‘Wear transparent dress and come to my room for training’ new Swarnavahini chief invites female TV presenters !

(Lanka-e-News -10.March.2017, 11.30PM)   The Swarnavahini  television (TV) which is one of the leading  TV  channels in   Sri Lanka is now in a deep crisis and its standard has declined steeply , according to the employees of that  channel. An employee had occasion  to reveal the present  sad state of affairs  of this Establishment   to Lanka e News based on a latest  incident that happened last Friday (03).

About 8 months ago , an interview was conducted to recruit presenters (male and female)  for the TV channel . There were over 1000 applicants for the posts.

Following several rounds of interviews , ten candidates were selected.  Workshops and training were conducted for these candidates spending huge sums of money. In addition training camps were held within the Swarnavahini studios monitored by popular presenters .

Out of  the ten recruits who underwent training , 6 were selected for the television channel . That is three for the TV news division , and three for the morning ‘Ayubowan Sri Lanka’ program.

All these took place under the previous chief more than six months ago. Thereafter another chief replacing him took over duties as the chief Executive Officer (CEO)  in January 2017

News report on production of Blue films ?

Following this change  the television channel has turned topsy turvy. That is the Institution has taken a turn for the worse rapidly and most disgracefully .  The marketing chiefs who visit   the news division have said shamelessly  , do any filthy thing and raise the rating , instead of  saying ,  improve  the standard of  news.  Going by those instructions , it will be unsurprising if there emerges a  Swarnavahini news report very soon on how  to make a blue film.

Meanwhile one (female) of the six presenters who was presenting the’Ayubowan Sri Lanka’ has by now thrown up her job and gone  away .The reason for this is, for the last 6 months she had not been paid even  a cent as salary .On top of that , two other presenters among them have met a chief of the division , and complained they have not been paid any salary . They have cried and prevailed upon the chief to pay at least their bus fares to come to the work place. This chief has then paid these two presenters Rs. 25000.00 each out of the monies that were set aside for the production of  programs of his division. That was two months ago. But now that chief  has asked back the monies released by him from these two presenters   saying , he has not  received grants so far for the production of his programs . 

Two more  presenters(female)  among those who were recruited were in for a most rude and vulgar shock of their lives, when they were greeted by a bizarre directive  issued   by the  new chief of   the TV channel.  He has  told them  , since their performance as presenters is  below par , they have to be trained again . He has instructed them therefore to come to his official cubicle wearing transparent clothes   and canvas shoes. 

According to the usual procedure , if the TV presenter (male or female) is having any flaws  in her  presentation , the chief  of the TV channel should report that to the relevant producer or the director of the program , so that under their supervision the training can be given again. The new chief however has not followed that time honored procedure . The new procedure sought by this new chief  was most baffling and shocking. The new chief has disregarded  the age old procedures , and told the two female presenters that they should be trained again , based on his personal whim and fancy. While such a training incorporates a voice training mainly , how did wearing transparent dress and canvas shoes of the female presenters become most important to the new chief ?  has become a huge puzzle to the other staff .

The transparent dress that revealed  all …

The two female announcers out of fear following this request   have not sighted the official cubicle  of the chief. Nevertheless these two presenters have reported for work on the following day. They have then learnt that the chief has decided that they are not suitable at all to present the TV program because their presentation is below par ,and that on the screen there is visibly a crookedness on their foreheads. 

Consequently ,on  the next day  they lost their jobs in which they received a six months training .Unbelievably , though they had worked for six months in the TV channel   , they had not even  been issued appointment letters !

If these two female presenters had only gone to the room of the chief for training in transparent dress , there would have been a possibility for  the crookedness on their foreheads disappearing under the not so crooked bottom head of the chief ,and they would have still been presenters . 

It is learnt this new chief with an incurable  itch in the wrong place is always finding fault with the performance of even the popular female announcers with a view to give them ‘training’ in his cosy official cubicle. 

