Turkey draws Western condemnation over arrest of Kurdish lawmakers

Turkish police clash with pro-Kurdish protesters

 Sat Nov 5, 2016

Turkish authorities arrested the leaders of the country's main pro-Kurdish opposition party in a terrorism investigation on Friday, drawing strong international condemnation of a widening crackdown on dissent under President Tayyip Erdogan.

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, co-leaders of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), were jailed pending trial after being held in overnight raids, officials said. Ten other HDP lawmakers were also detained, although some were later released.

The arrest of elected members of the Turkish parliament's third largest party, and the detention or suspension of more than 110,000 officials since a failed coup in July, may "go beyond what is permissible", the U.N. human rights office said.

The United States expressed deep concern, while Germany and Denmark summoned Turkish diplomats over the Kurdish detentions, and European Parliament President Martin Schulz said the actions "call into question the basis for the sustainable relationship between the EU and Turkey".

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters: "Turkey is a nation of laws, nobody has preferential treatment before the law ... What has been done is within the rule of law."

The HDP lawmakers were arrested after they refused to give testimony in a probe linked to "terrorist propaganda", Yildirim said, adding: "Politics can't be a shield for committing crimes".

Hours after the detentions, a car bomb killed nine people and wounded more than 100 near a police station in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir where some of the lawmakers were being held.

The HDP, which made history last year by becoming the first Kurdish party to win 10 percent of the vote and enter parliament, said the detentions risked triggering civil war.

In a video message on a website close to the Kurdish PKK militants, one of the group's top commanders, Murat Karayilan, said the group would intensify its three-decade-old armed struggle against Turkey and called on Kurds - the country's largest minority - to react.

Islamic State jihadists later claimed responsibility for the attack in Diyarbakir, according to the militant group's Amaq news agency.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a speech released on Thursday had called for attacks on Turkey, saying it had sided with the enemy, with Turkish troops fighting them in Syria.

People run away after a blast in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Turkey, November 4, 2016. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar-The leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas, makes a speech during a rally in Istanbul, Turkey, June 5, 2016. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

Damaged cars are seen on a street after a blast in Diyarbakir, Turkey, November 4, 2016. Ihlas News Agency via REUTERS-Smoke rises from a street following a blast in Diyarbakir, Turkey, November 4, 2016. Ihlas News Agency via REUTERS

SOCIAL MEDIA BLOCKED

Access was restricted to social media including Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube and Facebook - making them so slow they were effectively impossible to use - and a ban imposed on media coverage of the car bomb. Asked about the measures, Yildirim said access would return to normal "once the danger is removed".

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said: "The United States is deeply concerned by the Turkish government's detentions of opposition members of parliament ... and by government restrictions on Internet access today."

He also condemned Friday's bombing and urged the PKK to "cease its senseless brutal attacks".

The arrests of elected lawmakers from the HDP, which won more than five million votes at the last general election, heightened concern among Western allies about the political direction of Turkey, a NATO member and a buffer between Europe and the conflicts raging in Syria and Iraq.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said she was "extremely worried" by the arrests, and raised her concerns in a telephone call with Turkey's foreign and EU affairs ministers late on Friday.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Ankara had a right to fight terrorism, but could not use it to justify gagging opponents.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused EU member states of supporting the PKK and dismissed the bloc's criticism as "unacceptable". Turkey began negotiations to join the EU in 2005, but has made glacial progress, and there is no prospect of it joining anytime soon.

CURRENCY FALLS

Southeastern Turkey has been rocked by political turmoil and violence for more than a year after the collapse of a ceasefire with the PKK, deemed a terrorist organisation by the United States and European Union as well as Turkey.

Erdogan and the ruling AK Party accuse the HDP of links to the PKK. The HDP denies direct links and says it is working for a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish conflict.

After the arrests, the Turkish lira currency TRYTOM=D3 hit fresh record lows against the dollar, while the cost of insuring Turkish government debt against default hit its highest in over a month.

In a statement on Twitter, still accessible in Turkey through virtual private networks, the HDP called for the international community "to react against the Erdogan regime's coup", while party spokesman Ayhan Bilgen described the detentions as an attempt to provoke a civil war.

"I will not hesitate to be held accountable in front of a fair and impartial judiciary. There is nothing I cannot answer for," the arrested Demirtas said in a statement to the prosecutor, which was shared by HDP lawmaker Besime Konca.

"But I refuse to be an actor in this judicial theatre just because it was ordered by Erdogan, whose own political past is suspicious", he said.

Police also raided and searched the party's head office in central Ankara. Police cars and armed vehicles had closed the entrances to the street of the HDP headquarters.

A group of protesters chanting slogans tried to reach the party offices, but were stopped by police before they could enter the street, a Reuters witness said.

