The West Will Have to Go It Alone, Without the United States

BY CHARLES KUPCHAN-JUNE 13, 2017

The future of the West is in Europe’s hands. Rather than affirming his commitment to Western values and institutions during his recent trip to Europe, President Donald Trump did the opposite, breaking with and alienating America’s closest democratic allies. His performance was sufficiently stunning to prompt German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is not known for hyperbole, to pronounce that Europe is on its own. To cap it off, Trump announced soon after returning to Washington that the United States was withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, setting his America against virtually the rest of the world.

Until these events, many observers (myself included) held out hope that Trump’s dismissive attitude toward partnership — and Western partners in particular — was a passing phase, a product of bad advice from extremist advisers in the White House and the president’s own intellectual and political immaturity. But such hope is now illusory. Trump has made it amply clear that “America First” really means “America Only,” and that he fully intends to break away from the community of Western democracies forged after the close of World War II. Trump’s acid rhetoric has become alarming reality.

On the horizon is not a world without the West, but a West without the United States. With Trump having made clear that he is defecting from the Atlantic community, Merkel was right to proclaim that Europeans “must take our destiny into our own hands.” The question before us is whether the EU, even as it confronts Brexit and its own populist challenges, will be up to the task of anchoring the Western world.

Europe has little choice but to look past Washington now that Trump has revealed his true colors. He confirmed that he is a businessman, not a statesman; for him, all relationships are transactional — even those with trusted allies. Germany is “very bad” because it spends less than two percent of GDP on defense and enjoys a sizable trade surplus, says Trump. Guilty as charged.

But the relationship between the United States and its European allies is about much more than who pays what. The magic of the Western world is that it left behind this zero-sum, each-for-its-own world. After too many wars, the Atlantic democracies realized that escaping bloodshed meant fashioning an international community that rested on trust, consensual rules, multilateral institutions, and open trade. As a matter of course, members of this community sacrificed short-term gain in the service of long-term solidarity. The result has been an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity.

Trump is oblivious, if not hostile, to this history. He treats Germany and other democratic allies as apartment buildings.

Trump is oblivious, if not hostile, to this history. He treats Germany and other democratic allies as apartment buildings. If they pay their rent on time, they are in good standing. If not, watch out.
Confronted with this American president, it is up to the EU to safeguard Western values and institutions until the United States comes back to its senses. Neither Germany nor the EU as a whole are currently ready to play this role. But the Trump presidency may be enough of a shock to galvanize Europe to step up.

The EU can best ready itself to fill the leadership gap resulting from “America First” by pursuing the following measures.

First, the EU needs a more balanced decision-making structure. Germany has become too influential for its own good, fostering resentment among its EU partners. Even though Berlin will remain the EU’s strongest voice, the union’s inner circle needs widening and more sway. France’s political comeback under Emmanuel Macron will certainly help, but especially in light of Brexit and the political mess that is the United Kingdom, Germany needs to make a habit of building consensus with Italy, Spain, and select smaller member states. If the EU is to lead the West, it needs buy-in from all its members.

Second, despite the continuing anti-EU sentiment on the populist Left and Right, the EU needs to deepen collective governance over economic issues and foreign and defense policy. The EU will not be able to lead effectively without more centralized and capable institutions. The emerging rift with the United States may provide the jolt needed to convince Europeans to further pool their sovereignty.
Third, in order to offset a U.S. retreat from multilateralism, the EU should seek to fashion more effective partnerships with other countries, including non-democracies. Whether wittingly or not, Trump is ceding U.S. influence and forcing Europe to look elsewhere to build coalitions of the willing. It speaks volumes that, over the next few years, the EU may find China a better partner than the United States when it comes to fighting climate change and liberalizing trade.

Finally, the EU should remain Atlanticist and continue to treat the United States as its wanted partner of choice — even as the transatlantic relationship becomes more transactional. After all, the Atlantic community has thrived for decades because of common interests, not just shared values and sentiments. Even if Trump is motivated primarily by short-term calculation of costs and benefits, working with Europe will more often than not look like a good deal. In this respect, Merkel should increase German defense spending and take steps to stimulate domestic demand, not only wooing Trump but also boosting much-needed growth and jobs in the Eurozone.

Europeans should also keep in mind that the Trump era is thankfully time-limited. He is woefully out of step with the political mainstream, likely making his presidency an aberration, not an indicator of things to come.

America will be back. But in the meantime, the EU will have to hold down the Western fort.

