Hong Kong's first female leader a "tilted bridge" over troubled water

Carrie Lam waves after she won the election for Hong Kong's Chief Executive in Hong Kong, China March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

By Venus Wu | HONG KONG-Sun Mar 26, 2017

Carrie Lam, who won an election to become Hong Kong's first female chief executive on Sunday, is a former student activist who climbed the rungs of the civil service over 36 years, and a tough, capable and possibly divisive Beijing-backed leader.

Lam, 59, most recently Hong Kong's number two official, has to unify the Chinese-ruled city as public resentment swells at Beijing's growing interference in its affairs despite being promised a high degree of autonomy.

She also has to reinvigorate the economy and address growing social inequalities and high property prices.

Several sources who have worked with Lam say she's intelligent, hard-working and able to push controversial government policies, earning her the trust of Beijing factions who strongly lobbied for votes on her behalf.

But her hardline and pro-Beijing tendencies, say critics and opposition democrats, risk sowing further social divisions in the former British colony that returned to China 20 years ago under a "one country, two systems" formula that guarantees it wide-ranging freedoms. "Carrie Lam ... is a nightmare for Hong Kong," said student activist Joshua Wong, 20, one of the leaders of the student-led "Umbrella Movement" protests in 2014 which blocked the streets for 79 days demanding full democracy.

"Theoretically, the chief executive is a bridge between the central government and the Hong Kong people. But Lam will be a tilted bridge. She will only tell us what Beijing wants, and won't reflect what the people want to the communist regime."

Lam, 59, dubbed "the fighter" by media, was once the most popular official in the cabinet of staunchly pro-Beijing incumbent chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, who in 2012 won a similar election restricted to just 1,200 voters.

"Picking Carrie as chief secretary was Leung's best appointment," said a senior government official who declined to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

But she could also sometimes be a "bully", he added.

SOFTER IMAGE

Lam's popularity began to slip just as a younger generation of protesters rose to prominence, and tumbled further during the course of her election campaign this year.

Her attempt to push through a planned Palace Museum in Hong Kong, showing artefacts from the museum in Beijing's Forbidden City, was criticised for being presented as a done deal without public consultation, highlighting what some describe as her "autocratic" style, according to a source who knows her.

She is not well regarded by the opposition democratic camp, with most of the 300 or so democrats seen having voted for former Financial Secretary John Tsang.

The bespectacled Lam was also criticised by student leaders for being "vague" after their televised meeting failed to defuse the 2014 protests. The demonstration ran out of steam two months later and ended with police clearing the streets.

During her campaign, Lam attempted to present a softer, more populist image, but was ridiculed for gaffes including not appearing to know how to use subway turnstiles.

She was also lampooned for a late-night hunt for toilet paper which took her to her posh former home on the Peak after she failed to find any at a convenience store.

The daughter of a Shanghainese immigrant who worked on ships and a mother who had never received a formal education, Lam grew up in a cramped apartment shared by four siblings and several families.

A devout Catholic and a student of sociology at the University of Hong Kong, Lam took part in social activism before joining the government. She is married with two sons.

Lam formally becomes head of the global financial hub on July 1.

She joins a select group of female leaders who have risen to the top job in Asia in recent years including Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, hugely distrusted by China, and ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye, who angered Beijing with her plans to deploy a U.S. missile defence system to counter the threat from North Korea.

(Reporting by Venus Wu; Editing by James Pomfret and Nick Macfie)

The Greek God of Populism

Artemis Sorras is a self-professed trillionaire, former NBA player, and aerospace genius who is persuading Greeks he can save their country. One small problem: He’s on the lam.

BY ALEXANDER CLAPP-MARCH 23, 2017

ATHENS — In September 2012, as the European economic crisis entered its third autumn, a plump Greek man from the port city of Patras came to Athens and put on a press conference at the President Hotel, a few blocks away from the Acropolis. Few in the audience had heard of him, but he brought an astonishing charge against the Greek state. “Artemis Sorras here,” he began mildly. “You should know that your government is in league against you. Now is the time for them to come clean with it!” Sorras went on to explain that he was the inheritor of bonds from the Bank of Anatolia, which had been acquired — and, it was generally thought, incorporated into — the National Bank of Greece in the 1920s. Nonsense, Sorras said. Anatolia’s bonds, far from expired, had in fact accrued tremendous value. Just two of them could more than pay off the Greek national debt. Sorras claimed to possess 40 — a fortune of 145 trillion euro.

