Running With The Hare & Hunting With The hounds

By Emil van der Poorten –MAY 21, 2017

Emil van der Poorten

The title of this piece should, in fact, read, “You shouldn’t be able to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds” because that would be more appropriate given what I am about to say. However, since most editors don’t want long titles to the articles they accept for publication.

On several previous occasions I have drawn attention to the “insurance buyers” within the higher ranks, of the current government.

The most recent was the son of one of the most useless Prime Ministers it has been our misfortune to have been saddled with. This man, now a Minister of some description in the coalition government, admitted that he was a close associate of a major drug dealer, a Pakistani, accused (and never apprehended and prosecuted!) for attempting to smuggle out of the Port of Colombo something like 260 kgs of heroin. The paper trail of the ultimate in hard drugs being moved out of the Port without demurrage being charged led straight to the PM’s office and his chief functionary who was the signing authority for the exemption.  There were then ready admissions, bred of the absolute impunity of those who thought they were going to exercise their authority over us “ordinary” Sri Lankans forever, that the drug dealer of international standing was not only a frequent mealtime guest at the Prime Minister’s residence but had funded the then-P.M’s son’s provincial election campaign, leading to his capturing the largest number of votes.

All of the above appears to have been swept under the increasingly accommodating rug, developed for that purpose by the MR2 (Maithripala/Ranil) government.

Let me be blunt: particularly those of us who placed themselves at significant risk for being critical of the MR 1 (Mahinda Rajapaksa) government did not do so in order to have that lot replaced by a twin in the matter of moral, ethical and principled conduct or lack thereof.

There are several members of the current government, ensconced in its hierarchy, and their hangers-on, who sucked up to the Rajapaksas and their buddies as if there was to be no tomorrow. Where they sit in the scheme of things today hardly needs emphasis but needs repetition.  They and their friends who were bosom buddies of and launderers of dirty money for the previous regime are being clasped to the bosom of the MR2 lot. I am not about to suggest the motivation for all of this because you’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know what is going on in broad daylight, if there is such a thing in politics!

The singular lack of anything resembling ethics, principles or morality by the current bunch is something to behold! What is even more disgusting is the fact that the level of impunity displayed in this regard is beginning to rival that of their predecessors, even if minus the white vans (for the moment at least!)

I do not think that either of the leadership team – Maithri and Ranil – can be unaware of what is going on: they have become a part of the problem and not the solution.  Let me reiterate, neither of them is deaf, dumb and blind politically or in any other way that is relevant to what is under discussion.

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Sri Lankan held captive in Saudi Arabia for kidney harvest

By Ayshwarya Yapa-May 21, 2017

Three young daughters have made a request from the government to bring back their mother, who is being held captive in a house in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of harvesting her kidneys.

The captive mother-of-three, W. W. Indrakanthi is a 36-year-old resident of Kandalama Road, Dambulla.

She had uploaded a short video clip onto the Internet, briefly explaining her predicament. Kumara Ihalagedara, a young man who also happens to be a resident of Kandalama Road, had come across this video and gone in search of the captive’s house, after which he proceeded to inform the media about this incident.

Our reporters revealed that the daughters had stopped going to school owing to the shortage of food. The daughters had rented a house with the money sent by their mother, but had lost the house when they stopped receiving money from overseas.

Reporters also confirmed that Swarna Jayasinghe, the grandmother of the daughters, had made a complaint regarding this situation with the Foreign Employment Bureau, but that the Bureau had yet to review the complaint.

Indian support to re-energize Kerawalapitiya power plant

May 21, 2017

India is facing a golden opportunity to get involved with Sri Lankan power and energy sector, said Secretary to the Ministry of Power and Energy Dr. Suren Batagoda. The move will definitely benefit both the countries, Dr. Batagoda explained.

Sri Lankan Government is pursuing the ability to implement the project as a joint collaboration between The Ceylon Electricity Board and the National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC Ltd.) of India. As the initial step Indian assistance will be extended to the upgrade the effectiveness of the Liquefied Natural Gas power plant in Kerawalapitiya, he said.

“We have requested both parties to forward their proposals. Ealier, India agreed to assist to develop the Sampur Thermal power plant which had the capacity to generate 500 MW power. The project was a joint effort of the Ceylon Electricity Board and the NTPC Ltd. Of India being co shareholders, but it could not be implemented.” At present, 500 MW of power is being generated by the Norochcholai coal power plant which is 50% of the total power generation of the country. This is very costly. If we can move to Liquefied Natural Gas that will be more economical,” added Dr. Batagoda.

Adding further, Dr. Batagoda said that Japan will assist Sri Lanka to develop the power and energy sector. Therefore the Sri Lankan Government plans to develop country’s power and energy sector with the joint support of India and Japan. Accordingly a project is proposed to construct a 500 MW Liquefied Natural Gas power plant with the support of Japan.