Versions of this article are set to appear in Le Monde, La Stampa, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Photo credit: ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images

Help wanted: Why Republicans won’t work for the Trump administration

 With many top-tier posts still empty in President Trump's new government, cabinet secretaries are getting exasperated with the lack of senior-level staff in their agencies. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

By Lisa Rein and Abby Phillip June 17 at 8:43 PM

The array of legal and political threats hanging over the Trump presidency has compounded the White House’s struggles to fill out the top ranks of the government.

Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey last month and the escalating probe into Russian interference in the presidential election have made hiring even more difficult, say former federal officials, party activists, lobbyists and candidates who Trump officials have tried to recruit.

Republicans say they are turning down job offers to work for a chief executive whose volatile temperament makes them nervous. They are asking head-hunters if their reputations could suffer permanent damage, according to 27 people The Washington Post interviewed to assess what is becoming a debilitating factor in recruiting political appointees.

[Trump lashes out at Russia probe; Pence hires a lawyer]

The hiring challenge complicates the already slow pace at which Trump is filling senior leadership jobs across government.

 President Trump has repeatedly lashed out with insults to defend himself as the Russia investigation unfolds. His latest attacks on Twitter appear to confirm he's being investigated for obstruction of justice. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

 The White House disputed the notion that the administration has a hiring problem and noted that its candidates must be vetted by the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics before being announced publicly, which might contribute to the perception that there is a delay in filling key posts.

“I have people knocking down my door to talk to the presidential personnel office,” said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. “There is a huge demand to join this administration.”

The White House picked up the hiring pace in May and the first half of June, particularly for positions needing confirmation. It has advanced 92 candidates for Senate confirmation, compared with 59 between Trump’s inauguration and the end of April.

But the Senate has just 25 working days until it breaks for the August recess. At this point, Trump has 43 confirmed appointees to senior posts, compared with the 151 top political appointees confirmed by mid-June in President Barack Obama’s first term and the 130 under President George W. Bush, according to data tracked by The Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition.

For Cabinet posts, the median wait between nomination and Senate vote for Trump was 25 days, according to data collected by The Post. By contrast, Obama’s nominees faced a median wait of two days, George W. Bush had a median wait of zero days and Bill Clinton had a median wait of one day.
A White House official said about 200 people are being vetted for senior-level posts.

Potential candidates are watching Trump’s behavior and monitoring his treatment of senior officials. “Trump is becoming radioactive, and it’s accelerating,” said Bill Valdez, a former senior Energy Department official who is now president of the Senior Executives Association, which represents 6,000 top federal leaders.

A look at President Trump’s first year in office, so far

Scenes from the Republican’s first months in the White House.

[Trump, furious and frustrated, gears up to punch back at Comey testimony]

“He just threw Jeff Sessions under the bus,” Valdez said, referring to recent reports that the president is furious at the attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. “If you’re working with a boss who doesn’t have your back, you have no confidence in working with that individual.”

Although Trump has blamed Senate Democrats for blocking his nominees, the personnel situation has many causes. After Trump’s November victory, hiring got off to a slow start during the transition, and some important positions have run into screening delays as names pass through several White House aides who must give approval. Some prominent private-sector recruits backed off because they would face a five-year post-employment ban on lobbying.

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, who was being considered for an assistant secretary position at the Department of Homeland Security, was the latest to withdraw his name from consideration on Saturday. A person close to the administration who is familiar with the matter said long delays contributed to Clarke’s decision.

[This Beltway insider is in charge of hiring for the Trump administration. It’s taking a while.]

The Trump team has not faced the same issues with mid- and entry-level jobs. It has hired hundreds of young Republican staffers into positions that are résumé-builders — and has filled some senior posts that do not require Senate approval.

Other candidates told The Post they would eagerly serve but are simply waiting for offers.
But as the president continues to sow doubts about his loyalty to those who work for him, most recently with his tweets on Friday that appeared to attack Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a number of qualified candidates say they see little upside to joining government at this time. They include eight Republicans who said they turned down job offers out of concern that working for this administration could damage their reputation.

Republicans have become so alarmed by the personnel shortfall that in the past week a coalition of conservatives complained to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. “We remain very concerned over the lack of secondary and tertiary executive-level appointments,” they said in a letter signed by 25 prominent conservatives called the Coalitions for America, describing their concern that the leadership vacuum will create “mischief and malfeasance” by civil servants loyal to Obama.

The letter culminated weeks of private urging by top conservatives, said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, who helped lead the effort. “They’re sensitive about it, and they’re trying to do better.”

Fitton said that some candidates have faced inexplicable delays on job offers. “People are waiting to hear back. Promises are made but not kept. People are left stranded. Positions are implied, and people are left hanging.”