By Diyonis Master
Translated by Jeff 

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by     (2017-03-10 20:37:07)

The Battle of the Blasé

IT’S NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID – As dismal and discouraging as recent commentary in certain quarters might make Sri Lanka’s past and present financial and fiduciary showing to be, it’s stress and tension in other spheres that’s buckling the Big Tent of our stability among the global power-shifters. Despite a solid showing in Geneva, the goodwill and generosity of our international sponsors may not be sufficient in the long run – nor significant enough on the ground back home – to fast-track the stalled transitional-justice process that the now long forgotten (so-called) January Revolution jump-started

Friday, 10 March 2017

There are days in our cultural calendar when nothing serious can be done. There is the silly season around the end of each year… thank God Christmas comes but once… it’s an all-inclusive annual festival that embraces Sri Lankans from all walks of life…

There is an even sillier season – and here I run a real risk of blasphemy (or worse, sacrilege) – which is currently on, in which some of the most productive and responsible citizens indulge themselves and engage in some boyish debacles in brio con fuoco. There is a plethora of symptoms of this ‘big-match fever’ which bear closer examination for the potential contribution they could make to national life…

However, rather than examine the phenomenon here, permit your cricket-weary columnist (I did caution you I’d be irreverent or unworshipful) to making some passing remarks in the larger social interest.

For two particular schools – traditional rivals – arguably the biggest of these ‘big matches’ takes on a carnival atmosphere, annually. This sense of a citywide Saturnalia is not always restricted to a sporting arena. There is something about schoolboy esprit de corps that compels young bloods to congregate around girls’ schools, grocers purveying spiritual sustenance, and the general vicinity of highjinks. Boys will be boys.

This year, a departure from the traditional traffic snarls – a departure embarked upon by that bastion of tradition, The School By The Sea – holds out no small measure of hope… for those who maintain that the more things change, the more they remain the same… or that they only undergo a sea-change into something rich and strange. The ritualistic cycle parade – which customarily contains more vehicular modes of transports that are decidedly not bicycles – departed from the hallowed norm by virtue of sporting more eco-friendly machines on two wheels than the traditional three or four or six on souped-up jalopies. Which, while signalling welcome relief to Colombo’s overburdened traffic police as well as its more plebeian motorists prone to grumble at mundane gridlock, also semaphored the potential for transformation that even the most calcified institutions allow.

Political parallel

There are seasons in our political almanac when it seems as if nothing significant can be achieved. There is, for instance, the silly season around the time of any poll… Thank the Elections Commissioner that these come around only relatively rarely… It’s a free-for-all in which parties and aspiring electors alike literally go to town… with lies, false promises, and stacks of posters to stick – All at the taxpayers’ expense, to little effective outcome except to perpetuate the illusion of political cultures changing shape and evolving in the national interest.

There is an even sillier season – and here I run a real risk of brickbats (or worse, bouquets from café society which break no bones but are useless for critically engaging the art of the possible). It is that period that political analysts might term détente, when it is evident to all but the naïve and sentimental that a war of attrition is on. And the irony is that in a three-sided tussle between UNP, SLFP, and JO, it is the unlikely coalition partners who are most likely to be at loggerheads.

There is a panoply of signs and wonders to which we all looked forward, in the early honeymoon’s first-blush wake… Now, however, as the marriage of convenience lengthens its shadows toward the sundown of amity, a showdown of sorts in on the cards. Boys will be beasts.

For the two main political parties – traditional rivals – the time for hallelujah choruses about how they jointly kept the Hambantota Hun outside the gate of the House is long past. No longer can cynical spinmeisters and canny propagandists encourage civil society to keep singing hosannas for landmark legislation such as 19A and RTI passed. Or preen one’s feathers in public that the present lot is not in the least like the past sorry lot. The time for pathetic one-upmanship was well and truly over long ago. There is something about singing one’s own praises that is off-putting for the staunchest of stakeholders in the new social contract that is still in the draft stage and no clear road map for the long desired journey towards transitional justice ahead. Amen, and let’s get on to the next items on the agenda?

The Battle...

