Uzbek Prisoner's escape attempt foiled at Hulftsdorp
Magistrates court, was re-captured after firing warning shots, police said.
Peace for the World
First democratic leader of Justice the Godfather of the Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Honourable Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Friday, October 13, 2017
How is that State bureaucrats are free and ministers are questioned by Presidential Bond Comic-mission ?
(Lanka-e-News - 13.Oct.2017, 8.00PM) The ‘campaign’ conducted under the name of Bond Commission ( Comic- mission) appointed by the president has by now created a situation owing to which the former minister of finance resigned , and two ministers Kabir Hashim and Malik Samarawickrema had to appear before it to record statements. This Comic mission has so far only demonstrated clearly its disequilibrium, since it has not summoned any secretary or responsible official of the ministries for inquiry.In the circumstances , the pertinent question raised by intelligent individuals who are impartial is , whether these omissions of the muddled up Comic mission is aimed at protecting a certain group of officials ?
So far the officials who were summoned for inquiry were : former Central bank Governor and the deputy governor of the Central bank , the chairmen and general managers of three state banks. Unbelievably , not a single secretary of a ministry had been summoned for questioning so far- this is not only rudely shocking but shrouded in a mystery .
Finance secretary Dr. Samaratunge’s involvement …
According to the evidence of the chairmen of the banks, the former minister of finance requested them to make low bids during a discussion held at the finance ministry . Among those present at that discussion was the Finance ministry secretary Dr. R.H.S Samaratunge .
Though the subject of banking was under the ministry of State Enterprise Development , the official powers are vested with the finance minister and its official chief is the finance ministry secretary . Accordingly ,the decisions of the minister are conveyed officially to the Institutions by the ministry secretary Dr. Samaratunge . The secretary however is not bound to implement every misdirection of the minister, and it is the bounden duty of the secretary to discuss with the minister if there are such issues , point out the errors and resolve those .
Ministry’s main statistics and data are provided by the ministry secretary . Hence it is the secretary who is responsible to the parliamentary committee regarding State finance. In the circumstances , the chief administrator of the Bank is not obliged to abide by the oral instructions given by the minister to make low bids because they must only follow instructions issued by the secretary under his signature. Yet the presidential Comic mission appointed to inquire into the treasury bonds has not considered that aspect.
If there had been any flaws or faults on the part of the finance ministry , obviously it is the secretary of the ministry who is directly responsible and answerable.
Involvement of Rafeek, secretary to ministry of National policy and economic affairs …
M.I.M. Rafeek the secretary of ministry of national policies and economic affairs is inescapably responsible in regard to the transaction . It is due to that reason the Central bank made the gazette notification under the ministry of national policy and economic affairs.
Therefore it can be deemed , it is his responsibility under the constitution to act after making necessary inquiries as regards all the Institutions coming under the purview of his ministry . It is the secretary of the relevant ministry who has the powers to monitor all the Institutions coming under it in conformity with the commands and control of the minister.
It is specially noteworthy that it is the Hon. Prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who is in charge of that ministry . Therefore it is the responsibility of that ministry secretary to report to the minister after probing into the affairs of the Institutions under it. It is for the ministry secretary to intervene when it concerns such a transaction and take the necessary action to implement.
There is a view which should be got rid of in the government service, that is “follow a ‘shape’ agenda and wash the hands of it.” Therefore , it is important the secretary is subjected to questioning by the Commission , and if any wrong has been committed with regard to the transaction he should shoulder the responsibility .
There is a view which should be got rid of in the government service, that is “follow a ‘shape’ agenda and wash the hands of it.” Therefore , it is important the secretary is subjected to questioning by the Commission , and if any wrong has been committed with regard to the transaction he should shoulder the responsibility .
Involvement of Ravindra Hewawitharana , secretary to ministry of State Enterprise Development …
Although the bank chiefs said the finance minister gave orders to make low bids , the State banks of the present government have made the State bank gazette notification under the State enterprise development ministry.
The ministry secretary is directly responsible when it concerns bank , and he is the main accounting officer regarding State’s finance before the parliamentary committee . Hence , the responsibility /accountability devolves on him. If he is to say ‘he does not know’ or ‘I am unaware ‘ , it means it is his weak administration ,and not an excuse permitting him to escape responsibility.
In an instance in which another ministry or secretary is intervening , the ministry secretaries are bound to seek advice from the President’s secretary or the Public Service Commission. If only the permission is granted for the third party to intervene in respect of that Institution , it becomes the responsibility of the secretary of that ministry to take measures in that direction.
Law must apply to those State officers. They cannot and should not be given an opportunity to disclaim responsibility by fastening that responsibility on the minister .If they can so disclaim responsibility then there is no need to appoint a ministry secretary .
The financial affairs of a ministry is the main responsibility of the secretary , and he being the chief his staff ought to function under him accordingly.
In a ministry ,the political chief is the minister and the administrative chief of the ministry is the secretary .The chief of a Department , or a Corporation or a Board is therefore answerable to the secretary and not the minister.
In a ministry ,the political chief is the minister and the administrative chief of the ministry is the secretary .The chief of a Department , or a Corporation or a Board is therefore answerable to the secretary and not the minister.
In those circumstances , it is the responsibility of the State official to deal with the people’s representatives , adjust the finances for government ‘s development programs and prevent frauds and corruption .
