Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for blast and siege in Somali capital, two weeks after bombing in city that left more than 350 dead
Aftermath of the car bombing at the gate of Naso Hablod hotel in Mogadishu. Photograph: Reuters
Associated Press in Mogadishu-Sunday 29 October 2017
Security forces in Mogadishu have ended a night-long siege at a hotel by five extremist attackers that left 23 people dead and more than 30 injured.
The group stormed the building after a suicide car bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at the entrance gate on Saturday afternoon.
Capt. Mohamed Hussein said that troops regained control of the hotel on Sunday morning, having killed three attackers and captured two alive.
Police said security forces had rescued 30 people, including a government minister, from Mogadishu’s Nasa-Hablod hotel
Among the dead were a mother and three children, including a baby, all shot in the head, Hussein said. Other victims included a senior Somali police colonel, a former lawmaker and a former government minister. Footage from the scene showed twisted vehicles and nearby buildings with only walls left standing.
Al-Shabaab, Africa’s deadliest Islamic extremist group, quickly claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack and said its fighters were inside the hotel. As night fell, sporadic gunfire could be heard as soldiers responded. A senior Somali police colonel and a former lawmaker were among the dead, Hussein said.
Mohamed Dek Haji said he survived the bombing as he walked beside a parked car that was largely destroyed by the explosion. He said he saw at least three armed men in military uniforms running toward the hotel after the suicide bombing at its gate.
“I think they were al-Shabaab fighters who were trying to storm the hotel,” he said, lying on a hospital bed. He suffered small injuries on his shoulder and skull from flying glass.
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Witnesses in some previous attacks have said al-Shabab fighters disguised themselves by wearing military uniforms.
Al-Shabaab often targets high-profile areas of Mogadishu. It has not commented on the massive attack two weeks ago; experts have said the death toll was so high that the group hesitated to further anger Somali citizens as its pursues its insurgency.
Since the blast two weeks ago, president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has visited other countries in the region to seek more support for the fight against the extremist group, vowing a “state of war”. He also faces the challenge of pulling together regional powers inside his long-fractured country, where the federal government is only now trying to assert itself beyond Mogadishu and other major cities.
A 22,000-strong multinational African Union force in Somalia is expected to withdraw its forces and hand over the country’s security to the Somali military by the end of 2020. In recent months US military officials and others have expressed concern that Somali forces are not yet ready.
The US military also has stepped up efforts against al-Shabaab this year in Somalia, carrying out nearly 20 drone strikes as the global war on extremism moves deeper into the African continent.
GENEVA (25 October 2017) - The UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred de Zayas, is calling on Spanish authorities to enter into negotiations in good faith with leaders in Catalonia following the announcement that the Spanish Government would suspend the region’s autonomy. On 19 October, the Spanish Government announced its intention to impose direct rule on the region after a deadline seeking an end to the Catalan independence campaign was not met. His statement is as follows:
“I deplore the decision of the Spanish Government to suspend Catalan autonomy. This action constitutes retrogression in human rights protection, incompatible with Articles 1, 19, 25 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Pursuant to Articles 10(2) and 96 of the Spanish Constitution, international treaties constitute the law of the land and, therefore, Spanish law must be interpreted in conformity with international treaties.
“Denying a people the right to express themselves on the issue of self-determination, denying the legality of a referendum, using force to prevent the holding of a referendum, and cancelling the limited autonomy of a people by way of punishment constitutes a violation of Article 1 of the ICCPR and of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Alternatively, addressing the aspiration of peoples to self-determination in a timely fashion is an important conflict prevention measure, as is evidenced by the countless wars that have occurred since 1945 that found their origin in denial of self-determination. Dialogue and political negotiation should be encouraged to prevent violence.
“The Spanish Government appears to invoke the principle of territorial integrity to justify forceful attempts to silence political dissent and aspirations of self-determination. While the principle of territorial integrity is important, as understood in many United Nations Resolutions, including GA Resolutions 2625 and 3314, it is intended to be applied externally, to prohibit foreign threats or incursions into the territorial integrity of sovereign States. This principle cannot be invoked to quench the right of all people, guaranteed under Article 1 of the International Covenants on Human Rights, to express their desire to control their futures. The right of self-determination is a right of peoples and not a prerogative of States to grant or deny. In case of a conflict between the principle of territorial integrity and the human right to self-determination, it is the latter that prevails.
“Of course, there are many peoples worldwide who aspire to self-determination, whether internal in the form of autonomy or external in the form of independence. And while the realization of self-determination is not automatic or self-executing, it is a fundamental human right that the international community should help implement.
“The international law of self-determination has also progressed far beyond mere decolonization. Applying the 15 criteria contained in my 2014 report (paras 63-77), it is evident that no state can use the principle of territorial integrity to deny the right of self-determination and that arguments about the legality of actions taken by Catalonia’s elected parliament are immaterial. Such arguments do not nullify the ius cogens character of self-determination.
