Hilarious story of mother in law who filed FR petition on behalf of her ‘outlaw’ son- in- law (Nari Bena) Udaya Weeratunge !

(Lanka-e-News - 08.Nov.2016, 11.45PM)  A fundamental rights (FR) petition was filed in the supreme court (SC)  yesterday demeaning  the fundamental human rights petitions in the courts of Sri Lanka .

In the colossal  fraud amounting to about Rs. 1500 million committed by Gotabaya on the MiG jet deal via payment of Rs. 15000 million approximately to a non existent company by the name of Belimissa during the  nefarious decade , it was Udayanga Weeratunge who acted as the intermediary in this racket , and against him an Interpol warrant was issued by the Fort magistrate , Colombo. Udayanga’s mother in law Lalitha Mannaperuma nevertheless filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme court on behalf of Udayanga claiming that the FR of Udayanga has been violated , and prayed for an order to withdraw the Interpol warrant.

In other words , a most ridiculous request was  made to the SC via an FR petition to withdraw the Interpol warrant issued by the Fort magistrate against culprit Udayanga who was the intermediary in the most infamous  MiG jet fraud involving a  sum of Rs1500 million approximately committed by Gotabaya during the nefarious decade by releasing this payment illicitly to a non existent Co. Belmissa in  England .  

A group including the chief inspector of FCID , Nihal Francis and the Attorney general (AG) has been cited as respondents in this petition. But the most ludicrous and ridiculous part of this petition is the mother in law filing the FR petition of Udayanga who is hiding , and without the latter’s presence despite the glaring fact that the mother in law can file a petition only in respect of her , and not on behalf of her son in law Udayanga. In the event the son in law is dead ,then the mother in law can move  on behalf of the fundamental rights of the son in law . But in this instance , Udayanga the son in law is absconding  courts and has fled the country . Hence this mother in law by acting  on behalf of the FR of such an outlaw of a  son in law (Nari Bena) became  the biggest laughing stock before the entire world !

When Individuals like ruthless,  lawless and corrupt   Gotabaya who murdered in cold blood heartlessly , and crooks like Tiran Alles of the Blue Brigand  who robbed in many millions of rupees unconscionably during the nefarious decade are to be arrested to facilitate  investigations ( not  court  hearing ) under the good governance government , but owing to petitions being filed in the SC based on FR against it , and the SC too showing sympathy on behalf of these rascals and scoundrels to an unnecessary extent ,  the opportunity  of filing FR petition available to those who are genuinely aggrieved has now become a laughing matter and a stupid joke. This is indeed  a matter for  deep regret particularly because the court -the citadel of justice is being taken for a ride. 

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by     (2016-11-09 04:12:20)

Cocaine haul found inside store in Kelaniya

File photo

November 9, 2016 

A large consignment of cocaine was found from a store in Pethiyagoda area in Kelaniya this evening. 

The investigation team found 30 kilograms of cocaine from the store, police said. 

The estimated street value of the seized cocaine is over Rs.450 million and further investigations are ongoing.

US strikes may have killed 119 civilians in Iraq, Syria since 2014: Pentagon

The Pentagon figures are far lower than casualty estimates by monitoring groups

The United States, which carries out 80 percent of the coalition bombing, says it uses precision-guided munitions that limit civilian casualties (AFP)

Thursday 10 November 2016

The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US air strikes in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State group may have killed 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than casualty estimates by monitoring groups.

The figures released by Centcom, the US military command in the Middle East, came from a months-long review of reports and databases, it said, adding that the deaths and injuries stemmed from 24 air strikes.

London-based NGO Airways estimates coalition bombing has killed 1,787 civilians since the air campaign to destroy the Islamic State group began in August 2014.

"We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties," Colonel John Thomas was quoted as saying in the Centcom statement.

"We do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time."

The Pentagon's investigation found that "in each of these strikes the right processes were followed; each complied with Law of Armed Conflict and significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome," Thomas said.

The United States, which carries out 80 percent of the coalition bombing, says it uses precision-guided munitions that limit civilian casualties.

Meanwhile Russia is accused of using conventional bombs that are much more deadly to civilian populations.

