Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Tofail Ahmed: A living legend in Bangladesh’s Politics

by Anwar A. Khan-Oct 31, 2017

“A leader is one who knows the way,
goes the way and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell

( October 31, 2017, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) Tofail Ahmed, Member of Parliament and Commerce Minister of Bangladesh arrived at 75 years of his age on 22nd October 2017. He knows the art of politics in line with the spirit of the above quote. Tofail is a living legend in politics in Bangladesh from his student’s life at a very early age. The 1969 upheaval led by Ahmed was so popular that it had a far-reaching impact on our national politics and history. The Guardian newspaper of UK then ran a report on him and introduced him as the virtual Governor of former East Pakistan during the 1969 uprising though Tofail Ahmed used to live an ordinary life like the general students, taking money from his father. The 1969 uprising which led the ouster of Pakistan’s dictatorial President Ayub Khan from power and the Agartala Conspiracy Case against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was reduced to ashes. Sheikh Mujib came out from the jail like a man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength. Sheikh Mujib was then adorned with the title of “Bangabandhu” (Friend of Bengal) at a mass reception by Tofail Ahmed on behalf of the people of Bangladesh. Later on, Bangabandhu became the Founding Father of Bangladesh.

He was born in a remote hamlet under the Bhola District of Bangladesh on 22nd October 1943. His very name signifies him something else…extraordinary… over-the-top …a legendary politician in Bangladesh’s history. A symbol of something! It is something that someone intends to stand for something other than itself. A symbol is something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. It does not have to be an image: for example, a rose can be said to be a symbol of love, a cup can be used as an object of reference, a symbol for breaking time, and a cross – a symbol of hope. Yes, Tofail Ahmed has stood as a symbol of hope for his people. He was a legendary student leader during his student life in the Dhaka University in the 1960s. Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its values. So much emphasis has been placed upon the significance of the true, candid and sincere service to the people. Tofail Ahmed is a great political leader like the famous words of Beth Revis, “Power isn’t control at all–power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.”

The term 1960s refers to an era more often called the Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends around the globe. Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, MP was a product of that time; and he led the 1969 mass uprising as the Vice President of Dhaka University Central Students’ Union. If you analyse the nature of student politics in the golden days of the 1950s and 1960s, you may find the difference. “The Sixties”, as they are known in both scholarship and popular culture, is a term used by historians, journalists, and other objective academics; in some cases nostalgically to describe the counterculture and revolution in social norms about clothing, music, drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, and schooling; and in others pejoratively to denounce the decade as one of irresponsible excess, flamboyance, and decay of social order. The decade was also labelled the Swinging Sixties because of the fall or relaxation of social taboos especially relating to racism and sexism that occurred during this time. Noted commentator Christopher Booker described this era as a classical Jungian nightmare cycle, where a rigid culture, unable to contain the demands for greater individual freedom, broke free of the social constraints of the previous age through extreme deviation from the norm. Several Western nations such as the US, UK, France, and West Germany turned to the political left in the early and mid-1960s.

In Bangladesh, the 1960s was a period of radical political change as 32 countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers. During that period, all of the student organisations were ideologically based and were accountable to the general students, since they had to go to the general students to win the central union elections. As a result, they tried to attract the general students by motivating them, dealing with the problems of the students and through co-curricular activities. Through such activities they supplemented the national issues. As a result, these issues got popularity and became successful movements. Tofail Ahmed once said, “Bangladesh Chhatra League was neither a student front of the Awami League nor was it an associate member, rather it was an independent organisation lead by the students for the welfare of the students. We were not allowed to deliver speeches with the national leaders, nor did the national leaders come to our programmes except in 1970, when Bangabandhu participated at the council of Chhatra League due to a national crisis.”

Now as a giant politician, he considers like the political leaders and social scientists who believe that student politics can be revived to its original form by handing over absolute control to regular students by arranging councils and central students’ elections regularly. A fully functional central students’ union is also effective in running the universities smoothly. The university and college authorities could easily solve many problems in consultation with the elected student leaders. To achieve this, they believe that the political leaders must come to consensus of not misusing the students for political or personal interest; the teachers should play a neutral and nurturing role. When the process will start functioning, it will attract the brightest students.

True leadership can only emerge if students get a chance to nurture their leadership qualities during their university life. A complete end to political activities is not the answer and will cause the nation to suffer in the future. A future generation lacking political consciousness will create intellectually stunted national leaders. Organising the students’ union elections is the need of the hour and student organisations should be prepared for this by arranging councils. The process has already started in some institutions. The good news is that all of the student parties are participating in these union elections at different colleges. It is only if our political parties are sincere about making sure about our educational institutions are exactly what they are supposed be, that is, centres of learning where young adults are inspired to be principled, honest citizens, the culture of violence and corruption under the shelter of student politics will end. Student politics should be limited to issues that affect students and enhance student life not endanger it.

