Peace for the World

Peace for the World
First democratic leader of Justice the Godfather of the Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Honourable Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Palestinian was on way to chemotherapy when shot by soldiers

Muhammad Amer Jallad (via Quds)
Ahmad al-Kharroubi (via B’Tselem)

Maureen Clare Murphy-17 February 2017

A Palestinian man was on his way to a chemotherapy session when he was shot by Israeli soldiers last November, his family told an Israeli journalist this week.

Muhammad Amar Jallad was being treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his family told Haaretz reporter Gideon Levy. Jallad was reported to have died in an Israeli hospital where he was being treated for his injuries last week.

The Israeli army claimed that Jallad was attempting to attack soldiers with a screwdriver when he was shot in the northern West Bank village of Huwwara on 9 November.

A witness told the Ma’an News Agency that he saw Jallad “attempting to cross the road in Huwwara before being shot at by an Israeli soldier who then took out a knife and threw it next to the youth.”

Shot while running across road

Jallad’s father told Haaretz that his son had set out from their home in Tulkarem that morning for the nearby city of Nablus, where he was being treated at the An-Najah National University Hospital.

When Jallad realized he had mistakenly boarded a shared taxi heading to Ramallah, rather than Nablus, Levy reported, “The driver suggested that he get off at Huwwara junction, next to the checkpoint of that name, where he would be able to pick up the taxi to Nablus.”

Jallad exited the vehicle and began to cross the road.

“He did so on the run,” according to Levy. “On the other side was an [Israeli army] jeep and a few soldiers, who were guarding the busy junction. The soldiers apparently thought that he was out to attack them.”

Jallad was shot with one bullet to the stomach as he reached the middle of the road, Haaretz recounted. A Palestinian ambulance crew happened to drive by and attempted to evacuate Jallad, but Israeli forces prevented them from doing so.

He was eventually evacuated in an Israeli ambulance and taken to a hospital.

During the months of hospitalization before his death, Jallad was put under the custody of an Israeli military court. His family were kept in the dark about his condition and were prevented from seeing him.

Jallad’s father was denied a permit to enter Israel and though his mother was issued a permit on four occasions, only once was she allowed to enter her son’s hospital room.

The family looked up one of his doctors online and called him last Friday. It was only then that Jallad’s family learned that he had died, they told Haaretz. They still have not been informed of the date and cause of his death.

Israel transferred Jallad’s body to his family on 17 February. The Ma’an News Agency reported that his body will be examined in the presence of Palestinian legal officials before being buried on Saturday.

Israel has withheld the remains of dozens of Palestinians slain during alleged and actual attacks since late 2015.

Earlier this month, Israel transferred the body of Muhammad Zeidan, a 16-year-old who was shot and killed by a private security guard at a Jerusalem-area checkpoint in late November.

Medical neglect of child prisoner

The health of a Palestinian child with leukemia who is being held in an Israeli military detention center has “seriously deteriorated,” a lawyer with the Palestinian Authority committee on prisoners’ affairs stated this week.

Ahmad al-Khadour, 15, has “suffered from a stroke, feet problems, intense dizziness, and muscle contractions in his fingers,” Luay Ukka told media.

The boy has been detained since 2 January, when he was assaulted by Israeli forces who beat him with the butts of their rifles, Ukka said.

The Jerusalem Committee for the Families of Prisoners also reported that the Israel Prison Service had transferred Azmi al-Daqaq, 28, to a hospital after his health deteriorated.

Al-Daqaq is being held without charge or trial under military detention order after he was detained on 20 January “over an alleged stabbing attempt,” the Ma’an News Agency reported.

Palestinians have frequently accused Israel of medical neglect of prisoners. Last September, a prisoner died from a heart condition after reportedly receiving inadequate treatment in prison.

In December, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies released a report claiming that 32 Palestinian prisoners are not receiving adequate medical care for their different conditions.
Some 6,500 Palestinians were imprisoned by Israel as of January.

Teen posed no danger when killed

Smiling young man looks in direction of camera
Ahmad al-Kharroubi (via B’Tselem)
The Israeli rights group B’Tselem stated this month that a Palestinian teenager who was shot by Israeli forces last December posed no danger to soldiers when he was killed.

Ahmad al-Kharroubi, 19, was slain in the Jerusalem-area town of Kufr Aqab when soldiers raided in the middle of the night to seal the home of a Palestinian killed during a shooting attack.

