Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Climate Change, Animal Welfare & Buddhism

By Avanthi Jayasuriya –September 28, 2016

Avanthi Jayasuriya

The teachings of Lord Buddha found in core Buddhist doctrine such as the Dhammapada, recognize the symbiotic connection between human activities and nature, advocating the harmonious co-existence of all sentient including eco-systems and humanity. As exemplified in the life of Lord Buddha himself, his journey as Bodhisattva until the epitome of attaining the supreme state of Nibbana under the shelter of a tree, highlights the untenable historic connection Buddhism shares with nature.

As such, Buddhist teachings are intrinsically linked to the issues of the climate crisis and animal welfare; thereby providing a uniquely Buddhist insight into the root causes of climate crisis and animal cruelty, while determining prescriptive measures to minimize its detrimental consequences.

“Mindful eating”- Buddhism and Vegetarianism

Placing the mind as superior to bodily desires, Buddhism trains one to exert control over the human compulsions rooted in greed, ill will and delusion; urging to replace them with selflessness, compassion and wisdom. We, as Buddhist, are taught to develop these values in a manner that surpasses the self, and alternatively encompassing the collective- meaning ecosystems and humanity as a whole.

In other words, transgressing the idea of self and personal suffering, Buddhism trains us to be mindful and conscious of the suffering of the others. The first of the five core Buddhist precepts clearly defines Buddhist comportment in relation to causing harm to other sentient beings. We, as Buddhists, are taught to restrain from killing in three ways- either directly killing or causing harm to someone, indirectly killing and taking pleasure in the act of seeing others being harmed or killed.

Vegetarianism or the conscious choice of maintaining a plant based diet is resonant within Buddhist doctrinal values. On one hand the slaughtering of animals for meat production is not consistent with the Buddhist teachings of compassion, loving kindness and wisdom. On the other hand vegetarianism will enable individuals to reflect on their dietary patterns, allowing them to think beyond the momentary pleasure of consuming food, and to reflect instead on the inconceivable cruelty, harm and pain experienced by animals in the process of industrial farming and animal husbandry.

Practicing Buddhist principles by opting for a meatless diet would not only help individuals to embrace a healthy lifestyle by adopting better and more nutritious eating habits; but will also lead to more eco-sensitive behavior being adopted by individuals and communities which would ultimately contribute to the general welfare of animals and to the reduction of the overall effects on climate change.

Vegetarianism and climate change

According to the United Nations, the meat production industry is one of the most significant contributors to the environmental crisis encountered at present. Going meatless also has long term implications in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions as the livestock sector including industrialized meat production and other animal husbandry practices contribute largely to the emission of greenhouse gases such as methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. In addition, animal agriculture also results in more dire consequences as seen in the deforestation for grazing purposes, the loss of biodiversity, and pollution of water sources due to animal waste disposal.

In effect, the choice to go meatless for a day would have an impact on determining the scale of the livestock industry, thereby leading to the reduction of the carbon footprint of each individual. Going meatless would help fulfill the individual and collective responsibility in contributing to the reduction of the adverse impacts of climate change. The Meatless Monday Campaign which is practiced across the globe, and is introduced to Sri Lanka, is an initiative which invites people to forego meet consumption on Monday as an effort to address animal welfare, climate change, and other related issues.

Vegetarianism & animal welfare

Increasing consumption patterns and purchasing levels of meat and animal products has led to the growth of industries based on animal husbandry to adopt commercial systems of production. These methods include more labour intensive, industrial farming practices which subject animals to unimaginable pain, harm and cruelty. From breeding practices where animals are raised for food and injected with hormones to expedite the breeding process, to the intensive confinement endured in housing and transportation methods upto the cruelty encountered in slaughtering methods used in meat production, the welfare of animals is in a deplorable state and is often overlooked. Therefore, in practicing mindful eating, Buddhism encourages us to consciously think of what goes into our diet and in turn of the pain and suffering the animals undergo in the livestock industry.

Finance Minister summoned to supreme court.

Sep 28, 2016

A petition has been filed in supreme courts against the Finance Minister and 14 others for alleged tax concessions granted to 04 beer companies.