“All this will follow the Government procurement protocols and tender procedures and already we have decided to call for tenders to construct 300MW Liquefied Natural Gas power plant,” he said.

“In the meantime, India and purchase our wind energy. At present Sri Lanka owns a 5000MW wind energy and India can invest in to the business,” he explained.

Dr. Batagoda added that the aim is the develop the renewable energy sector building its capacity and enabling it to generate 6400 MW power by 2025.

Ashika Brahmana

THE POPULIST TOXIN: IS SRI LANKA IMMUNE?

by Tisaranee Gunasekara.-22/05/2017

” Sirisena and Wickremesinghe must reach workable compromises on key issues: economic reform that shares the pain of change equitably and renewed anti-corruption, anti-impunity drives that prioritise a limited number of significant criminal cases implicating both major parties…” International Crisis Group (Sri Lanka’s Transition to Nowhere)

Five years before he was stabbed to death, Maldivian blogger Yameen Rasheed wrote an analytical piece in the Himal magazine about his country’s gradual descent into the mire of Islamic fundamentalism. A Tool for the Atollsii details the weaponisation of Islam by Maldivian rulers to gain and consolidate political power. The practice began with Abdul Gayoom who captured power on an Islamic platform. In 2012, a virulent oppositional campaign led by fundamentalist parties forced the democratically-elected president Mohamed Nasheed to resign.

Yameen Rasheed on the Maldives

Yameen Rasheed points out that Mr. Nasheed was, to some extent, the author of his own political demise. He made the cardinal error of trying to neutralise the growing fundamentalist forces by accommodating some of them in his cabinet. His argument was that an oppositional policy would drive the extremists underground. Unfortunately, the induction of the Adhaalath Party into the cabinet did not stem the tide of extremism; instead it gave extremists legitimacy, a slice of formal political power and a foothold in the system.

Traditionally, most Maldivians followed a moderate form of Islam influenced by Sufism. This liberal faith was slowly undermined by hardline influences coming from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Yameen Rasheed used his writings to oppose and ridicule the growing fundamentalism in his country. His writings, especially his popular blog, The Daily Panic, earned him the wrath of the authoritarian government and the hardline Islamists alike. Barely a month after he and a friend won an international award for developing an app to connect patients suffering from blood diseases (ex. Thalassimia) with hospitals and blood-donors, Mr. Rasheed was murdered.

Mr. Rasheed had complained to the police, many times, about the threats to his life, to no avail. After his murder, his parents wrote a letter asking the police not to fail their son in death as they did in life. In a country where religious fundamentalism and political authoritarianism are open bedfellows, that plea is not likely to be answered.

The opposition movement which ousted Maldives’ democratically-elected President Nasheed was an early manifestation of the populist wave which is currently threatening democracy and pluralism across the globe. This anti-democratic and anti-pluralist wave marked its next victory in India. In 2014, Narendra Modi and his BJP won power in the world’s most populous democracy on a populist platform which combined rightwing economics, social-conservatism, political illiberalism, Hindu extremism and anti-environmentalism.

It was thus unsurprising that many Hindu fundamentalists (like many Sinhala-Buddhist supremacists) supported Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton. It is also not surprising that one of the first victims of the post-election racist resurgence in the US was an Indian-American. Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an engineer, a legal immigrant and a product of American universities, was killed by a white Navy veteran who, minutes before the fatal shooting, told his soon-to-be-victim, “Get out of my country.”

That statement encapsulates the essence of the current wave of populism: ethno-religious racism. The declared aim of this populism is to protect the chosen people and their homeland from encroaching aliens and emasculated elites. The People are seen as homogeneous, virtuous and perpetually threatened from within and without. The People can win if they “make their voices count through the populist leader/party…. In this way populists play on the idea of communities which had lost what they once had and will lose everything if they do not find their voice now and make it heard.”iii

Populism is hardly a new phenomenon. It is a wave which ebbs only to flow in another time. But race/religion rather than class is at the heart of the current wave of populism primacy; it is blood-and-faith nationalism in a slightly different, semi-modernist, guise. It aims to save the religio-racial community by cleansing it of alien presences and alien influences. Even when it places itself firmly within the democratic mainstream – as in the case of Narendra Modi or Donald Trump – its policies and practices cannot but undermine pluralist democracy from within. By their very success they are already giving rise to a new normal, as indicated by the barely reported attacks on Muslims in India and the parading white-supremacists in America. When these leaders leave power, they will leave behind societies and polities in which intolerance and extremism have become normalised.

Where Ignorance is Strength

Populism flourishes best where there is economic loss and pain. Populist leaders succeed in their power-grabs by addressing that economic pain and harnessing it to their projects. Consequently, many (if not most) populist projects contain a fairly prominent economic content, starting with redistributive measures aimed at alleviating more extreme inequalities, at least to some degrees.