At this time, a departure from the conventional gridlock – a president from one party and a prime minister from another locking horns over administrative minutiae as much as matters of some agency and import to all – would be welcome. No one who knows how normal or natural adversarial politics can be in our blessed isle of a republic would expect the two leaders to entrain on a political cycle parade atop a bicycle built for two! But there is some hope that the arguably democratic spirit of one and the demonstrably ambient survival instincts of the other will work in tandem for the national interest. Time for truly national government to take primacy over realpolitik’s instrumentality…

Pushing for a result

Be the state of play at the biggest and best of big matches as it may, there is little if any doubt that the larger game being played on global stakes is heading for a sorry draw… or at least, an impasse. Brilliant as our foreign minister’s showing at Geneva may be, the ground situation back home leaves much to be desired as Dharisha Bastians’ incisive column this week concludes. Sooner or later – and sooner than later the better – the government must bite the bullet and begin to deliver on the verbal pyrotechnics on display for the admiring consumption of the watching world.

The dilemma of the joint heads of Project Sri Lanka is not so much how to manage the economy (although “we’ll muddle along” is clearly no longer good enough, given the dismal fiscal management of past and present administrations). Rather, it is mobilising national sentiment – especially that of nationalism-prone voters – in favour of going the full distance of transitional justice: war crimes trials, surrendering lands to citizenry over continuing military occupation, delineating powers to the periphery, executing tough political decisions to pursue past actors indicted of criminal activity, checking and curbing corruption in government ranks as

Hope the prime minister – a true blue Royalist – as much as the president – the alumnus of another ‘Royal College’ – would be humble enough to take a lesson from the Thomian cycle parade this year. They have a choice before them… To rally the troops with convincing arguments about the need to deliver on promises made… As much as practically operationalising RTI, OMP, and other instruments towards the effective implementation of transitional justice trajectory-markers on the way forward – Or run the serious risk of losing ground gained over the past two years and more of transforming Sri Lanka from a post-war to a post-conflict society.

Both political leaders are astute enough that they cannot each espouse a ‘Be Thou Forever’ attitude, clinging to positions that privilege their sense of power while compromising the national interest. Both have to learn that playing such a high stakes game means running the risk of losing an election for the sake of the economy, our international image, that elusive fruit of peace with justice so many citizens desire to partake of – or depart.

Speaker ‘Missing In RTI Action’

March 10, 2017

A full five days after the Speaker of Parliament Karu Jayasuriya had returned to Sri Lanka after a brief trip overseas during the weekend, his Office is yet to respond to references made to a ‘ruling’ by the Speaker by the Office of the Prime Minister and the Office of the President in denying requests for the Assets and Liabilities Declarations of the head of the executive and the head of the legislature lodged under Sri Lanka’s Right to Information Act.

The requests had been filed by a non-governmental organization Transparency International, Sri Lanka (TISL). TISL itself has been besieged by RTI requests filed to the organization in respect of allegations of institutional mismanagement and corruption by a coalition of trade unions numbering over forty who are part of the Coalition against Corruption.

These long standing allegations involve asking for an inquiry report by JC Weliamuna and Lakshan Dias regarding a secretive inquiry after which whistleblower employees of TISL had been ‘got rid of’ and ‘favouritism’ allegations against the TISL top management in awarding lucrative assignments to individuals with conflict of interest ties (ie friends and colleagues of the TISL’s management) without a proper procurement procedure. The information requests are pending before TISL.

As Colombo Telegraph previously reported, TISL had filed in the Office of the Prime Minister for the Prime Minister’s Assets Declaration even though this was not the proper Authority to receive that application. The Public Authorities in custody of the PM’s Assets Declaration is the President (through the Assets law), the Speaker (though the practice and procedure of Parliament) and the Commissioner of Elections (at the time of coming forward as a candidate).

Regardless, the proper course of action would have been for the PM’s Office to have transferred the request to the Speaker. However and without the Information Officer of the PM’s Office responding to TISL as required by law, the appeal (Designated) Officer had replied, denying the info request and citing ‘a ruling’ of the Speaker.

Under the RTI law, the Speaker cannot give any ruling. The power to hand down orders is exclusively in the hands of the RTI Commission. The Colombo Telegraph learns that this reference to a ‘ruling’ by the PM’s Office was a mistaken reference to a request by the Speaker to transfer the request to him. But this confusion has been made worse by the Office of the President also responding in a similar way. And no clarification is yet forthcoming from the Office of the Speaker regarding the so-called ‘ruling’ even though a full one week has lapsed since.

