Trickster cum fraudster Weerawansa out on bail –‘critical patient’ stands on ambulance footboard like bus conductor !

Ranil – Dinesh pow-wow successful, Wimal released

(Lanka-e-News -08.April.2017, 1.45PM) Notorious Machiavellian mendacious ex minister Wimal Weerawansa who was in remand custody for over three months on grave  charges of misusing and distributing as many as 40 state vehicles was released on bail on the 7 th.

A  second application for bail was presented before the Fort additional magistrate Lanka Jayaratne recently . After considering the special circumstances cited in the motion, he was granted bail on the 7 th . The special circumstance was his daughter suffering from anxiety and being hospitalized  following  Weerawansa staging a so called fast .

On the 3 rd , bail was not granted because the daughter’s anxiety state was not substantiated by a medical certificate.

Though  a medical certificate was somehow produced ,interestingly and intriguingly ,   his daughter supposedly suffering from anxiety state even until as late as  7 th of April even after  Weerawansa abandoning his fast is a matter for surprise. 

The most ludicrous part of Werawansa – daughter combined pavement drama was  : the daughter who is 16 years old being treated after being warded in  a children’s hospital meant only for children below 12 years of age. Though nobody gave an answer  to this most perturbing and pertinent question , Weerawansa however pulled a fast one , and managed to get his bail.

Weerawansa the fraudster was released on a cash bail of Rs. 50,000.00 and two surety bails in sums of Rs. 500,000.00 each. His passport was also impounded. 

Weerawansa the confirmed fraudster proved he is also   an accomplished trickster inside and outside of jail : He came to get his bail in an ambulance as a critical patient , but after securing bail he went in the ambulance standing erect like a bus conductor  hanging on the footboard ,as fit as a fiddle waving his hands at the on lookers.  Weerawansa who is notorious for breaking  ignominious records created another record on the 7 th as the only ‘critical patient’ in the whole wide world who travelled in the ambulance  standing and waving at the outside crowd.

The government doctors who allowed  an innocent  three and half years old child admitted recently to Matara hospital to die without any treatment being administered , had no qualms when providing  all the facilities including an ambulance to the notorious fraudster cum trickster Weerawansa , who pulled a fast one by staging a spurious fast . 

The doctor killers who were staging a heartless strike on the 7th and imperiling the lives of patients ,  nevertheless followed the fast forward track for Weerawansa by  attending  to all his needs before that , and ensured the scoundrel who robbed public funds secured bail . Besides , the so called ‘critical patient’ Weerawansa went home hale and hearty as though he never had any illnesses .

This jocular melodrama enacted by political bankrupt Weerawansa only bears ample testimony , in Sri Lanka (SL)  , the administration of justice and medical treatment are being bent and twisted crudely and cruelly to please and pamper the rascally  politicians, while destitute simple Simons  are left in the lurch . Whither SL ?

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by     (2017-04-08 08:21:15)

Inland Revenue Dept. harbours extortion mafia

Apr 08, 2017

The Inland Revenue Department is harbouring a mafia that extorts money from telephone subscribers whose monthly bill exceeds Rs. 10,000, persons who buy vehicles and luxury apartments and those having a credit card bill of more than Rs. 100,000 a month, by threatening them that they will be fined for having evaded paying taxes, it has come to light.

The exposure came through the complaints received by the president’s office, and a senior official there confirmed to us about the racket. These complaints accuse a deputy commissioner general and an assistant commissioner of leading the extortionists and also charge the department’s commissioner general of not taking action despite the complaints. The official said the president would be informed about the complaints and action taken. He requested those who have been victimized by this mafia to inform the president’s office in writing.

Using a letterhead of the department, a considerable number of telephone subscribers, credit card owners and buyers of vehicles have been summoned to the department, saying the tax administration (corporate small entities and non-corporate sector) division was sending them the warnings as per clause 106(14) of the Inland Revenue Act no. 10 of 2006.

According to reports reaching us, those who had responded to the letter and gone to the department have been threatened by the middlemen of the mafia that legal action would be taken against them for having evaded paying taxes after having spent such big amounts of money. Later, they were told to pay them money to clear them. Even state officials have been summoned in that manner. Those who know this to be a racket have publicly condemned the department officials. However, this mafia has been able to extort money from those who do not have much understanding about tax payments.