Amnesty International estimates that there have been at least 300 civilian victims in Syria alone from coalition strikes.

The number of casualties has risen sharply since the start of the coalition's campaign in late 2015 to lay the groundwork to take back IS strongholds in Mosul, Iraq and Raqa, Syria.

On Wednesday, A US-led coalition air strike killed 20 civilians, including two children, overnight in a village near the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, a monitor said Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of people were also wounded in the strikes on Tuesday night on the village of Al-Heisha, some 40 km north of Raqqa.

"The toll has risen to 20 civilians, including nine women and two children," Observatory chief Rami Abdul Rahman said.

The monitor had earlier given a toll of 16 dead.

Abdul Rahman said 32 people had also been injured in the strikes, adding that all the casualties were civilians.

Al-Heisha is controlled by IS and has been a target of a new assault by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as it pushes to capture Raqqa.

A spokeswoman for the Kurdish-Arab alliance dismissed the reports of civilian deaths.

"There is no such thing, and any such claims are IS news," Jihan Sheikh Ahmed told AFP.

The SDF's media account said at least six IS fighters had been killed by US-led coalition strikes in the village and accused the militant group of preventing civilians from leaving Al-Heisha in a bid to use them as "human shields."

The US-led coalition had no immediate comment on the report.

Donald Trump's election victory: the winners and losers around the world

Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin will be celebrating Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, but it’s not such good news for Mexico, Iran, Japan and Europe

• Donald Trump wins US election – follow all the live updates
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Japanese newspapers report the victory of Donald Trump. Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe is a big loser from the election result. Photograph: Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images

Simon Tisdall-Wednesday 9 November 2016 

Donald Trump triumphed, but so did Bashar al-Assad. Like other leaders around the world, Syria’s isolated president most likely spent the day after assessing the impact on him of the Republican’s unexpected victory. The dreadful Assad, soaked in blood after five years of civil war, is probably one of the big winners. But there are plenty of big losers, too.

Vladimir Putin heads up the first category. Trump has shown unusual partiality towards the Russian president, even though the two men have never met.

As a candidate, Trump suggested that, unlike Barack Obama, he could do business with Putin and might, for example, accept Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

Trump failed to condemn alleged Russian online hacking of the Democratic party and covert meddling in the election process.

He has rattled Nato allies in eastern Europe by stating that, as commander-in-chief, he would not necessarily rush to their military assistance if threatened by Russia.

In Syria and Iraq, Trump says his top priority is defeating Isis, not toppling the regime in Damascus – hence Assad’s big sigh of relief. He has declined to condemn Russia’s leading role in the merciless bombardment of eastern Aleppo and its actions on other Syrian battlefronts, which the UN says may constitute war crimes. It is widely believed Russia is gearing up for a final battle to take Aleppofor its ally, Assad, while the American transition is under way.

Perversely, despite his focus on Isis, little or nothing has been heard from Trump about Moscow’s targeting of Syrian opposition factions rather than the jihadis.

Like the people of Syria, the citizens of Afghanistan are losers, too. For them Trump represents a new twist in an old nightmare. He sees continued US military involvement there as contrary to American interests and could simply pull out, leaving the country to the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Xi Jinping, China’s president, is probably feeling quite good. Xi is a strong, authoritarian, quasi-dictatorial figure – the sort of leader, like Putin, that Trump appears to admire.

One can imagine the two men hitting it off on a personal level, although Xi is the more subtle of the two. He will worry about Trump’s unpredictable temperament and his talk of trade tariffs on China.

Xi will relish Trump’s criticism of Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia, which he sees as a bid to contain China. If Trump pivots away from the region, that will suit Beijing just fine, especially if it means it can accelerate its illegal expansionism in the South China Sea and ratchet up the pressure on Taiwan.

A big Asian loser, on the face of it, is Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, who has bet the farm on closer military ties with the US. Trump says Japan and South Korea must do more to defend themselves, including possibly acquiring nuclear weapons to deter North Korea. His threats to nuke North Korea if provoked could, if realised, make losers of us all.