If any wrong comes to light any day , it is the State bureaucrat who will have to go to jail. He /she must therefore exercise extra caution and act with most care when placing his signature . He must also ensure he does that only when it is beneficial to the government .
By Nila dharuwa
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by (2017-10-13 14:50:33)
by (2017-10-13 14:50:33)
‘Charlie’ & ‘Little Johnnie’ revealed
by‘Charlie’ who had assisted Perpetual Treasuries Lt. (PTL) to get information regarding treasury bonds was paid Rs. 97 million as bribes by PTL says its Chief Dealer Nuwan Salgado. He revealed this before the Presidential Commission on Treasury Bond scam yesterday (12th).
Mr. Nuwan Salgado produced a document which had been prepared on instructions from the CEO of PTL Kasun Palisena. The document describes how money was paid to different people through other companies attached to PTL.
Accordingly, it was revealed that ‘informants’ coded as ‘Charlie’, ‘Tango’ and ‘Car’ were paid through these companies. The dealer of EPF connected to PTL had been code-named “Charlie” and he had been paid since 2014. It was revealed that the person code-named Charlie is one Udayasheelan who had worked in EPF from 2014 to 2015 on behalf of PTL.
The person codenamed ‘Charlie’ who had worked for EPF from September 2014 until 2017 has been revealed as one Indika Saman Kumara.
However, Nuwan Salgado has said he did not know who is codenamed as ‘Tango’ and ‘Car’.
Nuwan Salgado also revealed that code name ‘Little Jhonnie’ had been used for Kavin Karunamoorthy who worked in EPF and DFCC bank on behalf of PTL.
Another code name ‘Wolverine’ was revealed yesterday and Nuwan Salgado revealed that the code-named was used for Nawin Anuradha who was the primary contact person for National Savings Bank.
The witness admitted that PTL allocating payments to their informants continued in 2015 and thereafter as well.
Nuwan Salgado will continue to give evidence today and Rathnaweera, another dealer, is to be questioned today.
Rajapaksha's plot to secure NOC top seat!
Oct 13, 2017
Sports associations are enthusiastic about the election for the National Olympic Committee which is to take place before the end of this year. The NOC had its last election in 2009. The election could not be held in 2013 due to shortcomings in the sports constitution. Most of them were addressed with the mediation of NOC chief Hemasiri Fernando and sports minister Dayasiri Jayasekara. However, more amendments are needed.
Introducing a new structure for the NOC too, is being looked at. As the first step, the NOC is to be renamed the Sri Lanka Olympic Committee.
Accordingly, a general meeting of the NOC has been summoned on November 09 to discuss those amendments and the election. Fernando has already announced he would not contest again. Some sports associations are making preparations to elect a new chief. The Rajapaksa camp is involved in machinations to secure that seat. Its agent in the NOC is Rohan Fernando, chairman of its financial committee and also of the Rowing Federation.
There is proof that he represents the Rajapaksa camp. On the last 10th a discussion took place at the Golf Club to secure the NOC chairmanship for him. Fernando, Waruni Amunugama, Dian Gomes (boxing association chief), Kanchana Jayaratne (taekwondo association chief), A.S. Nalaka (volleyball association secretary) and an Army major participated. The country knows Amunugama and Fernando are Rajapaksa loyalists. Jayaratne is MP Pavitra Wanniarachchi’s husband. Gomes is Fernando’s closest friend. All of them are paying attention to the NOC chairman and secretary positions, as they are positions that accompany privileges to amass wealth for generations. During the Rajapaksa regime, Gomes and Fernando reigned like kings. If the Rajapaksas do not pay their attention to a place of wealth, that should thought twice.
Everybody knows the progress and the financial strength of the NOC. Rajapaksas know how to play a game even without power. The NOC is now faced with this challenge. It is a property of this country, not a personal one. The country’s properties becoming personal properties is no new experience, but that should not happen anymore. The NOC should not fall into an abyss again.
(to be continued)
Sri Lanka’s baby farms Inter-country adoption racket exposed !
For tourists the paediatric ward resembled a supermarket
- When a DNA database is created it was certain that our papers were fraud, because through DNA we have the proof of family ties.
- Sometimes these contact persons say I have located your mother, but they don’t reveal the address.
- The adoption agencies from western countries treated me as a profitable thing, instead as a person.
- Nobody can tell me, that Sri Lanka or India can’t take care of its children.
- Another child has been shown a fake mother and the association has continued for 6 years.
- Adoption isn’t a transaction and therefore parents can’t accept money.
- A child has a right to know its biological parents.
- The biological parents lose the right for a child if it was given for adoption voluntarily.
A recent documentary by Zembla, a Dutch current affairs programme, brought to light an adoption fraud during the latter part of the 19th century. Previously in 1983 a documentary was made based on the adoption scandal by Flash, a Dutch adoption organization that made massive profits by ‘selling’ children. News reports from 1987 highlight that a ‘baby farm’ had been raided and the police found 20 newborns and 22 women. The report further revealed that the babies had been purchased for about $30 and was sold abroad for about 30 times that value. However neither the Sri Lankan Government nor the receiving Governments have taken any worthwhile steps to address the issue, until recently when Health Minister, Dr. Rajitha Senaratne admitted to the revelations of the documentary makers that there had been baby farms and that he will investigate into the issue and take the initiative to set up a DNA bank.
