FBI Announces Huge Darknet Takedown

FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe, flanked by Attorney General Jeff Sessions (right) and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, announce the takedown of the criminal website AlphaBay, the largest Darknet marketplace in the world, at July 20 press conference in Washington, D.C

Authorities Shutter Online Criminal Market AlphaBay

Jul-22-2017

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - The largest marketplace on the Darknet—where hundreds of thousands of criminals anonymously bought and sold drugs, weapons, hacking tools, stolen identities, and a host of other illegal goods and services—has been shut down as a result of one the most sophisticated and coordinated efforts to date on the part of law enforcement across the globe.

In early July, multiple computer servers used by the AlphaBay website were seized worldwide, and the site’s creator and administrator—a 25-year-old Canadian citizen living in Thailand—was arrested.

AlphaBay operated for more than two years and had transactions exceeding $1 billion in Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

The site, which operated on the anonymous Tor network, was a major source of heroin and fentanyl, and sales originating from AlphaBay have been linked to multiple overdose deaths in the United States.

“This was a landmark operation,” said FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe during a press conference at the Department of Justice to announce the results of the case.

“We’re talking about multiple servers in different countries, hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency, and a Darknet drug trade that spanned the globe.”

A dedicated team of FBI agents, intelligence analysts, and support personnel worked alongside domestic and international law enforcement partners to shut down the site and stop the flow of illegal goods.

“AlphaBay was truly a global site,” said Special Agent Nicholas Phirippidis, one of the FBI investigators who worked on the case from the FBI’s Sacramento Division.

“Vendors were shipping illegal items from places all over the world to places all over the world.”

The website, an outgrowth of earlier dark market sites like Silk Road—but much larger—went online in December 2014. It took about six months for the underground marketplace to pick up momentum, Phirippidis said, “but after that it grew exponentially.”

AlphaBay reported that it serviced more than 200,000 users and 40,000 vendors. Around the time of takedown, the site had more than 250,000 listings for illegal drugs and toxic chemicals, and more than 100,000 listings for stolen and fraudulent identification documents, counterfeit goods, malware and other computer hacking tools, firearms, and fraudulent services. By comparison, the Silk Road dark market—the largest such enterprise of its kind before it was shut down in 2013—had approximately 14,000 listings.

The operation to seize AlphaBay’s servers was led by the FBI and involved the cooperative efforts of law enforcement agencies in Thailand, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France, along with the European law enforcement agency Europol.

“Conservatively, several hundred investigations across the globe were being conducted at the same time as a result of AlphaBay’s illegal activities,” Phirippidis said.

“It really took an all-hands effort among law enforcement worldwide to deconflict and protect those ongoing investigations.”

U.S. law enforcement also worked with numerous foreign partners to freeze and preserve millions of dollars in cryptocurrency representing the proceeds of AlphaBay’s illegal activities. Those funds will be the subject of forfeiture actions.

AlphaBay’s creator and administrator, Alexandre Cazes—who went by the names Alpha02 and Admin online—was arrested by Thai authorities on behalf of the U.S. on July 5, 2017. A week later, Cazes apparently took his own life while in custody in Thailand.

Because AlphaBay operated on the anonymous Tor network, administrators were confident they could hide the locations of the site’s servers and the identities of users.

“They understood that law enforcement was monitoring their activity,” said FBI Special Agent Chris Thomas, “but they felt so protected by the dark web technology that they thought they could get away with their crimes.”

The FBI and its partners used a combination of traditional investigative techniques along with sophisticated new tools to break the case and dismantle AlphaBay.

“The message to criminals,” is: Don’t think that you are safe because you’re on the dark web. There are no corners of the dark web where you can hide,” Thomas said.

The operation to seize AlphaBay coincided with efforts by Dutch law enforcement to shut down the Hansa Market, another prominent Darknet marketplace that was used to facilitate the sale of illegal drugs, malware, and other illegal services.

After AlphaBay’s shutdown, criminal users and vendors flocked to Hansa Market, where they believed their identities would be masked.

“Taking down two major dark sites at once is considerable, and it took a lot of effort, a lot of expertise and teamwork,” said FBI Acting Director McCabe. “As this level of teamwork and coordination shows, we will go to the ends of the earth to find these people and to stop them.”

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Global Threat Requires Global Partnerships

The takedown of AlphaBay—and another prominent site on the Darknet known as Hansa Market—required months of planning among law enforcement agencies around the world and was one of the most sophisticated coordinated takedowns to date in the fight against online criminal activity.