In contrast, a big, undeserving winner is Rodrigo Duterte, the new Philippines president, who famously called Obama a “son of a whore” and declared he was cutting military cooperation. Duterte, notorious for the drug-busting death squads he has unleashed, welcomed Trump’s victory on Wednesday – a reaction that will likely be shared by human rights abusers from Belarus to Burma.

In Iran, Hassan Rouhani is in an even bigger bind, now that Trump is heading for the White House. His nuclear deal last year with Obama is under constant fire from conservatives, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In this respect, Trump has much in common with the mullahs. He called the pact “the worst ever deal in history” and vowed to scrap it.

Trump’s evident ignorance of and lack of interest in large parts of the world mean, for example, the pressure may be off leaders like Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, who stands accused of genocide and war crimes in Darfur, and the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia, responsible for documented atrocities in Yemen.

Trump does not support the international criminal court or the UN system in general. Antonio Guterres, the incoming UN secretary-general, may struggle to keep a Trump administration engaged.

Mexico – as yet not walled off – looked like another big loser, as the peso went through the floor;
President Enrique Peña Nieto is widely loathed by his electorate for failing to challenge Trump during his surprise visit to the country in September – but in private he may be congratulating himself for getting on the right side of his new neighbour.

The lukewarm reaction to Trump’s success in many European capitals reflects a deep ideological as well as a political antipathy. German ministers, normally extremely cautious in public statements, went so far as to imply it was a thoroughly bad outcome.

François Hollande, the French president, was even surlier, saying the result showed the need for Europe looking after itself.

For the EU, already battered by Brexit, Trump is bad news. His hostility to free trade means the proposed TTIP agreement is dead if not yet buried. His belief that Europe must do more to maintain its own security challenges the EU to put its money where it mouth is in developing a Euro army and other independent capabilities.

This could hardly come at a worse time for the stripped eurozone countries.

The positive reaction of rightwing populist and nationalist parties across Europe, including France’s National Front, indicates that they feel his anti-establishment insurgency may facilitate theirs, as close elections loom in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

For Britain’s government, however, Trump could provide a much-needed boost. Trump applauded the narrow British vote to leave the EU and hosted its best-known advocate, Nigel Farage, on the campaign trial. He disowned Obama’s threat to penalise Britain’s trade with the US. Trump is bad news for Nicola Sturgeon, the pro-independence, pro-EU Scottish leader.

But he may be good news for Theresa May, Britain’s pro-Brexit prime minister. She was quick to congratulate Trump in flattering terms. As she faces her own possible general election test, May maybe hopes his winning aura will rub off on her.

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Trump’s Team Has Yet to Reach Out to the Pentagon, But Rumors Fly Over the Next SecDef

BY PAUL MCLEARY-NOVEMBER 9, 2016

The transition team for President-elect Donald Trump has yet to reach out to the Pentagon to start managing the transfer of power following his surprise Election Day victory, though two defense officials told Foreign Policy they expect the first meetings as early as next week.

Initial discussions will likely consist of Pentagon officials delivering a short briefing on major issues facing the military, and then working to provide any information and intelligence Trump demands while the incoming team is identified and gets brought up to speed.

Trump also began receiving detailed classified briefings from the CIA on Wednesday.

The meetings have the potential to be awkward, given Trump’s claims that he knows more about the Islamic State than the generals running the war, declarations that the U.S. officer corps has been “reduced to rubble,” and threatening to find “different generals” to fight the Islamic State. He has also repeatedly been dismissive of the U.S. intelligence community and its work.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter issued a memo to Pentagon staff calling for an orderly process to hand over the reigns of the U.S. armed forces to a new group of Trump appointees.

“I am committed to overseeing the orderly transition to the next commander in chief,” Carter wrote in the Wednesday memo. “I know I can count on you to execute all your duties with the excellence our citizens know they can expect.”

Secretary of State John Kerry did the same, writing he expects diplomats and other staffers to “welcome our incoming colleagues warmly and professionally, and to provide them with all the assistance they need to ensure a seamless transition from one administration to the next.”

While the grinding work of shuffling personnel in and out of the Pentagon will be hashed out soon by batallions of staffers, the question of who will set atop the Defense Department’s civilian leadership hangs over the entire process.

