Megapolis plan requires a concerted school location plan

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

The doctors have opened a can of worms with their demands for super popular schools. On close examination, the popular school concept as practiced violates the principle of free education, but the practice continues as if by silent conspiracy. Now admissions to popular schools are receiving more scrutiny.

By definition, a national school should admit children from across the island according to merit or other defined criteria, but what has emerged after work-around by influential public servants and old boy-old-girl networks is a system which admits three other types of students – distance-based, past-pupil parent based and special public service categories based. These additional criteria have made admission to popular schools wrought with inequities.

 

For example, from about 1,000 students entering Grade Six in Royal College, it not clear how many places are awarded to merit-based admission to scholarship qualifying students from out of town. While across the country nearly 300,000 10-year-olds cram for an exam with their parents aspiring for Royal College or Vishaka Vidyalaya , say, when the Royal or Vishaka bus comes to their stop it is already more than half full with children admitted under other criteria. 

The problem of competition for popular schools is one of the toughest public policy problems. As a former secretary for education noted, failure of previous administrations is due the fact they spend an unnecessary amount of time on school admission issues. It is time the present Ministry of Education realised that it cannot solve the problem alone. The mad scramble for popular schools is the result of larger socioeconomic issues with implications for infrastructure management and urban planning in particular. The Ministry needs to work with urban planners and others to rationalise the school system. 

Megapolis plan

The Megapolis master plan identifies six challenges –Haphazard land use and unchecked sprawl, Increasing traffic congestion, Gentrification pricing out low and middle income earners, Overstressed garbage management systems, Complex administrative structures and bureaucracy impeding development and Environmental degradation. It is not clear whether the planners looked into the issue of metropolitan Colombo serving as a school education hub and negative implications of the phenomenon. In fact, location of large number of schools in the city can be traced as a cause for all the other challenges listed.

Negatives of Colombo being a school education hub

Colombo as a higher education hub makes sense. Higher education institutions are proven to be drivers of economic growth by virtue of direct or indirect economic activity. Top universities in USA periodically prepare economic impacts studies showing how much revenue and impact on cultural and social life that they bring to the cities in which they are located. To my knowledge, there are no such economic impact studies for schools, but, visually we can see the traffic congestions problems caused by school sprawl in Colombo. 

In 2015, the Ministry of Education made public the Grade Five scholarship examination qualifying mark or cut-off marks for 224 schools. The ranking method is not clear, but now there seems to be an effort to include more regional schools because the current number is more than double the number of 100 or so published a decade ago. Of these original 100 or the current 224, 15 popular schools are located in the Colombo Municipal area. Add the historic private schools such as Musaeus, Ladies, St. Peter’s, St. Joseph’s, Carey and Welsey and others which are now mega schools and the emerging number of mega international schools, Colombo has become a school education hub, with its negative implications not being given adequate attention. 

Need for a meaningful typology of schools 

Planners need to look beyond the traditional Type 1, II and III categories of schools and look at the schools from urban planning and quality of life issues. Education policy making is expressed in terms of projects that are funded through external assistance. The Isuru program is one such. Isuru funding was based on schools agreeing to cater to Grade 6-13 only and serving as a hub for other feeder primary schools. Later the program was renamed as ‘1000 Schools’ project with technology labs included as part of the package. 

Due to resistance from past pupils and other interest groups we have are only few such hubs developed to date. Most schools are comprehensive schools still serving Grades 1-13. The Metropolis planners need to work closely with education planners to understand the effect of these different types of schools on traffic congestion, fatigue for children other quality of life issues to come up with a suitable policies for each type. 

National hub schools

Ideally, national schools in Colombo will serve hubs catering to collegiate level (i.e. Grades 11-13) or even Grade 10-13 students only, and serve as feeders to lower secondary schools nationwide. These older students can get to and from school on their own if better transportation facilities are available, relieving congestion on city streets. 

National comprehensive schools

Almost all popular schools with the exception of Devi Balika and a few others are comprehensive schools serving Grade 1-13. The transportation problem caused by these schools where an SUV may enter and leave the city four times to transport a tiny peanut of a tot back and forth, is a problem that should be studied.

Local hub schools

The hub concept has worked to some extent in school zones outside of metropolitan school zones. Few years ago, I was able to witness the blossoming of Waturana Primary in Matugama education zone from a previously closed down school to a primary school serving as a feeder to the locally popular Kamburawela Central College. The Meegahatenne Primary school saga in Matugama involving colorful MP Palitha Thevarapperuma is a case where hotchpotch admission criteria has led to frustration among parents and emotional reactions from everybody concerned. 