An inquiry by us found that the letter quotes clause 106(14) of the Inland Revenue Act no. 10 of 2006, but it violates clause 208 of the same act, and that a tax administration (corporate small entities and non-corporate sector) division does not exist.

This is the first time such a letter has been issued by a deputy commissioner general of the department, said department sources. Hurriedly drafted in order to extort money, the letter has many mistakes too. Telephone service providers have contacted the department and expressed their displeasure over their subscribers being inconvenienced in that manner.

The department has a proper procedure and special divisions to deal with tax evasions. The department’s name is being tarnished and public’s trust in it affected due to its chief not taking action against this mafia, which will go on to adversely affect state revenue collections further, the sources added.

Perpetual Treasuries:Sujeewa  Senasinghe calls for investigations  from 2008

...who in Central Bank provided inside information?

Sujeeva Senasinghe

by Zacki Jabbar-April 8, 2017, 8:12 pm 

If Perpetual Treasuries Limited had done any wrong, inquiries should cover its dealings with the Central Bank commencing from 2008, State Minister of International Trade Sujeewa Senasinghe said yesterday.

He told the "Sunday Island" that  Perpetual Treasuries (PT) had been making profits  even before Arjuna Mahendran became Governor of the Central Bank (CB). "Any inquiry should be comprehensive and begin from 2008. If PT had continuous inside information, then who in the CB had provided it? That is the question."

Asked why the February 2015 issue of Treasury Bonds (TBs) had suddenly been increased from the originally decided Rs.1 billion to Rs.10 billion and if sufficient notice had been given to all the dealers, Senasinghe said: "Firstly it was the Public Debt Department of the CB that decided on increasing the quantum of bids. Yes, all dealers were aware of the increase. But when the government is trying to obtain funds at the lowest possible rate to clear the huge debt burden that the Rajapaksas had created by taking commercial dollar loans at high interest rates, it’s just not possible to give weeks of notice to the market."

He explained that if only Rs.1 billion in TBs were issued first, then the market would have guessed the trend and demanded higher interest rates to purchase the other TBs totaling Rs.9 billion that the authorities needed urgently.

"The interest rates at which we issued bonds was lower than what the Rajapaksa government paid" ,the Minister emphasized.

Admitting that Mahendran had made a big mistake by being present in the dealing room on the day of the TB issue, Senasinghe said he did not know whether Mahendran had acted out of personal interest or considering the urgency of obtaining funds to bail out the economy which had been destroyed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers for generations to come.

When referred to the Committee on Public Enterprises ( COPE) Report that was released to the media by  COPE Chairman D.E.W.Gunasekara,  which stated that Arjuna Mahendran was guilty in connection with the February 2015 issue of  Rs.10 billion in TBs, he said " that was a distorted Report that D.E.W. Gunasekera released. Nowhere in the Report which was still being prepared at the time, was it stated that Mahendran had been found guilty. Mr. Gunasekera had no right to issue a Report that had not been finalized and did not contain the views and signatures of all COPE members."

Senasinghe pointed out that Gunasekera was entitled to his  personal opinion but unfortunately  had abrogated his official duty, despite  being a Senior Minister.

When can I put flowers on my son’s grave?

The relatives of slain Palestinians whose bodies are withheld by Israel call for the transfer of their loved ones’ remains at a protest in front of an Israeli checkpoint in Bethlehem on 22 March.-Faiz Abu RmelehActiveStills

Budour Youssef Hassan-8 April 2017

Mother’s Day has taken on a new dimension for Ibtisam al-Aghwani.

On it, she feels a “great sense of responsibility” towards her son Louay. “He always gave me flowers and a big hug on that day,” she said. “Now I want to have the chance to put flowers on his grave.”

Ibtisam does not know precisely what happened to her son.

In February 2008, it was reported that Louay and another Palestinian fighter had carried out a suicide bombing in Dimona, a city in present-day Israel.

Israeli forces shot dead one of the fighters, reportedly after his explosives belt had failed to detonate. One Israeli citizen was killed in the bombing.