Among Washington-based defense experts, early Trump supporter Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is the front-runner to be nominated as the next Secretary of Defense. Also in the rumint mix is Stephen Hadley, who served as national security advisor to President George W. Bush, and former Sen. Jim Talent, (R-Mo.). Sessions has led Trump’s national security advisory committee since March, and sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Other names that are being bandied about for top national security positions at the White House and in the Pentagon include a host of conservative politicians like former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and onetime CIA chief James Woolsey.

But talk of transition team schedules and playing Washington parlor games over who might get the nod for the big job obscures the most important priority for military planners: namely, clarifying just what the Trump administration’s top national security priorities will be.

There are currently about 13,000 American troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Beijing has pushed its territorial claims further into the South China Sea. Russia continues to place pressure on NATO allies in Eastern Europe. And while the war against the Islamic State received fleeting attention during the presidential campaign, Trump has said he would be willing to work with Russia to strike the group — a plan that has alarmed NATO members in Eastern Europe looking for more pressure to be placed on Moscow.

While the incoming Trump administration toys with the idea of reaching out to Moscow — despite Russian aircraft having buzzed U.S. Navy ships and aircraft during several recent incidents — Russian forces may be taking advantage of the confusion in Washington to hammer rebel forces battling Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia’s lone aircraft carrier, accompanied by several warships equipped with cruise missiles, moved into position off the Syrian coast this week. A defense official confirmed to FP that at least one Russian carrier-based airplane had already flown a mission near Aleppo.

The official, who would only speak about military operations under the condition of anonymity, said Moscow appears to be “more interested in the world seeing Russia’s naval capabilities in action than the world seeing Russia live up to its word” to work toward a political solution to end Syria’s five-year civil war.

Trump’s victory has enormous consequences for the Supreme Court

For starters, President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, can go back to his day job. (Video: Gillian Brockell/Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

By Robert Barnes November 9 at 8:27 AM

The political earthquake that hit Tuesday night has enormous consequences for the Supreme Court, swallowing up Judge Merrick Garland’s ill-fated nomination and dismantling Democratic hopes for a liberal majority on the high court for the first time in nearly a half-century.

In the short term, Republican Donald Trump’s victory means that at some point next year, the nine-member court will be restored to full capacity, once again with a majority of Republican-appointed justices.

Democratic attempts to filibuster Trump’s choice would likely lead Republicans to end that option for Supreme Court justices, just as Democrats did for other judicial nominations when their party controlled the Senate.

Trump’s upset victory likely changes the court’s docket as well: Court challenges to President Obama’s regulations regarding the Affordable Care Act and immigration, which have preoccupied the justices in recent terms, will likely disappear under a President Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress.

[Live updates from the 2016 election and reactions]

These former Obama strongholds sealed the election for Trump

The long-term question will be Trump’s ultimate impact on the court’s membership, and whether he gets the chance to do more than choose the successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.

Two of the court’s liberals, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, are 83 and 78, respectively. Moderate conservative Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is 80.

As long as those three stay, the court’s rulings on sensitive social issues — protecting abortion rights, affirmative action and gay rights, for instance — are secure.

“A lot of the big things are actually ones on which the court already has a so-called liberal majority,” Neal K. Katyal, the acting solicitor general under President Obama, said before the court’s term began last month.

Tuesday’s election assures that Kennedy will remain the court’s pivotal justice, for now. Trump has said he will draw his Supreme Court nominee from a list of 20 judges and one senator: Mike Lee of Utah. All appear to be more conservative than Kennedy, the court’s longest-serving justice.

[Donald Trump wins presidency in stunning upset]

Kennedy is the member of the current court most likely to be in the majority when the court splits 5 to 4 in its most controversial decisions. Most of the time, he sides with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s other remaining conservatives: Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

But on some social issues, Kennedy sides with the liberals: Ginsburg, Breyer and Obama’s two choices for the court, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

He joined them and wrote the majority opinion finding that gay couples have a constitutional right to marry; in fact, Kennedy has written all of the court’s cases protecting gay rights.

Last term, he wrote the decision approving the limited use of race in college admission decisions, and voted to strike down a Texas law that the court said imposed unnecessary burdens on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.