Showdown looms between Hamas and Gaza Salafis
Nidal al-Jaafari, killed in a bombing at the boundary with Egypt, is mourned during his funeral.
Abed ZagoutHamza Abu Eltarabesh-13 October 2017
Most bear messages of congratulations for the 29-year-old’s nuptials. But they are now a little faded. The marriage was nearly a year ago. Instead a fresh one, a little apart, stands out, bearing Nidal’s picture in full uniform. Smiling and posing with his gun, it carries the announcement of his death.
Nidal, a member of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, was killed on 17 August in a suicide bombing near Gaza’s boundary with Egypt.
The bombing was attributed to the Islamic State group. It was the latest instance of a deadly rivalry between the Islamist party overseeing Gaza’s internal affairs and Salafi militants in the coastal enclave and beyond that has erupted into several episodes of violence over the past decade.
It also suggested that an agreement between Hamas and Egypt to improve relations in order to ease the Egyptian blockade on the coastal strip is being implemented. The agreement stipulates measures by Hamas to prevent infiltration to and from the Sinai – where discontent with Cairo’s rule has developed into a full-blown insurgency over the past four years – and has been bolstered by the Egyptian-mediated preliminary unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas announced on 12 October.
Nidal and his team, which included his nephew, Salem al-Jaafari, 26, were responding to exactly such an infiltration when the bombing occurred. Salem was wounded when one of two men carrying light arms was caught at the mouth of a small tunnel near the boundary. The man detonated a bomb belt, killing himself and Nidal.
The other infiltrator had been apprehended and disarmed moments earlier, according to the version of events Salem relayed to Riziq al-Jaafari, 36, Nidal’s oldest brother and an administrator at Dar al-Nahdah College in Rafah.
“I hope [Hamas] strikes hard at these extremists and uproots them from Gaza,” Riziq, visibly angry, told The Electronic Intifada.
Crackdown
The Hamas response was swift. The day after the incident, Hamas security forces, aided by the Qassam Brigades, launched a crackdown on Salafi groups in Gaza, focusing on the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.Offices for two Salafi groups operating in Gaza – the Islamic State of Gaza, which is seen as loyal to the Islamic State, and the Army of Islam, seen as close to al-Qaida – were shut and several people were arrested.
Ahmad Abu Naji, an officer with Gaza’s internal security service, confirmed that the crackdown also included raids on houses and training camps affiliated with Salafi militants. He said dozens were arrested, especially in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, where the suicide bomber, Mustafa Kullab, lived.
“Anyone close to him or who used to visit him at home was arrested,” Abu Naji told The Electronic Intifada.
Eyad al-Buzom, spokesperson for Gaza’s interior ministry, said authorities would not tolerate security threats from any groups in Gaza.
“We will not allow anyone to destabilize security in the Gaza Strip or near the border [with Egypt].”
The crackdown has continued into October. Earlier this month, as Hamas was preparing to send a delegation to the reconciliation talks in Cairo, Hamas arrested Nour Issa and three others in Rafah. Issa is reportedly a senior commander in a Salafi militia affiliated with Islamic State. According to Gaza’s interior ministry, he had fought in Libya and was wanted for more than a year.
Deadly tensions
The August bombing has in effect pitted Hamas’ Qassam Brigades against the Islamic State in Gaza, a continuation of a confrontation between Hamas and Salafi groups that first exploded back in August 2009.At that time, more than 20 people were killed in clashes between the Qassam Brigades and armed members of a Salafi group after its head, Abd al-Latif Musa, proclaimed an Islamic caliphate in Gaza and criticized Hamas for not applying Islamic law.
Tensions between Hamas and Gaza’s Salafis – thought to number in the hundreds – have continued since with occasional conflagrations. In 2011, after the abduction and murder of an Italian activist,
Hamas rounded up Salafi militants suspected of involvement, killing two and apprehending four.
All four were found guilty of involvement in the death of Vittorio Arrigoni. Two were sentenced to life in prison, a punishment that was then commuted to 15 years. One of those, Mahmoud al-Salfiti, later escaped from Gaza before reportedly being killed in Iraq while fighting with Islamic State. The other two received sentences of 10 years and one year.
In 2015, a series of bomb attacks in Gaza sparked another crackdown.
These conflicts look likely to continue, even sharpen, as Hamas tries to improve relations with Cairo in order to secure the opening of Rafah crossing. Gaza-Egypt relations suffered dramatically after Abdulfattah al-Sisi in 2013 ousted the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood president, Muhammad Morsi, banned his party and declared Hamas a terrorist group.
The coup sparked a spike in tensions in the Sinai, where a low-level conflict between government and local tribes turned into a full-blown insurgency and saw Salafi groups there declare loyalty to Islamic State in 2014.
Cairo has accused Hamas of harboring Salafi fugitives from the Sinai in the past. Hamas has always denied the accusation, but, in the context of seeking better relations – an Egyptian court in 2015 overturned the previous ruling which designated Hamas a terrorist group – Hamas has undertaken to clamp down on infiltration and weapons smuggling in and out of Gaza. In June, Hamas also began clearing a buffer zone along its boundary with Egypt.
The August incident is seen very much in light of this context.
Thabit al-Amour, a political analyst and pundit on Palestine Today TV, said the bombing shows that the understandings between Hamas and Cairo have entered a “serious phase.”