Doubts were quickly cast on whether Louay was involved in that incident. On the following day, Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The men who carried out the bombing were, according to Hamas, from Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

Louay, on the other hand, had grown up in Gaza City. He was not affiliated to Hamas but to its rival Fatah and that party’s armed wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

“I didn’t know whether to believe the news or not,” his mother, Ibtisam, said by telephone. “But I told his father that as long as we don’t see his body or his place of burial, I won’t believe that he has died.”

Some press reports indicated that Louay had crossed from Gaza into Egypt and been arrested there.

Ibtisam traveled to Egypt, contacting everyone that might be able to help her. For four years, she searched for any information that could lead to her son’s whereabouts.

Eventually, an official at the International Committee of the Red Cross told her in 2012 that Louay was buried in one of Israel’s “cemeteries of numbers.”

These are anonymous graveyards – designated as closed military zones – where Israel buries people it describes as “enemy combatants.” The people are identified only by numbers etched on metal plates.

It is impossible to know the precise number of bodies buried in these cemeteries. According to the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, there are at least 268 Palestinians in those cemeteries. That figure does not include 19 Palestinians who were killed during the 2014 attack on Gaza and whose bodies have not yet been returned to their families.

The Israeli military has stated that there are 123 Palestinians buried in those cemeteries. The statement was made at a hearing of the Israeli high court in March this year.

The hearing followed a lawsuit taken by the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center on behalf of the families of more than 100 Palestinian fighters. The families are demanding that Israel disclose the burial places of the fighters, identify them through DNA testing and return their bodies for proper burial.

In March, the high court ordered that a process must begin within three months, whereby the Israeli military sets about identifying all the bodies of those buried in these cemeteries.

“Died in my arms”

Mufid Naalwa from Tulkarm in the West Bank has been searching for his brother, Kamal, for almost 34 years.

“Thirty-four years is a very long time,” said Mufid. “But we wouldn’t forget him in 100 years. I always tell my children about him, that he was brave and fought for justice and freedom, so that his memory will live on among them when I die.”

Kamal was in his mid-twenties when he became a fighter with the Palestine Liberation Organization. During the 1980s, he resisted Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

In August 1983, Kamal was killed by the Israeli military in the small Lebanese town of al-Mukhtara.

“He died in my arms,” said his friend and comrade Hamid Ali Barho.

Barho had been in jail before his comrade was killed. He was arrested again after the killing and held at Ansar, a detention center in southern Lebanon.

Three months later, he was among 5,000 prisoners released as part of an exchange deal. The prisoners were released in return for the PLO handing over six Israeli soldiers that it had captured.

Barho learned through the Red Cross that Kamal – whom he had known by the nom de guerre Abu Ali – had been buried in a “cemetery of numbers.”

Both men had made a pledge. If one was killed, the other would inform the dead man’s family about what had happened.

Barho now lives in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He was allowed to move back to Palestine following the Oslo accords in the 1990s.

He did not have contact details for Kamal’s family at the time of his return to Palestine. “Finding the family was extremely difficult,” Barho said. “But giving up was not an option.”

Kamal’s parents were already dead by the time Barho had succeeded in making contact with the family. Kamal’s whereabouts remained a mystery to his parents when they died.

Bargaining chip?

As well as burying Palestinians in unnamed graves, Israel has held many bodies in morgues for long periods.

After a Palestinian uprising began in October 2015, Israel delayed handing over the corpses of those killed by its troops. Around 140 corpses were kept in morgues, as a result.

The vast majority were eventually released to their families. Yet Israel still retains the corpses of eight Palestinians, four of whom are from Jerusalem.

The eight bodies are those of Abd al-Hamid Abu Srour, Muhammad al-Faqih, Muhammad Tarayra, Rami Awartani, Misbah Abu Sbeih, Fadi Qunbar, Ibrahim Matar and Siham al-Nimir.

In January this year, the Israeli government decided to transfer the bodies held in morgues to the “cemeteries of numbers.”

It was suggested that the bodies could be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations aimed at securing the return of Israeli soldiers or their corpses supposedly held by Hamas in Gaza.

