White House races to save Middle East peace process before Trump takes office

John Kerry to underline outgoing president’s support of two-state solution with speech setting out US vision of Israel-Palestine agreement

 Kerry and Netyanhu in 2014. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AP

Julian Borger World affairs editor-Wednesday 28 December 2016 09.05 GMT

John Kerry is due to lay out a US framework for a Palestinian-Israeli agreement as the Obama administration and its international allies scramble to protect what is left of the peace process before Donald Trump takes office.

The US secretary of state will outline the proposals on Wednesday, at a time when US-Israeli relations have reached their lowest point in decades. The government of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has accused Washington of conspiring against it when a UN security council vote on Friday demanded an end to settlement building in the West Bank. 

The Kerry speech at the State Department at 11am (4pm GMT) is expected to restate the Obama administration’s continued faith in a two-state solution to the chronic impasse. It is a parting shot after eight years in office, during which there has been a dearth of diplomatic progress. It is not expected to lead to any new initiative but rather lay down a marker on a longstanding US and international approach to the region before the US president-elect, whose commitment to such a solution is in doubt, assumes office.

“What secretary Kerry will be doing is he will give a speech in which he lays out a comprehensive vision for how we see the conflict being resolved – where we see things in 2016 as we unfortunately conclude our term in office without there being significant progress toward peace,” the deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told Israel’s Channel 2 television.

The parameters outlined by Kerry are expected to draw international endorsement at a meeting of foreign ministers on 15 January, just five days before Trump moves into the White House. The meeting is supposed to reinforce a strategy of isolating Netanyahu in the hope it will push him towards reviving stalled negotiations with the Palestinians. Netanyahu has said his government will not attend.

In expectation of a more supportive administration in Washington next month, Netanyahu has reacted to the diplomatic manoeuvring in the last week’s of Obama’s term with defiance.

Israel responded furiously to the UN security council resolution passed on Fridaythat demanded an end to settlement building, threatening diplomatic reprisalsagainst the countries that voted in favour.

 Benjamin Netanyahu to John Kerry: friends don’t take friends to the security council

Jerusalem authorities had been expected to discuss the issue of more than 600 building permits for settlements in historically Palestinian east Jerusalem on Wednesday, but the planned vote was cancelled. Hanan Rubin, a member of Jerusalem’s Planning and Housing Committee, told Reuters the request to put off the vote came from Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has vowed to resist a peace framework imposed on his government, and observers warn that a threatened Israeli backlash in the form of thousands of new settler homes in east Jerusalem, combined with Trump’s plan to move the US embassy to the disputed city, could trigger a fresh wave of violence.

The Israeli government is reportedly fearful that any guidelines agreed in Paris would be turned into another UN resolution before Trump’s inauguration, and it has ratcheted up its rhetoric, presenting itself as the victim of an international conspiracy.

A spokesman for Netanyahu claimed to have “ironclad evidence” that the Obama administration had plotted behind the scenes to promote the UN resolution. Israel has said it will present evidence against the Obama administration to the incoming Trump team.

On Tuesday, Egyptian media published a document purporting to be a transcript of a meeting in which Kerry and the US national security adviser, Susan Rice, discussed the UN resolution and US proposals with Palestinian officials, who agreed to give the Kerry framework immediate support. The State Department spokesman, John Kirby, said no such meeting took place.

Meanwhile, Israel’s defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, portrayed the Paris conference as a new “Dreyfus trial”, referring to an outburst of French antisemitism more than a century ago, and urged French Jews to move to Israel.

On Tuesday a French official denied there was any intention to pass a new security council resolution on the basis of the Paris conference. A foreign ministry spokesperson said the meeting would “give the participants an opportunity to present a comprehensive incentive package to encourage the resumption of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Only they will be able to conclude a peace deal directly.”

Palestinian leaders hope the UN resolution and the Paris conference will offer some degree of international protection against the encroachment of settlements in the Trump era.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said he hoped the Paris meeting would establish an international mechanism to end Israeli settlement building.

Trump criticised Friday’s UN resolution, saying it would make it harder to negotiate a peace agreement. In a tweet on Monday, he described the UN as “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time”. Trump’s designated ambassador to Israel, his own bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, has actively supported settlement building.