“This operation is a result of Hamas’ seriousness in blocking movement from Gaza to Sinai and vice versa,” al-Amour said. “There is more effort paid to control entrance and departure from Gaza to Sinai as well as closing in on Islamic State in Sinai which limited their movement and maybe weakened it. Consequently, Islamic State had to activate one of its sleeper cells in Gaza.”
Despair drives extremism
Some also see an Israeli hand in the area.Akram Attalla, a political analyst and columnist for al-Ayyam newspaper, speculated that Islamic State in Gaza and the Sinai is funded by Israel in order to undermine Hamas.
“Israel is aware that the Palestinians have adapted to the division among them and the siege,” he told The Electronic Intifada. “Hence, Israel is trying to create groups that can wear Hamas down.”
Omar Jaara, an Israel affairs expert and lecturer at An-Najah National University in the West Bank, echoed this theory. Islamic State, he said, is a “tool controlled by Israel to maintain instability” at the boundary with Egypt. As the group’s threat to Egypt grows, he added, it becomes a “wild card” that Israel can wield against Hamas.
Ahmed Yousef, previously a senior adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the former prime minister in Gaza, urged Cairo to understand that the isolation and despair in Gaza contribute to the turn to extremism. Easing the closure on Gaza remains paramount in any attempt to stabilize the situation and would serve both Palestinians and Egyptians.
And Mahmoud al-Ajrami, a security specialist and lecturer at Gaza’s University of Palestine, said the bombing was an attempt at preventing closer Hamas-Egypt relations.
“Whoever did this wants to obstruct the opening of Rafah crossing,” he said.
Salafi militants in Gaza are difficult to interview. Those who are imprisoned are often prevented from speaking by their Hamas jailers. And though this reporter did gain permission to speak to some in prison, they refused to answer any questions.
This writer did manage to speak to one self-proclaimed Salafi militant who has declared loyalty to Islamic State. Calling himself Abu Abdallah al-Maqdisi – it was impossible to independently verify his identity – he was reached by phone. He said he had relocated to the Sinai from Gaza in 2014 after Israel’s deadly onslaught that summer.
He accused Hamas of having abandoned Islamic law and explained Salafi opposition to the group as a result of Hamas “getting close to the Shiites” – a reference to relations with Iran. While he stressed that Salafis did not want to take their fight to Gaza, he warned: “If anyone stands in our way, we will do to them what Mustafa [Kullab] did to Hamas.”
A tale of two neighborhoods
In a statement after the bombing, the Kullab family denounced their son’s actions and refused to hold a funeral for him. They also called on the authorities to clamp down with “an iron fist” on extremists who threaten internal security.The family has refused to talk to media since, and a visit to the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood proved fruitless. Some neighbors, mostly speaking off the record, remembered Mustafa Kullab – 20 when he died – as an introvert; others as fun and outgoing. Most men in a group discussing the August incident argued that Hamas should find and eliminate all extremists. One urged caution and sympathy. He suggested that young men like Kullab were victims of brainwashing.
Another, Muhammed Abu Salem, who fixes electronics in a local shop, described Kullab as a “simple guy with a kind heart.”
“His only errands were from the mosque to his house and vice versa. We never expected he could do such a thing, but, obviously, someone brainwashed him.”
It is only a 10-minute walk from the Kullab family home to the that of the al-Jaafari family in the Shaburah neighborhood. There, Nidal is remembered as the “colored-eye boy” due to his green eyes.
His wife, Suzan – pregnant then, but who has since given birth to the couple’s son – was too upset to talk to reporters. However her father, Abd al-Rahman Abu Habib, told The Electronic Intifada about their last meeting, on the day of his killing.
“Nidal had called to say he was coming for dessert. But he had only one piece before he was called away. He asked us to save some for his return.”
Abu Habib’s grandson was to have been called Firas. The baby is instead named Nidal, after his father.
Hamza Abu Eltarabesh is a freelance journalist and writer from Gaza.
Palestinian news network suspended by YouTube over Gaza war footage
Gaza-based al-Quds tells MEE its YouTube channel was terminated without warning over footage showing Hamas fighters during 2014 war
Members of the Hamas Qassam Brigades parade in Gaza (AFP)
The YouTube channel of a prominent Palestinian news website was on Thursday suspended over a video it posted during the 2014 Gaza war showing members of Hamas's al-Qassam Brigades.
In an editorial posted on its website, the al-Quds network, which is based in Gaza, claimed the suspension was the result of an Israeli government campaign to pressure technology and social media companies to shut down Palestinian media outlets.
The al-Quds network, which began as a Facebook page before launching its own website in March 2011, describes itself as "first Palestinian news society".
It relies on young reporters and volunteers using phones and other digital devices to cover local news across the Palestinian territories, often reporting on violations by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank and Gaza.
Its content is widely circulated, with around six million people following the channel on Facebook. Al-Quds said its YouTube channel had gained almost 10 million views prior to being suspended on Thursday.
Ahmed Jarrar, the editor-in-chief of al-Quds, told Middle East Eye that YouTube had suspended the network without any prior warning.
"YouTube's decision was based on a video we uploaded during the last Gaza war in 2014. It is not the first time our network has been suspended and the content removed. It happened in 2011, and we had to create a new channel from scratch," he said.
YouTube said it had based its decision on the network's "violation" of community guidelines.