On the 27th instant for allowing tax concessions to 04 beer companies the petition had been examined.The Minister of Finance,The Secretary to the Finance ministry,The Director General of customs and others had been ordered to be present in Supreme courts on the 12th October.

The petition has been submitted by a group of Bikkhus.

These tax concessions have been allowed to 04 beer manufacturing companies including Lion brewery.The petitioners had quoted that owing to these concessions the government had incurred a loss of Rs 600 billion .What had been requested in the petition is to recover this Rs 600 billion and to utilize it for the welfare and benefit of the public.

The Chairman of the supreme court , supreme court Judge Vijith Mallalgoda and supreme court Judge Preethi Padman Surasena had examined the petition.

How FIFA profits from Israel’s crimes

Football field in Givat Zeev settlement is built on land stolen from the Palestinian al-Qurt family.

Charlotte Silver-28 September 2016

Human Rights Watch charges the international football governing body FIFA with benefiting from serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by allowing the Israel Football Association to conduct games on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank.

The IFA includes six football clubs that are based in settlements, including Beitar Givat Zeev Shabi, Beitar Ironi Ariel, Ironi Elitzur Yehuda, Beitar Ironi Maaleh Adumim and Hapoel Bikat HaYarden.

Though Human Rights Watch’s extensive investigation reveals how these clubs sustain and benefit from Israel’s settlements through a web of commercial activity, Human Rights Watch confines its demands to calling on FIFA to require the Israel Football Association to move all FIFA-sanctioned games to within present-day Israel.

But this is insufficient, according to James Dorsey, who writes about football in the Middle East,

“[Human Rights Watch’s] demand that Israeli West Bank teams play in Israel proper potentially muddles issues involving the legitimacy of the settlements and the occupation,” Dorsey states. “By demanding that West Bank settlement teams play on pitches in pre-1967 Israeli territory, [Human Rights Watch] effectively accepts Israeli settlement policy.”

“The demand further leaves Israeli military policy that restricts Palestinian access to Israeli settlements unchallenged,” Dorsey adds.

Earlier this month, 66 members of the European Parliament demanded that Israeli settlement football clubs be excluded from the Israel Football Association completely.

In a letter to FIFA’s new president Gianni Infantino, the European representatives urged FIFA to “rule that settlement clubs either fully relocate within Israel’s internationally recognized borders or are excluded from the Israel Football Association.”

These concerns come in the wake of an effort by FIFA to shed its involvement in human rights scandals.

This year FIFA commissioned a report by John Ruggie, author of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, to provide the sports behemoth with recommendations on how to respect human rights across its operations and business relationships.

Violating international law

Due to Israeli colonization, the Palestinian town of Beitunia has nowhere to build a football field for its local club.

The Israel Football Association’s legal adviser Efraim Barak rejected Human Rights Watch’s finding that the IFA is in violation of FIFA’s human rights policies. “The purpose of the IFA is to benefit football,” Barak said. “That is its sole concern. Political issues are not part of our ‘playing field.’”

Norman Goldstein, founder of the Maccabi Ariel football club, responded without any pretense of concern for international law: “Who exactly is the occupier here? All history books refer to the ‘period of the Arab occupation.’ That is, the Arabs are the ones who occupied!”

Human Rights Watch’s report comes a year after FIFA established a committee to monitor the ongoing dispute between the Israel Football Association and the Palestinian Football Association, which has argued that FIFA rules prohibit one member association from holding games on the territory of another.

The committee, headed by the veteran South African anti-apartheid leader Tokyo Sexwale, is due to present its recommendations to FIFA next month.

But the Human Rights Watch report goes further than just charging the Israel Football Association with violating FIFA rules.

“By allowing the IFA to hold matches inside settlements, FIFA is engaging in business activity that supports Israeli settlements,” the human rights group states.

At the beginning of this year, Human Rights Watch called on all corporations to end their business activities in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem.

The report notes that these businesses are located on land that was “unlawfully taken from Palestinians” and exploit resources to benefit Israelis and their businesses while blocking the Palestinian infrastructure and economy from developing.

Family owners

Human Rights Watch’s extensive investigation into the six Israeli settlement football clubs finds that their playing fields are built on land seized from Palestinian families and villages.