Israel’s high court issued an injunction against such a move in March, however. The court ordered the Israeli military to provide a justification within 45 days for its decision to retain Palestinian corpses.

“We never count on Israeli courts to give us justice,” said Azhar Abu Srour, who is waiting for Israel to hand over the body of her son Abd al-Hamid. “But I was obviously relieved that they did not transfer my son’s body to the cemeteries of numbers. The fact that Israel is allowed to imprison our sons even after their deaths is a crime in and of itself.”

Abd al-Hamid Abu Srour, a resident of Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, died in April 2016, reportedly from wounds sustained while carrying out an attack on a bus in Jerusalem.

Azhar is campaigning for the release of all Palestinian bodies to their families. She is planning to continue campaigning even after her own son’s body is returned.

“I cannot begin to imagine how the families whose sons’ bodies have been held in the cemeteries of numbers for decades feel,” she said. “But it is our duty – as mothers of martyrs and as Palestinians – to fight for our right to bury our sons in their land and among their loved ones.”

Budour Youssef Hassan is a Palestinian writer and law graduate based in occupied Jerusalem. 

Blog: budourhassan.wordpress.com

'Do you only care how we die?' Syrians ask why gas attacks are the only red line

Khan Sheikhun has been bombed, burned, and now gassed. Locals ask why Assad has been free to kill for so long

Salwa Amor-Saturday 8 April 2017 

Khan Sheikhun, Idlib, Syria - As US cruise missiles struck a Syrian airbase in Homs on Friday, the government was going about its usual, deadly business: Syrian or Russian bombs were at the same time falling on the Idlib suburb of Baldat Heesh, destroying several homes, killing eight people including three children, and injuring 10 others.

Baldat Heesh is a short distance from Khan Sheikhun, where more than 70 people were killed in a chemical attack on Tuesday. And while the focus remains on that attack, and the US response, the people of Idlib cower in their homes as barrel bombs continue to fall.

In the end, the result for us is the same. We die. We continue to die

- Um Ahmad, of Khan Sheikhun

Many spoken to by Middle East Eye were frustrated it took a chemical attack to force the hand of the US: gas, bombs, starvation, sieges - they all have the same result in Syria.

And such is the twisted reality after six years of war, some rationalise and decide they would rather be gassed to death than eviscerated by high explosives.

Um Ahmad, a mother from Khan Sheikhun whose three-year-old nephew was gassed to death, told MEE: "The world is shocked by the chemical attack and yet they do not understand.

"To us who have lived through six years of siege, forced starvation and incessant attacks by both Russia and the Syrian regime, this is simply another other way to die, no more and no less," she said.

"It does not matter that it is forbidden internationally or how it kills, in the end, the result is the same. We die. And we continue to die. Do you only care how we die or that we are dying?

And in a chilling reflection on the reality of war, Ahmad said: "We prefer death this way. We can bury our children in one piece and not have to search for their parts among the rubble and shrapnel."

Khan Sheikhun children hold pictures of victims of chemical attack (AFP)

'How many more ways to die?'

Moaz al-Shami, a citizen journalist, echoed Ahmad's feelings in the the aftermath of the Khan Sheikhun attack: "Why has the world abandoned us and doesn't even look at us?" he said in a broadcast.

"There is no type of death that we have not experienced! Death by chemical weapons, death by drowning, death by phosphorous, death by rockets, death by air strikes, buried under rubble, death by suffocation.

"Please answer me, what type of death have we not tasted yet? How many more ways to die are still left for us to face?"

It was terrifying - you could see the souls leaving the people's bodies

- Hamid Kutani, rescue worker

Mahmoud Othman, also of Khan Sheikhun, told MEE: "There are crimes you can see and other war crimes we face that are invisible to the eye. 

"Both my brothers have been imprisoned by the government since 2013, we were told they died under torture, others say they may still be alive, we don't know.

"The world cannot see them but we know that this government is killing us in more ways than the world can see." 

Othman said the US strike in Homs gave the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, a red line, but it did not deter him from killing by other means. 

"The US strike only provides a red line to the Assad regime to not use chemical weapons.

"The message to us is that the US wants the Assad government to continue to kill us just not with forbidden weapons." 

