India: Why is AFSPA under constant attack?

by Lt Gen Harwant Singh (retd)

The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his/her private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the Sri Lanka Guardian- Edts.

( July 25, 2016, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Counter-insurgency operations are a messy affair. There are no definite, lines, modes and structures that determine the scope and specificity of scales of operations by the military in dealing with them. Every situation has its own peculiarities and operating environment. Therefore, no same set of rules and methods can be applied in every case, though caution and restraint should be a constant factor in such operations. What needs to be borne in mind is that the overall environments in which these operations are conducted are generally hostile towards the security forces and people’s sympathy is invariably with the insurgents.

Disenchantment of the people

Insurgencies have their roots in the disenchantment of the people with the prevailing socio-politico-economic environment in a given area. Such conditions impel some to take up arms where sympathy and support of the local population of the area invariably follows. In such an environment, intelligence sources for counter-insurgency operations are few and under the constant threat of elimination.

Unless the root causes for emergence and sustenance are addressed, insurgencies, tend to go on with their usual ups and owns, depending on counter-insurgency resources deployed to counter them and the successes they achieve. In other words, the alienation of large sections of the population is both the cause as well as the life-support system of insurgencies. These may be indigenous or foreign inspired and supported.

The very fact that the military is called upon to join is an admission that the situation is extraordinary. It is well outside the capabilities of the state and central police to manage. An area or a state has to be first declared as a “disturbed area” and only then can AFSPA be brought in.

The Army at best can create an environment for a period of time for the politico-socio-economic steps to be initiated rapidly and purposefully implemented, so as to limit, if not completely remove, the grounds for alienation. During such windows of opportunities general administration too must act and together with politico-economic efforts seriously attempt to remove the root causes of disaffection. Unfortunately, our long experience, both in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East has been contrary to such expectations. Consequently, insurgencies have persisted and counter-insurgency operations and AFSPA have been continuing.

Although a plethora of police organisations are available to the government, it is due to their failure to contain insurgency on their own that the Army is called in. The very fact that the military is called upon to join is an admission that the situation is extraordinary and well outside the capacity and capabilities of the state and central police to manage. An area/state has to be first declared as a “disturbed area,” and only then can AFSPA be brought in.

Military when called in to aid to civil administration, even to deal with law-and-order situations, is not bestowed with any legal or police powers. The magistrate has to be at hand for a military detachment to engage with or fire on an unruly crowd or a lawless group indulging in arson and looting. In the absence of AFSPA and during counter-insurgency operations, a magistrate would be required to give written permission to the military to resort to firing. If the military were to engage terrorists without AFSPA, every incident may call for judicial inquiry and with a hostile population, motivated evidence will invariably pile up against the military. Troops will be demotivated and may even turn a Nelson’s eye in their hunt for terrorists.

No soldier would like to do the rounds of civil courts for a decade and more. The Supreme Court has rightly opined that indefinite continuation of AFSPA negates and mocks our democratic process and symbolises the failure of civil administration. The judges have further observed that ordinarily our armed forces should not be used against our countrymen and women and that every person carrying a weapon in a disturbed area cannot be labelled as a terrorist or an insurgent and be killed without any inquiry! My Lords, the situation in insurgency areas is very often such that it is impossible to tell an insurgent from a peaceful citizen, more so, if he is carrying a weapon in certain restricted areas. On many an occasion for a soldier it is either kill or get killed.

Undoubtedly, due care and restraint must be exercised in the counter-insurgency operation, so as to avoid collateral damage in way of death or injury to innocent men. However, there are occasions when unavoidable collateral damage does take place, in spite of best of precautions. Very often, collateral damage is inflicted by the terrorists, knowing full well that the blame for such damage will invariably rest with the Army. While situation and causes for insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East are quite apart, a common thread runs when it comes to accusing the military for fake encounters and extra-judicial killings. It may be recalled that there was much media hype and engineered public outcry at the alleged rape and killing of Manorama by the Assam Rifles personnel.

Manorama was a terrorist and a PLA member, involved, over a period of two to three years in laying IEDs, leading to the death of six civilians and two Army men. At the time of her arrest, a transmitter and a grenade were recovered from her. She was killed while trying to escape. Two separate and independent autopsies ruled out torture and rape. The nature of bullet injuries confirmed the escape story.

