Former Argentina president denies bombing cover-up plot in court

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is accused of plotting to protect Iranians accused in 1994 Jewish center bombing that killed 85

 Cristina Fernández de Kirchner speaks to journalists after leaving court in Buenos Aires. Photograph: Marcos Brindicci/Reuters

AFP in Buenos Aires-Thursday 26 October 2017 

Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has appeared in court, where she denied covering up for Iranians accused of involvement in a 1994 bombing at a Buenos Aires Jewish center that left 85 people dead.

Calling the case an “absurdity”, Kirchner, who held office from 2007 until 2015, went on to attack the judge overseeing the case, which is based on charges first levelled two years ago by a federal prosecutor who was found dead in his homeshortly before he was due to present his allegations publicly.

“I don’t expect any justice from you,” Kirchner, reading from a 17-page prepared statement, told the federal judge Claudio Bonadío on Thursday.

Kirchner is facing accusations of treason and plotting a cover-up for signing a 2012 pact with Iran that would have allowed senior Iranian officials accused of the deadly attack to be investigated in their own country, rather than in Argentina.

The judge, whom Kirchner tried to remove from office while she was still president, has 15 days to rule on whether to press forward with the charges, which also apply to Kirchner’s former foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, and other political aides.

The hearing came after Sunday’s congressional elections, in which Kirchner won a senate seat despite a surge in support for the president, Mauricio Macri, the center-right leader who succeeded her in office.

Senators enjoy immunity from prosecution, although this week judges stripped a former minister in Kirchner’s government of his immunity as part of a corruption inquiry.

“This is a great judicial absurdity,” said Kirchner. “The aim of this judicial persecution is to intimidate opposition leaders in congress. They want a submissive congress.”

The charges of the federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman – who was found dead in his apartment with a bullet wound to the head just one day before he was to appear before congress to set out his case – had been rejected several times by courts as lacking substance, but the case was reopened in February.

In asking for the case to be resumed, a federal prosecutor, Gerardo Pollicita, said that there existed “a criminal plan that had been orchestrated and put into practice” and whose aim was to “grant impunity” to Iranians who had international arrest warrants out on them.

The agreement was passed by the Argentinian congress but not by Iran, and never came into effect.

The former head of state said in court that the memorandum “had one aim: to allow an investigation into the Iranians accused in the AMIA attack, so that the case could move forwards”.

She has argued in the past that since Iran and Argentina have no extradition agreement, and Argentina does not carry out trials in absentia, there was no other way to proceed with the investigation.

Prosecutors are also looking into whether the country’s leadership at the time of the attack on the AMIA Jewish center had conspired to obstruct the investigation.

In the dock are the ex-president Carlos Menem, who ran the country from 1989 to 1999, the judge who led the investigation for its first 10 years, the ex-head of the intelligence agency, two prosecutors and a representative of the Jewish community, among others.

The AMIA bombing was the most deadly attack ever carried out in Argentina, and occurred just two years after a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.

Educating President Trump by his Chinese counterpart

American President Donald Trump

• How Beijing leads while Washington retreats from world affairs

 Wednesday, 25 October 2017

As American President Donald Trump prepares for his maiden Asian trip next month and plans to meet with President Xi Jinping of China, it is worth reflecting on their first summit meeting in Florida earlier this year. It was an eye-opening moment of education for President Trump by his counterpart Xi.

Yet as habits continues, President Donald Trump tweeted that “If China decides to help [with the North Korea Problem], that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them!”

Then he remembered the 10-minute tutorial from President Xi, after which Trump declared that “it’s not so easy”.
History matters

As if the Korea issue is not complicated enough as it is, it is exacerbated by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who apparently believes it is more important to spend time eviscerating his State Department to gain efficiencies than it is to avoiding nuclear war on the peninsula. It underscores an utter lack of appreciation for the clear and present danger.

After losing over 400,000 Chinese solders to American bombings during the Korean War, the never-ending conflict—even with the armistice in 1953—continues with the grandson of Kim Il-sung of North Korea. For China, North Korea is a protective buffer zone from the US ally of South Korea.

The Pentagon maintains over 28,000 armed forces under the UN command in South Korea. The demilitarised zone (DMZ), which is a 160-mile long and 2.5-mile wide strip of land, separates the North and South Koreas along the 38the parallel, just 35 miles north of Seoul with 12 million people out of South Korea’s 50 million.

As North Korea—with over 25 million people—intensifies its ballistic missile program, the United States has opened a $11-billion military base in South Korea and deployed the anti-missile THAAD system, even though it would neither fully protect American forces nor South Korea.