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed is one of the most influential political leaders in the history of Bangladesh and as an ideal follower of the “Father of the Nation” Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He was one of the great organisers of Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 and acted as one of the Chiefs of Bangladesh Liberation Front or in other words ‘Mujib Bahini’. He is a veteran Parliamentarian and earned love and respect of Parliament Members and people from all walks of life for his oratory skills in parliamentary debate on various national issues. He was the Minister for Commerce and Industries from 23 june1996 to 28 December, 1999. He Continued as the Minister for Industries up to 2001, Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Industry from 2009-2013. He was also Minister for Housing & Public Works and Industries from 21 November, 2013 to 12 January, 2014. Now he is working as Minister for Commerce Ministry from 12 January, 2014.

MP Tofail Ahmed is the Chairman of one of the Parliamentary Standing Committees. He is also the member of the advisory committee of AL. Earlier he was one of the influential member of the presidium (highest body) of AL. He was elected several times as member of national parliament from Bhola-1 constituency. In 1970, Tofail was a young man who became the political secretary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He is one of the top political leaders in Bangladesh. He started political career by joining in AL. He started politics since his student life by joining student politics. Huge numbers of people participated in demonstrations that are still remembered with reverence–like the 1969 movement under his able and dynamic student leadership. It was a significant movement as if like all power to all the people, whether you are white, black, blue, red, green, yellow or polka-dotted–in the final analysis, what was wanted was real Bengali people’s community control and empowerment. The struggle was for a different future for the people of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has a long and very rich history. It has produced amazing leaders who have influenced and contributed to the people, history and country as it is today. Some of them were good leaders, others even great. But there have also been leaders who abused their power and did not serve the public interest and who failed to follow the public interests to serve their citizens. It is important to know who at least some of these leaders were and how they shaped our country and its people. They were not only the big leaders – they are the people’s leaders and Tofail Ahmed is one of such a great leader in the domain Bangladesh’s politics. He has been working tirelessly to make a difference to uplift the lives of common people in Bangladesh. Most people will agree that Tofail like leaders influence our country in some way or another. In Bangladesh, many independence movement leaders helped their country to gain freedom from colonial rulers and in this respect; the name of Tofail Ahmed will come to the forefront in the public eyes. He is one of the strong voices of people’s power in Bangladesh. He is still remembered as the de-facto Governor of former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the 1969 uprising.

Long live this living legend of politics of Bangladesh with his warmth of sunshine for his people.

Tunnel collapse may have killed 200 after N.Korea nuclear test - Japanese broadcaster

OCTOBER 31, 2017

TOKYO (Reuters) - A tunnel at North Korea’s nuclear test site collapsed after Pyongyang’s sixth atomic test in September, possibly killing more than 200 people, Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi said on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the situation.

People walk past a street monitor showing a news report about North Korea's nuclear test in Tokyo, Japan, September 3, 2017. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/Files

Reuters has not been able to verify the report.

About 100 workers at the Punggye-ri nuclear site were affected by the initial collapse, which took place around Sept. 10, the broadcaster said.

A second collapse during a rescue operation meant it was possible the death toll could have exceeded 200, it added.

Experts have said a series of tremors and landslides near the nuclear test base probably mean the country’s sixth and largest blast on Sept. 3 has destabilised the region, and the Punggye-ri nuclear site may not be used for much longer to test nuclear weapons.

Suspect identified in Manhattan vehicle attack, with 8 dead in 'act of terror'

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at least eight people were killed when a vehicle drove onto a bike path in Lower Manhattan Oct. 31. (Reuters)

By Mark Berman, Devlin Barrett and Rachel Siegel October 31 at 6:39

A man deliberately drove into bicyclists and pedestrians in a bike path in Lower Manhattan, killing at least eight people and injuring more than one dozen in an act of terrorism, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) said Tuesday.

“This is a very painful day in our city,” de Blasio said at a news conference. “Based on the information we had at this moment, this was an act of terror, a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians.”

At the news conference, New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill said that around 3:05 p.m., a man driving a rented Home Depot pickup truck entered the West Side Highway bike path, striking bicyclists and pedestrians as he drove southbound. He collided with a bus, injuring two adults and two children inside.

The man then “exited the vehicle brandishing two handguns,” O’Neill said. A paintball gun and a pellet gun were later recovered at the scene.

A police officer confronted the man and shot him in the abdomen, wounding him, O’Neill said. Police arrested the suspect and said they were not seeking anyone else in the incident.

The suspect is a 29-year-old from Tampa, Sayfullo Saipov, according to two law enforcement officials.

A Home Depot spokesman confirmed that a rental truck from the company was involved and said Home Depot was cooperating with authorities.

President Trump responded to the attack on Twitter, saying it “looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump has been briefed on the incident by Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and will be continually updated as more details are known.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected,” Sanders said.

Though the Islamic State — a militant group that regularly claims responsibility for attacks around the world — did not immediately assert responsibility for the New York attack, its supporters celebrated it in online postings, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity on the Web.

Greg Ahl was driving south on 12th Avenue when he passed “crushed bikes and bodies all along the bike path.” He said the attacker must have just driven down the path since “nobody had even stepped up to help [the bikers] yet.”

Ahl, of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, estimated seeing 30 crushed bicycles around 3:15 p.m. with “parts everywhere” that “looked like they had been run over.”