Civil defence volunteers were among the first to arrive after the chemical attack in Khan Sheikhun. They have seen much in the years of war, but nothing as profoundly shocking.

Hamid Kutini, a White Helmets volunteer in the town, recalled the horror he witnessed on that day.

"The first rescue team to arrive at the scene called and told us that they were starting to lose consciousness - they asked for back-up, but warned us to be careful as we may be affected by the gas. 

"When I arrived people were everywhere, many had lost consciousness, many were foaming at the mouth. It was terrifying - you could see the souls leaving the people's bodies. 

"My mind could no longer tolerate it. I started to feel the gas had affected me and I was afraid it would make me lose consciousness too." 

Kutini put the numbers of dead and poisoned in the hundreds.

"We treated 300. The children and the elderly were harder to save, their bodies were weaker and could not tolerate it."

Hamid Kutini carried a victim of the gas attack in Khan Sheikhun (Reuters)

Double tap attack

"As I began to take the children's bodies inside our office was targeted by about 10 air strikes.

"I cannot describe to you the second attack because what I had seen earlier turned my mind blank.

"Witnessing the chemical attack was harder than the air strikes that were targeting us for over 45 minutes. Some people that we had rescued from the chemical attack were killed by the air strikes. "

Local sources told MEE that Khan Sheikhun was still facing air strikes and that many of the locals have fled the area fearing another chemical attack. 

Read more ►

'There was just death left behind': Syrian town buries gas victims

Kutini too seemed baffled by the idea that chemical weapons were any important than other forms of attack. "Is it acceptable for people to die with barrel bombs but not chemical weapons? Is that acceptable?"

"This was the worst attack I have experienced because it took the largest number of lives."

"But this time we didn't have to search for the scattered parts of the victims bodies among the shrapnel and rubble as we do with barrel bombs." 

"Every day there is blood, every day there is death, every day there is a massacre, there are strikes now as I am talking to you, I don't agree that chemical weapons should be the red line.

"No one has ever tried to stop the holocaust inflicted on us."

Russia sends warship to battlegroup off Syrian coast

Naval move will overshadow US secretary of state Rex Tillerson’s visit to Moscow

Russian navy frigate Admiral Grigorovich carries Kalibr cruise missiles. Photograph: Reuters

Alec Luhn Moscow

Saturday 8 April 2017

A warship armed with cruise missiles has joined the Russian battlegroup off the coast of Syria as part of Moscow’s response to US cruise missile strikes on the Syrian airbase of Shayrat.

Russia’s angry declarations, a world away from hopes of a rapprochement voiced in Washington and Moscow after Donald Trump’s election, have overshadowed US secretary of state Rex Tillerson’s planned visit to Moscow. His anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin will now be dedicated to reaching an understanding on Syria and addressing concerns over Russia’s suspension of an agreement designed to keep the world’s largest nuclear powers from accidentally clashing there.

The frigate Admiral Grigorovich, reached the group of at least six warships off the coast of Syria, Russia state media reported. It carries Kalibr cruise missiles, the Russian equivalent to the US Tomahawk missiles fired at Shayrat, and has previously fired them at targets in the war-torn country.

While many saw the US strikes as curtailing hopes for better ties between Putin and Trump, some Russians believe they were more posturing than precision warfare.

“There’s a bad scenario with this flexing of muscles. The danger of a clash between the US and Russia in Syria is not pleasant, and it could have bad consequences,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading foreign policy analyst in Moscow.

“But there’s also a positive scenario. For Trump, discussion with Russia about co-operation in Syria was impossible before because it was a discussion from a position of weakness. Now we can say that America has shown its abilities, has returned to the picture, and the conversation won’t be one-sided, neither side will dominate, and this creates possibilities and preconditions for dialogue.”

Putin’s spokesman said that the Russian president viewed the strikes as “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law, and under a false pretext”, but the rebuke seemed a bit rote and lacking in vinegar.

Russians had been evacuated from the airbase after the US reportedly warned Russia about its attack. A Russian reporter on the ground posted photographs afterward showing the runway at Shayrat still intact, and Syrian jets have reportedly resumed flights from the base.