This progressive component is totally absent in the current wave of populism. It has no redistributive intent, no measures aiming at alleviating economic or social injustice. Its economic programme is neo-liberal with one exception, the advocacy of a degree of protectionism. Its redistributive agenda consists of dispossessing aliens. Every economic problem besetting the People is attributed to rapacious foreigners who take our jobs, our money and our land and undermine our age-old culture in a thousand insidious ways. In this rhetoric, fear is substituted for reason or logic. When facts stand in the way, they are derided and rejected as fake-news. Populism always needed a heavy dose of ‘alternate-facts’, but in its current manifestation it operates solely within a universe of ‘alternate-facts’.

Populism always had a knack to inveigle the populace to support projects which went against their fundamental interests. The current wave of populism excels at it. The American rightwing (especially the Ult-right) depict any increase in the minimum wage as a measure aimed at conferring special benefits on migrant workers. According to latest research, 50% of white-American working class males are opposed to an increase in the minimum wageiv. That is an example of how effectively racism can be used to stupefy entire communities and make them oppose policies which are in their own interests.

In Orwell’s Oceania, ignorance is strength. Populism in its current incarnation openly glorifies ignorance. Donald Trump, speaking after the Nevada caucus, hailed the poorly educated as the smartest and most loyal people. Thus a new notion of a model citizen is created, someone who is happily uneducated, proudly ignorant and boastfully uninformed. Lack of education or information is not seen as a problem to be remedied but as necessary virtues to become a good citizen in the new populist utopia.

In Sri Lanka, a facebook post (in Sinhala) claiming that Islamic State (IS) operatives, disguised as health workers, are wondering from house to house injecting householders with the aids virus has gone viral. As a result, health officials in many areas are being prevented from carrying out an anti-filarial campaign, as the Health Ministry complained to the policev. The insane warning is a translation of a facebook post which similarly went viral in India. That post seems to be a spinoff of a 2014 facebook post which claimed that the IS was injecting AIDS virus into oranges!

The facebook post is a classic example of how existing racism is used to create fake news which in turn exacerbates racism to the point of hysteria. The fact that there are people out there who can take such a canard seriously creates understandable fears about the future of democracy and civil-peace in Sri Lanka.

The Populist Genie is out of the Bottle

Populism suffered significant politico-electoral defeats in Austria, The Netherlands and (most spectacularly) France. Despite these setbacks, the current wave of populism is far from spent; nor is Sri Lanka invulnerable to it.

Eric Hobsbawm argued that the purpose of government is not to look after the gifted minority but to care for the ‘ordinary run of people’: “Any society worth living in is one designed for them, not for the rich, the clever, the exceptional, although any society worth living in must provide room and scope for such minorities.”vi The goal should be building meritocracies committed to the alleviation of ordinary problems of the unexceptional majority. Inequality and injustice flourish in the absence of such policies, creating a fertile breeding ground for populism.

History warns that politico-cultural liberalism cannot flourish – or even survive – in the absence of socio-economic democracy. It is a lesson which is of paramount importance to post-Rajapaksa Sri Lanka. Inequality’s destabilising impact can assume particularly deadly forms in lands like ours with long standing ethno-religious fissures and discontents. Politicians in turn can use these to open a fast-track to power. Commenting on the mutually sustaining relationship between anti-people development and the rise of fanaticism, President Premadasa warned, “Sinhala villagers felt increasingly shut out from power and privilege which continued to be enjoyed by the few. These feelings of being denied access to a better life took an ethnic character when some of our leaders found it expedient to divert their emotions along ethnic lines.”vii

In 2013, the Fashion Bug outlet in Pepiliyana was attacked, consequent to a rumour of a 15 year old Sinhala-Buddhist employee of being raped, within the premises, by a Muslim fellow-employee.

Less than a fortnight before this incident, Bhikku Galagoda-Atte Gnanasara had launched an uncouth diatribe against the Muslim owners of the clothing chain, accusing them of conspiring to turn pure Sinhala-Buddhist maidens into harem-inmates.viii

When the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa was asked about this and other anti-minority incidents during a 2013 Al Jazzera interview, his response was not condemnation, but justification based on lies as insane as the one about the IS injecting oranges with the Aids virus. “What was in the background? Why were they attacked? Now see a girl was raped. Seven years old girl was raped. Then naturally they will go and attack them whether they belong to any community or any religion… There were incidents like that. All incidents have some background to that.”ix

Galagoda-Atte Gnanasara back again

Galagoda-Atte Gnanasara who almost created a Black July in Aluthgama is stirring the mire again. He wants to launch a campaign against Niqab. He is also challenging the primacy and authority of the Mahanayakes, whose relative moderation is a bar to his attempts to create a Wahabi-Buddhism. He wants Mahanayakes to be elected only for five years. He also wants the government to stop dealing with the infinitely more moderate and rational Buddhist hierarchy and deal with “monks and officials at ground level”x – him and others of his ilk.

