

The risk of detention would deter wealthy dual-national Iranians from the diaspora from investing in Iran, which would reduce economic competition with the Guards, he said.

    The Revolutionary Guards are the most powerful military force in Iran with business interests worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Namazi’s father Baquer, an 80-year-old former official with the United Nations' Children’s Fund, went to Iran last February and was also arrested. Baquer, who is also Iranian-American, is now in Evin prison with his son.

There was no immediate response from Crescent Petroleum.

    A key event in the foundation of the Islamic Republic was the capture of 52 employees at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 who were held hostage for 444 days.  

   Hostage-taking for political goals continued through the 1980s when Hezbollah, which was founded, trained and funded by Iran, captured Western hostages, including Americans in Lebanon. The complex deal to swap those US hostages for arms shipped to Iran became known as the Iran-Contra affair. 

   Last January, four Iranian-Americans held in Iran, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, were released as part of an exchange. Seven Iranians held or charged in the US, mostly for sanctions violations, were granted clemency in return.

    Last week, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced that indictments had been issued for Hoodfar, Siamak Namazi and Zaghari-Ratcliffe and that their cases are being transferred to court for processing, according to the judiciary’s official news site Mizan.

   No details were provided about what charges any of them face.

(Reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Philippa Fletcher)

British Parliament votes to renew nuclear weapons program for 3 more decades

Demonstrators hold an anti-war and anti-nuclear rally near Parliament in London. Parliament voted Monday to approve the replacement of the ageing submarines that carry Britain's nuclear arsenal. (Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images)

By Griff Witte July 18 at 5:48 PM

LONDON — Britain’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly to renew the country’s submarine-based nuclear weapons program for three more decades on Monday, a move the defense secretary said would help remind the world that the country still matters even after choosing to leave the European Union.

After a day of passionate debate, 472 lawmakers opted to support the government’s call to build replacements for Britain’s aging nuclear-missile-toting submarine fleet.

Nearly all members of the governing Conservative Party backed the $42 million replacement submarines, as did a majority of the opposition Labour Party. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, however, was among 117 lawmakers who opposed the measure, with the left-wing politician saying he refused to go along with a policy premised on “the threat of mass murder.”

Monday’s vote was scheduled before last month’s stunning choice by the British public to endorse an E.U. exit. But Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said Monday that he hoped the nuclear decision and other British military moves in recent weeks would “demonstrate that we are stepping up, not stepping back” from world affairs.

“We are still around,” Fallon said. “We have to demonstrate that leadership all over again.”

 

[Every new British prime minister pens a ‘letter of last resort’ outlining nuclear retaliation]

In an interview with journalists from U.S.-based news organizations at his office overlooking the Thames, Fallon acknowledged that Britain would need to go out of its way to emphasize its continued relevance.

That, he said, has already begun — not just with Monday’s vote, but also with troop deployments to Poland and Estonia to deter Russian aggression and to Iraq and Afghanistan to train local security forces.

“Leaving the union means we will have to do more to strengthen our other alliances and key bilateral partnerships,” he said.

The comments came on the eve of a visit by Fallon to Washington, where he is expected to meet with other defense chiefs in the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State militant group.

Fallon noted progress in that effort, citing a 40 percent reduction in territory under the group’s control in Iraq and a cut in the flow of foreign fighters to Islamic State ranks from Britain and other Western nations.

“They’re on the back foot,” Fallon said.

 

Nonetheless, he described the continuing existence of extremist groups such as the Islamic State as one reason for renewing Britain’s nuclear program, known as Trident.

[U.S. military ties with Britain are sheltered from Brexit storm, officials say]

But in an hours-long debate Monday in Parliament, opponents argued that the increasingly asymmetric nature of threats facing the United Kingdom shows why the 20th-century calculus of deterrence counts for little in 21st-century warfare.

“I’m not prepared to be party to the most egregious act of self-harm to our conventional defense,” said Crispin Blunt, chairman of the foreign affairs committee, who was the lone Tory to buck the Conservative Party’s leadership and oppose Trident’s renewal. “This is a colossal investment in a weapons system that will become increasingly vulnerable and for whose security we will have to throw good money after bad.”

Britain has maintained continuous patrol at sea by at least one nuclear-armed submarine since 1969. But the current class of vessels is expected to be obsolete by the end of the next decade. It could take that long — or longer — to design and build a new fleet, which explains why Parliament was asked Monday to vote to authorize the program’s go-ahead.

Although the vote is not strictly binding, it is expected to give the government a crucial endorsement as it pursues a program whose cost is expected to spiral to well over $200 billion in the decades to come. Fallon said the new submarines would ensure Britain’s nuclear-deterrence capacity until 2060.

