Tuesday, November 8, 2016

‘Tobacco and alcohol control at top of my national agenda’

( November 8, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) President Maithripala Sirisena has urged the world community to resist the attempts of the tobacco industry to undermine efforts being made to reduce tobacco consumption through litigation and with state policy interventions.

“We know that the tobacco industry try to influence policymakers in many ways and often help petitioners challenge legislation and persuade the mass media, and this amounts to a direct interference with the internal policy matters of any country,” President Sirisena said, delivering the Keynote Address at the Seventh Session of the Conference of Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) held in Noida, India, yesterday (07).

“Since I assumed the Office of President in early 2015, tobacco and alcohol control has been at the top of my national agenda. I have set up a Presidential Task Force to monitor the situation with regard to drugs and narcotics,” he said. “We are also addressing the tobacco issue in numerous other ways, by having adopted very strict air pollution laws, banning smoking in public and closed spaces,” he said.

Following is the full text of the Keynote speech delivered by President Maithripala Sirisena.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, let me thank you, Dr. Salagay, and Dr. Vera da Costa Silva for the very kind invitation to be the Guest Speaker at this important conference. I consider it as a great honour and privilege extended to me and to my country. Dr. Vera, we deeply appreciate the enormous work that you and your officials have undertaken during the past few months to ensure the success of this meeting. Let me also warmly congratulate you on the FCTC completing ten productive years and wish your outstanding work all success in the future.

We must appreciate the generosity of the Government of India to host this session of the COP.

I am also happy to see the Deputy Director-General of the WHO, Dr. Asamoah Baa and our dear friend, Dr. Poonam Singh, the Regional Director of the WHO.

As we open this 7th session today, the Parties of the Convention have grown to over 180 during the past 10 years, representing over 90% of the population of the world. This shows the power and influence of the FCTC and the level of impact you can have on the health of the human kind. Sri Lanka has benefited immensely from the information and evidence that you have generated over these years in framing our policies and regulations for tobacco control.

I observed that the last session in Moscow was extremely important and helpful. The decisions made there helped us to advance the international policies to prevent tobacco use in very important ways. The agenda for your discussions at this COP is also extremely relevant and important to all of us. Of special interest are subjects like control of new products such as E-cigarettes and water pipes, economically viable alternatives to tobacco growing, and gender-related risks in tobacco control.

We, in Sri Lanka, have accepted many of the recommendations of the FCTC from the time we ratified it in 2005. Sri Lanka was one of the first countries in the South-East Asia region to sign the FCTC and to later ratify it. Then, in line with the FCTC we passed our own Tobacco and Alcohol Act in 2006 and set up the Tobacco and Alcohol Authority, popularly known as the NATA. I believe our NATA is rather unique in the Region and elsewhere because it is perhaps the only such organization that covers both tobacco and alcohol. There are some historical and technical reasons for this.

Since I assumed the Office of President in early 2015, tobacco and alcohol control has been at the top of my national agenda. I have set up a Presidential Task Force to monitor the situation with regard to drugs and narcotics. In fact, I hold a monthly review meeting where all relevant sectors meet to assess the progress and make multi-sectoral policies and plans.

In line with the recommendations of the FCTC, we have also reviewed the tobacco taxation policies, and just a month ago, we have been able to increase tobacco taxes by nearly 10% again.

My Minister of Health, Dr. Rajitha, is proposing to introduce plain packaging as another important measure in the near future; and here, we thank the FCTC for the excellent technical support. We are drawing freely from the lessons and experiences of some of the countries that have already introduced plain packaging.

We are also addressing the tobacco issue in numerous other ways, by having adopted very strict air pollution laws, banning smoking in public and closed spaces. Advertising of tobacco is totally prohibited, although, like in most countries, the tobacco industry adopts very shrewd tactics to promote tobacco to vulnerable groups, especially to the school children. In all our work, we have found the informed and willing guidance from the FCTC and the WHO extremely helpful.

With support from the WHO and the FCTC, we regularly monitor the trends of tobacco prevalence among the population. Sri Lanka completed the Global Youth Tobacco Survey earlier this year and we were pleased to learn that the prevalence of tobacco use and smoking among the youth has shown a significant downward trend since the last survey. The WHO STEPS survey that was just concluded showed us that the prevalence of smoking among the adults also has slowed down. Encouraging as these results are, we are not fully satisfied because we believe that far too many people in Sri Lanka still do smoke. We hope that together with you, Sri Lanka will be able to emerge as one of the emerging economies that successfully eliminates tobacco as a public health problem.

I recall Dr. Margaret Chan addressing the COP 6, and emphasizing the need to resist the attempts of the tobacco industry to undermine tobacco control through litigation and interference in government policy-making. I experienced this first-hand when I was the Minister of Health until the end of 2014 and tried to bring legislation to include pictorial health warnings covering 75% on cigarette packets, in line with the FCTC guidelines to control the harm from tobacco, particularly among children. I spent many days and hours in court houses as the tobacco industry filed a series of cases challenging this move. After a long delay, the court finally reduced the percentage cover down to a maximum of 60%. That was all we could get at that time. Once I became the President, however, I could intervene again. I requested my Minister of Health to bring a new bill to the parliament to increase the pictorial warnings to cover 80% of the surface. Finally, we could achieve it.