With the painful memories of the three-year Korean War, the Japanese invasion and Nanjing massacre, and most importantly the Century of Humiliation under Western powers, President Xi and the Chinese people understandably want to have their sense of natural place and peace in the existing world order with its own territorial integrity.

In this, China has diplomatically settled almost all 14-nation border issues neighbouring the Middle Kingdom—most recently with India near the Bhutan and Nepal borders. North Korea with its complicated legacy is the greatest challenge for Xi.
No empathy

One must compare the China challenge to that of President Trump who now realises his own border issue with Mexico is a test of his leadership and still wants to build a Great Wall to prevent illegal border-crossing, theft of American jobs, and dependence on the American welfare system. China is similarly concerned about a massive migration and refugee issue in the event of a destabilised North Korea.

As opposed to a misguided America for its own problems with on-going wars in the Middle East and elsewhere—financed by the Chinese, Japanese, and others—with increasing national debt, China has taken up the American vision of a globalised world through trade and commerce. This strategy is clearly China’s art of “peaceful” war with the US and the West, whose post-WWII legacy has been to maintain their primacy over the world order.

All this changed some 50 years later with the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when China won most of the gold and silver medals. It signalled the “coming of age” of the Middle Kingdom after four centuries of being eclipsed on the world stage.

Know Sino-America

In fact, Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ has been put into practice by China to “exploit your enemy’s weaknesses, avoid his strengths.” The enlightened founding generation of the US understood the Middle Kingdom better and learned from the wisdom of Chinese culture, literature, and history as they reflectively embedded the “Commerce Clause” into the American Constitution to create a commercial civilisation in the new nation and beyond its shores.

Now China has championed the American mission while the US retreats from the founding vision to herald President Trump’s “America First” strategy. President Xi’s “China rejuvenation” narrative through his most ambitious foreign policy of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an experiment just as the American project has always been an “Experiment” since its birth.

The BRI is China’s art of “peaceful” war to redress the old wounds inflicted on the Chinese people without collateral damage to those who involved in it. In fact, the BRI has a peaceful and win-win calculus as a global enterprise with almost 100-member countries in the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Departing from Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of “hide our capabilities and bide our time,” the post-Olympics re-emergence has essentially elevated China into a global leader arguably on par with the United States to address one of its remaining issues—North Korea. Even before President Xi proposed the G2 concept to model after their bilateral relationship as a “new type of great power relations,” the Chinese leader began to narrate the “China story” with its territorial integrity and its Confucian heritage.
Who is crazy?

Amid this, the United States has further pushed China to pressure North Korea with the repeated sanctions by the UN Security Council. The Hermit Kingdom with its nearly 900-mile border with China is trading over 80% of its imports and exports from their northern neighbor and patron. Less significant in percentage, however, is India as the second largest trading partner of North Korea followed by Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand.

Even the rest of business relations with more than 100 nations is nevertheless minuscule but the defiant young leader Kim Jong-un is neither recluse nor crazy. Any punitive retaliation on these countries has greater and negative implications for American trade relations and economic progress in a globalised world. The nationalists and military strategists at the White House—including the forced-out Steve Bannon, President Trump’s “Rasputin” in the foreign policy architecture—have argued that China must solve the Korean crisis. Softening the rhetoric lately, the former chief “trade war” strategist has recently claimed in Hong Kong that the stable trade relationship could help the two countries manage their differences over “other potential conflict points such as North Korea and the South China Sea.” On his way from Hong Kong, the “Rasputin” met privately with President Xi in Beijing.
The price of pomposity

In his ‘Art of War,’ Sun Tzu had foreshowed this kind of inconsistent behaviour and undisciplined language in a lost power: “If you don’t pay attention, you won’t last long. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

By still arguing on trade and appropriating American technology, the U.S. still upholds that it must take tougher stance on other countries, including China and now with South Korea. Accusing the elites and globalists in the US for getting the country into this situation, the embattled White House strategist expressed the prevailing American sentiment, “We’re not at economic war with China, China is at economic war with us.”

Meanwhile, China continues with economic development and global trade through its BRI. As the US prestige and influence decline with unpredictable President Trump, China makes more friends, influences others, and continues to tutor the American president.

[The writer, a former American diplomat and a military professor in Japan and South Korea (in the DMZ), is an associate-in-research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. Professor Mendis is the author of ‘Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a Pacific New World Order,’ which is also published in Chinese Mandarin in Beijing.]

Trump violates US constitution by deporting Indonesian refugees

Demonstrators hold an "Interfaith Prayer Vigil for Immigrant Justice" outside the federal building, where ethnic Chinese Christians who fled Indonesia after wide scale rioting decades ago and overstayed their visas in the U.S. must check-in with ICE, in Manchester, New Hampshire, US on October 13, 2017. Source: Reuters/Brian Snyder

By Max Walden | 26th October 2017

AN INDONESIAN non-profit has deemed the administration of Donald Trump’s plans to return 69 ethnic Chinese migrants to Indonesia unconstitutional, as US lawmakers from both sides of politics call upon the president to prevent the deportation.