Monday’s vote was the first significant legislative triumph for new Prime Minister Theresa May, who assumed office last week after her predecessor, David Cameron, resigned in the wake of the E.U. vote.

Speaking in defense of Trident’s renewal, May said that the threat from nations such as Russia and North Korea remained “very real” and that she would be prepared to use nuclear weapons if necessary, even if it meant mass civilian casualties.

“This has been a vital part of our national security and defense for nearly half a century,” May told Parliament, adding that it would be “an act of gross irresponsibility” for Britain to unilaterally disarm.

'Honour' killings, hypocrisy and the moral policing reserved only for women

Qandeel Baloch was failed by Pakistan society at every step. The same nation that topped Google searches for pornography strangles women like her to death

In this picture taken on 28 June 28 2016, Pakistani fashion model and social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch speaks during a press conference in Lahore, Pakistan. Photograph: M Jameel/AP

Maliha Aqueel-Monday 18 July 2016

News broke on Saturday of Pakistani social media celebrity, Qandeel Baloch, being strangled by her own brother. Since then, I have spoken to many fellow Pakistani women who were inspired by her acts and took courage from her bold rejection of a society where all of us are expected to walk a tightrope of moral standards reserved solely for women.

Qandeel Baloch was a woman our society failed at every step. Her parents married her off at 17, to a man much older than her – a practice so common that Unicefestimates 21% of girls are married off before the age of 18 in Pakistan. She spoke of the abuse in this marriage, saying he behaved like “an animal” towards her, but her family refused to support her if she decided to leave him.

In a society where often even privileged women have difficulty walking away from abusive husbands, the extraordinary courage of this working-class girl was inspirational. She left this abusive marriage, lived in a women’s refuge, and had then put herself through secondary school and college by working several jobs. 

She financially supported her family and had bought them the house in Multan where her brother first drugged, then strangled her because, he said: “Girls are born only to stay at home.”

In public, Qandeel led a life that many Pakistani women lead in private. Her decision to be public and stay public, despite threats, was a bold move. In a society where many female celebrities find fame by playing coy, submissive heroines in Urdu drama serials, her social media posts were everything but. She shot to fame with her provocative pictures and videos on Facebook, gained notoriety and many thousands of followers this year when she offered to do a striptease if Pakistan beat India in a game of cricket. She was a personal hero of mine. Every time someone posted a video laughing at her, I cringed. To me, she was anything but laughable. Her every act was defiant of a deeply misogynist and, ultimately, violent society.

More recently, news media outlets in the country conducted a frenzied witch-hunt after she posted pictures with cleric Mufti Abdul Qavi that led to his suspension from one of Pakistan’s religious committees. They released her birth name and details about her marriage and child, details that Qandeel had always kept private, presumably owing to security concerns. After her murder, the same cleric brazenly issued a threat on live television saying the way Qandeel’s life ended should serve as warning to anyone who tries to malign righteous people like clergymen.

This threat is not surprising in a country where nearly a thousand women are reported killed in the name of ‘honour’ each year, with rights organisations estimating that a huge number still go unreported. Where there is news of such cold-blooded murder, usually at the hands of family members, there is a society that is so dehumanised to violence against women that assertions are made to mitigate the murderer’s brutality, making it seem that the victim’s behaviour somehow made the murder explicable, even deserved.

Victim blaming is, in fact, such a part of the narrative that even so-called liberals in the country, while condemning her murder, have – in the same breath, tweet or Facebook post – also distanced themselves from her behaviour.

Moral outrage was expressed by many towards Qandeel, but hundreds of thousands also liked her official Facebook page. This is behavior typical of suppressed societies that condone such hypocrisy as a way of life and encourage a complete disconnection between the public and private lives of people. The same nation that has topped Google searches for pornography strangles women like Qandeel to death.

Let us be very clear that at the core of this violence against women is a society that sanctions it. Any time we pass moral judgment on women, we are crossing the line from bystander to accessory. At the heart of killing in the name of honour is a kind of moral policing that is reserved solely for women and a pervasive, toxic misogyny that expects women to be subservient to men and the patriarchal order. Any time a woman steps “out of line” by wearing what she desires, doing what she wants or even just by saying what she thinks – people are outraged.

But the real outrage lies in the fact that a legal loophole allows perpetrators of ‘honour’ crimes to go free.

By law, murder victims’ family members can pardon the perpetrator. In ‘honour’ crimes, where the killer is usually a brother, father, son, husband or uncle, the woman’s murder goes unpunished.

For women who are victims of these crimes, it is this lethal combination of a law that allows perpetrators to roam free and of a society that clearly sanctions this behaviour by first policing the women, then blaming the victims and ultimately staying silent on cold-blooded murder. Qandeel’s father has said he will not forgive her brutal murder. Society failed her, let’s hope the legal system does not.

