Isn’t It Time For Sri Lankan Muslims To Reassess Their Politics?

Written by Latheef Farook-Feb 13, 2017

SLMC abandoned Muslims for positions and perks; Isn’t it time for Muslims to reassess their politics?

Spate of latest scandals involving Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) parliamentarians and its leadership demand that the Muslim community should reassess their politics and free itself from this party which, many accuse, betrayed the community for positions and perks .

Isn’t It Time For Sri Lankan Muslims To Reassess Their Politics.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

VC Election In Jaffna: Will The North’s Wilted Intellectual Life Bloom Once More?

February 13, 2017

Colombo Telegraph reliably learns of moves to suppress the application of Prof. Sam Thiagalingam, the sole external candidate for the post of Vice Chancellor at the University of Jaffna. Prof. Thiagalingam, whose application was posted in the US on 27^th December and received on 17^th January, a day after the deadline, is an eminent scholar in Biomedical Sciences. An alumnus of the University of Jaffna, he is currently teaching in the School of Medicine in Boston University, USA. Our inquiries reveal that the present administration of the University of Jaffna and one or more internal members of the University Council, who are also running for the post of Vice Chancellor, were behind moves to scuttle his application.

Prof. Sam Thiagalingam

In separate letters sent to the Vice Chancellor and officers of the University and members of the Council, the University of Jaffna Teachers’ Association (UJTA) and Jaffna University Science Teachers’ Association (JUSTA) note that there were strong indications that Prof. Thiagalingam’s application could be rejected on spurious reasons as the fortuitous postal delay. The two university teachers’ associations have also requested the Council to declare itself on Prof. Thiagalingam’s application without prolonging the uncertainty.

The two unions point out that the appointment of a vice chancellor is so important that the University appointed a Search Committee of senior academics to caste its net worldwide to find candidates with high academic attainment for the position. Academics have also pointed to the Search Committee as part of the web of malfeasance, given that its search failed to turn up any distinguished candidate and, besides, it was chaired by a dean whose husband is an internal candidate for the position. It was, the teachers’ unions point out, simply ‘our good fortune’ that Prof. Thiagalingam came to know of this need. Further, the Council, when it met on 28th January, was misled from the chair by legal advice, reportedly solicited by phone ex parte, that Prof. Thiagalingam’s application should be rejected on account of the delay in its receipt. Further uncertainty over Prof. Thiagalingam’s candidacy will be seen by the larger community as a conspiracy to withhold the quality it expects from the Institution.

The UJTA’s letter ends with an appeal to the Council to consider the application of Prof. Thiagalingam so that that University community can assure the people of the North repeatedly deprived of the services of persons of high moral and intellectual standing that the future of higher education in the region is in safer and better hands.

In the 1990s, the University became in effect a fiefdom wedged between the conflicting demands of parties to the war. Academics learnt to live in their own small world, scarred by its stifling internal power politics. This transmuted into a form of xenophobia and systematic exclusion of talent from outside who would challenge atrophied local norms. The war ended and with it one form of patronage. But the leaders of the fiefdom were inventive enough to secure new patrons in the EPDP and, with it, the existing hierarchy with a new populist line advancing a huge dose of religion. The concomitant attack on secularism results in unwritten rules for exclusion in hiring of academics. Both the authorities in Colombo and the Tamils’ elected leaders acted as though they were bent on keeping the moribund norms intact, regardless of their cost to quality.

As Jaffna University Science Teachers’ Association (JUSTA) indicates, the norms were seen in the 2014 VC election, where internal power brokers backing a second term for the Vice Chancellor, worked intimately with political bosses in the EPDP who exercised the whip, and with near total success determined how the three votes of each council member were cast. The current VC got 96 percent approval instead of the expected 100. The Dean of Arts who was suspected to have broken ranks was given a torrid time.

Four of the five deans contesting now were patronized by the outgoing VC and three of them were active power brokers in fixing the 2014 election. This time they have to undercut one another, but are united with the VC’s backing in keeping the strong outside candidate out. Given their past record, they would stoop however low, the teachers say, to keep Prof. Thiagalingam out. The Vice Chancellor had supported them, sowing confusion with pretended legal advice.