It is not to contend that there have been no fake encounters or extra-judicial killings, but it needs be stated that in all such cases military carries out its internal investigations to determine the truth. It may not be in the knowledge of the public and the media that well over a hundred court martials have been held where some senior officers too ended up behind bars.

The point that needs consideration is that with more than enough central police is available to combat insurgency, in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East, why seek deployment of the Army in these areas? Consequently, the government can do away with AFSPA. When an Army post or vehicles column is attacked by insurgents, they have the legal right to protect themselves and the government property. 

Central police deploys companies but rarely full battalions. While they do corner special allowances when deployed as companies, but their efficiency in this manner of deployment does suffer.

The writer is a defence analyst

Panama Papers reveal scale of offshore firms' African operations

Mossack Fonseca files name hundreds of mining firms, raising concerns about use of tax havens to exploit the continent

Monday 25 July 2016

Offshore companies connected to 44 of Africa’s 54 countries appear in the Panama Papers leak, according to new research.

More than 1,400 companies in the files of the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca have names that indicate mining or resource extraction interests – raising fresh concerns about how tax havens can be used to exploit the natural wealth of the world’s poorest continent.

Panama Papers: inside the Guardian's investigation into offshore secrets

For six months, a team of Guardian journalists worked in tight secrecy on the biggest leak in history. This is the inside story of how the Panama Papers unfolded

Read more

The files contain at least 37 offshore companies with operations in Africa that have been named in legal proceedings or criticised by national or international agencies.

The research was published on Monday by African partners of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which coordinated the initial investigation into the offshore law firm’s leaked files.

Across Africa, 18 media organisations have published their findings – including the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting, The Namibian andVerdade in Mozambique.

The revelations include:

• Twelve of 17 companies named by Italian prosecutors as being connected to a middleman in an alleged bribery scheme surrounding an Algerian oil and gas dealappear in the files, including one company described as a “crossroads of illicit financial flows”.
• Mossack Fonseca allegedly helped process a $30m loan for a client in Nigeria despite press reports that he had been “on the run” over potentially criminal petroleum deals.
• At least 30 wildlife safari companies in Africa are identified as being connected to offshore companies, mostly incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Mossack Fonseca told the ICIJ in response to the recent findings that it follows “both the letter and spirit of the law”.

It said: “We have not once in nearly 40 years of operation been charged with criminal wrongdoing. We’re proud of the work we do, notwithstanding recent and wilful attempts by some to mischaracterise it.”

The offshore industry has long protested against the charge that it facilitates the theft of Africa’s natural resources.

A report published in 2014 by a lobbying group for Jersey’s financial services sector argued that tax havens facilitated efficient investment in the developing world, a claim that has been echoed by a US group that lobbies in favour of tax havens.

But such claims have been contradicted by other research into illicit financial flows from Africa. According to a 2015 study commissioned by the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, more than $50bn (£38bn) a year is stolen from countries across the continent via fraud and tax avoidance.

The biggest leak ever - Panama Papers video explainer

Earlier this year an investigation into the leaked files of Mossack Fonseca by about 100 media organisations exposed the role in the offshore industry of facilitating tax avoidance and alleged crime.

The revelations prompted the former prime minister David Cameron to announce a new agreement between the UK and its network of crown dependencies and overseas territories that would allow law enforcement to access information about the true owner of an offshore company.

Further rules on the automatic exchange of beneficial ownership information were agreed at an international summit on anti-corruption in May.

Here are the latest, most damaging things in the DNC’s leaked emails

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee said she will resign this week in the aftermath of the release of thousands of internal email exchanges among Democratic officials. (Thomas Johnson, Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

By Aaron Blake July 25 at 11:03 AM

Thousands of leaked emails have sealed the fate of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's uneven five-plus-year tenure as DNC chair.

Wasserman Schultz's resignation announcement Sunday afternoon comes as a bad situation just keeps getting worse -- and appears as though it might continue to do so. That's because WikiLeaks has so far released nearly 20,000 emails, new details are still being discovered, and there is still the prospect of additional, damaging emails coming to light.

Many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Basically all of these examples came late in the primary -- after Hillary Clinton was clearly headed for victory -- but they belie the national party committee's stated neutrality in the race even at that late stage.

Below is a running list of the most troublesome findings for Wasserman Schultz and her party. As new revelations come out, we'll update it.

[Here's why Debbie Wasserman Schultz failed]

1) Targeting Sanders's religion?

