Drought: Driest Mannar produces best paddy harvest

Yoda Wewa, completely empty and dry except for a small stream of water in the tank bed. Fishing boats, now useless, parked at the base of the tank bed

Tuesday, 7 March 2017

The country is going through a massive drought; with some officials claiming it to be the worst drought in 40 years. The Disaster Management Centre says the drought has affected six provinces in the country and 1,150,728 persons have been affected.

Newspapers inform areas including Hambantota, Ampara, Moneragala, Kilinochchi, Kebithigollewa, Wellawaya and Polonnaruwa are among the worst affected by the drought. Farmers complain their paddy cultivations have been destroyed and demand compensation from the Government.

Last week I had the opportunity of travelling to Mannar and was pleasantly surprised by the vast acres of lush paddy fields by the road side. Travelling along the Medawachchiya-Mannar road, the bund of the Giant’s Tank (Yoda Wewa) lies to the right for a few kilometres. Unless one climbs on to the small tank bund, water will not be visible. Yoda Wewa is situated about 25km southeast of Mannar.

On the left of the road for kilometres were vast acres of paddy, mostly mature; few fields have already been harvested and they all seem to be doing well with no signs of drought or drying up.

For most of us, Mannar reminds us of school days, when our geography teacher drew a map of Sri Lanka and marked two areas, Hambantota and Mannar, as the most arid regions of the country. This geography lesson has made a deep impression on most people and could possibly be the reason for Mannar to receive such few visitors from outside.

Paddy cultivation in Mannar

Having completed my task early, on the return journey I had time to examine the situation in detail. Travelling around 25km from Mannar, one would meet the Yoda Wewa at a sharp bend where the bund is tallest. Upon climbing I was shocked; the Yoda Wewa was completely empty and dry except for a small stream of water in the tank bed. Fishing boats, now useless, were parked at the base of the tank bed. The stream in the tank bed brought water and discharged through a sluice into a canal supplying water to the paddy fields. Nearly 3km further on the road another sluice discharged water into a channel.

There was no stored water in the tank, but it is clear that a canal formed in the lake bed delivered a continuous flow of water. The water originates from Malwathu Oya, the original source of water for generations. The diversion canal from Malwathu Oya delivering water to Yoda Wewa runs parallel to Medawachchiya road and crosses the road near Km 50 post.

Malwathu Oya originates in the Anuradhapura District, which is affected by the dry period. Today, Malwathu Oya also collects run-off water after cultivation and livelihood water released from Mahaweli System H, which receives water from Kala Wewa and Rajangana Wewa, hence current supply independent of rainfall.

Holding stored water in Yoda Wewa is no easy task. The shallow tank spreads over a large area and the dry wind flowing across the lake would result in a large loss. Only heavy rainfall in Anuradhapura District could fill Yoda Wewa. 

Giant’s Tank (Yoda Wewa)

The Yoda Wewa is nearly circular in shape is situated about 25km southeast of Mannar in a semi-arid zone, is one of the largest tanks in the island. The tank is believed to be built by King Dhatusena (459-477) by diverting water by a 4m high stone dam built across Malwatu-oya and delivered by a 19km long canal. But some historians claim the tank was built by the Nagas, original occupants in the country prior to arrival of Vijaya who had mastered the art or the science on dam building.

A section of the tank bund runs parallel to Medawachchiya-Mannar Road. The water from this tank feeds over 100 smaller tanks downstream and irrigates about 11,000 hectares of paddy land.

The embankment of Yoda Wewa is comparatively low with a height of 14 feet due to flat terrain, but is over 7km in length. The tank covers over 1,840Ha with a capacity of 39 million cubic meters of water. The tank commands a catchment area of 98km2. The region was known as the rice bowl of the country. But today, Malwathu water is supplemented with runoff from Mahaweli System H. 

Mannar District

Although Mannar gets comparatively low rainfall (1,250mm annually), supported by Yoda Wewa and proper agricultural practices, it produces a large crop of paddy. In 2012 the district had a population of 99,051 and a paddy cultivation of 57,041 acres or 0.576 acres per person; one of the highest paddy acreages per person in the country. When the Government imposed a 25-acre ceiling on paddy lands in the 1960s, Mannar District was the only region which did not comply, also none complained.

Mannar is not a strange place for the writer. After the ending of the 30-year war, State Engineering Corporation was entrusted with the rehabilitation of war-damaged public buildings in Mannar District to allow resettlement of displaced personnel. The writer then as the General Manager of SEC had to ensure early completion of over 100 minor projects spread throughout the district.