The Greek God of Populism.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Indian VP defends liberal values, claims dissent is ‘fundamental right’



Protestors gather for speeches following a march held on campus against violence and intimidation within Delhi University, India, February 28, 2017. Source: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton


26th March 2017

INDIAN Vice-President Hamid Ansari said on Saturday universities must uphold liberal values and respect dissent, a month after violent protests erupted at a university in the capital Delhi over a speech by a student accused of sedition.

Addressing students at a university in the northern state of Punjab, Ansari said commitments to the right to dissent should be revisited at a time when the “value and scope of academic freedom” was being called into question.

“The right of dissent and agitation are ingrained in the fundamental rights under our constitution, which sets out a plural framework and refuses any scope to define the country in narrow sectarian, ideological or religious terms,” he said.

“Recent events in our own country have shown that there is much confusion about what a university should or should not be. The freedom of our universities has been challenged by narrow considerations of what is perceived to be ‘public good’.”

SEE ALSO: India: Muslim community ‘insecure’ after anti-Muslim Adityanath made Chief Minister

Ansari appeared to be referring to violence at the University of Delhi last month involving Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a pro-BJP student union.

According to media reports, ABVP protested against inviting the student to give a speech at a literary seminar and violent clashes broke out.

The vice president’s defence of plurality also comes as criticism grows over an apparent shift in course by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that could redefine the world’s largest democracy as a Hindu nation.

Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand Hindu ascetic with a history of agitation against minority Muslims, was sworn in to lead the country’s most populous state on March 19, and observers said it marked a departure from the platform of development for all on which Modi rose to national power in 2014. – Reuters

U.S. border officers told a Mexican teen to drink liquid meth. His family received $1 million for his death.

(Lenny Ignelzi/AP)

By Kristine Phillips March 21

Cruz Velazquez Acevedo began convulsing shortly after he drank the liquid methamphetamine he’d brought with him from Tijuana, Mexico.

The 16-year-old had just crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to San Diego and was going through the San Ysidro Port of Entry. He was carrying two bottles of liquid that he claimed was apple juice. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers told him to drink it to prove he wasn’t lying, court records say.

The teen took four sips.

Then, he began sweating profusely. He screamed and clenched his fists.

In a matter of minutes, his temperature soared to 105 degrees, his family’s attorney said. His pulse reached an alarming rate of 220 beats per minute — more than twice the normal rate for adults.

“Mi corazón! Mi corazón!” Acevedo screamed, according to court records — “My heart! My heart!”

He was dead about two hours later.

Now, more than three years after his death, the United States has agreed to pay Acevedo’s family $1 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought against two border officers and the U.S. government.

[Thousands of ICE detainees claim they were forced into labor, a violation of anti-slavery laws]

Cruz Velazquez Acevedo, 16, died in 2013 after U.S. Border Protection officers told him to drink liquid methamphetamine, according to a legal complaint. (Courtesy of Eugene Iredale)

The family’s attorney, Eugene Iredale, acknowledged that the teen did something wrong when he tried to bring drugs into the United States on Nov. 18, 2013.

“But he’s a 16-year-old boy with all the immaturity and bad judgment that might be characteristic of any 16-year-old kid,” Iredale told The Washington Post. “He was basically a good boy, he had no record, but he did something stupid. In any event, the worst that would’ve happened to him is that he would’ve been arrested and put in a juvenile facility for some period of time. …

“It wasn’t a death penalty case. To cause him to die in a horrible way that he did is something that is execrable.”

Iredale said he does not know where or how Acevedo got the drugs, or why he brought them into the United States.

“It’s typical for people who are drug smugglers to approach kids and offer them $150 to smuggle drugs across the border,” he said. “We’re never going to know in this case because Cruz died. He knows it’s something he shouldn’t be bringing.”

Acevedo crossed the border through the pedestrian entrance at the San Ysidro Port of Entry at about 6:40 p.m. on that November night. Iredale said the teen was carrying his passport and his border crossing card, which allows Mexican citizens to enter the United States and travel within a certain distance for tourism purposes. In California and Texas, the distance is up to 25 miles from the border; New Mexico and Arizona allow noncitizens to travel for up to 55 miles and 75 miles, respectively.