But three of the five justices supporting those issues are the oldest on the court. Abortion rights advocates immediately sounded an alarm.

[Supreme Court’s ideological direction depends on election]

“President-elect Trump has publicly pledged to overturn Roe and promised punishment for the one in three American women who will have an abortion in her lifetime,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. She was referring to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision assuring a woman’s right to an abortion

Garland, a moderate liberal who is chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, would likely have replaced Kennedy as the justice in the middle. Obama nominated him last March in part because Republicans in the past have said he was the most likely Democratic nominee to win confirmation.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared on the night of Scalia’s death that Republicans would not act on any Obama nominee. The move brought charges that McConnell had politicized the process, but the gambit worked: It will now be a Republican president making the lifetime appointment to replace Scalia.

Trump has said his nominee will come from the list compiled with the help of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and the legal group, the Federalist Society. His nominee will be like Scalia in seeking to overturn Roeand be a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, Trump has said.

All eyes will now be on the court’s oldest members, Kennedy and Ginsburg. Replacing Kennedy with a more stalwart conservative would immediately impact the court’s dynamics. He has given no indication about how long he intends to serve on the court.

Ginsburg has said she will serve as long as she is up to the job. She would likely be loath to allow Trump to pick her successor; she caused an uproar this summer when in media interviews she called him a “faker” and said she feared for the court and the country if he were elected.

Ginsburg turned aside calls from some liberals that she retire years ago, so that Obama could name her replacement. She said it was unclear whether the Senate would confirm her successor. And she told The Washington Post that there was no rush: She felt it was likely that another Democrat would be elected after Obama.

What Trump’s win means for the rest of the world

by Natasha Ezrow-

( November 9, 2016, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) This was one of the most contentious elections in US history – and now it’s ended in a shocking upset: Donald Trump appears to have won a majority in the electoral college, which if confirmed will make him the president-elect of the United States. The rest of the world now has to work out what happens next.

Even before Trump pulled ahead on the night, the campaign itself was disastrous for America’s reputation abroad, exposing the worst in US politics. Trump’s views on Muslims, Latinos, Blacks and women earned him global notoriety. He also alarmed many of the US’s key allies with his opinions on NATO and the use of nuclear weapons. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton suffered from her own problems, branded by Trump and others as untrustworthy and “crooked”. Both candidates had historically low like ability ratings.

Many Americans on both sides apparently chose whichever candidate they considered the lesser of two evils. But when it comes to political experience and capability, the difference between the two candidates is very, very stark.

Whether or not you agree with her views, Clinton is experienced and knowledgeable about policy and how politics works in Washington and around the world. Trump, on the other hand, seems ill-informed about almost all global issues. He seems to have no understanding of how the checks and balances built into the US government work. And his ideology, to the extent it can be discerned, seems to border on the anarchic. Four former living US presidents have deemed Trump unfit to the lead the country.

So a Trump victory won’t just do incredible damage to the US itself – it will badly tarnish America’s image abroad and will profoundly transform its relationship with almost all countries around the world.

Xenophobia fired up

One of the worst effects of the campaign was Trump’s success at firing up openly racist elements of his base. His pitch to white non-college educated voters was a direct attempt to play into their deep fears about the US’s rapidly changing demographics. By 2035, white Americans will no longer be the majority group, and not long after that they could be outnumbered by Hispanics. For many white Trump supporters, controlling immigration, sending immigrants home and building a wall to keep them out is the only way to their fears.

These tensions are not going to disappear with the election over. Anger that may have been suppressed is now out in the open.

Mobilising this base has particularly serious implications for the US’s relationships with its Latin American neighbours – and especially Mexico. Mexicans have mostly lampooned Trump and they turned on their own president, Enrique Peña Nieto, when he agreed to meet with the Republican nominee in August. The US is Mexico’s biggest trading partner and a Trump presidency could gravely damage that relationship while a Clinton presidency would in all probability have been more of the same.

Europe, meanwhile, is still processing the shock of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, while other European countries are seeing a rise of xenophobic right-wing populist parties. The Trump upset will be alarming for Europe. In fact, one Pew Research poll found that Trump’s approval rating in Europe was only 9%. In Japan, a vital American ally, his disapproval rating was 82%.