As we know from long experience, the tobacco industry often distorts and challenges the best scientific knowledge, promotes dishonest arguments that have nothing to do with the truth. We know that the industry will try to influence policymakers in many ways, often support petitioners to challenge government legislation and persuade the mass media. This, to me, is a direct interference in the internal policy matters of any country. We need not have any compromise of any kind with the tobacco industry.
Another issue that we have to guard against is the illicit trade of tobacco products. This is doubly so, when we strengthen our tobacco control legislation and policies, especially our taxation policies. It can pose a major threat to public health and undermine our national tobacco control policies. It helps to avoid measures, like increases in taxes which we know will reduce demand. All these mean that we will not be able to effectively implement and take full advantage of the provisions in the treaty. Therefore, it is essential that more of the Parties do ratify this protocol quickly, so that it can become law.

I need to bring to your attention the growing serious problem of smokeless tobacco in Sri Lanka and in the Region. While a form of betel-chewing is a deep-seated lifestyle, commercial preparations are also becoming popular mostly among the younger generation in Sri Lanka, specially, among urban and semi-urban communities. A large body of scientific evidence shows the strong link between smokeless tobacco use and several serious health outcomes, mainly, mouth cancer. I would urge the FCTC to address the issue of smokeless tobacco also very seriously in the years to come. Cost of neglect can be very high.

Finally, I wish to place the tobacco menace in the broader perspective. Sri Lankan population is already at an advanced stage of ageing and disease transition. NCDs are now the largest contributor to disease burden in Sri Lanka, accounting for most of ill-health, disability, and early death. This makes risk factors such as obesity, smoking, alcoholism and high sugar and salt diets the major health issues to be addressed in Sri Lanka. My government is leading nationwide efforts to address the problem of non-communicable diseases. The central theme of our NCD programme is health promotion and prevention.
Sri Lanka is also very concerned with the wider issues related to health. Therefore, we take the Sustainable Development Goals very seriously. In addition to health-related policies, regulatory frameworks in other domains such as education, trade, food, agriculture and environment also have a major bearing on NCD risk factors. Therefore, we have to put in place suitable integrated policy and regulatory measures to reduce the level of exposure to the common modifiable risk factors for NCDs.

While looking at improving the health and well-being of our people, we are also keeping in mind our wider obligations in the SDG agenda. In this regard, two weeks ago, we organized an international round table on the role of sustainable consumption and production in climate change mitigation. This is a part of the ‘Sri Lanka Next – Blue Green Era’ to advance progress on SDG 12 in Asia. Sri Lankan Renewable Energy project has contributed to reduction of almost 3,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually since 2014, through the dissemination of biogas systems. My government has a target to increase the share of renewable energy up to 20% of the demand by 2020. We will continue to play our role on the global stage and meet our global obligations without any reservations.

Finally, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, I believe that our shared ambition should be to ensure the full implementation of the FCTC, to see its powers tapped fully to eliminate the harm from tobacco, and passive exposure to tobacco smoke, everywhere in the world.

In all of this work the world looks forward to the leadership and guidance of the FCTC, the WHO and the related global institutions.

I thank you very much and wish this session all success.

Playing With The Future

By Ranil Senanayake –November 8, 2016

Dr Ranil Senanayake

As the bureaucrats head out once again to negotiate the climate convention, Sri Lanka burns. In a manner fitting of Nero fiddling while Rome burnt, those entrusted with the task of looking after our interests in the climate convention, seem more interested in the ‘bracket brigade’ where endless hours are spent discussing weather to put in or remove brackets in the convention document, rather than informing us of the exact science and innovations that will help us face the oncoming crisis as a nation or by presenting a country position.

A case in point on why the public has to be informed is seen in the National Geographic documentary ‘ Before the flood’ released in last month. The reality of Climate Change is so urgent, that even the US president is suggesting ‘climate refugees’ as a global security threat. The measured trend (fig 1) makes it certain that we will move to a global rise of temperature between 0.5 and 1C. in the next few years.

While the shift of a single degree does not sound much, in individual terms, a one-degree rise in temperature is barely felt on the skin; a one degree rise across the entire surface of the planet means huge changes in climatic extremes. Six thousand years ago when the world was one degree warmer than now, there was pronounced desertification around the planet. In Sri Lanka too, this was the period when the rainforests, which ringed the central mountains, retreated, leaving behind small refugial remnants in the valleys and dry woodland on the hills above. Luckily for us, the reality of two monsoons, kept the dry zone from becoming desertified and we never had to witness the tragedy of dust storms or landscape desiccation. But the current activities of the government seem determined to expose the fragile remnants of our topsoil to desiccation and loss. We are clearing the remnants of the dry zone forests to make way for industrial chemical farming that destroy not only the forests but also the soils of our land. We are loosing both biodiversity and biomass, in a future with a warming climate; regions with low biomass will face the specter of desertification.

It has been calculated that a one-degree increase would eliminate fresh water from a third of the world’s land surface by 2100. This is merely through evaporation. To this must be added the reduction in the volume of clean water by the loss of forests. But Sri Lanka has been endowed a great blessing in this respect. It has a total area of 65,610 km², and on it 11,000 manmade lakes collect and store rainwater in an area adding to about 870 km² in total. Today we destroy this amazing possibility, to utilize this gift of ‘future-proofing’ endowed on us by our ancestors, by mindless ‘development’ projects that cut across watersheds and spew pollutants into our waterways.

