Monday, September 4, 2017

Several cases of murder, fraud before election!

Sep 03, 2017

The Attorney General’s Department is going to file indictments, before any election, in connection with murders, fraud and corruption that were committed in the past. Although a certain delay is claimed in the department, a top official said filing action was taking place expeditiously after a new minister was appointed.

They include white van abductions, kidnappings and assault, and the investigation reports have been sent by the CID to the AG’s Dept, he said.

Accordingly, several top figures in the previous regime are to be arrested. Quoting a top CID official, media reported that top figures of the previous regime and their relatives were to be arrested over several high-profile cases.

Janitha Prasad Senanayake

Non-Performing Undergraduates

by Dr. A.C. Visvalingam-September 2, 2017,

Sri Lanka collects direct taxes from the well-to-do but also far more in the form of indirect taxes that both the rich and the poor have to pay. Waste and corruption, as estimated by independent sources, fritter away 20-40 percent of the total collectable, leaving only the balance to go into the state’s coffers. Usually the losses attributable to these two factors can be traced to the greed of our political leaders and acquiescent administrators who unconscionably collaborate with and protect thieving party members, relatives and supporters from being investigated, charged, prosecuted and punished in accordance with the laws of the land. However, politicians and conniving public servants are not alone in misusing the wealth that the people contribute to the nation’s exchequer.

Let us take the case of a university student. He has already benefitted from 12-13 years of free education financed by the country’s taxpayers. When he joins the ranks of the undergraduate world, it is by having done academically better than those who have did not have the advantages enjoyed by him by way of genetically-acquired inborn talents and the good fortune of having been able to get into a superior secondary school. On admission to a university, he becomes the beneficiary of the huge expenditures incurred by the state in building and running the university. The vast sums released by the treasury are invested on infrastructure, laboratories, equipment, libraries, lecture halls, common rooms, sports facilities and hostels for our universities, as well as remuneration for teaching and supporting staff, together with the provision of security, maintenance and other services. Non-competitive scholarships and other forms of financial assistance, too, are generously given to undergraduates to help them to work constructively to attain their goal of acquiring such knowledge and skills as they have committed themselves to do.

Given the high level of financial allocations required to support their studies and extra-curricular development, undergraduates may be reasonably expected by taxpayers to do their academic work in a disciplined and dedicated manner, without neglecting sports, social activities and all those things which form an essential part of university education. If our undergraduates act accordingly, our fellow citizens would undoubtedly feel a sense of satisfaction that the taxes paid by them to the state are not being squandered at least by those who may be classified as intelligent young persons. On the other hand, taxpayers feel badly cheated and greatly frustrated when these fortunate youngsters do not work diligently and fail to show any appreciation of their good fortune and the sacrifices made on their behalf by the people.

It would not be wrong to say that undergraduates are contractually bound to the state to make proper use of the funds spent on their behalf. Those who do not fulfill their part of the contract entered into with the state are in gross breach of their lawful obligations. Just so that there is no misunderstanding regarding the legal position, it may be noted that the university is an institution that acts as an agent of the state to offer educational and ancillary facilities to those who are able to establish their suitability to utilize such facilities in accordance with the conditions laid down by the university. By accepting the university’s offer, the undergraduate enters voluntarily into a legally binding contract with the university and is constrained by law to conform to the conditions stipulated in the university’s offer.

As the basic minimum, undergraduates are obligated to attend all lectures, workshops, laboratory sessions, library reference work, tutorial periods and also complete whatever other assignments are set for them by their teachers. Subject to undergraduates meeting these fundamental expectations, the average citizen would not begrudge them their right to clamour and struggle to change those things that they believe are wrong with the universities and society in general provided, however, that these expressions of dissatisfaction are indulged in without causing a nuisance to the public or inflicting injury, damage and loss to persons and property. However, participation in dissenting action cannot be allowed at the expense of wasting the substantial resources deployed by the state to give free university education to those who have been considered to be deserving of this privilege. No citizen would want anyone who is paid or supported by the State, whether as a government employee or an undergraduate, to misapply tax moneys wastefully or destructively. But is this what prevails now?