The Russian foreign ministry cancelled a “deconfliction” agreement, designed to prevent mid-air collisions, under which the US and Russia informed each other about their military operations.

Lt Gen Yevgeny Buzhinsky told the Observer that its absence would raise the chances of an accident or strike escalating into a direct conflict.

The risk is compounded by the presence of a large number of Russian military advisers working outside its Khmeimim airbase and Tartus naval base in Syria.

In addition to deploying the frigate, the Russian defence ministry promised “measures to bolster and increase the effectiveness of the Syrian armed forces’ air defence systems”. Buzhinsky said Russian anti-aircraft units could start covering not only Russia’s assets in Syria but also regime facilities. “I think if Americans decide to launch Tomahawks again, they could start destroying these Tomahawks,” he said.

But Leonid Isayev, a Middle East analyst at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, cautioned that the Russians would stop short of giving the Syrians top equipment like S-400 anti-aircraft missiles.

“We’re afraid to fully give weapons to Syria because we’re afraid they will fall into hands of terrorists, so military escalation is not simple,” he said.

Over recent days it has appeared that Moscow has been struggling to cover for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who put Putin in an extremely uncomfortable position by allegedly launching the chemical attack. In what seemed like a warning to Assad, Putin’s spokesman told Associated Press on Thursday that Moscow’s support for the regime was “not unconditional.”

The Tillerson visit allows the Trump administration and Putin to begin working out their own agreement on Syria, replacing the Obama-era one that was effectively torn up by the cruise missile strikes. Tensions with Washington could also play into Putin’s hands and allow him to rally Russians around the flag ahead of the presidential election next year.

“It depends on Trump. If he wants to make Syria another platform for military intervention, then we return to the model that was under Bush and Obama, only with a real risk of military conflict,” Lukyanov said. “If not and the strikes were just about prestige, then there’s no risk, and possibilities for agreement are preserved.”

The danger is that the Trump administration still hasn’t figured out its goals in Syria.

Lukyanov said the most unpleasant scenario “would be if it comes out that there are no concrete intentions besides being back in the game”.

Police arrest man suspected of driving truck that killed 4 in Stockholm

A truck drove into a department store in central Stockholm, April 7, killing at least four people.(Sarah Parnass, Dani Player/The Washington Post)

By Heba Habib and Griff Witte April 8 at 9:45 AM

STOCKHOLM — Swedish police said Saturday that they believe they have captured the man accused of turning a beer truck into a weapon a day earlier by driving it into a crowd of pedestrians in a rampage that left four people dead. 

Authorities did not divulge the man’s name but said he is a 39-year-old from Uzbekistan who had been known to security services as “a marginal character” for the past year. Police said that when they first investigated him, they had found no connections to extremism. Authorities did not say when the man had come to Sweden.

The arrest came Friday night when officers apprehended a suspect in the northern Stockholm suburbs who matched the description of a man seen in surveillance footage earlier in the day. Police initially said they were unsure whether the man they had arrested was involved in the attack. 

But their confidence grew overnight, and in an early afternoon news conference Saturday, authorities said they were all but certain that they had caught the assailant.

Sweden’s prime minister said Friday that the attack was “an act of terrorism,” though officials have not commented on an exact motive.

Swedish media outlets reported Saturday that there was a homemade explosive device discovered in the mangled wreckage of the truck, which was towed overnight from the upscale shopping district that on Friday afternoon became a scene of carnage. 

National Police Chief Dan Eliasson said that “a device that did not belong there was found in the truck.” But officials said it was unclear whether it was a bomb.

Flags across Stockholm flew at half-staff Saturday, and mourners paid respects by leaving flowers at the scene of the attack.

Among them were Crown Princess Victoria and her husband, Prince Daniel. With tears in her eyes, Victoria said she was filled with “sadness and emptiness.” Politicians across the spectrum also visited the scene, and many expressed backing for the prime minister’s handling of the incident.

With the attack, which also injured 15 others, Stockholm joined a growing list of major European cities where vehicles have been turned into weapons over the past year, including Nice, France, Berlin and London.

[It’s nearly impossible to stop terrorists from using trucks as weapons. But cities are trying.]