The operation to seize AlphaBay’s servers and shut down the site was led by the FBI and involved the cooperative efforts of law enforcement authorities in Thailand, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France, along with the European law enforcement agency Europol. 

It is expected that hundreds of new investigations will be generated worldwide as a result of the takedowns.

Europol played a central coordinating role in both cases. In early July, days before AlphaBay servers were seized, Europol hosted a command post staffed with representatives from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Department of Justice, along with its own members. The command post was the central hub for information exchange during the AlphaBay operation.

In parallel to these operations, Europol hosted an international Cyberpatrol Action Week in June, where more than 40 investigators from 22 European Union member states and representatives from the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement agencies joined in an intelligence-gathering exercise to map out criminality on the Darknet.

The focus was on vendors and buyers who were actively involved in the online trade of illegal commodities including drugs, weapons and explosives, forged documents, and cyber crime tools. Analysis of the results and dissemination of the resultant intelligence is ongoing.

Poland Sets Stage for EU Standoff

BY NOAH BUYON-JULY 22, 2017

Poland appears heading toward a major showdown with the European Union after the country’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party rammed a hotly-contested judicial reform bill through parliament Saturday.

The bill, which must be signed by President Andrzej Duda before it becomes law, would effectively grant PiS the power to stack the country’s court system with friendly judges. EU officials have hinted that Brussels could invoke Article 7 — a mechanism for sanctioning Poland and suspending its voting rights within the 28-country bloc — if the bill is enacted.

Article 7 has never been activated before.

As the PiS-controlled parliament considered the bill late into the night of July 21, opponents of the measure, crying “free courts,” took to city streets around the country in the tens of thousands. The legislation, despite the protests, passed.

Though Duda has offered mild critiques of the bill in recent weeks, he’s widely expected to sign off on it.

The ball, then, is in Brussels’ court. On July 19, European Commissioner Frans Timmermans, citing concern for Poland’s democracy, warned that Article 7 could be triggered “very soon.” A provision of the Treaty of European Union, Article 7 allows Brussels to temporarily strip the rights of member states that are found to be in violation of EU “values.”

The authority to make such a determination ultimately resides in the European Council, which is made up of the leaders of the bloc’s 28 member states. The Council must make that determination unanimously, excluding the member state under review.

Last year, one of the Council’s number, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, publicly vowed to oppose any move to sanction Poland. Marcin Horala, a PiS member of parliament, recently told Poland’s Republika TV, “Hungary has already declared it wouldn’t support the procedure, which actually ends the whole fuss.”

To thwart Orban’s defense of Warsaw, officials in Brussels are rumored to be weighing Article 7 action against Hungary, too. Budapest has courted controversy within the EU for passing a pair of laws that target foreign-funded educational institutions and NGOs.

Poland’s proposed judiciary reform comes as the latest of a series of hot-button PiS initiatives designed to consolidate the party’s grip on power. Previously, PiS has put Poland’s military and the media in its sights.

PiS members argue that an overhaul of the Poland court system is long overdue. “The courts have essentially stayed the same as in communist Poland,” PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski explained on July 1.

Writing for the American Enterprise Institute, Dalibor Rohac observes that Poland is “outperforming most of its Central European neighbors on metrics such as the World Bank’s Rule of Law and Control of Corruption. And, as for the communist-dominated courts, the average age of a judge in Poland is 38 years.”

President Donald Trump visited Warsaw in early July, where he praised Poland as “an example for others who seek freedom.”

But on July 21, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert upbraidedthe Polish government for pursuing “legislation that appears to undermine judicial independence and weaken the rule of law in Poland.”

Photo Credit: WOJTEK RADWANSKI / AFP / Getty Images

FactCheck Q&A: How does HS2 compare to other bullet trains?

 By Martin Williams-21 JUL 2017

The government’s high speed rail project, HS2, has come under repeated criticism for bad planning and wasting money.

Even the Department for Transport’s own former Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Roderick Smith has called for a “root-and-branch review” of the whole project, saying: “We’re making so many fundamental mistakes.”

Speaking to FactCheck, Smith said: “I am really concerned with the way it’s developed and I think an incredible number of completely inept decisions have been made which will add to the cost, decrease the utility and frankly bring the project into almost a laughing stock.