Those facing forcible repatriation are part of a 2000-strong community of Indonesian descent in the state of New Hampshire, most of whom fled anti-Chinese violence to the United States during the archipelago’s deadly 1998 riots.

Under an initiative from Senator Jeanne Shaheen in 2010, these members of the Indonesian Chinese community were encouraged to register with the government and become documented under the condition that they check in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) every 3 months.

Earlier in 2017, however, the Trump administration decided to terminate the program earlier with the 69 individuals subsequently being informed that they faced deportation to Indonesia.

SEE ALSO: US supported mass killings of half a million Indonesians in 1965

An ethnic Chinese Christian, who fled Indonesia after wide scale rioting and overstayed her visa in the US, holds her daughter’s hand and a handwritten list of appointments with ICE, the last entry reading “…Instructed to report on 10/9/17 at 9:30 with tickets and itinerary to directly depart the US on or before 11/9/17..,.” before a scheduled ICE family meeting including her husband and five year-old daughter in Manchester, New Hampshire, US, October 13, 2017. Source: Reuters/Brian Snyder

Violating national and international law

The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) released a statement on Tuesday in which it said the government’s intention to deport the community members violates the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Section One of the 14th Amendment reads that the government cannot “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

LBH Jakarta also said that the deportations would violate international law, as the US is a signatory to the UN Torture Convention and Refugee Conventions, which regulates that states cannot return people to a country where they are at risk of persecution, violence or torture.

“They feel that they are citizens of the United States. Most of them have left everything behind in 1998: family, jobs and property,” said Alldo Fellix Januardy, a human rights lawyer at LBH Jakarta.

“Starting everything all over again, in a country from which they were forced to flee, would only bring trauma to these families.”

Looters burn office chairs on the streets of Jakarta, 14 May 1998. Source: Wiki Commons

SEE ALSO: Xenophobia rears its ugly head on the streets of Jakarta

The community fled widespread violence in May 1998, which led to more than 1000 deaths and property destruction in Chinese-majority neighbourhoods of urban centres such as Jakarta, Medan and Solo, and the rape of hundreds of women.

Januardy told Asian Correspondent that in a time of political turmoil the country’s Chinese minority were made “scapegoats for Indonesia’s economic crisis and inequality. It was a black period of history that everyone should acknowledge.”

The case of New Hampshire’s Indonesian community comes at a time when racial tensions are again running at a high in Indonesia – the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

Jakarta’s Christian, Chinese ex-governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama was ousted from his post and imprisoned in May after months of mass protests by hardline Muslim groups. He was convicted of insulting Islam under the country’s strict blasphemy laws.

 

A child holds a poster during a protest of Indonesia hardline Muslim group members to call for maximum punishment to be imposed on Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama. Source: Reuters/ Beawiharta

‘Let them stay’

A number of US lawmakers, meanwhile, are making a bipartisan appeal to President Trump to allow New Hampshire’s Indonesian community to stay.

The Mayor of Dover, New Hampshire, Karen Weston and her colleagues on the city council earlier in October unanimously voiced their support for the Indonesian community, who it said was living “under a cloud of uncertainty and fear.”

“The threat of deportations also envelops innocent children that have been given a safe harbour in our country and in our city,” said a council resolution as quoted by the New Hampshire Union Leader.

The state’s Governor Chris Sununu wrote to fellow Republican Trump last Friday in a letter publicly released by his office this week, calling upon the administration to reconsider its decision and urging a resolution to allow the 69 individuals to remain in the United States.

“While I firmly believe that we must take steps to curb illegal immigration, it is also imperative that we make the process for legal immigration more streamlined and practical,” wrote Sununu, stating that the Chinese Indonesian community provided the “perfect example” of this.

Demonstrators hold an “Interfaith Prayer Vigil for Immigrant Justice” outside the federal building, where ethnic Chinese Christians who fled Indonesia after wide scale rioting decades ago and overstayed their visas in the U.S. must check-in with ICE, in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S. on October 13, 2017. Source: Reuters/Brian Snyder

SEE ALSO: Indonesian presidential decree provides hope for refugees

“They came to this country fleeing persecution, and were met with the burdensome and confusing requirements that accompany the asylum process,” added Sununu, arguing that it was “not realistic” that asylum seekers would have the resources to “navigate a complicated legal process.”

Democratic Senator Shaheen welcomed the governor’s letter, stating on Monday that she had sent letters to leaders at the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, as well as Trump’s national security adviser, urging immediate attention to Sununu’s call.