The comments might seem like ravings of a madman, and indeed they are. But they need to be taken seriously because they also mark the first step in a planned ‘reformist’ movement from below, which aims at systematically eliminating every iota of moderation and tolerance in Sinhala-Buddhism and turn it into another Wahabism or Salafism. If this plan is even ten percent successful, the damage it can do to Sri Lanka and all its people, especially the Sinhala-Buddhists, would be incalculable.

The Joint Opposition’s successful May Day seemed to have given the government a necessary jolt. But whether this will make the government deviate from its path of economic and political inanity is uncertain. For example, the plan to impose a huge tax on the EPF is still on track. If the Cabinet approves of it, the President will find himself facing a situation worse than what the Rajapaksa government did when it tried to impose a Kleptocratic pension plan on the private sector. The fact that the government cannot understand that a measure like this can turn the entire private sector workforce, from top to bottom, against it, indicates a terrifying absence of basic commonsense and enlightened self-interest.

Unintelligent and insensitive governance is dangerous under any circumstances. It is lethal when a particularly virulent and divisive populist wave is heaving near the shore.

Foot Notes:

i https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/286-sri-lanka-s-transition-nowhere

ii Himal – June 2012

iii Twenty First Century Populism – Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell

ivivhttps://www.prri.org/research/white-working-class-attitudes-economy-trade-immigration-election-donald-trump/

v The Sunday Times – 14.5.2017

vi On History

vii A Charter for Democracy

viii http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E76Ivbw_I4

ix https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/video-talk-to-al-jazeera-mahinda-rajapaksa-this-is-all-propaganda/

x http://colombogazette.com/2017/05/17/bbs-ridicule-chief-prelates-during-meeting-with-mano/

One Belt One Road Initiative: When Donald Trump closes up, Xi Jinping plans to open up 

Chinese President Xi Jinping together with Heads of Governments including Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe pose for a group picture at the opening of the Belt and Road for International Cooperation Summit in Beijing, China - Reuters

One Belt One Road Forum in Beijing

Monday, 22 May 2017

Last week, China was successful in assembling a large number of heads of states, high level representatives of other states and leaders of global agencies to a single forum held in its capital, Beijing. That was the One Belt One Road Forum, oddly known as the OBOR forum or BRI forum, to apprise the world leaders in attendance of the progress of the project so far and its grand plans for the future. 

China reassures that its goal is to promote world peace

The Chinese President Xi Jinping, who initiated OBOR in 2013, named it the ‘Project of the Century’ in his keynote address to the inaugural plenary session (available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv2fEsyYWp8).

He said that the spirit of the old Silk Road was peace and east-west cooperation and the spirit of OBOR today is, in addition to the same, openness and inclusiveness of civilisations. Thus, it is a grand plan to foster unity while tolerating diversity.

According to him, the OBOR initiative will open the road for peace, prosperity and connectivity - the three-most pressing problems faced by world nations today. His message for opening up nations is especially important when the world’s leader, the US, is planning to close up nations under the administration of Donald Trump.

Putin castigates Trump without naming him 

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his address at the plenary session, castigated those who oppose free trade and openness by imposing artificial restrictions despite the fact that they had been the vigorous supporters of such ideals in the past.

He did not name any but obviously the attack was on the present US administration headed by President Donald Trump, who has been advocating for increased trade restrictions, a virtual no-trade regime known as autarky and protectionism at its highest. Thus, apparently to save the world from Trump, Putin highlighted the need for building a Eurasian Integration Unit with free trade and openness. In that context, OBOR, according to him, is a creative tool invented by President Xi to realise that goal (available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PFxr3bkTfA).

OBOR can accelerate South Asia’s growth

Speaker after speaker, including the leaders of the world organisations, hailed OBOR as a project that would create a new world order in which China would be at the centre. Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who addressed the subsequent roundtable discussion of the world leaders, took the opportunity to reiterate his firm belief that the future would be marked by a reversal of global leadership to Asia.

He opined that the Indian Ocean rim will experience the fastest growth in the future and OBOR will give its support to accelerate that growth. However, there is a massive resource need for completing the infrastructure development plans under OBOR and, therefore, he requested the World Bank and IMF to supplement the massive resource need of OBOR, though the IMF has no such a role to play in terms of its mandate (available at: http://www.ft.lk/article/615505/China-s--Belt-and-Road-Initiative--beneficial-for-Indian-Ocean-s-socio-economic-success--Ranil).

China’s objective is not selfless

Did China come up with OBOR initiative with a pure altruistic motive to help other countries? The answer is yes and no. No, because, at the centre of its initiative, it is its own interests that have played the major role when introducing it to the world. Just like Donald Trump says ‘America First’, the motive behind OBOR is also ‘China First’, though it is not pronounced explicitly.

Yes, because through OBOR, China has provided opportunities for many countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and even some in Europe to prosper by joining hands with it. Even Australia which is located far away from the old Silk Road has expressed its willingness to join hands. Thus, as many world leaders had remarked, it will be a ‘win-win’ proposition for all.