Hundreds of students from our state universities have been wantonly throwing away the precious resources that members of the public, including their own parents, have contributed, to state funds to provide every kind of facility and support for their education. Instead of attending lectures, they have been spending their time marching, shouting, causing damage to public and private property, physically attacking law-enforcement personnel and, not least of all, disrupting the lives of thousands of members of the public by selfishly and recklessly hindering them from going to work, to schools, to hospitals and to wherever else that citizens have a right and need to go.

We have also come to learn that the more prominent of these defaulting undergraduates are a few incorrigible individuals who have been on the rolls of their universities for up to six or seven years without finishing their 3-4 year courses of study. They have neglected to honour the obligations cast upon them as members of the university. Instead, these ne’er-do-wells spend most of their time coercing and/or threatening their more law-abiding younger fellow students to join them in frequent violent rallies and demonstrations. It is also credibly alleged that these nihilists and their close collaborators are hyper-active members of an extremist organization that has infiltrated and taken control of all university student unions by terrorizing the undergraduate population. Why the university authorities do not enforce their contractual rights against these delinquents is a serious shortcoming that needs to be probed, preferably by a Presidential Commission with appropriately wide terms of reference, particularly as there are allegations that the ultimate goal of these agitators is to make the country ungovernable by lawfully elected governments.

Their campaign of subjugating the student community has, for long, been deliberately started off by subjecting fresh entrants to demeaning, offensive, sadistic, sexually perverted and other forms of vicious ragging until all newcomers are made so fearful of their tormentors that the victims are driven to participate in whatever ruinous activities are organized by these terrorists. One needs to realize that the problem is made more complex by the fact that far too many of the teaching staff have been leaders of the ragging mafia in their senior undergraduate days and are in a morally weak position to restrain those who are following their bad example - but with a far more deadly agenda.

Taxpayers are entitled to ask the government why it is spending their hard-earned money on wastrels who are not doing what they should be doing their universities. It is, therefore, high time to decide that admission to university be made subject to unequivocally strict written conditions, rigorously enforced. The parents of a student who obtains the necessary qualifications to enter university should be informed in writing that he would have to sign a contract that sets out explicitly his responsibilities and duties to the university, the state and the public. Failure to sign the written undertaking and significant violations of the terms agreed to would be dealt with respectively by denying entrance to the university or expulsion from the rolls of the university.

If a student has not attended the minimum stipulated number of lectures during any academic term, and has not completed his tutorial and course work assignments, he should be given a written warning that he will be barred from continuing further with his studies unless he conforms forthwith to the university’s rules regarding attendance, studies and completion of assignments. The undergraduate’s parents, too, should be informed directly that their offspring is acting in such an irresponsible manner that he will not be allowed to continue at the university unless he begins to comply immediately with the university’s rules. The contract should specifically leave no room for the student to indulge in any form of activity that would be prejudicial to the university or the public.

What the contract document should contain is a comprehensive and explicit legal formulation of the current rules, regulations and laws, as well as new constraints on participating in anti-social or criminal activities. Until such time as the new paperwork is completed, the university authorities must employ the powers that they are already endowed with, to ensure that public money is not wasted on non-performing undergraduates.

(The writer is President of CIMOGG , Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance

www.cimogg-srilanka.org

acvisva@gmail.com)

The role of universities in bringing continued economic prosperity to Sri Lanka

This is an expanded version of the Convocation Address delivered at the 13th General Convocation of the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka on 30 August.

