Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Why Is The Ministry Of Education Not Appointing Principals Of National Schools As Information Officers?

April 11, 2017

Media recently reported that there is only one IO (Information Officer) appointed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act for national schools at Isurupaya who is unable to answer all the many information requests being made by parents.

Education Minister – Akila Viraj Kariyawasam

That Information Officer is apparently dodging calls by parents. When parents go to the Education Ministry personally demanding answers under RTI, the officer is nowhere to be seen and is in hiding!

The Colombo Telegraph was also unable to get through to the Ministry appointed Information Officer. However when Colombo Telegraph contacted confidential sources within the Ministry as to why this so, it was learnt that the Ministry does not want to nominate principals as information officers as then all the nefarious dealings by politicians will come to light. Principals will disclose how they are forced to giving special treatment to one child over another because of pressure from outside quarters.’Everyone is getting scared of this Act’ the source told Colombo Telegraph. ‘Kattiya dangalanawa (they are squirming).”

In one instance, a principal of a well known school in Galle had been repeatedly questioned by an angry mother as to why her child was not admitted to primary Grade and had finally told her ‘I had no choice. I was sent a ‘chit’ by a politician to admit another child so I had to listen to that. If I am allowed to give that information, I will as I have to by law and then, I will not lose my job.’ In another case, the principal of a school had given the information asked for even though he was not the information officer and the parent has filed a court case challenging her child’s rejection to school based on that information.

Udayanga Weeratunga also lifted embassy furniture

Apr 12, 2017

Recently, president Maithripala Sirisena toured Russia in the first official visit by a Sri Lankan head of state in 43 years. The then PM Sirimavo Bandaranaike visited Russia in 1974. The Sri Lankan ambassador at the time was Prof. Gunapala Malalasekara.

President Sirisena’s visit was organized by ambassador Saman Weerasinghe. His friendship with president Putin was an important factor in that.

When Dr. Weerasinghe arrived to take up his position as the ambassador, the Sri Lankan embassy in Russia looked like a madhouse. Ex-ambassador Udayanga Weeratunga had lifted all the furniture there and only the ambassador’s table remained. No maintenance had taken place in the sanitation facilities at the place, and before starting his duties, Werasinghe had to attend to all that. Water and electricity bills had not been paid for months. Instead of using embassy money to buy new furniture, he still uses furniture brought from his private home.

Weeratunga had used the embassy not to build diplomatic ties between the two countries, but for his notorious business deals. During the Rajapaksa regime, relatives and cronies without having any diplomatic or administrative experience were appointed to diplomatic postings and Sri Lanka had to face various problems internationally are a result.

Trading with Israeli settlements is against the law

Palestinian youths look at Israeli soldiers protecting an Israeli settlement outpost being built on the lands of the Kafr Malik and al-Mughayyar communities, east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, 24 March.Oren ZivActiveStills

Tom Moerenhout- 11 April 2017

Stopping trade with Israeli settlements in occupied territories is long overdue, and the European Union’s continued refusal to do so is a hypocritical violation of its obligations under international law.

International lawyers overwhelmingly acknowledge the legal obligation to stop such trade. Major human rights organizations have also concluded that governments and firms cannot fulfill their human rights obligations if they facilitate or engage in any trade in or with the settlements.

However, we continue to see political debates on labeling and preferential access of settlement goods to foreign markets.

This is insufficient and potentially even distracting from the real international legal obligation.

EU double standard

In 2012, I published the first peer-reviewed legal argument on the matter – a 40-page article in International Humanitarian Legal Studies.

Back then, I naively thought the EU was merely inconsistent in its application of international law. I considered it possible that the EU did not prohibit settlement trade because the international law behind that obligation was complex.

But it’s quite straightforward. The key obligation is something called the duties of non-recognition and non-assistance.

In 2014, the EU condemned “the illegal annexation of Crimea” by Russia and declared that it “will not recognize it.”

EU leaders instructed their bureaucrats “to propose economic, trade and financial restrictions regarding Crimea.”

Within months, the EU issued a ban on imports from Crimea, framing this as an integral part of its obligation of non-recognition.

The EU also considers Israel’s settlements in occupied territories to be “illegal under international law,” but after five long decades of Israeli settlement building the EU has yet to impose such a trade ban.