Ahmad Manasra, 14, is led from an Israeli court after being sentenced to 12 years in prison, in Jerusalem on 7 November.Ammar AwadReuters

Charlotte Silver-7 November 2016

Two Palestinians prisoners ended their hunger strikes on Sunday, after Israeli authorities yielded to their chief demand that female Palestinian prisoners held at Damon prison be transferred to HaSharon prison.

Samer Issawi and Munther Snawbar refused food for 11 days in solidarity with the female prisoners, who must endure grueling, days-long transfers to hearings at Israeli military courts.

According to the Palestinian Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs, the other demands raised by Issawi and Snawbar, including improved medical care and access to the international charity Doctors Without Borders, are still being considered.

It takes three days for some of the 16 Palestinian women currently held at Damon, located in the far-north of present-day Israel, just to attend a hearing at Ofer military court in the occupied West Bank.

The Women’s Organization for Political Prisoners, an Israeli organization that produces a regular newsletter, chronicles the women’s journey in its October issue.

They are crowded onto vehicles without air conditioning or heating and shuttled to other prisons to pick up more women. They are not allowed to use the toilet or drink water between stops.

After driving all day, they still do not reach their destination and must spend the night at HaSharon prison. Between HaSharon and Ofer, the women must stop again at Ramle prison.

After their hearings at Ofer, they repeat the ordeal in reverse, spending the night again at HaSharon before continuing on to Damon. During the three days, they are deprived of adequate food, the Women’s Organization for Political Prisoners states.

According to the agreement announced by the Palestinian Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs, all female prisoners must now be taken directly to courts, without stopping at Ramle on the way.

Issawi was was first released in the 2011 a prisoner swap agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Shortly after his release, Issawi was rearrested, and after sustaining a partial hunger strike for 266 days, released in December 2013.

He was again arrested in June 2014, and eventually ordered to serve the remainder of a 30-year prison sentence given to him in 2002.

His sister, lawyer Shireen Issawi, was arrested in March 2014, and charged with passing information from Palestinian prisoners to “hostile parties.” She is currently being held at Damon prison.

The living conditions for women in Damon have long been the subject of protest. In August, 28-year-old Amal al-Sada spoke to Al Jazeera English about the atrocious conditions there.

She reported that 18 women shared one room and one bathroom, until authorities finally built a second toilet. The cells have no heating and sometimes the women were given food that was undercooked.

Child sentenced

Over a year after he was first arrested, 14-year-old Ahmad Manasra was sentenced to 12 years in prison by an Israeli court on Monday.

Israeli prosecutors are believed to have waited until Ahmad turned 14 to file an indictment against him in order to maximize his punishment.

Ahmad was 13 when he was first arrested, and at the time Israeli law prohibited the imprisonment of children below the age of 14.

“The occupation deliberately kept the child Ahmad Manasra imprisoned inside a reform center until he reached the legal age for full sentencing under Israeli law,” said lawyer Jamil Saadeh.

“The court did not take into account what he suffered from the moment of his detention, being wounded, assaulted and cursed, treated inside the hospital as a threat and screamed at during interrogation by the officers, all of which is documented on video and condemns the occupation,” Saadeh added.

Ahmad was convicted in May on two counts of attempted murder for allegedly helping his 15-year-old cousin attack a teenager and a man in an Israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem in October 2015.

Ahmad’s cousin, Hasan, was immediately shot to death by Israeli police. Ahmad was run over by a car and critically injured.

An Israeli bystander recorded a video of people crowding around Ahmad shouting obscenities in Hebrew at the injured child.

A month after Ahmad’s arrest, a video showing his brutal interrogation was leaked to media.

Ahmad’s case prompted the Israeli justice ministry to propose legislation allowing jail time for children as young as 12 in so-called “terrorism” cases.

The Israeli parliament passed the bill in August.

Imad Barghouthi

Palestinian astrophysicist Imad Barghothi has been released from Israeli prison after serving six months for alleged “incitement” on social media.

The professor at al-Quds University in Abu Dis was sentenced last month.

During his trial, prosecutors reportedly entered into evidence the number of “likes” and “shares” his Facebook posts criticizing the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority received.

Before being charged with incitement, Israeli authorities had placed Barghouthi under administrative detention.

Following an international campaign against Barghouthi’s detention without charge or trial, Israel issued an indictment in its military court.

Inside Arafat’s bedroom, museum highlights dueling Israeli, Palestinian narratives

In this undated handout photo, part of the new Arafat museum is seen in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Palestinians will soon get a chance to glimpse the small bedroom where Yasser Arafat spent his final years. (AP)

By Ruth Eglash November 8 at 2:03 PM

RAMALLAH, West Bank — It’s not often that one gets a glimpse inside the bedroom of one of the world’s most controversial leaders. And the creators of the Yasser Arafat Museum here hope it will change some perceptions of the late Palestinian leader.

Officially opening on Thursday, 12 years after Arafat’s death in France, the museum details his metamorphosis from a hunted revolutionary and guerrilla leader to a diplomat and peacemaker. At the same time, it recounts the Palestinian people’s struggle against Israeli occupation.