“The only democratic solution to the current impasse is to suspend repressive measures and to organize a referendum so as to determine the true wishes of the population concerned. Such a referendum should be monitored by the EU, OSCE and private observers including the Carter Center.”
ENDS
Mr. Alfred de Zayas (United States of America) was appointed as the first Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order by the Human Rights Council, effective May 2012. He is currently professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy. Mr. de Zayas practiced corporate law and family law in New York and Florida. As a Human Rights Council mandate holder, he is independent from any government or organization and serves in his individual capacity.
The Independent Experts are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
Concerned about the world we live in? Then STAND UP for someone’s rights today.#Standup4humanrights and visit the web page at http://www.standup4humanrights.org
The Maldives, which is a 100% Islamic country, has been described by the West and the pro-West opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), as a hotbed of Islamic radicalism and a significant contributor to the Islamic State (IS) fighting forces in Syria. But this assessment is stoutly disputed by the Maldivian Police and the Government.
The Head of the Strategy and Legal Division of the Maldivian Police, Ahmed Shifan, points out that there has not been a single terrorist attack since 2007; that the West’s statistical interpretation is highly misleading; and that the unabated flow of hundreds of thousands of tourists from the West clearly shows the baselessness of the charge.
The Maldives has put in place systems of international standard to ensure the safety of its people and tourists who numbered 410,000 and 1,286,136 respectively in 2016. The hostile propaganda notwithstanding, the Maldives continues to attract well-heeled and fussy Western, Japanese and Chinese tourists. The UK alone accounted for over 100,000 last year.
But being a small country, living in the shadow of the powerful West, and also strategically located in the Indian Ocean, a country which has also become a playground of highly competitive democratic politics, the Maldives cannot ignore the charges made by the world’s powers and the local political parties linked to them.
The charge
The Maldives Times quotes an US-based security and risk management consultancy, the Soufan Group, to say that around 200 to 250 Maldivians are fighting in the wars in Syria and Iraq, making the Maldives, with a total population of 410,000, the highest foreign fighter contributor to the IS, “per capita”.
The “per capita contribution” was recently used by the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Alice G. Wells, in one of her official testimonies on the Maldives.
But according to the Maldivian Defence Minister, Adam Shareef Umar, the number of Maldivians fighting in Syria is just 49.
For a 100% Islamic country 49 is a small number, the Government contends. And although Western countries issue travel advisories saying terrorist attacks or civil unrest could take place at any time, there has been no terrorist attack since 2007. In 2007, an explosive device planted in Sultan Park (now Rasrani Bageechaa) had injured 12 tourists from China, Britain and Japan. This was followed by a police-people violent clash in Himandhoo Island in Alif Alif atoll. A local Islamic radical group injured 30 unarmed police officers, when the latter had gone in search for the plotters of the Sultan Park blast.
There is no organised recruitment to the Islamic State (IS), but it is going on piecemeal and privately, by preachers trained in radical Islamic seminaries in Pakistan and Afghanistan (not Saudi Arabia interestingly) , Shifan says.
“With stepped up vigilance and organisations like the National Counter Terrorism Center, this has not grown into a major problem. Things are under control,” Shifan said.
According to Maldives Times in 2016, three Maldivians were arrested on the Turkey-Syria border and charged with terrorism. Another was arrested and repatriated in February this year. Two others who had allegedly fought with militant groups in Pakistan are currently standing trial in the Maldives.
In September, three Maldivians were arrested as they were trying to cross into Syria. Turkey arrested two others and repatriated them to the Maldives. Recently, two Maldivians with links to the ISIS, were arrested in
Malaysia. They were accused of “using Malaysia and Singapore as a transit point for proceeding to Syria”. So far, seven Maldivians have reportedly died in the fighting in Syria.
The Maldives Times describes the case of a brilliant student with high scores in the A- Level exams being convinced by these powerful indoctrinators to abandon his family and country and leave for Syria to carry out Jihad and die in it to go straight to heaven. The boy’s educational certificates were burnt before being taken by air to Trivandrum in South India first, and then to Pakistan by the land route and finally to Syria.
Seven years with the IS convinced the boy that the IS’ leader were up to no good, justifying violation of every norm in the name of Jihad. He managed to escape and make his way to the Maldives. The other Maldivians in the IS also felt resentful, but would not leave, he said.
“With the help of foreign agencies including those of the US, we have been able to track down people trying to enter Syria. We have remanded them and put them through a de-radicalisation process,” Shifan, Director of Strategy Maldivian police, said
Maldivian way
The Maldives has devised its own way of tackling terrorism, applying force and stringent punishment where necessary and trying indoctrination, reformation and re-orientation in other contexts. There is also an over-arching scheme to teach people in schools and mosques a moderate Islam in tune with the Maldives ‘own historic Islamic tradition.
“We believe that reformation or re-orientation is better than punishment,” Shifan said.