Aaron David Miller, a former US negotiator on the Middle East and now a scholar at the Wilson Centre thinktank, said Obama’s 11th-hour attempt at legacy building on the Israeli-Palestinian issue could trigger a backlash. “It risks the incoming administration walking away from whatever has transpired in December and early January, and not just walking away from [but] sending unmistakable signals to the Israelis that it would support and favour acts on the ground that go beyond what we’ve seen,” Miller said.

“The odds that Netanyahu will now press and Trump will respond positively to a move to push the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, I think have gone up.”

He said that if the highly emotive issue of Jerusalem’s status became the focal point of Israeli-Palestinian friction once more, “then I think the prospects for a serious, significant confrontation are high”.

Amir Oren, a liberal Israeli commentator, argued that the UN resolution could save the government from itself by bringing closer an end to settlement construction.

“Santa Obama delivered a wonderful Christmas present to Israel when the United States opted not to veto Friday’s United Nations security council vote condemning settlement policy,” he wrote in Haaretz. “The passage of the resolution won’t result in the immediate dismantling of any West Bank settlements, but the world is beginning to come to the rescue and try to save Israel from itself.”

SitRep: Washington’s Plan to Hack Moscow; Turkey Accuses U.S. of Supporting ISIS

BY PAUL MCLEARY, ADAM RAWNSLEY-DECEMBER 28, 2016

Hack back. The White House is attempting to wrap up deliberations over how to respond to Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to a scoop from the Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima. The response will reportedly include sanctions as well as covert cyber operations that won’t be made public (at least until someone leaks the details…).

White House officials say they’re trying to craft their response to the hacking in a way that would make it hard for the incoming Trump administration to walk them back. Part of the trick is finding the authorities for imposing new sanctions — President Obama may have to declare election systems a piece of critical infrastructure in order to sanction Russia under a 2015 executive order allowing penalties against hackers who attack American critical infrastructure.

According to the story, one of the worries from inside the Obama administration is that “the Trump transition team has not yet had extensive briefings with the White House on cybersecurity issues, including the potential use of the cyber sanctions order. The slow pace has caused consternation among officials, who fear that the administration’s accomplishments in cyber­­security could languish if the next administration fails to understand their value.”

One more time. The Obama administration will deliver what is expected to be it’s final word on the eternally frustrating peace process in the Middle East on Wednesday, when Secretary of State John Kerry delivers a highly anticipated speech at 11:00 a.m. The speech, coming less than a month before president Obama leaves office, will also address Friday’s vote at the U.N. where the United States broke with longstanding diplomatic practice of shielding Israel from international condemnation by abstaining on a resolution that called Israel’s practice of building new settlements in occupied territories illegal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides “are confident the Trump administration will likely ignore any Obama principles and pay no heed to the U.N. resolution,” Reuters notes, “but they fear Kerry’s remarks will put Israel on the defensive and prompt other countries to apply pressure.” 

Netanyahu called the resolution “shameful” and accused Washington in being an active partner in shaping the document. On Tuesday, his spokesman went further, claiming to have “ironclad information” that shows the Obama administration “helped craft this resolution and pushed hard for its eventual passage,” David Keyes said. “We’re not just going to be a punching bag and go quietly into the night.”

Washington to Raqqa. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again accused Washington and its allies in the anti-Islamic State coalition of providing support for the terrorist group, as well as Kurdish militants fighting the Turkish government in southern Turkey. Speaking on Tuesday, Erdogan said Washington is “giving support to terrorist groups including Daesh,” and the Kurdish YPG and the PYD. “It’s very clear,” he said. “We have confirmed evidence, with pictures, photos and videos.”

“That’s just ludicrous,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday. “I don’t know where that comes from.” Moscow and Ankara have agreed on a proposal that would establish a new ceasefire in Syria, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said Wednesday, and are trying to get it in place by midnight Wednesday. The United States won’t be a part of their ongoing discussions on a broader ceasefire, officials said.