Visitors will be able to see the original office, meeting room and even the 54-square-foot bedroom where Arafat spent the final three years of his life in a compound surrounded by the Israeli army.

“We have kept it exactly as it was,” Nasser al-Qidwa, Arafat's nephew and president of the new Arafat Institute, told journalists recently during a preview tour of the new facility.

The importance to Palestinians of the museum, which has been more than six years in the making and cost around $7 million, is clear. The new gleaming white building sits adjacent to the Palestinian president’s headquarters, known as the Muqataa. Its entrance takes visitors past Arafat’s tomb, a solemn Ramallah landmark where admirers come to pay respects to their legendary leader.

“The Yasser Arafat museum displays the Palestinian experience,” said Mohammad Halayka, the museum’s director. “It is the only venue in Palestine that presents the Palestinian narrative of events from the last century.”

Inside, more than 120 displays detail in words and photos the lives and travails of Palestinian leaders and people. Rare footage of events such as what Palestinians call the “nakba,” or catastrophe, the 1948 war when Palestinian civilians were uprooted from their ancestral homes during Israel’s creation, plays on state-of-the-art television screens.

An enclosed footbridge brings visitors into the austere quarters where Arafat lived from 2001 to 2004. The tiny bedroom, with its meager furnishings, seems intended to negate Israeli reports that the Palestinian leader siphoned off millions of dollars in aid meant for his people.

In his former room, a single metal-framed bed sits neatly made in a corner. Nearby, a traditional Muslim prayer rug is draped over a simple wooden chair, and opposite is a closet displaying four stiff military uniforms and a pile of more than a dozen keffiyehs, the traditional Arab headdress that became the Palestinian leader’s trademark.

Also on display is an outdated television set — likely Arafat’s only link to the outside world — as well shoe-shining equipment and a collection of his woolen hats.

In his office, a pair of his dark-rimmed eyeglasses sits on his desk. Trophies and gifts bestowed by international admirers decorate a bookshelf. On the wall is a photo of his daughter, Zahwa, and the portraits of two pro-Palestinian activists: American student Rachel Corrie, killed in 2003 by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, and Tom Hurndall, a British activist with the International Solidarity Movement, killed in 2004.

The museum’s message contrasts starkly with Israel’s version of Arafat’s life story, as well as the Palestinian narrative.

The controversy starts almost from the first display: a replica of a house overlooking the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City. A sign says it was the home of Arafat’s grandfather and the exact place where the Palestinian leader was born.

Yet Israelis, and most historians, say Arafat was born in Egypt, arriving in Jerusalem only after the death of his mother when he was 4 years old.

Another mystery is how Arafat died in November 2004 at age 75. Many Palestinians, including his wife Suha, believe he was poisoned by radioactive polonium-210. Although there has been no conclusive evidence, some Palestinians say he was assassinated by Israel, while others point to an internal Palestinian conspiracy.

“I am totally convinced his death was not a natural death and most likely he was poisoned. Israel assassinated Yasser Arafat,” said Qidwa, his nephew.

Wherever he was born and whatever the cause of his death, Arafat came into the world in 1929, and his actions helped to shape and unify the Palestinian national identity. His involvement in the Palestinian cause began when he was a teenager, even before Israel’s creation in 1948.

But it was only after 1967, when Israel defeated the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria in the Six-Day War, that Arafat became the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a powerful symbol of Palestinian resistance. For the next 20 years, Arafat and his followers launched countless attacks on Israel, cementing his reputation among Palestinians as a revolutionary leader and among Israelis as a murderous terrorist.

In the 1990s, Arafat changed his tactics and his politics when he began to engage in diplomacy with the Israelis, leading eventually to the now-failed Oslo Peace Accords. That new path earned him a share of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

“There is not really enough space in any museum to adequately display Arafat’s legacy,” said director Halayka. “He brought unity, national pride, freedom and fight to the Palestinian people, and people really miss him.”

William Booth and Sufian Taha contributed to this report.

Russia to launch 'large-scale' airstrikes on Syria as Americans vote

Cruise missiles and carrier-based warplanes to hit eastern Aleppo
Military indicates ‘hundreds of terrorist targets’ to be destroyed

Aircraft are positioned on the flight deck of Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, pictured in the English Channel en route to the eastern Mediterranean. Photograph: Nigel Scutt/Dover marina.com

Julian Borger World affairs editor-Tuesday 8 November 2016

Russia has threatened to launch “large-scale” cruise missile and airstrikes on Aleppo to coincide with the US election, according to media reports from Moscow.

The strikes, predicted in the 24 hours from Tuesday morning, would be targeted at the outskirts of the city where rebel groups have been seeking to break the Assad regime’s siege of opposition-held eastern districts. They would involve cruise missiles, carrier-based and land-based warplanes, the reports said.

A military source told the Gazeta.ru website: “While in previous cases, when missile attacks were launched from the Caspian Sea, there were dozens of targets destroyed, this time, in literally two to three days, hundreds of terrorist targets will be destroyed from long range.”

Over the past few days, the Russian navy has assembled a sizable fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, made up of its only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, its biggest battle cruiser, the Peter the Great – both from its Northern Fleet, and the Admiral Grigorovich, a missile frigate. There are also reported to be up to three submarines from the Northern Fleet with the Kuznetsov battle group, which are all positioned between Cyprus and the Syrian coast.