There is no stored water in the tank, but it is clear that a canal formed in the lake bed delivers a continuous flow of water. The water originates from Malwathu Oya, the original source of water for generations

Facing the drought

It is clear that the farmers in Mannar District commenced cultivation with the rains and with the failure of rains, fields were directly fed with Malwathu water reaching Yoda Wewa, without resorting to storage. It would have been a joint effort of politicians, irrigation engineers, Government officials and the farmers who produced the bountiful crop of paddy. How many other regions in the country could boast the same cooperative effort?

On 7 January coinciding with the Government’s two years in power, the President commenced water storage in Moragahakanda Tank and the rising water levels and efforts to save trapped animals were shown regularly on local TV. Anyway, Moragahakanda tank has no users for stored water till 2024. The tank is located on Amban Ganga two kilometres upstream of ancient Elahara anicut that diverts water to Minneriya, Giritale and Kantale reservoirs. Further downstream of Elahera diversion is another diversion, Angamedilla anicut which diverts water to Parakrama Samudraya through a 24-mile-long canal.

Did the Government officials who planned impounding of Moragahakanda Tank during the height of a drought realise the gravity of disturbing the water supply to the paddy cultivation in the entire Polonnaruwa District? They were only concerned about pleasing the President.

Unless the politicians and agricultural officials encourage farmers to make maximum use of rain water and use stored water sparingly, there would always be water shortages and crop failures. World Bank officials at the inception of Mahaweli project warned that the Sri Lankan farmer uses the highest quantum of water for paddy cultivation in the world and unless this trend is controlled entire project would be failure. Our farmers’ water consumption has gone still higher and the Victoria Stage II has been abandoned due to shortage of water in Mahaweli.

It is about time rest of the country learn lessons on water conservation and farming from their counterparts in Mannar.

On 8 March, stand with women of Palestine

The history of women’s resistance in Palestine is a long one.Oren ZivActiveStills

Sofia Arias and Bill V. Mullen-6 March 2017

The 8 March international women’s strike is an unprecedented opportunity for feminists to stand against Islamophobia and Israeli apartheid, while supporting Palestinian self-determination.

The strike call for a “feminism for the 99 percent” includes explicit demands for an “anti-racist, anti-colonial feminism,” the decolonization of Palestinian land and the tearing down of apartheid walls, whether they be along the US-Mexico border or in the occupied West Bank.

Those who have endorsed the call include the political prisoner Rasmea Odeh and Angela Davis, a veteran campaigner for justice and a staunch supporter of the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

The march’s platform is, therefore, partly a celebration of the history of Palestinian women and their role in fighting the Israeli occupation. That history is a long one.

This year marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration. Through that document, Arthur James Balfour, then Britain’s foreign secretary, promised to support the establishment of a “Jewish national home” – a euphemism for a Jewish state – in Palestine.

In the 1920s, women protested against the Zionist colonization program that Balfour had backed.

A women’s conference was held in Jerusalem during 1929.

Following it, a delegation of 14 women called to see John Chancellor, then the British high commissioner for Palestine. The women called for a revocation of the Balfour Declaration and objected to the beating of demonstrators, the ill-treatment of prisoners and the collective punishment of villages by the British authorities then ruling Palestine.

Key role in struggle

During the 1930s Arab rebellion in Palestine, women collected funds and distributed food to detainees. They also delivered food, weapons and water to men involved in the rebellion.

In 1948, Palestinian women fought in armed battles against Zionist forces.

Women in Jaffa formed Zahrat al-Uqhuwan (the Daisy) shortly before the Nakba, the 1948 mass expulsion of Palestinians. That organization delivered medical services, food, water and ammunition to Palestinian rebels.

During the 1948-1968 period, Palestinian women played key roles in al-Ard (The Land), a resistance movement eventually suppressed by Israeli authorities.

Since 1967, Palestinian women have played numerous roles in Palestinian freedom struggles. Women like Fatima Barnawi participated in armed resistance.

In January 1969, Palestinian women staged a sit-in strike in front of Israeli prisons and detention centers demanding release of imprisoned family members. In Gaza alone, 65 women died resisting the occupation between 1967 and 1970.

Fear forbidden

In more recent times, Palestinian women were central to the mass uprising of the first intifada that began on 9 December 1987, the day fear was forbidden and the stones were taken up, as the Palestinian journalist Makram Makhoul put it.

The intifada began after four Palestinians were killed at an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza, and 17-year-old Hatem Abu Sisi, was murdered by an Israeli officer shooting into a crowd of grieving Palestinian protesters.

The women’s committees that had existed before the uprising provided some of the leadership of the emerging popular committees that were of critical importance to the intifada.

The leadership was involved in organizing relief services and raising funds for prisoners and their families. It also arranged legal assistance and undertook leafleting to organize more people to join the intifada.