Good morning and as always, if you have any thoughts, announcements, tips, or national  security-related events to share, please pass them along to SitRep HQ. Best way is to send them to: paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley

Hacking

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against three Chinese financial traders whom they accuse of making $4 million off hacking into big-name American law firms, according to the Wall Street Journal. The indictment claims that Iat Hong, Bo Zheng and Hung Chin used their access to the firms’ email accounts in order to get a heads up on companies about to announce big acquisitions. The men then allegedly purchased shares in the publicly traded firms and profited off their insider knowledge. The U.S. is seeking the extradition of one of the accused, Iat Hong, from Hong Kong. China, however, has been historically reluctant to extradite its citizens to the United States.

North Korea

A senior North Korean diplomat at the country’s embassy in London shocked the world when he jumped ship and defected earlier this year. Now, Thae Yong-ho is talking to the press. Yonhap News Agency reports that Thae said he believes Kim Jong Un wants his nuclear program completed by the end of next year. He said the North now feels the wind at its back with the departure of leaders it disliked in the United States and South Korea and may try to negotiate with the new administrations in both countries. Nonetheless, Thae said that North Korea won’t ever give up its nuclear weapons and will seek recognition of its status as a legitimate nuclear weapons state.

Estonia

John McCain is urging the Defense Department to permanently station American troops in Estonia in order to reassure the Baltic country of U.S. support. At the moment, U.S. troops are only in the country on a rotational basis. The call comes amid doubts about U.S. security guarantees to allies under the incoming Trump administration. During the presidential campaign, Trump suggested he might not honor America’s treaty obligations under NATO to come to Estonia’s defense in the event of a Russian invasion.

Syria

Russia is reacting strongly to the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, lashing out at a provision inserted by Congressional Syria hawks giving the president the authority to transfer man-portable air defense systems to Syrian rebels if he’s so inclined. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fighting ISIS tell Reuters they’d sure appreciate getting some of the weapons The Obama administration, however, has consistently opposed sending the shoulder-fire anti-aircraft systems to rebels. Nonetheless, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova labeled the passage of the bill “a hostile act” and a threat to Russian aircraft.

Afghanistan

Some of Afghanistan’s neighbors are meeting in Moscow and sounding the alarm about the growth of the Islamic State in the country. Reuters reports that China and Pakistan, along with Russia, issued a statement that “expressed particular concern” about the jihadist and the “deterioration of the security situation” in Afghanistan and recommended taking some Taliban figures off the sanctions list. The U.S. and Afghanistan have accused Russia of cozying up to Taliban.

Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says his country should have the Islamic State defeated in about three months. The optimistic statement comes as Iraqi forces are currently bogged down in house-to-house fighting in Mosul attempting to clear the city of fighters from the group — an assault that’s proven costly in Iraqi casualties. Islamic State fighters have also been carrying out diversionary attacks in areas outside of Mosul, launching raids in Kirkuk and Gogjali.

Photo Credit: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

Did racism Trump economic anxiety in US election?

25 Nov 2016

Mehdi Hasan demonstrates how racial resentment played a bigger role in electing Donald Trump than economic concerns.

Before people took to the polls to elect a new president, analysts predicted that Hillary Clinton would win by a landslide. But in a shocking turn of events, Donald Trump nabbed the top spot.

How did Trump manage to win? Was it a boost from the economically “left-behind”, as many seem to think, or did racism play a larger role?

In this week's Reality Check, Mehdi Hasan shows how it wasn't just economic concerns that drove voters into Trump's hands, but mostly racial resentment.

Follow UpFront on Twitter @AJUpFront

A professor called Trump’s election an ‘act of terrorism.’ Then she became the victim of terror.

The Orange Coast College Republicans in Costa Mesa, Calif., are filing a complaint against human sexuality professor Olga Perez Stable Cox after video shows her criticizing the outcome of the election. (Editor's note: This video begins mid-sentence and is not the professor's entire speech.) (Orange Coast College Republicans)

By Peter Holley December 27

For weeks now, nightmares have been jolting Olga Perez Stable Cox awake several hours before sunrise. Sometimes she’s able to fall back asleep, but more often she finds herself lying in the dark, body tossing and thoughts racing, until she’s reduced to tears.

The morning offers fleeting distractions but no permanent relief — a cup of coffee, some Christmas decorating, maybe a phone call from concerned friends.