Silk Road commenced some 2,200 years ago

The formal inauguration of the old Silk Road dates back to the 2nd century BCE when Xian became the capital of China during the Han dynasty. By that time, China had gained speciality and mastery in quality silk production for more than 4,000 years. The silk clothes produced by the Chinese were so fine that when one was robed in them, one could not feel whether one was actually clothed or not.

When the new prosperity in Europe and the Mediterranean demanded for high quality goods, Chinese silk was the uncontested winner. The high profits it fetched in markets in Constantinople, Alexandria, Rome and Athens fully compensated the high risks and troubles which traders had to take when transporting it from China over the treacherous terrain across Central Asia.

Silk had fetched opponents too 

However, just like any luxury item being consumed by the nobility and the rich would be disdained, Chinese silk was also met with disparagement by some in contemporary society. As documented by Oxford academic Peter Frankopan in his 2015 book The Silk Roads, the appearance of Chinese silk appalled some conservative observers.

Says Frankopan: “The increasing volume of this fabric available in the Mediterranean caused consternation among traditionalists. Seneca (a Roman statesman and philosopher who lived around the beginning of the Common Era) for one was horrified by the popularity of the thin flowing material, declaring that silk garments could barely be called clothing given they hid neither the curves nor the decency of the ladies of Rome. The very foundation of marital relations was undermined, he said, as men found they could see through the light fabric that clung to the female form and left little to the imagination. For Seneca, silk was simply a cipher for exoticism and eroticism. A woman could not honestly say she was not naked when she was wearing silk (pp 17-8).”

Thus, Chinese silk was objected to on moral grounds and there were even campaigns, as there are today, for the total prohibition of the use of the material. Despite this, silk became ever increasingly in demand and soon it was followed by another luxury from China, Chinese porcelain. Thus, the Silk Road prospered over centuries. Since it could not fully cater to the demand, it was soon supplemented by a maritime silk road as well. 

China did not take part in trade

But China remained simply a supplier of those luxury goods and not an actual trader. That is understandable since trading is a specialist job and in those days, a high risk job as well. Even in the 15th Century, when China had a superb naval fleet, it could not penetrate the maritime Silk Road as a major player. Its attempt at capturing markets across the Indian Ocean and the East Coast of Africa in the 1400s did not bear fruit as expected. Under the command of Admiral Zheng He, the Chinese Treasure Fleet made several voyages to countries in the Indian Ocean and East Africa in the early 15th century. That fleet was a superb naval power – with more than 3,500 ships at its peak – sailing in a convoy of more than 300 large ships accommodating about 35,000 sailors, horses and other material in a single voyage (available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/500-years-ago-china-destroyed-its-world-dominating-navy-because-its-political-elite-was-afraid-of-a7612276.html). But by 1500, the Treasure Fleet was destroyed on the orders of the Chinese Emperor Yongle and with that China lost an opportunity to rule the waves.

The reasons adduced today have been that the cost of those voyages as well other extravagant royal enterprises had been funded out of printed paper currency in excessive amounts (Frankopan, p 196). The ensuing hyperinflation was catastrophic for China in the 15th century as it is for many nations today that experiment with funding extravagant projects of the Government through the issue of new money. 

China has to find a way out for its excess reserves

At the time Xi decided to introduce the OBOR initiative in 2013, China had come to a crossroads in its recent super economic performance. It had accumulated a vast amount of foreign reserves – amounting to about $ 3 trillion – by running massive trade surpluses year after year with the rest of the world. With sizeable current account surpluses in the balance of payments, its domestic savings have been notoriously high at around a half of the total output, known as the Gross Domestic Product.

There was growing animosity against Chinese products in its major markets, especially in the US, just like its silk ran into hostility in ancient Rome. After opening up the economy in 1978, it had achieved superb economic development in its western coastal areas. But its eastern inland was basically undeveloped.

To ensure balanced development in the regions, it had to have continuous economic growth year after year. It had also been snared in what was known as the middle income country trap after attaining higher middle income country status in the early 2000s. To push itself up to the status of a rich country, it had to make a quantum leap by embracing a new economic model. That model was to create a new global economic order centred on China. That was the reason for giving birth to the OBOR initiative.

Belt and the Road

The OBOR initiative consists of two major parts. One is the development of a Silk Road Economic Belt on the land route stretching from China to Europe. This belt contained a host of supporting infrastructure projects combining different trade centres. The other is the creation of a 21st Century version of the Maritime Silk Road that connects China with important trade centres in Asia, Africa and Latin America. For this, a sea-based network of shipping lanes is to be created with appropriate port development on the route. Thus, OBOR envisaged connectivity with peoples of the globe. It led to the coining of the slogan ‘Connectivity for Prosperity’. The objectives of the OBOR initiative are numerous. 