Al-Quds staff received a notification from YouTube informing them that they had been assigned a "Community Guidelines strike" (screengrab)
In a message to al-Quds, YouTube said the video, which was titled "Al-Qassam Brigades send their message to the Israeli army and settlers in Hebrew language", had been flagged for review.
"Upon review, we've determined that it violates our guidelines. We've removed it from YouTube and assigned a community guidelines strike to your account".
Commuity guidelines strikes are a system which YouTube uses to warn and impose restrictions on users posting content which it considers in breach of its guidelines.
"Each strike will remain on your account and expire three months after it was issued. Each strike expires separately. If your account receives three community guidelines strikes within a three-month period, your account will be terminated," YouTube says on its website.
Al-Quds staff attempting to log in to the account on Friday were directed to a page stating that the account had been terminated because of violations of YouTube's community guidelines.
Al-Quds staff attempting to log in to the network's YouTube channel were directed to a page telling them their account had been terminated (screengrab)
YouTube's commuity guidelines prohibit "gratuitous violence, dangerous and illegal activities, inciting others to commit violent acts, and brandishing weapons". However, it says that content posted in a news context should not be affected.
Al-Quds' channel featured news reports and archive footage from the December 2011-January 2012 and August 2014 Gaza wars, as well as reports covering a string of stabbings and car-ramming attacks in Jerusalem and elsewhere since 2015.
Al-Quds' Facebook page had been suspended in the past, but the network has since been certified as a news page by the social media network.
Al-Quds is not the first Palestinian news outlet operating in Gaza to fall foul of YouTube's regulations. In August, television channel Filisten al-Youm TV was also suspended by the Google-owned video website.
YouTube had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Palestinian journalists and activists regularly complain that they face censorship both by Israel, which has lobbied social media companies to remove pro-Palestinian content, and by the Palestinian Authority, which passed a cybercrime law in July allowing it to censor and scrutinise social media posts.
Several journalists were subsequently arrested as a consequence of the law, prompting protests by Palestinian human rights activists and NGOs, who marched in Ramallah earlier this week.
YouTube has previously apologised for mistakenly removing videos relating to the war in Syria which had been posted by news websites, including MEE.
It blamed the removal of those videos on the switch from using humans to flag content to a system based on artificial intelligence technology.
Trump Threatens to Nuke Iran Deal Unless Congress, Allies Get Tougher With Tehran
President Donald Trump said Friday he would no longer certify that the Iran nuclear deal is in America’s interest and warned he could eventually abandon the agreement if Tehran failed to meet an array of restrictions.
BY DAN DE LUCE, ROBBIE GRAMER, EMILY TAMKIN-OCTOBER 13, 2017The long-awaited move threatens to rupture relations with European allies and opens the door to a potential confrontation with Iran at a moment when thousands of U.S. troops are deployed in neighboring Iraq.
Hours after the president announced his stance, European leaders warned Trump’s decision could lead to the collapse of the deal, removing the strict limits Iran currently has on its nuclear-weapons program. And Asian governments worry that unilaterally backing away from the Iran pact could cripple hopes of a negotiated solution to the nuclear standoff with North Korea.
In a speech, Trump stopped short of announcing an immediate withdrawal from the 2015 accord, which he had promised during his presidential campaign. But in refusing to certify that Iran is complying with the deal, the administration is passing the buck to Congress, which will have to decidewhether to reintroduce economic sanctions that were lifted as part of the agreement.
“We cannot and will not make this certification,” Trump said. He threatened to torpedo the entire deal unless U.S. lawmakers and world powers force Iran to swallow wide-ranging restrictions on everything from its missile program to its use of proxy forces in regional conflicts.
“In the event we are not able to reach a solution working with Congress and our allies, then the agreement will be terminated,” he said.
Trump said that the nuclear deal failed to address Iran’s destabilizing behavior in the region, including its support for terrorism and its development of an advanced missile program. To address those challenges, the White House coupled the announcement with the introduction of a plan to roll back Iran’s influence in the Middle East. The strategy focuses on curbing Iran’s support for militants, strengthening Washington’s regional alliances, and ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s elite security force.
Signaling the more confrontational stance, the Treasury Department said it would label the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. Previously, the U.S. government had only designated the guard’s paramilitary wing, the Quds Force, for sanctions. But the president chose not to place the Revolutionary Guard on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, as it would have posed complications for U.S. troops deployed near Iranian military forces in Iraq.
Trump called on Congress to strengthen the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), the domestic law that calls for the president to decide whether to recertify the deal every 90 days. Administration officials said the change in course is needed to address “sunset” provisions in the nuclear deal, including key restrictions on uranium enrichment and other activities that expire in 10 years or more.
Officials want the law revised to include “trigger points” that, if crossed, would automatically reintroduce sanctions on Iran.
“If Iran crosses any of these trigger points, the sanctions automatically go back in place,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in a briefing Thursday evening.
Those triggers could include refusing to extend limits on nuclear fuel production, more ballistic missile launches, or a determination by U.S. spy agencies that Iran is less than a year away from building an atomic bomb.
But amending the legislation would require 60 votes in the Senate — an unlikely prospect, since most Democrats have slammed Trump’s decision.
Securing support in Congress for revising the INARA will be an uphill battle, Tillerson told reporters Thursday. “I don’t want to suggest to you that this is a slam-dunk on the Hill — it’s not.”