When Israel shut down Palestinian schools – a common tactic of the occupation forces – women organized underground alternative schools that sprung up in homes, mosques and churches. Women were also central in organizing the mass boycott of Israeli goods.

On 8 March 1988, the women’s committees that had organized Palestinian women workers, students and housewives called for a joint program on International Women’s Day.

The committees arranged child care services to allow for mass participation of women in popular committees and trade unions. The program also encouraged women to join the general strikes taking place all over the West Bank and Gaza, and to organize defenses against raids by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

During the second intifada that began in 2000, Manal Abu Akhar – who was shot in the chest as a child during the first intifada – used her home in Dheisheh, a Bethlehem-area refugee camp, to shelter fighters.

She also helped to “de-arrest” Palestinians seized by the Israeli military. Palestinian women would throw their bodies on the ground to try to create chaos so that others could escape.

Abu Akhar also used her home as a lookout to monitor the movement of the Israeli military.

Support BDS

More recently, Palestinian women have been caught in Israel’s deadly crackdowns. In October 2015, 17 year-old Dania Irsheid was shot dead at an Israeli checkpoint in Hebron. Israeli soldiers said she was shot because she threatened them with a knife but that has been denied by witnesses.

Another teenager, Bayan al-Esseili, was shot dead that same month near the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron.

A grouping called the Jerusalemite Women’s Coalition spoke out against those killings.

Speaking as women, mothers, sisters, daughters and youth, the coalition called for the “protection of our bodily safety and security when in our homes, walking in our neighborhood, reaching schools, clinics, work places and worship venues.”

“We, the women of occupied East Jerusalem, are politically orphaned,” the groups stated. “We are victims without protection, as the Palestinian Authority has no right to protect us in our city, and the Israeli state treats us as terrorists who should be humiliated, attacked, violated and controlled.”

And on 8 March last year, Palestinian women released a statement of solidarity with the thousands of Palestinian women who have been incarcerated by Israel since 1967.

The statement was written as more than 60 Palestinian women were behind Israeli bars. It protested the ongoing denial to Palestinian women of healthcare and education, and the horrific conditions faced by Palestinian women imprisoned for resistance to the occupation.

This year’s 8 March platform urges participants to keep on demonstrating their support for Palestinian liberation after the march is over.

The platform’s demand for open borders, for immigrant rights and for the decolonization of Palestine should lead demonstrators directly to support for the BDS movement.

The Palestinian BDS call demands an end to Israeli occupation of Arab lands, full and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, dismantling of the Israeli apartheid wall in the West Bank and implementation of UN resolution 194 supporting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.

Those goals are fully in keeping with the spirit of the 8 March platform.

Trade unions fighting in the West that have endorsed the platform should support BDS tactics as a means of demonstrating solidarity with Palestinian women workers – both those in and outside trade unions.

The unemployment rate for Palestinian women in the West Bank stood at 28.5 percent in the last few months of 2016. That was twice as high as the rate of male unemployment.

In Gaza, the rate of female unemployment was more than 64 percent, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau for Statistics. The corresponding rate for men was 33 per cent.

These data demonstrate why every Palestinian trade union supports the BDS campaign against Israel.

Reject “imperialist feminism”

The 8 March call for an “an end to gender violence,” including police brutality and “state policies” that engender poverty can bring demonstrators into direct solidarity with Palestinian feminists.

As the scholar and activist Nada Elia has noted, Israel’s infrastructure is “designed to sustain high rates of miscarriages by blocking basic resources such as water and medical supplies, forcing women in labor to wait at military checkpoints on their way to a hospital, and generally creating inhumane and unlivable conditions for Palestinians. This also increased miscarriages, pre-term labor and stillbirths. Ethiopian-Israeli women, most of them Jewish, have also been subject to mandatory contraceptive injections without their consent.”

Demonstrators on 8 March can link their struggles to ongoing work by groups like the General Union of Palestinian Women which organize around battles for justice for Palestinian women.

Under Donald Trump’s presidency, the violent expansion of Israeli settlements has continued apace, and we must prepare to resist any impending plans for war against Gaza. But we cannot afford to wait for the next bombs to fall to know that Gaza itself is already unlivable and that the UN has predicted that conditions will worsen by the end of this decade.

To be a Palestinian woman in Gaza is to have no control over one’s body and the ability to live any semblance of a full life. The US has funded and supported the racist violence inflicted on the women, men and children of Gaza.

Finally, those who advocate for global feminism on 8 March must not let their political support for Palestine become entangled with support for Zionism or the Israeli occupation. Now more than ever, a sharp line must be drawn between those on the left who avow what Deepa Kumar, a writer and academic, calls “imperialist feminism” and those who fight for the emancipation of women everywhere.