Al-Kharroubi was hiding behind a low wall and “apparently attempted to throw stones at Border Police officers and soldiers” at a roadblock some 80 to 100 meters away from him when he was hit with a live bullet, according to B’Tselem.

Al-Kharroubi, who was shot in the neck, was evacuated to a hospital but was declared dead upon arrival.
B’Tselem stated that “no incendiary device” was thrown at soldiers from the area where al-Kharroubi was positioned. Given the distance the unarmed youths were from the soldiers, “they could not pose any danger,” the group added.

B’Tselem also stated that the punitive sealing of the home was an illegal act of collective punishment that “that led to the pointless death of this young man.”
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Syrian opposition says ready for Geneva talks, but Assad must go


UN, other parties to peace efforts, soften expectations of breakthrough with US policy on crisis in disarray, ties with Russia unclear
UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura speaks at 53rd Munich Security Conference in Germany on Sunday (AFP)

Reuters-Sunday 19 February 2017
The Syrian opposition is fully committed to peace talks in Geneva on 23 February, a senior official said on Sunday, adding that the talks must pave the way for a political transition.
"We are fully committed for the Geneva talks," Syrian National Coalition President Anas al-Abdah told delegates at the Munich Security Conference in Germany. "We cannot address the profound security threats ... while Assad remains in power," he said.
The United Nations and other parties to Syrian peace efforts softened any expectations of a major breakthrough, with US policy on the crisis in disarray and its ties with Russia unclear.
Brett McGurk, the US envoy to the coalition against Islamic State, said the new US administration was still reviewing its Syria position, but that it was seeking a role to reinforce Russian and Turkish efforts to cement a ceasefire in the country.
Al Jazeera News  ✔@AJENews
UN special envoy to Syria declines to confirm whether political transition will be discussed at Geneva http://aje.io/mnxw 
4:00 AM - 18 Feb 2017

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura told the Munich Security Conference the lack of a clear US position made resolving the complex issues of the six-year civil war far more complicated than his earlier mediation efforts for Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I can't tell you [if it will succeed], but we have to push with the momentum. Even a ceasefire cannot hold too long if there is no political [solution]," he said, referring to the shaky ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey in the Kazakh capital Astana.
United Nations, meanwhile, and other parties to Syrian peace efforts softened any expectations of a major breakthrough, with US policy on the crisis in disarray and its ties with Russia unclear.Syrian rebel groups who participated in the Astana talks said on Sunday that an upsurge in Syrian army shelling and bombing was wrecking the prospects of maintaining a Russian-Turkish-brokered ceasefire.
The rebel groups, mostly backed by Turkey, said they had supported a political solution to end the bloodshed, but that war had been "imposed" on them by the Syrian army and its allies.
In a statement, they said they reserved the right to respond to these attacks, which have mostly taken place in the south, in Homs and in the outskirts of Damascus.
Maya Gebeily  ✔@GebeilyM
: Opposition @SyrianHNC_en has called recent gov't shelling a 'bloody message' aimed at sabotaging upcoming  talks - via @AFP
11:14 AM - 19 Feb 2017
"One thing I’m missing at the moment ... is a clear US strategy,” de Mistura told delegates in Munich. "I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.”
The UN-led intra-Syrian talks are set to resume in Geneva after de Mistura broke them off almost nine months ago following several rounds that led ultimately to an escalation of violence.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in his strongest position since the early days of the civil war, which began as a popular uprising in the spring of 2011 before spiralling into a war that has killed as many as 400,000 combatants and civilians.
He told French media last week that he deemed all those fighting him to be terrorists, signalling that the government delegation is likely to remain steadfast in the Geneva talks.
De Mistura said the talks will focus on a new constitution, free and fair elections administered under supervision of the UN, and transparent and accountable governance.
Several delegates questioned him on why the UN was no longer using the phrase "political transition" to describe the goals of the talks. The opposition considers the term to mean a removal of Assad or at least an erosion of his powers.
De Mistura did not answer directly, but said he remained focused on UN Security Council resolution 2254, with its focus on governance, a new constitution and elections.
US envoy McGurk said the administration was doing a full review of its Syria policy that is due to be completed in the coming weeks, but cautioned against setting expectations too high.
"I don’t think the US will come in with a one-size fits all solution because there isn’t one," McGurk told delegates to the annual security conference.
McGurk said Washington was focused heavily on liberating Raqqa from Islamic State control.
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US aircraft carrier patrols South China Sea amid growing tension with China


The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. Source: AP Photo/Kin Cheung

19th February 2017

A UNITED States aircraft carrier strike group has begun patrols in the South China Sea amid growing tension with China over control of the disputed waterway and concerns it could become a flashpoint under the new U.S. administration.