[President Trump’s claim his nominees faced ‘record-setting long’ delays]

In a town where the long hours and financial sacrifice of working in government are outweighed by the prestige of a White House or agency job, the sacrifice is beginning to look less appealing.
Potential candidates question whether they could make a lasting contribution in an administration whose policies often change directions. They worry that anyone in the White House, even in a mid-level post, faces the possibility of sizable legal bills serving on a team that is under investigation. And then there are the tweets.

“You can count me out,” said an attorney who served in the George W. Bush administration and has turned down senior-level legal posts at several agencies, including the Justice Department. This attorney, like others who talked candidly about job offers from the administration, spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because their employers do business with the government or they fear retribution from Republican leaders.

The attorney described an “equally incoherent and unclear leadership” at many agencies, in particular at the Justice Department, where the attorney characterized Sessions’s push for stricter sentences for drug crimes as “1982 thinking” that the Republican Party has largely abandoned.

Another person in line for a senior legal post who pulled out after Comey’s firing said, “I decided, ‘What am I doing this for?’ ”

He described a disorganized paperwork process that threatened to leave him unprepared for Senate confirmation, and said he was disgusted that Rosenstein was “hung out to dry” as the president claimed at first that the deputy attorney general orchestrated Comey’s firing.

“You sit on the tarmac for quite some time, you see smoke coming out of the engine and you say, ‘I’m going back to the gate,’ ” he said.

[Slow pace of nominations leaves Cabinet secretaries in limbo]

In recent weeks, several high-profile D.C. attorneys and law firms have turned down offers to represent Trump in the ongoing Russia probe, some of them citing a reluctance to work with a client who notoriously flouts his lawyers’ legal advice.

And the White House’s top communications job has been vacant since Mike Dubke resigned in May.

[Dubke resigns as White House communications director]

Lawyers and candidates for White House jobs are particularly wary now, several people said.

“What they’re running into now is, for any job near the White House, people are going to wonder,

‘Am I going to have to lawyer up right away?’ ” said Eliot Cohen, a top official in George W. Bush’s State Department and a leading voice of opposition to Trump among former Republican national security officials during the campaign.

“They’re saying, ‘Tell me about professional liability insurance.’ ”

A longtime GOP activist and former Bush appointee said he rejected offers for several Senate-confirmed jobs because of his policy differences with Trump.

“There are a number of people who are loyal Republicans but who don’t feel comfortable with either [the administration’s] trade positions, or the Muslim [travel] ban or the overall volatility of this administration. We just don’t feel it’s very professional.”

One prominent Bush-era Republican had a more measured view.

“Everybody’s trying to draw cosmic conclusions about the Trump administration, and my view is it’s still too soon to know what we’re working with,” said a former high-ranking Bush national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. He said a chief executive such as Trump “who comes in as head of a political insurgency” needs time to hire at least some people to his team who have not served in government before.

Others, though, say they have already seen signs of change that make them uneasy.

“How do you draw people to the State Department when they’re cutting the budget by 30 percent?” 

asked Elliot Abrams, a national security veteran of the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations who was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first pick for deputy secretary before the White House rejected him for criticizing Trump during the campaign. Abrams also cited the president’s last-minute decision to remove language from a speech in Brussels in May that affirms the United States’ commitment to NATO allies’ mutual defense.

“It’s much harder to recruit people now,” Abrams said.

A senior White House official suggested that some people might have been considered but never officially offered an administration job because of vetting concerns or simply because they were not a good fit for the position.”

“In some cases, it’s just sour grapes,” the official said.

Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.

The Courage of Hopelessness — Video

by Slavoj Žižek- Jun 18, 2017
Jun 18, 2017

( June 18, 2017, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) In these troubled times, even the most pessimistic diagnosis of our future ends with an uplifting hint that things might not be as bad as all that, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Yet, argues Slavoj Žižek, it is only when we have admit to ourselves that our situation is completely hopeless – that the light at the end of the tunnel is in fact the headlight of a train approaching us from the opposite direction – that fundamental change can be brought about. Surveying the various challenges in the world today, from mass migration and geopolitical tensions to terrorism, the explosion of rightist populism and the emergence of new radical politics – all of which, in their own way, express the impasses of global capitalism – Žižek explores whether there still remains the possibility for genuine change. Today, he proposes, the only true question is, or should be, this: do we endorse the predominant acceptance of capitalism as a fact of human nature, or does today’s capitalism contain strong enough antagonisms to prevent its infinite reproduction? Can we, he asks, move beyond the failure of socialism, and beyond the current wave of populist rage, and initiate radical change before the train hits?