To me, Qandeel Baloch was a trailblazer, a working-class, modern-day Pakistani feminist. She believed we must stand up for ourselves as women, we must stand up for each other as women, and we must stand up for justice. At the time of writing, an online petition had more than 2,000 signatures demanding justice for her. But Qandeel also called herself a #OneWomanArmy, perhaps conscious a society that sanctions such violence against women may never stand up for her.

Vale, Qandeel, I wish we were all as brave as you.

What We Know About Saudi Arabia’s Role in 9/11

The Saudi government still says it had no connection to the hijackers. Newly released classified information proves otherwise.

BY SIMON HENDERSON-
JULY 18, 2016

Sometimes, reality is so absurd that it outstrips anything conspiracy theorists could come up with. More than 13 years after the congressional investigation published its report into the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks, the much-discussed “28 pages” on Saudi involvement in the terrorist assault, which had been held back as too sensitive to publish, have been released. As it turns out, there are 29 pages, not 28, numbered 415 through 443 in the congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. And deletions on the pages — sometimes words, often whole lines — add up to the equivalent of a total of three pages. So we still are not being given the full story.

It is instantly apparent that the widely held belief for why the pages were not initially released — to prevent embarrassing the Saudi royal family — is true.
The pages are devastating:

Page 415: “While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support and assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government.… [A]t least two of those individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers.”

Page 417:One of the individuals identified in the pages as a financial supporter of two of the 9/11 hijackers, Osama Bassnan, later received a “significant amount of cash” from “a member of the Saudi Royal Family”during a 2002 trip to Houston.

Page 418: “Another Saudi national with close ties to the Saudi Royal Family, [deleted], is the subject of FBI counterterrorism investigations.”

Pages 418 and 419: Detained al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida had in his phone book the unlisted number for the security company that managed the Colorado residence of the then-Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

Page 421: “a [deleted], dated July 2, 2002, [indicates] ‘incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists inside the Saudi Government.’”

Page 426: Bassnan’s wife was receiving money “from Princess Haifa Bint Sultan,” the wife of the Saudi ambassador. (Her correct name is actually Princess Haifa bint Faisal.)

Page 436: The general counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department, David Aufhauser, testified that “offices [of the Saudi charity al-Haramain] have significant contacts with extremists, Islamic extremists.” CIA officials also testified “that they were making progress on their investigations of al-Haramain.… [T]he head of the central office is complicit in supporting terrorism, and it also raised questions about [then-Saudi Interior Minister] Prince Nayef.”

On reading this, I let out a shout: “Yes!”

In January 2002, U.S. News & World Report quoted two unidentified Clinton administration officials as saying that two senior Saudi princes had been paying off Osama bin Laden since a 1995 bombing in Riyadh, which killed five American military advisors. I followed up in an August 2002 Wall Street Journal op-ed, reporting that U.S. and British officials had told me the names of the two senior princes who were using official Saudi money — not their own — to pay off bin Laden to cause trouble elsewhere but not in the kingdom. I referred to the princes in a later Wall Street Journal op-ed: They were Prince Nayef, the father of the current crown prince, Muhammad bin Nayef, and his brother Prince Sultan, then-defense minister and father of Prince Bandar. Both Prince Nayef and Prince Sultan are now dead.

The U.S. News & World Report article quoted a Saudi official as saying: “Where’s the evidence? Nobody offers proof.” That official was current Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who has no doubt spent recent days lobbying members of Congress and doing advance damage control — my bet is he has probably been using the same lines.

But with the release of the 29 pages, and their detailed description of the financial connections between the 9/11 hijackers and Saudi officials, Jubeir’s argument has become increasingly difficult to make. The inquiry, after all, quotes a redacted source alleging “incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi Government.”

Upon the pages’ release, Washington-based public relations firm Qorvis, which has a lucrative contract with the kingdom, released its own analysis that began with a quote from an interview CIA Director John Brennan gave toAl-Arabiya on June 11. It reads in part: “[T]here was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government as an institution, or senior Saudi officials individually, had supported the 9/11 attacks.”

That could very well be right. But it still allows for the possibility, indeed the probability, that the actions of senior Saudi officials resulted in those terrorist outrages. I have never suggested that the Saudi government or members of the royal family directly supported or financed the 9/11 attacks. But official Saudi money ended up in the pockets of the attackers, without a doubt. I once asked a British official:
“How do we know?” He replied that we know what account the money came out of and where it ended up.

On Friday, Jubeir held a news conference at the Saudi Embassy in Washington where he declared, “The matter is now finished.” Asked whether the report exonerated the kingdom, he replied: “Absolutely.” I think not.

Photo credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images