“I was chief scientist at the Department for Transport, for a time, during the gestation period of the project. Nobody wanted to listen to me. They hired me as their expert to give advice – they didn’t want to listen.”

So what’s actually going on with HS2? And how does it compare to other high speed rail projects across the world? FactCheck looked into the details.

How much will it cost?

When HS2 was first given the green light in 2012, the government said they expected it to cost £32.7bn. But that figure has now shot up to £55.7bn.

Officials say the increase down to inflation and contingency funds to cover any unexpected costs. But the project is facing cost and time pressures. In fact, last year the National Audit Office said there was only a 60 per cent chance that the first phase of the HS2 would be completed on time.

When both phases of the project are complete, the track will cover 531km stretching from London up to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and other cities. This means the total cost is equivalent to £104.8m per kilometre.

By contrast, the most expensive high-speed line in France was the LGV

Méditerranée which opened in 2001. That covered a distance of 250km with a total cost of just £16.9m per kilometre. That makes Britain’s HS2 project around six times more expensive.

The contrast is even more stark when compared to France’s original high-speed track – the LGV Paris-Lyon line, which opened in 1983. As the country’s cheapest high-speed line it cost just £4.7m per kilometre, more than 22 times less than HS2.

But the comparison isn’t quite fair, mainly because the total costs cover different things. For instance, the UK project will include massive expansions of train stations, which has not always been needed elsewhere.

Will HS2 be the world’s fastest bullet train?

There is a common myth about HS2. Media reports have repeatedly claimed that it will run at a top speed of 400km per hour. For instance, the Independent has said it “will potentially see trains run at 250 mph (400km/h) from London to Birmingham from 2026”. The BBC, the Guardian and others have made the same claim.

But HS2 told FactCheck that there are actually no plans to operate at this speed. What’s more, they say this was never the plan. Indeed, the track, control systems and trains being purchased are not physically capable of it.

The confusion has arisen because HS2 says it has allowed enough flexibility to potentially do a major upgrade of the line at some point in the distant future, should the government want to. The curves in the route could theoretically see speeds of up to 400km per hour.

For now, though, the plans are to have a top speed of 360km per hour. But most journeys will not exceed about 320km per hour, unless the train needs to catch up on lost time.

However, Jonathan Tyler, an academic and leading transport consultant, told us that even these plans are controversial. He said it had become clear that “everywhere else in the world that 320 is being accepted as the norm”. A top speed of 360km per hour for HS2 is “probably very optimistic”.
So are the government being too ambitious?

A parliamentary report in 2015 compared high speed lines in different countries. According to this, the top speed in Germany, Italy and Spain is just 300km per hour. In Japan and France, it’s 320.
In fact, the only high speed network with a top speed similar to HS2’s is in China, where trains can reach 350km per hour – still less than HS2’s 360.

However, it is worth remembering that these were 2015 figures. Improvements to networks are likely to push up the maximum speed in some countries. HS2 does not anticipate being the fastest network once it is up and running. Indeed, Japan has already test-run a new bullet train, powered by electrically charged magnets, which reached an incredible 603km per hour.

Should bullet trains terminate in city centres?

The main HS2 station in London will be near the city centre. But critics have pushed for a more out-of-town terminus, saying it will save money.

Coming into London, the bullet train will stop at Old Oak Common station first, in West London. But it will then continue on to make the short journey to Euston station.

To accommodate HS2, the existing station at Euston will be expanded to have 11 new platforms – six will open in 2026, and another five in 2033. HS2 says this provides far greater benefits: stopping at Old Oak Common takes pressure off Euston, but the service will also allow passengers to go straight to the centre of London, rather than having to rely on local shuttle services.

But many critics say that this is a waste of money. “Wherever you get near the city centre, the costs of construction go up exponentially,” Professor Smith told FactCheck.

“The bit from Old Oak Common to Euston will be very expensive to build. It will be very slow running through tunnels; there’ll be lots of curvature on it that high speed trains don’t like. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. The experience in Japan is not to go to the existing city centres.”

Professor Tony May, Emeritus Professor in Transport Engineering at Leeds University, said that China was doing the same. “Everywhere they’re building their high speed lines, they’re putting the stations 5-10km from the centre of the city, and using local transport to provide the local connections,” he said.

This part of the debate largely comes down to whether you think the convenience of building the track to Euston is worth the extra cost. Experts are divided, but there are no right or wrong answers.

How about the frequency of trains?