Europeans will have been appalled by Trump’s disregard for NATO and claimed that he would not rule out using nuclear weapons. In Japan, many fear that a Trump presidency would lead to the end of their hard-won security ties with Washington. Trump has said that Japan should end its dependence on the US’s nuclear arsenal and develop the ability to defend itself. This could lead to an arms race in an already tense region, which could be highly destabilising.

More resentment in the Middle East

In the Middle East, there even is more pessimism. Clinton was the more stable candidate, though not necessarily a popular one. But there is much greater uncertainty when it comes to Trump. As Harvard Professor Stephen Walt noted, with Trump: “We have no idea whatsoever what he will do, and neither does he”.

Many Muslims in the Middle East are also fully aware of Trump’s powerful anti-Muslim rhetoric and talk of bans. Overall, the election has tarnished the image of the US in the Middle East even further. Hisham Melhem, a correspondent for Lebanon’s leading daily newspaper An-Nahar, told the New York Times many people there will now have entirely disregarded any reputation it had as “a beacon of progress and enlightenment”.

Then there’s Russia, whose government was accused of meddling in the election in Trump’s interest. Vladmir Putin has denied this – but regardless, a Trump victory plays into his hands.

A former KGB agent, Putin is confident that Trump will be easy to manipulate; Clinton derided her opponent as the Kremlin’s “puppet”. He is keen to extend Russia’s sphere of influence in the Middle East and beyond – and this chaotic election has proved that the world’s supposed sole superpower is in fact incredibly vulnerable. This has emboldened Russia in its actions in Syria, undermining the US’s chances of helping to end the conflict any time soon.

This election has left the US’s image abroad in tatters, alarmed the world of the dangers of a demagogue and has polarised the country more than ever. The very legitimacy of the US’s system for selecting a president has been questioned – and it may now have produced one of the most dangerous American leaders ever elected.

The writer is a Senior Lecturer, University of Essex. She is Undergraduate Director and Project Co-ordinator at the University of Essex. Her teaching interests include International Relations and Comparative Politics, with specific interest in Development, Middle East Politics, African Politics and Latin American Politics. She is also a contributor to the Conversation , where this piece originally appeared.

US democracy ‘in crisis’, say Chinese media

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump react as they watch the election results during Trump's election night rally, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, in New York. Pic: AP

 9th November 2016

(AP) CHINESE state media outlets are casting the U.S. election as the embodiment of America’s democracy in crisis in contrast to China’s perceived stability under authoritarian rule.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency says the campaign has highlighted that, in its words, “the majority of Americans are rebelling against the U.S.’s political class and financial elites.”

The official Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily says in a commentary that the presidential election reveals an “ill democracy.”

On Tuesday, the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV ran man-on-the-street interviews with unidentified American voters in which they expressed disgust with the system and dissatisfaction with both candidates.

Chinese state media and government-backed commentators are continuing to signal Beijing’s preference for a Donald Trump win in the U.S. presidential election.

Like Russia, China is seen as favoring Trump because he appears less willing to confront China’s newly robust foreign policy, particularly in the South China Sea. Clinton, by contrast, is disliked in Beijing for having steered the U.S. “pivot” to Asia aimed at strengthening U.S. engagement with the region, particularly in the military sphere.

Writing in the Communist Party newspaper Global Times, scholar Mei Xinyu says: “From a comprehensive view, it would make it easier for China to cope if Trump is elected. This is because under the policy line advocated by Obama and Clinton, the political and military frictions between China and the U.S. will be more frequent.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus says “the world’s most important relationship” between Beijing and Washington will remain stable regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

Asked by a Chinese reporter about Trump’s proposal for a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods imported in the U.S., Baucus says that “people say a lot of things in the heat of a campaign that are not quite as feasible as they think when they’re elected.”

Trump has also pledged to withdraw U.S. support for the Paris climate change agreement that was reached largely through hard negotiating with China.

Baucus says he doesn’t believe the two countries would stop collaborating on issues already agreed to, including climate change, containing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and reaching a political settlement in Afghanistan.