But securing support internationally may be even tougher. The administration hopes the threat of action will spur the pact’s other signatories to back a tougher Iran agreement. But Trump’s decision runs against the assessment of every major U.S. intelligence agency as well as nearly all U.S. allies, who maintain that Iran is abiding by the terms of the accord.
After Trump’s speech, the leaders of Britain, France, and Germany issued an extraordinary joint statement, expressing concern over “the possible implications” of the president’s decision.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron said their countries were committed to the nuclear accord and that its preservation was “in our shared national security interest.”
“The nuclear deal was the culmination of 13 years of diplomacy and was a major step towards ensuring that Iran’s nuclear programme is not diverted for military purposes,” they said.
The leaders called on the Trump administration and Congress to consider the implications to the security of the United States and its allies “before taking any steps that might undermine the [nuclear deal], such as re-imposing sanctions on Iran lifted under the agreement.”
On Thursday, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned that decertifying the deal would isolate the United States and “drive us Europeans into a common position with Russia and China against the USA.”
“If President Trump establishes himself as the Great Dealbreaker – which is ongoing! – who will wish to make any deals with his US?” Carl Bildt, a former Swedish foreign minister and prime minister, tweeted on Friday.
As Trump toyed for months with killing the deal, its fate sparked a fierce debate in Washington between those who defended the accord as a way to hamstring Iran’s nuclear weapons development and those eager to rein in Iran’s ambitions more broadly. While the debate played out, the administration’s constant seesawing unnerved allies in Europe.
“To the extent the rest of the world is watching this soap opera play out in Washington … it really does telegraph how limited our influence is going to be on key issues like this in the future,” Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution told Foreign Policy.
As the country most at risk from a nuclear-armed Iran, Israel will applaud Trump’s decision. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vehemently opposed the agreement in 2015, said in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly last month that the United States should “fix it or nix it.” But some prominent Israeli figures and former security officials, including the former prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak, argued it would be better to adjust the deal rather than scuttle it.
“It seems to me that the less risky approach is to build on the existing agreement, among other reasons because it does set concrete limitations on the Iranians,” said Uzi Arad, Netanyahu’s former national security advisor. A career officer in Mossad, Arad visited Washington last week to appeal to lawmakers to keep the deal in place.
Iran has blasted the administration’s reasons for decertification and ruled out reopening negotiations. Trump’s attacks on the deal have even managed to bring together the country’s squabbling hard-liners, who originally opposed the deal as an unacceptable compromise, and more pragmatic figures like Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who supported it.
“We have achieved benefits during the nuclear talks and the nuclear agreement, which are irreversible,” said Rouhani on Oct. 7. “No one can roll them back, neither Trump nor 10 other Trumps.” Rouhani was scheduled to address Trump’s decision later Friday.
FP’s Paul McLeary and Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian contributed to this story.
The Daily 202: Throwing a bomb into the insurance markets, Trump now owns the broken health-care system
President Trump prepares to sign his executive order on health care in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
With Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve
The administration announced late last night that he will immediately halt cost-sharing reductions. These $7 billion in annual subsidies to health insurers allow around 7 million low-income Americans to afford coverage.
Earlier in the day, the president signed a far-reaching executive order that makes it easier for individuals and small businesses to buy alternative types of health insurance with lower prices, fewer benefits and weaker government protections.
This is not “letting” Obamacare fail. Many nonpartisan experts believe that these active measures are likely to undermine the pillars of the 2010 law and hasten the collapse of the marketplaces.
The Pottery Barn rule comes to mind: You break it, you own it. Yes, the plate you just shattered had some cracks in it. But if you dropped it on the ground, the store is going to blame you.
As Barack Obama learned after the Great Recession, with heavy Democratic losses in the 2010 midterms, it’s hard to blame your predecessor for problems two years after you take office. Especially when your party has unified control of the federal government. No matter how much it might be the previous guy’s fault, many voters won’t buy it. People have very short attention spans.
President Trump's decision to halt payments for cost-sharing reductions and his health-care executive order will have ripple effects throughout the Affordable Care Act's marketplaces. Here's what you need to know. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The White House says the executive order will give people more choices, but: “Critics, who include state insurance commissioners, most of the health-insurance industry and mainstream policy specialists, predict that a proliferation of these other kinds of coverage will have damaging ripple effects, driving up costs for consumers with serious medical conditions and prompting more insurers to flee the law’s marketplaces.”
“The most far-reaching element of the order instructs a trio of Cabinet departments to rewrite federal rules for ‘association health plans’ — a form of insurance in which small businesses of a similar type band together through an association to negotiate health benefits. These plans have had to meet coverage requirements and consumer protections under the 2010 health-care law, but the administration is likely to exempt them from those rules and let such plans be sold from state to state without insurance licenses in each one. Among policy experts, critics warned that young and healthy people who use relatively little insurance will gravitate to association health plans because of their lower price tags. That would concentrate older and sicker customers in ACA marketplaces with spiking rates.”
-- Beyond yesterday’s directives, Trump has been personally involved in undercutting the system. Juliet discovered a remarkable example last week about just how hands-on the president has been: “For months, officials in Republican-controlled Iowa had sought federal permission to revitalize their ailing health-insurance marketplace. Then President Trump read about the request in a newspaper story and called the federal director weighing the application. Trump’s message in late August was clear … Tell Iowa no.”