Local comprehensive schools

Even in outstations, parents, past pupils and other interests groups prefer their schools to remain comprehensive. They may have their reasons, but these school lead to concentration of schools in urban areas and closing down of school closer to home for many who are not able to get admitted to these larger schools.

Megapolis planners and other city planners should work with education planners to define typology of schools that reflect socio-economic realities and account for their burden of infrastructure. 

Role of professional associations

It is not reasonable for a medical doctor getting a transfer to Morawaka, say, requesting a national school in Colombo when Morawaka has a national school. The school may be national in name only, but doctors or any other professionals should work through their respective professional associations to give a hand to schools in the vicinity of major hospitals, tourist hotels and other venues for which there is much in and out transfer of professionals. 

These schools will flourish even with a small percent of children from professional families attending them. If some of the professionals choose to send their children to private schools in cities, that is their choice, but national policy should be developed to sustain regional schools and relieve the burden on urban infrastructure, and not to cater to the agendas of various professions or interest groups. 

Political tailwinds backing the UNP and the headwinds buffeting the SLFP

2016-09-21
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”  ~Henry Ford  One does not have to look anywhere else. Daily headlines in the mainstream newspapers have been telling a most riveting story. Political winds have been blowing in opposite directions as far as the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) are concerned. Ever since the presidential and later the parliamentary elections, the UNP has been the recipient of a minuscule but a benevolent tailwind while the SLFP has been buffeted or pounded by an unenviable headwind.  

  From the response of the SLFP proper and its breakaway group’s mutterings and actions, one could ascertain that, in the coming months, the advantage is going to remain with the UNP. The badgering and criticism the Rajapaksas were confronted with and the trickling effect such badgering had on the Rajapaksa-entourage has looked crushing. The ‘purity-of-purpose’ image that the old regime attempted to advance throughout the past decade has been tarnished. The credit that was granted, mainly due to the war-victory, is waning and the players in the game have been exposed as players of the country’s coffers and people’s susceptibilities. 

   The Rajapaksas have not only misspent their political capital they rightfully earned, they squandered the people’s trust to such an unbelievable level and are trekking a tortuous journey on the borders of defeatism. The political calculus that they inaccurately formulated is now haunting them and the bizarre pageant of corrupt practices and dishonest conduct while in power are making a replay in slow motion before a public that is more aware and cognizant of nuanced undertones of this cynical enterprise called politics.  

 Protection of alleged ill-gotten wealth and material richness cannot be a reward for winning the war against the LTTE. Having deserted the supreme characteristic of leadership which consists of honesty and honour, these politicians are still trying to convince the masses that they be given, not a second chance, but third, fourth or fifth one.  

  People’s memories are prone to failure; their retention capacities varied and of some meagre and short-lived, except for a very few pundits and professionals whose singular livelihood is research and scholarship. A majority of the masses simply forget what occurred yesterday, leave alone months or years earlier. Under such circumstances, what is available to dictators and military rulers is readily not available to those who are elected by the people. Accountability and transparency, especially in the current context, being crucial and inescapable given the prevailing public mindset, the Government might find it very hard to exercise any control over the Fourth Estate. Social Media, whether they could be classified as part of the Fourth Estate or not, is excruciatingly aggressive and relentlessly persevering when it begins disseminating news and their aftermath. Their pursuit of sensationalism is without breaks and mercy. No ban on websites or control of the Social Media is possible. Such controls, if attempted, would boomerang and could be harmful in the long run. In such an aggressive and merciless atmosphere, the rulers should be ultra-vigilant and must show an uncommon sense of common-sense and unmitigated professionalism when coping with negative publicity and image-destroying schemes of the vultures of the social media.  

 How are the two parties in the coalition faring in this endeavour, both collectively and separately? As a collective body, the coalition partners have managed to walk the ‘tight rope of political partnership’ without one or the other falling. But as individual members of the partnership, the UNP members have shown far more decorum and stature. It’s quite natural that in the wake of the elections, both presidential and parliamentary, the winning party always is more self-confident than the defeated. The UNP Cabinet Ministers have exercised a balanced political mindset bordering on magnanimity, but I am afraid, the same is not true about the SLFP parliamentarians. Most of the non-Cabinet SLFP parliamentarians are yet to come to terms with an electoral defeat. After being in power for twenty unbroken years and after enjoying the luxuries of power and might of a single family-rule in which accountability and transparency were as alien as feathers to a tortoise, were in a state of shock soon after the defeat have now assumed the ignoble qualities of jealousy and resentment.   