W.A. Wijewardena delivering the Convocation Address

An ambition to become a rich country in 15 years

Monday, 4 September 2017

As pronounced by the Government in its economic policy statement, Sri Lanka aspires to become a developed country within the next 30-year period. To attain this goal, the statement says, Sri Lanka should have a minimum annual economic growth of 7% over this period. Given an annual population growth of 1%, what it means is that the average income of a Sri Lankan, known as per capita income, will double in every 12-year period. Thus, in 36 years, the country’s per capita income will increase eightfold from the current level of $ 4,000 to $ 32,000. Since the developed country threshold, according the World Bank’s classifications, is per capita income of about $ 12235, at 6 % annual per capita income growth, Sri Lanka will be able to attain the status of rich country in 15 years or by 2031.

The role of universities in bringing continued economic prosperity to Sri Lanka.docx by Thavam on Scribd

Police under pressure not to oppose bail for exam cheat, his father!

- Sep 03, 2017

Police are under continuous pressure not to oppose bail for the student of Royal College, who is accused of having cheated at the GEC A/L examination’s chemistry paper by using technical equipment, and his father.

The case is due to be heard at the Gampaha magistrate’s court tomorrow (04). The student’s father is a dentist at Police Hospital, and all those who have obtained his services claim it to be a minor incident and that far worse frauds take place the country, and pressurize the police to allow them bail.

They say the judge will not object if the police do not oppose bail, and are pressurizing police not to object when bail is applied. Among them are past students of Royal College, who are trying to protect the ‘royal’ name of their alma mater.

That is taking place in the background of a five year ban imposed on the boy against sitting for any examination being conducted by the Examinations Department. Examination authorities are taking firm decisions, but it is sad to note there is pressure within police to flex the law.

It has come to light that he had photographed the question paper and sent it to a private tutor, who had given him the answers through an audio device. His father has paid the tutor a sum of Rs. one million. The boy and his father were arrested immediately, but the tutor went into hiding and was taken into custody only last week. All three are due to be produced before courts tomorrow.

Sri Lanka: Huge fraud allegations against Entrust Securities

The following report originally appeared in the Sunday Times, Colombo

( September 3, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A Central Bank investigation into Entrust Securities PLC (earlier known as Ceylinco Shriram Limited) has highlighted “unsound practices and financial irregularities” involving Government Securities to the tune of Rs 12.112 billion. This even involves related companies.

A report to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) by the Central Bank notes that the “liquidity shortfall has arisen due to under allocation of securities to repurchase transactions entered into with some clients and outright clients, as well as non-receipt of collateral (securities) from reverse purchase facilities provided to its related parties – i.e. Entrust Ltd. (EL) and Continental Capital (Pvt.) Ltd. (CCL).”

The Repos (repurchase agreements) are financial contracts to sell Government Securities transactions with the agreement to buy back at an agreed later date. The rate of Repo investor is agreed similar to other interest rates.

However, Entrust Securities PLC, the Central Bank has said, had carried on repo transactions to borrow money from investors without allocating government securities to some investors. It said that the investors believed that Entrust has allocated Government Securities as the company was a Primary Dealer supervised by the Central Bank.

Both Entrust Securities PLC and Entrust Limited had, the Central Bank said, had also misappropriated funds and securities from Ceylon Electricity Board Provident Funds (Rs 2,312.27 million), Ceylon Electricity Board Funds (Rs 400 million), Hewagam Korale East Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society Ltd. (Rs 538 million) and three different individuals (Rs 310 milion).

Both the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) are conducting two separate investigations into different aspects. The Central Bank has said that “the funds raised were lent or misappropriated through Entrust Group companies, their Directors and related parties without any collateral. Some funds were misappropriated by Directors and senior officers and paid to many third parties.”

“As per transactions investigated as at March 30, 2016, the end-users or a large proportion (Rs 6.7 billion approximately) of ESP investor’s f’nds are Directors of Entrust Group of Companies and their related companies,” the Central Bank has said. The Central Bank report reveals that (Entrust Limited extended credit facilities of Rs 5.2 billion to its related companies and directors and made investment of a billion rupees in subsidiaries and Government securities using the funds from Entrust Securities PLC.”