On HS2, there will be 18 trains an hour. Each train will be 400m long, carrying 1,100 people. That’s roughly equivalent to three jumbo jets’ worth of people.

Compare that to the Nozomi line within Japan’s famous Sinkansen high speed rail network. That line runs just ten trains per hour, but each train has a slightly larger capacity of 1,323.

Services in France are also less frequent than what is proposed with HS2, even when we take into account future upgrades. The high-speed line between Paris and Lyon, for instance, currently runs up to 13 trains an hour. There are now plans to increase this to 16 by 2030, but this is still less than what is being proposed with HS2.

Some are sceptical that this can be achieved. “They are being very optimistic,” said Tyler. “It could happen, but it’s a pretty high risk because if they can’t achieve it – and a number of us with timetabling experience are sceptical – then the businesses case is seriously undermined.”

So how long will each HS2 train be sat in the station for, before it sets off again?

HS2 did not give us a precise turn-around time, but said it would be about 20 minutes for each train. However, here at FactCheck, we are a little sceptical of this claim.

If turnaround time really is just 20 minutes, then surely each platform could accommodate three trains per hour? With 18 trains an hour, that means Euston station would only need six high-speed platforms.

Yet HS2 is building 11 platforms – at a huge extra cost. By our calculations, this allows for a far longer turnaround time of over half an hour.

So why the extra platforms? HS2 told us it was partly because of the gap needed between one train leaving the station and the next arriving.

But they admitted that their plans do also allow for turnaround times to be extended in certain circumstances, such as when there are delays, technical problems or passenger issues.

Will it boost local economies?

This is a matter of much debate. Different studies have estimated the economic boost from HS2 at everything from £15bn to just £0.01bn per year.

However, examples from other countries suggest that high-speed rail is not necessarily enough to transform local economies on its own, and extra localised policies and funding help.

“All the evidence from the continent suggests that, if there are economic benefits, they will be within five to ten miles from the station,” says Professor May. “Places like Blackburn, Burnley and maybe even Bradford are unlikely to benefit unless there is additional local investment – which then further adds to the cost.


“The only way that places like Lille and Lyon have benefited from the TGV network is by putting substantial additional investment into the areas around the station.”

Philippines: Nationwide smoking ban starts today, Govt urges public support

Smoking ban implemented nationwide in Philippines, 23 July 2017. Source: Phuong D. Nguyen / Shutterstock.com

 23rd July 2017

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s office is encouraging the public to get behind the nationwide smoking ban that was implemented across the country today, July 23.

“This Executive Order is another milestone where the government gives priority to the right to protect public health,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a press statement, as reported by Inquirer.net.

The nationwide smoking ban in public areas was signed by President Duterte on May 16.

“The implementation of this EO is a realization of our dream of a tobacco-free future,” Abella said.

“Together, let us give our full cooperation and support to the smoke-free establishments in public and enclosed places.”

The new legislation means smoking will be completely banned in places such as educational institutions, hospitals and venues where food is prepared. Indoor areas like elevators and stairwells will also be smoke-free.

SEE ALSO: Philippines: Duterte signs order banning smoking in public spaces

The order also reinforces an existing law that prohibits the purchase and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products to and by minors and in places frequented by minors.

All cities and municipalities will also form local Smoke-Free Task Forces to assist in implementing the order. The capital Manila has implemented a public smoking ban back in February.

The Department of Health (DoH) has established a hotline for the public to report establishments violating the nationwide smoking ban.

DOH Assistant Secretary Eric Tayag told The Manila Times that only establishments and not private persons can be reported through the hotline.

“There are many asking if they can report a person. That will be hard because it is a matter of whether they smoked or not,” he said.

“What you will report to us when we receive the call, is the time when you saw the violation, the exact establishment and address.”

SEE ALSO: Philippines: Nationwide public smoking ban to kick off on July 22

He also appealed to the public not to abuse the hotline that may affect the smoking ban implementation.

“We are asking the public to not let the hotline go to waste using false reports, malice, revenge or any other reason. They should only report the truth,” the health official said.

There are to date an estimated 122.4 million adult smokers in Southeast Asia, according to the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance’s (Seatca) latest survey in November 2016.

Of the total, half (53.3 percent) live in Indonesia. The Philippines, on the other hand, is the second-largest tobacco consumer in the region at 13.5 percent. Seatca’s findings also show female smoking rates to be particularly high in Indonesia, Laos, Burma (Myanmar) and the Philippines.