On May 5, DNC officials appeared to conspire to raise Sanders's faith as an issue and press on whether he was an atheist -- apparently in hopes of steering religious voters in Kentucky and West Virginia to Clinton. Sanders is Jewish but has previously indicated that he's not religious.

One email from DNC chief financial officer Brad Marshall read: “It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist."

Marshall added in a later email: “It’s these Jesus thing.”

In response, CEO Amy Dacey said: "Amen."

2) Wasserman Schultz calls top Sanders aide a "damn liar"...

On May 17, after controversy erupted over the Nevada state Democratic convention and how fair the process was there, Wasserman Schultz herself took exception to Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver's defense of his candidate's supporters.

"Damn liar," she wrote. "Particularly scummy that he barely acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred."

3) ... and says Sanders has "no understanding" of the party

That wasn't the only time Wasserman Schultz offered an unvarnished opinion about the Sanders operation. And in one late-April email, she even questioned Sanders's connection to the party.

"Spoken like someone who has never been a member of the Democratic Party and has no understanding of what we do," she said in response to a Politico story about Sanders saying the party hadn't been fair to him.

Sanders, for what it's worth, wasn't a Democrat before entering the Democratic primary. He caucused with the party but has long been an independent.

In that way, Wasserman Schultz's comments could be read simply as her defending her party; Sanders was attacking the party, after all. But her comment also suggests a particularly dim view of Sanders that she didn't feel the need to obscure in conversations with other DNC staff.

4) A Clinton lawyer gives DNC strategy advice on Sanders

When the Sanders campaign alleged that the Clinton campaign was improperly using its joint fundraising committee with the DNC to benefit itself, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias offered the DNC guidance on how to respond.

"My suggestion is that the DNC put out a statement saying that the accusations the Sanders campaign are not true," Elias said May 3 in response to an email about the issue sent by communications director Luis Miranda to other DNC stuff that copied Elias and another lawyer at his firm, Perkins Coie.

Elias continued: "The fact that CNN notes that you aren’t getting between the two campaigns is the problem. Here, Sanders is attacking the DNC and its current practice, its past practice with the POTUS and with Sec Kerry. Just as the RNC pushes back directly on Trump over 'rigged system', the DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful the the Democratic party."

Elias's guidance isn't perhaps all that shocking; he's Clinton's lawyer, after all. But the fact that he was talking to the DNC about how to respond would appear to suggest coordination between the DNC and Clinton campaign against Sanders in this particular case.

[Clinton says there’s a ‘Hillary standard’ and a different standard for everyone else. Bad idea.]

5) Plotting a narrative about how Sanders's campaign failed

On May 21, DNC national press secretary Mark Pautenbach suggested pushing a narrative that Sanders "never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess."

After detailing several arguments that could be made to push that narrative, Paustenbach concludes: "It's not a DNC conspiracy, it's because they never had their act together."

Paustenbach's suggestion, in that way, could be read as a defense of the committee rather than pushing negative information about Sanders. But this is still the committee pushing negative information about one of its candidates.

6) Mocking Sanders for his California debate push

One of the chief complaints from Sanders and his supporters was a lack of debates. They said the fact that there were so few was intended to help Clinton by reducing her opponents' exposure and their chances to knock her down.

After the Sanders campaign presumptuously declared that an agreement for an additional debate in California had been reached, Miranda responded to the Sanders campaign's release on May 18 simply:

"lol"

As noted, the release from the Sanders campaign was presumptuous in declaring that an agreement had been reached. Miranda could simply have been responding to the somewhat-silly tactic. But the debate never actually happened, as the Clinton campaign later opted not to participate.

7) Wishing Sanders would just end it

Many of these emails came as it was clear Clinton was going to win -- which makes the apparent favoritism perhaps less offensive (though Sanders supporters would certainly disagree).

But it's also clear that there was plenty of cheerleading for the race to simply be over -- for Sanders to throw in the towel so that Clinton could be named the presumptive nominee. The party, of course, was still supposed to be neutral even though the odds and delegate deficit for Sanders looked insurmountable.

On May 1, in response to Sanders again saying he would push for a contested convention, Wasserman Schultz said, "So much for a traditional presumptive nominee."

8) Calling an alleged Sanders sympathizer a "Bernie bro"

The term "Bernie bro" -- or "Berniebro," depending on your style -- over the course of the campaign became a kind of shorthand for the worst kind of Sanders supporter. These were the supporters who couldn't be reasoned with and verbally assaulted opponents, sometimes in very nasty ways.