The opinion that settlement trade violates international law is supported by a vast community of international legal scholars. Among those who signed an open letter to this effect are two UN special rapporteurs, two ad hoc judges with the International Court of Justice, a former president of the UN’s International Law Commission, a former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and dozens of other experts.

These scholars affirm that if the EU fails to stop trade, its member states have a legal obligation to act unilaterally.

Do not assist a crime

I wrote a summary of the legal argument recently for EJIL: Talk! – one of the world’s most influential legal blogs, where international lawyers give peer-reviewed analyses of current issues.

In short, states have a duty not to recognize and assist Israel’s violations in occupied territories.

This obligation was already recognized by the International Court of Justice in its 2004 ruling on Israel’s wall in the West Bank.

The duties of non-recognition and non-assistance apply to the most serious breaches of international law, including Israel’s obstruction of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination by seizing land and building settlements, population transfer and practicing apartheid.

Trading with settlements constitutes implicit recognition. And not only does trade provide an economic lifeline for settlements, it even helps them to expand.

Aside from the question of whether broader sanctions against Israel may be justified given its apartheid practices, it is clear that trade with settlements is illegal. Activists should make the point that banning such trade is not a “sanction” but a legal obligation: this trade should simply not exist.

Israel’s fear of trade measures

Trade measures were an important tool in bringing down apartheid in South Africa.

Like its South African counterpart a generation ago, the Israeli apartheid regime fears the potential of trade measures and tries to undermine them before they materialize.

Aggressive Israeli efforts to try to thwart the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement include a 2011 law that allows boycott advocates to be sued for damages, and recent legislation that bars supporters of BDS from entering the country.

In the United States, President Barack Obama signed into law in 2015 a provision backed by Israel lobby groups that makes thwarting a boycott of Israel a key objective of trade talks with the European Union.

Meanwhile, Israel and its surrogates have supported a raft of legislation that aims to stigmatize or penalize BDS in Europe and North America.

But rather than silence the movement, this has only spurred resistance, which governments have heard.

Last year, the European Union joined several of its member states – Sweden, Ireland and the Netherlands – in recognizing the right of its citizens to advocate for the boycott of Israel.

This position was backed by 200 European legal experts, who wrote that efforts to prohibit BDS curtail basic human rights and aim at “exempting a particular state from the advocacy of peaceful measures designed to achieve its compliance with international law.”

Destabilizing duo

At a moment when the world appears to have entered a phase of profound and dangerous political polarization, the only silver lining is that it is easier to stand up for what is right and, in this case, legally just.

In December, Israel reacted with rage to the UN Security Council resolution condemning its settlements, as well as to the speech by John Kerry, then US secretary of state, explaining that it simply restated long-standing policy.

Rather than addressing the criticisms of its actions, Israel cozied up to Donald Trump – a man whose manipulation of contemporary, legitimate popular anger is clearly not matched by a willingness to learn from the tragedies of human history, whose bitter lessons spurred the development of modern international law.

Together, they form a destabilizing duo: Trump advocated international crimes during his campaign and Israel routinely commits them.

Their joint contempt for international law was on display again last month, when the US administration pressured the UN secretary-general into censoring a landmark report that found Israel practices apartheid.

Stand up for what’s right

None of this makes international law less relevant. Rather, an active legal discipline and self-disciplined activists working together are the key to ensuring compliance.

Individual scholars must have the courage to vigorously demand compliance with the most fundamental norms of international law. Or we can sit back and wait for the next human catastrophes, from which we can then again “draw lessons.”

Israel has no serious responses to the evidence of its violations, which is why it resorts to bullying and smear campaigns.

Just as in a court of law, it is up to activists to remain calm and to unapologetically and repeatedly explain why trade with settlements should be banned.

This plea is not to convince the guilty party, but to engage and activate the public and the few honorable politicians who care about doing what is right.

We need to build on the political momentum we have now, where more people are ready to recognize a stark reality: Israel unquestionably implements apartheid practices, and settlements violate fundamental norms of international law.

What can we do about that? Stop trading with them. It is not an option, but a legal obligation.