The land is now off-limits to Palestinians, depriving them of land for agriculture, let alone football.

The playing field of Beitar Givat Zeev Shabi, in the Givat Zeev settlement near Ramallah, for instance, was built on land belonging to two Palestinian families.

Today, Beitunia’s football club, which is a member of the Palestinian Football Association, must train in a neighboring town because the village of Beitunia does not have enough space for its own playing field that meets FIFA requirements.

The al-Qurt family showed Human Rights Watch Israeli records that list them among the owners of the plot of land.

According to Salah al-Qurt, 67, the family used to earn their living by farming the land until the late 1970s, when Israeli soldiers blocked off access to all Palestinians. The family was never compensated, nor were they consulted when it was transformed into a football field sometime after 1999.

“We feel like strangers,” al-Qurt said. “We can see our land, but we can’t reach it, and we can’t use it.”

Al-Qurt’s nephew is now a player in the Beitunia football club.

Cycle of profit

Human Rights Watch reveals a cycle of profit made possible by the relationship between FIFA and the Israel Football Association. Though FIFA is a nonprofit it facilitates an enormous global football industry, which includes commercial activities at every stage.

“The settlement teams do not directly bring revenue to the IFA or FIFA, but they are part of the professional football industry, rooted in communities across the globe, that earns $33 billion annually and helps maintain football’s status as the most popular sport in the world,” the report states.

FIFA and Europe’s football governing body UEFA transfer millions of dollars to the Israel Football Association and in turn reap profits “as part of a reciprocal financial relationship in which FIFA and UEFA earn money from regional and international games in which Israeli teams play.”

“The clubs are an integral part of the Israeli football industry, which is in turn an integral part of the European and international football industry,” the report says.

Moreover, the money directed to the settlement clubs from FIFA, UEFA, Israeli government and settlement councils sustain illegal Israeli settlements by funding an array of jobs and services.

These services are denied to Palestinians, who are excluded from settlements unless as day laborers.

International humanitarian law forbids Israel, as an occupying power, from using occupied Palestinian land for anything except Israeli military needs or for the benefit of the Palestinian population.

The UN’s Next Genocide in Somalia

The Somali people didn’t create Al Shabab – the U.N. did by starting a war that is still raging today.

by Thomas C. Mountain

( September 27, 2016, Eritrea, Sri Lanka Guardian) The U.N. just announced that due to drought and famine over 300,000 Somali children are suffering from severe malnutrition. This means that over 100 children are already dying everyday from starvation. Soon the number will reach many hundreds a day, bringing back memories of the most recent Great Horn of Africa drought in 2011-12 when the U.N. admitted that 250,000, almost entirely children, died from starvation.

And this drought and famine is worse.

The reason so many Somali children are starving to death is triggered by the latest climate disaster in the form of the El Niño drought. But the fact that Somalia itself, this meaning from the former capital Mogadishu south to the Kenyan border, is in a state of foreign occupation and war is exacerbating the situation.

The ongoing war in Somalia was started by the U.N. back in 2006 when the U.N. and A.U., and ultimately the United States, sanctioned the Ethiopian army to invade Somalia and overthrow the existing government headed by the Union of Islamic Courts.

Until the Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia in 2006 the country was peaceful and starting to rebuild a war torn nation thanks to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a coalition of Somali Clan Elders and senior Islamic religious leaders or Sheiks.

The UIC’s popular militias had driven the warlords and gangsters out of Mogadishu and through negotiated settlements had spread its influence increasingly to the south bringing peace to most of Somalia.

The Port of Mogadishu had been reopened and talks for reopening Mogadishu Airport had begun. In other words, for the first time since 1991 Somalia was in a state of peace.

This was all shattered when the U.N. and its African Union gendarmes, the Ethiopians, invaded Somalia, occupied Mogadishu and placed a bounty on the heads of the UIC, who mostly being older, had to flee the country into exile.

What was left to lead the wave of Somali nationalism opposing the invasion and occupation by their historical enemies, the Ethiopians, was Al Shabab, the youth wing of the UIC who picked up the gun to fight an armed struggle for national liberation.