Some in the DNC apparently used the pejorative to refer to one particular radio host seen as overly sympathetic to Sanders, Sirius XM's Mark Thompson.

"Wait, this is a s––– topic," Miranda wrote on May 4 after Thompson's program director, David Guggenheim, requested an interview on a Clinton fundraising controversy. "Where is Guggenheim? Is he a Bernie Bro?"

"Must be a Bernie Bro," DNC broadcast booker Pablo Manriquez responds. "Per Mark’s sage, I turned him down flat (and politely) and inquired into opportunities next week to talk about something else.

9) Criticizing Obama for lack of fundraising help -- "That's f---ing stupid"

While the Sanders emails have gained the most attention, some of the more interesting emails involve a peek behind to curtain of how party officials talk about fundraising and major donors -- and even President Obama.

In one email on May 9, DNC mid-Atlantic and PAC finance director Alexandra Shapiro noted that Obama wouldn't travel 20 minutes to help the party secure $350,000 in donations.

"He really won’t go up 20 minutes for $350k?" Shapiro wrote. "THAT’S f---ing stupid."

DNC national finance director Jordan Kaplan responded: "or he is the president of the united states with a pretty big day job."

10) Flippant chatter about donors

In a May 16 exchange about where to seat a top Florida donor, Kaplan declared that "he doesn’t sit next to POTUS!" -- referring to Obama.

“Bittel will be sitting in the sh---iest corner I can find,” responded Shapiro. She also referred to other donors as "clowns."

Here are some other things Kaplan and Shapiro said about donors, via Karen Tumulty and Tom Hamburger:

Kaplan directed Shapiro to put New York philanthropist Philip Munger in the prime spot, switching out Maryland ophthalmologist Sreedhar Potarazu. He noted that Munger was one of the largest donors to Organizing for America, a nonprofit that advocates for Obama’s policies. “It would be nice to take care of him from the DNC side,” Kaplan wrote.
Shapiro pushed back, noting that Munger had given only $100,600 to the party, while the Potarazu family had contributed $332,250. 

In one email attachment from Erik Stowe, the finance director for Northern California, to Tammy Paster, a fundraising consultant, he lists the benefits given to different tiers of donors to the Democratic National Convention, which starts next week in Philadelphia. The tiers range from a direct donation of $66,800 to one of $467,600 to the DNC. The documents also show party officials discussing how to reward people who bundle between $250,000 to $1.25 million. 

Correction: This post initially referred to Guggenheim as the host of a Sirius XM show. He is program director for Sirius XM host Mark Thompson.

SitRep: Is Moscow Trying to Influence U.S. Election?

BY PAUL MCLEARY, ADAM RAWNSLEY-JULY 25, 2016

Moscow calling. Did Russian hackers, supported by the Kremlin, just force the resignation of a major American political figure? That’s what some analysts have come to believe in the wake of the leak of a huge trove of emails from the Democratic National Committee’s servers.

On Friday, the emails and internal documents spilled onto the internet courtesy of WikiLeaks, quickly claiming the scalp of DNC boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz and kicking off a scandal over how the party had worked with the campaign of Hillary Clinton to undermine the candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Larger implications. Last month, the DNC and security firm CrowdStrikereported that hackers likely working on behalf of two Russian intelligence agencies had broken into DNC servers and made off with opposition research and email messages. After that report, a hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 stepped forward and took responsibility for the hack, saying he had nothing to do with Moscow’s intelligence services. But Guccifer is most likely a fiction created by the GRU, Russian military intelligence, and the FSB, the successor group to the KGB, to mask their role in the hack — and the subsequent attempt to influence the U.S. election.

The hackers. One group, FANCY BEAR or APT 28, obtained access in April, while the other, COZY BEAR, or APT 29, first entered the network in the summer of 2015. A good place to start to get a handle on all this is the New York Times’ Adrian Chen’s June 2015 in-depth look at Russian troll and hacker factories.

Politics. The Clinton campaign has taken the opportunity to tie the Trump campaign as closely as possible to the Kremlin, with Clinton’s campaign chief, Robby Mook, telling ABC News Sunday that “it’s troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.” The Trump campaign rejected such accusations.