Only a feminism “from the river to the sea” and beyond can turn the tide against the brutally gendered violence of the US and Israel. Only an anti-racist, anti-imperialist feminism can end the war on Palestinian women that is a building block of Zionism, the Israeli occupation and the US empire.

Sofia Arias lives in New York City and Bill V. Mullen lives in Indiana. Both are long-time Palestine solidarity activists.

Israel approves bill barring entry to foreigners calling for Israel boycott

Wording of approved bill enforces ban even for boycotters of areas only under Israel's 'control'

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators carrying a sign reading BDS march against US aid to Israel (AFP)

Monday 6 March 2017

The Israeli Knesset on Monday gave final approval to a bill forbidding entry to the country by those who called for a boycott of Israel or settlement products in the occupied West Bank.

Individuals who call for economic, cultural or academic boycotts of either Israel or the settlements will be forbidden entry visas or residency rights, though the interior ministry would be able to make exceptions in special cases.

The Knesset Interior and Environment Committee approved the final wording of the boycott bill, which will ban any person  “who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel that, given the content of the call and the circumstances in which it was issued, has a reasonable possibility of leading to the imposition of a boycott – if the issuer was aware of this possibility.”

Notably, the ban applies to those who call for boycotts of any “area under its control”, meaning that rather that the ban would apply to those calling for a boycott of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem - both illegally annexed - or the settlements under Israeli control in the occupied Palestinian territories.

According to Haaretz, the Israeli Justice Ministry urged the committee to make exceptions for Palestinians with temporary residency in Israel, arguing it would make it easier for the law to withstand scrutiny by the courts.

But the committee reportedly rejecte the idea.

"Why should I bring someone into my house who demonizes and undermines the state?” asked panel chairman David Amsalem, a member of the Likud party.

“We’re not afraid of criticism, but we have national pride. Someone who has already received temporary residency from us and is being considered for permanent residency, who comes and harms us, as a guest, why should we let him stay?”

Sponsor Roy Folkman, an MK from the centrist Kulanu party, emphasised that the ban would not simply apply to anyone who ever signed a petition against, for example, purchasing wine made in the settlements and noted that that the definition contains several restrictive requirements.

“It doesn’t cover any individual who ever said something,” he said.

“It’s aimed mainly at organizations that work against Israel.”

Russian Hands in US Election: Most of the World is Just Collapsing in Laughter

( March 6, 2017, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) This interview took place at the University of Arizona, before a public audience, on February 2, 2017. I thank Marvin Waterstone for arranging the event, and Professor Chomsky, who approved this transcript for publication. The interview is presented in full, with only very slight editing for style.

This interview originally appeared in the journal Class, Race, and Corporate Power. – D. Gibbs

Russian Hands in US Election.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Inside Trump’s fury: The president rages at leaks, setbacks and accusations

President Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House with his grandchildren Joseph and Arabella Kushner, before departing for Florida on March 3. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

By Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Ashley Parker March 5 at 8:18 PM

President Trump spent the weekend at “the winter White House,” Mar-a-Lago, the secluded Florida castle where he is king. The sun sparkles off the glistening lawn and warms the russet clay Spanish tiles, and the steaks are cooked just how he likes them (well done). His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner — celebrated as calming influences on the tempestuous president — joined him. But they were helpless to contain his fury.

Trump was mad — steaming, raging mad.

Trump’s young presidency has existed in a perpetual state of chaos. The issue of Russia has distracted from what was meant to be his most triumphant moment: his address last Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. And now his latest unfounded accusation — that Barack Obama tapped Trump’s phones during last fall’s campaign — had been denied by the former president and doubted by both allies and fellow Republicans.

When Trump ran into Christopher Ruddy on the golf course and later at dinner Saturday, he vented to his friend. “This will be investigated,” Ruddy recalled Trump telling him. “It will all come out. I will be proven right.”

“He was pissed,” said Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax, a conservative media company. “I haven’t seen him this angry.”

Former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. on March 5 denied that President Trump’s 2016 campaign was wiretapped while senators of both parties weighed in on the allegations. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Trump enters week seven of his presidency the same as the six before it: enmeshed in controversy while struggling to make good on his campaign promises. At a time when White House staffers had sought to ride the momentum from Trump’s speech to Congress and begin advancing its agenda on Capitol Hill, the administration finds itself beset yet again by disorder and suspicion.

[Trump accuses Obama of ‘Nixon/Watergate’ wiretap — but offers no evidence]

At the center of the turmoil is an impatient president increasingly frustrated by his administration’s inability to erase the impression that his campaign was engaged with Russia, to stem leaks about both national security matters and internal discord and to implement any signature achievements.

This account of the administration’s tumultuous recent days is based on interviews with 17 top White House officials, members of Congress and friends of the president, many of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly.