The companies are: “Maruthi Estates (Pvt.) Ltd. Rs 1.2 billion and Continental Capital Ltd. Rs 363 million. According to the report, these two companies are controlled by Isira Dissanayake. A Director of the Company, Chanuka Upendra Ratwatte, the report added obtained Rs 100 million.

The Rubaiyyat Of Omar Khayyam

By Reeza Hameed –SEPTEMBER 3, 2017

Dr. Reeza Hameed

The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam as rendered by Fitzgerald has remained an enduring favourite among poetry lovers all over the world. Khayyam is a poet for all seasons.

Khayyam was one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers to come out of the Islamic world of the middle ages. He was a contemporary of Ali ibn Sina, known to the West as Avicenna. Khayyam was a polymath in an era which produced polymaths by the dozens, many of whom are known to the West only by their Latinised names, but Khayyam’s name survives in the Arabic original.

Khayyam had mastered many disciplines. In addition to mathematics and astronomy, he was fluent in philosophy, medicine, geography, physics, and music. Ibn Sina taught him philosophy for many years. He also learnt medicine and physics from that great man. Another contemporary was Al-Zamakshari, well-known for his commentary of the Quran.

Khayyam was one of the greatest astronomers of the Middle Ages, and in recognition of his contributions, a crater on the Moon was named after him. In mathematics, he virtually invented the field of geometric algebra. His treatise on Algebra was used in Europe as a standard text even as late as the nineteenth century.

He was not known for his poetry, until he was reborn as a poet in the second half of the nineteenth century in Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of his Rubaiyyat, which catapulted him to poetic stardom. Had it not been for Fitzgerald, Khayyam’s fame might have rested on his contributions to astronomy, mathematics or the development of the Jalali calendar to replace the Julian calendar. He alludes to his involvement in the calendar in one of his verses.

Ah, by my Computations, People say,
Reduce the Year to better reckoning?

The publication of the Rubaiyyat resulted in the emergence of a Khayyam cult in Victorian England and in the United States. The Rubaiyyat has been so closely identified with its translator that it is sometimes referred to under Victorian poetry. Its popularity perhaps lay in the fact that it sang of the pleasures proscribed in straight jacketed Victorian England.

The Rubaiyyat had many admirers among English poets and men of literature, and their names read like a roll call of the famous: Swinburne, Rossetti, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Tennyson, Longfellow, John Ruskin, T S Eliot, and Meredith. Khayyam poetry clubs sprang up in England and in the United States. Longfellow in ‘Haroun al Rashid’ betrays Khayyam’s influence upon him.

“Where are the kings, and where the rest
Of those who once the world possessed?
“They’re gone with all their pomp and show,
They’re gone the way that thou shalt go.”

Poetry is that which is lost in translation. In Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyyat, poetry might have gained in the process. Fitzgerald, it would seem, mistranslated the Rubaiyyat, and some would say gloriously so.

If his poetry is any indication of Khayyam’s philosophy, he grappled with universal themes such as the here and the hereafter, life and death, mortality and eternity, fate and freewill. Fitzgerald portrayed Khayyam as a fatalist, a hedonist, and an agnostic.

One of the most famous of Khayyam’s quatrains is the ‘moving finger verse’, which conveys the controlling effect of fate in the affairs of men.

Enter ‘disruptive HRM’: Prospects for Sri Lanka

Disruptive technologies drive digital initiatives in diverse fields. The people-centric function of Human Resource Management (HRM) cannot escape from this wave of disruption. How do such disruptions challenge HR policies and practices, globally and locally? Today’s column is an attempt to explore it in detail.

The HR technology landscape is exploding with growth and innovation

Monday, 4 September 2017

Overview

It was Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian-American economist, who first spoke of a “gale of creative destruction” in order to sustain economic growth. We can see a parallel to that in the now popular use of the term “disruption”.