JUSTA’s letter to the Council is significant given its struggle with the University administration since 2014 against rank favoritism and abuse in recruitment that has lowered standards. It demanded fair and transparent processes and practices in the recruitment of academic and non-academic staff to the University of Jaffna. JUSTA investigated a number of detailed cases of alleged discrimination against well-qualified candidates who applied for academic positions at the University of Jaffna and submitted its findings to the public via the media and the relevant authorities including the University Grants Commission and elected regional representatives, and the new Council members who were appointed following the regime change in 2015.

JUSTA notes that although there was a change of regime in the country, there was none in the University. It also states that the old regime by showering its patronage, and punishing those who did not toe its line, was successfully reasserting itself and that the unions and academic staff were cowed by the vindictiveness of this disposition.

Both unions in their advocacy have given vent to protest that was long stifled. Several academics who shun power games allege that some of the deans well placed in the contest have connived at shaping the corrupt system and have acted with considerable impunity. They complain of deans who keep accomplished senior applicants out, have doctored marks to keep down promising students and have used junior staff for domestic and menial labour at their homes.

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When Elections? Whom to Blame?

S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole-February 12, 2017
Member, Election Commission

Despite the Nineteenth Amendment, most newspapers write of the nonexistent Election Commissioner. An Island editorial (11.02.2017) reports a meeting of the Joint Opposition (JO) with the Election Commission (EC) where all three members were present, as with the Commissioner.

When Elections Whom to Blame.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Sri Lanka: Whither Free Education — Crying for justice

Education is a right and not a privilege. This country is said to have a free education system. If so, how come this kind of gross discrimination against the underprivileged children has come to be taken for granted? There is nobody to safeguard the rights of the students who cannot even enter the science stream for no fault of theirs.

by Prabath Sahabandu- Feb 13, 2017

( February 13, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A female student, who secured distinctions for all three subjects at the GCE A/L examination in the Arts stream from the Moneragala District in 2015 has been denied university admission. She was seen on television struggling, in vain, to hold back her tears rolling down her youthful cheeks on Saturday. R. M. Saumya said the University Grants Commission (UGC) claimed that it had not received her online application for registration, which she had sent through a cyber café in a nearby town as she did not have Internet access at home or in her village. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Minister of Higher Education and Highways Lakshman Kirielle has said he will ensure that justice is done. It is incumbent upon him to honour his word without delay because the newly introduced online registration scheme has caused numerous problems to rural students. Government politicians are living in cloud cuckoo land. They are talking of Google balloons, free Wi-Fi zones, tablet PCs for students in Grade 12 and 13 and relaying market data to loincloth-clad farmers via mobile phones. But, many students who pass the GCE A/L examination are without facilities for online registration.

Some ultra radical elements successfully used slogans such as ‘colombata kiri, gamata kekiri’ (‘milk for Colombo and melon for the village) to tap the pent-up frustration of the rural youth and brainwash them into sacrificing their precious lives in the name of liberation. Even these self-proclaimed revolutionaries are silent on the despicable discrimination against the underprivileged children in the field of education.

Saumya’s plight has come to light at a time when university students, academics, politicians and some civil society activists have taken up cudgels for the rights of medical undergraduates in state universities. Children of the rural poor are in this predicament owing to a glaring urban bias in the resource allocation for education. It needs to be added that even in the urban areas only the privileged schools are on the radar screen of the powers that be and the education high-ups; there are many neglected small schools in Colombo and its suburbs.

Many students like Saumya, in rural backwaters, would opt for the GCE A/L science stream if the required facilities were available at their schools. Their parents help maintain medical and engineering faculties by paying indirect taxes, but their progeny cannot at least enter the race for admission to those coveted institutions.

Education is a right and not a privilege. This country is said to have a free education system. If so, how come this kind of gross discrimination against the underprivileged children has come to be taken for granted? There is nobody to safeguard the rights of the students who cannot even enter the science stream for no fault of theirs. It is reported from time to time that some of the bright rural students who succeed in realising their dream of entering medical and engineering faculties, amidst difficulties, drop out, unable to follow lectures in the English medium.

If all people are equal and there is a free education system in this country, then each and every student should be able to gain access to a school where the subject stream of his or her choice is available. Visionary statesman, worthy of holy veneration, C. W. W. Kannangara, set up the Central Colleges as part of a strategy to help every student regardless of his or her parents’ station in life to receive a decent education. Had successive governments followed his progressive policies, sons and daughters of the rural masses would not have been in this predicament today.