Gnawing at Trump, according to one of his advisers, is the comparison between his early track record and that of Obama in 2009, when amid the Great Recession he enacted an economic stimulus bill and other big-ticket items.

Trump’s team is trying again to reboot this week, with the president expected to sign a new executive order Monday implementing an entry ban for some countries after the initial one was blocked in federal court. The administration also intends to introduce a legislative plan later in the week to repeal and replace Obama’s health-care law, officials said.

The rest of Trump’s legislative plan, from tax reform to infrastructure spending, is effectively on hold until Congress first tackles the Affordable Care Act.

White House legislative staffers concluded late last week that the administration was spinning in circles on the health-care plan, amid mounting criticism from conservatives that the administration was fumbling.

With Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on the road with Vice President Pence, a decision was made: Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, would become the point person, though officials insisted Price had not been sidelined.

[From order to disorder: How Trump’s immigration directive exposed GOP rifts]

On Friday, Mulvaney convened a meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with top administration officials and senior staff of House and Senate leaders to hammer out the final details of the proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act.

“Mulvaney has been essential in helping us get health care over the finish line,” said Marc Short, the White House legislative affairs director.

On Capitol Hill, Price is seen by some Republicans as more knowledgeable about health-care policy than Mulvaney, given his experience as a physician and his time as chairman of the House Budget Committee. But Mulvaney benefits from the close relationships he has forged with Trump’s top advisers and with the House’s conservative wing.

Trump, meanwhile, has been feeling besieged, believing that his presidency is being tormented in ways known and unknown by a group of Obama-aligned critics, federal bureaucrats and intelligence figures — not to mention the media, which he has called “the enemy of the American people.”

That angst over what many in the White House call the “deep state” is fomenting daily, fueled by rumors and tidbits picked up by Trump allies within the intelligence community and by unconfirmed allegations that have been made by right-wing commentators. The “deep state” is a phrase popular on the right for describing entrenched networks hostile to Trump.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), an advocate of improved relations between the United States and Russia, said he has told friends in the administration that Trump is being punished for clashing with the hawkish approach toward Russia that is shared by most Democrats and Republicans.

“Remember what Dwight Eisenhower told us: There is a military-industrial complex. That complex still exists and has a lot of power,” he said. “It’s everywhere, and it doesn’t like how Trump is handling Russia. Over and over again, in article after article, it rears its head.”

[Bannon vows a daily fight for ‘deconstruction of the administrative state’]

The president has been seething as he watches round-the-clock cable news coverage. Trump recently vented to an associate that Carter Page, a onetime Trump campaign adviser, keeps appearing on television even though he and Trump have no significant relationship.

Stories from Breitbart News, the incendiary conservative website, have been circulated at the White House’s highest levels in recent days, including one story where talk-radio host Mark Levin accused the Obama administration of mounting a “silent coup,” according to several officials.

Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist who once ran Breitbart, has spoken with Trump at length about his view that the “deep state” is a direct threat to his presidency.

Advisers pointed to Bannon’s frequent closed-door guidance on the topic and Trump’s agreement as a fundamental way of understanding the president’s behavior and his willingness to confront the intelligence community — and said that when Bannon spoke recently about the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” he was also alluding to his aim of rupturing the intelligence community and its influence on the U.S. national security and ­foreign policy consensus.

Bannon’s view is shared by some top Republicans.

“It’s not paranoia at all when it’s actually happening. It’s leak after leak after leak from the bureaucrats in the [intelligence community] and former Obama administration officials — and it’s very real,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “The White House is absolutely concerned and is trying to figure out a systemic way to address what’s happening.”

The mood at the White House on Tuesday night was different altogether — jubilant. Trump returned from the Capitol shortly before midnight to find his staff assembled in the residence cheering him. Finally, they all thought, they had seized control. The president had even laid off Twitter outbursts — a small victory for a staff often unable to drive a disciplined message.

“He nailed it, and he knew it,” said Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president.

[Trump gives his hard-line campaign promises a more moderate tone in address to Congress]

The merriment came to a sudden end on Wednesday night, when The Washington Post first reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian ambassador despite having said under oath at his Senate confirmation hearing that he had no contact with the Russians.

Inside the West Wing, Trump’s top aides were furious with the defenses of Sessions offered by the Justice Department’s public affairs division and felt blindsided that Sessions’s aides had not consulted the White House earlier in the process, according to one senior White House official.

The next morning, Trump exploded, according to White House officials. He headed to Newport News, Va., on Thursday for a splashy commander-in-chief moment. The president would trumpet his plan to grow military spending aboard the Navy’s sophisticated new aircraft carrier. But as Trump, sporting a bomber jacket and Navy cap, rallied sailors and shipbuilders, his message was overshadowed by Sessions.