He said that a pedestrian told him that a white pickup truck had just driven south through the bicycle lane.

“After I saw more than a dozen crushed bicycles, I realized what it was,” Ahl said.

Officials flooded to the scene after the first reports of the carnage on the West Side of Manhattan, not far from Stuyvesant High School and the World Trade Center site.

De Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) arrived in the area in the late afternoon and were briefed on what happened alongside O’Neill, the police commissioner.

A fire department spokesman said Tuesday that people were “being treated and evaluated at the scene,” which he described as “a pretty lengthy scene.” Police urged people to avoid a stretch of West Street extending more than a mile along the West Side of Manhattan.

Wesley Lowery and Eli Rosenberg contributed to this developing story. First posted: 3:52 p.m.

Donald Trump’s Biggest Disinformation Campaign Yet

The Russia collusion scandal is closing in on America's commander-in-chief of fake news.

Former campaign manager for U.S. President Donald Trump, Paul Manafort (R), leaves U.S. District Court after pleading not guilty following his indictment on federal charges on October 30, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

BY MAX BOOT-

OCTOBER 31, 2017, 10:20 AM

President Donald Trump hasn’t delivered on his campaign promise to create U.S. coal or steel jobs (foreign steel imports are up 27 percent this year), but he is creating a bonanza in the business of “fake news.” Admittedly a lot of those jobs have been outsourced to Russia, but Trump is also providing plenty of employment at home.

Even before Monday’s bombshells from special counsel Robert Mueller — Trump’s campaign manager and his business partner have been indicted on multiple counts of laundering more than $18 million from pro-Russian clients in Ukraine, while a Trump foreign policy advisor pleaded guilty to lying about his efforts to solicit Clinton “dirt” from Russian contacts — Trump and his associates had launched Operation Obfuscation. Their far-fetched claim is that the real collusion isn’t between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. It’s between Hillary Clinton and the Kremlin.

“It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump,” Trump tweeted on Friday. “Was collusion with HC!” Then on Sunday, with the indictments looming, a more desperate version of the same message: “There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!” And on Monday, after the indictments were announced: “[W]hy aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????”

Picking up the theme, Trump’s faithful follower Jeanine Pirro blared on Fox News: “It’s time to shut it down, turn the tables, and lock her up.” Former White House aide Sebastian Gorka did her one better. He implied that Hillary Clinton was guilty of treason, just like the Rosenbergs, and that she too deserves the electric chair!

What, exactly, is the evidence for these hyperbolic claims? White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders asserted: “The evidence Clinton campaign, DNC & Russia colluded to influence the election is indisputable.” True — if “indisputable” has been redefined to mean “nonexistent.” The White House case, based on little more than warmed-over hearsay and discredited conspiracy mongering, relates to two familiar controversies: the Steele dossier alleging Trump-Russia links and the Russian acquisition of a Canadian company that owns uranium mines in America.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Max Boot is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His forthcoming book is “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.”

The Steele dossier, compiled by the respected former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, landed in the news recently when a law firm representing the Clinton campaign admitted to having paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS to compile it. (Earlier, we now know, Fusion had been hired by conservative news site the Washington Free Beacon to research Trump and other candidates.) The horror! If you listen to Trump’s defenders, it’s perfectly proper for Donald Trump Jr. to seek opposition research from Russian agents but a death-penalty offense for the Clinton campaign to try to uncover the Trump-Russia links. In their telling, the investigation of a potential crime is as bad as the crime itself. Huh?

The argument seems to be that because Steele talked to Russian sources in the course of compiling his dossier, he, and thus the entire Clinton campaign, was “colluding” with the Kremlin. By the same logic, anytime the CIA talks to Russian agents it, too, is “colluding” with Russia. This is to render the word “collusion” meaningless — which is precisely the point.

It’s perfectly possible, even probable, that some misinformation made it into the Steele dossier. That’s often the case with raw intelligence files. But the veteran CIA officer John Sipher has concluded that a “large portion of the dossier is crystal clear, certain, consistent and corroborated.”

There is no reason to suppose, as the Trumpkins posit, that the Kremlin fed all this information to Steele in the hopes of discrediting Trump when no one could be certain that the report would ever become public. Why, in any case, would the Kremlin seek to discredit the most pro-Russian candidate ever to pursue the presidency? Why, moreover, would Trump want to help Hillary Clinton, whom he is widely reported to revile for her tough anti-Russia line? And why, if the Kremlin were intent on making Trump out to be a Russian stooge, would its spokesman so vociferously deny that very charge? To believe that the Steele dossier was an elaborate Kremlin ploy requires the same sort of faith-based reasoning necessary to believe that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. or that Ted Cruz’s father killed JFK.

In the final analysis, the Steele dossier is a sideshow, and the question of who funded it is a sideshow of a sideshow. Yes, the FBI saw it, but it’s not the basis for the unanimous assessment released in early January by the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the director of national intelligence concluding that the Kremlin interfered in the U.S. election to help Trump and hurt Clinton. Nor is the Steele dossier the reason why independent counsel Robert Mueller has been appointed to investigate the president.