Tom Moerenhout is a legal scholar at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and Associate at the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

Pakistan's army sentences alleged Indian spy to death

In this March 29, 2016 photo, journalists look a image of Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was arrested in March 2016, during a press conference by Pakistan's army spokesman and the Information Minister, in Islamabad, Pakistan. The army said in a statement Monday, April 10, 2017, that Jadhav was sentenced to death on charges of espionage and sabotage. Pakistan says Jadhav was an Indian intelligence official who aided and financed terrorist activities. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

By ASIF SHAHZAD, ASSOCIATED PRESS

ISLAMABAD — Apr 10, 2017, 8:59 AM ET

Pakistan's military sentenced an Indian naval officer to death Monday on charges of espionage and sabotage, officials said.

Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was arrested in March 2016, had been convicted by a military tribunal, the Pakistani army said in a statement. Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the head of Pakistan's armed forces, signed off on the sentence.

Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif alleged that the spy had official Indian government backing.

"Anyone who patronizes our killers will be met with iron hands," he told the local Geo TV channel. "We have no mercy for them."

Islamabad alleges that Jadhav was an Indian intelligence official who aided and financed terrorist activities in the southwestern province of Baluchistan and the southern port city of Karachi. Pakistan's army released a video shortly after Jadhav's arrest in which he confessed to having spent years sowing unrest in Pakistan. It was not clear if he was speaking under duress.

"I have been directing activities on behalf of the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing)," he said in the confessional video. RAW is India's premier intelligence agency. Jadhav said he started working with RAW in 2013 after more than a decade in the Indian Navy.

India's foreign office summoned Pakistani High Commissioner to Delhi, Abdul Basit, to register a formal complaint.

The External Affairs Ministry issued a statement dismissing Jadhav's trial as a farce and saying Pakistan had ignored 13 separate requests in the past year to be permitted to offer him consular services.

The ministry statement said that Jadhav was kidnapped last year from Iran and his subsequent presence in Pakistan was never explained credibly. It concluded that his death sentence, if carried out, would be regarded by the Indian government as premediated murder.

Associated Press writer Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this report.

Syria: Beyond Western Myths and Half-Truths

by Ron Jacobs-Apr 12, 2017

( April 12, 2017, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) Recent and not so recent events conspire to keep the Middle East in the news. Wars against terrorism and the terrorism of war leap from newspaper pages and the screens of computer devices. Television talking heads put forth their version of events; versions mostly dependent on the corporate and financial masters they serve. Truth is lies and lies are truth. Most recently, bloody attacks on civilians by US forces in Iraq and Syria have been dismissed by most western media as mistakes while an equally bloody attack on Al-Qaeda linked forces in the Idlib province of Syria that resulted in several dozen deaths from some kind of poison gas has been used as a rationale by the Pentagon to launch fifty million dollars worth of missiles at a Syrian air base. In other words, despite the lack of objective non-partisan evidence, the US used this bloody incident as a rationale to attack a Syrian military base, aware that such an attack could lead to a longer and even deadlier war. It is another case where the truth might well get in the way of US dreams of hegemony; two other such examples include the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident that led to greater US military involvement in Vietnam and the falsification of WMD evidence that ultimately led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The overwhelming sentiment of most westerners regarding the Syrian conflict seems to be this: the Assad regime is bad, but the options are not much better and may be worse. The overwhelming sentiment of most western politicians and much of the media seems to be this: Assad needs to go and we are willing to put Arab and western populations at risk to achieve that goal. When considering this latter sentiment and the positions of those who endorse it, one has to question why they are so intent on removing Assad and his government. A new book by Stephen Gowans does a good and thorough job providing answers to this question. Given the current perception of Syria’s President Assad as the reincarnation of the devil and Saddam Hussein (a perception based on the actions of his military in the current conflict and fanned by western media), reading this book with an open mind may be out of the question for many people. However, its contents provide a historic and political context to the murderous war currently destroying the nation of Syria;

Titled Washington’s Long War on Syria, Gowans’ text begins with the observation that the conflict between Damascus and the West (led by Washington) did not begin in 2011 with the events known as the Arab Spring. To substantiate this observation, Gowans offers a perspective on Arab history and reasons for that history rarely considered by most US citizens, either because of ideological stubbornness or ignorance. That history began decades earlier with a declaration from various pan-Arabists across the Arab world who were fed up with western colonialism and wary of Islamic sectarianism. He discusses the creation of the Ba’ath parties in Iraq and Syria: their nationalization of industry and oil, their wealth re-distribution and modernization efforts and their demand for a political system based on politics and Arabism, not religion, tribe, or ethnicity. Furthermore, he points out how Washington (and those colonizers that came before) tried to exacerbate those differences. The point, as the current situation in Iraq makes crystal clear, was to divide and conquer.