Then, a few hours after Trump had publicly defended his attorney general and said he should not recuse himself from the Russia probe, Sessions called a news conference to announce just that — amounting to a public rebuke of the president.

Back at the White House on Friday morning, Trump summoned his senior aides into the Oval Office, where he simmered with rage, according to several White House officials. He upbraided them over Sessions’s decision to recuse himself, believing that Sessions had succumbed to pressure from the media and other critics instead of fighting with the full defenses of the White House.

In a huff, Trump departed for Mar-a-Lago, taking with him from his inner circle only his daughter and Kushner, who is a White House senior adviser. His top two aides, Chief of Staff ­Reince Priebus and Bannon, stayed behind in Washington.

[Upheaval is now standard operating procedure inside the White House]

As reporters began to hear about the Oval Office meeting, Priebus interrupted his Friday afternoon schedule to dedicate more than an hour to calling reporters off the record to deny that the outburst had actually happened, according to a senior White House official.

“Every time there’s a palace intrigue story or negative story about Reince, the whole West Wing shuts down,” the official said.

Ultimately, Priebus was unable to kill the story. He simply delayed the bad news, as reports of Trump dressing down his staff were published by numerous outlets Saturday.

Trouble for Trump continued to spiral over the weekend. Early Saturday, he surprised his staff by firing off four tweets accusing Obama of a “Nixon/Watergate” plot to tap his Trump Tower phones in the run-up to last fall’s election. Trump cited no evidence, and Obama’s spokesman denied any such wiretap was ordered.

That night at Mar-a-Lago, Trump had dinner with Sessions, Bannon, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly and White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, among others. They tried to put Trump in a better mood by going over their implementation plans for the travel ban, according to a White House official.

Trump was brighter Sunday morning as he read several newspapers, pleased that his allegations against Obama were the dominant story, the official said.

But he found reason to be mad again: Few Republicans were defending him on the Sunday political talk shows. Some Trump advisers and allies were especially disappointed in Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), who two days earlier had hitched a ride down to Florida with Trump on Air Force One.

Pressed by NBC’s Chuck Todd to explain Trump’s wiretapping claim, Rubio demurred.

“Look, I didn’t make the allegation,” he said. “I’m not the person that went out there and said it.”

Damian Paletta contributed to this report.

National Security Blanket Hides Murders of US Military Personnel

Marine veteran provides information to President Trump and Congress on the murders of El Toro Marines and hundreds of 101st Airborne troops.

Mar-05-2017

(SALEM, Ore.) - President Donald Trump has the authority to lift the veil of National Security, covering the murders of military personnel and protecting those responsible from prosecution.

Information obtained from reliable sources was recently provided in February to both President Trump and Congressional staffers, supporting the need for investigations into the murders of Marine Colonel James E. Sabow (and other Marines) at MCAS El Toro, CA, and the 256 Americans burned to death on Arrow Air 1285.

An unbiased criminal investigation could result in the indictments and convictions of very powerful people who were responsible for murders, narcotrafficking, perjury and misprision of felonies (the concealment of felonies and failure to report it to the prosecuting authorities by persons who have not committed it).

As a financial manager with DLA, I spent considerable time in the Washington, DC, area over my last 15 years of government service. While with a Disabled American Veterans (DAV) chapter visiting Washington, DC, on February 28, 2017, I literally ran all over the Dirksen and Hart Senate Office Bldgs.

I introduced myself as a reporter for Salem-News.com, giving a short 4-5-minute briefing on TREACHERY, the story of murder, narcotrafficking and an aborted covert mission in the Middle East; and left a copy of the package of detailed information, which was also Fedex'ed earlier to President Trump.