Prof. Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School, who is widely regarded as the concept initiator of disruption, says that a disruption displaces an existing market, industry, or technology and produces something new and more efficient and worthwhile. Whilst being disruptive on one hand, it is creative on the other hand.

“We are witnessing profound shifts across all industries, marked by the emergence of new business models, the disruption of incumbents and the reshaping of production, consumption, transportation and delivery systems,” observes Klaus Schwab, in his most recent book, ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’.

He further explains: “We have yet to grasp fully the speed and breadth of this new revolution. Consider the unlimited possibilities of having billions of people connected by mobile devices, giving rise to unprecedented processing power, storage capabilities and knowledge access. Or think about the staggering confluence of emerging technology breakthroughs, covering wide-ranging fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the internet of things (IoT), autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage and quantum computing, to name a few.” (Schwab, 2014: 1)

As Forbes magazine reports, the HR technology landscape, which is now a more than $ 15 billion market in software, is exploding with growth and innovation. “We are tracking more than 100 new startups in social and referral recruiting, talent analytics, assessment science, online learning, and mid-market core HR systems.”

These new tools to help manage employee communications, engagement, recognition, and workplace wellness are also in very high demand.

It is in this context, the term “disruptive HRM” becomes appropriate. Let’s explore further.
Dissecting the “disruptive HRM”

What is disruptive HRM all about? It is essentially challenging the conventional way of doing things. It also involves new initiatives with the use of technology in moving beyond traditional boundaries. “On the spot” feedback, which is real time and online as opposed to annual performance appraisal, is one such example.

The term disruption is associated with radical change. The same should apply to disruptive HRM. The definition of HRM coined for Sri Lanka through a series of deliberations at the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM) can be stated as follows:

A strategic and integrated approach in acquisition, development and engagement of talent, using relevant tools, with proper policies, practices and processes in creating a conducive climate towards achieving organisational excellence and societal well-being (IPM, 2014).

As the above definition revolves around talent, the disruptive HRM should focus on unorthodox ways of “winning the war for talent”. Use of social media such as LinkedIn for hiring talent is one such way. Use of online learning tools as opposed to traditional training is another. Facing triple challenges of being lean, seen and green can be confidently done through disruptive HRM.

Being lean through disruptive HRM

There is a wave of becoming faster, cheaper, better in an increasingly competitive global scene. HR cannot avoid its influence. Stemming from the Japanese concept of creating value by eliminating waste, lean management has spread its wings to cover both manufacturing and service sectors.

Gone are the days that HR was “humanly rich” as a department with all sort of people, mostly dumped by the seniors. Efficiency with regard to optimising cadre, in clearly identifying the needs and the specific roles associated is of utmost importance.

Lean management is in fact a philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS). There is an assortment of techniques available in making the processes cost effective. They can be appropriately adapted by HR for serving the organisation better.

For example, there is the use of “value stream map”, which shows the current steps, delays, and information flows required to deliver the target product or service. This may be a production flow (raw materials to consumer) or a design flow (concept to launch). HR needs to identify their value stream maps regarding the areas such as recruitment, selection, training and performance management.

One important thing to remember is that HR has to work hand-in-hand with other functional departments in being lean. With the increased use of analytical tools, data-driven decisions can be reached in overcoming disputes.
Being seen through disruptive HRM

We are increasingly moving towards a virtual world of work. There are a variety of flexible technologically connected but geographically separated. A global virtual team might have members based in New York, New Delhi and New South Wales. Telecommuting is an arrangement where a person can work from home by connecting through technology without physically coming to work. In fact, digitalisation prompts HR to be more tech-savvy in strengthening the connections. Based on my research with two US-based colleagues, it was evident that one major challenge in a virtual team arrangement is to trust each other. If you have worked with someone physically in the same office at least for some time, they found it easier to work as a virtual team. The challenge was to interact with relatively unfamiliar members of the team in a distant location.