As described by military officials to the Russian media, the Aleppo attack would be a show of strength and military capability on the day of the US election. Putin observers have consistently said he puts heavy emphasis on restoring Russian status as a global power.

It would involve the first carrier-based air sorties in Russian history, the use of Kalibr cruise missiles from the Grigorovich or the submarines or both, and Russian warplanes taking off from Hmeimim airbase near Latakia.

Over the course of the election the Kremlin has made no secret of its backing for Donald Trump, and US intelligence agencies have accused Moscow of orchestrating the hacking of Democratic party emails, which were then leaked to the WikiLeaks website.

If she is elected, Hillary Clinton is generally expected to adopt a tougher stance towards Russia than the Obama administration, and Putin is widely seen as narrowing her room for manoeuvre by crippling the Syrian opposition militarily before she arrives in office.

The Middle East Watched America’s Election Through a Mirror

BY DAVID KENNER-NOVEMBER 8, 2016

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Donald Trump, is without a doubt, the first American presidential candidate to be quoted approvingly by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the right-wing Israeli press.

It was Trump’s accusation that Obama is the “founder of ISIS” that earned him praise from Nasrallah, who took it as confirmation of his longstanding claim that Washington had created the extremist group for its own nefarious ends. “This was spoken on behalf of the American Republican Party,” the leader of the Shiite paramilitary organization said. “He has data and documents.”

Trump’s rise has also been cheered in Israel, Hezbollah’s archenemy, where the Republican nominee has powerful friends. Israel Hayom, a free newspaper funded by billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a prominent donor to both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, regularly sings the Republican nominee’s praises: In March, it ran a coverfeaturing Trump standing next to its senior correspondent, with the headline “Your friend is leading the race.” In recent days, the paper has seized upon any scrap of information suggesting that Trump will prevail against Clinton, touting his supposed advances into Democratic strongholds and alleged gains among minorities and women.

Donald Trump has also, surprisingly, made some friends among Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews. Shaah Tovah, which caters to the community, ran an article explaining how Trump supports traditional Judaism, under a headline that quoted Trump telling a rabbi: “A Jew needs to honor the Sabbath.”

Trump, it is fair to say, is neither a supporter of Hezbollah nor a proponent of ultra-Orthodox Jewish values. But leaders and opinion-makers across the Middle East have regularly used America’s presidential candidates, and its presidential campaigns to justify their own worldviews.

Just take a look at Iran. Hard-line officials in Tehran have used the campaign season to advance their view of the U.S. political system as fundamentally evil and corrupt. A state-run television station ran the first season of House of Cards, as newspapers seized on the show’s Machiavellian president as an accurate portrayal of how American politicians wield power. “There is not much difference between Trump and Clinton. The two are as one soul in two bodies,” opined the hard-line Kayhan in an editorial.“America’s hostilities against Iran will continue and no matter who will be elected.”

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, meanwhile, has used the election as evidence of his belief that the United States is in political and spiritual decline. The debates between Clinton and Trump, he said, were “indicative of the abolition of human values in America,” while the entire campaign constitutes proof “of the consequences of lack of spirituality and faith among those in power.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has taken a similar line, arguing that U.S. politicians are in the thrall of special interests, which make their campaign statements meaningless. As journalists repeatedly pressed him to express a preference between Trump and Clinton, he maintained that he was not following the campaign closely, as candidates regularly shift their position once taking office. “We have never placed our bets on any American president,” he said in February. “We always bet on policies; and these policies are not controlled only by the president, but by the establishment in general, and by the lobbies operating in the United States.”

Assad has also harped on American presidents’ lack of experience — a point of contrast for a leader who has held power for 16 years, and whose family has ruled Syria for 46 years. “Who had this experience before? Obama? Or George Bush? Or [Bill] Clinton before? None of them had any experience,” he said, waving off a question about Trump’s lack of foreign-policy experience. “This is the problem with the United States.”

On the other side of Syria’s war, however, leaders of the political opposition are hoping that the U.S. election can shift the conflict in their favor. Syrian National Council leaders have endorsed Clinton, citing her support for a no-fly zone in Syria.

It’s not a specific policy change most Middle Eastern leaders are looking for, however, but validation of their own decisions. In Egypt, for instance, Trump praised President Abdelfattah al-Sisi as a “fantastic guy” for his strong-arm approach to Islamists. Sisi soon returned the favor, telling CNN there was “no doubt” that Trump would make a strong leader.

Some of this should sound familiar to observers in the United States. The Washington debate about the Middle East often revolves around American values and decisions: During the runup to the Iraq War, for example, hawks and doves grappled over whether there was a “freedom gene” that would lead Iraqis to democracy — a discussion far removed from the details of daily life that would shape Iraq. More recently, the debate over the causes of the 2012 Benghazi attack or the rise of the Islamic State has focused on what U.S. officials did or didn’t do — not the complex local dynamics that led to state collapse in Libya, Syria, or Iraq.

Donald Trump is not confirming Hezbollah’s worldview any more than he’s championing ultra-Orthodox Jewish values. Instead, the Middle East’s pundits and politicians are using the U.S. election as a stand-in for their own political battles. Turnabout, after all, is only fair play.