Eventually, the fanatic wahabist wing of the youth movement for national liberation defeated the quite moderate, UIC elders-led fighters and voila, today’s “terrorist” organization known as Al Shabab was born.

The U.N., the A.U. and behind it all, the United States, was never going to allow any “Islamist” government to take over in such a strategically critical country like Somalia at the mouth of the Red Sea and potentially able to control the Baab Al Mandeb entrance to the Indian Ocean.

Just as in Libya, the western instigated funded and directed overthrow of an independent, nationalist government created the conditions for fanaticism to thrive, as in Al Shabab in Somalia.

The Somali people didn’t create Al Shabab – the U.N. did by starting a war that is still raging today, ten years later. And worse yet by creating a monster in the form of an army lead by religious fanatics under a banner of Somali nationalism, you guarantee that there will be unending violence and even more famine and genocide.

Famine and genocide, it seems something that the U.N. specializes in when it comes to Somalia.

In 2011 the U.N. via UNICEF only budgeted 10 cents a day, US$35 million, to feed a million Somali refugees and a quarter million starved to death. Today there are far more children starving for this time the drought is worse. Yet the U.N. is standing by and once again allowing hundreds of thousands of Somali children to starve.

The U.N. has spent untold Billions funding the A.U. implemented occupation and war in Somalia in the name of fighting terrorism in the form of Al Shabab, with over 30,000 AU “peacekeepers” occupying Somalia.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it, Billions for war and never mind the hundreds of thousands of starving children the U.N. is responsible for? And so it happens that we find ourselves once again predicting the next U.N. sponsored genocide in Somalia.

Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist in Eritrea, living and reporting from here since 2006. His speeches, interviews and articles can be seen on Facebook at thomascmountain and he can best be reached at thomascmountain at g mail dot com

Special Report - Flawed CDC report left Indiana children vulnerable to lead poisoning

Krystle Jackson's children, Kavon Jackson, 1, and Kaydance Jackson, 3, sleep in their parents house in Cedar Lake, Indiana, U.S. September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Michelle Kanaar-An Environmental Protection Agency sign that reads 'DO NOT play in the dirt or around the mulch' is seen at the West Calumet Complex in East Chicago, Indiana, U.S. September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Michelle Kanaar

A view of the City of East Chicago Housing Authority office in the West Calumet Complex in East Chicago, Indiana, U.S. September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Michelle Kanaar--Krystle Jackson speaks to a reporter in her parents' home in Cedar Lake, Indiana, U.S. September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Michelle Kanaar

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell -Wed Sep 28, 2016

In this industrial northwest Indiana city, hundreds of families who live in a gated public housing community with prim lawns and a new elementary school next door are searching for new homes. Their own places have been marked for demolition.

Special Report - Flawed CDC Report Left Indiana Children Vulnerable to Lead Poisoning by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Dutch probe: Missile brought from Russia downed Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine

A Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 298 people and traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, fell in a Ukrainian field.

By Andrew Roth September 28 at 5:00 PM

KIEV, UKRAINE — A Dutch-led investigative team said Wednesday that the surface-to-air missile that downed a passenger jet over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people aboard, came from Russia and was fired from territory held by pro-Moscow separatists.

Investigators stopped short of directly accusing Russia of complicity in the attack on the Boeing 777 and declined to name any suspects publicly. But the briefing was seen in Russia and in the West as a virtual indictment of Moscow, prompting Russian protests as investigators said they would continue trying to determine who ordered the strike.

[Full details of the Dutch-led investigation’s report]

Both Russia and the rebels in Ukraine deny any role in the July 2014 attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital.

The findings are intended to be used in a possible criminal trial. But even if suspects are identified, it is unclear how they would be apprehended, especially if they are in Russia or in separatist-held Ukrainian territory.

Investigators probing the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in 2014 release an animated representation they say shows the plane was downed by a Russian-made missile fired from rebel-held territory. (Reuters)

The investigators concluded that the plane was shot down with a missile launched from what the Russians call a Buk TELAR battery, said Wilbert Paulissen, a senior investigator in the Dutch national police.

The missile-launch vehicle “was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and after launch was subsequently returned to Russian Federation territory. This conclusion is based largely on forensic investigation,” he said.