In the chapter titled “Regime Change,” Gowans notes Palestinian scholar Edward Said’s 2003 comment that the US would not stop its intervention in the Middle East until the entire Arab World was ruled by pro-American regimes. He then details a little known anecdote about US attempts under President Eisenhower to assassinate communist and Ba’athist politicians in the Syrian government. The person assigned to carry out this plan was none other than Kermit Roosevelt, one of the masterminds behind the US-orchestrated overthrow of Iranian president Mossadegh and his replacement with the US client Shah Pahlavi in 1953. Roosevelt’s plan was eerily similar to the events which unfolded in 2011 in Syria. Internal uprisings fomented by CIA money and Muslim Brotherhood organizers were to work in tandem with armed paramilitary groups to start an uprising in Syria—an action which would bring the force of the Syrian military into the streets. In the mayhem, it is assumed that the CIA’s assassination targets would be taken care of. Although the plan fell through, there is a reason US citizens are not aware of this history. If they did know, it is perhaps less likely that they would support their government in its interventions in Syria and elsewhere around the world.

The reasons the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists are opposed to the Baathists lies primarily in their opposition to the party’s secularism. Although Islam is also opposed to socialist-type economies, whose principles Baathists have historically tried to emulate within the context of their philosophies, it is the Baathist insistence on secularism that is the defining difference between the groups. When the Syrian regime tried to change the requirement that the Syrian president had to be Muslim, the Brotherhood rioted for days. In the aftermath of those riots, no reconciliation ever occurred. In addition, the fact that the Assad governments have been perceived as primarily Alawite (whom fundamental Sunni Muslims consider to be heretics) is another reason the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist groups are opposed to the Ba’ath regime. Naturally, the US and other western governments intent on weakening Ba’ath rule have attempted to use these differences to their advantage.

One aspect of the conflict in Syria that Gowans comes back to quite frequently is the matter of perception. For example, although many socialists would have difficulty considering the Baathist economy as being socialist in nature, that has been the guiding interpretation of many in the Washington political establishment. Consequently, the free market capitalists in the US circles of power have responded in the manner they reserve for those opposed to their mythology and intrusion. When it comes to the nature of the protests against the Baathists in the 1970s and in 2011, it is their questionable portrayal as both massively popular and originally peaceful that permeated western media. This portrayal led to a perception among many if not most westerners that the Syrian government’s military were overreacting, when in fact they were responding to what would be termed open rebellion in any western nation in which similar protests occurred. Indeed, many Syrians would have a hard time recognizing their country as described by the western media and those in the government who feed them their reports.

Gowans provides a reasoned, at times quite partisan, defense of the pan-Arabism project that once represented the hopes of millions across the Middle East. As his history tells it, it was a project founded on principles that included anti-imperialism, the ownership of the region’s resources by the people of the region and the fair distribution of those resources amongst all the people, and a secular approach in the realm of politics. As Gowans also points out, the desires embodied in this project were counter to the designs of Washington and its allies in Europe and the Middle East (esp. Saudi Arabia). Consequently, it was doomed to be in the bombsights of those governments almost since it began. Syria remains the only nation left of the original nations that made up the pan-Arabist project. This explains why the Syrians who support Assad’s defense of his regime against Islamist and imperial enemies are so adamant in that defense. They know that if he loses, their fate will be as bad, if not worse than, that endured by the people of Egypt and Iraq. Washington’s Long War on Syria not only provides a counter-narrative to the popular western version of the Syrian protests, but more importantly, a history and discussion of western intervention rarely heard in western media. If there is only one lesson learned from reading this book, it is that Washington decided decades ago that its plans for Pax Americana would be better served if the government in Syria was one that did its bidding. Once that decision was made, Damascus would be the seat of a government with a target on its back.