Read More

Dinesh’s water deal exposed!

 Mar 10, 2017

The joint opposition is these days involved in a campaign to expose stealing by the present government politicians. Irrespective of who is responsible, any swindling of public money should be exposed. We too, agree on that account. However, it is insane to see persons like Dinesh Gunwardena, who heads the JO, come forward to speak about stealing by others. They point at others’ nudity, while exposing themselves. Clad in white clothing, Dinesh comes to media briefings and speak about the so-called top 10 corruptions. We have been told about just one massive swindling by Dinesh.

Estimated worth concealed

 It was when Dinesh was the water supply and irrigation minister in 2013-14. A project had been proposed to supply drinking water for the people of Kalawanchikudy in Ampara. The estimated cost was Rs. 4.9 billion. According to the Sri Lankan law, all projects worth more than Rs. 15 million should have the cabinet’s approval. For this project, Dinesh obtained cabinet approval, but by giving the estimated worth of the project as Rs. three billion. When tenders were called, the project’s worth was given as Rs. three b. This misleading attempt had a history that came from early 2013.

‘Love letters’ with Sun Power

Since 2013, the ministry had had discussions with Sun Power Systems Pvt. Ltd. with regard to this water supply project. Previously owned by Maharaja Group, this company was later bought by another party and its chairman was Jayantha Samarakoon. Tender calling is a confidential process, as the lowest bid is chosen. The tender notice and other details that need to be made public are released only after everything else is finalized. However, Dinesh violated the tender procedure and started having correspondence with Sun Power even before cabinet approval was given for the project. The best part is yet to come.

Tender procedure disregarded

 The tender notice gave the worth of the project as Rs. 3 b, but since the project could not be completed at such a cost, no other party became interested. Therefore, only Sun Power submitted a bid. Although the estimated worth was Rs. 4.9 b, Sun Power submitted a bid for Rs. 9 b, that is twice the price of the value in the tender notice. Also, it submitted a Rs. 7.8 b alternative bid too, although the tender notice clearly stated alternative bids would not be welcome. Therefore, Sun Power had violated tender conditions from the outset. Also, the open tender calling needs at least three bids to be considered and the tender awarded to the most qualified bidder.

Here, only one bidder had come forward and according to procurement regulations, fresh tenders should have been called. But, that did not happen due to the power of the correspondence Sun Power had with Dinesh.

Furthermore, the tender evaluation committed rejected the Rs. 9 b bid by Sun Power. Its report said the bidder had no feasibility or financial ability to complete this water supply project. What should have happened was the rejection of the bid. But, what happened due to Dinesh’s powers was the evaluation committee report was thrown into the dustbin and Sun Power awarded the tender for its Rs. 7.8 b alternative bid.

Commissions to HK account through Sun Power

This makes it clear that Dinesh had acted from the beginning with the intention of handing over the project to Sun Power. That is not for nothing. We have details of how much money was deposited by Sun Power in a Hong Kong bank account, although not under Dinesh’s name, but anyway belongs to him. We have all the correspondence between Dinesh and Sun Power, and will reveal them soon.

Is this patriotism?

So, those who speak about ‘top 10 corrupt’ are actually a group like Ali Baba and 40 thieves who should be on par with the Asia’s top ten corrupt level. This son of Lion of Boralugoda fainted at the 4th floor when Rs. 20 million of apartment deal commission money surfaced from the bank account of the elder sister of his personal assistant. It is persons like him who tell the country about corruption. Dinesh is in the JO not due to any patriotism, but because Mahinda Rajapaksa has the files about his fraud and corruption. If he changes sides, his file will come out.

Dinesh speaks about stealing and those who hurrah him will lose their clothing due to his conduct. The other question we have is about the compassion of ‘Yahapaalanaya’ that allows Dinesh to remain free although it came to power two years and two months ago with the mantra of catching thieves.

Truly incredible ! New filtration process that transforms impure Beira water into drinking water ! Costs only 50 cents A solution to kidney diseases

(Lanka-e-News -10.March.2017, 11.30PM)   A water filtration process which can purify the impure water taken from the Beira lake into drinking water in two minutes was introduced by the minister of finance Ravi Karunanayake yesterday (09) . The greatest benefit people will  derive from this filter is , the expenditure incurred by a family of four members using this filter  for a day ‘s consumption of water is as low as 50 cents.