China’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday warned Washington against challenging its sovereignty in the South China Sea.

The U.S. navy said the force, including Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, began routine operations in the South China Sea on Saturday. The announcement was posted on the Vinson’s Facebook page.


The strike group’s commander, Rear Admiral James Kilby, said that weeks of training in the Pacific had improved the group’s effectiveness and readiness.

“We are looking forward to demonstrating those capabilities while building upon existing strong relationships with our allies, partners and friends in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region,” he was quoted as saying by the Navy News Service.

Friction between the United States and China over trade and territory under U.S. President Donald Trump have increased concerns that the South China Sea could become a flashpoint.

China wrapped up its own naval exercises in the South China Sea on Friday. War games involving its own aircraft carrier have unnerved neighbours with which it has long-running territorial disputes.


China lays claim to almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea, through which about US$5 trillion worth of trade passes each year.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim parts of the waters that command strategic sea lanes and have rich fishing grounds, along with oil and gas deposits.

The United States has criticised Beijing’s construction of man-made islands and build-up of military facilities in the sea, and expressed concern they could be used to restrict free movement. – Reuters
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Restoring Faith in Globalization


Photo of Carl Bildt

-FEB 16, 2017


MUNICH – I must confess that I am a firm believer in the benefits of globalization. To my mind, the gradual interlinking of regions, countries, and people is the most profoundly positive development of our time.
But a populist has now assumed the United States presidency by campaigning on a platform of stark economic nationalism and protectionism. And in many countries, public discourse is dominated by talk of globalization’s alleged “losers,” and the perceived need for new policies to stem the rise of populist discontent.
When I was born, the world’s population was 2.5 billion. I vividly recall a time in my life when many people feared that starvation would soon run rampant, gaps between the rich and poor would grow ever wider, and everything would eventually come crashing down.
We now live in a world with 7.5 billion people, and yet the share of people living in absolute poverty has declined rapidly, while the gap between rich and poor countries has steadily closed. Around the world, average life expectancy has increased from 48 to 71 years – albeit with significant differences between countries – and overall per capita income has grown by 500%.
Just looking back at the last 25 years, one could argue that humanity has had its best quarter-century ever. Since 1990, the share of people living in extreme poverty in the developing world has fallen from 47% to 14%, and child mortality – a critical indicator – has been halved. The world has never seen anything like this before.
A similarly bright picture emerges from other indicators. Fewer people are dying on battlefields than during previous periods for which we have data; and, at least until a few years ago, the share of people living under more or less representative governments was gradually increasing.
This spectacular progress has been driven partly by advances in science and technology. But it owes at least as much to increased economic interaction through trade and investment, and to the overarching liberal order that has enabled these positive developments. In short, globalization has been the single most important force behind decades of progress.
These days, trade is often wrongly blamed for shuttering factories and displacing workers in developed countries. But, in reality, the disappearance of older industries stems primarily from new technologies that have improved productivity and expanded the wealth of our societies. Likewise, rising inequality, real or imagined, has far more to do with technology than with trade.
To be sure, there are not as many farmers today as in past decades or centuries; Lancashire’s cotton mills, Pittsburgh’s steel plants, and Duisburg’s coal mines have closed; and there are far fewer workers in Northern Sweden’s vast forests. The children of those employed in these industries now often head for the lights of rapidly expanding cities, where they fill jobs that could scarcely have been imagined just a few decades ago.
For most people around the world, life before globalization was poor, brutal, and short. And yet today’s anti-globalists have turned nostalgia into a rallying cry. They want to make America – or Russia, or Islam – “great again.” Each may be rallying against the others; but all are rallying against globalization.
Economic conditions were certainly less favorable in the years following the 2008 financial crisis, but now employment and economic growth are rebounding pretty much everywhere. Real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has been rising for 15 consecutive quarters in the eurozone, and all European Union economies are expected to grow in the next few years. Meanwhile, the US economy is already doing well – unemployment is below 5% and real incomes are rising.
Of course, many societies are undeniably experiencing a growing sense of cultural insecurity, not least because many people have been led to believe that external forces such as migration are eroding traditional sources of peace and stability. They are told that a return to tribalism in one form or another is a readily available coping mechanism. Their mythical tribe was great in some mythical past, so why not try to recreate it?
Such thinking poses a serious threat to the world’s most vulnerable people. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to eliminate extreme poverty worldwide by 2030 is entirely dependent on continued economic growth through trade, technological innovation, and international cooperation. Erecting trade barriers, engaging in digital mercantilism, and generally undermining the liberal world order will severely harm the extreme poor in Africa and other underdeveloped regions, while doing nothing to help coal miners in West Virginia.
The strong will always manage, but the weak will bear the burden of a nostalgic protectionism that erodes the benefits of globalization. At the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping was the one extolling the virtues of globalization, while many Western business leaders wandered the halls trying to sound concerned for the supposed losers of the process.
The communists are keeping the globalization faith; but the capitalists seem to have lost theirs. This is bizarre – and entirely out of sync with past performance and current facts. We have every reason to be confident in a process that has delivered more prosperity to more people than anyone could have dreamed of just a few decades ago. We must not be shy in defending globalization and combating reactionary nostalgia.
We can have a brighter future – but only if we don’t seek it in the past.
http://prosyn.org/WuO7Dbv
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Trump's Sweden comment referred to 'rising crime', White House says