The HDP is the third-largest party in the 550-seat Turkish parliament, with 59 seats. Parliamentarians in Turkey normally enjoy immunity from prosecution, but the immunity of many lawmakers, including HDP deputies, was lifted earlier this year.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay, Ayla Jean Yackley, Humeyra Pamuk, Daren Butler, Tuvan Gumrukcu, Gulsen Solaker, Can Sezer, Birsen Altayli, Orhan Coskun, Ercan Gurses, Tulay Karadeniz and David Dolan; 

Alastair Macdonald and Alissa de Carbonnel in Brussels, Tom Miles in Geneva, David Alexander in Washington, Noah Barkin and Andrea Shalal in Berlin, writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Peter Graff, Mark Trevelyan and G Crosse)

Kashmir –Paradise Turned into a Living Hell

by Latheef Farook : 

Kashmir has often been described as “Emerald set in Pearls”, “Jewel of Asia “and “Heaven on Earth”. Its enchanting beauties provoked the famous Persian poet Urfi Shiraz to say that” if a roasted fowl is brought to Kashmir not only shall it come to life, but shall be on its wings again”. In his first visit to Kashmir, the founder of Mogul Empire,  Zahiruddin Bahar said” if there is a paradise on earth, it is here”.

Such is the beauty of the snow clad mountains of Kashmir with all its delightful flower beds, luscious green forests, lakes and canals.

The state border China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India and covers some 86,000 square miles of land. Kashmir’s traditionally gentle and peaceful peoplewere a downtrodden and exploited lot for centuries by foreign dynasties who ruled them one after the other.

Under the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar the British sold Kashmir to Raja Gulab Singh, a Hindu warlord of the Dogra family  for 7.5 million rupees (750,000 pounds). It was an illegal deal undertaken without the knowledge of the Kashmiri people who opposed the transaction .Their uprisings were brutally crushed by the Maharaja with the support of the British.

Thus began a new era of oppression which continues to under Indian administration.

When the Subcontinent was partitioned under in 1947 to create two countries- India and Pakistanthe Maharaja acceded Kashmir to India without consulting the Kashmiri people.

Pakistan described Maharajah’s accession as fraud and violence. This triggered off the dispute between India and Pakistan, which resulted in three wars and dissipated a good deal of the two countries’ time and energy. Today Kashmir remains the most militarised regionin the world.

Plebiscite

India agreed to respect the views of Kashmiris and hold a plebiscite. In a letter to then Pakistan Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan, the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assured that ‘Kashmir’s accession to India is subject to reference to the people of the state for their decision’. He added that ‘Kashmir’s accession has been accepted on condition that the people of Kashmir would themselves decide the question of accession.  

Nehru added that “our assurance regarding the future of the state  is not merely a pledge to your government but also to the people of Kashmir and to the world”. Repeating the same undertaking in a radio broadcast, Pundit Nehru said, “We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people....We will not, and cannot back out of it. We want it to be a just and fair reference to the people, and we shall accept their verdict”.

Pakistan said the plebiscite would be a farce if it were conducted in the presence of Indian armed forces and if proper conditions were not established to guarantee to the people complete freedom to express their will. Supporting the Pakistani point of view, the Security Council attached great importance to having the plebiscite conducted by the UN under an impartial government.

United Nations Involvement

As early as 1948, India called upon the United Nations to intervene in the Kashmir dispute.

With Kashmiris intensifying their struggle for self-determination, Indian forces began unleashing atrocities to crush their struggle. The Indian army and para-military forces were given wide powers under an ordinance promulgated on July 5, 1990 to raid and even destroy houses suspected of harbouring suspected militants and hiding arms and ammunition. 

According to figures released in during 2010 uprising ,between 1989 and 2009 alone 93,142 Kashmiri Muslims were killed, 105,832 houses and shops destroyed, 107,326 orphaned, 9901 women molested and 22,719 widowed. 

Highlighting the atrocities the Weekend Guardian, London, reported as early as  4  August 1991 that “after a visit to Kashmir in 1991, the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi said at a press conference in New Delhi that ‘the brutalities of the Indian  army and the Central Reserve Police meant that “India may have lost Kashmir’”.

Raping women became a daily occurrence to break the spirit and soul of Kashmiri Muslims. Cases of rape, including those in front of family members and children by Indian forces were documented by many human rights organisations.

According one such document by Shabnam Qayyum men were herded into nearby fields for questioning while women at home were raped at will. .

Summing up the situation one writer said “hell has been let loose on Kashmiris and what happens in Kashmir is not made known to the Indian people by national   media ”. Besides the common feeling of being betrayed by India of its promises to hold a plebiscite the arbitrary arrests, regular and systematic torture in interrogation camps, indiscriminate and extra judicial killings, brutal search operations, ransacking of homes and even raping women in the presence of family members and children added fuel to their anger.

These atrocities came under severe criticism by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Lord Eric Averbury, Chairman of the British Parliament Human Rights committee said on 28 December 1993 that “the West should also fight shoulder to shoulder with the Kashmiris in their fight for independence”.

Kashmiri Muslims who do not see themselves as Indian citizens point out that the Indian claim that Kashmir is an integral part of the Indian union is unilateral, unrecognised and untenable in law and logic.