When state power was devolved to the periphery through the provincial council system, people at the grassroots level were assured that they would be given a better deal. But, their lot hasn’t improved in any way as evident from the plight of Saumya and others like her. Their schools remain underdeveloped while provincial politicians are preoccupied with national issues and lining their pockets.

Saumya is certainly not alone in this predicament. There must be many other rural children dwelling among the untrodden ways, suffering in silence. Who will fight for their rights which are being blatantly violated?

The writer is the editor of the Island, a Colombo based daily newspaper where this piece was originally appeared. 

MR’s statement on Hambantota Port raises serious questions 

Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Recently, MP and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa issued a statement on Hambantota Port; extracts from his statement:

1. The loans taken for the construction of Hambantota harbour were $450 million for the first phase, $70 million for the bunkering facility and $802 million for the second phase, bringing the total to around $1,322 million.

MR’s statement on Hambantota Port raises serious questions.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

300 politicians to get axed?

February 13, 2017

A list of 300 names of politicians who have not handed over declaration of Assets & Liabilities has been sent to Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption for further action says the Chairman of Elections Commission Mahinda Deshapriya.

If the politicians who have not declared their assets and liabilities are found guilty they would not be able to contest the forthcoming election state Bribery Commission sources.

Among the politicians who have not declared their Assets & Liabilities are current provincial council members, chairmen, candidates who were defeated at the last general election, former mayors and UC chairmen, former chairmen of Pradeshiya Sabhas, former MPs and Ministers. Mr. Mahinda Deshapriya said the Bribery Commission would take legal action against the 300 politicians.

The office bearers of political parties too are expected to declare their assets and liabilities. The Election Commission has decided to give them two more weeks to hand over their declarations. The Commissioner said a list of those office bearers of political parties would be sent to the Bribery Commission by the 28th of this month.

A news item published by ‘Ravaya’ on the first page of its issue on 01.01.2017 had stated that the JVP also was a party that had not submitted income and liabilities of its office bearers. However, when the General Secretary of the JVP Tilvin Silva pointed out that all office bearers of the JVP had already submitted declarations of assets and liabilities to the Speaker, the newspaper had to publish an apology for publishing a falsehood.

Why Mahinda Rajapaksa is not arrested if all are equal before the law?

Feb 13, 2017

Citizens who value justice question as to why the law is not taking its course against ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, against whom a presidential commission has made findings to support accusations that he had obtained Rs. 160 million from ITN.

The commission sent its report of findings more than three months ago to the attorney general, but Mahinda is yet to be arrested or prosecuted.

Commenting on this, law-abiding citizens say Sri Lanka’s politics is nothing but deals. They are of the view that the person in power is using the wrongs of his predecessor to blackmail him for his own existence.

Mahinda also escaped from the charges of tsunami aid swindling through Helping Hambantota in 2004, with the support of the then government and chief justice at the time Sarath Nanda Silva. Later, Silva apologized to the nation for not having sent Mahinda to prison, but is now in his camp.

Ranjan submits first RTI applications




2017-02-13 22

Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayaka today submitted the first application under the Right to Information (RTI) to the Mass Media and Parliamentary Reforms Ministry to obtain information on the 26 TV channels currently operating in the country.

 He said there was no system to correct or reply an erroneous news item aired over electronic media when these TV channels make insidious, unethical and unlawful attacks on individuals.

 He handed over the application to Ministry Secretary H.D.S. Malkanthi. 

She told the deputy minister that the ministry would supply the information sought within 14 days. 

The deputy minister told ministry officials that there are 26 TV channels in operation right now while the licenses of certain TV channels like CSN had been suspended. 

The officials told him that there was no system to respond to the electronic media when a person was attacked repeatedly but sufficient safeguards would be incorporated in the new Media Commission Bill to be enacted shortly by the Government. 

He told the media that he had been proved correct with regard to the Akkaragama episode where he raised his voice against illegal soil mining and even President Maithripala Sirisena had accepted that fact. 

“I acted on a request by the people in the area to intervene and I revealed that corrupt public officials were conniving with illegal sand miners. That is why they are now keeping mum after asking me to apologize which I refused to do. The SLFP politician who confronted me is also carrying out illegal sand mining with the help of his family members,” the deputy minister alleged. 

He told reporters that he would expose the illegal and unethical acts of certain TV channels after he obtained the information from the Mass Media and Parliamentary Reforms Ministry and added that a mechanism was necessary to protect people who come forward to protect the rights of the people from being attacked by the media. (Sandun A Jayasekera) 

Arjuna Mahendran, the favourite ‘whipping boy’ of our times!  