 The mind of the defeated could be very destructive and harmful, both in the short and long terms. The defeated could be categorized into two main streams. On the one hand are those who have been defeated militarily, in the case of the LTTE and other Tamil militant organizations and those who were beaten at the ballot box as in the case of the political parties. The helpless lacuna that sets in could be devastating to the individual if one is not adequately equipped to handle the human pressures and conditions that are brought upon the lacuna. The un-conditioning of a mind that was used to the pomp and pageantry of power once held and wielded without a care for its boundaries and responsibilities is tough and agonizing. Very few in all human history have walked away from power. Sophistication of allegiance to democratic principles does not consist only in how one wields power; it’s even more agonizing to walk away from power in the face of certain overthrow. The unsophisticated mind will, instead of responding, invariably react to such personal calamities rather surreptitiously. Being schooled in an environment of political power being represented as a permanent passport to do-as-you-wish, the past holder of power is removed from his comfort zone. The resultant state of mind, though outwardly may appear calm and benign, inwardly is waiting to vent out its defeats and frustrations. A part of the travesty of the so-called joint opposition is precisely that.  

  A parade of arrivals and departures to and from the FCID, the Judiciary and other investigating agencies and the catalogues of crimes, misdemeanours and acts of corruption, nepotism, downright hooliganism and countenance and connivance of political malpractice are now being exposed. The facade has been removed and what is visible is and on display today to the curios public is a scarcely-recognizable skeleton. Those who ran their election campaigns which were purported to have been financed by small-donor money are being questioned for financial fraud. 

   However, the Rajapaksas have opted to use the tactics of offence. The Rajapaksas have kept their immediate family intact. There is no evidence whatsoever that any of the members of the former First Family are contemplating leaving the rest in the lurch and start singing. Only two exceptions have been found so far; they are the notorious Sajin Vaas Gunawardene and Mervyn Silva. The rest are clinging to Omerta, the code of silence of the Sicilian Mafia and this observance of Omerta is protecting those who are alleged to have committed grave financial frauds and crimes. 

   One does not know the quantity of embers hidden under the ashes. These ashed-over embers might one day be fanned so the spectacle of exposé would have a compelling effect on the beholders. Yet the process is painstakingly slow and sluggish; words cascading from the lips of the accused are louder than those who accuse; explanations of delay and lethargy are not satisfactory and because of that quality of delay and lethargy are construed as witch-hunting and incompetence, the advantage belongs to the accused.  

  Such a paradoxical state of affairs could be easily averted if the Government sets about adopting a strategic and proactive course of action. Without waiting to respond after an accusation is made, if a consistent programme of informing and educating the public on a regular and timely basis, what is perceived as incompetence and lethargy could be presented as part and parcel of good governance. Good governance cannot detain suspects without producing them before the judiciary; good governance cannot subject them to summary punishment and kept behind bars. Pretence of justice is not dispensation of justice. Law and order cannot be compromised at any cost. One simply should not forget the malpractice of the law during the previous regime. Both the then Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka and Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake were humiliated beyond measure. The brutal killing of Lasantha Wickramatunga and the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda are still hurting the soul of our nation. The brutal realities of the past decade should not remain unexposed, nor should they be allowed to recur.  

  Modern societies have learnt to cope with the shades of the colours and nuances of sophistication. In no way does that mean to be swaying in indecision; hard decisions are difficult to arrive at and making good those decisions is even harder. If we decide to let our armour down, if we ever attempt to compromise with the un-compromisable, we will have let down our values as worthy men and women. If the broad masses are not receptive to a slow and steady growth of democracy, let that be, because the alternative is unthinkable.  

  The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com     

The stark truth behind the ‘Dr. Unconscious and the ambulance’ drama and play acting at Isurupaya.. (Photos)

(Lanka-e-News -21.Sep.2016, 10.00 PM) Actors and actresses  crying , sorrowing , laughing , falling sick and dying are   common features  on stage. But , of course these are not real because these are dramatsed stage performances. However those watching think they are actually happening at that moment. So, when the artistes on stage cry , the viewers too are vicariously moved and  cry ; when the artistes laugh the viewers too laugh ; and when the artiste dies , the viewers feel sad   as though in real life. 

However , if such a spurious  ‘drama’ is enacted in real life during a struggle of the professionals, it no doubt constitutes  the biggest joke of the century. Besides ,  to the viewers  it is  most hypocritical and a wicked villainy.   Yet unbelievably that was the cruel ‘drama’ staged recently by the villainous GMOA doctor jokers directed by Dr. Dracula of their  same ilk at Isurupaya until the following morning .

The title of that spurious villainous drama is ‘ tale of Dr. Unconscious and the ambulance.’ 