President appeared to refer to a non-existent terror attack in the country during a rally on Saturday in Florida, prompting questions from Swedish officials

Sunday 19 February 2017

The White House has said Donald Trump was speaking about general “rising crime” when he seemed to describe a non-existent terror attack in Sweden on Saturday night, as the president defended his ideas about banning refugees and travel from seven Muslim-majority countries.
“You look at what’s happening in Germany. You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” the president said at a rally in Melbourne, Florida, on Saturday night. “Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”
Swedes reacted with surprise and confusion to the president’s claim about an unspecified incident that he said took place on Friday night. On Sunday, the Swedish embassy in Washington asked the US state department for an explanation.
“We have asked the question today to the state department. We are trying to get clarity,” said the Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman Catarina Axelsson.
On Sunday afternoon, the president tweeted his own clarification: “My statement as to what’s happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.”


Sarah Sanders, the principal deputy press secretary for the White House, told reporters a few minutes before his tweet that Trump had been “referring to a report he had seen the previous night”.
“He was talking about rising crime and recent incidents in general, and not referring to a specific incident,” Sanders said.
On Friday night, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson presented a segment with the film-maker Ami Horowitz, who claims that the migrants Sweden has accepted are linked to crime.
“Sweden had its first terrorist Islamic attack not that long ago, so they’re now getting a taste of what we’ve been seeing across Europe already,” Horowitz claimed, without specifying what attack he was alluding to. “They oftentimes try to cover up some of these crimes.”
Sweden suffered a suicide bombing by an Iraqi-born Swedish citizen in Stockholm in 2010, a year before civil wars began in Syria and Libya and unrest across the Middle East pushed millions of people to flee their homes, many into Europe. Crime rates in Sweden have changed little over the last 10 years, according to the 2016 Swedish Crime Survey.
Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, tweeted a link observing that “post-truth” was named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries in 2016.
She also tweeted an excerpt of a speech she gave in parliament last week. “Both functioning democracy and constructive cooperation between states require us to speak with, and not about, each other, to honour agreements and to allow ideas to compete,” Wallstrom said. “They also require us to respect science, facts and the media, and to acknowledge each other’s wisdom.”
Earlier this month, a senior White House aide, Kellyanne Conway, was criticized for citing a “Bowling Green massacre” that had not occurred.
Carl Bildt, the country’s former prime minister, more succinctly tweeted a link asking “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.“
Contacted by email by the Guardian on Sunday, Horowitz said he was “gratified” that Trump brought attention to “the increasing problems that Sweden is having with its open door immigration policy to the Muslim world”.
“For better or worse,” Horowitz said that Trump sometimes speaks “in shorthand hyperbole”. He said his original allusion was to the 2010 Stockholm attack as well as an October arson attack in Malmö, which was claimed by Isis but that a Swedish court concluded was not a terror attack. No one was injured.
Horowitz also claimed crime “is increasingly significantly in Sweden”, contradicting the survey, and citing rape as an example. Sweden has a broad definition of rape, compared to many western nations; according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, there were 13% more reported rapes in 2016 than 2015, but the total was still lower than in 2014.
Horowitz said that “the Swedish response” suggests “they are incapable or unwilling to see the reality of what is happening in their own country.”
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Red hysteria engulfs Washington