By Janitha Devapriya-Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Arjuna Mahendran, the former Governor of the Central Bank, has become the favourite whipping boy for Government critics, Joint Opposition and the JVP, now running through the fifth month.

Ever since the COPE Report on the bond issue of 27 February 2015 was presented to Parliament in October 2016, the former Governor has become the focus for criticisms against the ‘Yahapalanaya’ Government and he continues to occupy prominent space both in print and electronic media, the latest being the charges levelled by the Head of Voice Against Corruption(VAC) Wasantha Samarasinghe at a media briefing on 5 February.

The headlines in print media the next day in bold print said, “Mahendran spent Rs. 66 m for his own purposes: VAC”. Samarasinghe said his “allegations were based on an audit report prepared by the CB’s Internal Audit Department and that the money allegedly embezzled was second only to the infamous bond issue, in which Mahendran is also said to be involved”.

How was the report acquired?

In the light of these disclosures, it is only right that one examines the circumstances, background data and the nature of the allegations made by VAC. Firstly, how did VAC, for that matter the other critics too, acquire an Internal Audit Report of the Central Bank which is said to be a strictly confidential document?

In terms of the oath of secrecy pledged by all employees of the Central Bank, confidential information that employees receive through their employment must not be divulged to anyone other than persons who are authorised to receive the information both during their employment and after they terminate their employment. As well, employees must not use confidential information, or their ability to access such information, for the purpose of furthering any private interest or as a means of making personal gains.

An internal Audit Report is meant for the Board of Directors or the Audit Committee. One may argue that the report can be obtained under Right To Information Act No. 12 of 2016 but that too under provisions of Clause 5 ( 1 ) ( a ). But the procedure in respect of Central Bank, which is subject to rigorous confidentiality rules, is not clear or operative as yet.

Internal Audit as we understand is, “ frequent or ongoing audit conducted by an organisation’s own officers or accountants (as opposed to independent external auditors ) to (1) monitor operating results, (2) verify financial records, (3) evaluate internal controls, (4) assist with increasing efficiency and effectiveness of operations and, (5) to detect fraud. Internal audit can identify control problems, and aims at correcting lapses before they are discovered during an external audit”.

In this particular matter, the Internal Auditors would have considered internal control aspect and detect or prevent fraudulent aspect in the expenses alleged to have been incurred 163 times by the former Governor during the 21-month tenure, particularly during his travels abroad.

Mahendran’s expenses

Let us have a rough estimate of probable expenses that may be incurred by a person of the stature of Governor Central Bank during an official visit abroad, necessitated by the needs of the country. See the hypothetical example like a three-day visit to London in the table.

These figures are based on usual perks available to heads of key Government institutions. If the Governor undertook say 15 foreign visits on behalf of the Government or the Central Bank, the travelling expenses alone would have amounted to around Rs. 13 million. So he may have had to incur other expenses too in official capacity during his tenure as Governor and overall, the Rs. 66 million highlighted as excessive does not appear to be so.

In State institutions, all expenses incurred by a State Officer have to be supported by invoices and bills and required to furnish a statement of expenses. All such expenses are then authorised for payment by the Administration Unit only after scrutiny. If some items of expenditure incurred by Mahendran had not been supported by invoices, the administrative officer passing such payments should be called up to explain how he or she approved them and the person in charge of Administration should have looked into such instances before an Internal Audit finds the lapses if any.

Mahendran in his statement refuting the allegations stated that he incurred all expenses under proper procedures and they have been audited by the Auditor General. State Minister of Finance Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene too repeated the same allegations at a media briefing a few days ago.

Usually, in any organisation, misuse of facilities or funds if found by the management through internal audit or other methodology, the officer accused of such misuse or abuse would be asked for explanation and if no satisfactory answers are given, further suitable action is pursued including interdiction, depriving remuneration or allowances and after inquiry, dismissal. It is not known whether such a procedure was followed in respect of former Governor Mahendran and all charges and allegations appear to be made through the media without a right of reply.

If the allegations are true and supported by documentary and other evidence, why wait for the Presidential Commission? The authorities can initiate criminal action through a complaint to the appropriate Police Division and bring him to justice. It would have been ethical if State Minister Abeywardene refrained from making these allegations through the media as the subject of Central Bank does not come within the purview of his official position and the charges are yet not known to be properly ascertained or proved.