[Video: The animated reconstruction of Flight 17’s last moments]

The system thought to be used in the missile firing — four surface-to-air missiles mounted on a launch vehicle — was smuggled into Ukraine from Russia just hours before the missile was fired, the investigators said at a news conference in Amsterdam. The launch system, also known as an SA-11 “Gadfly,” was returned to Russia the day after the attack, which left bodies and wreckage strewn across farms and fields of sunflowers.

The U.S. State Department said the findings matched those made by American officials, and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that “we ask that Russia now engages constructively with the findings and ongoing investigation.”

The evidence was based on intercepts of telephone conversations between separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine, as well as open-source photographs, eyewitness accounts and satellite data, investigators said.

Much of the material was first identified by online activists and citizen journalists, including the influential Bellingcat.com website, which has been targeted by Russian government hackers, according to reports.

While a previous Dutch-led safety inquiry had said the missile was most likely launched from separatist-held territory, Wednesday was the first time that investigators said it had been transported across the border from Russia.

The team members said that they had identified more than 100 people linked to the downing of the plane and that they would seek to identify “who ordered the plane to be shot down.” The investigation has been extended into 2018.

No venue has been given for a possible trial.

[European Union extends sanctions on Russia]

Moscow has maintained that it has not backed the separatists at all, much less supplied them with a modern anti-aircraft missile system that requires a trained crew. On Monday, Russia said it had radio-location data that implicated Ukraine’s government in the attack and ruled out the launch of a missile from separatist-held territory.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign and Defense ministries, and Almaz-Antey, the manufacturer of the Buk missile system, all declared the investigation biased and dismissed some of the evidence presented.

“All the data presented today at the briefing of the investigative group have two main sources: the Internet and the Ukrainian security services,” said Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a Russian military spokesman. “Thus the objectivity of the information, and the subsequent conclusions made on it, must summon doubt.”

In Ukraine, separatist leaders on Wednesday denied the evidence presented in the report, saying that they did not have access to sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, and they accused Ukraine’s government of the attack.

Dutch investigators suggested Wednesday that the Buk may have been transferred to Ukraine to protect separatists from Kiev’s aerial attacks during intense fighting in the summer of 2014. Pro-separatist websites initially announced the attack on the passenger jet as a successful strike against a Ukrainian military plane.

The investigators, citing intercepted telephone calls and social media photos, said that the trailer carrying the Buk missile system crossed into Ukraine from Russia on the morning of July 17, the day of the attack, accompanied by a jeep and minivan carrying separatist fighters. Video and photographs showed the missile system that day in Donetsk, the largest city held by the separatists, and then traveling toward the villages of Snezhnoye and Pervomaiskiy.

The missile “without any doubt” was launched from a field in the farmland near Pervomaiskiy, a video made by the investigators said, citing witnesses who gave testimony and showing pictures of a smoke trail coming from the field.

The missile launcher was subsequently driven back across the Russian border early the next morning on a Volvo truck, judging by videos and intercepted telephone calls, the investigators said.

The Dutch-led investigative team includes representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine. Relatives of those killed in the attack were informed of the conclusions earlier Wednesday. Of the victims, 193 were Dutch citizens, 43 were from Malaysia and 27 were from Australia. Citizens of the United States, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand and the Philippines also died in the attack.

South Sudan VP Blames Former Rebel Leader for Unrest

BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY-SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

In July, former South Sudanese rebel leader and one-time vice president Riek Machar fled the capital city of Juba, saying he feared for his life if he remained. Fighting had broken out between Machar’s troops and those loyal to his long-time rival President Salva Kiir.

Now, one of Machar’s former allies, who controversially replaced him as first vice president in South Sudan’s government, says Machar is perpetuating the country’s internecine conflict from afar. Taban Deng Gai, the chief opposition negotiator for the August 2015 peace deal, says that Machar and his associates are encouraging displaced people to stay in United Nations camps in South Sudan, instead of returning home where they could help rebuild the shattered state.

“He is encouraging them to remain in those places,” Deng told Foreign Policyin an interview at the Atlantic Council in Washington on Wednesday. “Those people are not afraid to leave; they are told to stay.” Deng suggested that a “Riek Machar mafia” is holding displaced people at the camps, which he said ends up prolonging the civil war that has plagued South Sudan since 2013.