It is an interesting HR scenario in this context. Each member of the virtual team based in different locations has to be governed by their local labour laws and other local HR practices. At the same time, there is a global HR strategy. Hence, it is a case of think globally and act locally with regard to HR practices pertaining to virtual team arrangements.

Why is the “seen” factor so important to HR? The answer lies in the nature of virtual teams and telecommuting workforce. They are the new net-centric nomads. Nomads, in the sense that their work desk can be a seat in an airplane with laptop or palmtop connected to the internet. For them, what matters is connectivity more than location.

Their daily HR functions are carried by a supervisor, also in a remote location. Some of the virtual team members have not seen the central HR colleagues, after their initial hiring discussion. On one hand, it is good to delegate and to make every manager a people manager. However, on the other hand, the vibrant presence of the HR as a guiding and facilitating function is also essential. Such a scenario leads to a visibility issue. How can HR show its availability for coaching, training, performance advice and other matters? Is it practically possible to meet all employees scattered all over? What should be the best cost-effective arrangement? These are some of the questions that HR professionals have to find answers.
Being green through disruptive HRM

We are living in world where nature has begun to strike back. Chaotic weather patterns across the globe are a grim reminder that eco-friendly practices of work need a lot more attention. What matters is not only profits and people, but planet as well. Obviously, the now-famous triple bottom line concept has much impact to HR.

Some common green human resource initiatives in the West include using web or teleconferencing to reduce travel, promoting the reduction of paper use and implementing wellness programs to foster employees’ proper nutrition, fitness, and healthy living.

The important point here is the need to integrate green initiatives with lean and seen initiatives. In other words, they are not three isolated sets of actions but one holistic path. Take paper reduction for an example. Instead of having piles of personnel files in a store room, a well-designed HR information system (HRIS) will do the needful in a much more effective manner. It is a case of being lean and green at the same time.

By being green, HR has to foster SHE, meaning Safety, Health and Environment. A healthy workforce which performs duties with safety in mind and without polluting the environment is the growing need of our workplaces.

Policy is like an umbrella guiding the practices within. Future HR policies need to be green. So should be their practices. Take recruitment for an example. Minimising the use of paper by resorting to more IT-based techniques is becoming popular. Training employees on energy conservation and making them more environmentally conscious are also vital actions HR can do. Here again, eliminating waste as a way of saving energy appear prominently, highlighting the link between ‘be green’ and ‘be lean’.
Way forward

Disruptive HRM is here in a decisive way. Aptly intertwined with being lean, seen and green, it should be viewed holistically in the broad context of socio-economic and religio-cultural fabric of Sri Lanka. It should cater for organisational progress as well as societal wellbeing. The conventional mindset of ‘labour handling’ should pave the way for the creative mindset of ‘talent engagement’. Are Sri Lankan HR professionals ready for such a challenging change? Are private sector managers and public sector administrators willing to embrace such change? Are Sri Lankan leaders inspiring such change with timely decision making? These are the pertinent questions that need prompt attention.

(Prof. Ajantha Dharmasiri can be reached through director@pim.lk, president@ipmlk.org or www.ajanthadharmasiri.info.)

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Build climate-resilient health systems

They must adapt to rising global temperatures

2017-09-01

Climate change is happening. In recent years average temperatures across the globe have increased, with significant impact on humanity’s most precious resource – the environment. Water systems are under stress. Food sources are being imperilled. And areas once considered safe for settlement are being threatened and erased.