But the blinds in her home will remain closed, her door will remain locked and the formerly outgoing professor — a woman who has always thrived by connecting with others — will spend another day isolated by fear, weeping, too scared to walk outside. 

For as long as she has taught, Cox, a professor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Calif., has prided herself on speaking freely. Then a clip of her calling Donald Trump’s election “an act of terrorism” went viral earlier this month, unleashing a wave of violent threats that forced her to end her semester early and flee her home in suburban Orange County.

Now she’s back home, but her life hasn’t returned to normal.

“Now, at 66, I’m paranoid,” Cox said. “It doesn’t feel good at all to be looking over my shoulder and wondering when an unfamiliar car pulls up across the street whether they’re going to take a picture of me or something worse — but that’s my life now. I feel like I’ve been attacked by a mob of people all across the country,” she added. “If they’re telling me over and over again that they want to shoot me in the face, how am I supposed to know if they’re going to do it or not?”

[A professor called Trump’s election an ‘act of terrorism.’ Death threats forced her to flee.]

The mob Cox refers to doesn’t wield pitchforks and torches but hate-filled tweets, violent emails and threatening Facebook messages and phone calls. They are a virtual force with limited numbers but a seemingly unlimited supply of hate that has proved just as frightening for the longtime academic.
The video that sparked the hate shows Cox standing in front of her students calling the president-elect a “white supremacist” and arguing that the country has “been assaulted.”

Cox, a psychology professor who teaches a class on human sexuality, referred to Vice President-elect Mike Pence as “one of the most anti-gay humans in the country.” She also told her students that the nation is as divided now as it was “in Civil War times.”

She noted that she was “relieved that we live in California.”

Cox’s comments were recorded by a conservative student in her class who found her statements offensive and decided to share the video with the Orange Coast College Republicans, according to Joshua Recalde-Martinez, a political science major and president of the campus Republican group.

The video went viral, and within days, the beloved professor — who is largely unknown beyond the campus where she has taught for more than two decades — was under fierce attack. Her inbox and voice mail were filled with hundreds of threatening messages that referred to her as “libtard,” “Marxist,” “nutcase,” “vile leftist filth” and a “satanic cult member.”

“Keep your anti-white, man-hating, traditional-values-bashing, islamophile radical views to yourself!” an emailer named Xavier Israel Matamoros wrote. “You are an intolerant Marxist terrorist who causes division by bringing up your one-sided radical viewpoints and intimidating and shaming your non-conforming students. You are a sick, demented, evil b****!”


In Manhattan, the setting for Donald Trump’s reality TV show and his campaign headquarters now serves as the president-elect’s base of operations.

 “You professors teach that Whites are immoral and contemptible if they don’t support White Genocide,” a woman named Jennifer wrote. “Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White.”

“Go out in the middle of the football field, pull out a handgun, put it to your temple and shoot yourself,” Jim Ernst wrote. “Or better yet, douse yourself in gasoline and set yourself on fire.”

As the threats worsened, she realized she was terrified of being left completely alone, consumed by the idea that around the next corner an unhinged person with a gun or a knife was waiting for her. Campus security began dropping by her classroom, and students started escorting Cox to class and sitting with her during office hours, a period when she would normally be by herself.

“Every time I walked towards my office I was afraid it might have been broken into,” Cox said. “I feared that my home would be vandalized coming home from work each day. No matter what your rational side tells you, it’s still really frightening.”

The harassment crested when Cox received an email from a man named Tim White that showed her home address, phone number and salary and threatened to spread the information “everywhere.” The email referred to Cox as a “libtard, Marxist, hatemonger, nutcase.” It was then, Cox said, that she could no longer stand to be in her home and decided to flee.

The professor turned her final week of class this semester over to a substitute, but Cox said her ordeal continued after the controversial video appeared on the O’Reilly Factor. The host referred to her statements as “gibberish” and “slander” and labeled the professor part of “the totalitarian left.”

“That woman needs a psychologist,” he said.

Cox said she has appealed to Costa Mesa Police and the FBI seeking help, but was told by both agencies that until her property is vandalized or she is physically attacked, there’s nothing law enforcement can do to help.

Costa Mesa police did not respond to repeated requests for comment about Cox’s situation.