In all, some 2 million South Sudanese are now displaced, including more than a million who have fled the country as refugees. Some 200,000 South Sudanese civilians are crowded into the U.N. camps across the country, which lack basic amenities including food, clean water, and healthcare. Civilians began flocking to the U.N. in late 2013, seeking protection as the infighting between Machar and Kiir escalated into full-fledged ethnic violence in the capital, then quickly spread across the country. Since then, more than 50,000 people have been killed, and violence raged on for months even after Kiir and Machar signed the peace deal in Ethiopia in 2015. The civil war followed a two-decade struggle with Sudan, which culminated with independence in 2011.

When Machar finally returned to the capital in April, Juba was relatively calm. But the tenuous unity government, a marriage of the president and a rebel, blew up in July as forces loyal to the two men clashed. Kiir’s camp says Machar attempted a coup; Machar’s side claims Kiir tried to kill him. The result was an outburst of violence in the capital that killed hundreds of military personnel and civilians and drove many more to seek protection in the U.N. camps.

Deng insists that the 40,000 people in the Juba camp should return home to help rebuild South Sudan, but that many of them are hesitant to do so because of a network of Machar supporters who he says are intimidating civilians from leaving.

“The mafia can work in a prison, even in America,” he said. “That’s what is happening in those protection sites. The ‘Riek Machar mafia’ is operational there.”

Machar’s aides dismiss those charges, and say there’s a simple reason people remain in the camps. Par Koul, a Machar aide who is leading an opposition delegation to Washington this week, told FP Juba “is the most dangerous place to live.” He also dismissed reports that Machar called his troops to arms this weekend, saying that he only has called for defending themselves in the wake of attacks.

“The raping, killing, and all the atrocities you have seen were committed by the government,” he said. “Our people took refuge in that camp to seek protection from the government. How do you go back to the government frkom whom you’re being protected?”

And Deng is truly part of that government, Kuol says, since he had already defected from the opposition by the time he assumed the vice presidency. “He has crossed to the other side,” Kuol said.
An American expert on South Sudan who participated in a closed door meeting with Deng earlier in the day told FP that the claim civilians are staying in the camps for any reason other than protection is “disingenuous.”

“All empirical evidence points to people being there as an option of last resort,” he said.

Although both Machar and Kiir’s troops have been accused of committing atrocities including looting, pillaging, mass rape, and murder, the government forces have been accused of carrying out those crimes on a much larger scale. In July, government troops stationed at a checkpoint in Juba fired at American diplomatic vehicles. In a separate incident, troops who witnesses say belonged to Kiir’s presidential guard invaded an expatriate compound, singled out Americans, and raped and beat them for hours on end.
As vice-president working alongside Kiir, Deng has to live with those atrocities. He said he wants to launch the hybrid court, as outlined in the peace agreement, to hold those accountable who have attacked civilians and carried out other war crimes.

U.S. officials have pressed for the speedy establishment of the court to hold accountable those responsible for atrocities. But Deng said the court’s establishment is not urgent because “it will just divide people more.” First, he said, South Sudan needs a national healing and reconciliation effort.

“The dust must settle,” he said, adding that to remove political leaders from power and bring them to trial would disrupt the reunification process. “Is it simple that you bring Salva Kiir to court today? Then how do you lead the country?Let Salva Kiir be given a chance, let him fix it.”

But the American who attended the closed door meeting with Deng earlier in the day said that delaying the establishment of a hybrid court is just the government’s latest demonstration “that they’re not interested in implementing any aspect of the peace agreement in good faith.”

“He’s been completely co-opted by Kiir, and all we heard this morning was a complete denial of the security and humanitarian catastrophe that unfolded in South Sudan in large part due to the actions and policies of Kiir and his inner circle,” he said.

For people close to Machar, Deng’s transition from one-time ally to sidekick of the current president threatens to reignite the violence that has rocked the young country practically since independence.
Government forces, Kuol said, bombed Machar’s camp in Juba in July, destroying his home and office and essentially chasing him away. “The whole thing is a mockery,” he said.