Mueller was appointed only after (1) Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself after not having been truthful about his own contacts with Russia’s ambassador during the campaign and (2) Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in a self-confessed attempt to stop the probe of the “Russia thing.”

Thus Trump is now being investigated not only for collusion with a hostile foreign power but also for obstruction of justice and probably other offenses as well — and based on the indictments unsealed Monday, special counsel Mueller is making rapid progress. The truth or falsity of the Steele dossier does not affect the outcome of this investigation in the slightest.

What about the uranium deal, which Trump has compared to Watergate and his “minister of information,” Sean Hannity, has called “the biggest scandal — or, at least, one of them — in American history”? If you listen to the hype, you would think that in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton allowed the Russians to loot America’s uranium reserves. As Trump said on Oct. 24, 2016: “Remember that Hillary Clinton gave Russia 20 percent of American uranium and, you know, she was paid a fortune.”

The reality, as numerous media organizations have documented, is rather more prosaic. In 2010, Russia’s nuclear-energy agency, Rosatom, applied to buy a majority stake in Uranium One, a Canadian firm that controls roughly 20 percent of America’s uranium reserves. The deal had to be cleared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which includes a representative of the State Department along with eight other federal agencies. Ultimate approval authority to stop the deal lay with President Obama. The government duly OK’d the sale, because it wasn’t judged to be a threat to national security. Rosatom was prohibited from exporting any of the uranium, and the mining licenses would remain with U.S. subsidiaries controlled by American citizens.

If you believe the conspiracy-mongers, however, the reason the deal went ahead is that Uranium One’s owner contributed beaucoup bucks to the Clinton Foundation. Fact check: Foundation donor Frank Giustra sold his company to Uranium One in 2007 and says he unloaded his personal stake in the firm at that time — three years before Rosatom tried to buy Uranium One. Bill Clinton did get $500,000 for a speech in Moscow in 2010, but there is no evidence that this was part of any quid pro quo, and there are no records of Rosatom contributing to the Clinton Foundation.

Moreover, Hillary Clinton says she was not personally involved in the review of the sale, and the official who represented the State Department on the review panel backs her up. Even if they are lying, Clinton’s vote still would have been only one of nine, so the approval of the sale was hardly her doing.

The real scandal may turn out to be Trump’s efforts to tar Clinton.

CNN has reported that “Trump made it clear he wanted the gag order lifted on an undercover informant who played a critical role in an FBI investigation into Russian efforts to gain influence in the uranium industry in the United States during the Obama administration.” If true, this would suggest that Trump is actively interfering with the course of justice in order to impugn a political opponent.

This episode recalls Trump’s efforts earlier this year to prove that Obama had wiretapped him. In September, Trump’s own Justice Department definitively refuted this reckless allegation, writing in a court filing: “Both FBI and NSD [National Security Division] have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets.” The only crime that may have been committed was by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who had to step down from overseeing the Kremlingate probe because of accusations that he had leaked classified information to concoct an “Obama surveillance scandal.”

Now Nunes has directed the House Intelligence Committee to investigate the uranium deal in cooperation with the House Oversight Committee, while the House Judiciary Committee is set to launch the umpteenth probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

The operating principle was laid out by Trump himself in his final debate with Clinton when he responded to her accusations that he was a pawn of Putin by sputtering with his trademark eloquence: “No puppet, no puppet. You’re the puppet.” This is the reasoning of an elementary school playground: “I know you are, but what am I?”

That Trump’s defenders find this riposte so compelling is an indicator of the extent to which they are willing to suspend their critical faculties in slavish service to their maximum leader. As for the rest of us, we need to ignore the Trumpkins’ attempts to shift the conversation and focus like a laser on the case that Mueller and his Untouchables are building against the president of the United States and his closest associates.

The CIA wanted to kill Indonesia’s Sukarno, JFK files reveal

Sukarno declaring the independence of Indonesia in Jakarta, Indonesia on Friday, 17 August 1945. Source: Wiki Commons

By Max Walden | 31st October 2017

A FILE released by the United States government last week among those pertaining to the assassination of former president John F Kennedy has revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) considered murdering Indonesia’s founding father Sukarno.

Classified as “top secret” and dated from 1975, the document details an investigation by the CIA Commission into plans by its agents to launch assassination plots against various world leaders – particularly communists and those aligned with the Soviet Union.

The then-Deputy Director of Plans at the CIA Richard Bissell attested to discussions of killing Indonesia’s revolutionary hero and first president, the left-leaning Sukarno, which “never progressed as far” as recruiting somebody to assassinate him.

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

Bissell reportedly said that the CIA had “absolutely nothing” to do with Sukarno’s death, who died of kidney failure in 1970, still under house arrest at Bogor Palace by the country’s New Order military regime.

Sukarno and Fidel Castro in Havana, Cuba in 1960. Source: Wiki Commons

Nevertheless, along with Sukarno the CIA had discussed plans to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.

For decades, Sukarno presided over what he called “guided democracy” which involved balancing the political aspirations of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the country’s anti-communist military and Islamic groups. Espousing a postcolonial nationalism for Indonesia, he frequently rallied against what he called “American imperialism.”