Wish to assume global leadership

First, as it should be, China wants to assume global leadership in economic and political matters. This will invariably result in displacing the current global economic and political leader, the US. In fact, the present US administration led by President Trump has, through its ‘America First’ and trade restriction policies, withdrawn voluntarily from the role of global leadership. Thus, a vacuum has been created by the US and it has provided a golden opportunity for China to fill that vacuum. 

Making Renmimbi a global reserve currency

Second, along with global leadership, China will make another global achievement too. That is to promote its currency, Renmimbi or Yuan, to the status of a global reserve currency. This is a hard task, considering the prerequisites which a nation has to complete if it is to make its currency the major reserve currency of the world.

At present, the share of Renmimbi in global reserve currencies is about 2%. The market leader, the US dollar, has a share of 44%, while Euro having 16%, Yen 11% and Sterling Pound 7%. If the Renmimbi is to beat these market leaders, China has to make its currency freely convertible, remove all restrictions on capital transactions and open up the economy fully. This cannot be done overnight and therefore it will take considerable time for China to attain this objective.

Excess capacity shouldnot be wasted

Third, as mentioned before, China has excess capacity in production and excess savings that are going begging for investment opportunities. Its accumulated reserves, mainly invested in US Treasury bonds, pose a serious risk if financial markets suffer from another crisis. Its savings at around 49% of GDP have formed a large pool of investible resources. These have to be used for creating real wealth and OBOR provides a convenient and viable opportunity to do so. 

Moving into high tech products

Fourth, China has to shift its production from low level products to high level products that use high technology. Then there should be a market for those high tech products other than those available in Western countries. China believes that emerging markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America will have an appetite for its high tech products such as ships, airplanes, high speed railways and communication equipment to mention a few. OBOR will ensure a safe market for them. 

Land routes to cut costs

Infrastructure developments planned under OBOR have been ambitious. For instance, the planned high speed railway line from Kunming in China to Singapore in the down south via Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia would cut the present travel time of 72 hours to about 10 hours; Kunming is also linked with another railway network encompassing Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The cost is enormous and the engineering requirements are challenging. But it will serve another purpose. That is, it will facilitate the present Asian Supply Chain which provides all the necessary components for assembling high tech electronic equipment in China for the world market. It cuts down the cost of transport and time which these countries experience presently when these parts are shipped via maritime routes.

Hence, as envisaged, OBOR is a collective enterprise to prosperity by East Asian nations which are already in the Asian Supply Chain. However, countries like Sri Lanka have a very remote possibility of joining this supply chain immediately. They do not have the technology, expert human capital and physical investment to be a vital partner of the enterprise unless these requirements are also supplied under OBOR initiative.

Hence, the inclusive growth which OBOR expects to attain will not be a reality for many nations which are lagging behind more enterprising East Asian nations.

India and the US are to lose if they stand out

Both India and the US are watching OBOR from a side without formally participating in the recently concluded forum. India feels that the proposed Pakistan Economic Corridor linking that country with China is an infringement of its sovereignty. The US, which feels that China is the cause of all its economic ills, may choose to keep itself away from the development activities proposed in OBOR.

Both these countries stand to lose if they do not become active partners of the program. China’s undeclared objective has been to gain world leadership having displaced the US from its current position. If the US is to thwart that ambition, it has to be inside the program rather than remaining as an outsider. For India, it is vital that it should join the Asian Supply Chain. That goal too can be realised only if it becomes an active partner. 

Sri Lanka should put Hambantota Harbour to full use

For Sri Lanka, given its current economic turmoil, there is no choice but to actively participate in OBOR. If the proposed economic zone is established around Hambantota Harbour, the investments that will pour into the zone with Chinese support will help Sri Lanka join the Asian Supply Chain and build on its new economic model based on high technology. Goods that would be produced in the economic zone could be shipped to Singapore using the maritime Silk Road and then transported to China via the proposed high speed railway line now at a planning stage.

(W.A. Wijewardena, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, can be reached at waw1949@gmail.com)

Parents watch children take their last breaths, as cholera explodes in Yemen

With 20 cholera deaths and 3,460 suspected cases reported in a single day, a state-of-emergency has been declared in the war-torn country

Biqdad, nine, and Mariah, two, are receiving treatment for cholera in the state-run Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

Mohammed Hamoud-Sunday 21 May 2017

SANAA - Hundreds of people have taken over the corridors and lobby of state-run Al-Sabeen hospital in the heart of the Yemeni capital. Their eyes are dry, and they cannot hold back the vomit, as they desperately seek treatment for the cholera epidemic that has rapidly spread throughout the capital.

Yemenis infected with cholera lie in the corridor of the Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

Some patients, including several children, have stopped breathing. Within a few minutes, doctors announce their deaths as grieving parents watch on.

Doctor Nabil al-Najar, deputy head of Al-Sabeen hospital, goes around checking on patients. He said that hospitals, already worn down by two years of war, were being overwhelmed by the large number of people coming in for care. They receive at least 200 new cases every day in addition to patients who have been injured in air strikes.