In his words, “The issues are the same, the good faith is the same.”

World Bank probe into Tata tea project finds it failed to protect Indian workers

Freshly plucked tea leaves are seen in the hand of a tea garden worker inside Aideobarie Tea Estate in Jorhat in Assam, India, April 21, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood/Files

By Nita Bhalla-Wed Nov 9, 2016

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A World Bank investigation into a tea plantation project in India that it jointly finances with tea giant Tata Global Beverages has found that it has failed to tackle alleged abuses of impoverished workers, the group said on Wednesday.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) - a member of the World Bank Group - said its accountability office began a probe into the project, run by Amalgamated Plantations Private Limited (APPL), after reports tea pickers were being exploited.

In a statement emailed to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the IFC said it welcomed the investigation by the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) and would work towards improving conditions for workers in plantations in Assam.

"IFC is continually working with APPL in its ongoing programme of improving living and working conditions and will continue to collaborate with the CAO on the next steps, post-audit," it said.

Officials from Tata Global Beverages and APPL were not immediately available for comment.

APPL was set up in 2009 to acquire and manage tea plantations previously owned by Tata Global Beverages - which owns Tetley, the second-largest tea brand in the world.

The IFC's $7.8 million involvement in the $87 million "Tata Tea" project was aimed at promoting shareholder workers and helping to create more than 30,000 permanent jobs.

Tata Global Beverages took a 41 percent stake in APPL and the IFC took 20 percent, with the remainder held by workers and smaller firms.

But complaints by charities and trade unions about exploitation and abuse of tea-pickers - including long working hours, low wages, lack of freedom of association, over-exposure to pesticides and poor health and living conditions - prompted the CAO to launch an investigation in February 2014.

The CAO's findings, released on Monday, found the IFC failed to identify and address labour, social and environmental issues, including potential violations of Indian and international law, including those related to housing and wages.

"CAO finds that IFC has not assured itself that the wages paid by the client are consistent with IFC's commitment to support jobs which offer a 'way out of poverty' or 'protect and promote the health' of workers," it said.

The IFC's investment also supported a problematic employee share-purchase programme, the CAO found. It said APPL misrepresented the risks associated with buying stock, resulting in debt incurred by workers who came under pressure to buy shares.

The CAO said the IFC supported issuing more shares, reducing the value of workers' shares and diluting their stake in APPL, without consulting worker-shareholders.

Human Rights Watch called on the IFC to conduct a review of the social impact of its investment and work with its clients to improve the plight of impoverished tea pickers in Assam.

"The IFC has been sluggish in responding to its endemic failures and done little to remedy the impact of its past mistakes at the community level," said Jessica Evans, senior international financial institutions researcher at HRW.

"The IFC's board should send the action plan back to the staff and require it to consult with workers and the groups that filed the complaints to make sure that all the violations are addressed and appropriate responses are developed."

(Reporting by Nita Bhalla; Editing by Katie Nguyen. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

RBS facing £400m bill to compensate small business customers

Bank apologises for poor treatment during financial crisis and will automatically refund fees

A report from the Financial Conduct Authority did not find that RBS deliberately drove small businesses to the brink in order to increase its own profits. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Jill Treanor-Tuesday 8 November 2016 

Royal Bank of Scotland has apologised to small business customers as it revealed a £400m bill to compensate them for poor treatment in the wake of the banking crisis.

After at least three years of complaining of bad service from the bailed-out bank, small businesses will receive refunds of the fees they were charged and will be allowed to make fresh complaints about their treatment between 2008 and 2013 in a process that will be overseen by a retired high court judge.

Ross McEwan, the chief executive of RBS, said: “We have acknowledged for some time that mistakes were made. Some of our customers went through what was a traumatic and painful experience as a result of the crisis. I am very sorry that we did not provide the level of service and understanding we should have done.”

A review is under way into whether bonuses should be withheld from former and current staff involved in the bank’s now now-defunct global restructuring group (GRG), which is at the heart of the complaints.