Those who violate the new law could face up to four months in jail and a fine of PHP5,000 (US$100).

Some good news and some bad, in the fight against HIV


A dispatch from the battle front

Jul 20th 2017

THE latest progress report* from UNAIDS, the United Nations body charged with combating HIV and AIDS, brings mixed news. On the positive side, as the chart shows, the death rate from AIDS continues to fall. In 2016 there were 1m AIDS-related fatalities, down from 1.9m in 2005, the year of peak mortality. This reflects the successful promulgation of antiretroviral drugs in almost all parts of the world to those already infected. Such drugs can keep symptoms at bay indefinitely, prolonging lifespans to those enjoyed by the uninfected.

As the chart also shows, the death rate among women and girls is both lower than that for men and boys, and is also falling faster. This is despite both sexes having similar rates of infection (indeed, at 51% of the infected population, females carry a slightly higher burden of the disease). This inequality probably reflects both earlier diagnosis of women, whose HIV status is checked routinely at antenatal clinics, and a more responsible female attitude towards taking any drugs prescribed. It also suggests that consideration should be given as to how campaigns can be designed more effectively to reach and penetrate the brains of men.

Less happily, the rate of new infections, though dropping, is not doing so as fast as UNAIDS and its allies had hoped. In 2016 1.8m people became infected. That is down from a peak of 3.2m in 1997, but has declined by only 16% since 2010. On present trends, the official UN target of reducing the figure to 500,000 a year by 2020 looks hopelessly optimistic.

As to the idea of a cure for AIDS, namely a medication that will clear the virus from someone’s body completely, that also remains a distant prospect. For now, UNAIDS’s goal of 90/90/90—that 90% of those who are infected will know the fact, that 90% of those who know the fact will be on treatment and that in 90% of those being treated, the treatment will be effective—remains ambitious enough to be taxing (in 2016 the figures were 70%, 77% and 82% respectively), but realistic enough to be achievable.

UN HAILS SRI LANKA FOR ESTABLISHING OFFICE OF MISSING PERSONS

Image: Day after Sirisena singed the OMP gazette mothers of the disappeared were still continuing their campaign for justice for 148th day in Vavunia (c)s.deshapriya.

22/07/2017

Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutereres, said that establishment of the OMP was a “significant milestone” for all Sri Lankans still searching for the truth about their missing loved ones.

The UN today lauded Sri Lanka for setting up the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), terming it a “significant milestone” for all searching for nearly 20,000 people who are still missing eight years after the end of nearly three-decade-long brutal civil war. Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena signed the gazette on the OMP on Thursday, a move which has drawn praise from the international community.

Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutereres, said that establishment of the OMP was a “significant milestone” for all Sri Lankans still searching for the truth about their missing loved ones. “The United Nations stands ready to support the process and that the Secretary-General looks forward to the OMP becoming operational as soon as possible, starting with the appointment of the independent commissioners,” Haq said quoted Guterres as saying in a statement.

UN Resident Coordinator in Colombo Una McCauley said that setting up of the OMP was a significant step forward for the people of Sri Lanka. US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Atul Keshap said he was happy about the move as it will provide families waiting for answers hope for swiftest operationalisation of the office.

Canada’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Shelley Whiting said the signing of the OMP gazette was a welcome and important step towards providing families of the missing with answers. The OMP was one of the accountability mechanisms advocated in UN Human Rights Council resolutions on Sri Lanka since 2013.

They called for the establishment of independent international court to probe alleged war crimes committed by both the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government troops during the last stages of the 30-year-long civil war which ended in 2009.

According to the government estimates, around 20,000 people are still missing due to various conflicts including the 30-year-long separatist war with Lankan Tamils in the north and east which claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people.

The LTTE, which led the separatist war for a separate Tamil homeland, was finally crushed by the Lankan military in 2009 with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran.
NE

The July 1983 Tamil Pogrom In Sri Lanka

By Brian Senewiratne –JULY 22, 2017

Dr. Brian Senewiratne

It has been erroneously claimed that there has been an ‘ethnic conflict’ in Sri Lanka. There has been no ethnic conflict since 1915, and that was between the Sinhalese and the Muslims. What there has been for six decades, are a series of increasingly virulent pogroms against the Tamil people by a succession of Sinhalese-dominated government, assisted by Sinhalese political opportunists and ethno-religious chauvinists, and conducted by the Sinhalese Armed Forces (99% Sinhalese), with a degeneracy of Sinhala society and its rapid descent to barbarism. These anti-Tamil pogroms have been to crush the Tamil people into submission to accept Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation.