The implications for human health are many. Climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as cyclones and floods, exacerbating almost all public health risks, from food-borne disease to malnutrition and heatstroke. It impacts the spread and abundance of disease-carrying vectors such as mosquitoes threatening the re-emergence of once-prevalent illnesses from scrub typhus to dengue. And it can create a range of outcomes that compromise public health in one way or another: Rising sea levels or prolonged drought can displace communities; scarce resources can trigger instability and conflict; and a decline in agricultural output can aggravate and entrench poverty.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the South-East Asia Region is particularly vulnerable. In recent years the

Region’s 11-Member countries – all of them low- or middle-income – have faced public health challenges from diverse climate-associated events and processes, including glacial lake-outburst floods, cyclones and rapidly eroding coastlines. These and other phenomena are likely to be exacerbated as global temperatures rise. Economic losses associated with climate change, meanwhile, are already affecting the development aspirations of millions of people Region-wide, and with it their ability to secure health and well-being. As the Sustainable Development Goals emphasize, health, both determines and is determined by poverty and its attendant conditions.

Though the problem of halting and reversing climate change is bigger than any one country, mitigating its health-related impact is both possible and necessary for all. Across the Region, health systems should be able to anticipate, respond to, cope with, recover from and adapt to climate-related shocks and stresses and do so in a way that advances health equity and ensures that no one is left behind. There are several ways to do this.

Most critical is maintaining high-level awareness and resolve to take action. In each of the Region’s Member-countries health authorities should be fully cognizant of the specific climate-associated health risks they face and draft national plans accordingly. At the same time, cross-sectoral collaboration should be established with a range of key ministries, ensuring climate-associated health concerns are addressed across diverse policy areas.

Climate change is already transforming life as we know it, and will continue to do so as global warming advances

Health systems’ service delivery should likewise be evaluated and augmented. This could include integrating meteorological information with climate-sensitive health programmes to better anticipate shifting disease burdens. It could include enhancing disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness to better manage the threat of extreme weather events. And it could also include scaling up the technical and professional capacity of health workers to better prepare for and deal with climate change’s health-related outcomes.

Climate-resilient infrastructure and technology has much to offer. All health facilities, for example, should have contingency plans to ensure essential services such as water, sanitation and electricity are maintained during extreme weather events. Similarly, new facilities should be planned, sited and built as per projected climate risks such as storm surges or cyclones. Technologies that provide early warning of extreme weather events should be integrated into emergency preparedness systems, while mobile communications that can reach appropriate audiences should be obtained and utilized.
To facilitate these investments, climate and health financing should be adequately assessed, mobilized and secured. This means looking for opportunities to integrate the principles of climate resilience into everyday health system strengthening, whether related to health personnel or basic infrastructure. It also means identifying and accessing funding that can build resilience through more targeted initiatives such as expanding surveillance or retrofitting health facilities.

Similarly, new facilities should be planned, sited and built as per projected climate risks such as storm surges or cyclones

Member countries across the South-East Asia Region are working to make this happen. In recent years a range of innovative measures have been implemented Region-wide to protect and improve health as climate change takes effect. This must continue. It must also be scaled up. WHO South-East Asia Region is committed to facilitating this process, and ensuring Member countries across the Region are able to cope with one of humanity’s greatest challenges.

There is, after all, no other option. Climate change is already transforming life as we know it, and will continue to do so as global warming advances. Though the risks to human health are many, the means to take action are available to all. By building climate-resilient health systems, countries across the South-East Asia Region can stay on track to achieve the SDG goal of health and well-being for all, and also safeguard their many public health gains. Adapting to change can be difficult; the need to do so is clear. Climate resilience is a principle all health systems must embrace.

Board of Deputies of British Jews attempts to censor Palestinian film

A still from In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain.

Asa Winstanley-1 September 2017

A group of artists and writers has accused one of the UK’s leading Israel lobby groups of attempting to censor a Palestinian film showing at the Barbican arts center in London.

Artists for Palestine UK wrote an open letter on Wednesday asking “how many other galleries, theaters, universities or community spaces have received similar demands” from the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain is a short film by Palestinian director Larissa Sansour and Danish writer Søren Lind.

The Board of Deputies wrote to the Barbican last week demanding the film’s removal from a science fiction film season.