Russian connections. Last week, FP’s Dan De Luce and Paul McLeary wrotethat Trump has surrounded himself with advisors who have had direct business ties to Moscow, including campaign manager, Paul Manafort, a onetime consultant to the pro-Moscow former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. One of his military advisors, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, wasinvited to sit at Putin’s table at a December dinner in Moscow sponsored by RT, the government-funded news network, and Carter Page, a former consultant to Russia’s state-owned gas giant, Gazprom, has suggested Washington is to blame for raising tensions with Moscow over Ukraine. Trump’s surrogates also successfully watered down language in the GOP platform to remove calls for arming Ukraine’s forces against pro-Russian separatists.

VP pick. The news threatens to drown out Hillary Clinton’s announcement of her pick of Tim Kaine as her vice presidential nominee. FP’s Molly O’Toolewrites that picking Kaine “may do little to placate the progressive Democrats who flocked to Sanders, some of whom have pledged to protest Clinton during the Democratic Party’s upcoming convention. And the leaked DNC emails will fuel their suspicions that their candidate was treated unfairly.” But Kaine hit Trump over the weekend, criticizing him for being harshly critical his political opponents. “He doesn’t trash talk everybody,” Kaine said, “he likes Vladimir Putin.”

Here come the briefings. Later this week, once the Democratic National Convention wraps up, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will begin receivingclassified briefings from U.S. intel agencies. Republican and Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees have been given the briefings since 1952, after their parties’ national conventions wrap up. As one former intelligence official told ABC News, “most of the information is what I’d call analytical, sophisticated, carefully thought-out thoughts about where things are going, where trend lines are, things to watch. It’s more of a description of the landscape and where the landmines are and where the active volcanoes are rather than getting into the capabilities.”

Bright lights. The Turkish government has released a highly-produced coup documentary, in response to what it says is biased western media coverage of the failed military coup earlier this month. FP’s John Hudson reports that the Turkish Embassy in Washington “made its case to reporters Friday that Ankara has not abused its authority in the wake of a failed coup, screening a slick, government-produced documentary that shows tanks running over protesters and fighter jets strafing a city. Much of the film appeared to be taken from security cameras perched on buildings or from international TV news clips, including footage of a soldier shooting a civilian at point-blank range.”

Bellingcat has translated some of the WhatsApp messages from the coup plotters here.

Hey there! Good morning and as always, if you have any thoughts, announcements, tips, or national  security-related events to share, please pass them along to SitRep HQ. Best way is to send them to: paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley

Germany

Germany had a rough, tragic weekend as two attackers carried out unrelated attacks in the state of Bavaria.

In Munich, an 18 year -old German-Iranian man, David Sonboly, went on ashooting rampage with a pistol, killing nine people before turning the gun on himself. Little is known about Sonboly’s motives but officials have so far said he struggled with mental health issues and appeared to have no political agenda. He purchased the gun used in the attack, a deactivated Glock fixed to fire bullets again, from an online darknet market. Some local media reports suggest Sonboly may have used the cryptocurrency bitcoin to purchase the weapon.

On Sunday, the Guardian reports that a bomb made by a Syrian asylum seeker exploded as the man carried it near a music festival in Ansbach, Germany, killing him and injuring a dozen others. It’s unknown whether the device went off prematurely or whether the explosion was the result of an intentional suicide bombing, but authorities so far suspect the latter. The unnamed bomber had been denied asylum but allowed to stay in Germany and had previously tried to commit suicide.

China

China would like you to know that it’s still grumpy over the U.S. decision to deploy a terminal high altitude air defense (THAAD) battery to South Korea. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se this week for talks and took the opportunity to register Beijing’s displeasure with the THAAD deployment once again, saying it has “harmed the foundation of mutual trust” between China and South Korea. The U.S. and South Korea say the air defense system will be used to defend against North Korea’s growing ballistic missile program but Chinese officials have said that the THAAD system’s radar could peer into Chinese territory.

Syria

Syria’s struggling healthcare providers have been targeted yet again as airstrikes from Assad regime planes hit four hospitals and a blood bank in Aleppo this weekend. Al Jazeera spoke with the city’s Independent Doctors Association, who said the air assault had killed a newborn baby. The strikes failed to completely destroy the hospitals and only one has ceased operations for the moment. The strikes come as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he’s ready for another round of peace talks with the opposition.

al Qaeda

Presumably feeling left out of the Islamic State-inspired carnage of recent weeks, al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri released an audio interview tellingfighters to take Western hostages and exchange them for jailed jihadists. A translation of the recording Reuters received from the SITE Intelligence Group shows Zawahiri urging followers to kidnap western hostages “until they liberate the last Muslim male prisoner and last Muslim female prisoner.”

Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan has caused a record number of civilian casualties in just the first half of 2016, Stars and Stripes reports. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) keeps statistics on civilian casualties in the conflicts, and finds that compared to the same period last year, injuries are up six percent and deaths are a single percentage point higher for a combined total of 5,166 casualties so far — four percent greater than last year. UNAMA lays most of the blame for the at the feet of insurgent groups, writing that they’re responsible for around 60 percent of those civilians harmed in its statistics.

Silicon Valley

A Brazilian judge says authorities busted up an Islamist terrorist cell with the help of Facebook and Twitter, foiling a plot aimed at the Olympics about to take place in Rio de Janeiro. An investigation dubbed Operation Hashtag has thus far netted a dozen suspects whom Brazilian federal police accuse of being Islamic State fanboys plotting attacks against the Olympic games. Judge Marcos Josegrei da Silva told a local news program that Facebook and Twitter cooperated with the investigation, handing over data about suspects’ conversations.

Air Force

The U.S. Air Force says it’s weighing two options for a close air support aircraft to replace the much-beloved A-10 warthog. FlightGlobal reports that Lexington Institute analyst Dan Goure shared details of a recent Air Force briefing an interim A-10 replacement, dubbed the A-X2, as well as an Observation/Attack-X or OA-X light attack aircraft. For the OA-X program, the service is considering the Beechcraft AT-6 and the Embraer A-29 Super Tucano, hoping to get one of the two aircraft into service within a year. Air Force officials are reportedly looking to get the A-X2 replacement for the A-10 up within five years, but Congressional defenders of the Hog worry that they won’t be able to keep pace with the service’s phased retirement of the A-10.

— With Elias Groll

Photo Credit: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Oil falls on oversupply, demand concerns; U.S. crude hits three-month low

Smoke rises from State Oil Refinery Nico Lopez in Havana, Cuba July 12, 2016.

REUTERS/ENRIQUE DE LA OSA

 BY DEVIKA KRISHNA KUMAR-Tue Jul 26, 2016

Oil prices fell more than 2 percent on Monday, with U.S. crude hitting a three-month low, on rising concerns that a global glut of crude and refined products would pressure markets, delaying a long-anticipated rebalance in the market.

Data from market intelligence firm Genscape pointing to an inventory rise of 1.1 million barrels at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude futures in the week to July 22 weighed on crude prices, said traders who saw the numbers.

A massive overhang in refined products, particularly gasoline, despite forecasts for record U.S. summer driving has made investors less optimistic about a quick market rebalancing.

"We've got gasoline stocks that are through the roof ... And you have the specter of turnaround season not too far in the horizon," Robert Yawger, senior vice president of energy futures at Mizuho Securities USA said.

He also cut his price target on U.S. crude to $40 from $45 a barrel.

The threat of resurgent U.S. oil production with the rise of drilling rigs and a strong dollar added to the gloomy sentiment in the market, traders and brokers said.

U.S. crude settled down $1.06 at $43.13 a barrel, after touching a three-month low of $42.97 during the session. U.S. gasoline futures tumbled to a low of $1.3291 a gallon during the session, the lowest since March 4.

Brent crude futures ended the session down 97 cents at $44.72 a barrel, after hitting their lowest since May 10 at $44.55.

"Supply continues to return from disruptions, refined products are severely oversupplied, crude demand is falling well short of product demand, and key product demand is decelerating," Morgan Stanley said in a note.

The decline in U.S. output has been key to balancing a market that has been grappling with excess crude for nearly two years, but with prices recovering from 12-year lows, signs of drilling activity have re-emerged.

U.S. drillers added oil rigs for a fourth consecutive week, according to last week's data from a closely followed report by energy services firm Baker Hughes.

But it could be premature to assume it could lead to a rise in production, some analysts said.

"Although drilling activity is now at its highest level since the end of March, it is still 30 percent below the level at which it found itself at the beginning of the year." Commerzbank analysts said in a note.

Barclays bank said global oil demand in the third quarter was expanding at less than a third of the year-earlier rate, weighed down by anemic economic growth. Demand from developed economies had faded, while growth from China and India had slowed.