They ask “how can we live under an Indian government after all what its armed forces have done, and are still doing,  destroying our lives. They also ask “how can a people secede from what they never acceded to and separate from what they never joined?”

This was the atmosphere when on 8 July 2016,Burhan  Muzaffar Wani , who belong to the new generation of fighters for freedomwas killed along with his two associates, while Kashmiri Muslims were celebrating the third day of Eid Al Fitr 

More than half a million people attended  Wani’s funeral. Pent up frustration and fury erupted again and enraged people came out in peaceful street protests all over Kashmir.

A day after Wani's death, former Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that Wani’s killing had made him the new icon of the Kashmiri society.He warned that more Kashmiris will join the militancy after his death as compared to when he was alive”.

From the very first day Prime Minister Narendra  Modi diverted the attention from the real issue by  dismissing the uprising as the work of terrorists, accusing Pakistan of fostering terrorism and threatening Pakistan to create a Bangladesh in the Pakistani territory of Baluchistan.   

Prime Minister  Modiimposed curfew since 8 July 2016 to starve the Kashmiris into submission. Kashmir remains to date shut due to strict curfew for more three months. The impact of this shutdown has surpassed all limits of cruelty to the people of Kashmir.

Such atrocities further distanced Kashmiri Muslims from New Delhi.

This is the reason why renowned Indiancolumnist Prem Shankar Jha said that“Kashmir is slipping away from India and insisted on granting it maximum freedom”. He also asked the New Delhi to rewind the clock back to 1947 to prevent Kashmir from spinning out of India’s control.

He said “India must bring back Article 370 in its original shape that connects Kashmir with India through Defence, Communication and Foreign Affairs.

Going a step ahead Gandhi’s grandson Raj Mohan said India has lost Kashmir due to its insincerity, injustice and atrocities

However Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government  continue senseless policy of  using bullets and pellets to kill, maim and blind to subdue Kashmiris.

The atrocity unleashed during the past three months made Gandhi’s grandson Raj Mohan Gandhi to state that “INDIA LOST KASHMIR “.

This Year’s Russian Unity Day March Is … Anti-Putin?

BY EMILY TAMKIN-NOVEMBER 4, 2016

Ah, the Russian March. Every Nov. 4 — Russia’s Unity Day, a federal holiday that was created in 2005 and conveniently bears a similar name to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s party, United Russia — Russians march around various cities to commemorate a 17th-century uprising against Poland, a turning point in the 1605-1618 Polish-Muscovite War.

Normally, the Russian March is criticized for its racist and xenophobicundertones. In 2014, for example, participants wore masks and camouflage and chanted “Russia for Russians.” This year, however, it was not only anti-immigrant (although, not to worry, there was plenty of that, too) but also — in a strange twist on the normally nationalist tone — anti-Putin.

No, not even his 84 percent approval rating and soaring pro-Russian rhetoric were enough to shield Putin from the ire of the Russian March demonstrators, who called for his resignation and an end to political repression.

Confusingly, some of the Russian Marchers protested the war in Ukraine, while others seemed thrilled with Russia’s cross-border adventurism. An anti-Putin nationalist gathering on Nov. 4 in northwest Moscow was attended by none other than Igor Strelkov, a.k.a Girkin, the former Minister of Defense of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” in Eastern Ukraine. It was also pro-Russian, and also pro-nationalist, but the Strelkov-backed protest included calls championing “Novorossiya,” the Czarist-era phrase Putin himself used initially as rhetorical justification for the fighting in Ukraine, but which he dropped from political parlance as the war dragged on and on.

Given the conflicting chants at the different demonstrations, it is unclear if nationalists are discontented with their dear leader because they want more war in Ukraine or less war in Ukraine; or if economic sanctions are finally beginning to take their political toll, even if that pain isn’t fully reflected in approval ratings. But the reality remains: A day created to foster political unity behind Putin’s party is now plagued by conflicting groups and messages and even arrests. Russian Unity Day — indeed, Russiannationalism — is apparently not what it once was for Putin.

This, then, was a good Friday in Moscow for different strands of Russian nationalism, but a bad one indeed for nationalist supporters of one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin — if not yet for the increasingly autocratic president himself.

Photo credit: Adam Berry/Getty Images

Indonesia: Thousands rally against blasphemy in Jakarta

Tens of thousands in Jakarta demand the resignation of its governor who they say committed blasphemy.

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

One person was killed as Indonesian police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who rallied to demand the resignation of the Christian governor of Jakarta for allegedly insulting the Quran.

At least seven people were injured in clashes between demonstrators and police, Jakarta police spokesman Awi Setiyono said on Friday.

An elderly man died, possibly from the effects of tear gas, said Setiyono, adding four civilians and three police officers were hurt.

Tens of thousands of protesters called for Jakarta's governor to be prosecuted for blasphemy in the massive demonstration. A sea of protesters wearing white robes took to the streets in a huge show of force against Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.