The two Border Protection officers, Adrian Perallon and Valerie Baird, believed the teen was carrying a deadly controlled substance, but they “coerced and intimidated” him into drinking the liquid, according to a complaint. The boy was taken to a hospital almost an hour after he had sipped the methamphetamine.

He was pronounced dead just before 9 p.m.

Iredale called the officers’ treatment of Acevedo “the most inhuman kind of cruelty.”

[These California teachers mocked students for skipping school on immigrant boycott day]

“I’m not prepared to say they knew for certain that it was going to kill him. … It’s obvious that they suspected from the beginning that it’s meth,” Iredale said. “Playing a cruel joke on a child is not something that’s justifiable in any way. They have test kits available that would’ve given results in two to three minutes.”

Iredale said the officers did test the liquid for drugs, but only after the teen started overdosing.

He also cited testimony by another border officer who said Baird confessed minutes after the incident.

“I asked him what it was, he said it was juice,” Baird told the other border officer, according to Iredale. “I said to him then, ‘prove it.’ ”

Perallon and Baird are still employed by the Customs and Border Protection in San Diego, the agency said in a statement.

“Although we are not able to speak about this specific case, training and the evaluation of CBP policies and procedures are consistently reviewed as needed,” the statement said.

Iredale said Acevedo’s death prompted an internal affairs investigation, but neither officer was disciplined. When asked about the internal affairs investigation, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said the agency had no further comment.

Richard Tolles, an attorney for Baird, said his client and Perallon had sought a summary judgment on the case and were waiting for a hearing on their requests when the government decided to settle.

Perallon’s attorney did not return a call from The Washington Post.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of California declined to comment.

[California chief justice to ICE: Stop ‘stalking’ immigrants at courthouses]

The complaint alleged violations of constitutional rights, including the right to not be subjected to punishment without due process. It also accused government officials of not adequately training border officers. Tolles said there was no misconduct on his client’s part “that would’ve risen to the level of denial of due process.”

“There is no violation of any clearly established constitutional right,” he said.

In a motion to dismiss filed on behalf of Baird in 2015, her attorneys said Acevedo wasn’t a U.S. citizen and had no connections with the United States that entitled him to any constitutional rights.

“Nonresident aliens are entitled to constitutional protections only if they have substantial voluntary connections with the United States,” the attorneys argued.

Iredale said the settlement was the result of several conversations between the parties. The money has been paid to Acevedo’s parents, Iredale said.

A previous version of this story, citing the complaint, incorrectly referred to the defendants as agents with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The defendants are Border Protection officers who work at the port of entry in Southern California. 

Night-time loo trips 'linked to salt in diet'

How much salt is too much?

To pee or not to pee?

26 March 2017

People who wake at night with an urge to go to the loo may need to cut back on salt in their diets, doctors from Japan are suggesting.

The problem - called nocturia - which mainly affects the over-60s, leads to disrupted sleep and can significantly affect people's lives.

In a study of more than 300 volunteers, researchers found that reduced salt intake led people to urinate less.

Advice to follow a sensible diet could help improve symptoms, UK doctors said.

The researchers, from Nagasaki University, presented their findings at the European Society of Urology congress in London.

They followed patients who had a high salt intake and sleeping problems for three months, after giving them advice to cut back on salt in their diet.

On average, trips to the loo fell from more than twice a night to just one.

This happened at night as well as during the day, and their quality of life also improved.

Feeling the urge

Conversely, 98 people in the study ended up eating more salt than normal and found they went to the loo more often at night-time.

Study author Dr Matsuo Tomohiro said larger studies were needed to confirm the link but the results could offer help for older people.

"This work holds out the possibility that a simply dietary modification might significantly improve the quality of life for many people," he said.

Prof Marcus Drake, a nocturia expert from the University of Bristol, said the amount of salt people ate was not generally considered to be a cause of nocturia.

Usually, doctors tended to focus on the volume of water patients drank before bedtime and on bladder and prostate problems (in men), he said.

"Here we have a useful study showing how we need to consider all influences to get the best chance of improving the symptom."