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

Defying the Politics of Fear

It is up to us to resist. We must refuse to be complicit, even in the act of voting, with the fossil fuel industry’s savaging of our ecosystem, endless wars, oppression of the poor, including the one in five children in this country who is hungry, the evisceration of constitutional rights and civil liberties, the cruel and inhumane system of mass incarceration and the state-sponsored execution of unarmed poor people of color in our marginal communities.

by Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges gave this talk Saturday evening at a rally in Philadelphia for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Ajamu Baraka.

( November 8, 2016, Boston. Sri Lanka Guardian) No social or revolutionary movement succeeds without a core of people who will not betray their vision and their principles. They are the building blocks of social change. They are our only hope for a viable socialism. They are willing to spend their lives as political outcasts. They are willing to endure repression. They will not sell out the oppressed and the poor. They know that you stand with all of the oppressed—people of color in our prisons and marginal communities, the poor, unemployed workers, our LGBT community, undocumented workers, the mentally ill and the Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans whom we terrorize and murder—or you stand with none of the oppressed. They know when you fight for the oppressed you get treated like the oppressed. They know this is the cost of the moral life, a life that is not abandoned even if means you are destined to spend generations wandering in the wilderness, even if you are destined to fail.

I was in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania in 1989 during the revolutions, or in the case of Romania an interparty putsch. These revolutions were spontaneous outbursts by an enraged population that had had enough of communist repression, mismanagement and corruption. No one, from the dissidents themselves to the ruling communist parties, anticipated these revolts. They erupted, as all revolutions do, from tinder that had been waiting years for a spark.

These revolutions were led by a handful of dissidents who until the fall of 1989 were marginal and dismissed by the state as inconsequential until it was too late. The state periodically sent state security to harass them. It often ignored them. I am not even sure you could call these dissidents an opposition.

They were profoundly isolated within their own societies. The state media denied them a voice. They had no legal status and were locked out of the political system. They were blacklisted. They struggled to make a living. But when the breaking point in Eastern Europe came, when the ruling communist ideology lost all credibility, there was no question in the minds of the public about whom they could trust. The demonstrators that poured into the streets of East Berlin and Prague were aware of who would sell them out and who would not. They trusted those, such asVáclav Havel, who had dedicated their lives to fighting for open society, those who had been willing to be condemned as nonpersons and go to jail for their defiance.

Our only chance to overthrow corporate power comes from those who will not surrender to it, who will hold fast to the causes of the oppressed no matter what the price, who are willing to be dismissed and reviled by a bankrupt liberal establishment, who have found within themselves the courage to say no, to refuse to cooperate. The most important issue in this election does not revolve around the personal traits of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. It revolves around the destructive dynamic of unfettered and unregulated global capitalism, the crimes of imperialism and the security and surveillance apparatus. These forces are where real power lies. Trump and Clinton will do nothing to restrict them.

It is up to us to resist. We must refuse to be complicit, even in the act of voting, with the fossil fuel industry’s savaging of our ecosystem, endless wars, oppression of the poor, including the one in five children in this country who is hungry, the evisceration of constitutional rights and civil liberties, the cruel and inhumane system of mass incarceration and the state-sponsored execution of unarmed poor people of color in our marginal communities.

Julien Benda reminds us that we can serve two sets of principles. Privilege and power or justice and truth. The more we make compromises with those who serve privilege and power the more we diminish the capacity for justice and truth. Our strength comes from our steadfastness to justice and truth, a steadfastness that accepts that the corporate forces arrayed against us may crush us, but that the more we make compromises with those whose ends are privilege and power the more we diminish our capacity to effect change.

Karl Popper in “The Open Society and Its Enemies” writes that the question is not how do you get good people to rule. Popper says this is the wrong question. Most people attracted to power, he writes, have “rarely been above average, either morally or intellectually, and often [have been] below it.” The question is how do we build forces to restrict the despotism of the powerful. There is a moment in Henry Kissinger’s memoirs—do not buy the book—when Nixon and Kissinger are looking out at tens of thousands of anti-war protesters who have surrounded the White House. Nixon had placed empty city buses in front of the White House to keep the protesters back. He worried out loud that the crowd would break through the barricades and get him and Kissinger. And that is exactly where we want people in power to be. This is why, although he was not a liberal, Nixon was our last liberal president. He was scared of movements. And if we cannot make the elites scared of us we will fail.

The rise of Donald Trump is the product of the disenchantment, despair and anger caused byneoliberalism and the collapse of institutions that once offered a counterweight to the powerful. Trump gives vent to the legitimate rage and betrayal of the white underclass and working poor. His right-wing populism, which will grow in virulence and sophistication under a Clinton presidency, mirrors the right-wing populism rippling across much of Europe including Poland, Hungary, France and Great Britain. If Clinton wins, Trump becomes the dress rehearsal for fascism.

A bankrupt liberal class, as was true in Yugoslavia when I covered the war and as was true in Weimar Germany, is the great enabler of fascism. Liberals, in the name of the practical, refuse to challenge parties that betray workingmen and –women. They surrender their values for political expediency. Our [failure] to build a counterweight to the Democratic Party after it abandoned the working class with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 was our gravest mistake.