In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, an FBI spokesman said the agency does not comment on information from individuals who claim to be victims of crime.

“Any member of the public who feels they are being threatened may report it to the FBI, where we will attempt to determine veracity and whether an allegation falls within our purview,” the statement said. “If they feel their life is in immediate danger, they need to call 911.”

The Orange Coast College Republicans have filed a formal complaint with the school and hired an attorney, said Shawn Steel, a former chairman of the California Republican Party.

Steel told the Orange County Register that Cox is using her power as a grade-determining instructor to “basically scare and shame students.”

“It’s alarming,” he said. “It’s scaremongering. It’s irrational. It’s a rant. And it doesn’t belong in the classroom.”

Recalde-Martinez, the president of the campus Republican group, said OCC President Dennis Harkins never responded to the complaint, which demands that OCC “immediately take steps to correct Ms. Cox’s behavior and to ensure such incidents are avoided in the future.”

Recalde-Martinez said he has also received threats in the wake of the video’s release and that his group “doesn’t endorse bullying.”

“I don’t feel personally responsible for her situation,” he said. “I do condemn the individual who emailed photos of her house and published those. I think that’s unacceptable, and it’s not something I endorse at all.”

“We don’t see those individuals as representative of what we’re trying to achieve, but we still would like accountability from the college.”

On the Orange Coast College campus, professor Olga Cox’s class on human sexuality has a reputation for being a uniquely open forum, one that functioned, at times, like a communal therapy session for hundreds of students at a time. Cox said she spends the first 20 minutes of each class answering questions submitted anonymously by students. The questions usually involve sexuality and relationships, but in the days after Trump’s election, students began submitting political questions.
Cox said many of her students — especially those who were Muslim, gay or had undocumented relatives — had begun telling her they were scared. Cox, who is gay, told her students she felt the same way.

“I had an international Muslim student who told me he was afraid to leave his apartment,” she said. “I cried with him and I felt so bad because he was so alone and so scared.”

When Cox stood in front of class to answer questions that day, she said her rhetoric was not meant to inflame, but to help reassure her students “that OCC was safe.”

“I read a message from the school president and put together a handout for coping with pain,” she said. “As a therapist, these are things I share with people who are depressed. I basically said, ‘Deal with your feelings and do something positive,’ and I was helping them cope with their fears — that was the intent.”
Cox said that if she could go back, she wouldn’t change her language. She said she believes the controversy surrounding her statements has more to do with her being intentionally targeted than the substance of her words.

Her name has been added to a controversial website called “Professor Watchlist,” which lists the names of about 200 academics across the country accused by a conservative group of advancing “leftist propaganda” and discriminating “against conservative students.”

“This is a very carefully planned plot to attack college professors that they don’t like and disagree with,” she said. “This is being done all around the country. It’s not my fault, and I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Rob Schneiderman, president of the Coast Federation of Educators/American Federation of Teachers Local 1911 that represents Cox, agrees that the problem is not what Cox said, but the fact that she was recorded, a violation of the student code of conduct that was expressly stated in the professor’s syllabus.
Schneiderman said the short, edited clip fails to provide viewers with any context for Cox’s statements and could warrant punishment.

“She’s known as an open teacher,” he said. “There’s a petition going around on campus to nominate her for teacher of the year. She’s very well respected on campus, and this was an absolute violation.”

Schneiderman said the union plans to work with school officials to strengthen its free speech policies to keep students and professors safe from “Gestapo tactics.” Many professors on campus, he said, have vowed to resist any attempts by the campus Republicans to dictate classroom discourse.

“Students talk about sexual assault in Olga’s class,” he said. “There are students who have come out in the class. The thought of that going public is really scary.”

He added that OCC has a large international student body, with students from countries where it may not be culturally acceptable to be seen in a human sexuality class. Publicizing the wrong student, he said, could have “serious consequences.”

As much as leaving her home frightens her, Cox said she plans to return to teaching at the end of January. Before then, she plans to marry her longtime partner and continue her healing process one day at a time.

She remains in the throes of a difficult struggle, she said, but that doesn’t mean she’ll quit her job. To quit, she said, would be a victory for the harassers. To find strength, the professor thinks about the beginning of her family’s American story.