That drama was : when these bestial doctors stayed back at Isurupaya even after  midnight , and were demanding that their children should be admitted to leading schools like Royal and Visakha , while also  threatening that they would otherwise eat alive (naturally when  Dr. Dracula is their chief) the patients who are at their mercy, and were staging this ‘stage show’  one of the female doctors suddenly fell sick. Then came an ambulance to pick up this ‘sick’  doctor joker before she dies , and who emerges from the ambulance ? It is the small Draculas along with the GMOA secretary and media spokesman . Dr. Dracula does not know about medicines .It knows only about killing and not  curing , so this small Dr. Draculas arrived not with medicines but with food and beverages . These despicable  stage show photos are appended herein. 

In any event ,  these killer Draculas while holding a media briefing told a profusion of lies and painted a different picture .Hence it is for  the viewers  of this crude and cruel fake  show ‘ Tale of Dr. Unconscious and the ambulance’ , to  decide whether they must tolerate these villainous scoundrels any  longer  after viewing the actual   photographs herein ……

01 -The ambulance No. is LW 0752 ,which was used to forcibly enter the Education ministry when staging the   ‘ tale of Dr. Unconscious and the ambulance’ spurious drama .Usually when somebody is ill , it is an ambulance of the closest hospital that arrives. Accordingly , the ambulance should have arrived from Jayawardena hospital or Talangama hospital . Moreover these ambulances are not meant for  transporting  food.

02  - Navindra Soysa the secretary of the GMOA arriving in an ambulance as the doctor  , and kicking at the gate of the Education Ministry like an underworld thug breaking the laws brazenly and unashamedly . 

03- The GMOA secretary along with small Draculas abusing their official position to launch a fierce attack on the security detail , in order to take the ambulance by force inside the premises. 

04 to 09 - The ambulance which  is a public property being abused . It was brought not to transport a patient but to carry food and beverage to the group of doctor jokers who were  idling in the Education Ministry after occupying the premises by force to unjustifiably demand  Royal College  and Visakha Vidyalaya for their children. 

What a shame , it is the so called doctors of the noble profession and not street urchins who spearheaded these unlawful  activities ! Given their rowdy and ruthless conduct , it is being widely questioned whether these  self seeking , self serving  and self fattening doctors to whom the description  ‘jokers’ fits better  can ever think of performing their duties  professionally ,  ethically and duly in the interests of the patients and the nation?

10-12   - A lady doctor performing  the lead role in the‘ tale of Dr. Unconscious and the ambulance’ drama.

She says her  fainting was because the power supply to the ministry auditorium was disconnected . If that was so and there was any discomfort , why couldn’t they  come  out of it?

Why did she alone faint? 

Has anyone  heard of a patient who has simply  fainted being transported in an ambulance ?  In that case an ambulance should be stationed at every school when assemblies are held in the mornings because a number of students faint during the assembly.

If these doctors do not know to administer basic treatment to  a patient who faints and get down an ambulance  , it is they themselves who should feel ashamed.
 How can they be expected to do anything  worthwhile medically despite being doctors when their gaze are fixed only on selfish motives   and self serving agendas at the expense of patients even after taking the sacred oath . Perhaps they have taken not the oath of Hippocrates rather that of hypocrites , being hypocrites themselves. 

If these doctor jokers are fainting because of absence of   air conditioning comfort for just an hour , how many patients must be fainting ( hope they do not die) in their wards  owing to because of their neglect of  onerous duties , and their wasting the precious official time on unjustifiable and meaningless strikes and boycotts ? Why don’t these doctors inculcate  a sense of responsibility and humane love giving priority and precedence to their genuine duties as a service to humanity instead of behaving like ruthless , reckless, rudderless rascals .

13 – depicts how these play acting doctor jokers  without caring for their duties and the suffering   patients , sitting comfortably pulling the chairs together  and  putting their legs up on the tables  after opening the large windows of the education ministry auditorium .  

---------------------------
by     (2016-09-21 16:33:11)

Fonseka says Gota killed Lasantha

WEDNESDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 2016

The pioneer editor of ‘Sunday Leader’ newspaper LasanthaWickrematunga was murdered by former Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa revealed the Minister for Regional Development Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka  in Parliament today (21st).

At a debate in Parliament today a Parliamentarian of Mahinda faction of the UPFA asked Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka about the murder of Mr. Lasantha Wickrematunga and Field Marshal Fonseka responded by saying “Lasantha was murdered by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.”

Mr. Lasantha Wickrematunga was brutally murdered while he was driving to his office in January, 2009

Grama Niladhari arrested for demanding sexual favours


2016-09-21

A 41-year-old Grama Niladhari was arrested by the Wanathavilluwa Police for allegedly seeking sexual favours from a woman in exchange for flood relief allocated by the government. 