In the minutes after the rampage, the driver escaped the smoky and blood-streaked scene. Throughout the afternoon and evening, the driver was the subject of an intensive manhunt as helicopters searched from the skies, heavily armed officers were deployed through normally tranquil neighborhoods and security at borders was tightened. For hours, the city’s transit system was shut down and streets in the central district were sealed off.

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said at a Friday evening news conference that the country would not be intimidated, and that the government would do “whatever it takes” for the public to feel safe. 

“Terrorists want us to be afraid, to not live our lives normally,” he said. “Terrorists can never defeat Sweden, never.” 

Behind the tough words, however, was an acknowledgment from security officials that attacks like Friday’s are nearly impossible to stop.

“There is no way to really prevent this kind of thing,” said Stefan Hector, an official with Sweden’s national police.

[How vehicles became a tool of terrorism]

Until Friday, Sweden had been spared the sort of mass-casualty attacks that have afflicted other countries across Europe in recent years. The attack was the first major apparent terrorist strike in Stockholm, a peaceful city set among peninsulas and islands near the Baltic Sea.

It underscores a growing vulnerability that Sweden had long ignored, said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism researcher at the Swedish Defense University. “Sweden had been somewhat like an ostrich,” Ranstorp said. “People were reluctant to talk about it and admit there was a problem.”

That has changed recently as the country has become more aware of the threat, he said. Just in the past week, police had conducted training on a scenario much like the one that unfolded in reality Friday. 

Previous attacks in Europe have been claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group. Although the group’s involvement in such attacks has often been tenuous at best, authorities in several cases have said they think the attackers were inspired by Islamist extremist propaganda.

The assailant’s rampage in Stockholm apparently began with an idling truck.

Rose-Marie Hertzman, a spokeswoman for the Swedish brewery company Spendrups, said the truck used in the attack was stolen from one of the firm’s drivers about 2:30 p.m. — about a half-hour before the rampage.

“The driver was unloading, and a man came running and took the truck and drove away,” she said.

Minutes later, the force of the truck crashing into the upscale Ahlens City retail hub sparked a fire and sent smoke billowing above one of the city’s premier shopping districts. One witness described seeing a woman with a severed foot and people either running in panic or staying to help amid pools of blood.

Gahangir Sarvari, 56, an Iranian refugee, was about 50 yards from the attack and said he initially thought it was a traffic accident. Then he saw the trail of carnage, which included a young woman whose legs were severed.

“I can never forget when we made eye contact,” he said. “I was screaming at people why they didn’t call the police and screaming at people who were taking photos with their phones. I didn’t know what to do.”

The attack occurred on a mild spring afternoon, when the city’s central district is customarily buzzing with shoppers, office workers and bicyclists. Its effect quickly rippled across the city. Shoppers were locked inside stores after businesses triggered their automatic security systems. Police evacuated Stockholm’s central train station and shut down the subway.

In a sign of the expanding dragnet, Swedish authorities requested limits on traffic flow to better scan vehicles crossing the Oresund Bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark — and the route into the continent with its many open borders under the European Union’s free-movement treaty.

The attack comes just a little over two weeks after a man plowed an SUV into a crowd of pedestrians on a London bridge, then stabbed a police officer at the gates of Parliament. That assailant killed five, including a woman who died Thursday of injuries she received when she was knocked off the bridge and into the River Thames.

Last year, trucks were also used in deadly rampages through crowds at a Berlin Christmas market and along Nice’s waterfront during France’s Bastille Day in July.

As news of the Stockholm attack spread, there were expressions of resolve from across Europe but few concrete ideas for how to stop the wave of deadly assaults.

“We stand in solidarity with the people of #Sweden,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Twitter. “An attack on any of our Member States is an attack on us all.”

In Venezuela, Young Protester Killed and Opposition Leader Barred From Office

BY EMILY TAMKIN-APRIL 7, 2017

On Friday, hours after a violent clash between protesters and security forces, Venezuelan authorities confirmed 19-year-old university student Jairo Ortiz had been shot dead.