“It’s important that the President and his administration understand that there’s bipartisan support for keeping these families intact and in New Hampshire, and that we cannot put these families in danger by sending them to a country where religious persecution is a very real threat,” she said.

Januardy told Asian Correspondent that returning the 69 people to Indonesia would re-traumatise the community, especially given the current political climate. “These victims’ fear that such violence could occur again is reasonable,” he said.

In a “worst case” scenario where they are deported, said Januardy, “we hope that the Indonesian government would assist [them] to build a new life, particularly to help them recover from past trauma.”

Asia: Lies, lies and more lies are the order of the day in a regional NGO

This is of particular concern as the issue of impunity has been at the forefront of the particular NGO attacks on the police services, military and even government offices of countries throughout Asia.

by a Special Correspondent-Oct 25, 2017

(October 25, 2017, Beijing, Sri Lanka Guardian) In the past few months, Sri Lanka Guardian has been writing a great deal about regional NGOs that are abusing funds provided by their donors. The reports have included, mismanagement of funds, nepotism, cronyism and even alleged sexual abuse of female staff. Another incident has now come to light involving a past employee and while it does not reveal misuse of funds, it does reveal appalling mismanagement, untruths told by the HR Head and the fact that the Former Head covered up for him.

This is of particular concern as the issue of impunity has been at the forefront of the particular NGO attacks on the police services, military and even government offices of countries throughout Asia. It is therefore unacceptable that this NGO is hypocritical enough to allow the same impunity to its own executive.

The matter concerns three issues; the first was an application of a salary advance by one of their long serving staff. In February of the year in question he applied for an advance of salary from the HR Head and was informed that he, the HR Head was no longer in a position to grant such advances. He actually used the wording, “ it is no longer within my remit”, and that he would have to seek the approval of the board. However, within weeks of making this statement and in the full hearing of other members of staff he granted such an advance to one of his cronies, thereby proving that his earlier comments were a blatant lie. If the HR Head did not want to grant the salary advance he could have simply informed the staff member that, in his capacity as the senior most member of staff, he had elected not to do so. However, that would have been an inconvenient truth. Sadly, he found it more convenient to tell a convenient lie.

The problem lies with the fact that the HR Head had been permitted to lie, open faced, to a member of his staff and that the Former Head allowed him to get away with it. The pure arrogance in this matter is astounding.

The second incident involved a letter purported to be from the management committee in which he informed a member of staff that he was being reprimanded and that the committee had agreed on the content and the issuance of the said letter. The particular member of staff made inquiries with several members of that committee and was told that no one had knowledge of either the contents of, or the issuance of the letter. Once again it must be asked as to why the HR Head felt that he had the right to a member of the staff with impunity. If he had omitted the part about the letter being approved by the committee there would have been no problem. However, that would have been an inconvenient truth. By hiding behind the management committee, the HR Head told another convenient lie.

In the territory where NGO is based staff members who have served over a certain amount of years are entitled to a long-term service payment. They are also entitled to the payment of a retirement fund which all staff and employers are required to pay into. The staff member was informed of the amount that he was to receive as a long-term award and was surprised as the employer has the right to deduct any contributions to the retirement scheme. After making inquiries of the HR Head in the presence of a senior member of staff, he was told that no deductions would be made from his retirement award. However, upon receipt of the payment by the relevant bank he found that the sum of USD 11,000 had been deducted. The staff member gave the HR Head every opportunity to explain the situation but the latter dodged the question and left the matter to the Former Head to explain the matter. In what was obviously a contrived letter the Former Head informed the staff member that they had paid him everything he was entitled to. What the Former Head failed to explain was why the HR Head had once again been permitted to lie to a member of staff with impunity.

It is important to emphasise that there had been no financial impropriety on this occasion. The problem lies with the fact that the HR Head had been permitted to lie, open faced, to a member of his staff and that the Former Head allowed him to get away with it. The pure arrogance in this matter is astounding.

It is appalling that despite their very public stand for more than 20 years on the issue of impunity for wrongdoing, the management and directors of this NGO are prepared to turn a blind eye to the actions of their own HR Head.

Ugandan girls forced into child marriage because they can't afford sanitary pads

Christine, 19, was forced to drop out of school at 15 when her widowed mother could no longer afford the fees. A year later, she got married. “I was so bored at home,” she explains. “I had nothing to do and no money. My mother told me it would be best to look for a man so he could buy me things I needed, like sanitary pads.” The man's family paid just $40 for her to become his wife and, a year later, she had a baby boy called Julius.\n\nChristine felt frustrated and alone, forced to stay at home all day by a husband who placed restrictions on when she could go out. “My parents struggled to be able to send me to school until I was 15 and here I was, wasting my education by just staying at home,” she says.