A child infected with cholera is being treated in the lobby of Al-Sabeen hospital (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

"Here we put three children in one bed, and there we put a husband, his wife and their child in one bed; the hospital has no more beds," Najar said.

“We also have a shortage of medicine, and we cannot cope with the increasing number of patients." 

On Friday, the World Health Organisation said cholera had taken the lives of 242 people in Yemen in the past three weeks, in addition to over 23,000 who had fallen sick from the disease.

Children infected with cholera lies in the corridor in Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa capital of Yemen (MEE/ Mohammed Hamoud)

Hamamah Abdullah, 38, is the mother of four cholera-infected children between the ages of one and 13 years old.

Hamamah Abdullah, 38, holds her little son Hassan, one, who is cholera-infected as they sit in the hallway of Al-Sabeen hospital (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

“My elder son Taha, 13, was first infected, and then he transmitted the disease to his brothers and sister," Abdullah said. "Doctors told me there were no more beds available for my children and put the children on a blanket on the ground in the corridor to receive treatment." 

Abdallah is terrified of losing her children because of the lack of medication. Even if they get better, she worries they will be infected again due to how widely the disease has spread.

A doctor examines four brothers infected with cholera in the corridor of Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

Latifa Ahmed says that her 20-year-old daughter Zikriya went into a coma after suffering from severe diarrhoea and vomiting for one day. She is now undergoing treatment in the hospital.

"There is not enough medicine, beds, doctors. At night I can’t find doctors to check on my daughter," Ahmed said.

According to AFP, WHO acting representative in Yemen, Nevio Zagaria, said during a conference that "the speed of the resurgence of this cholera epidemic is unprecedented".

Abdullah Abdulftah, one, who is cholera-infected, is held by his father in the lobby of Al-Sabeen hospital (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

Zagaria said that, in the past day alone, 20 cholera deaths and 3,460 suspected cases had been registered in the country, where two-thirds of the population are on the brink of famine. Many other cases and deaths are likely going unreported.

Zagaria said many of the remaining health workers in the country had not been paid for seven months, adding that the number of suspected cholera cases could be much higher than those registered.

Earlier this week, authorities in Sanaa declared a state of emergency over the outbreak of cholera in the Houthi rebel-controlled Yemeni capital. The health ministry said that cases of cholera had worsened and that it was "unable to contain this disaster".

Musleh Rajeh, 90, gets treatment for cholera on a bed in the lobby of Al-Sabeen hospital (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Arab and Gulf countries in support of Yemen's toppled government against Shia Houthi rebels. The war has left at least 10,000 civilians dead and three million have been displaced so far. 

Yemenis who have survived the shelling and bombs are now at risk of dying from cholera, a highly contagious bacterial infection contracted through ingesting contaminated food or water.

IV fluid, chlorine tablets and oral rehydration salts help treat the cholera epidemic. (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

The outbreak of cholera in Yemen was first announced by Yemen's Ministry of Public Health and Population on 6 October last year. 

Dr Malak Shahir of Doctors Without Borders said that the "cholera epidemic is mainly caused by the mix between the dirty sewage water and piles of rubbish bags on the streets and residential neighbourhoods."

The cholera epidemic was caused by sewage and piles of rubbish in residential areas (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

The health crisis escalated during a garbage crisis in the capital, caused by a 10-day strike by rubbish collectors who were demanding unpaid salaries. They resumed their work last weekend after being paid.

“We were not paid our salaries for the past two months, and as a result rubbish bags piled up through all streets and neighbourhoods of the capital,” said rubbish collector Salim al-Zabidy.

Garbage collector, Salim al-Zabidy, collects garbage from a residential area in Sanaa (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

“The authorities always delay our salaries under the pretext of the lack of financial liquidity due to the war," he said.

WHO’s Zagaria said that Yemeni authorities need funding to help make essential infrastructure repairs to protect water resources.

"The spread of the disease is too big, and they need substantial support in terms of repairing the sewer system ... treating and chlorinating the water sources." 

Without dramatic efforts to halt the spread of the disease, "the price that we will pay in terms of life will be extremely high," he said.

Fatimah Abdu, 80, receives treatment for cholera at Al-Sabeen hospital (MEE/Mohammed Hamoud)

At the hospital new cholera cases keep arriving. Three-year-old Zain al-Abideen al-Sabari lies on the ground of the hospital lobby as he receives IV treatment. 

"I brought my son to Al-Sabeen hospital after many other hospitals refused to admit him because there were no more beds to receive him," said Fatimah Abdu Ahmed, Sabari's mother. 

"I hope the war will end, the economic blockade will be lifted, cholera will be defeated and my son will recover very soon," she said.