Of course, those Islamic zealots who had committed crimes are punished. For example, the Prosecutor General has brought terror charges against people involved in the murder of blogger Yameen Rasheed and the abduction of journalist Ahmed Rilwan.
“The Ministries of Islamic Affairs and Home (Internal Security) along with the police conduct outreach programs in schools, both among students and teachers. We talk to Islamic preachers also. So far we have conducted nine outreach programs in the various atolls,” Shifan said.
“Islam is a compulsory subject in schools but the type of Islam taught is moderate. It is not Wahabism. In fact, there is no Wahabist group as such in the Maldives,” Shifan said.
There is however an Islamisation of Maldivian culture which is seen in an increase in the number of women wearing the hijab and men sporting beards. But this cannot and should not be interpreted as radical Islamisation of the political kind which believes in the physical elimination of non-adherents or intolerance of diversity, said Imjad Jaleel, a communication specialist in the Maldivian President’s Office.
“In the Maldives no one is forced to wear the hijab or grow a beard. What we see may well be a fashion trend,” he added.
But what the Maldivian Government is worried about is the tendency among some Western influenced bloggers to indulge in blasphemy, which does not go down well with the generally conservative and devout Maldivians. The Government also suspects that the West is using some NGOs and individuals to convert Muslims to Christianity. But Government believes that the only way to curb this is to stay with and propagate a moderate brand of Islam.
In response to Western concerns and also to protect tourism, the Government’s main breadwinner, the Yameen regime has enacted an anti-terror law in line with international standards and set up a National Counter Terrorism Center. And fortunately for the Maldives, its friend, Saudi Arabia, which has been the well-spring of Wahabism, is going to be non-Wahabi soon, thanks to Crown Prince Salman.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Unidentified kidnappers bundled the deputy governor of Afghanistan’s northwestern province of Kunar into a car in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and took him away, police sources said on Sunday.
Mohammad Nabi Ahmadi had crossed over from Afghanistan into Pakistan with his brother and was walking down a road in the northwestern city of Peshawar when a car with tinted windows pulled up and overpowered the Afghan official, according to a Peshawar police source.
The police source said Ahmadi’s brother recounted the episode to Pakistani police, but did not disclose that his brother was a high-ranking Afghan provincial government official.
“It was afterwards we came to know from other sources that he was deputy governor of Kunar,” said the police official.
Abdul Ghani Musamem, the spokesman for the governor of Kunar, confirmed Ahmadi had gone missing in Peshawar on Friday and added that he had been on leave for medical treatment.
Wealthy Afghans frequently cross the border for medical treatment in Pakistan. Many Afghans live in Peshawar and it is also common for influential figures in Afghanistan to have business or family links in the Pashtun regions of Pakistan.
The Pakistani police source said the Afghan government had not told them about Ahmadi’s visit, adding that “otherwise we would have provided him with security”.
Another security official said police in Peshawar were working to find out if Ahmadi’s kidnapping was related to his work or a personal dispute.
The Afghan Taliban denied involvement in Ahmadi’s kidnapping.
“We heard that a deputy Afghan governor went missing in Pakistan but let me clarify that we don’t operate outside Afghanistan,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
“In Pakistan, our leadership has strictly forbidden our people from any sort of activities as this is not our policy.”
French and U.S. Army soldiers bed down during a field training exercise in Arta, Djibouti, on March 16, 2016. (U.S. Air Force)
BYSEÁN D. NAYLOR,PAUL MCLEARY-
Fighting for their lives after driving with their Nigerien partners into a withering ambush, 11 members of the 3rd Special Forces Group called for close air support. Two French Mirage jets arrived an hour later. And when they showed up, the jets merely buzzed the battlefield and didn’t drop any bombs on the militants attacking the U.S.-Nigerien patrol.
Four U.S. soldiers, four Nigerien troops, and an interpreter died in the Oct. 4 battle. It was a bitter reminder to the 3rd Group that it was no longer in Afghanistan, the combat theater where the Fort Bragg, North Carolina-based unit had been focused from 2002 until late 2015. There, its teams could call in airstrikes often instantaneously and almost always within minutes. But since switching from Afghanistan to North and West Africa, the group has had to grapple with what its veterans repeatedly refer to as the continent’s “tyranny of distance,” combined with a paucity of resources when compared with mature combat theaters like Iraq and Afghanistan.
It has been a steep learning curve.
“In Afghanistan, you can pretty much do whatever you want with impunity because you always have access to precision air power stacked up,” said a former 3rd Group officer with extensive Afghanistan experience. “So we’re lured into this complacency, and now you’re lured into this situation on the ground in Africa where there was parity, or even a disadvantage, and we got smoked for it.”
In Africa, a field grade Special Forces officer who also served in both Afghanistan and West Africa said, “Special Forces are deployed significantly farther forward than you would see elsewhere and are more reliant upon their own capabilities.”
In addition to much longer waits for close air support, the expectations for medical evacuation are vastly different. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the standard for getting a wounded service member medically evacuated was 60 minutes, a time known as the “golden hour.”