The Middle East tinder box again

Gulf Absolutism - Jihadism – ‘Trumpism’

The Caliphate’s battle cry

The world’s largest gas field; North Field to Qatar, South Pars to Iran

by Kumar David-June 17, 2017, 5:16 pm 

To make sense of the Middle East, three dimensions - the Saudis and Gulf States, jihadism now reaching into Iran, and Trump, have to be tied together. The Qatari royals and Emir Al Thani, have for two decades had outreach ambitions, by which I mean they don’t want to be excessively bound to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the seven-sheikdom UAE, dominated by one of its constituents Abu Dhabi. The whole lot are satrapies of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi monarchy, and its feudal court and state, is the big player in this oil and gas abundant region.

Why are the Qatari royals bidding to carve out a modicum of autonomy? The sheikdoms of the Arabian Peninsula were separate tribes till British Imperial power (Cor Blimy! The Raj moulded more than India!) subordinated Arabia, the Gulf, Persia and the Middle East. When Britain withdrew after the WW2, a medley of kingdoms, sheikdoms and nations surfaced (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Trans-Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the seven sheikdoms in the UAE). But the similarity ends there. Qatar shares with Iran, the world’s largest single gas field under the south-central portion of the Persian Gulf. Exploitation of the 9,700 sq. km, 43 trillion cu meter field necessitates cooperation with Iran. So it needs to befriend Sunni Saudi Arabia’s arch Shia enemy.

Qatari desire to keep at arm’s length from the Saudi led bunch creates problems. Its capital Doha hosts pesky Al Jazeera which competes with CNN and BBC globally and is the premier regional broadcaster. Its unconcealed contempt for human rights violators, enthusiasm for the Arab Spring and its Westernised male and, Allah forgive, headscarf-less female announcers, is a gadfly in the groin of their Majesties and Emirs. (Qatar, a sheikdom, is no democracy; but of a more liberal sort). Qatar has invested billions in housing and welfare in Gaza and bankrolls the Hamas admin - no doubt Hamas puts aside a cut to buy arms. And it backs the Muslim Brotherhood while the Saudis lie awake at night fretting over the Brotherhood, regional challenger of Wahhabism - the Saudi version of Sunni Islam and the root ideology of jihadism.

The Saudis and Abu Dhabi accuse Qatar of financing terrorism. This is rich coming from the Saudis who lay out billions spreading Wahhabism, promoting fundamentalism, financing religious schools that teach nothing else but the Quran in classical Arabic and whose products are recognised on par with University graduates in bankrolled Bangladesh and elsewhere. It funds thousands of mosque building projects across Asia. The Saudis are in bed with Islamic fundamentalism while embracing an America purportedly at war with Islamic terrorism.

But there is truth to the charge that Qatar too slips generous dollars to terrorists and "terrorist" groups - there are so many it’s confusing which is which. Erica Solomon alleges in the Financial Times of 6 June that Qatar doled out a billion dollars to secure the release of a falconry party of Qatari royals and 50 militants (security guards?) taken hostage in Iraq in 2015. The collectors she says were Iranian figures and Katalab Hezbollah (Shia mercenaries?). The point is this - there are wheels within wheels; everybody is involved in some way; radical Islam has become ubiquitous in the context of the breakdown of the global order that there is no escaping its shadow.

Jihadism

A bit of vocabulary first. I use Islamic fundamentalism for harking back, seeking to live as in the Prophet’s days, strict adherence to the religious code and literal interpretation of primary texts. If a movement goes further and demands social and political reorganisation along these lines, but only by persuasion and peaceful means, I use the term extremist. If it goes the whole hog and precipitates violence against Muslims or non-Muslims, that’s terrorism. These are working definitions; many such as ISIS fit the last. Activist theocratic leaders, preachers and writers, fit the second category.

In this classification Wahhabism properly speaking is fundamentalist. Its founder Ibn Abd al-Wahhab refrained from advocating force against unbelievers. Unfortunately he found a patron in Muhammad Ibn Saud, a chieftain of the Najd tribe and originator of the House of Saud which reigns to this day. Wahhab refused to endorse Saud’s campaigns of plunder and insisted jihad was justified only if the umma was endangered. He forbade killing prisoners, destruction of property and slaughter of civilians. Nor did he say those killed in battle or suicide missions were martyrs. Ideological conflict with Ibn Saud simmered but after Wahhab’s death, later Wahhabis cast aside inhibition and encouraged Ibn Saud to enforce a version of Wahhabi Islam which consolidated absolute monarchy by sword and faith. The first jihadists were none other than the founding fathers of the House of Saud!

Ibn Saud’s son, Ibn Muhammad, used religion to justify wholesale slaughter of populations. In 1801, he sacked the city of Karbala in modern Iraq, plundered the tomb of Shia founder Imam Husain and slaughtered thousands including women and children. Now Jihadism has hijacked Wahhabism to the point where all who don’t practice its form of Islam or accept its vision of a global Caliphate are deemed infidels and enemies worthy of death. Horrific slaughter and mindless terror stalks Western, Syrian, Afghan, Indian and Iranian streets.