In a complaint to the Police, the 24-year-old woman, a resident of Ralmaduwa, Wanathawilluwa stated that the suspect had allegedly attempted to sexually abuse her on Tuesday (20)

. According to the complaint, the suspect sought sexual favors from the woman on several occasion at her house and the office. 

The suspect will be produced before the Puttlam District Court. (Jude Samantha)

When Palestinians are charged for Israel’s crimes

Israelis rally in Tel Aviv on 19 April to call for the release of Elor Azarya. The Israeli soldier had been filmed shooting dead an already incapicated Palestinian at close range, in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on 24 March 2016.Oren ZivActiveStills

Jalal Abukhater-20 September 2016

Recent killings by Israeli forces in Shuafat refugee camp – on the outskirts of Jerusalem – offer a glimpse of the wider injustices suffered by Palestinians living under occupation.

On 5 September, Israeli police conducting an early morning raid in Shuafat opened fire on a moving car.

Ali Nimir, the driver, was wounded. His brother-in-law Mustafa Nimir was killed.

An Israeli police spokesperson promptly claimed that the car’s driver had “seemingly attempted to run over officers.”

Mainstream media presented Israeli claims as facts. The news agency AFP reported, for example, that a “Palestinian would-be attacker” had been killed.

As usual, the Western press enabled Israel to get its allegations circulated before Palestinian witnesses had a chance to say anything.

Initial press reports omitted the accounts of the Nimir family. Ali and Mustafa were simply bringing home bread from a bakery, as well as clothes for Ali’s daughter, according to Mustafa’s mother and father.

Hope for justice?

Mustafa Nimir

There was a fundamental problem with relying on the Israeli version of events: it was wrong.

One day after Mustafa’s killing, the Israeli police told his parents to visit a police station in the Beit Haninaneighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

The police admitted that Mustafa was “killed by mistake,” the Ma’an News Agency reported.

In this type of situation, you would think there was some hope of accountability. As the Israeli authorities had admitted a “mistake” was made, surely they could punish the officers who fired so recklessly at the car.

The incident, after all, had been recorded by a witness. The video evidence contradicts claims that Ali Nimir tried to attack the police.

Instead, the Israeli police have tried to pin all the blame on Ali.

On Thursday last week, an indictment against Ali was filed in an Israeli court. He has been charged with “criminally negligent manslaughter” and driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, according to the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz.

Ali – not the Israeli police officers who shot the two men and killed one of them – is being accused of causing Mustafa’s death.

Of course, this is not the first time that a Palestinian has effectively been charged or punished for a crime committed by Israeli forces.

In 2005, the uniformed Israeli soldier Eden Natan Zada opened fire on a bus bringing Palestinian citizens of Israel from Haifa to Shefa Amr, a town in the Galilee.

Zada had shot dead the driver of the bus and three passengers before a crowd managed to stop him – as he was reloading his gun – and then killed him.

Zada’s attack was condemned as a “vile act” by Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s prime minister.

If it wasn’t for how local Palestinians tackled him, there is a high probability he would have killed more people.

Yet seven Palestinians who acted in self-defense found themselves being prosecuted.

Six of these men were handed a prison sentence of up to two years each in 2013. A seventh man received an eight-month suspended sentence.

The Israeli police were evidently more interested in pursuing Palestinians than in investigating Zada’sinvolvement with Kach, a group so violent and extreme that even Israel has outlawed it, or finding out if he had accomplices.

Harder to lie

Earlier this year, the Israeli soldier Elor Azarya was caught on video aiming his rifle and shooting at the head of Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif at close range, when the Palestinian was lying incapacitated on the ground in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Azarya is on trial for manslaughter but it is unlikely that he will truly be held to account.

He enjoys support from Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli defense minister, and from a significant portion of the Israeli public.

Last month at Azarya’s trial, a security chief for Israeli settlements testified that shooting at the heads of incapacitated alleged Palestinian assailtants is a common practice by Israeli occupation forces.

And last week, Uzi Dayan, the former deputy chief of the Israeli army, testified that “I’ve ordered to kill terrorists just because they’re terrorists, regardless of their condition, whether they are dangerous or not.”

Dayan added that during his years in a high command position he effectively ensured impunity as a matter of policy by preventing military police from investigating “operational incidents.”

The execution by Azarya received widespread attention only because it was filmed.

Imad Abu Shamsiyeh, the man who filmed it, has helped raise awareness about Israel’s human rights abuses. In return, he has received death threats. He fears for his family’s safety.

The Israeli police has not only refused to register his complaints about death threats, it has also threatened him with arrest.

It is a principle of basic justice that nobody should be punished for what someone else has done. Violating that principle, Israel resorts to such practices as punitive demolitions of the homes of relatives of alleged Palestinian assailants.