The Finance minister said, by providing this pure water to the people , a sum of about Rs. 124 billion that is spent  annually on  the state  health service can be  trimmed down. This immediate  purified drinking water supply to the people will be a solution to  many ailments  including kidney diseases .

This revolutionary equipment providing pure drinking  water supply at low cost is produced by Life Saver Co. of Britain . This novel water purification filter was introduced for the first time  to Sri Lanka on the 9th  at the Ministry of Finance . The officers of the foreign company demonstrated how the impure water obtained from the environs of the Beira Lake could be transformed into pure drinking water in two mins. 

This new filter  will also provide permanent answers to the environmental pollution caused by collection of empty  drinking   water bottles and indestructible wastes. Besides , kidney diseases and arsenic poisoning can be controlled.

Minister Ravi Karunanayake who was present at the event made the following comments .

‘Actually we wanted to introduce this water purification filter as an answer to the drinking water issues faced by the people of Colombo. It is then we came to know about this Company.  Based on the direction and guidance provided by the president Miathripala Sirisena and  prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, eradication of the kidney disease has begun.

We have therefore decided to introduce this water filter across the entire country. For a family of four members , because of this filter,  the expenditure incurred on usage of water for a day is only 50 cents . Owing to this the economy of the country is developing in two ways.

Firstly , the expenditure of the people on water usage is getting reduced .Secondly , the expenditure of Rs. 124 billion on the health service annually can be curtailed by curbing  diseases ,‘ the minister pinpointed.

In Malaysia, Bangla Desh , Brazil, Lebanon and Columbia these water filters are most popular and successful .

Steuart Wilson , the zonal manager of Life Saver Co. and Darin Weerasinghe the local representative of that company  also participated in this event.

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by     (2017-03-10 20:18:45)

Snowden shelterers in Hong Kong seek Canada asylum: lawyer

Edward Snowden speaks via video link during a conference at University of Buenos Aires Law School, Argentina, November 14, 2016. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

By Alastair Sharp | TORONTO- Fri Mar 10, 2017

Three families who helped shelter former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in Hong Kong in 2013 after his mass leak of information about surveillance programs have asked Canada for asylum, their lawyer said on Friday.

The families - three Sri Lankan adults, a Filipina, and three stateless children - have had long-pending asylum claims in Hong Kong that they fear may soon be rejected, lawyer Marc-Andre Seguin said in a phone interview from Hong Kong.

Seguin said the families had been thrust into the spotlight after the September release of the Oliver Stone film "Snowden" which referred to their role in Snowden's flight from the United States in 2013 and, eventually, to Russia.

Seguin said the families and Hong Kong-based lawyer Robert Tibbo, who introduced his clients to Snowden, now face increasingly adverse circumstances in Hong Kong.

They said that they have been "actively sought by Sri Lankan operatives" in recent months and fear for their safety in Hong Kong, Seguin said. Reuters could not independently verify their stories.

A spokeswoman for Canada's immigration minister said his office does not comment on current or possible cases and could not confirm or deny having received the applications.

Snowden's leaks of classified information about government surveillance programs caused an international furor over the reach of U.S. spy operations. His defenders see him as a whistleblower who exposed the extent of government snooping on citizens. He has been allowed to remain in Russia for another three years and will next year qualify to apply for Russian citizenship, his Russian lawyer was quoted as saying in January.

(Additional reporting by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Frances Kerry)

How the Jewish National Fund lobbies for war

The Jewish National Fund, which enjoys charitable status in Canada, plays a key role in the Zionist colonization of Palestine. (Joe Catron)

Yves Engler- 8 March 2017

What do you call an organization that teaches children an exclusive religious or ethnic nationalism and promotes war and other forms of violence to get its way?

Many people would say an extremist group or a right-wing cult. Many people would think we were talking about something like the Ku Klux Klan.

But while the KKK did have a youth corps where children were taught “patriotism” and “Christian values,” but weren’t “brainwashed” – in the words of one “imperial wizard” – we are talking about a group the Canada Revenue Agency finds worthy of awarding tax-deductible status for “charitable” donations.