What I have put together here is no scholarly or political thesis of two centuries of fundamentalism and it bypasses mainstream Islam altogether. Nor have I touched on the persecution of Muslims in parts of the world like Burma, India, China and recently anti-Muslim arson in Lanka, all of which can provoke a backlash. That’s because my task is limited; it only formulates a simple story line specifically for the needs of this essay.

The tangle of terrorism

More important than the historical links between jihadist-like behaviour and the rise of the Saudi royal house is that the Gordian knot of modern jihadism is tangled with governments. In the best known case - 9/11 - all but four of the 19 terrorists were Saudis. Osama bin Laden belongs to an influential Saudi family.

Reams of allegations from Western sources allege that Saudi private funds flow to terrorist groups. The same is true of many other Emirates.

In a hard-hitting piece on website Counterpunch(6 June 2017) entitled "London Terror Attack: It’s Time to Confront Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia" John Wright says "US, British and French governments can no longer credibly claim to be serious about fighting terrorism or religious extremism while cosying up to what is a medieval kleptocracy in Riyadh. Just days prior to the attack in London it was reported that a UK government inquiry into the role of Saudi money in funding terrorism is likely to be shelved due to the sensitive nature of its findings".

The case of the US is deeper and more convoluted; there have been links between power brokers in America and Saudi, Gulf and Middle East ruling cliques from the early days of oil. That’s old news; but new-style cloak and dagger collaboration of these governments is the jihadist funding lifeline. Taliban without Pakistan, Hezbollah without Iran and IS without private Saudi slush would be a shadow of what they have become. Absolutism, theocracy, feudal monarchy on one side, jihadist movements on the other, cohabit comfortably. They feed each other through variations in an Islamic concert and feed on a poverty-stricken, ignorant and religion-duped populace. When Theresa May calls for the defeat of evil Jihadist ideology she little understands what she is talking about.

Enter Trump

Trump has a Midas touch. All he touches glitters for a moment and turns leaden in a trice. I hope he is not impeached, nor ‘abdicates’ quickly; America needs to ingest its medicine well lest it blunders again. In his first tweets he took credit for the Qatar crisis saying in thinly veiled words that he arranged it on his 2 May visit to Riyadh. Embarrassed Washington officials scampered to cover up subsequently by arranging for him to phone the Qatari royals and by offering to mediate a settlement. Secretary of State Tillerson went 180 degrees and called for the lifting of the Qatar embargo. It’s all blind man’s buff in Washington. Trump in America and worldwide, and Theresa May in Britain and Europe, like the Rajapaksas of Lanka, are damaged goods.

But it runs deeper than the idiosyncrasies of a comical president. US foreign policy in the Middle East (and now in East Asia and China) has become disoriented. In 1956 Eisenhower set a new tone when he forced the UK and France to abandon their invasion of Egypt when Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. The next big setback was America’s defeat in the Vietnam War but the US reconciled itself to the new power balance in the Far East and policy consistency resumed. But when Bush invaded Iraq for trumped (sic) up reasons with his poodle Teflon Blair in tow; the downward spiral resumed. Obama’s composure restored a modicum of calmness.

Though some sobriety resumed during the Obama presidency, his inability to deliver on the Palestine imbroglio (the most profound of the regions dilemmas) means the US writ no longer runs. America’s policy on jihadism is resisting those who threaten the homeland; in all else it consorts with different groups at different times (Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and the blind eye on the horrid Saudi monarchy). Welcome to a new rice puller, the Qatari-Saudi-American achcharu.

NHS cyber-attack was 'launched from North Korea'

The WannaCry ransomware has been linked to a North Korean hacking group.

GCHQ can detect the work of hackers around the globe

By Gordon Corera-16 June 2017

British security officials believe that hackers in North Korea were behind the cyber-attack that crippled parts of the NHS and other organisations around the world last month, the BBC has learned.

Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) led the international investigation.

Security sources have told the BBC that the NCSC believes that a hacking group known as Lazarus launched the attack.

The US Computer Emergency Response Team has also warned about Lazarus.

The same group is believed to have targeted Sony Pictures in 2014.

The Sony hack came as the company planned to release the movie The Interview, a satire about the North Korean leadership starring Seth Rogen. The movie was eventually given a limited release after an initial delay.

The same group is also thought to have been behind the theft of money from banks.

NHS hit

In May, ransomware called WannaCry swept across the world, locking computers and demanding payment for them to be unlocked. The NHS in the UK was particularly badly hit.