  Indonesian capital on high alert ahead of anti-governor rally

Indonesian police fired tear gas to disperse protesters near the presidential palace, local televison reported.

Some protesters threw plastic bottles at officers who had formed a barricade.

The protest was triggered by accusations that Purnama, better known by his nickname Ahok, insulted Islam by criticising opponents who used Quranic references to attack him ahead of an election in February.

Purnama apologised for the remarks, but his opponents have built a groundswell of support calling for his arrest and incarceration under Indonesia's tough blasphemy laws.

"He is not Muslim but he humiliated the Quran," protester Muhammad Said told Reuters news agency. "Don't refer to anything in the Quran, especially interpreting it incorrectly... I call on God to jail him."

The military warned it was ready to back 18,000 police officers deployed if things turned ugly. Helicopters flew low over the city and extra soldiers were stationed at key government buildings reinforced with razor wire and armoured vehicles.

Anger at Purnama, Jakarta's second Christian governor and the first from the country's ethnic Chinese community, spread beyond the capital with solidarity marches also held across Java and in cities as far away as Makassar in Indonesia's east.

Protesters called for Purnama's death as Friday's turnout - estimated by police at 50,000 - eclipsed a similar protest last month that drew 10,000 chanting demonstrators to city hall.

The demonstrators, led by a group called the Islamic Defenders Front, chanted "God is greatest" and waved placards calling for Purnama to be jailed for blasphemy.

A white banner hung at an overpass was painted with red letters saying "Hang Ahok here".

Police deployed 18,000 officers to the capital before the rally [Bagus Indahono/EPA]

Police are investigating the case against Purnama, who has apologised for his remarks, insisting he was not criticising the Quranic verse but those who used it to attack him.

President Joko Widodo this week met religious and political leaders to issue a unified call against violence, while police sought to ease tensions by holding prayer sessions and broadcasting calls for peace on social media.

Widodo, known popularly as Jokowi, pressed on with business on Friday despite the much-hyped protest, meeting cabinet ministers and inspecting a train project, his spokesman Johan Budi said.

Indonesia is home to the world's biggest Muslim population, where a vast majority practise a moderate form of Islam.

But the governor stoked religious tensions in September when he told a crowd they'd been "deceived" by his opponents who had used a Quranic verse to try to put them off voting for a Christian.

The governor - known for his tough-talking style - is hugely popular in other quarters for his determination to clean up Jakarta, an overcrowded, disorganised and polluted metropolis.

Purnama became Jakarta governor in November 2014, but was not elected to the post. He was deputy governor and automatically became governor after incumbent Widodo was elected Indonesian president.

Ethnic Chinese make up about one percent of Indonesia's 250 million people, and they typically do not enter politics.

Overpopulation in Indonesia puts pressure on resources

Moroccan author condemns country's 'medieval' laws on sexuality

Leila Slimani, the first Moroccan woman to win the prestigious Prix Goncourt literay prize, defends two teenage girls arrested for kissing

Leila Slimani said it was time for Moroccans to rebel against medieval laws (Reuters)

Friday 4 November 2016

Moroccans must rebel against the "medieval laws" which weigh them down, the winner of France's top literary prize declared Friday as she jumped to the defence of two teenage girls who were arrested after being caught kissing.

Leila Slimani, who became the first Moroccan woman to win the prestigious Prix Goncourt Thursday for her novel "Chanson Douce" ("Sweet Song"), lambasted her homeland's human rights record, and in particular the way women are treated.

A joint statement from about 20 human rights groups said the girls, aged 16 and 17, were badly beaten by their families after being filmed by a neighbour with a mobile phone kissing on the roof of a house in Marrakesh last week.

The statement said the pair, identified only by their first names, Sanaa and Hajar, were denied food for three days by the police who then forced one of them to sign a statement before releasing them Thursday.

"The humiliation of citizens, the way they are kept down, encourages a political system based on disdain, humiliation and the abuse of power," Slimani told France Inter radio.

"I think it is time people took this in hand and rebelled," said the 35-year-old, whose winning novel is based on a real-life case of a nanny in the United States accused of killing two children she was looking after.

"The laws in Morocco are completely medieval, completely disconnected from reality... they ban sex outside marriage, homosexuality and adultery," Slimani added. 

The Moroccan Association of Human Rights has appointed a lawyer to defend the girls who if convicted could be imprisoned for between six months and three years.

"We shouldn't be hypocrites. Moroccans have sex lives outside marriage, and it good that that there are homosexuals," the author said. 

Slimani, who raised eyebrows at home with her debut novel last year about a female nymphomaniac, said the oppression that women suffered had nothing to do with religion.

"Lots of imams and enlightened theologians will explain that to you... It is a question of human rights, sexual rights, the right to dignity and in particular the dignity of women's bodies."

Slimani said a woman should not just be regarded as "a mother, nor a sister, nor a wife, but as a woman, an individual with their own rights."