Not a fraud

Even in the COPE report, though its final recommendations included legal proceedings against Mahendran, careful study of the entire report does not indicate that the case against former Governor is firmly established and it was more of a finding on possible losses resulting from abrupt changes in procedure rather than any fraudulent activity. The alleged loss estimated by the Auditor General was also questioned because he based his calculations on the wrong premise of direct placements whereas the recommended legal procedure was Public Auction.

Fraud as everyone knows should have five elements, namely, a false statement of a material fact, knowledge on the part of the perpetrator that the representation or statement is untrue, intent on the part of the perpetrator to deceive the alleged victim, justifiable reliance by the alleged victim and injury (legal) to the victim. It was not possible for COPE to determine who the perpetrator (former Governor, Perpetual Treasuries or CBSL officials?) is and who the victim (Central Bank, Government or other person?) is by perusal of evidence placed before it.

There is no apparent person or persons who made false representations at the bond auction in question. Therefore it is not right for anyone to term the alleged bond auction as a fraud unless it is determined by the Attorney General after careful and deep study of the entire process and scrutiny of the evidence submitted. It is also not correct to define the said bond issue as a scam (fraudulent scheme for obtaining money, like the pyramid scheme).

The COPE Chairman, JVP and Joint Opposition Parliamentarians and commentators in the media defined the bond issue in question as a fraud or a scam. Prof. G.L. Peiris recently stated that Attorney General has proffered the opinion that the findings in the COPE report cannot be pursued as a criminal case but it can only be taken up in courts as a civil matter. If this is true, then the Attorney General may have determined that the bond issue cannot be classified as a fraud.

Perpetual Treasuries 

In the case of Perpetual Treasuries too, it appears that the Central Bank is somewhat helpless because they may have engaged in their trade within the parameters prescribed and the Central Bank had only curtailed their activities without cancelling their Primary Dealership license. The exorbitant profits allegedly earned by the company may need to be investigated but nothing apparently is being done.

The other allegation of Perpetual Treasuries engaging in bond dealings higher in proportion than the others because of the connection of Aloysius to the former Governor which may amount to insider trading, a serious offence, was not even hinted at COPE proceedings and no evidence in this regard was submitted. Such insider trading could have taken place with the connivance of other Central Bankers instead of Mahendran but such allegations were also not made.

In conclusion, I must say one can only see the truth when the findings of the Presidential Commission on the bond issue of 27 February 2015 are one day published, hoping it would be sooner than later. So, in the meantime, it is not fair to go on beating Mahendran as an unscrupulous individual without the facts being established and proved.

FCID officers' narrow escape, a fiction by Gota – Ravi Vidyalankara

Feb 13, 2017

When contacted over a weekend ‘Sathhanda’ newspaper article, director of the FCID senior DIG Ravindra Vidyalankara refuted its content and accused ex-defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and his loyalists of having fabricated a falsehood.

He said he was well aware of the protocol to follow when visiting a foreign country to investigate crime, and that he has never violated such traditions. Vidyalanka said he or the FCID had nothing to do with what had happened in the UAE.

Vidyalankara said that they had gone to the US for an internal fact finding mission after informing the State Department in advance through the diplomatic mission. He denied claims the FCID had gone there to question a person by the name Malraj de Silva, or that FBI lawyers acting on behalf of him tried to arrest them. The senior DIG said the FBI or the Sri Lankan consul general Swarna Perera could be contacted to verify the truth of what he said. The foreign ministry got us visas to go to the US, he said, adding that those who swindled Sri Lankan public’s money knew they would face a dangerous situation and want to sabotage the investigations.

The media loyal to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is exaggerating such attempts, he said, adding the result of their investigation would be known soon. All the investigations were conducted with FBI collaboration and even a farewell dinner was hosted for the FCID officials by the FBI, he added.

Blast kills at least 13 in Pakistani city of Lahore, 83 injured

Police and rescue workers work at the scene of a blast in Lahore, Pakistan February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer--A policeman carries one of the injured after a blast in Lahore, Pakistan February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Mohsin Raza

A policeman stands guard at the scene after a blast in Lahore, Pakistan February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Mohsin Raza--People check the condition of a victim after a blast in Lahore, Pakistan February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Mohsin Raza

By Mubasher Bukhari | LAHORE, PAKISTAN- Mon Feb 13, 2017

An explosion near the Punjab provincial assembly in the Pakistani city of Lahore killed at least 13 people and wounded 83 others on Monday, a senior police official said.