“HHS has slashed grants to groups that help consumers get insurance coverage,” Juliet adds. “It also has cut the enrollment period in half, reduced the advertising budget by 90 percent and announced an outage schedule that would make the HealthCare.gov website less available than last year. … HHS has told its regional administrators not to even meet with on-the-ground organizations about enrollment.”
After failing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Republican leaders said it will "implode." Health-care experts disagree, saying the ACA is stable under current law — but President Trump and congressional Republicans could change that. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)
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Debate in Vacuum on Joblessness in India
It is pointed out that there are hundreds of engineers and arts and science graduates who do not get jobs and their examples are cited to prove the level of joblessness in India
( October 13, 2017, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Does anybody know how many people are employed and how many remain unemployed in India today ?
It is reported that of the total population in India in the working age group, around 7% constitute the organized class in the primary, secondary and tertiary sector. The remaining 93% constitute the unorganized class, which is also termed as informal sector.
The unorganized class is constituted largely by unskilled, semi skilled and skilled people, some of whom may be self employed and others working as daily wage labourers or contract labourers in several areas like agriculture, real estate and construction etc.
It is now being propagated that jobless is increasing in India at alarming rate. Who has the real figures ?
It is often reported in the media when some private companies in the software and other sectors retrench the employees for whatever reasons. But, rarely any news come about the number of people being employed newly in the private sector which is also happening . In the case of public sector, it is extremely rare that anyone would lose the job whatever his level of his efficiency or performance.
Data on jobs in organized sector :
The ground reality is that there is no authentic figures available nor is it possible to collect with regard to the number of people getting jobs or losing jobs in the organized sector, particularly in the private sector.
Whatever information available about the unemployment is being collected and collated from the government run employment exchanges in the country. It is very well known that some of those registered in the employment exchanges for jobs may not really remain unemployed and may be usefully occupying themselves somewhere and looking out for better jobs. The employment exchanges do not have the practice of updating it’s unemployment data by conducting a primary survey amongst those registered with it, except requiring everyone to update their status periodically. Employment exchanges do not verify such data.
Data on jobs in unorganized sector :
There is absolutely no data as to how many people are really employed or remain unemployed in the unorganized sector.
No joblessness for skilled / semi skilled people :
Even as the country is feverishly debating about the so called joblessness , there are complaints from several quarters including households that they find it difficult to get a plumber, electrician , carpenter or driver to carry out the required work.
The fact is that there is no joblessness for skilled and semi skilled people in India today who find employment somewhere or remain self employed.
The fact is that there is no joblessness for skilled and semi skilled people in India today who find employment somewhere or remain self employed.
It is pointed out that there are hundreds of engineers and arts and science graduates who do not get jobs and their examples are cited to prove the level of joblessness in India. The fact is that the country do not really need so many engineers and arts and science graduates , who can only carry out desk work of general nature.
At the same time, we also find complaints from many companies and employers that they are not able to get suitable engineers or accountants and other persons for various jobs with sufficient merits and knowledge level to be given employment. The country has rapidly expanded the quantitative level of education at the cost of quality to some extent.
Crisis of skilllessness:
The right way to describe the scenario in India today is not crisis of joblessness but crisis of skilllessness.
Realising this scenario, Prime Minister Modi constituted a separate ministry in central government to promote skill development in the country. Several initiatives have been taken by the government to impart training in various skills for the people. While some progress has been made, a visible impact is yet to be seen on the ground.
What is required is to re orient hundreds of arts and science colleges in India and many engineering colleges and polytechnics as institutions for providing special skills in multi various fields, instead of general education that do not build job potential amongst the students.
The task is complex and challenging and there cannot be an over night solution.
The diagnosis is that there is huge level of lack of skill in India and several potential jobs are not happening due to such lack of skill amongst vast section of people.
Obviously, the debate on joblessness in India is taking place in vacuum.
The “exoticisation” of culture
Mahathma Gandhi---Sir William Gregory---Sir Arthur Gordon
2017-10-13
Someone once noted not too long ago that modernity was the West’s way of measuring itself against the Other, the rest of the world. It was a way of assessing progress, for the most material, which is why the transition in the 17th and 18th centuries from the Inquisition to the Reformation and then to the Enlightenment is so significant.
The truth is that the West, particularly continental Europe, saw a fading away of its (for the most) theological systems of thought in favour of a rational, economistic conception of the relationship between the individual and the world. Whatever the critics might say, 
this was founded on a Judeo-Christian tradition (as Nalin de Silva has noted, its system of logic and rationality were no less different to science and Marxism), and it would not have blossomed into the Industrial Revolution without the Inquisition or the Reformation, the latter of which, particularly through Calvin and Luther, substituted collective salvation for individual repentance.
this was founded on a Judeo-Christian tradition (as Nalin de Silva has noted, its system of logic and rationality were no less different to science and Marxism), and it would not have blossomed into the Industrial Revolution without the Inquisition or the Reformation, the latter of which, particularly through Calvin and Luther, substituted collective salvation for individual repentance. Gandhi once offered an amusing riposte to someone who asked him as to what he thought of Western civilization: “I think it would be a good idea.” Hidden beneath the amusement and the wit was a blunt, if not brash, comment on the dichotomy between the real and the ideal at the heart of that civilisation. Those who have read Fernand Braudel will no doubt believe that all civilisations were essentially one, that the world was not always divided between China and India on the one hand and continental France and Britain on the other. True. But then differences were bound to arise, partly because of the economic strength of the latter and also because that economic strength brought about a pressing need to make comparisons, to feel superior, to exert force on the Other. Contemporary imperialism at its strongest, most insidious.