“My parents left Cuba so we would not have this kind of harassment and so we would have access to free education,” she said. “They made sacrifices to bring us here, and I’m proud to be an American.”

Asian Centaury is Yet to Come

Why is Europe able to manage its decline, while Asia is (still) unable to capitalize (on) its successes

by Anis H. Bajrektarevic-Dec 27, 2016

( December 27, 2016, Vienna, Sri Lanka Guardian) How to draw the line between the recent and still unsettled EU/EURO crisis and Asia’s success story? Well, it might be easier than it seems: Neither Europe nor Asia has any alternative. The difference is that Europe well knows there is no alternative – and therefore is multilateral. Asia thinks it has an alternative – and therefore is strikingly bilateral, while stubbornly residing enveloped in economic egoisms. No wonder that Europe is/will be able to manage its decline, while Asia is (still) unable to capitalize its successes. Asia clearly does not accedpt any more the lead of the post-industrial and post-Christian Europe, but is not ready for the post-West world.

Asian Centaury is Yet to Come.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Duterte’s warning to corrupt Filipinos: ‘I threw a kidnapper out a helicopter before’

(File) Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte salutes as he takes part during the Armed Forces anniversary celebration at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon city, Metro Manila. Dec 21. Pic: Reuters

28th December 2016

IN yet another public confession of a summary execution, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday claimed he had once thrown a suspected kidnapper out of a helicopter mid-flight during his time as Davao city mayor.

His admission was a warning to corrupt officials who he threatened would suffer the same fate in the government’s anti-corruption drive, referring to how he dealt with criminals in the past, the Philippine Star reported.

“If you are corrupt I will fetch you with a helicopter and I will throw you out on the way to Manila,” Duterte was quoted as saying.

“I have done that before, why should I not do it again?”

Duterte made the threat against corrupt officials during a speech at the Camarines Sur provincial capitol following his visit Typhoon Nina-hit disaster areas. He said much like his war on drugs, the anti-corruption campaign will be the main focus during his six-year term.

SEE ALSO: Philippines: Duterte calls U.N. rights official “idiot” over murder probe call

According to the Philippine Star, the president described the incident where he pursued the kidnappers of a Chinese individual who was tortured despite receiving ransom for his release.

He said he had then ordered the pilot to fly at the right height before kicking the kidnapper off the helicopter so as to not cause a commotion from the body’s splatter.

Earlier this month, the firebrand leader, who was once dubbed ‘The Punisher’ for meting out vigilante justice against hardcore criminals, said he personally killed suspected criminals during his time as mayor.

The president, now facing international heat for his administration’s violent war on drugs, said he conducted the killings himself to set an example for the police under his watch.

SEE ALSO: Philippines’ Duterte publicly admits to killing people

“In Davao I used to do it personally. Just to show to the guys (police) that if I can do it why can’t you,” he was quoted by the AFP as saying.

“And I’d go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also. I was really looking for a confrontation so I could kill.”

The White House said boasts by Duterte that he used to ride around on his motorcycle in search of criminals to put down are “deeply troubling“, while the United Nations human rights commission has urged the Philippines to launch a murder investigation.

Duterte served as Davao City mayor for nearly two decades. His rule was tainted by hundreds of extrajudicial killings and most, if not all, of the murders have been linked to him by critics.

According to the allegations, the murders were carried out by the Davao Death Squad (DDS) that Duterte himself had formed.

In September, during the Senate inquiry into the extrajudicial killings, a man named Edgar Matobato came forward with a confession that rocked media headlines. In his testimony, Matobato admitted that he had been a hitman with the DDS and that he had killed more than 50 people.

He also linked Duterte to the killings, claiming the president had ordered his group of hitmen to pursue his rival supporters, bomb a mosque and kill Muslims, and set up an ambush for Senator Leila de Lima when she ordered a probe on the string of murders.

Since Duterte entered office in June, more than 5,000 people have been killed in his war on drugs, some 2,000 at the hands of the police and a further 3,000 by vigilante groups.