Torn between religious conservatism and opening up to the West, the overwhelming Muslim North African country has seen several controversies over moral issues in recent years. 

Keep it in the ground: the Paris climate agreement is now official

Environment groups hail ‘momentous occasion’ but warn governments need to cut carbon emissions more steeply to avoid dangerous global warming

The French president and foreign minister, along with the UN secretary general and UN climate chief, celebrate agreeing the Paris climate change deal. Photograph: Francois Mori/AP

Friday 4 November 2016 

The significance of the Paris agreement coming into force today is easy to miss: it may seem like an anti-climax, given the travails that led up to its signing last December.

But the moment is of huge importance. This is the first time that a legally-binding agreement, signed by all of the world’s functioning governments, has laid down a commitment to limit the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with the goal of preventing global warming exceeding 2C above pre-industrial levels.

This figure was not plucked out of the increasingly carbon-rich air. It is the limit of what scientists regard as safety, beyond which climate change will run out of control, unstoppable in its damaging effects.

There are caveats. The Paris agreement is legally binding in forcing governments to accept and cater for the 2C limit. But the commitments on curbing greenhouse gas emissions in line with that goal are not legally binding. This means incoming governments can renege upon them. There are no sanctions for governments that flout the goals.

The outcome of the US presidential election will be key. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate whose polling has improved markedly in recent days, has vowed to cancel the US’s participation in the Paris agreement. Russia has also failed to ratify the agreement, along with several other nations. China has ratified, but if US participation is not forthcoming under a future Trump government, that may be off.

So while the agreement should be hailed as a massive and historic step forward in international efforts to avoid dangerous levels of global warming, it is potentially fragile.

Meanwhile, the signs of danger are growing increasingly strong. This year is almost certain, according to Nasa, to be the warmest on record, following last year’s record-setting temperatures. This gives the lie to the claims of warming-dismissers that the upward march of global temperatures has “paused”.

Next year may not set records, but the trend is clear. We are on a trajectory that may lead to warming that is unprecedented and potentially irreversible. While there are other encouraging signs - the growth in renewable energy use around the world, the small reductions in emissions in some major economies - we should be in no doubt. The real work of Paris remains to be done.

Fiona Harvey

Environment correspondent, The Guardian

Sacred cow: A milking machine?

Just as farmers breeding of seeds, and crop diversity, has been ignored by industrial crop breeding, breeding genetic diversity of livestock with multiple uses has been ignored by the industrial animal breeding ‘factories’, which have reduced cows to milk and meat machines.

by Vandana Shiva

( November 3, 2016, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Ecologically, the cow has been central to Indian civilisation. The integration of livestock in farming has been the secret behind India’s centuries-old sustainable agriculture systems. Farm animals sustain our soils by providing soil fertility. They sustain the agrarian economy with renewable energy. As K.M. Munshi, India’s first minister of agriculture after Independence, and a dear friend of my late parents, wrote: “The Mother Cow and Nandi are not worshipped in vain. They are the primeval agents who enrich the soil — nature’s great land transformers — who supply organic matter, which, after treatment, becomes nutrient matter of the greatest 

importance. In India, tradition, religious sentiment and economic needs have tried to maintain a cattle population large enough to maintain the cycle, only if we know it.”

Like our seeds, India’s animal breeds were bred for diversity — diversity of breeds and functions. The best cattle breeds of the world have been bred in India — the Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Rathi, Tharparkar, Hariana, Ongole, Kankrej and Gir.

Indian breeds are multi-taskers. Both the female and male offspring have value. The cow provided nutrition through dairy, and the bullocks provided energy for transport and farm operations and this sophisticated breeding was done by indigenous experts.

Just as farmers breeding of seeds, and crop diversity, has been ignored by industrial crop breeding, breeding genetic diversity of livestock with multiple uses has been ignored by the industrial animal breeding “factories”, which have reduced cows and their progeny to milk machines and meat machines.

The industrial model, based on what I have called the Monocultures of the Mind, breeds uniformity and one dimensionality, it breeds standardisation and mediocracy. Indigenous breeds in India use 29 per cent of the organic matter provided to them compared to only nine per cent in US industrial farms. Indian cattle use 22 per cent of the energy, compared to only seven per cent in the US. India’s holy cow is much more valued, and valuable than “pounds of flesh”.

Traditionally cows and farm animals have used organic matter — like straw — while the grain goes to human consumption. The Green Revolution dwarf varieties deprived animals of their food, and the aata from these varieties being tasteless — deprived people. Most grain from industrial crop production is now used as animal feed, depriving humans of food. A new competition has been created between food for animals and food for humans. Seventy-five per cent of corn grown in India is for animal feed. In addition, we imported 500,000 tonnes of corn in 2016.

Yet, the highly efficient, sustainable indigenous food system, based on the multiple uses of crops and cattle, has been dismantled in the name of “efficiency” and “productivity”. Integration has been replaced by fragmentation and separation. Dynamic complementarity has been replaced by a forced one-way competition. Cyclical and circular processes — based on mutuality and the law of return — have been replaced by linearity, violence and exploitation. India’s multidimensional, multifunctional systems have been replaced by single commodity output systems using high inputs.