A CIA report from 1964 noted that Sukarno’s anti-Western rhetoric and tactics “combined with Communist single-mindedness, seem likely ultimately to bring Indonesia under Communist control.”

However, “no assassination plans would have been undertaken without authorisation outside the Agency, and no such authorisation was undertaken … against Sukarno,” added Bissell in the newly released document.

Sukarno’s daughter Sukmawati Sukarnoputri said to the Sydney Morning Herald that “America should not only apologise to Indonesia, America should apologise to all the countries they disturbed, if they will admit to it. They never want to admit to it, especially the CIA.”

SEE ALSO: US rejection of Indonesian general sparks diplomatic row

The revelation comes less than two weeks after separate, newly declassified documents showed that the US government had actively supported the mass killings of between 500,000 to a million Indonesians accused of being communists in 1965 and 1966.

Amid the Cold War, the massacres led to the ousting of Sukarno and ascendency of right-wing General Suharto who would come to rule the country for 32 years.

US-Indonesian relations are already under strain, particularly since the Southeast Asian nation’s military chief General Gatot Nurmantyo was prevented from boarding a flight to Washington DC earlier this month due to what US officials later called an “administrative error.”

Scotland Yard ‘told of Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct in 1990s’

Claims that Met police were made aware of alleged incident at Savoy hotel involving 19-year-old intern but did not investigate

Sophie Morris: ‘I was very scared and was in a room with this powerful man and in this compromising situation.’ Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

Lisa O'Carroll-Tuesday 31 October 2017

The Metropolitan police were made aware of alleged sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein at the Savoy hotel in London more than 25 years ago by a 19-year-old, it has been claimed.

However, it appears that no investigation took place because the woman dropped the complaint after Weinstein allegedly learned that she had reported it to the police.

Speaking for the first time in public about the incident, which took place in 1990 or 1991, Sophie Morris said she had “shut down” the incident in her mind ever since but had decided to go public because she wished to show the film producer’s victims were not only celebrities and would-be actors.

“My main point in speaking out is that I was never part of this world, I was never an aspiring actress looking for a part, I was a 19-year-old person doing admin, earning a bit of extra cash in my year out after my A-levels,” she said. “There could be others like me who want to speak out but haven’t. It is easier for actresses to speak out because they have Hollywood behind them.”

Her disclosures to the Guardian and BBC News came as the Metropolitan police announced they had widened the investigation into Weinstein, with seven alleged victims coming forward between 12 and 28 October this year.

Morris said she might raise her complaint with police again. “Part of me does want to re-report it, because we need to stack up these cases against him because he’s going to keep denying them. If they tell me I would need to re-report it, I would definitely pursue it,” said Morris.

Morris, 44, who works in events, was working as an intern at Miramax just after completing her A-levels when she was asked to go to the London hotel where Weinstein stayed when in the capital.

“I was in his lounge in his suite manning the phones and he called me to the bathroom,” she said.

“The door was ajar and I could see him in the bath naked. He asked me to come in and I was standing there and not quite understanding the situation.

“I was 19 and was just covering for a friend for a few days in my year off work after school. I said no, and went back to the desk. The next thing, he called me again; this time he was in the bedroom and he was on the bed naked. I remember this disgusting rash all over his body and he kept telling me it was a medical condition and it was being sorted, as if I cared.”

She said that he asked her to massage him and told her that he would not ejaculate if she did so. “The next thing, I remember my top coming off,” she went on. “And I can’t remember if he asked me to take it off and I was doing it myself or if he was trying to do it. I was very scared and was in a room with this powerful man and in this compromising situation.

“Something must have clicked in me and I got out of the room and went back to the desk. I remember someone phoning and asked me was I alright. She must have sensed from my voice that I wasn’t and she told me to leave. I got out of the room. Then I saw he he put the do not disturb sign on his room. I really remember that,” she said.

Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Weinstein.

Shaken by the experience, Morris returned home to Wandsworth, south London, where she told her boyfriend and younger sister but felt too ashamed to tell her parents at the time.

Her sister Tess, who was 13 or 14 and is now a screenwriter in Hollywood, said she remembered Sophie coming home that day and knew something had happened.

“I have a visual memory of her standing in the hallway in the family house and she was telling me she didn’t know what to do, and she felt ashamed and wanted to move on,” said Tess.

The next day, Sophie Morris returned to the Miramax office and told her bosses what had happened.

When they asked if she wanted to report it to the police, she said yes but added that she did not want to attend a police station.

Coincidentally, her boss was going out with a policeman at the time, and she arranged for Sophie to report it in her flat in Finsbury Park, north London. “Even though it was in her flat, it was still official, because I got a case number, I remember that,” said Sophie.

However, within days Morris changed her mind about the police. “I remember I got a call from this woman who ran the office and who said that Harvey wanted to speak to me. I did not want to speak to him. I was scared. I was 19 and had no responsible adult to talk to about this. I hadn’t even told my mum or dad what had happened. I told her I didn’t want to speak to him. I assumed that they had told him I had gone to the police and I told her I would drop the case.

“I never heard anything again,” said Morris.

Scotland Yard said it could not say if it had a record of the incident, but said “anyone with allegations of sexual assault should report it to police”.