Parents or siblings get punished for acts in which they had no involvement.

Meanwhile, Israel refuses to subject Jewish families to the same treatment. Israel’s high court recently ruledthat the homes in which the killers of Muhammad Abu Khudair lived should be spared from demolition.

The court was responding to a petition from the family of Muhammad, a Shuafat resident burned to death by Israeli settlers in 2014, when he was just 16. His family was contesting why different standards apply to Palestinians than to Israelis.

Israel is finding it harder to conceal its cruel treatment of Palestinians. Using modern technology, witnesses can film and broadcast such cruelty. Lying becomes less easy for a state when its crimes can be viewed on the Internet.

Serial liars, of course, cannot be expected to kick their habits, no matter how compelling the evidence against them may be. When confronted with the truth, Israel tries to present the crimes of its forces as aberrations or mistakes. Then it blames the victim.

Israel is a state where the innocent are punished and the guilty are protected.

Israel Declares War on Gaza’s NGOs

BY GREGG CARLSTROM-SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Jerusalem — Since the end of the 2014 Gaza war, top Israeli generals and politicians have stressed the need to boost Gaza’s economy and loosen the nine-year blockade on the strip. This summer, though, Israel quietly started doing the opposite — and many of the aid workers who help keep Gaza afloat fear another war is looming.

The dozens of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Gaza have come under close scrutiny since Aug. 4, when Israel accused World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian humanitarian organization, of funneling aid money to Hamas, the Islamist group that has controlled the strip since 2007.

The charges were sensational: Mohammad el-Halabi, the director of World Vision’s Gaza office, was arrested on accusations of diverting up to $50 million over the course of seven years. The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, claimed that the money was used to dig cross-border attack tunnels and build bases. The agency also claimed that food parcels meant for needy families, and even bags of toiletries, were diverted to Hamas militants.

Many aid workers express grave doubts about the charges against Halabi, who has been accused of embezzling more than double World Vision’s entire Gaza budget. They see the case as part of a broader policy shift in Israel aimed at stifling humanitarian work and economic life in Gaza.

The new restrictions on NGOs are threatening Gaza’s already fragile economy and raising the odds of a fourth round of conflict between Israel and Hamas. Travel permits for aid workers and ordinary Gazans have been revoked on vague security grounds, and Israeli banks are increasingly reluctant to transfer salaries to workers in Gaza, something they have willingly done for years.

“It’s instilling a lot of fear among Gazans, and maybe that’s the point,” said one humanitarian official. “But I think what the Israeli authorities are missing is that fear can quickly turn into violence.… I don’t think it’s their interest to have another conflict right now, but this is a good way to get one going.”

Hamas is hardly above suspicion in the World Vision case. It has a well-documented history of diverting construction materials from civilian projects to build bunkers, tunnels, and other military installations. During the last war, it allegedly hid rockets in United Nations schools. It has also become more hostile to foreigners: It banned at least one American journalist from entering Gaza in May, and a new “office of general security” at the border has started to haul in other visiting reporters for lengthy questioning.

Officials at World Vision, however, say they still have not received a full accounting of the evidence against Halabi. He was arraigned on Aug. 30, in a hearing that was closed to the public, and future sessions will be held under a similar veil of secrecy. Halabi’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel, says even she will not be allowed to review all of the evidence.

Israel’s first statement about the case, relayed to journalists and foreign diplomats, accused Halabi of diverting roughly $7.2 million per year since he started working with World Vision in 2010 — close to $50 million over all. Those figures appeared widely in press coverage of the charges. The Shin Bet said the sum represented 60 percent of World Vision’s annual budget for Gaza.

That claim does not appear on the official charge sheet, however, and World Vision staffers have argued that it is mathematically impossible. The charity budgeted just $22.5 million for Gaza over the past decade, less than half the amount Halabi allegedly stole. A large chunk of that money was already tied up in fixed costs like salaries, cars, and rent. “Someone would have noticed if all that money had gone missing,” said a World Vision employee. “The employees wouldn’t have been paid for years.”

The charity’s accounting policies also would have flagged large discrepancies. Any contract over $15,000, for example, required approval from the head office in Jerusalem. And World Vision had already investigated Halabi in 2015, after one of its accountants, who had recently been fired, accused him of stealing money and working with Hamas. The charity brought in an outside investigator to review its books; the audit turned up nothing suspicious.

But even before Halabi was indicted, other NGOs said they were feeling unexpected pressure from Israeli authorities. Foreign Policy spoke with a dozen senior employees from NGOs and U.N. agencies for this article, most of whom were reluctant to talk on the record lest they cause more problems. Three-fourths of them said it had recently become more difficult to work in Gaza.