Emma Batha-OCTOBER 23, 2017

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Ugandan schoolgirl Auma got her first period she asked her mother for sanitary pads. Her mother suggested she find herself a husband to pay for them. Auma was just 12.

Christine, 19, was forced to drop out of school at 15 when her widowed mother could no longer afford the fees. A year later, she got married. “I was so bored at home,” she explains. “I had nothing to do and no money. My mother told me it would be best to look for a man so he could buy me things I needed, like sanitary pads.” The man's family paid just $40 for her to become his wife and, a year later, she had a baby boy called Julius.\n\nChristine felt frustrated and alone, forced to stay at home all day by a husband who placed restrictions on when she could go out. “My parents struggled to be able to send me to school until I was 15 and here I was, wasting my education by just staying at home,” she says.

Auma’s story is not uncommon. Many girls in Uganda drop out of education when they begin menstruating because their schools lack proper washrooms or because they cannot afford costly sanitary products which are all imported.

Aid agency Plan International says hundreds of girls are forced into child marriages by parents too poor to buy hygiene products.

Many others are pressured into having sex by boys who offer to buy them sanitary items in return. Some end up pregnant and drop out of school.

Girl’s menstrual health, normally a taboo subject in conservative Uganda, made headlines this year when a high profile campaigner on the issue was arrested and detained for calling President Yoweri Museveni “a pair of buttocks” in a Facebook post.

University lecturer Stella Nyanzi unleashed a series of colorful attacks on the president and his wife after he failed to keep an election promise to provide sanitary pads to schoolgirls.

Earlier this year, First Lady Janet Museveni, who is also minister for education, said the government did not have sufficient funds.

Nyanzi promptly launched a crowdfunding campaign #Pads4GirlsUg to collect donations for pads to be distributed at schools.

She was released on bail in May after a month behind bars, but is on trial for cyber harassment.

A government official said the education ministry was now in talks with a national charity and a pharmaceutical company with a view to producing free hygiene products for schoolgirls.

CHILD MARRIAGE

Nyanzi’s case has shone a spotlight on an issue that development experts say is a major barrier to girls’ education.

U.N. children’s agency UNICEF has estimated around 60 percent of girls in Uganda miss class because their schools lack separate toilets and washing facilities to help them manage their periods.

Many fall behind and end up quitting school. Once out of school they are more likely to be married off.

Patrick Adupa, Plan International’s child protection program manager in Uganda, said the lack of menstrual hygiene support for schoolgirls was a strong factor in the country’s high drop-out rate.

More than 40 percent of girls fail to complete primary school and only a fifth start secondary school, Adupa said.

“Education is a very powerful tool in the prevention of child marriage,” he added.

“When girls are out of school because they cannot manage their periods it’s hard for them to avoid marriage.”

Although Uganda has banned child marriage, four in 10 girls are wed before they turn 18, and one in 10 before 15, UNICEF says.

Adupa said sanitary products could cost girls around $2 a month - a prohibitive price in a country where nearly one in five people lives on less than $1 a day.

Instead girls often use old rags, dried leaves or grass or paper - sometimes tearing pages from school books.

Auma was lucky. Her mother did not force her to marry and she is now 15 and still in school in Tororo district in eastern Uganda.

But teenager Christine Amusugut was not so fortunate. When she complained about using rags, her mother suggested she find a husband to buy her hygiene products.

“Most of my friends dropped out of school because they did not have basic things they needed like sanitary pads, just like me,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Tororo.

Amusugut, now 19, said she had got good grades at school and had wanted to be a nurse, but was “sold” at 16 to her husband’s family for $40 as her widowed mother struggled to make ends meet.

STIGMA AND BULLYING

Plan International called for Uganda to reduce the cost of sanitary pads, ensure schools had separate girls’ toilets and introduce sex education to destigmatize menstruation.

Adupa said there was a lot of ignorance around periods.

At one school, boys told aid workers they thought girls who bled had been victims of sexual violence and drew demeaning pictures on the blackboard.

“The effect on the girls was devastating: many skipped school to avoid the bullying. Some never returned,” Adupa said.

 

To tackle the stigma, several aid agencies have set up menstrual hygiene clubs at schools across the country where girls can make their own reusable cotton sanitary pads with removable waterproof linings.

Boys are included in some clubs, taking the pads they make home to their sisters.

Uganda is not the only country looking at providing free sanitary towels as a way to boost girls’ education levels.

Kenya and Zambia have also promised to supply pads to schoolgirls - although aid agency WaterAid said Zambia had yet to commit any funding.

Economists say keeping girls in school not only protects them from child marriage but boosts national prosperity.