Mushtaq Sukhera, inspector general of police in Punjab province, said five police officers were among the dead when an explosion rocked a protest organised by Pakistan's chemists and pharmaceuticals manufacturers.

"It was a suicide attack. The bomber exploded himself when successful negotiations were underway between police officials and the protesters," Sukhera told reporters.

A spokesman for Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, called Reuters and claimed responsibility.

The militant group also warned the Lahore attack was the start of a new campaign against government departments. "You are on our target across the country," it added in a statement.

Jamaat-ur-Ahrar had also claimed responsibility for an Easter Day bombing in Lahore last year that killed more than 70 people in a public park.

Security in Pakistan has vastly improved in recent years but Islamist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State still pose a threat and have carried out mass attacks.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the attacks will not weaken Pakistan's resolve in fight against militancy.

"We have fought this fight against the terrorists among us, and will continue to fight it until we liberate our people of this cancer, and avenge those who have laid down their lives for us," he said in a statement.

The latest blast may jeopardize plans by Pakistan, a cricket-obsessed nation, to host the final of its domestic Twenty20 tournament on home soil in Lahore in March.

For years, Pakistan's international test cricket matches have been played abroad and the current Twenty20 tournament is being played in United Arab Emirates due to security fears.

(Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore; Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad and Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar; Writing by Drazen Jorgic,; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Syrian army 'used chemical bombs in co-ordinated Aleppo assault'

Human Rights Watch lists eight chlorine gas attacks in Syrian city, saying all preceded general advances by forces into rebel areas

A man is treated for suspected chlorine poisoning in an Aleppo hospital (screengrab)

Monday 13 February 2017

Syrian government forces conducted coordinated chemical attacks in opposition-controlled parts of Aleppo during the final month of the battle for the city, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

The rights group said it collected evidence that showing government helicopters dropping chlorine bombs in residential areas on at least eight occasions between 17 November and 13 December. 

HRW said the attacks killed at least nine civilians, including four children, and injured another 200.

The attacks took place in areas where government forces planned to advance, HRW said - showing a coordinated strategy.

"The pattern of the chlorine attacks shows that they were coordinated with the overall military strategy for retaking Aleppo, not the work of a few rogue elements," said Ole Solvang, the group's deputy emergencies director.

"The UN Security Council shouldn’t let Syrian authorities or anyone else who has used chemical weapons get away without consequences."

HRW urged the Security Council to impose sanctions on senior leaders in Syria and called on the Syrian government to stop using chemicals as weapons - a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention - and fully cooperate with a UN-appointed investigation, the Joint Investigative Mechanism, which had already identified military units responsible for earlier attacks using chlorine in Syria.

The actual number of chemical attacks in Aleppo between November 17 and December 13 could be higher than the eight documented in this report, the group said. It stressed its report included only those attack that could be corroborated with witnesses and journalists.

It noted that its report could not conclusively say the agent used was chlorine, but odours and symptoms presented by victims indicated as such.

"Those affected had trouble breathing, they were coughing hard, they were nauseated, some people fainted, some had foam coming from their mouth," a first responder for several attacks said.

"The chemicals would affect children most severely... they inhale and they end up suffocating."

One of the cannisters HRW said contained chlorine gas (HRW)

High level of exposure to chlorine can lead to suffocation, as the chemical injuries produced from the dissolution of chlorine in the mucous membranes of the pulmonary airways result in severe buildup of fluid in the lungs.

Children and older people are particularly susceptible to the effects of chlorine gas.

Witnesses also said they observed a yellow or yellow-green smoke near the impact site of at least four attacks. In two attacks, journalists nearby captured the smoke on video. Chlorine is yellowish-green in its gaseous form.

For five of the chemical attacks, HRW reviewed photographs or video of remnants of the chemical-filled improvised munitions posted online or shared directly with Human Rights Watch.

Witnesses sometimes referred to the munitions as barrels or bombs. In all five incidents, the footage shows the same type of yellow gas cylinder. A label still visible on the remnant from one attack shows a warning that the cylinder contained gas.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons, and has often stated any use was by "terrorists" it was fighting. 