Rachel Adamson, a criminal lawyer with Slater Gordon, which handled many of the claims for victims of Jimmy Savile, said it would have been routine in the 1990s for police to drop cases if women dropped complaints.

“There has really been a political and social change since then because of the publicity around domestic violence and police do investigate to find out why complainants drop cases,” she said.

Record surge in atmospheric CO2 seen in 2016

Emissions from human activities have levelled off but concentrations in the atmosphere continue to grow

By Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent-30 October 2017

Concentrations of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere surged to a record high in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Last year's increase was 50% higher than the average of the past 10 years.

Researchers say a combination of human activities and the El Niño weather phenomenon drove CO2 to a level not seen in 800,000 years.

Scientists say this risks making global temperature targets largely unattainable.

This year's greenhouse gas bulletin produced by the WMO is based on measurements taken in 51 countries. Research stations dotted around the globe measure concentrations of warming gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

The figures published by the WMO are what's left in the atmosphere after significant amounts are absorbed by the Earth's "sinks", which include the oceans and the biosphere.

Climate change: a guide

A brief history of Earth's CO2

Global Change Calculator

2016 saw average concentrations of CO2 hit 403.3 parts per million, up from 400ppm in 2015.

"It is the largest increase we have ever seen in the 30 years we have had this network," Dr Oksana Tarasova, chief of WMO's global atmosphere watch programme, told BBC News.

"The largest increase was in the previous El Niño, in 1997-1998, and it was 2.7ppm; and now it is 3.3ppm. It is also 50% higher than the average of the last 10 years."

Chart showing carbon dioxide concentrations have reached record levels

Chart showing carbon dioxide concentrations have reached record levels

El Niño impacts the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by causing droughts that limit the uptake of CO2 by plants and trees.
Emissions from human sources have slowed down in the last couple of yearsaccording to research, but according to Dr Tarasova, it is the cumulative total in the atmosphere that really matters as CO2 stays aloft and active for centuries.
Over the past 70 years, says the report, the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is nearly 100 times larger than it was at the end of the last ice age.
Rapidly increasing atmospheric levels of CO2 and other gases have the potential, according to the study, to "initiate unpredictable changes in the climate system... leading to severe ecological and economic disruptions".
Air

ANTHONY DUBBER-The British Antarctic Survey Halley base was one of the stations where atmospheric measurements were madeThe study notes that since 1990 there has been a 40% increase in total radiative forcing. That's the warming effect on our climate of all greenhouse gases.

"Geological-wise, it is like an injection of a huge amount of heat," said Dr Tarasova.

"The changes will not take 10,000 years, like they used to take before; they will happen fast. We don't have the knowledge of the system in this state; that is a bit worrisome!"

According to experts, the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago, in the mid-Pliocene Epoch. The climate then was 2-3C warmer, and sea levels were 10-20m higher due to the melting of Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets.
Other experts in the field of atmospheric research agreed that the WMO findings were a cause for concern.

drought

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionDroughts related to El Niño, such as this one in Colombia, limited the ability of plants and trees to soak up carbon

"The 3ppm CO2 growth rate in 2015 and 2016 is extreme - double the growth rate in the 1990-2000 decade," Prof Euan Nisbet from Royal Holloway University of London, UK, told BBC News.
"It is urgent that we follow the Paris agreement and switch rapidly away from fossil fuels. There are signs this is beginning to happen, but so far the air is not yet recording the change."
Another concern in the report is the continuing, mysterious rise of methane levels in the atmosphere, which were also larger than the average over the past 10 years. Prof Nisbet says there is a fear of a vicious cycle, where methane drives up temperatures which in turn releases more methane from natural sources.

Image copyrightWMO-Scientists handling air samples at the Cape Grim monitoring station in Australia"The rapid increase in methane since 2007, especially in 2014, 2015, and 2016, is different. This was not expected in the Paris agreement. Methane growth is strongest in the tropics and sub-tropics. The carbon isotopes in the methane show that growth is not being driven by fossil fuels. We do not understand why methane is rising. It may be a climate change feedback. It is very worrying."

The implications of these new atmospheric measurements for the targets agreed under the Paris climate pact are quite negative, say observers.

"The numbers don't lie. We are still emitting far too much and this needs to be reversed," said Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment.

"We have many of the solutions already to address this challenge. What we need now is global political will and a new sense of urgency."

The report has been issued just a week ahead of the next instalment of UN climate talks, in Bonn.

Despite the declaration by President Trump that he intends to take the US out of the deal, negotiators meeting in Germany will be aiming to advance and clarify the rulebook of the Paris agreement.
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Monday, October 30, 2017

SLB- UPR PAPERS NO 02/2017: MILITARISATION AND ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES

30/10/2017

Militarisation of the North in Sri Lanka

FACTS

Government has not implemented any promised security sector reforms in order to pave the way for de-militarisation of the former war zone.

Military presence in the Northern Province is hugely disproportionate. Large areas of land are being occupied for these camps.

Military is still engaged in various kind of business in the North using vast areas of land belonging to the Tamil people and the state. These businesses are taking away the livelihood opportunities of the people.