Thai police call off raid on scandal-hit Buddhist temple

Buddhist monks pray at the gate of Wat Phra Dhammakaya temple in Pathum Thani province, north of Bangkok, Thailand, December 27, 2016. REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom---A woman wears a mask as she gathers at the gate of Wat Phra Dhammakaya temple in Pathum Thani province, north of Bangkok, Thailand, December 27, 2016. REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom

Police officers stand guard outside the Wat Phra Dhammakaya temple in Pathum Thani province, north of Bangkok, Thailand, December 27, 2016. REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom

 Tue Dec 27, 2016

Thai police on Tuesday called off a raid to arrest a prominent Buddhist monk wanted for suspected money laundering after devotees barricaded entrances to his sprawling temple complex in a Bangkok suburb.

The Wat Phra Dhammakaya Temple commands a huge following and is supported by influential politicians and business people, but critics say it exploits its followers and uses religion to make money.

Thailand's attorney general said in November it would charge the temple's abbot, Phra Dhammachayo, and four others with conspiracy to launder money and receive stolen goods.

Dhammachayo's aides have denied the accusations against him which they say are politically motivated.

Police have tried over the past few months to question the abbot and get into the temple, but without success.

On Tuesday, Reuters reporters saw hundreds of monks and devotees inside the temple, which is near the capital's Don Muang international airport.

Some people were barricading entrances, while others wore face masks and chanted Buddhist prayers.

Police removed part of a metal fence outside the complex but by early afternoon they had withdrawn from the site.

"We have cleared the fence from the area because it was illegally constructed," Khempak Photipak, the officer in charge of the police operation, told Reuters.

"We did not move into the temple today because there are too many people and we did not receive orders to do so," he said.

He gave no further details nor did he say when police might try to get into the temple again.

Temple officials said there were about 10,000 people in the complex.

The controversy over the abbot in part reflects more than a decade of divisive politics in Thailand, which has permeated all aspects of life, including Buddhism.

The abbot is widely perceived to have had links with populist former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in a 2006 coup. Thaksin has lived in self-exile since 2008 but remains influential.

The military overthrew a government led by his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, in 2014.

(Reporting by Aukkarapon Niyomyat and Cod Satrusayang; Writing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Robert Birsel)

Dutch IVF centre probes suspected sperm mix-up

The Utrecht University Medical Centre blamed a "procedural error"-JAMES KING-HOLMES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

• 28 December 2016

A Dutch IVF treatment centre has said that 26 women may have been fertilised by sperm from the wrong man.

The Utrecht University Medical Centre said a "procedural error" between April 2015 and November 2016 was to blame.

Half of the couples who underwent treatment are pregnant or have already had children. They have been informed, the medical centre said.

"The UMC's board regrets that the couples involved had to receive this news," the centre said in a statement.

The statement said: "During fertilisation, sperm cells from one treatment couple may have ended up with the egg cells of 26 other couples.

"Therefore there's a chance that the egg cells have been fertilised by sperm other than that of the intended father."

Although the chance of that happening was small, the possibility "could not be excluded," the centre added.

What went wrong?

The UMC carries out between 600 and 700 ICSI procedures every year-GETTY IMAGESImage caption

The technique at the centre of the mistake involved a single sperm being injected directly into a woman's egg with a pipette. It is called Intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and differs from in vitro fertilisation.

From April 2015 to November 2016, one of the lab technicians is believed to have used an inappropriate pipette to inject the sperm.

Although the pipette was changed each time, the technician used the same rubber top until he found traces of sperm in it and raised the alarm. The rubber top would normally have a filter, but in this case it did not, a hospital spokesman told the BBC.

Of the 26 couples involved, nine have had children and four women are pregnant. The other 13 embryos were all frozen.

All the couples are due to meet doctors from the centre in the coming days and will be offered the option of a DNA test.

The UMC carries out up to 700 ICSI procedures every year.

Dutch fertility support group Freya reacted with shock to the news. "Wanting a child is a very delicate thing, especially when it doesn't involve the normal bedroom way. So people need to have 100% confidence in the method they adopt," it said.

In 2012, a Singapore mother sued a clinic after it mixed up her husband's sperm with that of a stranger.

The woman, who was ethnically Chinese, suspected something was wrong when her baby had markedly different skin tone and hair colour from her Caucasian husband.