Sansour has accused the Board of Deputies of “intimidation” tactics, but thanked the Barbican for their defense of the film. She wrote on Facebook that she hoped they would not be deterred “from selecting thought-provoking or potentially controversial work in the future.”

Author Rachel Holmes said in a statement from Artists for Palestine UK that “censorship of the imagination is never a good idea; nor is political or ideological interference in the programmes of public art institutions.”

The futuristic film, seen by The Electronic Intifada, depicts a “resistance leader,” voiced by Sansour, who fights back against her “rulers” by falsifying history.

She uses spacecraft to drop porcelain – imprinted with the identifiably Palestinian black-and-white checked scarf pattern – on the land, in the hopes that it will be unearthed hundreds of years hence.

Artists for Palestine UK said the film “obliquely questions national mythologies, and its Arabic-speaking protagonist uses archeology to stake claims on the past and thereby on the future of a vanishing land.”

The Guardian reported this week that the Board of Deputies had written to the Barbican, apparently not having seen the film, demanding it be removed from the season and claiming it “smacks of anti-Semitism.”

This claim was based only on an unnamed “member of the Jewish community who saw it,” the Guardianreported.

This misrepresentation is based on the fact that “the dialogue is in Arabic” and a false claim that the film involves “ ‘aliens’ seeding the land with porcelain.”

Sansour said that “we thought and hoped that we had moved beyond the days when criticism of the policies of the state of Israel gave rise to automated accusations of anti-Semitism.”

As a typical smear tactic, Israel lobby groups habitually target Palestinians and their supporters with false claims of anti-Semitism.

Israel has a long track record of using archeology in order to deny the Palestinian connection to Palestine.

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got egg on his face after claiming a souvenir created by the ministry of tourism was a “2,000-year-old coin” which validated Israel’s claim to “Judea and Samaria” – the occupied West Bank.

A link and password to view the full film can be found online here until the end of the day on Friday 1 September.

Merkel says she wants to end Turkey-EU membership talks

'I don't see them ever joining and I had never believed that it would happen'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel in televised debate with Martin Schulz, her Social Democratic rival in election later this month (AFP)

Sunday 3 September 2017

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that she would ask the European Union to call off membership talks with Turkey, amid escalating tensions between Berlin and Ankara.

"I don't see them ever joining and I had never believed that it would happen," she said during a televised debate with Martin Schulz, her Social Democratic rival in elections later this month.

She added that she would speak with her EU counterparts to see if "we can end these membership talks".

The comments are likely to worsen already strained ties between the two NATO allies after Merkel said on Friday that Berlin should react decisively to Turkey’s detention of two more German citizens on political charges.

The arrests brought the number of German political prisoners in Turkish custody to 12, at a time when ties were already at an all-time low.

The plunge in relations began after Berlin sharply criticised Ankara over the crackdown that followed last year's failed coup attempt.

The arrest of several German nationals, including the Turkish-German journalist Deniz Yucel, the Istanbul correspondent for the Die Welt newspaper, further frayed ties.

Yucel has now spent 200 days in custody ahead of a trial on terror charges.

German journalist Mesale Tolu has been held on similar charges since May, while human rights activist Peter Steudtner was arrested in a July raid.

Troubled relations

After Steudtner's arrest, Germany vowed stinging measures impacting tourism and investment in Turkey and a full "overhaul" of their troubled relations.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, has also sparked outrage after charging that Germany is sheltering plotters of last year's coup, as well as Kurdish militants and terrorists, and demanded their extradition.

Erdogan added to the tensions this month when he urged ethnic Turks in Germany to vote against Merkel's conservatives and their coalition partners, the Social Democrats, in 24 September elections.

The escalating tensions have split the Turkish community in Europe's top economy, the largest diaspora abroad, which is a legacy of Germany's "guest worker" programme of the 1960s and 70s.