Military maintains hundreds of pre-schools, trains pre-school teachers and absorbs them in to civil defence force. Military does not maintain pre-schools any other areas of the country.

Sri Lanka’s military is still occupying thousands of acres of land in the Northern Province that belong to the Tamil people. Promise after promise has been given to release them to the original owners but the process has been painfully slow.

Even 8 years after the end of war, there are Tamil detainees held under the PTA without any charges filed.
RECOMMENDATIONS

Take steps for gradual reduction of military strength in the North.
Take suitable steps as soon as possible to end the military engagement in business which affects livelihood opportunities of Tamil people in the North and East.
Take immediate steps to transfer any educational activities carried out by the military in the North to the suitable provincial council or government agencies.
Provide a timeline for releasing the people’s land occupied by the Military in the North and speed up the process.
Release all detainees held under the PTA or charge them under the normal law.

Enforced Disappearances

FACTS
Although president Sirisena has signed the Act to establish the Office of Mission Persons (Sep 2017), no date has been decided to operationalise it.

Families of the disappeared have been requesting the government to release the list of persons who surrendered to the security forces at the end of the war for over a year. But the list still remains in secrecy.

Relatives of the disappeared have been on peaceful protest for more than 200 days now requesting the government to tell the truth about their loved ones.

The LLRC recommended (Dec 2011) that a special commissioner should be appointed to investigate alleged disappearances and provide material to the Attorney General to initiate criminal proceedings as appropriate. This has not been implemented.

The LLRC recommendation (Dec 2011) that “necessary investigations should be carried out into specific allegations of disappearances after surrender/arrest, and where such investigations produce evidence of any unlawful act on the part of individual members of the Army, the wrongdoers should be prosecuted and punished” has not been carried out.
RECOMMENDATIONS.

Operationalise the OMP without delay and appoint credible & internationally recognised people as commissioners/ members.
Make public the list of persons surrendered & rehabilitated at the end of war.
Establish the promised judicial mechanism of the transitional justice process and prioritise the incidents reported by the LLRC.

Sri Lanka BRIEF / UPR Papers – 02/2017 Read as PDF SLB UPR Papers 02 Militarisation and Enforced Disappearances – 2017

Lord Naseby, the mythical 40,000 and the feel-good factor

By SANJA DE SILVA JAYATILLEKA-October 29, 2017, 8:29 pm

"Engaging in arguments and debates in the international domain over the number of civilians who may have died at a particular time in the country will not help resolve any issues, in a meaningful manner, locally, except a feel good factor for a few individuals who may think that they have won a debate or scored points over someone or the other."

--Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mahishini Colonne (The Island 27th October 2017)

Debates in the international domain are exactly how the international community, which includes the UN and other international organizations, strive to reflect pluralism, obtaining the multiple perspectives of their members in order to reach decisions, either by reaching consensus or through a vote. There are debates which may lead to negotiations and eventual consensus or arguments which lead to a decision through a vote. Debates and reasoned, fact-based argumentation are necessary procedures when a State defends itself as it must, against glaring falsehoods. It is not something a State can avoid, resentful that a few individuals may feel good about it.

The figure of forty thousand civilian casualties during the last stages of the war in Sri Lanka has been contentious from the moment it was asserted. Repeated use of it by those interested in pushing this unverified figure gained momentum until it became accepted as a credible number in most of the Western media, after it was mentioned in the UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts’ report, aka the Darusman Report.

Most recently, Lord Naseby, speaking in the British Parliament on the 12th of October 2017 has disputed this figure which appeared in the Darusman report,while pointing out that most of the war crimes charges flowed from it. He refutes this figure and the claim that civilians were willfully targeted, using dispatches from the British Defense attaché Lt. Col Anton Gash stationed in Colombo, to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London,together with the UN reports of the relevant period. The figures of civilian casualties cited are very clear, and they don’t exceed 8,000 (eight thousand). The difference between this and the forty thousand figure is a whopping 32,000 human lives.

Having presented the evidence,Lord Naseby says "I hope and pray that as a result of this debate, the UK will recognize the truth that no one in the Sri Lankan Government ever wanted to kill Tamil civilians."

The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry’s assertion that "engaging in debates and arguments over the number of civilians who may have died at a particular time in the country will not help resolve any issues"is specious to say the least. "The number of civilians who may have died"has a critical impact as regards the principle of proportionality, which is relevant in arriving at an opinion on whether a State has deliberately used excessive force or used excessive force at all. Surely it is the duty of the Government to debate this issue in the international domain using the evidence presented by Lord Naseby just a few days ago,based on confidential documents even if massively redacted, which were not available in the public domain prior to this point?

The Marga Institute’s publication,Narrative Three-The Last Stages of the War in Sri Lanka, the principal author of which was the distinguished senior-most retired civil servant Dr. Godfrey Gunatilleke, states that the "estimates of civilian casualties hinge on the estimate of population in the Wanni before the war…" which the publication says were a "rough census" carried out by the AGA. Narrative Three concludes that "there are major inconsistencies in these estimates which have been pointed out by experts". It further reveals that these figures have been "challenged on the ground that they have been prepared under the direction of the LTTE and are highly inflated for the purpose of obtaining rations and assistance under government welfare programmes as well as magnifying the scale of the humanitarian disaster that could occur".