“The golden hour is no longer even a thing,” said another former 3rd Group officer with extensive experience in both theaters. “Now that could be the golden 48 hours.”
While most of the U.S. team was airlifted from the battlefield within hours by French helicopters, an aircraft flown by a private company under contract to the American military had to carry the dead Americans away, according to Robyn Mack, a spokesperson from U.S. Africa Command.
The stark differences between operating in Africa and operating in mature combat theaters like Afghanistan and Iraq presented the 3rd Group with what its veterans say were some of their biggest hurdles. Those differences include working in a theater where the State Department, rather than military, calls the shots.
This calls for a “completely different” mindset on the part of the special operators, said retired Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, who until June headed Africom’s special operations component.
The sheer vastness of the area of operations, combined with the lack of resources when compared with Afghanistan, can be a shock to special operators used to having drones and strike aircraft available to get a team out of trouble.
A former 3rd Group officer with extensive Afghanistan experience said for special operators who have spent their entire military career fighting in Afghanistan, the adjustment to Africa can be jarring.
“You had a shitload of resources in Afghanistan — even when it was underfunded, compared with Iraq — that you don’t have in Africa,” the former officer said.
How the ambush and its aftermath will affect the U.S. mission in Africa is unclear, since the U.S. Defense Department is still trying to pin down exactly what took place and why. More than three weeks after the battle, official and unofficial accounts of the fight continue to evolve, and many outstanding questions remain.
Speaking at the Pentagon on Oct. 23, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the patrol to the Nigerien village of Tongo Tongo as a “civil-military reconnaissance mission.” Other accounts have said the patrol was helping another team consisting of U.S., French, and Nigerien forces hunt for a senior militant operating in the Niger-Mali border area.
The combined U.S.-Nigerien force left Niamey, the capital, early on the morning of Oct. 3 and drove about 50 miles north to Tongo Tongo, Dunford said. Just before noon the next day, after leaving the village to return to Niamey, the patrol came under attack from about 50 militants armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades and riding in pickup trucks.
Despite their numerical disadvantage, the Americans did not request support until an hour or so into the fight. After the French jets finally showed up, French helicopters and a Nigerien ground force arrived later that afternoon to relieve the beleaguered patrol and evacuate the wounded, including two U.S. personnel. But one American, Sgt. La David Johnson, remained missing.
Fearing that Johnson had been captured, a task force from the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Fort Bragg was launched that evening, flying to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, a U.S. official said. Meanwhile, two officials told Foreign Policy, Africom deployed its crisis response force — another 3rd Group unit — that specializes in no-notice direct action missions like hostage rescues. It is unclear what role that crisis response force, launched from Baumholder, Germany, played in the search for Johnson, but when his body was found on the evening of Oct. 6, the JSOC force was still in Sigonella, a U.S. official said.
As military investigators now pore over the details of the ill-fated patrol, 3rd Group veterans are concerned that the publicity surrounding the incident will change their mission, leading to tighter restrictions on operations in West Africa.
“That concerned me the entire time I was commander there — that any actions would result in a knee-jerk reaction of becoming more risk-averse,” Bolduc said.
“That’s why I told these guys, ‘Hey, man, our credibility hangs with every single patrol — it hangs with everything we do — and if we don’t acquit ourselves properly, then we’re going to get shut down unnecessarily.”
Active and retired Special Forces soldiers said controversy had led to the battle being given more weight than it might otherwise deserve. A former 3rd Group officer with experience in both Afghanistan and West Africa pointed out that when a Jordanian soldier shot three 5thSpecial Forces Group soldiers in Jordan in November 2016, the incident did not attract the “same level of scrutiny.”
A recently retired 3rd Group noncommissioned officer (NCO) said the focus on the casualties has taken away from what he called the “other side of the story” — the survival of most of the patrol in an ambush where U.S. soldiers were outnumbered and outgunned. “Usually if you have a 50-person ambush, everybody in the kill zone is dead,” he said. “Most of them got out of there.”
Nonetheless, “that team had a bad day,” he acknowledged.
Like other special operators, the 3rd Group NCO expressed concern that what he termed the “politically charged” fallout from the battle will mean that U.S. special operations forces in West Africa will be subjected to extra scrutiny and micromanagement.
“What’s probably going to happen is the guys have to wear all the body armor and look like crazy guys
,” he said, adding that it would be a mistake for higher headquarters to impose blanket requirements like that on Special Forces teams.
“These guys know when to put it on,” he said. “The judgement should be left up to the team leadership based on the mission.”
The soldiers were not wearing body armor at the time of the ambush, CNN reported.
Bolduc, the former Africom special operations boss, said if operations are curtailed in the wake of the battle, those orders were unlikely to come from Africom head Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, “but from Washington, D.C., and the Department of State side of the house, and certainly there could be other places in Washington, D.C., as well that could be a bit risk-averse.”