The need to wake up at night to empty the bladder affects more than half of men and women over the age of 50.

It is particularly common in elderly people, many of whom get up at least twice a night.

When you start to need to make two or more trips to the bathroom at night, sleep is being disturbed - which can lead to stress, tiredness and irritability.

---

Is it just a side-effect of getting old?

Hormonal changes do happen as we age, making us produce more urine at night.

Men's prostate glands also often start growing with age.

An enlarged prostate can press on the tube that urine passes through before leaving the body, increasing the need to pass urine.

But this isn't the whole story.

Nocturia can be a sign of an underlying health problem, such as diabetes, heart problems or sleep-related conditions, such as sleep apnoea.

Adults in the UK are recommended to eat no more than 6g of salt a day, equal to 2.4g of sodium.

Children should eat less - only 2g of salt for ages one to three, rising to 5g for seven to 10-year-olds.

After age 11, children can have up to 6g.

---

Which foods are high in salt?

Bread and breakfast cereals can contain more salt than you think.

Bacon, ham, cheese, crisps and pasta sauces are also high in salt.

When buying food, look at the figure for salt per 100g on the packaging.

High salt content is more than 1.5g salt (0.6g sodium) per 100g. These foods may be colour-coded red.

The new ides of March: Foreign judges have not come … but gone! Beware the emblematic cases! 

12 Little Known Laws of Karma (That Will Change Your Life)

by Rajan Philips-March 25, 2017, 8:03 pm

It is not only the ides of March that is new in Sri Lanka. Remember the old example of syllogistic fallacy: "It is either raining or not raining now. But it is not raining now. Therefore, it is raining now"! We can now make a fallacy example out of the government’s current predicament: "Either the government agreed to foreign judges in 2015, or it did not agree. Now it is saying it did not agree.Therefore, the government must indeed have agreed to foreign judges in 2015"! In any event, foreign judges have not come to Sri Lanka, but they are gone, notwithstanding the two-year technical rollover that the UNHRC granted last week to the government on the self-same 2015 resolution. But the UNHRC’s shadow over Sri Lanka is not receding any time soon, because: Beware the "emblematic cases". To my mind, these two words – emblematic cases – carry far more sting than everything else that has come out of Geneva. They could also make the sensibilities of all Sri Lankans converge on a common moral ground instead of getting torn along ethnic lines.

The new ides of March Foreign judges have not come … but gone! Beware the emblematic cases!.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Disconnected: Juxtaposing the UNHRC sessions with protests in the North

Featured image courtesy Rasmila

RAISA WICKREMATUNGE-on 03/24/2017

At 7:30 am in Mullikulam on March 23, a group of villagers decided to begin a protest, demanding for the return of their land.

The residents of Mullikulam have been living ‘as refugees’ for 11 years, in their own words. Most of their land has been occupied by the Navy. Within 2 hours, according to a participant, the police arrived at the scene of the protest. “They asked us, do you want to protest, or do you want your land back?” he related. Undeterred, the protesters decided to continue their efforts.

 Photos courtesy Mannar Social and Economical Development Organization

The residents of Mullikulam are only the latest to join a string of protests held across the North, in the run up to the 34th session of the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva.

On March 23, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on Sri Lanka. Amounting to a technical rollover, it gave Sri Lanka two more years to fulfill the commitments made in a resolution co-sponsored in 2015.

“The very reason the people are protesting is because they have seen no progress in their cases,” human rights activist Ruki Fernando said.

“The representations made by Sri Lanka in Geneva… are completely disconnected from the lived day to day experiences of the protesters. Their perspectives and aspirations are the opposite of what the Prime Minister is saying. The Foreign Minister is not speaking about their daily experience. So they are trying to provide a counter narrative.”

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Mahishini Colonne @MFASriLanka

Foreign Minister @MangalaLK at #hrc34: we strongly believe that we can make the reconciliation process a success

5:17 AM - 28 Feb 2017

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Welcome To Jaffna Madam Chandrika!

By C.V. Wigneswaran –March 25, 2017 

C.V. Wigneswaran

“It is not enough to say war is violent and brutal. Even in war there are standards laid down internationally to be followed. Not to have followed them requires adequate after action. That is the accountability and justice our people are craving for. The reluctance of the powers that be to take adequate steps with regard to War Crimes committed and the attempt to shove the past under the carpet so to say leaves our people wondering whether the Good Governance Government is indeed interested in reconciliation and unity.”