An educated girl is more likely to be economically productive and to have healthier and better educated children of her own, creating a ripple effect.

“We have a saying in Uganda, educate a girl, educate a nation,” Adupa said.

New science suggests the ocean could rise more — and faster — than we thought

The Pine Island Glacier ice front. (Image credit: Robert Larter)

By Chris Mooney October 26 at 8:30 AM

Climate change could lead to sea level rises that are larger, and happen more rapidly, than previously thought, according to a trio of new studies that reflect mounting concerns about the stability of polar ice.

If carbon emissions continue unabated, expanding oceans and massive ice melt would threaten global coastal communities, according to new projections. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

New science suggests the ocean could rise more — and faster — than we thought.docx by Thavam on Scribd

Superbug 'sleuthing' finds secret outbreaks

26 October 2017

A feat of "genomic sleuthing" has uncovered 173 secret outbreaks of the superbug MRSA, a study shows.

They were found in the east of England over the course of just one year, according to the details published in Science Translational Medicine.

The researchers say their approach could transform the way we tackle MRSA and other superbugs.

Detecting outbreaks that are happening under our noses should cut the number of people infected.

• MRSA - or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - is a bacterial infection that is resistant to a number of widely-used antibiotics
• It can cause life-threatening infections if the bug breaches the skin, such as through a surgical wound

Detective work

Hospitals in the UK have become very good at catching outbreaks of MRSA, especially when they happen in the same place at the same time - such as in one hospital ward.

But MRSA also spreads outside of hospitals, in people's homes, in care homes; and patients and staff also move around from place to place.

Doctors will see the individual cases, but cannot always spot the bigger picture and catch the outbreak.

Prof Sharon Peacock, one of the researchers, told the BBC: "Patients move around wards very quickly and you don't always spot the links Sherlock Holmes might detect, but the genomics does it for you."

The team at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute sequenced the genetic code of every single MRSA sample that came through three hospitals and 75 GP surgeries.

They then pieced together the clues in a feat of genetic genealogy.

By looking at the genetic code, the researchers could work out which samples were closely related and therefore part of the same outbreak.

Surprise

They found 173, ranging from outbreaks affecting two patients up to 44.

"I was surprised by how many we detected," Prof Peacock said.

She added: "This could reverse the way we do infection control to be much more targeted, efficient and effective."

This strategy cannot prevent an outbreak from occurring, but it can nip it in the bud.

It is possible to get rid of MRSA, which mostly lives up the nose or on skin, using creams and antiseptic baths.

A smaller scale version of this study managed to track down the carrier of MRSAand bring an outbreak in a baby unit to an end.

Huge advances in DNA sequencing mean the whole genome of a bacterium can be worked out in a day for around £120.

The researchers are about to start a trial investigating the cost-effectiveness of introducing genomic detective-work into the NHS.

Dr Jonathan Pearce, the head of infections and immunity at the UK's Medical Research Council, said: "This study sheds light on MRSA transmission within and between hospitals and the community, which could help strengthen infection prevention and control measures."

Follow James on Twitter.

CHANGE OF CONSTITUTION OPPOSED BY LORDS THIS TIME

Power Sharing in Sri Lanka and Belgium Class 10 Civics

By Dr. Vickramabahu Karunaratne-2017-10-26


One pundit explains to us: 'When a pot of water heats up, small bubbles form; then bigger bubbles form, and convection currents begin to cause much agitation, increase of entropy and turbulence; the water is ready to undergo a 'phase transition'. Water becomes steam. Social systems too, when highly stressed show increasing social turmoil, disruption and corruption.

The normal course of justice is thwarted and those who control the purse begin to loot it." Vaguely he is explaining the social change as explained by Karl Marx. Sri Lanka has passed a revolution in the Presidential Election and the struggle against negative forces is not yet over. If one goes by the news reports, Sri Lanka is in a state close to conclude the transition that started with the victory of President Maithripala Sirisena. He has enough executive powers to take action and to arrest the negative forces with the support of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. But, instead, an additional factor of conflict has been introduced by the attempt to stop change the rule book enabling devolution of power and the purse, to satisfy the democrats inside and outside the country.

Surely, given this cyber age where even a colony on the moon can be run from Cape Canaveral, devolution is a must for controlling the power of ruling elites.