The former 3rd Group officer with experience in both Afghanistan and West Africa agreed. “That will probably happen initially,” he said of possible restrictions. “It would be a mistake if it did.”
Placing more restrictions on special operations forces in Africa would be a “worst-case scenario,” said a U.S. official familiar with missions on the continent. “We’d really be making a bad mistake by saying, ‘All right, that happened in Niger. Now everything on the African continent has to meet these criteria.’”
The official was concerned that the light, agile mission in West Africa would be forced to adopt some of the force protection measures troops were ordered to undertake in Iraq during the height of the American involvement there.
“You couldn’t leave the wire without six gun trucks and this many machine guns and this amount of people, and you had to check in 13 times, and you had to have ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft], and you had to have close air support within a certain range,” he said. “If you apply that to the African continent, we’d be left without the ability to do much.”
Since taking the oath of office in January, Donald Trump has provided evidence, almost daily, that he is ill-suited to be president of the United States. For months, much of the country has watched in despair as he and his administration have meat-axed the Affordable Care Act; crushed forward-looking Obama-era regulations in education, the environment and consumer protection; and backtracked on civil rights. He has made a mess of things with our allies, emboldened our adversaries and embarrassed the nation on the world stage. We have groaned through his insults and lies and witnessed his embrace of people and causes that travel on the dark side.
He shows no signs of relenting.
Trump bullies, brutalizes and slimes with impunity because members of his base cheer his every move or concoct reasons to keep their mouths shut whenever he crosses a red line. And his enablers are not just holed up in America’s heartland and red states; they are here in Washington lining the halls of Congress under the banner of the Republican Party.
His rabid base, however, is no reason to stand down.
There is just cause to stand up to him. And the way to give voice to disgust with Trump is through the vote. Yes, that weapon which makes a noise that no politician, regardless of polls and scads of PAC money, can ignore.
Follow Washington Post reporter, Marc Fisher, as he searches for the elusive Republican Ed Gillespie. Gillespie is running for Governor of Virginia but rarely updates reporters on his whereabouts. (Video: Dalton Bennett, Marc Fisher/Photo: Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post)
Preparation begins now. Tend to the basics: Get registered, get others registered, and get educated on how to vote because voter suppression is running amok, especially in the South. Get information about the elections and the candidates. And don’t pass up any contest.
State legislature and gubernatorial races are just as important as elected jobs in Washington. And don’t buy the argument that your vote doesn’t count if you happen to live in a voting area where your party is outnumbered.
Vote anyway, even if you cast a ballot for none of the above. That vote speaks volumes to the one who loses it.
Keep that thought in mind when entering the voting booth in state legislature contests and House and Senate races. Those GOP officeholders are key to Trump’s base. Through their votes and, at times, their inaction, they are keeping him in business and his agenda alive.
Upcoming elections should be a referendum on Trump.
Face it: Stripped and unadorned, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) is, politically, a Donald Trump.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)? Think Donald Trump.
Look no further than the likes of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) and Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) to find a political likeness of Donald Trump on the ballot.
The December Alabama ballot doesn’t carry Trump’s name, but consider Senate GOP nominee Roy Moore as a stand-in for the president. That ought to be reason enough for the 26 percent of Alabama residents who are black to flock to the polls.
Likewise, a Trump proxy is running for Republican governor of Virginia this year under the name Ed Gillespie.
In the 2018 Senate races, Trump doubles can be found with Republicans Ted Cruz in Texas and Roger Wicker in Mississippi. The three, as opponents of progressive government policies, are closer than two pages in a book.
Want to speak back to Trump and tell him how you feel? Get out and vote in places such as Alabama, Virginia, California, Wisconsin, Texas and Mississippi, where Trump surrogates are on the ballot. Let the president know you are out there.
The midterm 2018 elections can be Judgment Day for Trump. And dress rehearsal for 2020.
Fume and fuss, talk back to the television, kick the can, call Trump names, vent to your heart’s content. All that changes nothing. Also probably ruins your health.
What can make a difference? The ballot. Vote, vote, vote.
We live in a smart world and we need to use smart ways of travel. Unlike in China or even in Japan, we in Sri Lanka have not yet started wearing face masks for protection against air pollution.
by Victor Cherubim-
( October 28, 2017, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Air pollution is a big problem all over the world. But, more so in big cities like London, where tacking air pollution is a top priority now. War has been declared on toxic air and the current Mayor of London has issued seven toxic air alerts in the past 13 months. A £10 “T (Toxic) Charge” has been confirmed (also known as Emissions Surcharge) for the oldest most polluting vehicles in central London to start this October 2017.
First there was the Congestion Charge Zone in London, now there will be the Central London Ultra Low Emission (ULE) Zone in 2019 to tighten emission standards for diesel vehicles. Traffic is monitored at the pollution measurement stations around the ULE Zone. These are small traffic pollution curbing measures. Someday, there will be a Car Free Zone, in the not too distant future, in other areas other than Oxford Circus.