The only nations that could threaten America’s very existence are nuclear powers Russia, China, India, France, Britain and Israel (and maybe Pakistan) in that order.

by Eric S. Margolis-
( February 18, 2017, New York City, Sri Lanka Guardian) President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex made half a century ago ring as loud and clear today. The soft coup being mounted against the Trump government by America’s ‘deep state’ reached a new intensity this week as special interests battled for control of Washington.
The newly named national security advisor, Lt Gen Michael Flynn, was ousted by Trump over his chats with Russia’s ambassador and what he may or may not have told Vice President Pence. The defenestration of Flynn appeared engineered by our national intelligence agencies in collaboration with the mainstream media and certain Democrats.
Flynn’s crime? Talking to the wicked Russians before and after the election. Big, big deal. That’s what security advisors are supposed to do: keep an open back channel to other major powers and allies. This is also the job of our intelligence agencies.
There is no good or bad in international affairs. The childish concept of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ comes from the Bush era when simple-minded voters had to be convinced that America was somehow in grave danger from a bunch of angry Mideast goat herds.
The only nations that could threaten America’s very existence are nuclear powers Russia, China, India, France, Britain and Israel (and maybe Pakistan) in that order.
Russia has thousands of nuclear warheads targeted on the US mainland. Any real war with Russia would invite doom for both nations. Two near misses are more than enough. Remember the 1962 Cuban missile confrontation and the terrifying 1983 Able Archer scare – near thermonuclear war caused by Ronald Reagan’s anti-Russian hysteria and Moscow’s panicked response.
Margolis’ #1 rule of international relations: make nice and keep on good terms with nations that have nuclear weapons pointed at you. Avoid squabbles over almost all matters. Intelligence agencies play a key role in maintaining the balance of nuclear terror and preventing misunderstandings that can cause war.
Gen. Flynn was a fanatical anti-Islamic wing nut. He was, to use Trumpese, a bigly terrible choice. I’m glad he is gone. But Flynn’s sin was being loopy, not talking on the phone to the Russian ambassador. The White House and national intelligence should be talking every day to Moscow, even ‘hi Boris, what’s new with you guys? ‘Nothing much new here either besides the terrible traffic.’
The current hue and cry in the US over Flynn’s supposed infraction is entirely a fake political ambush to cripple the Trump administration. Trump caved in much too fast. The deep state is after his scalp: he has threatened to cut the $80 billion per annum intelligence budget – which alone, boys and girls, is larger than Russia’s entire defense budget! He’s talking about rooting waste out of the Pentagon’s almost trillion-dollar budget, spending less on NATO, and ending some of America’s imperial wars abroad.
What’s to like about Trump if you’re a member of the war party and military-industrial-intelligence-Wall Street complex? The complex wants its golden girl Hilary Clinton in charge. She unleashed the current tsunami of anti-Russian hysteria and demonization of Vladimir Putin which shows, sadly, that many Americans have not grown beyond the days of Joe McCarthy.
As a long-time student of Cold War intelligence, my conclusion is that both sides knew pretty much what the other was up to, though KGB and GRU were more professional and skilled than western special services. It would be so much easier and cheaper just to share information on a demand basis. But that would stop the Great Game.
It’s sickening watching the arrant hypocrisy and windbaggery in Washington over alleged Russian espionage and manipulation. The US has been buying and manipulating foreign governments since 1945. We even tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone. This week Wikileaks issued an intercept on CIA spying and manipulation of France’s 2012 election. We live in a giant glass house.
The Russians are not our pals. Nor are they the evil empire. We have to normalize our thinking about Russia, grow up and stop using Moscow as a political bogeyman to fight our own internal political battles.

Right now, I’m more worried about the far right crazies in the Trump White House than I am about the Ruskis and Vlad the Bad.
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