An extensive study of the casualties in the period January to May 2009 was carried out by an independent UK based group of scientific experts of Sri Lankan lineage, which resulted in a publication called The Numbers Game: Politics of Retributive Justice. This report was exhaustively discussed at a conference organized by the Marga Institute and chaired by Dr. Gunatilleke. After examining the available evidence including satellite imagery, the report estimated the total number of civilian casualties from January 2009 to May 2009 at a figure which did not even begin to approach the mythical 40,000.

The Paranagama Commission report has a section headed "The Myth of 40,000 Civilians Killed in the Final Phase of the War". Referring to the Darusman Report which stated that the figure of 40,000 "cannot be ruled out" but needs further investigation, the Paranagama Commission report concludes that "there was no reliable body of information consistent with other information that 40,000 civilians were killed." It goes on to call the attempt to spread this unsubstantiated figure "a "mischief" and the figure itself a "myth":

"This Commission takes the view that in light of what preceded and what followed this totally unsubstantiated estimate of the number of civilians killed, unsourced guess work has solidified into the factual acceptance of a myth…The mischief of this particular allegation of 40,000 civilian deaths becomes clear when there are other sources which give a lower estimate, but not all of the various competing accounts are mentioned in the Darusman Report."

The Paranagama Commission has also used the UN figure of 7,721 (seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-one) civilian casualties to dispute the 40,000:

"The UN Country Team figure of 7,721 civilian deaths (up until 13 May 2009) is mentioned in the Darusman Report but then disputed without any explanation as to how it comes to be that over 30,000 people could thereafter have been killed within five days, if the figure of 40,000 is ever to be correct and accurate…The Darusman Report provides no concrete evidence to support its considerable leap from the UN Country Team’s figure of less than 10,000."

The Paranagama report quotes anunclassified 2009 US Department of State Report to the US Congress which says:

"…one organization, whichdid not differentiate between civilians and LTTE cadres, recorded 6,710 peoplekilled and 15,102 people injured between January 20th and April 20th 2009. These numbers were presented with a caveat, supported by other sources, that the numbers actually killed and injured are probably higher."

The Paranagama report goes on to quote the International Crisis Group which said:

"UN agencies, working closely with officials and aid workers located in theconflict zone, documented nearly 7,000 civilians killed from January to April2009. Those who compiled these internal numbers deemed them reliable to the extent they reflected actual conflict deaths but maintain it was a work in progress and incomplete."

The Paranagama report also quotes Reuters which reports just over 6,000 killed:

"Some three weeks before the war ended, Reuters reported as follows: ‘A U.N. working document, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, says 6,432civilians have been killed and 13,946 wounded in fighting since the end of January’."

Furthermore it quotes Amnesty International which estimates that "…derived independently from eyewitness testimony and information from aid workers, are that at least 10,000 civilians were killed."

Considering that there are all these numbers from varied sources, apart from the 40,000 in the Darusman Report, which itself doesn't suggest it as a final figure, one would think that any new evidence that helps to arrive at the truth is certainly worthy of debate and engagement, especially at the UN Human Rights Council.

The Paranagama Commission report was produced well before UNHRC Resolution 30/1 was co-sponsored. However it was presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister only after Resolution 30/1 had been adopted, preventing its useful insights from being presented to the Human Rights Council in time. It is doubtful whether the detailed analyses contained in it have been used as yet by the Government to counter some of the inaccuracies circulating in the international arena regarding the last stages of the war.

Given his oft-repeated public stand, it is difficult to believe that President Sirisena is of the view that the numbers of civilian deaths should not be debated in the Council in Geneva despite Lord Naseby’s new and credible information (in that it comes from external i.e. non-Sri Lankan sources uninvolved in the conflict), when numerous civil society groups continue to insist at every UNHRC session that large numbers of civilians were deliberately targeted and killed, some even claiming genocide.

The Foreign Ministry seems to have decided not to use this information internationally until the government gets around to the "100 Day Programme (point 93)" and its "own set of national proposals for a transitional justice process" is eventually set up and gets going.

Is it the view of Foreign Minister Marapana and State Minister for Foreign Affairs Vasantha Senanayaka, that if there’s the slightest chance of bringing new evidence before the international community to assist it in arriving at the truth amidst a barrage of false propaganda against this country internationally, that they should refrain from doing so because the considered view of the Foreign Ministry is that it would not help "in any meaningful way, locally"?

It is fervently hoped that the Minister and the State Minister are able to figure out that a "national process" and active engagement with the international community are not mutually exclusive, and that it is the duty of the government to undertake both. This is especially so since Lord Naseby has appealed to the UK Government that it "must now get the UN and the UNHCR in Geneva to accept a civilian casualty level of 7,000 to 8,000, not 40,000."

While the national process is the more important, it is the Foreign Ministry’s responsibility to present Sri Lanka’scase credibly to the international community. It may lead to more than just a few individuals feeling good about it.