The sacred cow has thus been reduced to a milk machine. As Shanti George observes: “The trouble is that when dairy planners look at the cow, they just see her udder; though there is much more to her. They equate cattle only with milk, and do not consider other livestock produce — draught power, dung for fertiliser and fuel, hides, skins, horn and hooves.”

In the industrial-exploitative paradigm, of the cow as a milk machine, our superefficient and resilient Indian breeds are declared (quantitatively) inefficient, sans qualitative assessment. The pure indigenous breeds are replaced by homogenised hybrids of the Zebu cow, with foreign branded strains like the Jersey, Holstein, Friesian, Red Dane and Brown Swiss, supposedly to improve the Zebu’s dairy “productivity”.

Other contributions of farm animals are forgotten in the mechanistic reductionism paradigm. When I wrote Staying Alive, more than two-thirds of the energy needs of rural India were met by 80 million work animals, of which 70 million were the male progeny of indigenous breeds.

When I worked in the IIM Bangalore in the late 1970s, N.S. Ramaswamy was the director. He was famously known as “Cartman” — for his work on the contributions of animals to India’s economy. According to him, animals ploughed 100 million hectares and hauled 25 billion km tonnes of freight in 15 million ox-carts. He estimated that 74 million oxen and eight million buffaloes make available 40 million horsepower of energy (worth Rs 100 billion per year). Animal energy saves six million tonnes of petroleum (worth Rs 120 billion per year). The asset value of our pashu dhan is Rs 250 billion. The replacement of animal energy by mechanised systems would require an investment of $200-$300 billion.

Just when we need our farm animals to play an important role in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals to which India is committed, we are destroying our animal wealth, and with it the ecological and economic contributions they make. For the first time in the history of Indian agriculture, the male calves have been declared useless. And this is what has led to the explosion of slaughterhouses, and the “pink revolution” of meat and beef exports. The livestock policy — made as part of the World Bank-driven structural adjustment policies — to promote the meat industry states “religious sentiments against cattle slaughter seem to spill over also on buffaloes and prevent the utilisation of a large number of surplus male calves”.

India today is the top beef exporter of the world. Between 2009-10 and 2014-15 alone buffalo meat exports grew more than fourfold, from 4.9 lakh tonnes to 13.14 lakh tonnes; from $1163.54 million to $4068.64 million. But these export earnings hide the losses to the soil fertility, the nutrition of children and lost renewable energy.

Animals on a farm sustain the soil, and lives and livelihoods of small farmers. As the Viniyog Parivar calculated, in the case of the foreign-owned Al Kabeer slaughterhouse in Andhra Pradesh, if the animals had been allowed to live, they would save foreign exchange worth Rs 910.25 crores. Just in terms of fertility of soil, the slaughtered farm animals would have provided Rs 36.41 crores of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium (NPK), for which we pay the “fertiliser” industry.

We are not just exporting our animal wealth. We are exporting our soil and water. We are trading away our future.

The writer is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust

Malaria drugs' complete failure tracked

By James Gallagher-4 November 2016

Scientists have developed a way to track the spread of a dangerous form of malaria that cannot be treated with the main therapy.

Doctors in Cambodia reported the complete failure of artemisinin and piperaquine - the key drugs taken to kill malaria - this year.

The discovery of resistance markers, reported in the Lancet, will allow scientists to track the threat.

Experts said the study was a big step forward.

Artemisinin resistance has been known about for years, but a recent rise in resistance to piperaquine as well means the main malaria treatment, taking both together, is starting to fail.

International groups of researchers analysed the DNA from hundreds of malaria parasites to find out how they learned to shrug off piperaquine.

They uncovered genetic signatures unique to the parasites that were drug-resistant.

Dr Roberto Amato, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, told the BBC News website: "Resistance is quite widespread, there has been almost complete failure in one province in the western part of the country, and it is spreading quiet fast in the north of the country.

"The problem with complete failure is this might accelerate the spread of drug-resistance to other countries and ultimately to Africa."

Resistance to the drugs would be catastrophic in Africa, where 88% of all malaria cases happen.

Get ahead

Dr Amato added: "The good news is we're starting to get clues on which treatment to use."

Curiously, these resistant parasites appear to still be susceptible to an older drug - mefloquine.

One theory is that the malaria parasites cannot resist both mefloquine and piperaquine, so doctors may be able to rotate which drugs are used.

And for Dr Amato, the long-term aim is to be able to keep one step ahead of the parasite.

He said: "They evolve every single day to escape the human immune system and the insect immune system - they're extremely good at it - and we need to understand that.

"Understanding how and in which direction is crucial, if we understand the process from most basic level then we could at some point predict the direction it is going to evolve."

Prof David Conway, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "These studies are a big step forward in our understanding.

"This evolving parasite resistance is a major threat for malaria control internationally."