Many Londoners bought cleaner cars only to discover diesel engines were highly polluting engines. Recent research has shown almost 8 million Londoners live in areas that exceed World Health Organisation Air Quality guidelines.
Action to manage air pollution
Action to manage and improve air quality is largely driven by EU law, which sets legally binding limits for levels of major air pollutants. Separate legislation exists for emissions of air pollution.
Five things which can be done immediately authorities say to tackle this issue. They are as follows:
Use Cleaner transport, less polluting diesel engines
Use fewer vehicles, rely on bicycle transport and sharing vehicles
Build less highways and tarmac roads and rely on public transport
Increase the use of alternative ways of transport; greater use of railways, river and canal transport than at present
Build more Green and garden cities surrounding highways and roads.
But, it is still uncertain how effective these policies are and can be,
The use of low emission technologies
Using less polluting transport is not just being smart, it is environmentally responsible,
It is cheaper too. Vehicles that run on hydrogen or electricity is on the cards. Many are being trialled in London and in other big cities. The habit of using roads as the means of transport is ending.
Just because you cannot see it, does not mean there is no pollution. In UK where the days of smog filled industrial cities have been consigned to history, air pollution is seen as twice as deadly as road accidents. Major air pollution problems in cities come from particulate matter (PM) or unseen gases. PM floats in and through the air, a fraction of the size of a human hair, which is generally carried by vehicle exhausts.
The effect on breathing
Gases affecting air quality and human health such as nitrogen dioxide are also the result of oil, gas and coal burned at high temperatures. When absorbed, through breathing these pollutants cause respiratory problems, heart attacks and strokes. They have also been linked to autism, schizophrenia and dementia.
The effect of consistent travel in three wheelers
It was only recently that in Colombo we saw many of the three wheeler “auto rickshaws” which run on two stroke engines cough up 13 times more lung damaging particulates (PM) than other engine types. We are thankful to India for exporting these vehicles for cheap transport. But, we are more than thankful to the Yapalanaya government recently to curb the import of these death traps. They may be cheaper to travel, to operate and repair, but produce more health hazards and unwarranted disease.
What are the options available for the ordinary citizen?
We live in a smart world and we need to use smart ways of travel. Unlike in China or even in Japan, we in Sri Lanka have not yet started wearing face masks for protection against air pollution.
We hear of Major Gen, Dharshana Hettiarachchi, the Security Forces Commander in Jaffna for wanting to plant 100,000 coconut saplings in his command region. Reforestation of the coastal belt in his region will produce valuable results not only in 4 to 5 years of produce but also of fresh air. Trees do a great job of trapping PM, a hedge against pollution.
We are also told of alternative ways of travel and transport. Smart ways of travel means cycling to work, using shared transport, using public transport.
What has hardly been tried in Sri Lanka like in London, is adding more carriages to train-sets, so that there will be a seat for every passenger on trains, rather than riding dangerously on footboards. In London, where we were used to a maximum of eight carriages, we have extended our platforms to take twelve carriage trains.
We see more Garden Cities being built to surround major cities. Green spaces in cities cannot be a solution in isolation for air pollution reduction, but tree planting can enhance air quality and help urban towns become resource efficient. Shrubs Surround, Trees and foliage on roads serve dual purpose; they absorb carbon dioxide, take the heat off the tarmac and provide not only shade but greenery. The efficacy of roadside trees for mitigation of PM (particulate matter) is seriously underestimated.
Tackling air pollution is top priority today; it should be top priority in Sri Lanka tomorrow. A Mobile Alert of Air Quality in Colombo would definitely be a start.
This week, the government introduced upfront NHS fees for overseas visitors. The rules apply to non-urgent, planned treatment – while A&E remains free for all.
Charges mainly apply to people from outside the European Economic Area. So, before using the NHS, some people may need to prove they have “ordinary residency” in the UK.
The fees are not new in themselves, but previously patients were only billed after receiving care. However, partly as a result of this, the NHS was only recovering around half of the total debts owed to it.
Hospitals are now required to “identify those not eligible for free care”, and patients may be asked for their passports or other documentation.
The government claims that upfront charges play an “important role in meeting the government’s ambition to recover up to £500 million a year from overseas visitors who are not eligible for free care”.
But an investigation by FactCheck has found that crucial details were left out of the costings. Because of this, we cannot rule out the possibility that the measures might cost more money than they raise.
What’s the £500m target?
This target does not just include the new upfront charges. Instead, it is the total annual amount that the government wants to recoup from treating overseas visitors by 2017/18.
Upfront fees are only a very small part of this.
Most of the £500m will come from other types of charges. For instance, a significant chunk comes from pre-paid visa surcharges, which were introduced in 2015. These are paid mainly by students and longer-term migrants from outside the European Economic Area.
The NHS had already become far better at identifying these debts before upfront fees were introduced this week. The total amount had risen from £81m in 2011/12 to £358m in 2016/17.
That means that the majority of the government’s £500m target is already accounted for.