Hillary Clinton embodies the detested neoliberal establishment. She can barely fend off one of the most imbecilic and narcissistic candidates in American history. Matched against a demagogue with brains and political skill, she would lose. If we do not defy the neoliberal order, championed by Clinton and the Democratic Party elites, we ensure the conditions for a terrifying right-wing backlash, one that will use harsh and violent mechanisms to crush the little political space we have left.

The tactic of strategic voting begs the question “Strategic for whom?” Our money-drenched, heavily managed elections are little more than totalitarian plebiscites to give a veneer of legitimacy to corporate power. As long as we signal that we are not a threat to the established order, as long as we participate in this charade, the neoliberal assault will continue towards its frightening and inevitable conclusion.

Alexis de Tocqueville correctly saw that when citizens can no longer participate in a meaningful way in political life, political populism is replaced by a cultural populism of sameness, resentment and mindless patriotism and by a form of anti-politics he called “democratic despotism.” The language and rituals of democracy are used to mask a political system based on the unchallenged supremacy of corporate power, one the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism.”

We must build structures of open defiance to the corporate state. It may take as long as a decade for us to effectively confront corporate power. But without a potent counterweight to the neoliberal order we will be steadily disempowered. Every action we take, every word we utter must make it clear that we refuse to participate in our own enslavement and destruction. The rapid disintegration of the ecosystem means resistance cannot be delayed.

Our success will be determined not by the number of votes we get in this or any other election but by our ability to stand unequivocally with the oppressed. The enemies of freedom throughout history have always charged its defenders with subversion. The enemies of freedom have often convinced large parts of a captive population to parrot back mind-numbing clichés to justify their rule. Resistance to corporate power will require fortitude, an ability to march to the beat of our own drum.

No revolutionary abandons, no matter what the cost, those he or she defends. We cannot betray those murdered by police in our marginal communities. We cannot betray the courageous dissidents—Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and the great revolutionary Mumia Abu-Jamal. They have not betrayed us. We cannot betray the dissidents in North Dakota who are defying a fossil fuel industry that is orchestrating the sixth great mass extinction, melting the polar ice caps and raising carbon emissions to over 400 parts per million. We cannot betray the 2.3 million men and women locked in cages across this nation for years and decades. We cannot betray the Palestinians. We cannot betray the Iraqis and Afghans whose lives we have destroyed by state terror. If we betray them we betray ourselves.

We cannot betray the ideal of a popular democracy by pretending this contrived political theater is free or fair or democratic. We cannot play their game. We cannot play by their rules. Our job is not to accommodate the corporate state. Our job is to destroy it. “We think we are the doctors,”Alexander Herzen told anarchists of another era. “We are the disease.”

The state seeks to control us through fear, propaganda, wholesale surveillance and violence. [This] is the only form of social control it has left. The lie of neoliberalism has been exposed. Its credibility has imploded. The moment we cease being afraid, the moment we use our collective strength as I saw in Eastern Europe in 1989 to make the rulers afraid of us, is the moment of the system’s downfall.

Go into the voting booth on Tuesday. Do not be afraid. Vote with your conscience. Vote Green. If we win 5 percent we win. Five percent becomes the building block for the years ahead. A decade ago Syriza, the ruling party in Greece, was polling 4 percent. And after you vote, join some movement, some protest, some disruption, Black Lives Matter, the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, an anti-fracking demonstration. Courage is contagious. Revolutions begin, as I saw in East Germany, with a few Lutheran clergy holding candles as they marched through the streets of Leipzig in East Germany. It ends with half a million people protesting in East Berlin, the defection of the police and the army to the side of the protesters and the collapse of the Stasi state. But revolutions only happen when a few dissidents decide they will no longer cooperate, when they affirm what we must all affirm, when, as Havel said, they choose to live in truth.

We may not succeed. So be it. At least those who come after us, and I speak as a father, will say we tried. The corporate forces that have us in their death grip will destroy our lives. They will destroy the lives of my children. They will destroy the lives of your children. They will destroy the ecosystem that makes life possible. We owe it to those who come after us not to be complicit in this evil. We owe it to them to refuse to be good Germans. I do not, in the end, fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.

Chris Hedges, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

Capitalism, austerity, revolution: why we took part in the Million Mask March

Thousands of anti-capitalism and pro-civil liberties protesters took part in a march in central London. We asked them why

Nearly 20,000 people had indicated they would attend on the event’s Facebook page, which warned ‘the police are not your friends’. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock-- Protesters climb the base of Nelson’s column chanting ‘One solution: revolution’. Photograph: GuardianWitness/Sergei Petrazhitski

Several supporters argued they should be free to pass on public roads after police imposed restrictions on the march, including a three-hour protest limit. Photograph: GuardianWitness/Sergei Petrazhitski-- Protesters wore Guy Fawkes masks in reference to the film V for Vendetta. Photograph: GuardianWitness/Sergei Petrazhitski

Carmen Fishwick and Guardian readers-Monday 7 November 2016

Masked anti-capitalism and pro-civil liberties protesters descended on central London on Saturday, Guy Fawkes night, to march near the Houses of Parliament.

Supporters of the Anonymous hacking collective wore Guy Fawkes masks in reference to the cult pro-revolution film V for Vendetta. Young and older people marched together, shouting and holding banners declaring: “Capitalism, monarchy, change, revolution”.

Despite an increased police presence and stricter rules on protest boundaries, the march was largely peaceful, though by 10.45pm there had been 47 arrests, the majority for drug offences and obstruction.