I have maintained that unless/until the Sinhalese apologise to the Tamils for what has been done to them, there can neither be peace nor normalcy, and certainly no reconciliation.

The only Sinhalese ever to apologise to the Tamils was the late Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe.

In his final Pastoral Letter (15 November 1983), deeply disturbed by the 1983 massacre of Tamils he wrote:-

“Shame and apology

The massive retaliation mainly by Sinhalese against defenceless Tamils in July 1983 cannot be justified on moral grounds. We must admit this and acknowledge our shame. We must be ashamed because what took place was a moral crime. We are ashamed as Sinhalese for the moral crime which other Sinhalese committed. We must not only acknowledge our shame, we must also make our apology to those Tamils who were unjustified victims of this massive retaliation.”

He goes on to state why this should be done.

“When a section of the Sinhalese does what is morally wrong or bad, we share in it. As members of the whole group we share in the evil they have done. It is a mark of moral maturity to acknowledge a moral crime on behalf of those closely knit to us who do not realize that they have done this and an apology on their behalf.

It is only by an apology of this kind that we shall recover our proper moral and religious values. Then we can begin the process of what went wrong with our relationship with the Tamils. The true basis of reconciliation is admission of wrong and an appeal for forgiveness”

Late Bishop of Kurunegala, Revd. Lakshman Wickremesinghe

That was written after the murder of some 3,000 Tamils just before his untimely death. I am not sure what he would have written today after the murder of some 70,000 Tamils.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu whom I met in Cape Town two years ago, should know all about reconciliation. He chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa, at a time when there was an absolute need for reconciliation. He will testify that it is mandatory to have an open, honest and transparent process to deal with the past if there is to be national reconciliation.

Not to have such a process is to throw away any possibility of moving forward. Unfortunately, the Sinhalese people, much less their politicians, are unable or unwilling to appreciate this. As such, the window of opportunity will close, if it has not done so already.

I, a Sinhalese, did not slit any Tamil throats, but I have a sense of collective responsibility for the insensitive and barbaric behaviour of my people the Sinhalese, in military uniform and not in uniform.

If to be critical of what is going on in Sri Lanka, makes me a traitor, so be it. I will not let my patriotism to Sri Lanka to be defined by how close I stand to the Sri Lankan flag, drenched with the blood and tears of hundreds of thousands of Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims – all of them my people. 

At one of the anniversaries of the 1983 Tamil massacre in Colombo, Chandrika Kumaratunga, then the President, was asked about an apology to the Tamils. She said, “We should all apologise to each other”. I could not figure this out. Why should the Tamils apologise to the Sinhalese? For what? For the crime they have committed being born Tamil so that the Sinhalese could murder them?

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Sri Lanka: Prospects for the Economy and Policy Ambiguities

There should be some protection for the agricultural sector, particularly given the growth being negative, amounting to -4.2 percent during 2016. This cannot be attributed solely to natural disasters like droughts and/or floods. These calamities should be anticipated even in the future.

by Laksiri Fernando -Jul 23, 2017

( July 23, 2017, Sydney, Sri Lanka Guardian) There is some confidence in the economy as reflected in the sales or turnaround in the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) during the first six months of this year, particularly the last three months. Dropping 200 marks within the first three months, ASPI (All Share Price Index) has gained 700 marks by the end of June, the overall ASPI to be around 6,700. The situation is still below the 2010-2011 level, when suddenly the CSE became the best stock market in the world in 2010, which could not be sustained due to the tarnishing of its image through insider trading and other malpractices, sanctioned by the last regime.

Sri Lanka Prospects for the Economy and Policy Ambiguities.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Shots fired at judge in Vidya murder case; cop injured

By Yusuf Ariff-July 22, 2017 

An unidentified gunman has opened fire at the vehicle of Jaffna High Court Judge M. Illanchelian in Nallur, Jaffna. 

The police spokesman said that Justice Illanchelian is unharmed following the shooting and that, however one police officer had sustained injuries. 

The incident had reportedly occurred at around 5.30pm today (22) near the Nallur Kovil in Jaffna while the shooter had targeted the vehicle the judge was traveling in.  