The director of one charity said that 30 to 40 percent of its Palestinian employees — from Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem — were now being refused travel permits. “These are people who have been getting permits regularly, as recently as last year,” the director said.

“It’s become very complex. [The Shin Bet] is even looking into social media of the people who are asking for permits, checking on their friends,” said another official, from a Scandinavian charity.

But not all NGOs have been affected, either. “We’ve been operating in Gaza for a long time … and we’re not having any new problems there,” said Mathilde Berthelot, a program manager at Médecins Sans Frontières, the medical charity also known as Doctors Without Borders.

The United Nations, however, is one of the international organizations that has found its work in Gaza increasingly challenged by Israeli restrictions. In 2015 and early 2016, only about 3 percent of U.N. employees were denied permits. Over the past few months, that number has increased to nearly 30 percent, a tenfold increase.At least eight staffers from the U.N. and foreign NGOs had their permits revoked at the border for unclear “security reasons” this year, something that happened only twice in all of 2015, according to U.N. statistics.

The Israeli army denies that it has imposed any new restrictions. “You’ll have to ask the Shin Bet about that. Our policy hasn’t changed,” said Hadar Horn, a spokeswoman for the unit that oversees the occupied territories. The Shin Bet, which rarely talks to the press, did not offer any comment.

Ordinary Palestinians, particularly the merchants who provide a vital lifeline for the strip, have also been affected by the shift. After the 2014 war, the Israeli army decided to drastically increase the number of travel permits issued to entrepreneurs, hoping to provide a boost to the local economy. By the summer of 2015, more than 10,000 merchants were traveling through the Erez crossing into Israel each month, a fivefold increase from the prewar average.

In June, though, the numbers took a sudden dive. Last month, 7,786 merchants were able to exit the strip, a 20 percent drop from the previous August. The figures in June and July were even lower, down 33 percent and 45 percent respectively from last year.

Some of the businesspeople had already been approved for travel before their permits were revoked. Dozens of merchants have been turned back at Erez in recent months, having been told that “security blocks” have suddenly been attached to their names.

“These are individuals whose permit has already been scrutinized and approved and ostensibly have been cleared for travel,” said Shai Grunberg, a spokeswoman for Gisha, an Israeli group that monitors access to Gaza. “They arrive at Erez only to be asked to surrender their permit and return to Gaza.”

The World Bank’s latest report on the Palestinian economy provided a window into the dire economic situation in Gaza. About 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and roughly the same percentage of Gazans are unemployed. Among young people, the unemployment rate is 58 percent — providing militant groups like Hamas with a seemingly endless reservoir of recruits.

The Persian Gulf donors who promised large sums to rebuild the strip have not followed through. Qatar pledged $1 billion, but only 19 percent of that has actually been dispersed. Three other Gulf countries collectively offered $900 million, but only $171 million of that has actually arrived. Norway has contributed more money at this point than Saudi Arabia. The United States, by contrast, has fulfilled its $277 million pledge.

Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, the Israeli army intelligence chief, told the Knesset in February that economic development in Gaza would be the “most important restraining factor” that prevents a fourth war. His comments have been echoed across the political spectrum — not only from the left, but also from hawkish voices on the right. Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the head of the settler-backed Jewish Home party, said last year that it was “time to change the policy” in Gaza by striking a deal with Hamas to rebuild the strip. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz has even tried to advance plans for an offshore Gaza seaport, showing journalists a mockup of the proposed complex.

The one notable exception to this consensus is Avigdor Lieberman, the nationalist lawmaker who became defense minister in May. Lieberman, who served as foreign minister in the previous Netanyahu government, was one of the most belligerent voices during the previous war, repeatedly calling for a ground offensive to topple the Hamas government.

He kept up the hawkish tone after Netanyahu’s latest cabinet took office in 2015. At a cultural event this May, Lieberman offered a stern promise: If named defense minister, he would give Hamas 48 hours to return the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during the war, or he would assassinate its political chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh. One of his first acts upon entering the Defense Ministry was to ask his generals to draw up a plan for defeating Hamas.

Haniyeh, needless to say, is still walking around, and the war plan is gathering dust. Lieberman did take advantage of his one opportunity to hit Hamas: On Aug. 22, after a small militant group in Gaza fired a rocket at Israel, the air force carried out 50 airstrikes in Gaza, by far the heaviest barrage since the end of the 2014 war. In a press conference the next day, Lieberman argued that Hamas had become too comfortable and that Israel should only let reconstruction go forward if the Islamist movement relinquished its arms. “My attitude is — reconstruction in exchange for demilitarization,”
Lieberman told reporters. “That is the formula.”