Officials in Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) began their own investigation and concluded their assessment in recent weeks.

The ransomware did not target Britain or the NHS specifically, and may well have been a money-making scheme that got out of control, particularly since the hackers do not appear to have retrieved any of the ransom money as yet.

Although the group is based in North Korea the exact role of the leadership in Pyongyang in ordering the attack is less clear.

Detective work

Private sector cyber-security researchers around the world began picking apart the code to try to understand who was behind the attack soon after.

Adrian Nish, who leads the cyber threat intelligence team at BAE Systems, saw overlaps with previous code developed by the Lazarus group.

"It seems to tie back to the same code-base and the same authors," Nish says. "The code-overlaps are significant."

Private sector cyber security researchers reverse engineered the code but the British assessment by the NCSC - part of the intelligence agency GCHQ - is likely to have been made based on a wider set of sources.

America's NSA has also more recently made the link to North Korea but its assessment is not thought to have been based on as deep as an investigation as the UK, partly because the US was not hit as hard by the incident.

Officials say they have not seen any significant evidence supporting other possible culprits.

Central bank hack

North Korean hackers have been linked to money-making attacks in the past - such as the theft of $81m from the central bank of Bangladesh in 2016.

This sophisticated attack involved making transfers through the Swift payment system which, in some cases, were then laundered through casinos in the Philippines.

"It was one of the biggest bank heists of all time in physical space or in cyberspace," says Nish, who says further activity has been seen in banks in Poland and Mexico.

The Lazarus group has also been linked to the use of ransomware - including against a South Korean supermarket chain.

Other analysts say they saw signs of North Korea investigating the bitcoin method of payment in recent months.

Scattergun

The May 2017 attack was indiscriminate rather than targeted. Its spread was global and may have only been slowed thanks to the work of a British researcher who was able to find a "kill switch" to slow it down.

The attacks caused huge disruption in the short term but they may have also been a strategic failure for the group behind it.

Researchers at Elliptic, a UK-based company which tracks bitcoin payments, say they have seen no withdrawals out of the wallets into which money was paid, although people are still paying in to them.

Those behind the attack may not have expected it to have spread as fast as it did.

Once they realised that their behaviour was drawing global attention, the risks of moving the money may have been seen as too high given the relatively small amount involved, leaving them with little to show for their work.

The revelation of the link to North Korea will raise difficult questions about what can be done to respond or deter such behaviour in the future.

Provide the vehicle number of the van that abducted you – Police request Journalist Poddala Jayantha

Jun 17, 2017

The Police has requested senior journalist Poddala Jayantha to immediately provide the vehicle number and any other details available of the van that abducted him in the evening of June 01, 2009 near Embuldeniya junction in Nugegoda.

The Police have requested for this information following a letter from senior journalist – activist Poddala Jayantha to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) requesting him to expedite the investigation in to the abduction and assault. The letter has been later forwarded to the Colombo Deputy Inspector General (DIG) and then to the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) in charge of the Nugegoga – Mirihana area. The Police request has been sent via email by the SSP.

In reply Poddala Jayantha has said that if he was able to grasp the vehicle number his media friends would have found suspected abductors. And on the other hand the SSP must be aware of who would travel in a white van with a genuine vehicle number intended for abduction, Jayantha has emphasized in his response.  

Jayantha forwarded this letter to IGP observing the recent developments of the investigations in to the assault of Senior Journalist Keith Noyahr, with several suspects being arrested. He has forwarded the letter to the IGP, suspecting that those who attacked him could be in the same group. According to sources close to Poddala Jayantha, a separate letter will be forwarded soon to the Criminal Investigations Department.

Shalika Wimalasena

SAMPANTHAN TO WIGNESWARAN: IT IS YOU WHO CREATED THIS CRISIS!

17/06/2017

Writing to Chief Minster Wigneswaran, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance R. Sampanthan says that what is happening in the Northern Provincial Council is a result of his unwarranted action of announcing punitive action  against the two ministers who had not been found guilty.

Northern Provincial is in turmoil after Wignaswaran calling for the resignation of those two minsters. 22 members of the council has handed over a no confidence motion on the Chief Minster to the Governor of the Province.  Wigneswaran has been only gather the support of 15 members. The governor has told media that he will ask CM Wigneswaran to show majority support in the council int he coming days.

The letter of the Sampanthan says that ” on Wednesday the 14^th you announced punitive action even against the two ministers who had not been found guilty. Whatever that happened thereafter was as a result of your aforesaid action.” It further says that “unwarranted action should not be the cause for promoting disunity and disturbing the functioning of the Northern Provincial Council. I would urge you to take early remedial action in regard to the two ministers not found guilty by your board of inquiry. This would not deter you from holding any further inquiry.”