His death is the first in the protest waged by thousands on the streets of Caracas against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, demonstrations that began after last week’s Supreme Court decision to usurp the functions of the legislature, largely seen as the last stronghold as the opposition.
Coming at a time of deep political and economic malaise in what was once one of Latin America’s richest democracies, the judicial overreach was met with mass outrage — even from Venezuela’s attorney general, a long time Maduro supporter. The court mostly reversed its decision over the weekend, but protests nevertheless continued.

On Thursday, as Adm. Kurt Tidd of the U.S. Southern Command — with responsibility for Latin America — was warning the Senate Armed Services Committee of economic instability in Venezuela, protesters and security forces clashed violently in Caracas. Protesters threw stones. Security officials used tear gas. Thousands blocked a highway. Maduro said on television that authorities detained 30 people.

Opposition leader (and former presidential candidate) Henrique Capriles called on the state ombudsman, who is, in theory, charged with defending human rights in Venezuela, to protect the people, not the government.

“The human rights advocate has to stop being the Socialist Party advocate!,” Capriles said in an online broadcast. Socialist Party official Freddy Bernal accused Capriles of trying to “ignite the country,” and said, “Don’t then come like a sissy saying that you’re a political prisoner. Don’t then come crying that you’re being persecuted.”

But Capriles, it seems, is being persecuted. On Friday, he said on Twitter that he had been barred from holding public office for 15 years. This would mean he could not run in the next presidential elections, scheduled for 2018, which the opposition has been trying to move them up.

It seems just the latest confirmation that Maduro’s beleaguered government is trying to emasculate the opposition. With Capriles out of action, and his fellow opposition leader, the imprisoned Leopoldo Lopez, out of commission, Maduro is steadily thinning the ranks of any serious rivals.

But if the public reaction to the Supreme Court’s power grab is any indication, however, even a fractured and fractious opposition will dig in its heels at what it considers government abuses.

Photo credit: JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images

Dalai Lama says Tibetan people should decide on his succession

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama speaks at a press conference after delivering teachings at Yiga Choezin, in Tawang, in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, India April 8, 2017. REUTERS/Anuwar Hazarika---Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama arrives to attend a press conference after delivering teachings at Yiga Choezin, in Tawang, in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, India April 8, 2017. REUTERS/Anuwar Hazarika

 

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama arrives to deliver teachings at Yiga Choezin, in Tawang, in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, India, April 8, 2017. REUTERS/Anuwar Hazarika---Indian security personnel stand guard as Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama delivers teachings at Yiga Choezin, in Tawang, in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, India April 8, 2017. REUTERS/Anuwar Hazarika

By Sunil Kataria | TAWANG, INDIA-Sat Apr 8, 2017

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said on Saturday the Tibetan people should decide if they wanted to continue with his institution, adding that he wanted to convene a meeting of senior monks this year to start discussing his succession.

China, which brands the Nobel Peace laureate a dangerous separatist, says the tradition must continue and its officially atheist Communist leaders have the right to approve the Dalai Lama's successor, as a legacy inherited from China's emperors.

"Whether this very institution of Dalai Lama should continue or not is up to Tibetan people," the Dalai Lama told a news conference in the remote hill town of Tawang near the Chinese border in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

"So, consult people, if people feel now this institution (is) no longer relevant then this institution (will) automatically cease," the 82-year-old said, adding he wanted to start this year "some sort of preliminary discussion" on his succession.

A final decision on the fate of the institution would be taken when he reaches late 80s or 90, the Dalai Lama said.

Tibetan Buddhism holds that the soul of a senior lama, or Buddhist monk, is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death.

The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, denies espousing violence and says he only wants genuine autonomy for Tibet.

His week-long trip to Arunachal Pradesh, an eastern Himalayan region administered by New Delhi, but claimed by China as "southern Tibet", has raised hackles in Beijing.

The Dalai Lama also said he disagreed with U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policy and the recent curbs on immigration saying that he admired America as a leader of the free world and expected the country to lead by that example.

The Dalai Lama now resides in the Indian hill town of Dharamsala, where his supporters also run a small government in exile. He has renounced any political role in leading the Tibetan diaspora.

(Editing by Devidutta Tripathy and Hugh Lawson)