Trump son-in-law met executives of sanctioned Russian bank, will testify

By Elena Fabrichnaya, Steve Holland and Patricia Zengerle | MOSCOW/WASHINGTON

A Russian bank under Western economic sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine disclosed on Monday that its executives had met Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, in December.

The Kushner Connection Trumps Son-In-Law In The... by wochit

A U.S. Senate committee investigating suspected Russian interference in the election wants to interview Trump associates, including Kushner, 36, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has agreed to testify.

Kushner previously acknowledged meeting the Russian ambassador to Washington last December and only on Monday did it emerge that executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) had talks with Kushner during a bank roadshow last year.

The bank said in an emailed statement that as part of its preparing a new strategy, its executives met representatives of financial institutes in Europe, Asia and America.

It said roadshow meetings took place "with a number of representatives of the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies." VEB declined to say where the meetings took place or the dates.

There was no immediate comment from Kushner.

Allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian actors were behind hacking of senior Democratic Party operatives and spreading disinformation linger over Trump's young presidency. Democrats charge the Russians wanted to tilt the election toward the Republican, a claim dismissed by Trump. Russia denies the allegations.

Hitler comments: Jewish groups demand Sean Spicer's resignation

While talking about chemical weapon attack in Syria, White House press secretary said Hitler did not use chemical weapons on his own people

'You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons,' Spicer said (AFP)

Wednesday 12 April 2017

Prominent Jewish groups demanded the resignation of the White House press secretary Sean Spicer after he appeared to engage in an act of Holocaust denial, by suggesting Hitler did not use gas against his own people.

“We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” Spicer said during a White House press briefing.

He later apologised for the remarks.

Spicer's comments, over the Jewish Passover holiday, will particularly embarrass US president Donald Trump, whose son-in-law is an Orthodox Jew and has been engaged as Trump's personal Middle East emissary.

The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a nationwide organisation that seeks to "address civil and human rights across America," published a statement on Facebook urging Spicer's resignation.

"On Passover no less, Sean Spicer has engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable, by denying Hitler gassed millions of Jews to death," said executive director Steven Goldstein in a statement.

And Congressman David Cicilline, a Jewish Democrat from Rhode Island, similarly said that "Donald Trump's White House does not get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to anti-Semitism".

“Steve Bannon made his name running a website that trafficked in anti-Semitism and racism. Seb Gorka (a member of President Trump’s national security advisory staff) has a history of working with anti-Semitic groups and individuals. And today, Sean Spicer made despicable, ignorant remarks about the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler. Enough is enough," said Cicilline in a statement.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, accused Spicer of "downplaying the horror of the Holocaust".

“Sean Spicer must be fired, and the president must immediately disavow his spokesman’s statements. Either he is speaking for the president, or the president should have known better than to hire him,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Jeremy Ben Ami, president of liberal Jewish American group J Street, denounced Spicer in a series of tweets, calling his comments unforgivable.

In another apparent gaffe, Spicer issued an apology while talking to Wolf Blitzer on CNN, saying that his remarks should not be "a distraction from the president's decisive action in Syria and the attempts he's making to destabilise the region".

Spicer's comments brought looks of astonishment from the assembled White House press corps, who offered Spicer a chance to clarify.

"I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no - he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that [Syrian president Bashar] Assad is doing," Spicer said, returning to the subject.

As journalists shouted "What about the Holocaust?" Spicer continued, "I think there is clearly... I understand the point, thank you, thank you I appreciate that."

Hitler "brought them into the Holocaust centres, I understand that. But I'm saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down, to innocent - into the middle of towns, it was brought... so the use of it, I appreciate the clarification, that was not the intent."

In a further written clarification, Spicer said he was "in no way... trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust".

"I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centres. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable," he said.

It was not the first time this week that Spicer has found himself in rhetorical difficulty over Syria.

On Monday, he suggested that Trump could take military action if the Syrian government were to drop more barrel bombs - a regular occurrence in Syria's brutal war and a red line that would spell almost certain US military action.

The White House privately walked back his comments.

Later in Tuesday's briefing, Spicer also declared Iran a failed state.