We asked attendees why they took part in the demonstration. Here’s what they said:

‘I am protesting against the rise in xenophobia’

I feel really strongly about the situation in our country and feel that I need to do something. I’ve never taken part before but I am protesting against the recent rise in xenophobia in our country and the government’s lack of initiative to do anything about it. Being English, I am ashamed of our collective behaviour over the past few months since the Brexit vote. I voted leave but I did not anticipate the wave of racism that followed, and I am deeply disturbed and embarrassed by what Britain now stands for and how the rest of the world views us.

Gareth Smith, London

‘The 99% are getting stronger and more people are waking up’

People are beginning to stand up against the bullying, exploitation and oppression by the people at the top, the global elite, who are wealthy beyond anything we could imagine. I have been to most of the marches and do so because I support Anonymous and the Occupy movement.

People have been bought by money for centuries, and ordinary people will go along with it because of the carrot being dangled. Money is a huge illusion: money is debt; we have been enslaved by money. Now they want to control us completely in this New World Order scenario. We, the people, say no. Enough is enough. We are turning back to caring for each other and for the planet.

The 99% are getting stronger, more people are waking up, and it is really important at this point in human history that we stand up to the tyranny of the corrupt governments that back the corporations that are destroying the planet.

I have always spoken to the police and had interesting discussions with them. Many protesters feel negative stories about violence are set-ups by the police, and I would tend to agree with that. The police are there to do their jobs, which pay their rent and mortgages. They are just like us, and many feel sympathy with the cause. Hopefully one day soon they will take off their helmets and join us.

I have been to all but one of these protests. It is great to be with other people who feel as passionately about corruption and want to see big changes. It’s always interesting – meeting lovely people, having fun – but also feeling that we need to be doing this. It’s a drop in the ocean but this movement is not going to go away. If we can get more people to wake up to what is going on, then fantastic.

I have always believed in standing up to oppression and tyranny. It is our duty to do so. We have been fed so many lies – and the media is mostly propaganda to maintain people as units of production and consumption.

V for Vendetta provides the image of the Guy Fawkes mask, but it feels as though our future could be like that if they think they can get away with it. Orwell’s 1984 warned us about it but with the Brave New World aspects of society.

Helen, Basingstoke, 60, therapist and mother

‘Every aspect of our society makes me feel ashamed of the human race’

Watching the NHS crumble, and watching the older generation – even my parents – be tricked into voting for ridiculous rightwing parties, convinced that these people will improve the country.

I’m sick of racism towards people who are simply moving from one place to another, often to escape war, that our leaders have and will forever perpetuate, as long as there is money to be made from arms and oil. The ignorance of a large portion of a nation, because of a corrupt media and unelected bunch of leaders.

Do you think the civil rights movements in the US in the 60s and 70s were allowed? No, they don’t want us to protest, not just because of the potential violence but to block our freedoms and rights. The police try this every year, and with about 0.5% of the people there acting in a violent way, they feel it’s justified. Last year, no one in the main march had any idea of this police car being blown up. The march went nowhere near Scotland Yard. Funny that there was a whole group of news reporters stood conveniently near the vehicle when it happened, yet I probably saw about one reporter near the march for the whole evening. Something fishy was going on there.

It’s exhilarating – until you see someone throw a firework at a police horse. But that was just one guy, clearly an idiot, and he deserved to be arrested. I’ve spoken to a number of police each year and some have expressed sympathy as many have had their own pensions and benefits cut. However, the majority of them are arrogant and see themselves as better. They view us as a bunch of criminals, though we are also protesting for their sake.

I’ve offered officers Mini Cheddars because they looked hungry. Most have turned up their noses at them but the odd one or two were really grateful. I also witnessed many people being arrested for not moving behind a certain line the police had made up. The officers were trying to scare everyone off by pretending to arrest this guy but all they got was abuse from the crowds.

Bob, 22, Southampton

‘We are being manipulated into believing austerity is in our best interest’

I’m annoyed at the current status quo of our elected representatives riding roughshod over the needs of the people who pay their taxes and keep the wheels turning. Decisions are made by faceless individuals in Whitehall and elsewhere. We are being deceived and manipulated into believing austerity is in our best interest yet public services are being decimated.

These protests represent a group of like-minded individuals coming together to demonstrate their frustration and unhappiness at a system that is rigged in favour of an elite of unelected cabals who have undue influence over the lives of working people. It’s theatre, with an undercurrent of violence aimed at the property of big companies and police dressed in riot gear.

I try to attend as much as I can. I protested outside parliament on the eve of the Syria bombing. It didn’t change a thing. I went along to the anti-dolphins-slaughter demo last year. That was fun. Didn’t change a thing either. I used to go to the May Day protests but now don’t as they inevitably end up in a kettle. But they didn’t change a thing. I went to the anti-Iraq war demo. I remember seeing “1,000,000 people on the streets of London” on the boards at Piccadilly Circus and thinking: “We’ve cracked it! They have to listen to us!” but, as we now know, they didn’t.

I don’t believe protesting can change much in Britain. But the point is that that we still have to protest, we still have to demonstrate our displeasure at things we don’t agree with or they – whoever they are – will continue unchecked.

Antony, 36, teacher