Deng denied defecting from the opposition, and blamed Machar for the unrest. When the former rebel did join the unity government in April, Deng said, Machar refused to accept his subordinate role, and acted as a “parallel president” to Kiir, which he said is ultimately what destabilized the country.

Insisting that he has no presidential ambitions of his own, Deng said his goals are simple: to move on from the conflict and the controversy over Machar’s seat, to encourage reconciliation, to send displaced people home, and to jumpstart the economy so that Juba can one day be the new Dubai.

“If my working with the president can stop the killing, can stop the suffering, can stop the rapes, can stop the manslaughter, I think this will be the noble job I should do for my people and my country,” he said.

VIDEO: Mufti beaten with shoe during Egypt TV row over headscarf

Host apologises to viewers for what he called a 'free fight' between Egyptian lawyer and controversial Australian cleric

Wahsh wields his shoe during the on-air fight (YouTube)

A fight broadcast live on Egyptian television saw an Australian mufti beaten with a shoe by an Egyptian lawyer, in a fierce dispute over questions of religious law.

Wednesday 28 September 2016

The fight broke out during a discussion about the headscarf, which Sydney imam Mostafa Rashid sees as a cultural tradition rather than a religious duty.

Egyptian lawyer Nabih al-Wahsh disagreed strongly with Rashid’s position - as the pair descended into trading personal insults, Wahsh took off his shoe and began beating the imam.

Members of the production team can be seen sprinting onto the set to break up the fight, after which Rashid swiftly collects his belongings and leaves the studio.

“It was a free fight in the middle of the studio,” presenter Mohammed al-Ghaiti told viewers later as he replayed the footage and apologised for his guests’ behaviour.

“I never expected that something like this could happen on air.”

Ghaiti said a member of the production team was injured in the fight, and a pane of glass was broken.

Writing on Facebook after the event, Wahsh accused Rashid of “converting to Christianity” in 2011.

Rashid, who holds a PhD in Islamic theology from Egypt’s prestigious al-Azhar University, is known for his controversial views on Islam.

The author of a book entitled I am Secular, Rashid left Egypt for Australia in February 2013, having sparked controversy for ruling that prayers carried out alongside then Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi would be “null and void” because he had been accused of violent crimes.

He has also said that the Quran forbids drunkenness but not the drinking of alcohol, which is considered forbidden by many mainstream and observant Muslims.

Environmentalists 'expected better' of Trudeau as Canada backs gas project

The project is backed by Malaysia’s energy giant Petronas. Photograph: Reuters

The Pacific NorthWest LNG project would ship 19m tons a year of frozen, liquefied natural gas to markets in Asia – and create jobs, says the government

Ashifa Kassam in Toronto-Wednesday 28 September 2016

Canada’s commitment to fighting climate change has been questioned after the Liberal government, led by Justin Trudeau, announced conditional approval for a C$36bn liquefied natural gas project in northern British Columbia.

The decision – the Trudeau government’s first on a major energy project – was announced late on Tuesday. “The government approved the Pacific NorthWest LNG project,” Catherine McKenna, the environment minister, told reporters in a Vancouver suburb.

Backed by Malaysia’s energy giant Petronas, the project would ship 19m tonnes a year of frozen, liquefied natural gas to markets in Asia. The government promised the project, one of Canada’s largest resource development projects, would create thousands of jobs – as many as 630 direct and spin-off jobs and 4,500 construction jobs – and add nearly C$2.4bn per year to the country’s GDP.

The government’s approval was contingent on the project meeting 190 conditions, including keeping greenhouse gas emissions capped at 4.3m tonnes per year, a drop of about 20% from the project’s initial proposal. Upstream emissions are not included in this cap and could add as much as 8.7m tonnes of carbon emissions to the project, according to estimates from a draft report released by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency in February.

McKenna said the decision had been informed by rigorous environmental assessment as well as meaningful consultations with First Nations groups. “The only way to get resources to market in the 21st century is if it is done in a responsible and sustainable manner. This decision reflects this objective.”

But despite claims by the British Columbia government that the exported fuel would offer an alternative to coal-fired plants in Asia, environmentalists warned the approval of the project would undermine Canada’s climate change commitments.