Figure 1: Colonel Sabow’s crime scene. The patio chair was not on the body when his wife discovered him dead in their backyard. The shotgun had no fingerprints on it. The intraoral shotgun blast resulted in very little blood and evidence that the colonel was already dead from the violent blow to the back of his head when the assassins discharged the 12-gauge shotgun into his mouth. This sordid story involves the cold-blooded murder of Marine Colonel James E. Sabow in his quarters at Marine Corps Air Station, CA, in January 1991 and horrific deaths of 256 Americans on Arrow Air 1285, a military chartered flight with CIA links to Iran/Contra in Gander, Newfoundland, in December 1985. Colonel Sabow’s death was ruled a suicide by the government. However, the forensic evidence published by a respected UK Journal of Forensic Research and peer reviewed by other scientists in January 2017 supports murder, conspiracy to commit murder, crime scene tampering by federal agents, a doctored autopsy photo of Colonel Sabow submitted by DOD to a federal district court and the Congress, the cover-up by the Navy, the Marine Corps and high level DOD officials. The motive was to keep the colonel from blowing-the-whistle on the government’s lucrative covert guns-for-drugs operation. Billions were made from the sales of cocaine transported on CIA proprietary C-130s into El Toro, March AFB, Homestead AFB, Mena, AZ, and other secured locations in the US. Gene Wheaton, a career military investigator, was involved in both investigations after he retired from the Army. Wheaton’s investigation supported homicide in both cases. Wheaton found evidence Colonel Sabow was murdered to prevent him from blowing-the-whistle on the narcotrafficking of cocaine in El Toro. Colonel Sabow was relieved of his duties for alleged misuse of government aircraft in a failed attempt to get him to plead guilty and retire from the Corps. It didn’t work. The colonel was authorized to fly as a trainee with another command pilot, flying executive aircraft on the weekends. His travel orders and supporting documents were in order. While at El Toro in January 1991, the Marine Corps Inspector General had access to his flight logs, travel orders, and supporting documentation and easily dismissed any allegation of misuse of government aircraft. If formal charges were filed, he told his superiors that he intended to fight them at a courts martial. The crash of Arrow Air 1285 killed hundreds of 101st Airborne troops on their way home from a peacekeeping mission in the Sinai. The Canadians were responsible for the investigation of crash of Arrow Air 1285 and called it an accident due to icing. The problem is there are eye witnesses who saw the aircraft on fire at take-off. There was no evidence of icing but evidence of incendiary devices and napalm in soda cans detonated on take-off, causing a fire and explosion on the airborne DC-8CF. There are CIA links to these murders and a Reagan and Bush administrations that was open to dealing with drug cartels and making money off the sales of weapons to both Iraqi and Iranians. For example, thousands of TWOs and other lethal weapons were taken from NATO stocks, flown by Arrow Air and others into the Middle East as reported by Joel Bainerman, an Israeli investigative reporter. The moneys from these sales were used to fund covert operations.

Figure 2: Bodies of troops and aircrew lie in a make-shift morgue at Gander.