(Additional reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar in London, Henning Gloystein in Singapore and Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo; Editing by M Choy and Diane Craft)

China suspends 4 local officials for being ‘ineffective’ after deadly flood kills 114

Village houses and field partially submerged by flood waters in Gaoyang Town, Shayang County, central China's Hubei Province. Pic: AP

24th July 2016

AUTHORITIES in the Hebei provincial government has suspended four local officials for their inadequate responses to the floods that have killed 114 people over the past week, with 111 others still missing.

The government announced on Sunday on its official microblog account that the head of a development zone in Xingtai city, the chief engineer of a city transport bureau, and two other bureaucrats have been suspended.

They will face accountability investigations, and may be punished further.

The officials were suspended for “being ineffective in flood prevention and rescue and relief work”. The northern province of Hebei bore the brunt of the torrential rains and severe flooding, with flash floods killing at least 25 people in Xingtai alone.

Villagers accused an official of trying to cover up the number of casualties during an interview last week – the official reportedly said no one had died or was hurt.

According to local news site CRI English, the mayor of Xingtai apologized for the inadequate responses.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

Alcohol causes 7 kinds of cancer, study concludes

 Friday, July 22, 2016


Alcohol is a direct cause of seven forms of cancer. Tough words to swallow, but those are the conclusions of researchers from New Zealand, who say they found that no matter how much you drink, alcohol will increase your risk of cancer.

“There is strong evidence that alcohol causes cancer at seven sites in the body and probably others,” the authors write in the latest issue of the journal Addiction.

Those seven cancer sites are:

• liver
• colon
• rectum
• female breast
• larynx, (the throat organ commonly called the voice box)
• orolarynx (the middle part of the pharynx) behind the mouth
• esophagus (commonly the "food pipe")

The researchers from the University of Otago reviewed previous studies and meta-analyses, analyzing all the major studies done over the last decade on alcohol and cancer. They include studies from such prestigious names as the American Institute for Cancer Research and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Several of these studies drew links between alcohol and cancer. But lead researcher Jennie Connor, the chair in preventive and social medicine at the university, says her team wanted to know if there was evidence of a causal relationship -- meaning that alcohol was the direct cause of some of these cancers.

“And the first conclusion of the paper is that there is very strong evidence that the link we see between drinking and cancer in all these studies is a causal one,” Connor told CTV News Channel from Dunedin, New Zealand.

In fact, the team estimates that of all cancer deaths worldwide, 5.8 per cent of them can be attributed to alcohol.

The link between alcohol and cancer was strongest with cancer of the larynx and orolarynx than with the other cancers

Perhaps not surprisingly, the team found a "dose-response relationship" between alcohol and cancer, meaning that the more that a person drinks, the higher their risk to develop cancer.

So what constitutes a “safe” level of drinking?

“There doesn’t seem to be any threshold below which drinking is actually safe with respect to cancer,” Connor said.

“So the straightforward obvious answer to your question is that no alcohol is safe, and any alcohol increases your risk of some types of cancer.”

One bit of good news is that the cancer risk will drop for those who quit drinking, falling back to risk levels similar to “never drinkers” after 20 years.

As for what it is about alcohol that causes cancer, the researchers aren’t sure, as their paper was not designed to answer such questions.

“Confirmation of specific biological mechanisms by which alcohol increases the incidence of each type of cancer is not required to infer that alcohol is a cause,” they wrote.

This is not the first paper to conclude that alcohol is carcinogenic, and yet there persists a perception that a small amount of alcohol is not only safe but beneficial.

Many point to studies that found that drinking wine is good for the heart increases longevity. Connor says that there are a still a lot of myths about alcohol out there.

“(These myths) arise from research that has been updated now, or discredited, or there’s more doubt about it than they used to be,” she said.

“This paper also examines the connection between alcohol and being good for your heart – coronary disease – and it finds that evidence base is actually quite weak. So information evolves over time.”

STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF BLACK JULY

23 July 2016

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the anniversary of Black July:

“On this 33rd anniversary, we join Canadians of Tamil descent and members of the Tamil community around the world in commemoration of the events of Black July in 1983.

“Let us pause to remember the victims of the anti-Tamil pogroms and all the lives that were lost throughout the entirety of the Sri Lankan Civil War. We offer our deepest condolences to those who lost family and friends.

“The war and the devastation it wrought reminds us to heal the wounds of those who have suffered, and to promote unity over division and inclusion over prejudice.

“Canada will continue to encourage the Sri Lankan government to fulfill its commitment to the United Nations Human Rights Council to bring about real peace, reconciliation, accountability and justice for the people in Sri Lanka.”