That formula, many aid workers fear, means that another war is not far off the horizon.

“If the stream of humanitarian aid is blocked, or limited to a very few [NGOs], then I don’t see how we’re going to avoid another conflict,” said a U.N. official.

Photo credit: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images

End this hell, UN chief tells world powers at crucial Syria talks

UN Security Council told it is 'make or break moment', amid reports Russia is sending aircraft carrier to Mediterranean

Aleppans suffered an intense night of bombing on Tuesday (AFP)

Wednesday 21 September 2016

World powers were told they faced a "make or break moment" in Syria as the UN Security Council met for a crisis meeting and violence flared after the failure of a seven-day ceasefire.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday told the New York meeting that memebers must use their influence "to negotiate a way out of the hell in which they are trapped", following two disastrous days since the end of the US-Russia brokered truce.

Russia and the US remain still locked in confrontation over the bombing of a UN aid convoy in Aleppo on Monday evening which killed 20 people - an attack the US on Wednesday blamed directly on Russian forces. Russia denies any role.

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, told the meeting he believed there was a way out "of the carnage" and called for the grounding of the Syrian and Russian air forces.

Despite this, the UN said late on Wednesday that it would resume aid delivery that was suspended following the strike that killed more than 20 civilians. 

"The preparation for these convoys has now resumed and we are ready to deliver aid to besieged and hard-to-reach areas as soon as possible," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

Meanwhile in Moscow, Russia's defence minister announced he was to dispatch his navy's flagship aircraft carrier to bolster forces off the coast of Syria.

"Currently the Russian naval deployment to the east Mediterranean consists of no less than six battleships and three or four support vessels," Sergei Shoigu said.

"In order to bolster the military capabilities of the group we plan to add the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier to the group."

The announcement coincided with the Security Council meeting.

There were also reports of dozens being killed in intense bombing of Aleppo on Wednesday, including four medical workers in an attack that destroyed two ambulances in Khan Tuman, a village south of the city.

The Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations said two nurses and two ambulance drivers were hit as they moved victims from a previous attack.

The Britain-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said dozens of raids hit Aleppo's eastern area overnight, as government troops advanced on the city's southwestern outskirts.

John Kerry speaks during the UNSC meeting (AFP)

Civil defence workers in the Qadi Askar area weaved through rubble in search of wounded residents in a row of buildings hit by air strikes. 

In the rebel-held area of Sukkari, Abu Ahmad cleared rubble and shattered glass from his doorstep after bombardment levelled the six-storey building next door, killing his neighbours.

He had tea with the two brothers who lived in the building late the previous night. 

"Just an hour after I left, a missile destroyed their whole building and they both died under the rubble," Abu Ahmad said.  

Syrian state media reported that the city's government-held west had come under rebel shelling, which killed two people.

Seven civilians, including three children, were also killed in unidentified air raids on the northwestern town of Khan Sheikhun on Wednesday, according to the observatory.

Bombardment has escalated across the country since Monday evening, when Syria's military declared an end to the week-long truce that had brought relative calm to major fronts. 

Hours after the announcement, an air strike hit an aid convoy near Aleppo, killing 20 civilians and destroying 18 trucks, the Red Cross said. 

Monday's strike sparked international outrage and prompted an exasperated UN to suspend all humanitarian convoys across Syria.

"There only could have been two entities responsible, either the Syrian regime or the Russian government," President Barack Obama's national security spokesman Ben Rhodes said.

"In any event, we hold the Russian government responsible for air strikes in this space."

On Wednesday Moscow claimed a US drone was flying in the area at the time of the attack.

'Hasty accusations'

Two Russian SU-24 ground attack jets were operating in the area where the aid convoy was struck, another US official told AFP. 

"The best evaluation we have is that the Russians carried out the strike," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Russian foreign ministry said the comments were "Unsubstantiated, hasty accusations" designed to "distract attention from the strange 'error' of coalition pilots".

This was a reference to Saturday's bombardment and killing of at least 62 Syrian troops by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, an attack which Washington said was a mistake.

Despite the tensions, Kerry insisted that efforts to salvage the truce were "not dead", after a short meeting of the 23-nation International Syria Support Group in New York, where world leaders have gathered for the UN General Assembly. 

Kerry's spokesman John Kirby said it had been agreed that "despite continued violence" diplomats would use the agreement between the United States and Russia as a basis for more talks.

The deal foresaw an end to fighting between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and 'moderate' rebels, aid deliveries to besieged areas and, if the ceasefire held for seven days, cooperation between Moscow and Washington in battling IS and other extremist groups.