Sir Arthur Gordon
Cultural imperialism is nothing without the cultural aspect to it, and that aspect comes out most strongly with respect to how different civilisations casually demarcated as the “Other” are depicted, represented, patronised, and condescended to. Even today. The first few decades of British rule in India, before the Mutiny of 1857, involved an exchange of cultural artefacts, in fact two ways of life. The colonialist found it to his liking to be Indian, to go around town inspecting the ways of life he had intruded on, to make himself a part of the people he had invaded. It was roughly the same
phenomenon that unfolded itself in Sri Lanka, with the main bone of contention here being the promise made by the invaders to protect Buddhism and act in place of the deposed King. Stewart-Mackenzie overtly made it his mission to convert our “heathens” to Christianity, thus severing the ties between the State and the faith. The latter part of the 19th century saw a reversal of this trend, with Sir William Gregory and Sir Arthur Gordon explicitly recognising the place of Buddhism and emphasising neutrality with respect to the relations between their government and our faith. Naturally this concurrent system of condescending to and denigrating a culture, as defined by the Other, could only result in an insidious history of looting and expatriation of artefacts on the one hand and conversion and destruction of the people on the other. What was material about our way of life – the Koh-i-Noor, the Nassak Diamond, Shah Jahan’s Royal Jade Wine Cup – was what was also exotic about it, while what was superficially not material, and therefore based on ideas and ideology – faith, feudalism, casteism – was what irked the colonialist into either doing away with it altogether, by force, or (as with the caste system) transforming and then contorting it for their own benefit. How else could such a “barbaric” and “primitive” system of governance as feudalism not give way to capitalism in colonised Ceylon, and how else could the system of casteism which British intellectuals had pondered over and deplored be retained to produce a horde of brown sahibs and Nobodies and Somebodies whose lineage continues today, and who are responsible for many of the economic shortfalls we as a country are suffering at present? How else indeed!
Mahathma Gandhi
In Forster’s A Passage to India, the British officials and their wives laugh when Mrs Moore and Miss Quested demand that they get to know Indians. Forster’s novel indicts a conception of India drawn and then shattered by the West. Quested and Moore, the latter more than the former, are bored by the Westerner’s attempts to be polite and to retain their identity amidst the natives. It’s this otherness and aloofness that explains the mixture of amusement, condescension, imitativeness, and patronage which marks much of the relationship between the Orient and the Occident. They want us, they want to overwhelm us, but they can’t because they don’t know us. Because they don’t know us, and because their economic and political strength has made it their prerogative to conquer the rest of the world, they maintain a split personality with respect to how they treat us, and in the end “exoticise” us.
A friend of mine pointed out to me recently that all politics is culture, and all culture is politics. Correct. Nothing that is cultural can be cut off from the political, the social. The Mutiny was as much a political statement as the theft of the Koh-i-Noor, and the Uva Wellassa Rebellion was as much a political statement as the destruction of the temple. They are all connected, and interconnected in diverse, intriguing ways. If one is to divide the one from the other one inadvertently conceals the many other interrelationships that make up modernity, especially those between cultural exploitation on the one hand and political exploitation on the other. It’s confusing, in a vague and indiscriminate sense, which is why making sense of the mess we’re in, and sorting out that mess, involves understanding what those interrelationships are.
Because spatial constrains prevent me from delving into them, I’ll talk about them in next week’s column. Suffice it to say that these interrelationships and even dichotomies, at their most basic, differentiate between the old and the new, not as we know them today, but as the cultural imperialists and the wagers of cultural wars identify it: a tool demarcating what is knowledge and what is not. In turn this has, as I will point out, subsisted on the notion that all knowledge is what the West has made of it, which the East can only emulate. It’s a line of thinking, sinister and prone to all sorts of mischievous extrapolations, which was there during Arthur Balfour’s time in the 19th century. It’s a line of thinking that’s found its way to modernity courtesy of realpolitik diplomacy. Arthur Balfour is dead, but his intellectual heirs live today. They continue their assessment of the Other, the Orient, based on their assumptions of what we know, and do not know, and even willingly profess ignorance about.
A perusal of Henry Kissinger’s essay “Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy”, referenced in Edward Said’s monumental book Orientalism, indicates quite clearly that, for the West, the problems of the Third World weren’t problems of exploitation, cultural or political (in any case, such a gap between those two does not exist); rather, it was a problem with the East’s inability to be accurate. All those years, decades, and centuries of oppression and looting and condescension can, for Balfour and for Kissinger, be put down to one simplistic reason: we can’t think, we can’t reason.
Why and how is this wrong? What other dichotomies does it open us to? What of the gap between modernity as defined by them and modernity as defined by us? What place has globalisation got in the midst of all these distortions? More importantly, how do we differentiate between a modernity we have no choice but to embrace and an uprooted sensibility referred to as modernity which we have to recognise and do away with? All these are pertinent, as questions and as food for thought, and they deserve more than a cursory paragraph. They deserve an entire sketch.
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