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முல்லைத்தீவு நகரில் நிர்மாணிக்கப்பட்டுவந்த காந்தி சிலை உடைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது

வன்னி மாவட்ட பாராளுமன்ற உறுப்பினர் வைத்தியகலாநிதி சிவமோகனின் பன்முகப்படுத்தப்பட்ட நிதி ஒதுக்கீட்டில் முல்லைமாவட்டத்தில் அமைக்கப்பட்டு வந்த சிலைகளில் ஒன்றான முல்லைநகரின் மத்தியில் உள்ள மகாத்மாகாந்தி சிலை நேற்று இரவு விஷமிகளால் உடைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.

கடந்த மாதம் முதல் இந்த சிலை நிர்மாணிக்கும் பணிகள் இடம்பெற்றுவந்த நிலையில் கடந்த முல்லைத்தீவு மாவட்ட அபிவிருத்திக்குழு கூட்டத்தில் இந்த சிலை அமைப்பது தொடர்பில் பல்வேறு விவாதங்கள் இடம்பெற்ற நிலையில் இந்த சம்பவம் இடம்பெற்றுள்ளது.

இந்த சிலை உடைப்பு தொடர்பில் முல்லைத்தீவு பொலிஸ் நிலையத்தில் பாராளுமன்ற உறுப்பினர் சிவமோகனால் முறையிடப்பட்டுள்ள நிலையில் பொலிஸார் மேலதிக விதிசாரணைகளை முன்னெடுத்துள்ளனர்.

முல்லை நகரில் இந்த சிலை அமைக்க வேண்டாம் என சமூகவலைத்தளங்களில் பல்வேறு விவாதங்களும் முன்வைப்பட்டு வந்தமையும் குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது.

Tamil politicians squabble over damaged Gandhi statue in Mullaitivu



2016-12-27

Two leading Tamil politicians of North Sri Lanka, both belonging to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), are squabbling over a controversial statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Mullaitivu town which was found destroyed on Monday. 

TNA Member of Parliament Dr.Sivamohan had installed the statue recently, with the money given to him by the government for carrying out social and development works in Wanni electoral district, his constituency.

 He told Express on Tuesday that the installation of the statue was part of his project to honour heroes, and that he had put up statues of Mother Teresa, poet Subramania Bharathi, and the local hero, Pandara Vanniyan, in several places with explicit consent from the authorities. 

He was however shocked to find that Gandhi’s statue in Mullaitivu town, which he had put up recently, had been pulled down. 

“Miscreants encouraged by a local politician had done it. I have asked the police to investigate,” the MP said. He declined to name the local politician. 

“This local politician had been encouraging a social media campaign against the installation of the statue on the grounds that Gandhi had done nothing for the people of Mullaitivu,” Sivamohan said. 

Asked to comment on the charge that he had put up the statue without official sanction, Sivamohan said that he had it cleared by the District Coordination Committee.(DCC). 

“The DCC meeting was attended by the Northern Province Chief Minister. In addition to getting the sanction of the DCC, I had written to the Central Resettlement Minister D.M.Swaminathan and he had approved of it in writing,” Sivamohan explained. 

Asked to comment on this, T. Ravikaran, a TNA member of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) who has been against Sivamohan’s project, said that he has nothing against Gandhi or the installation of a statue in his honour in Mullaitivu. His opposition stemmed from the unauthorised way in which it had been put up.

 “The statue does not have the authorisation of the local Pradheshiya Sabha,” Ravikaran contended. 

“The installation was done in secrecy on a holiday and in the dead of night,” he said.

 Ravikaran said that forces wanting to put up Buddha states in the Tamil areas might be encouraged by the way in which the Gandhi statue was up.

 “These forces could also put up Buddha statues without proper authorisation,” he said.

 “When the Tamils are protesting against the unauthorised installation of Buddha statues in areas in the North where there are no Buddhists, how can we allow the unauthorised putting up of a Gandhi statue?” he asked.

 Ravikaran refuted the charge that the Gandhi statue had been pulled down deliberately. 

“It may have fallen on its own, toppled by the wind. At any rate, the CCTV footage would show if someone had deliberately pulled it down,” he said. 

He further said that about four local boys have been taken in by the police for questioning. (New Indian Express)