The Jewish National Fund would also deny “brainwashing” children, but there is no doubt it tries to convince young minds of its exclusivist worldview.

JNF Montreal recently organized a “tree-a-thon” with the stated aim of restoring lands damaged by last year’s forest fires in Israel. Participants were promised “great prizes, great food, great fun,” and students were told they could “earn community service hours.”

The registered “charity” offers various youth education initiatives promoting Zionism, Israel’s state ideology. JNF Canada’s website boasts of how it helps young people “forge an everlasting bond with the land of Israel.”

Expansionist

The JNF has long promoted an expansionist vision of the “land of Israel” – a term that can be found on the Blue Boxes that it uses in fundraisers.

Maps on JNF Blue Boxes distributed in recent years encompass the occupied West Bank. The first map on the Blue Box, designed in 1934, depicted an area reaching from the Mediterranean into present-day Lebanon and Jordan.

Blue Boxes – tins for collecting money – are the mainstay of JNF youth outreach. Over the last century millions of them have been distributed around the world.

An official description explains: “Since its debut in 1901 as JNF’s official fundraising pushke [collection box], the Blue Box has represented JNF and its efforts to develop the land and roads, build communities, strengthen agriculture and create water reservoirs in Israel. It is also a vehicle for educating Jewish youth and involving them in these efforts in order to foster their Zionistic spirit and inspire their support for the State of Israel. For many Jews, the Blue Box is bound up with childhood memories from home and the traditional contributions they made in kindergarten and grade school.”

While youth pursuing “community service” sounds benign, the JNF is, in fact, a racist, colonial institution that has no place in the 21st century. An owner of 13 percent of the land in Israel and with influence over much of the rest, the JNF discriminates against Palestinian citizens who make up one-fifth of the state’s population.

According to a United Nations report from 1998, JNF lands are “chartered to benefit Jews exclusively,” which has led to an “institutionalized form of discrimination.”

Lobbying for war

For their part, JNF Canada officials are relatively open about the discriminatory character of the organization. In 2009, JNF Canada’s then head Frank Wilson explained, the “JNF are the caretakers of the land of Israel on behalf of its owners, who are the Jewish people everywhere around the world.”

In addition to racist land-use policies, JNF Canada lobbies for war.

Shortly after Israel killed 2,200 Palestinians – mostly civilians – in Gaza during 2014, the JNF brought Shaul Mofaz to speak in Toronto.

As well as being a former defense minister, Mofaz was in charge of the Israeli military from 1998 to 2002. In that capacity, he oversaw the brutal oppression of the second intifada, including a series of attacks on the main cities in the occupied West Bank.

In 2007, the JNF sponsored a cross-Canada speaking tour by Zeev Raz, a colonel who led Israel’s 1981 bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor and who has subsequently worked for Israel’s arms industry. The aim of the tour was to build momentum for an attack against Iran.

“Sanctions against Iran are not effective,” Raz argued. “Sanctions are too vulnerable to cheating. The only solution to the Iran problem is for there to be an effort of the US and other forces to invade Iran from the ground.”

JNF Canada has described 2016 as “our best year yet.” More than $21 million was raised.

Similar to other formerly powerful, but now discredited, institutions, the JNF seeks to convince vulnerable young minds of its racist worldview.

It’s time to free the children and abolish the JNF. Or at least revoke its tax-deductible status.

Yves Engler is the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid and a number of other books. Website: yvesengler.com.

Saudi-led air strike on market kills dozens in Yemen

Medical and military sources say 20 civilians and six Houthi rebels were killed near the Red Sea port of Khoukha

An air strike by the Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, 22 January (AFP)

Friday 10 March 2017

An air strike by a Saudi-led coalition on a market in Yemen killed 20 civilians and six rebels on Friday, medical and military sources said.

The aircraft tried to target Houthi rebels at a roadblock on the southern outskirts of the Red Sea port of Khoukha, but the fighters fled to a market where they were attacked, the sources claimed.

The attack took place at the entrance to a market selling the mild narcotic leaf qat, which is popular among Yemenis.