Chief Minister Wgneswarn’s address – UNUR Economic Engagement Programme at the Conference Hall at Divisional Secretariat, Tellipalai on 25.03.2017 at 10.30 am:

Guru Brahma ………….

Hon’ Madam Chandrika Kumaratunga, Hon’ Governor, Hon’ Guests of Honour, including the Members of Parliament and Northern provincial Council, the Jaffna Government Agent, the Director General of ONUR, Distinguished Guests, High officials from Provincial as well as Central Administrations, my dear brothers and sisters,

It gives me pleasure to welcome Madam Chandrika on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the Economic Engagement Programme initiated and implement by the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation. Events are earmarked here in Tellipalai then at Chankanai, Karaveddy and Point Pedro. Many projects that are helpful to our people are being inaugurated. The construction of Primary Health Care Centre at Palai Veemankamam, construction of Fisheries Auction Centre at Chulipuram West at Chankanai, Renovation of Anaivilunthan Tank and Channel at Udupiddy South, Opening of the Rural Water Supply scheme at Polikandy South, Point Pedro are some of the events among others that are to be undertaken today by Madam Chandrika.

The works undertaken are no doubt important but quite delayed in undertaking considering the fact that eight long years have passed since the end of the war. Our people are quite conscious of the urgency of addressing the impact of the war on them and on the environment and landscape around. But at the same time they are concerned about the delay in addressing the questions of accountability and justice too.

Some of us feel and here I reflect the views and concerns of a large section of our people that there are insufficient action so far reflecting a commitment towards reconciliation. While addressing the physical economic needs and other logistical necessities it is incumbent that the basic factors that gave rise to schism among us are also addressed. Discrimination and a hegemonic attitude on the part of the Centre led to our initial disagreements and unpleasantness. It was the snowballing effect of such negative attitudes which led to violence. When violence was brought to an end with International help the means adopted at the tail end by our powers that be were dubious and brutal.

It is not enough to say war is violent and brutal. Even in war there are standards laid down internationally to be followed. Not to have followed them requires adequate after action. That is the accountability and justice our people are craving for. The reluctance of the powers that be to take adequate steps with regard to War Crimes committed and the attempt to shove the past under the carpet so to say leaves our people wondering whether the Good Governance Government is indeed interested in reconciliation and unity.

I always refer to the first improper violent act committed on or around the 5th of June 1956 at Inginiyagala. Immediate action taken irrespective of who was involved would have prevented the culture of impunity that grew to gigantic proportions later. Instead of empathizing with the victims we had sympathized the perpetrators of violence. If the Government oblivious of who committed them and against whom, identified the criminal acts and took immediate action we could have saved this Country from the impasse it went through.

That is why we have been agitating for our participation in the processes adopted for reconciliation. Reconciliation demands the participation of those affected freely and dignifiedly. Our participation does not mean our officials. They are beholder to the Centre. The political representatives of our people should be made to participate right from the beginning. Merely to look into the physical needs of our people is inadequate. Their feelings need to be assuaged.

We have been therefore critical about the preparation of the Peace Building Priority Plan Framework in that many matters that need to have been given adequate attention and importance have not been included therein. Just to refer to some –

1. Our requests to bring us into the process fell on deaf ears. Even now it is not too late to include us. How would you implement the framework when the key stakeholder is not a part to it?
2. The framework has no reference to War Crimes’ accountability
3. There has been no reference to the inclusion of War Crimes jurisdiction into our Law
4. Demilitarisation, High Security Zones, Security Sector Reforms should have been included into the framework
5. The need to withdraw Prevention of Terrorism Act should have been reiterated and helped to be withdrawn
6. Role of the Diaspora should have been included
7. Sustainable Development Goals could have been made the corner stones of our future development

Thus the hardship of our people and their aspirations have not been adequately understood. There is a feeling of “serves them right” pervading the psyche of the powers that be. The extent to which I saw the spirit of empathy engulfing the Toronto Mayor, John Tory who visited us last Sunday, I have failed to see among our local people both Sinhalese and Tamils. Sympathy I do see.

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