Trump brings nothing to Palestinians

Donald Trump, pictured in the White House with Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince Muhammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on 14 March, is about to embark on his first foreign trip as US president. It will include stops in Riyadh, Jerusalem and Vatican City.Michael ReynoldsEPA

Omar Karmi-19 May 2017

Misdirection is the way of magic and conmanship. Control people’s attention and lead them on a merry dance. Have them hand over their wallets or change your clothes in front of a roomful of people without anyone noticing.

It works just as well in politics. Uncomfortable with the public narrative? Don’t answer the question; change the topic; resort to the passive voice or just bomb somewhere (aka, diversionary war theory).

As Donald Trump embarks on his first foreign trip – reportedly with some reluctance – his entire short tenure as president is beginning to look like one giant diversion, a misdirection so big you find yourself looking everywhere to find out what the “real” story is and checking for that wallet.

Is Trump a master manipulator of the media? Perhaps. But when the 45th US president touches down in the Saudi capital Riyadh for the first leg of a trip that will see him also visit Jerusalem, the Vatican and Brussels – where NATO officials are preparing talking points tailored to a short attention span – it might be worth paying attention to some of the other things that could happen in the fog of pageantry, arms deals and the cloud of accusations swirling around Trump that in the last week alone include obstructing justice and leaking sensitive intelligence to Russia.

Gulf warms to Israel?

During his two-day Saudi visit – which promises to be a grand affair that includes meetings with more than 50 Arab and Muslim leaders and a concert with country singer Toby Keith – Trump will hold talks with the Gulf Cooperation Council.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal this week, Gulf countries are ready to step up their normalization of ties with Israel.

Already, reports suggest, there is widespread sharing of intelligence. Now some Gulf countries, notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, want to expand this to include lifting restrictions on some trade, establishing direct telecommunication links and granting overflight rights to Israeli aircraft.

Common enmity toward Iran is the basis of this burgeoning relationship, an enmity that now appears to be stronger than any sense of solidarity with Palestinians, so long the stated reason Arab countries shunned Israel.

Indeed, mindful of any possible public backlash, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gulf countries want Israel to offer a “peace overture” to the Palestinians in return: an easing of the siege on Gaza and an end to settlement construction in “certain areas” of the occupied West Bank.

It’s a far cry from the already highly conciliatory 2002 Saudi peace initiative that offered comprehensive peace but in return for an end to the occupation of all territory seized in 1967, the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and a “just solution” to the “Palestinian refugee problem.”

That still remains the official position of the Palestine Liberation Organization, most recently iterated by Husam Zomlot, the newly appointed PLO ambassador in Washington. So these latest Saudi overtures might also have been expected to raise the hackles of Palestinian diplomats.

Instead, however, Zomlot responded with a fudge even Trump might have been proud of.

“We don’t mind a good relationship between Israel and the Arab world,” he told the Journal. “[But] is this the entry to peace? Or is it the blocker?”

Peace gambit?

Trump has been careful to be seen to work his way down a list of campaign promises, from his border wall to health insurance reform.

One of these – even though it doesn’t appear to have been listed on senior advisor Steve Bannon’s whiteboard – was to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

For now, that promise seems to have been dropped as Trump eyes a new peace initiatve to deliver “the ultimate deal” – an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

Bringing Peace in the Middle East™ will certainly offer Trump a welcome distraction from his domestic travails – a grand form of misdirection.

The only problem is it’s not going to happen. Israeli and Gulf leaders may see Trump as a “breath of fresh air” but that is partly because they see him as unwilling or unable to change a status quo that suits all concerned.

Saudi Arabia sees an opportunity to position itself as the main power broker in the region and to this end is happy to glad-hand Washington by openly warming relations with Israel. Riyadh gains and Tel Aviv gains.

Pliant Palestinian Authority

Israel will only slow its settlement building when warnings from Israeli observers that this puts the country firmly on the “slippery slope to some sort of one-entity reality” become inescapable conclusions.

But that will only happen absent the pliable Palestinian Authority, which is still clinging to an existence that has lost its raison d’etre.

There is certainly no viable domestic Israeli opposition to a coalition government wedded to the settlement project, and with even Arab opposition dropping away this is too big an opportunity for the settlement lobby.

Beyond continued funding for the Palestinian Authority, there is nothing on offer for Palestinians. A freeze on settlement construction “in certain areas” and an “easing” of the Gaza blockade, as per the reported Gulf offer, means precisely nothing, or, perhaps more accurately, whatever you want it to.

It will do little for Palestinians in Gaza, who for more than a decade have been suffocating under an Israeli-imposed siege and repeated military offensives that have left nearly two million people there on the brink of disaster.

If Trump is looking to Palestinians and Israelis to provide some respite from the domestic chaos of his administration he is likely to be disappointed.

If he wants to divert attention, he’d be better off bombing somewhere or just lunging wildly at the Pope when they meet in Vatican City.

Omar Karmi is a former Jerusalem and Washington, DC, correspondent for The National newspaper.