A military source close to Saudi-backed President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi said that by fleeing to the market, the rebels had used civilians as "human shields".

The Houthi television channel Al-Masirah also reported the air strike, but give a slightly higher toll of 27 killed and said dozens more were wounded.

The Saudi-led coalition, which has been battling Houthi and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh opposed to Hadi, was not immediately available for comment.

The Saudi-led forces have come under repeated criticism over civilian casualties in Yemen.

In October 2016 a Saudi air strike killed more than 150 people at a funeral in Sanaa, leading Washington to limit its military support for the coalition.

In December, the coalition acknowledged that it had made "limited use" of British-made cluster bombs, but said it had stopped using them.

On Thursday, however, Amnesty International said the Saudi-led forces were still using banned Brazilian-manufactured cluster munitions in raids on residential areas in northern Saada province, a Houthi stronghold.

The conflict in Yemen has left about 10,000 people dead and 40,000 wounded since the coalition intervened on the government's side in March 2015, according to the United Nations.

The violence and Saudi-led naval blockade have also brought the country to the brink of famine.

China Releases Human Rights Report on US: 'Terrible Problems'

Cops arrest an activist peacefully protesting the police shooting of 16-year-old Kiki Gray in New York City, 2013.Photo: Reuters

"The colonial history, enslavement, segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the U.S. remained a serious challenge," the report noted.

9 March 2017

On Thursday, China’s State Council Information Office released a human rights report on the U.S., noting that while that country continues to act as "the judge of human rights" it continues to ignore its own "terrible problems."

RELATED:
Human Rights Worldwide Threatened by Trump's 'Toxic Agenda'

The report, called "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2016," cites both international and U.S. academic and NGO sources focussed on that country’s domestic and international human rights record.

"Wielding 'the baton of human rights,' (the U.S.) pointed fingers and cast blame on the human rights situation in many countries while paying no attention to its own terrible human rights problems," the report declared.

"With the gunshots lingering in people's ears behind the Statue of Liberty, worsening racial discrimination and the election farce dominated by money politics, the self-proclaimed human rights defender has exposed its human rights 'myth' with its own deeds," it added.

On the domestic front, the report highlighted the prison industrial complex which has led to the U.S. having the second-highest incarceration rate in the world, with almost one in three adults having a criminal record. Only the Seychelles, with the smallest population in Africa, has a higher portion of its population in jail.

The report also noted that in 2016 "the colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remained a serious challenge," where "Police killings were reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching."

Citing child poverty rates, the growing gendered wage gap, and sexual assault and harassment complaints in the U.S., the report concluded that "there was no improvement to the protection of rights of women, children and elders, and the vulnerable groups' rights were seriously violated."

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1 in 2 US Kids Live in Poverty, Worse for Minorities

The report also concluded that political rights in the U.S. were under threat given that "money politics and power-for-money deals had controlled the (2016) presidential election," resulting in record low turnout and voter alienation.

On the international front the report noted that "in 2016, the United States continued to trample on human rights in other countries, causing tremendous civilian casualties."

The report noted that the U.S. air campaigns in Syria and Iraq had killed between 4,568 and 6,127 civilians and that since 2009, its illegal drone program had left 800 dead in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

It also highlighted the remaining 59 illegally detained prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the U.S. failure, in contravention of international law, to investigate and punish documented war crimes and torture committed by U.S. soldiers and CIA agents during its 16-year so-called "war on terror."

The report closed by saying that the vast domestic and international surveillance network exposed by Edward Snowden, which "drew vast criticism from the international community," presented a grave threat to privacy rights worldwide.

The release of China's report comes one week after the U.S. released its own 2016 report on human rights throughout the world, a report which was widely condemned as, at best, a hypocritical exercise in using appeals to human rights as a tool to further U.S. foreign policy interests.

'Trump lies all the time': Bernie Sanders indicts president's assault on democracy

Bernie Sanders on the resistance movement in Trump’s America – video

Ed Pilkington in Washington-Friday 10 March 2017 

Exclusive: the former presidential candidate suggested that Donald Trump’s false claims serve a purpose – to push the United States toward authoritarianism

Bernie Sanders has launched a withering attack on Donald Trump, accusing him of being a pathological liar who is driving America towards authoritarianism.