Follow James on Twitter.

North-East must be recognized as Tamil homeland




2016-11-04

Q How do you analyze the root causes of the ethnic problem?

We are a very old society. From the very beginning, there were racial differences of so called Aryans and Dravidians. With the passage of time, while the Sinhala people developed their identity, people in the North and the East were also growing towards a national identification. It happened with the expansion of Capitalism. Actually, the national question arises due to market and the capitalist economy. Earlier, there was not much of an exchange. People accepted whoever ruled. Their own villages functioned separately. Their cultures were dispersed. Various types of cultures could exist under the ruler identified as Sinhala or Tamil. When we say Dutu Gemunu as the Sinhala king, there would have been villages with different cultures such as Tamil-speaking or otherwise. They combined the Kingdom State. When the market economy started, the integration of people together through the exchange, there came about the development of a homogeneous society. Caste barriers broke down. People began to get identified by their language as large entities. The language develops with the expansion of the market economy. In Sri Lanka too, Sinhala people’s unification appeared very recently, may be about 100 years ago. Earlier, they would say they were people of Govigama caste, Salagama caste, etc. That tendency disappeared. 

North-East must be recognized as Tamil homeland.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

The request of pro good governance masses reaps dividends ! Suresh Salley out !!

(Lanka-e-News -03.Nov.2016, 10.20PM)  Army intelligence division Director, Brigadier Suresh Salley the pro Rajapakse stooge who was the target of justifiable   fierce criticism of  the pro good governance masses was removed from his post with immediate effect , and has been replaced by Brigadier Wijendra Gunathileke .This appointment was made by the Army Commander Krishananda Silva yesterday . 

Suresh Salley has been transferred to the Navy intelligence regiment. He is  eventually to be  sent as a military attaché to Myanmar ,based on unofficial sources. 

The law governing the transfer of officers from their places where they have been working for the maximum period  is being strictly followed now, a high rung army officer revealed to Lanka e news.  Accordingly , these appointments are made twice  a year , that is in June and December. The appointment of Suresh Salley may be  based on that, the high rung officer  further  stated.

However, since December has still not arrived, it is clear  the new appointment of Salley could  be due to other reasons. 

There were charges leveled  that the army intelligence division group is engaging in various activities under the name of  ‘Aawa’ in the North. Following the recent murder  of the two students ,the accusations mounted further and tensions exacerbated. 

In any case, the chiefs of the intelligence division who were used by the corrupt ,crooked, murderous despotic family MaRa regime are still remaining in  their posts under the good governance government even after the family regime was discarded by the people. Now realization has dawned that  retaining them in those intelligence division positions  are a grave  threat and danger  to the present reign. Hence ,the pro good governance masses had been issuing warnings and urging the officials for a long time  that Suresh Salley be removed from the post of Director , army intelligence division. 

More than anything else ,what led to Salley ‘s dismissal  was ,his efforts to rescue the few stooges and lickspittles in the army intelligence  divisions allegedly involved in the  murders of Ekneliyagoda and Lasantha during the Rajapakse criminal and murderous era. 

There are about 3000 law abiding officers in the army intelligence division who are doing yeoman service to the country  . However because of just a few officers alias bootlickers of the Rajapakses who committed murders ,and officers like Salley who left no stone unturned to shield and safeguard them , the image of the entire forces had been soiled and tarnished; and this is what earned  the wrath, bitter displeasure and criticism of the pro good governance  masses.

The new Director of army intelligence division Brigadier Wijendra Gunathileke joined the army (course ) on 27 th October  1986 , and on 1987-07-23 was invested with authority. 

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by     (2016-11-03 16:50:45)

Anura Kumara Dissanayake Reveals Details Of Properties Worth Millions Owned By Rajapaksas: Full Speech

November 3, 2016 

JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has accused the Yahapalanaya government of protecting the former first family, including Shiranthi Rajapaksa and her sons, despite credible evidence proving that they have wrongfully taken over property and lands from across the country.

Addressing an event held in Colombo titled ‘Fraudsters & Protectors’ Dissanayake said that there is a ring in the government that is protecting the Rajapaksas. “The UNP MPs are coming on television and saying it’s very difficult to find evidence against the wrongdoings of the Rajapaksa family. They are saying the Rajapaksas have hidden their wealth in Dubai and even though they have gone to Dubai, the Dubai government is refusing to disclose information. I am telling them to stop going to Dubai, instead go to Hambantota and Mount Lavinia and see the amount of wealth they have amassed.”

Dissanayake also listed out various lands under the possession of Shiranthi Rajapaksa, her sons Yoshithaand Namal, and her mother Daisy Forrest. He revealed that they, along with Basil Rajapaksa have lands from Gampaha to Mount Lavinia, and Hambantota to Colombo 7. Dissanayake also questioned as to how Basil Rajapaksa owned land worth Rs. 379 million.

“These are only what we know about. What did they do to get so much of property in these past few years. These belong to the people. They are thieves who were defeated at the January 8 Presidential Election,” he said.