The full text of the letter followers:

16.06.2017

Hon. Justice CV Wigneswaran,

Chief Minister Northern Province

My Dear Wignes,

Thank you for your letter of 14.06.2017 with copy of speech made by you.

I wish to state the following. The board of inquiry appointed by you conducted investigations in respect of four ministers. The inquiry had been concluded and their report submitted to you. Two have been found guilty and two others have not been found guilty.

You stated in the Provincial Council that you would act on the basis of the report of the board of inquiry.

You have called for the resignations of the two ministers found guilty. No one has complained about that decision.

The complaint is about the action taken by you against the other two ministers in regard to whom there is no finding of guilt by the board of inquiry. This action is being seen as a violation of the principles of natural justice and unwarranted.

I called you on Tuesday the 13^th to convey to you that such action could be resisted by the two ministers not found guilty and the members of the provincial council and suggested caution.

I also expressed concern that while you had been in touch with the other leaders of constituent parties in the Tamil National Alliance you had not discussed this matter with Hon. Mavai Senathirajah Member of Parliament and Leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK). You have called him later in the day and he had conveyed to you that action should not be taken against Ministers not found guilty.

On Wednesday the 14^th you announced punitive action even against the two ministers who had not been found guilty. Whatever that happened thereafter was as a result of your aforesaid action.

It is my view that to bring things to an end it is necessary to first take remedial action pertaining to the two ministers who have not been found guilty.

Unwarranted action should not be the cause for promoting disunity and disturbing the functioning of the Northern Provincial Council.

I would urge you to take early remedial action in regard to the two ministers not found guilty by your board of inquiry. This would not deter you from holding any further inquiry.

Sincerely,

R. Sampanthan

Leader of the Tamil National Alliance

5000 students lost chance of Uni entrance annually: FUTA


2017-06-17

The annual intake of the College of Education has been limited to 15,000 since 2010, though the university is capable of recruiting 20,700 students annually, the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) said yesterday (16).

 FUTA acting President Aruna Kumara said that about 5,000 students had been deprived of university entrance annually for six years from 2010 to 2015 as a result.“There is a huge requirement for science teachers at present. In several schools the authorities have been forced to shut down the science sections due to the lack of teachers for the subject,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Ceylon Teachers' Services Union (CTSU) General Secretary Mahinda Jayasinghe said there was a delay in enrolling students to colleges of education. “New students have only been enrolled for 2014 up to now. Students belonging to the 2015 and 2016 intake are still waiting for their turn,” he said. (Kalathma Jayawardhane)

Tourism Overlooks Livelihood Recovery in Post-War Sri Lanka

PHURWA GURUNG on 06/17/2017

Introduction

In July 2016, the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in association with the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), organized a four-day international conference in Passikudah, Batticaloa district. Its theme was: “Tourism: A Catalyst for Development, Peace and Reconciliation.” According to the UNWTO website, the conference attracted 150 participants comprising 70 international delegates from 26 countries. Among others, it held a session on “Local community involvement and peace sensitive tourism: the role of local communities in not only provision of goods and services but also in decision making to facilitate peace and development”.  Local fisher folks and representatives from Community Guest House Owners’ Association and Rural Development Society, two key civil society organizations in Kalkudah, Passikudah contend that they were neither informed nor consulted at any stage of the event. To explore more, I visited Passikudah and Kuchchaveli between January 9-14, 2017 and interviewed 7 fisher folks, 4 local leaders and 5 tourist entrepreneurs on site, with the help of a local journalist.

Tourism Overlooks Livelihood Recovery in Post-War Sri Lanka.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Stop labouring children!

2017-06-17

Monday June 12 was the world day against child labour and the International Labour Organization has said it has launched this day to focus attention on the global extent of child labour, the action and efforts needed to eliminate it.  

Each year this day brings together governments, employers and workers organizations, civil society, and the millions of people to highlight the plight of child labourers and what can be done to help them.  
According to the ILO, globally more than 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by conflict, violence and fragility. At the same time, around 200 million people are affected by disasters every year. A third of them are children. A significant proportion of the 168 million children engaged in child labour live in areas affected by conflict and disaster.  

ILO says the 2017 world day focuses on the impact of conflicts and disasters on child labour. Conflicts and disasters have a devastating impact on people’s lives. They kill, maim, injure, force people to flee their homes, destroy livelihoods, push people into poverty and starvation and trap people in situations where their basic human rights are violated. Children are often the first to suffer as schools are destroyed and basic services are disrupted. Many children are internally displaced or become refugees in other countries, and are particularly vulnerable to trafficking or child labour.