White House official refuses to say if Donald Trump supports Michael Flynn

Stephen Miller says ‘it’s not for me to tell’ whether Trump supports national security adviser, who reportedly spoke with Russia about sanctions relief

The White House national security adviser, Michael Flynn, arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Alan Yuhas-Monday 13 February 2017

A senior White House official has refused to say if Donald Trump supports his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who reportedly spoke with Russia’s ambassador about sanctions relief weeks before the new president took office.

“It’s not for me to tell you what’s in the president’s mind,” Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser to Trump, told NBC’s Meet the Press. “That’s a question for the president. Asked and answered.”

Asked if the White House had given him any guidance on Flynn’s position, Miller said: “They did not give me anything to say.”

Against a backdrop of potentially hazardous international flashpoints, including North Korean ballistic missile tests and intensified civil war in Ukraine, the president’s closest aide would normally be his national security adviser. Trump has kept Flynn close ever since the retired lieutenant general became one of few former Pentagon chiefs to back his campaign.

But Flynn has also long held links to the Kremlin, including appearances on the propaganda arm RT, and has few allies in the intelligence agencies, from which he was acrimoniously ousted during the Obama administration.

In December, weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Flynn spoke with Russia’s ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, by phone. He and Vice-President Mike Pence denied that he spoke with Kislyak about sanctions placed on high-level officials by the US government, which could have violated a federal law that bars private citizens from interfering in diplomatic disputes.

On Thursday, however, nine current and former officials told the Washington Post that Flynn had in fact discussed sanctions, imposed over Russian actions in Ukraine and hacking political parties in the 2016 US election.

A spokesman for Flynn subsequently reversed course, saying the former general “couldn’t be certain” that he had not discussed sanctions. The White House said Pence had only heard about the call from Flynn.

More than a day after the publication of the report, Trump professed ignorance about it, saying he would “look into” the call. Leading Democrats, including the ranking member on the intelligence committee, have called for an FBI investigation.

Trump was expected to be asked about Flynn at a press conference with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on Monday. On Monday morning the Kremlin denied that Flynn and Kislyak had spoken about lifting sanctions.

Flynn emerged as an obstreperous force during the campaign and become an ally of the president’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Both men remain close to Trump despite the tides of criticism washing over them.

Beyond Flynn’s friendliness toward Russia and his poor relations with intelligence agencies – the CIA rejected a security clearance for one of his aides this week – his son personally provoked Trump’s wrath for peddling a conspiracy theory about a Washington pizza shop.

Bannon, a businessman who formerly ran Breitbart News – a website popular with the far right and known for its racist and sexist articles – prompted bipartisan alarm when he was named to the National Security Council in a post outranking the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the director of national intelligence.

Miller, himself close to Bannon, seemed to allude to backstage machinations which have produced a steady stream of leaks to the press from White House aides critical of each other.

“It’s a sensitive matter,” Miller said on NBC. “General Flynn has served his country admirably. He served his country with distinction.”

As if on cue after Miller’s appearance, the president tweeted from his weekend stay at his south Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, where he was hosting Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe.

“Congratulations Stephen Miller,” the president wrote, “on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!”

Trump is an avid viewer of cable news, despite his protestations to the contrary, but the White House fielded few representatives on Sunday’s news shows. The New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, who was ousted from Trump’s transition team by the businessman’s son-in-law, told CNN’s State of the Union that Trump, Pence and Flynn would have to meet about whether the general deliberately misled the vice-president.

“That’s a conversation he is going to need to have with the president and the vice-president to clear that up,” Christie said, “so that the White House can make sure that they are completely accurate about what went on.”

On Saturday night, the president had little to say about North Korea’s missile test. “I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, it’s great ally, 100%,” Trump said.

“North Korea must fully comply with the relevant UN security council resolutions,” Abe said, adding that the launch “absolutely intolerable”.

Miller told Fox News Sunday: “The message is that we are going to reinforce and strengthen our vital alliances in the Pacific region.”

The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said he was sure North Korea was “testing” Trump.

“I was glad he issued the statement with the prime minister of Japan,” Schumer said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “But he also ought to do it quickly with South Korea.

“South Korea is probably more susceptible to North Korea’s virulence than any other country. And there was some doubt cast on the relationship in the campaign by then candidate Trump.”

Trump’s remarks on Saturday fell in line with conventional US foreign policy – and not campaign suggestions that Asian countries should build nuclear arsenalsor pay the US more to defend them.

Earlier this week, Trump similarly backed down from his suggestion that the US would not recognize Beijing’s “One China” policy, and might instead review Taiwan’s status of independence.