In an interview with the Guardian, the independent senator from Vermont, who waged a spirited campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, gave a bleak appraisal of the new White House and its intentions.

He warned that Trump’s most contentious outbursts against the media, judiciary and other pillars of American public life amounted to a conscious assault on democracy.

“Trump lies all of the time and I think that is not an accident, there is a reason for that. He lies in order to undermine the foundations of American democracy.”

Sanders’ warning comes 50 days into the Trump presidency at a time when the country is still reeling from the shock elevation of a real estate businessman and reality TV star to the world’s most powerful office. In that brief period, the new incumbent of the White House has launched attacks on former president Barack Obama’s signature healthcarepolicy; on visitors from majority-Muslim countries, refugees and undocumented immigrants; and on trade agreements and environmental protection programs.

Speaking to the Guardian in his Senate office in Washington DC, Sanders said that he was concerned about what he called Trump’s “reactionary economic program of tax breaks to billionaires and devastating cuts to programs that impact the middle class”. But he reserved his most excoriating language for what he believes are the president’s authoritarian tendencies.

He charged Trump with devising a conscious strategy of lies denigrating key public institutions, from the mainstream media to judges and even the electoral process itself, so that he could present himself as the sole savior of the nation. The aim was to put out the message that “the only person in America who stands for the American people, the only person in America who is telling the truth, the only person in America who gets it right is the president of the United States, Donald Trump”.

Trump’s fragile relationship with the truth has been one of the distinguishing features of his fledgling administration. He astonished observers by calling a judge who issued a legal ruling blocking his travel ban a “so-called judge”, accused Obama without producing any evidence of wiretapping Trump Tower, and claimed falsely that up to 5 million votes had been cast illegally in the November election.

Sanders, however, suggested the lies all serve a purpose. To underline his point, Sanders compared the 45th president with the 43rd. “George Bush was a very conservative president, I opposed him every single day. But George Bush did not operate outside of mainstream American political values.”

While the media spotlight remains firmly on Trump and the daily bombardment of his Twitter feed, quietly and largely unmarked, Sanders, the self-styled democratic socialist senator, is spearheading a nationwide resistance to the new administration. The Brooklyn-born politician is working in tandem with, though at arm’s length from, former senior advisers in his presidential campaign to rouse for a second time the vast army of young people who flocked to his cause in 2016.

He said that despite what he sees as the virulent threat of Trump, he finds comfort in the evidence that the resistance is already in full swing. “You are seeing a very active progressive movement. Our Revolution – a group which came out of my campaign – other groups, the spontaneous Women’s March, that’s all an indication of the willingness of the American people to fight back for democracy.”

Trump’s end goal was to “end up as the leader of a nation which has moved in a significant degree toward authoritarianism”, he said. “The only way to defeat that trend is for massive grassroots resistance, and clearly we are seeing that right now.”

As examples of what he meant, Sanders pointed to the 150 rallies in 130 congressional districts that were held in one recent weekend alone. The events mobilized “tens of thousands of people demanding meetings with their members of Congress to protest against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act”.

Sanders made a specific appeal to his Republican colleagues in Congress to join him in this resistance. He addressed himself directly to those Republicans who “believe in democracy, who do not believe in authoritarianism. It is incumbent upon them, in this moment in history, to stand up and say that what Trump is doing is not what the United States is about, it’s not what our constitution is about. They have got to join us in resistance.”

He added: “I hope in the coming months to be working with some conservative Republicans, who I disagree with on every economic and environmental issue you can imagine, to say to this president that you are not going to undermine American democracy.”

The Vermont senator also remarked on the ongoing inquiry into alleged connections between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government under Vladimir Putin. Intelligence agencies have accused the Kremlin of trying to distort the presidential election in Trump’s favour by hacking into Democratic email accounts.

“Russia played a very heavy role in attempting, successfully, I think, to impact our election. That is unacceptable,” Sanders said.

“We need to know what kind of influence the Russian oligarchy has over Trump. Many people are astounded. Here he is, seemingly in strong disagreement with Australia, with Mexico, with long-term allies; but he has nothing but positive things to say about Mr Putin who is an authoritarian leader.”