Ultimately, millions of children are pushed into child labour by conflicts and disasters.   
If the United Nations sustainable development goals target SDG 8.7 which aims to “eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour” is to be achieved by 2030, we need to intensify and accelerate action to end child labour, including in areas affected by conflict and disasters. We need to do it together, the ILO says.  

According to web sites, a recent United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report highlights that children account for more than half the world’s refugees though they comprise only a third of the world’s population. Many of them and their families — from conflict-ridden nations such as Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Myanmar — have sought refuge. The United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR) has estimated that last year there were around 29,000 refugees and 6,000 asylum seekers in India alone. The largest groups came from Myanmar, Afghanistan and Somalia. 
The UNICEF report says about 50 million children have either migrated to another country or have been displaced internally. Syria and Afghanistan account for the largest number of child refugees who have fled to try and rebuild their lives. Many of these children end up in the hands of human smugglers and traffickers only to suffer the worst forms of abuse.  

But if there are children suffering displacement due to violence, even larger numbers of child migrants in Asia, and India are suffering displacement due to social and economic reasons. Professor Shantha Sinha, an anti-child labour activist and former chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, says that during her tenure as commissioner she met several children from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Nepal.  

“These children had no citizenship and no rights. Locals would say that these are not our children, so we can exploit them. I would insist to them that children are children, regardless of borders. We need to create social concern about them to make our system more sensitive to their needs. Unfortunately, children are not a priority for Indian democracy,” she says.  

In Sri Lanka, The National Child Protection Authority has proposed that a rupees ten thousand fine and a one year jail term be imposed on those who employ children in dangerous jobs. Compensation should also be paid to the child, the NCPA says, while a social environment should be created for children to enjoy the freedom of proper education, healthcare, play time and other recreation.  

It says one of our main responsibilities is to create a proper environment for innocent children so that they could develop into civic-conscious citizens and contribute much towards the sustainable development of Sri Lanka.

 
The NCPA says that, though child labour is not a major problem in Sri Lanka, we need to ensure that it does not become a crisis. Therefore, even in our homes we need to ensure that we do not employ children under the age of 18 for domestic work.  

While There’s Life, There’s Hope

By Emil van der Poorten –JUNE 18, 2017

Emil van der Poorten

Having been castigated for being a prophet of doom and gloom insofar as the future of the Resplendent Isle is concerned, being subjected to recurring abuse accompanying the allegation that I am simply a “disgruntled victim of the great Hector Kobbekaduwa’s Land reform” etc. etc., it gives me a bit of satisfaction to document a ray of hope in the murk that is Sri Lanka today.

As someone who underwent the travails resulting from a Specialist’s “outsourcing” of what was allegedly a “less-than-surgical procedure” in a premier teaching hospital, no less, it gladdened my heart to hear that the milk of human kindness has not dried up in every medical institution in this country.

To cut to the chase, I had, drawn to my attention, the case of someone who had  displayed the early symptoms of the current scourge of Sri Lanka – dengue fever. Consultation with a specialist physician resulted in warding at the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH) on the outskirts of Colombo.

This appears to be a more than pleasant surprise after the charnel house that passes for a Teaching Hospital and those who conduct its affairs in the hill capital.

Initial admission was into a ward packed to the rafters (almost literally!) with other dengue sufferers and resulted in periodic bed-sharing episodes. This sacrifice in comfort and privacy was unavoidable in the hospital’s effort to deal with a crisis situation with totally inadequate resources.

The cleanliness of the ward left little to be desired, the toilets and bathrooms were clean and the showers had water pressure that would have been the envy of most Colombo homes!

I’d like to believe that, even in a system that is so critically under-funded and where our so-called leaders don’t hesitate, at the drop of a hat, to take off for places such as Singapore and the United States at the first suspicion of serious illness, there are still some medical practitioners to whom the Hippocratic Oath is more important than money in the bank or the next world cruise funded by some multi-national drug giant.

As someone who was at death’s door for nearly a week thanks to the botching of what was supposed to be a “simple non-surgical procedure,” thanks to medical “outsourcing” and who on several mornings woke up in a bath of urine, thanks to the fact that the staff ignored requests to leave a urinal within reach of one whose thoracic cavity housed a stainless steel “heart repair kit” which wouldn’t brook anything resembling a twist of the upper body, it certainly gladdened this heart to see what appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel of death and despondency that is Sri Lankan medical treatment today.

I have gone to great lengths to document my own experience because it is in such direct contrast to what seem to be the conditions prevailing at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, operating under the additional stress of this country being in the throes of an unprecedented outbreak of a mosquito-borne disease the treatment of which is still very much in the exploratory/development phase.

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