The injured police officer was on the motorcycle traveling behind the vehicle of the judge. He has been admitted to the Jaffna Hospital and is undergoing surgery.  

Jaffna Police is investigating the incident. 

Justice Illanchelian is the sitting judge in the high profile case of the murder of schoolgirl Sivaloganathan Vidya in Jaffna.

The 18-year-old student from Pungudutivu was abducted, raped and murdered while returning from school on May 13, 2015.

The incident sparked wide-spread condemnation and protests especially in her hometown of Jaffna while 9 suspects were arrested and indicted over the murder. 

Jaffna Judge Says President Must Ensure Judicial Independence If Trials Are To Be Free And Fair

JULY 23, 2017

The rape and murder trial of Sivaloganathan Vidya took a new turn today when a judge hearing the case at the Jaffna High Court came under gun fire by an unidentified man this evening. Soon after the shooting, the judge, Manakkawasagar Illancheliyan who was unharmed called on President Maithripala Sirisena, Defence Minister and Justice Minister to ensure that the independence of the country’s judiciary is safeguarded, if trials are to be free and fair.

Judge Illancheliyan

Speaking to the media soon after the incident, Illancheliyan, who is a member of the trial-at-bar that is hearing the rape and murder case of Vidya said, “I request the President, Defence Minister, Justice Minister, the Chief Justice and the Secretary of the Judiciary Service Commission to take this incident very seriously and take steps to safeguard the independence of the judiciary and protect the judges which will ensure a free and fair trial”.

Illancheliyan explained that it was obvious that he was the target in the shooting, although he was unhurt, when the unidentified gunman opened fire towards him and his police bodyguards. One police officer sustained injuries and was admitted to hospital. The incident occurred today evening around 5.30 pm near the Nallur Kovil in Jaffna, which was a regular route taken by the judge.

Illancheliyan also said that, “this is a real threat to the judges and the judiciary. I am handling one of the most dangerous cases in Jaffna and this matter should be taken in utmost seriousness by the Government of Sri Lanka.”

Incidentally the shooting also comes just days after the Criminal Investigations Department arrested Senior DIG Lalith Jayasinghe for allegedly helping a key suspect, Mahalingam Sivakumaran alias Sashikumar escape. He was however later arrested in Colombo.

Sivaloganathan Vidya was 18 years old at the time she was abducted, raped and murdered by a gang in May 2015. The rape and murder trial of Vidya began on June 28, 2017 before a three member bench at the Jaffna High Court. The three member bench comprised of Balendran Shashimahendran, Annalingam Premshankar and Manakkawasagar Illancheliyan. A total of nine suspects who were arrested in connection to the case have been served indictments on 41 criminal charges including abduction, gang rape and murder. (By Munza Mushtaq)

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Prasanna Ratnayake 1972−2017

Jul 22, 2017

It is with great sadness that we report the sudden death of radical filmmaker Prasanna Ratnayake.
Prasanna, from Sri Lanka, had worked in the UK since 2006 (as and when the Home Office’s rigid rules allowed), until he was finally able to settle here in 2014 with his wife Margaret Henry. Prasanna had been the Institute of Race Relations’ unofficial media man.

Amongst the projects he did for the IRR was re-mastering our four films, ‘Struggles for Black Community’ (directed by Colin Prescod and produced by Margaret Henry), so they could be available on DVD. He also produced a DVD, ’Catching history on the wing’, of conversations with IRR’s Director Emeritus A. Sivanandan.

Prasanna, a Sinhalese, shared with Siva, a Tamil, a deep hatred of communalism and state violence in their native Sri Lanka and they were firm friends. His story in Groundviews revealed how the 10-year-old boy had been deeply affected by the anti-Tamil riots of 1983. What he witnessed then set the stars by which he would be guided for life: his love of filmmaking and of social justice. In 2009, he and his wife set up Postcolonial Films Ltd. Prasanna’s remarkable technical and creative skills led to a number of documentaries and videos for progressive NGOs including Amnesty International and Save the Children, looking at issues such as the death penalty, human and civil rights and the difficulties of young people affected by war and violent conflict in twenty-three countries. At his death he was working on a film about the two Sudans.

Quiet, thoughtful, humble, never putting himself forward, Prasanna had learnt the hard way to be circumspect in the country with the second highest number of assassinations and disappearances in the world.

Having chosen to live in the UK, it is so sad that his life and work here was to be cruelly cut short.
http://www.irr.org.uk