So, how much will upfront fees raise?
The government’s impact assessment estimates that this week’s changes will bring in £42m a year.
Only £20m of this comes from upfront fees themselves – the rest comes from “improving incentives for NHS trusts to comply with cost recovery legislation more widely”.
However, the government’s own analysis says the data behind these figures is mostly “incomplete or inconsistent” and rely on “broad assumptions”.
What’s more, several important questions appear to have been missed out of the calculations. Crucially, could the move lead to extra financial pressure on A&E?
After all, if some people miss out on planned, non-urgent care because of the upfront charges, they might end up being forced to go to A&E instead, which is free.
After days of questioning by FactCheck, the Department of Health (DoH) has admitted that the potential impact on A&E was not factored into its £42m profit claim.
But David Stuckler, professor of political economy and sociology at Oxford University told FactCheck that “if they end up putting more pressure on A&E, that costs more”.
“These are impacts which are foreseeable and we need to know them – or at least attempt to estimate them – before going ahead. But the government’s impact assessment hasn’t done that. It’s missing the full picture.”
Professor of European Public Health, Martin McKee, agreed that the impact on A&E should have been included in the costings.
He told FactCheck: “We know from the USA that people who are unable to get routine care for what are called ‘ambulatory care sensitive’ conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, often require subsequent emergency admissions for complications. This is a major factor in the high rate of leg amputations among Americans with diabetes.”
And the potential impact on A&E isn’t the only thing lacking from the government’s analysis. Experts say there might also be a financial impact on things like social services, employment rates and other economic factors.
“The impact assessment takes a rather optimistic view of what could happen financially,” said Professor Stuckler. “Many of the costs are not being factored in. It didn’t take a look at any of the economic ramifications.” Because these implications have not been analysed, this could seriously undermine the government’s £42m profit claim.
We can’t say for sure what the correct figure is. But seeing as the government’s estimate is already quite low, it is possible there could be an overall loss, once other factors are accounted for.
This happened before, under the old (and probably less efficient) system. Freedom of Information requests in 2016 showed that Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust recouped £50,672 in debts.
But the team of staff responsible for collecting that money cost the trust more than they brought in – around £231,000.
How many eligible people lack documentation?
If you don’t have the right ID then getting free care could throw up some challenges – even if you are British and fully eligible.
Surprisingly, the DoH admitted to FactCheck that it has not gathered any data about the number of UK residents who lack documentation.
The DoH is keen to stress that documentation is not the only way people can prove their eligibility. They say care will never be denied to people who are entitled to it and hospital staff will “work with the patient to determine their eligibility”.
But NHS trusts now have a legal responsibility to determine people’s eligibility. So it’s not hard to imagine that some people without ID could run into minor challenges or delays, at the very least.
We cannot find any analysis or report about this from the DoH. But what we do know is that around one in six “usual residents” do not have a passport.
This figure is not directly comparable with those for NHS eligibility, but it does illustrate how common it is to lack basic ID.
Will the measures impact public health?
Infectious diseases are not included in the new upfront charging schemes. But medics have warned the government that “often infectious diseases or illnesses (including HIV) are only noticed in routine appointments”.
So if people miss out on pre-planned care, could that increase the risk of contagious illnesses being spread?
The question was considered in the government consultation and decision-making process, but it’s not clear what the conclusion was.
We cannot find any full reports from the DoH which provide answers or analysis of this issue. It also seems that any financial implications of this were not factored into the impact assessment.
But Professor Stuckler told us: “Not to be alarmist, but ineffective prevention could end up limiting our ability to curb the spread of infectious diseases among high-risk groups, the cost of which can be enormous.”
We will update this if the DoH provide us with further clarification.
On Monday, the UN Special Rapporteur on Transitional Justice, Pablo de Greiff, issued his concluding observations and recommendations following a two-week official visit to Sri Lanka – in essence, a review of the government of Sri Lanka’s progress in addressing the country’s legacy of mass human rights violations, including those committed during the final stages of the recent civil war which saw thousands of (mostly Tamil) civilians killed.
You can read the statement in full here. Or you can check out some of the key excerpts from it, along with our analysis, below.
What does the Special Rapporteur say?
In line with our own evaluation on whether the government is fulfilling its promises to deal with the past, the Special Rapporteur’s statement paints an alarming picture of how little ground the government of Sri Lanka has covered on the road to reconciliation and sustainable peace. While acknowledging some very limited areas of progress, his headline conclusion is plain: “the process is nowhere close to where it should have been more than two years [since his first visit in April 2015].”
In this context, the statement provides some much-needed reminders: both about the costs which ordinary Sri Lankans continue to pay – as well as the benefits which those from all communities are deprived – as a result of the government’s heel-dragging. These, the statement suggests, are measureable not simply in terms of the denial of justice to the many victims of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, but also in terms of levels of continued inter-ethnic violence, human well-being, and economic development more broadly.