“How can Prime Minister Trudeau claim to be a climate leader on the international stage, while approving this new project that will become the single largest source of climate pollution in the country?” Karen Mahon of Stand Earth asked in a statement after the decision was announced. “Honestly we expected better.”

Since taking the reins of Canada’s government last year, Trudeau has sought to position himself as a climate change leader on the world stage while assuring Canadians that the government would strike a balance between caring for the environment and bolstering the country’s struggling energy industry.

The Pacific NorthWest LNG project, which includes a nearly 600-mile (900km) natural gas pipeline and an LNG facility near Prince Rupert in British Columbia, was widely seen as one of the government’s first tests of this commitment.

During last year’s federal election campaign, Trudeau courted environmentalists with promises to invest millions of dollars in clean tech and confront climate change.

Tuesday’s approval was a betrayal to the many who voted for action on climate change, said Caitlyn Vernon of the Sierra Club of British Columbia. “The Trudeau government’s lofty rhetoric on climate has been proven nothing more than sunny ways talking points.”

In May, 90 scientists and climate experts from Canada, the US and Australia urged Trudeau and his government to reject the Pacific NorthWest LNG project in an open letter. The 190 conditions set out by the government provided a chance to meaningfully address some of the concerns, said Merran Smith of Clean Energy Canada. Instead, the bar was set too low. “What’s shocking about this approval is that other LNG projects are proposing much cleaner operations,” she said. “Ottawa should have required Pacific NorthWest to run on clean electricity and use available technology to reduce its carbon pollution by more than 40%.”

Even before the government announced its decision, six First Nations affected by the project said the project had so far failed to meet their expectations for respecting indigenous rights. “Providing a green light for this project at this time will only lead to protracted litigation which benefits no one,” the Skeena Corridor Nations said in a statement.

In the wake of Tuesday’s announcement, analysts pointed out there was little guarantee that the project would be built. The government’s decision comes amid weakening demand and oversupply in the global natural gas market. While those behind the project welcomed the approval and described it as a significant milestone, the company said a total review of the project would be carried out by the company and shareholders before any final decision is taken.

Indonesia: Rescuers searching for hundreds of tourists after Lombok volcano eruption

This picture taken by a Twitter user shows the scene Mount Barujari on Lombok island before it erupted on Tuesday afternoon. Image via @Sudakhar

INDONESIAN authorities are searching for several hundred tourists while over 1,100 others were evacuated after Mount Barujari on Lombok island spewed a massive column of ash into the atmosphere, the country’s disaster agency said Wednesday.

The volcano, also known as the Child of Rinjani because it sits within the Mount Rinjani caldera, erupted without warning on Tuesday afternoon, delaying flights from airports on the islands of Lombok and Bali. The ash column reached 2,000 meters (6,560 feet).

Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said that nearly 400 foreign and local tourists had been registered since Sunday to climb the mountain, leaving from Sembalun monitoring post, about 11 kilometers (7 miles) from the volcano’s crater.

28th September 2016

There have been no reports of injuries from the eruption.

SEE ALSO: Indonesia: Flights cancelled after three volcanoes erupt

According to the Associated Press, Heronimus Guru, the deputy operations chief at Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency, said Wednesday that about 120 tourists, mainly foreigners, had been located so far and were heading down the mountain.

The eruption interrupted flights for several hours at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali and Lombok International Airport, the news agency reported.

Sutopo was quoted in Tempo as saying that intensive monitoring will be conducted to evaluate the level of volcanic activity at Mount Rinjani.

He said locals and tourists are not allowed to enter the caldera of Mount Rinjani within a radius of 3km from Barujari, adding an estimated 389 tourists were at the mountain when it erupted.

“Thin layer of ash has been spread across several areas by strong winds, people’s normal daily activities are not interrupted,” he said.

SEE ALSO: Indonesia: At least six killed in North Sumatra volcano eruption

Farms and trees around the 3,726-meter (12,224-foot) -high volcano were coated in a thin layer of gray ash, but nearby towns and villages were not in danger, Nugroho said.

Rinjani is among about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The archipelago is prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”

Additional reporting from the Associated Press