The nationality problem

Yet, fake histories are put forward to justify the arrest of such transfer of power and the purse, to the people who have traditionally lived in their so-called 'traditional homelands.' They misquote the Ramayana, Arabian Nights and both the Bible and the Koran to counter historical truth and reality.
On the other hand, some who have forgotten the gravity of the nationality problem have pointed out that priority should be given to resolving civil discontent that is threatening not only the Government, but every citizen's well being! According to their 'Marxist' analysis, apparently, a proletarian uprising is on the way. No joke, they are serious. Hence they have questioned the need for re-writing the Constitution at this hour. The first concern of a man falling into a fire cannot be a re-writing of the regulations for the fire brigade! The external pressure for the change of the Constitution put in by the 'US, UK and others working with a powerful diaspora', has been sharply questioned, apparently this time not by Malwatte- Asgiriya, but by some Lords in the British House of Lords, affirming what these pundits had already asserted. So, if the Government wishes to abandon these 'divisive projects', it only has to capture the golden moment to suppress proletarians with the help of foreign friends. And yet, unfortunately the rewriting of the Constitution seems to be so important to the Government that the Prime Minister attacked newspaper editors in public for reporting the opposition of the Mahanayake to the attempt to change the Constitution! The Pundit asks, is there a hidden meaning behind all this?

Both the President and the Prime Minister have come along different routes with different experiences. One is a village leader with a communist leaning to start with; the other is a Colombo Seven Royalist, but with a father, who was one time theoretician of the Trotskyite Sama Samajist movement, grinning at him all the time! However, they have made a political combination in the category of social liberalism. So far they have faced criticism from all sides and moved forward. Still a massive people's movement is active in the hope of achieving under this political leadership. The attacks made by the fascistic opposition citing the so-called unprecedented financial scandals are still treated as of no consequence by these liberal leaders. On the other hand, while many investigations are made, and many arrests are made, no one is really caught and punished. This has become a negative aspect of social liberalism. The inability to sharply break from chauvinism and the eagerness of the liberal duo to make compromises with certain leaders responsible for establishing fascism has created suspicion and anger among the active leaders of the mass democratic movement. It is a defect identified by Trotsky, that liberal leaders are unable to stand firmly against chauvinism and to overthrow corrupt backward regimes to establish democracy. In Sri Lanka, can the liberal leaders go ahead attacking chauvinist elements, finally to carry out the democratic duty of the promulgation of a Constitution with satisfactory power sharing?

Opposition leader humiliated and insulted by presidential security when he arrives for National Deepavali celebration !

(Lanka-e-News - 25.Oct.2017, 9.00 PM)   Opposition leader R.Sampanthan was most contemptuously treated by the president’s security division when he arrived in response  to an invitation extended to him to attend the National Deepavali  celebrations . As a result Sampanthan felt  most insulted and hurt.

85 years old Sampanthan , a prominent Tamil leader cum country’s opposition leader was invited to participate in the Deepavali celebrations held at the Temple Trees on the 15 th under the auspices of the president and the  prime minister.

Though it is  the practice when a prominent Tamil leader of the country  arrives for a national celebration to welcome him with warmth , cordiality and respect,  the security officers of president Maithripala on the contrary  have  frisked him like an intruder , and done a detailed search on him. In addition they have made him to go before the scanning device  which detects bombs .Because on the first occasion the equipment was not functioning duly , Sampanthan was called back again and subjected to the scanning test. It is a matter for deep regret the security division of the president has not even taken into consideration the ripe old age and physically infirm state of Sampanthan  who finds difficult even to walk .

This most unfortunate  incident happening on Deepavali day – an auspicious day for Tamils has deeply  hurt the senior Tamil national leaders . The media personnel who were present at that moment would testify to it. 

At functions attended by the president it is the security division of the latter which takes full  responsibility to provide security.  Even the security division of the P.M. must give way and fall back.

Of course a president must have a security detail , but now when there isn’t a war , it is more  important to duly respect senior leaders than embarrass them .

It is  worthy of note   not only president Sirisena , even his son in law who was running a studio in Polonnaruwa before Maithripala became the president , but has now become a billionaire through wheeler dealer activities is provided with a  security detail comprising 6 security convoy vehicles plus about 50 security personnel.

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by     (2017-10-25 15:48:37)

Racist, offensive comments on new Constitution: Mangala takes Kamal and Wimal to task

Accuses them of acting as Gota’s pawns

 

Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 01:15

Finance and Mass Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera yesterday severely criticized Retired Major General Kamal Gunaratne and Parliamentarian Wimal Weerawansa over their violent and offensive comments on the new Constitution.

The minister in a strongly worded statement accused them of acting as pawns of former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. He reiterated that the “Viyath Maga” movement was formed to cater to the future political aspiration of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The Minister reminded that the unity government received a clear mandate in 2015 to introduce a new Constitution to usher in permanent peace, reconciliation and development.

Also citing Gunaratne and Retired Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekara’s recent comments that all who support the new Constitution must be killed and the most recent comment by Weerawansa that Parliament should be bombed, pointed out these horrific comments were made at a time the government is working towards delivering this undertaking of formulating a new Constitution.