Strong on bringing perpetrators to account…
The statement also makes a number of welcome noises on the question of accountability for the perpetrators of human rights violations, in particular, by challenging recent vows by senior members of the Sri Lankan government to protect so-called ‘war heroes’ [i.e. members of the Sri Lankan armed forces] from prosecution for serious crimes. “No one who has committed violations of human rights law or the laws of human rights deserves to be called a hero”, the Special Rapporteur writes. Moreover, such promises by the government are in any case, he points out, “legally unenforceable political statements” – ineffective internationally in the context of recent efforts to bring alleged Sri Lankan war criminals to justice in foreign jurisdictions.
…but what about the accountability mechanism?
It is also on the subject of accountability, however, that the Special Rapporteur’s statement has raised some concerns among sections of Sri Lankan civil society. Despite repeated references to the importance of justice in the abstract, there is no re-affirmation (or indeed mention whatsoever) of the specific kind of justice mechanism which the government of Sri Lanka itself has pledged, and which war survivors have repeatedly said is needed – that is, a “judicial mechanism with a special counsel”, with the participation of international judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers and investigators. In February, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights referred to such international participation as a “necessary guarantee for the independence, credibility and impartiality of the process.” Instead, recommendations are focussed on the need for capacity-building towards a “future reliable accountability system”, and on shifting the debate away from the “nationality of judges” to the “means and preconditions for the establishment of credible procedures”.
However well intentioned, we at the Sri Lanka Campaign are concerned about the green-light that such messages could provide for the establishment of an accountability mechanism which, without some form of independent international involvement, is neither reliable nor credible. Indeed, given the closing window of opportunity for reform which the Special Rapporteur himself appears to acknowledge, we fear that the lack of strong messaging on the need to legislate for a judicial mechanism in the here and now may compound the risk of nothing at all being established under the current government. That outcome would represent the denial of justice to thousands of war affected individuals, as well as the increased danger of future human rights violations resulting from the failure to tackle Sri Lanka’s deep-rooted culture of impunity.
Next year, the Special Rapporteur will present the full report resulting from his visit to the September session of the UN Human Rights Council. It will come at an important moment – just six months ahead of the March 2019 session, when the clock will once again run down on formal international scrutiny of the government’s commitments to dealing with the past (originally pledged in October 2015, and already renewed once in March of this year).
With UN member states increasingly appearing to shy away from applying the kind of diplomatic pressure that is so needed to bring about a meaningful accountability process in Sri Lanka, robust and coordinated leadership on this issue from UN bodies themselves – including the Secretary General’s Office, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Special Rapporteurs – will be needed more than ever during this critical period. We urge them to ensure that is the needs and wishes of war survivors, who have called for the establishment of a credible independent mechanism without delay, that guide them above all in this regard.
The country’s reform agenda is in shambles, but don’t expect that to change.
The plight of Sri Lanka’s Tamil political prisoners is an issue that won’t go away – because the Sri Lankan government, a coalition led by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, has failed to adequately address the matter. In recent times, there have been protests, labor strikes, and hunger strikes in the country; that’s nothing new.
Moreover, R. Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), recently urged Sirisena to release these individuals in a widely circulated letter.
Since Sirisena became president in January 2015, some of the remaining Tamil detainees have been released, yet many are still being held – more than eight years after the conclusion of the island nation’s civil war. On Friday, a senior human rights lawyer in Colombo told me that there are between 120 and 130 Tamil political prisoners.
Writing forLawfare last year, I argued that releasing these individuals was a necessary step in Sri Lanka’s transitional justice process, purportedly a major part of the government’s reform program:
Though politically controversial, providing a complete list of Tamil political prisoners (including the location where each individual is being held) and immediately releasing most of them is precisely the type of confidence-building measure that the government could use to establish its transitional justice bona fides. The longer Colombo prevaricates on this issue, the easier it is to believe that war-related reform in Sri Lanka may be on the rocks.
Sirisena’s electoral victory ushered in a wave of unrealistic expectations. For those who still hold high hopes about Sri Lanka’s current president and the road to deeper reform, now is an opportune time to recalibrate expectations.
Colombo has made, at best, little progress on core Tamil issues including militarization, land and transitional justice, among others. More generally, we’ve seen over two years of coalition governance, but virtually all the government’s reform agenda has been in trouble for some time.
Local and provincial elections are expected next year. So don’t hold your breath for major positive changes in the coming months.
Aftermath of the car bombing at the gate of Naso Hablod hotel in Mogadishu. Photograph: Reuters
Because these implications have not been analysed, this could seriously undermine the government’s £42m profit claim.
On Monday, the UN Special Rapporteur on Transitional Justice, Pablo de Greiff, issued his concluding observations and recommendations following a two-week official visit to Sri Lanka – in essence, a review of the government of Sri Lanka’s progress in addressing the country’s legacy of mass human rights violations, including those committed during the final stages of the recent civil war which saw thousands of (mostly Tamil) civilians killed.