Figure 3: Hole in aircraft with metal bent outward supporting an internal explosion. The deaths of Marine and Army personnel on active duty is normally assigned to the NCIS and the Army equivalent organization but these deaths had major political impacts and any prior investigations (e.g., Colonel Sabow at El Toro and the Army deaths in Canada) were seriously compromised. The Army deaths (248 101st Airborne troops on Arrow Air 1285) were classified as accidental based on the CASB report of icining in a 5 to 4 split decision (the 4 dissenters were all professional pilots, 3 were aeronautical engineers). The professionals found forensic evidence of fire and explosion on the airborne DC-8CF. A Canadian Air Force nuclear officer at the scene reported a nuclear device (possibly a nuclear backpack, which was in the US military’s inventory) found in the debris on fire. This may have been connected to the alleged covert mission to destroy an Iraqi nuclear research facility with a nuclear backpack, blame the Iraqis for the explosion and use covert operatives to rescue hostages held by Hezbollah. The mission was aborted with possible deaths of US personnel (six wooden boxes the size of coffins were loaded on the aircraft in Cairo). The DC-8CF had seats for 269 passengers. One allegation is that Special Forces involved in the ill-conceived covert mission that caused the deaths of unit members were a threat to blow-the-whistle on the planned use of a nuclear weapon in the Middle East. The ‘easy solution’ was to destroy the aircraft before it landed at Fort Campbell, KY. Wheaton’s investigation of Arrow Air 1285 resulted in a massive amount of evidence, including eye witnesses accounts, laboratory reports and documents establishing that the DC-8CF suffered an onboard fire and explosion before impact and did not crash “as reported by the official Canadian report.” Wheaton’s found that Arrow Air was one of the airlines used by the “Enterprise” to smuggle weapons to the Middle East and to the Contras in Central America. These operations were under the control and direction of a unit of the National Security Council called OSG-TIWG (Operations Sub-Group-Terrorist Incident Working Group), which was co-chaired by LTC Oliver North and Associate FBI Director Oliver “Buck” Revell. The Arrow Air 1285 crash supports the allegation of a covert mission in the Middle East gone bad and terrorists or others who destroyed the aircraft. There were no sabotage investigations by the FBI or the RCMP. There was no effort to reconstruct the aircraft. The focus of the U.S. Army was to remove the bodies to mortuary at Dover AFB and bury the debris as quickly as possible. The Canadian Air Safety Board (CASB) was the agency responsible for investigating the cause of the crash and the deaths of 256 Americans. Two LAPD bomb squad officers’ deaths are connected to AR 1285, too. The head of LADPD bomb squad told Charles “Chuck” Byers, President of Accuracy Systems Ordinance Corporation, Phoenix, that his incendiary device was linked an aircraft crash, and he would be interviewed by federal agents. Both men were friends, had common interests in munitions, guns and knew each other for several years. Don Devereux, a long-time member of Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) whose investigative work for the print media earned him two Pulitzer nominations, investigated the Arrow Air 1285 crash for several years for both the print media and TV series like “Investigative Reports” and “Unsolved Mysteries”. Devereux reported a discussion between Byers and Arleigh McCree in January 1986: On the shelves in a company office, Byers had arranged a display of the various specialized products being manufactured and marketed, mostly going to defense, intelligence, and law enforcement customers. While walking past the display, McCree suddenly stopped and reached out to pick up one object. Obviously startled by what he held in his hands, he exclaimed, “This is what brought down a plane we’re investigating!” The object in question was a transparent plastic packet with three sealed pockets. Two of the pockets contained chemical compounds—one white, one black—which when combined became highly volatile, and the third pocket included a folded aluminum foil cup in which to mix them. Once combined, the chemicals could be ignited by a simple burning fuse, by a trigger, or even by remote control. The device had various names in the trade; a “flash” compound, an “incendiary trigger,” a "fire starter". Detonated in association with such inflammatory materials as napalm, it very quickly could produce one hell of a conflagration, easily sufficient to bring down an aircraft. McCree asked Byers who had been buying the device. Byers said that he only had one customer for it--the CIA. McCree told Byers that he was going to be writing a report about his discovery and that someone would be getting back to him about it. McCree and Ron Ball, his partner, were killed in a bobby-trapped bomb pipe several weeks later. No federal agents interviewed Byers who pushed for an investigation of his friend’s death with various federal agencies. A bomb sent to Byers killed his plant manager, the government shut down his business, and found ‘evidence’ of procurement fraud when he mailed a check to another contractor from unexpended funds on a government contract. The funds should have been returned to the Treasury but Byers said he never received a dime from the contractor and was only following the directions of a federal contracting officer. He was sentenced to 20 months in a federal prison in Virginia. Now, officially a convicted felon, Byers complaints about McCree’s death could be dismissed as the rantings of a convict. These cases require thorough investigations by the US Attorney General. If approached with an unbiased attitude, I believe there will be strong evidence of homicide and government misconduct, which will result in indictments of multiple individuals. These are cold case investigations, but the Jan 2017 forensic reports of Bryan Burnett, published in a UK forensic journal with peer review, provide a solid foundation for the cold-blooded murder of Colonel Sabow and the cover-up by DOD, including a fraudulent autopsy photograph submitted to a District Court and the US Congress. Gene Wheaton’s work and Dr. Les Filotas’ book on AR 1285, Improbable Cause, a 500-page definitive work, and his participation as a member of the CASB supports for the deliberate destruction of the DC-8CF aircraft and the violent deaths of 256 Americans, including eight crew members. The National Security mantel covers both cases, but that can be lifted by the President. Once that’s done, a cold case criminal investigation by the Justice Department or a Special Prosecutor can result in indictments and prosecution of multiple individuals. There is no statute of limitations on murder, and those involved have no place to hide.

Tony Blair denies pitching to be Donald Trump's Middle East envoy at secret White House meeting

Mr Blair attended a meeting at the White House on Wednesday with Mr Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner CREDIT: 2017 GETTY IMAGES/2017 GETTY IMAGES

• Nicola Harley
• Christopher Hope, chief political correspondent

5 MARCH 2017 • 12:41AM

Tony Blair has not pitched to be President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, a spokesman said.

The former prime minister met the US president's son-in-law and key adviser Jared Kushner at the White House last week to discuss working for Mr Trump, the Mail on Sunday reported.

Jared Kushner and wife Ivanka Trump CREDIT: 2016 GETTY IMAGES/2016 GETTY IMAGES

The newspaper said Mr Blair has met Mr Kushner three times since September.

In a statement, Mr Blair's office said the story was an "invention".

US President Donald Trump at the White House  CREDIT: EPA/SHAWN THEW/EPA/SHAWN THEW

"Mr Blair has made no such 'pitch' to be the president's Middle East envoy," a spokesman said.

"Neither has he had any discussions about taking such a role or any role working for the new president.

He has been working on the peace process for 10 years. He continues to do so. He does so in a private capacity. He will continue to do it in that way. Period."

Andrew Bridgen, a Conservative MP, told The Telegraph: "It's often said that a wise man should try to  learn from the mistakes of history so as not to repeat them."

After leaving Downing Street, Mr Blair took the role of Middle East envoy for the Quartet, an organisation comprising the EU, US, Russia and the UN, that aims to help negotiations in the Middle East.

Last November, the Telegraph revealed that Mr Blair and Mr Kushner had dined together in a fashionable restaurant in New York.