“We need not reply to filthy statements of racists, yet I should voice the concerns of democracy-loving people who stand against the barking of those blood thirty and power hungry political elements. If they can make such gory comments on a civil platform when they are out of power, people with some sense could imagine the crimes they had committed when they held ruling power. These threats also put the lives of democracy-loving and wise people at risk,” Minister Samaraweera stated.

The minister went on to say that Kamal Gunaratne in his recent book had betrayed the Sri Lanka Army by illustrating the fatal attacks on the Northern people and instances of looting their property and thus preparing the ground for war crimes allegations. He reminded that the investigations are still on against Gunaratne over a mysterious death of a Sri Lankan occurred when Gunaratne was in the diplomatic service.

Samaraweera, commenting on Weerawansa’s statement on bombing Parliament, said Weerawansa had displayed his fanatic political hooliganism following the same footsteps of his brother-in-law who bombed Parliament in the 1988-89 era.

The minister, recalling the infamous white van culture in the Rajapaksa era, noted that the criminal mindset of those in the Rajapaksa camp remains unchanged with or without power.

The minister stressed that no one could stop the ongoing efforts of the government to usher peace and reconciliation and develop the country.

Govt yet to capitalise on Lord Naseby’s call to UK parliament

Request to lower death toll from 40,000 to 8,000

War crimes:

By Shamindra Ferdinando-October 26, 2017, 12:00 pm 

Cabinet spokesman and Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera yesterday said that the government could act on Lord Naseby’s recent call to Theresa May’s government in the UK to review the much-touted UN allegation that 40,000 Tamil civilians perished on the Vanni front in 2009 in the final phase of the war.

Minister Jayasekera said so when The Island asked whether the cabinet of ministers had discussed Naseby’s Oct 12, 2017 declaration in British parliament that as there couldn’t have been more than 8,000 deaths, the UK government should intervene on behalf of Sri Lanka to set the record straight.

The issue hadn’t been taken up at the cabinet ministers’ meeting on Tuesday (Oct 24).

The SLFPer addressed the post-cabinet media briefing at the Information Department yesterday with military spokesman Maj. Gen. Roshan Seneviratne.

When The Island pointed out that the parliament nor government hadn’t so far reacted to a most favourable statement made on Sri Lanka’s behalf, Minister Jayasekera said that they appreciated Lord Naseby’s effort.

Lord Naseby, in his Oct 12 statement strongly denied accusations that the Sri Lankan military had deliberately targeted civilians.

Reiterating their resolve to defend the armed forces, Minister Jayasekera said that Lord Naseby had spoken for Sri Lanka whereas many foreign politicians succumbed to Tamil Diaspora pressure for domestic political reasons.

Asked whether the government didn’t realize the urgent requirement to challenge unsubstantiated war crimes allegations against the backdrop of Lord Naseby’s statement as such accusations were the basis for forcing Sri Lanka to introduce a new constitution, Minister Jayasekera said that there was longstanding demand from the Tamil community for constitutional reforms.

Minister Jayasekera insisted that the Geneva hadn’t intervened in the process to introduce a new Constitution. The SLFPer said so when The Island pointed out that Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) had specifically suggested in June 2016 that a new Constitution be introduced in 2017 subject to a referendum.

Minister Jayasekera inquired from The Island whether it accepted that the Tamil community experienced difficulties? In response to that query, The Island pointed out that they didn’t face any exceptional difficulties not experienced by other communities in Sri Lanka.

Minister Jayasekera said the government leaders had repeatedly assured that armed forces personnel wouldn’t be allowed to be harmed, when The Island pointed out that both the previous government in which he was a minister and the current administration had failed to make representations at the relevant forums.

The Island sought an explanation from Minister Jayasekera as to why Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan had urged the northerners to vote for Gen. Sarath Fonseka at the 2010 January presidential polls after having accused his army of massacring Tamils on the Vanni front, the SLFPer said that the TNA wanted to defeat war winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The minister refrained from commenting on The Island observation even if Sampanthan requested, the electorate would have ignored the TNA chief’s call if they really believed allegations the Army deliberately killed thousands.

The TNA took a similar stand at 2015 January presidential poll, the minister said, referring to large scale post-war rehabilitation and reconstruction projects undertaken by the then government for the benefit of people living in liberated areas.

Maj. Gen. Seneviratne explained the gradual releasing of land held by the military since the successful conclusion of the war in May 2009.

In the Jaffna peninsula, the army commenced releasing land in Oct 2010 on the instructions of the previous government.

Maj. Gen. Seneviratne dismissed claims that the military held land hadn’t been released so may years after the war.

Minister Jayasekera warned of dire consequences unless grievances of those who had been affected by the conflict weren’t addressed.