The JVP leader also criticized the judiciary system for prolonging various cases against Basil Rajapaksa. “In one of Basil’s cases, the hearing was held last month and it has been put off till next March. Our judges are so busy. So basically, these cases are only taken up twice a year. There is a ring that is protecting these thieves. We have presented the evidence against them, but still no action is being taken,” he added.

Watch the event in full:

Anura Kumara on Rajapaksas wealth:

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TGTE WANTS MINISTER RAJITHA TO EXPOSE THE GENERAL BEHIND THE “AAVA GROUP”;

Image: Ava Group was created by Maj. Gen. Mahinda Haturusinghe, says LankaNewsWeb.

03/11/2016

Seeking a calcification on Minister Rajitha Senaratne’s claim that the ‘AAVA Gangsters’ in the North were operating with the knowledge of former Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa” Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) has urged Minister to  to release the name of the Brigadier who leads the notorious armed group called ‘Aava’ that is terrorizing Tamils and acting as a branch of the Sri Lankan Security forces.

Minister Senarathana was addressing the weekly Cabinet press briefing at the Government Information Department  on 1st November.

According to the Daily Mirror answering a question posed by a journalist the Minister had said that   ‘Who was it that nourished the ‘AAVA Gangsters? Which Brigadier? Which Major-General? I know him by name – who was it that created the ‘AAVA Gangsters’ – who financed and armed them?”

“It happened then,” he said, referring to the period under the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, “with the knowledge of the former Defense Secretary – an Army chieftain created the group under the instructions of the former Defense Secretary.”

“Today the ‘AAVA Gangsters’ are creating havoc in the North – who is getting them to do that? Those Army chiefs, secretaries – they are still working to topple the government.”

“I will say this very clearly, the ‘AAVA Gangsters’ were created to be a disruptive force in the North by a person I will not name, on the instructions of the former Defense Secretary.”

In its statement TGTE says that “Armed groups of this type are active even after the war ended over six years ago. These groups operate with the active support of the Sri Lankan security forces, which are stationed in very large numbers in Tamil areas even after the war ended.

These armed groups are terrorizing the Tamil population and civilians are nervous to move around freely.

Meanwhile in a separate story posted by the Lanka News Web says that it was Ava Group was created by Maj. Gen. Mahinda Haturusinghe. LNW quoting unnamed souses says that “It has now been revealed that the Ava Group, the gang of criminals in motorcycles in Jaffna, was secretly created during the Rajapaksa regime by the then north’s security forces commander Maj. Gen. Mahinda Haturusinghe”

CV complains to EU about SL army running schools

2016-11-03

Northern Province Chief Minister C.V.Wigneswaran has complained to the European Union (EU) human rights inspection team that the Sri Lankan army is running hundreds of schools in his province when it has no right to do so under the 13th amendment of the constitution, New Indian Express reported today. 

 Quoting the Tamil daily Thinakkural, it said Wigneswaran had complained that in Vavuniya, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts, the army’s Civil Defense Unit is running 344 primary schools, employing 689 Tamil women as teachers at good salaries, when as per the constitution, school education is a devolved subject and schools in the province are to be run by the provincial ministry of education.

 The number of teachers in the army-run primary schools is the same as the number of teachers working in the provincial council-run primary schools, the Chief Minister pointed out in his interaction with the EU headed by Jean Lambert MEP last Saturday.

 He also said that in the schools run by the army, teachers are made to wear a uniform which has raised concerns among the people as to whether they are being recruited to the army.

 Wigneswaran strongly opposed a suggestion by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga that Tamil women employees of the provincial administration be posted in police stations to deal with cases involving women. He said that Tamil women do not want to work in police stations. As an alternative, he suggested that educated Tamil women be recruited to the provincial administration to liaise between women supplicants and the police. But no action has been taken on his suggestion, the Chief Minister told the EU team.

 The team was in Sri Lanka until Tuesday to assess Sri Lanka’s eligibility to get back the GSP-plus trade concessions in terms of its human rights record. Sri Lanka had lost the concessions in 2010 on account of its poor rights record at that time.

 Wigneswaran’s objection to Tamil women working in police stations stems from the fear that their security might be at stake, given the fact that the Sri Lankan police force is almost completely uni-ethnic with Sinhalese having an overwhelming presence and thirty years of war has colored the Tamils’ perception of the police. 

The CM complained about the army using 50,000 acres of land in the Northern Province to cultivate crops and trade in them, while the original Tamil owners of the lands are looking to others to give them food. Sinhalese fishermen from the South fish in Northern waters even using illegal methods with the help of the armed forces while local Tamil fishermen are denied the right, and even taken into custody for alleged illegal fishing.

 The CM asked the EU delegation to press the Sri Lankan government to withdraw the army from the North since the war had ended seven years ago. In his estimation, 100,000 troops are still stationed in his province. De-militarization of the North is one of the 15 stipulations of the EU for restoring GSP-Plus trade concessions.