The allegations first surfaced in 2013 when Lawrence Tomlinson, a businessman who was an adviser to the then business secretary, Sir Vince Cable, compiled a dossier alleging the bank deliberately wrecked small businesses to make profits.

Some 12,000 small businesses were forced into GRG but only 4,000 will automatically receive a refund of “complex” fee. In total, some 8,000 were potentially viable when they entered GRG, while 4,000 were facing insolvency.

Confirmation of the compensation plans – details of which began to emerge on Monday – immediately sparked concerns that the sum being aside by the 73% taxpayer-owned bank was inadequate.

“Given the damage to the lives of RBS’s customers, £400m is wholly inadequate and is a cynical attempt to evade accounting fully for the consequences of RBS GRG’s action. We are disgusted by this proposal,” said David Stewart, of the RBS GRG Business Action Group, which has more than 500 members demanding £2bn in compensation. Another group, RGL Management, is pressing on with a legal claim of at least £1bn.

“The FCA report appears to be utter whitewash,” said Stuart McCredie, who ran a business that entered GRG.

Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital, said the bill was “not as big as feared and may also take some heat out of the situation”. The bank’s shares were up 0.4% at 187.3p on Tuesday.

The RBS announcement was timed to coincide with an appearance by Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, at the Treasury select committee which has been pressuring the regulator to publish a much-delayed report into GRG.

In an update, the FCA said “isolated examples of poor practice were identified”, at RBS but dismissed the most damning allegations that the bank deliberately drove small business to the brink to make a profit.

But it also concluded that there was evidence of systemically poor treatment of small business customers.

Bailey signalled that further delays to the report – commissioned from legal experts Promontory and Mazars – were likely as it would have to undergo Maxwellisation, where anyone facing criticism is allowed to comment, before publication.

The FCA also cautioned that the activities carried out by GRG were largely unregulated. “Therefore, the FCA’s powers are limited in this area,” the FCA said. However, it does not necessarily indicate the bank will escape financial sanction as the regulator said it was “currently assessing what further work may be needed given the findings in the report”.

McEwan has repeatedly defended the bank against claims that it deliberately tried to profit from small business customers and RBS repeated on Tuesday that it had lost more than £2bn in lending to small businesses.

He said the situation could not be tackled until now – even though a report commissioned from Clifford Chance in 2014 had highlighted the issues of poorly structured fees – because the FCA review had been continuing.

Promontory examined 207 cases and covered a six-year period, analysing 323 gigabytes of data – approximately 1.5m pages and 270,000 emails.

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Warning over non-lump breast cancers

8 November 2016

Around one in six cases of breast cancer begins with symptoms other than a suspect lump, experts are warning.

Researchers from University College London say women need to be aware of other warning signs - such as nipple changes - so that they get help fast.

The researchers examined the symptoms of 2,300 women who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

They found that women with non-lump symptoms were more likely to put off visiting their doctor.

The researchers are presenting their work at the National Cancer Research Institute conference in Liverpool.

Swellings in the armpit or an infection of the breast tissue should be checked out, they say. So too should nipple changes - rashes, bleeding or discharge - and any sores on the skin of the breasts.

Dr Karen Kennedy, director of the National Cancer Research Institute, said: "This research shows that, all too often, women are delaying going to their doctor with symptoms of breast cancer.

"This could be because people are simply unaware that breast cancer can present in many different ways, not just through the presence of a lump.

"With a disease like breast cancer, it's essential to be diagnosed as early as possible so that a treatment plan can be developed and started."

Breast cancer symptoms and signs

See your GP if you notice:

• A new lump or area of thickened tissue in either breast that was not there before
• A change in the size or shape of one or both breasts
• Bloodstained discharge from either of your nipples
• A lump or swelling in either of your armpits
• Dimpling on the skin of your breasts
• A rash on or around your nipple
• A change in the appearance of your nipple, such as becoming sunken into your breast

Source: NHS Choices

In England and Wales, about nine in every 10 women diagnosed with breast cancer will survive for at least five or more years.

And about six out of every 10 can expect to survive for more than 20 years.

The more time that passes since diagnosis, the less likely it is that cancer will come back.

Women in the UK aged between 50 and 70 are invited for breast screening every three years.