SLB- UPR PAPERS NO 06/2017: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN SRI LANKA

03/11/2017

Domestic violence

FACTS
Prevention of Domestic Violence Act was introduced in 2005 to address violence that arise out of personal relationships within home and outside. Despite legal recognition, prevalence and severity of domestic violence in Sri Lanka remain causes for concern. Case studies shed light on domestic violence that ranges from beating and economic abuse to severing of limbs, causing severe burns^[1] and murder^[2]. Almost always women are the victims/ survivors of domestic violence and stigma, social and economic vulnerabilities and lack of supportive access to justice system prevent women from recognising and reporting domestic violence. It was noted in a study of 796 survivors that 90% of survivors suffered several years of domestic violence before seeking help (Women in Need, 2012).
RECOMMENDATION

• Implement national level awareness programmes. Incorporate sharing of information on domestic violence in to existing maternal health services.
• Educate the Police of the gravity of domestic violence. Use a rights based approach when addressing violence.
• Make available legal aid and counselling for survivors of domestic violence.
• Include in the school curriculum relationship education that addresses gender inequality and violence.

FACTS
Supposed mediation of domestic violence cases by the Police and community Mediation Boards that aim to facilitate an amicable settlement with the view of ‘protecting the family unit’, perpetuate domestic violence.

The Women in Need study noted that 70% of survivors had gone to the Police seeking help to stop violence and the Police had given advise. In 6% of the incidents, Police had filed court cases and 2% of the cases had been referred to the Mediation Boards. In 75% cases violence did not stop. In 25% of the cases violence stopped, but in 86% of those, violence started again later. 50% had not sought the help of the Police again.

Not only does mediation in cases of domestic violence proves ineffective but also where the majority of victims is women, it has serious implications on equality. This process gives the continuation of abuse the outlook of state sponsored domestic violence.
RECOMMENDATION

• Prevent the law enforcement agencies from normalizing and trivialising violence.
• Prosecute perpetrators.
• End the practice of giving advise by Police in attempts to have the parties to settle. Incorporate family counselling by a qualified professional in to the process of obtaining redress, so that parties have an opportunity to reach an amicable settlement.
• Encourage the Police to apply for Protection Orders under Prevention of Domestic Violence Act 2005 as a first step upon evidence of domestic violence.

 FACTS
Marital rape is not recognized as a crime in Sri Lanka. A multi district study^[3] in 2012 shared that one in five ever-partnered men aged 18–49 reported perpetration of sexual violence against an intimate partner.
RECOMMENDATION

• Recognise rape within marriage as an offence.

 FACTS
Sri Lankan law still allows for child marriages within the Muslim community. Law on statutory rape does not apply to these cases.
RECOMMENDATION

• Reform law immediately to criminalise child marriages.

[1] http://winsl.net/case.htm

[2] https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/tortured-sri-lankan-muslim-child-marriage-victim-dies-police-soft-pedals-capture-of-murderous-husband/

[3] http://www.care.org/sites/default/files/documents/Broadening-Gender_Why-Masculinities-Matter.pdf

Sri Lanka BRIEF/ UPR Papers – 06/2017 Read as a PDF SLB-UPR papers No 06 Domestic violence

Sri Lanka’s military aren’t ready to be peacekeepers

Given Sri Lanka’s history in Haiti, its treatment of Tamils on the island, and its history of impunity, its soldiers should not be allowed to wear the blue helmet, writes Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree.

By GARY ANANDASANGAREE-Fri., Nov. 3, 2017

Given Sri Lanka’s history in Haiti, its treatment of Tamils on the island, and its history of impunity, its soldiers should not be allowed to wear the blue helmet, writes Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree.

The recent appointment of Robert Mugabe as the World Health Organization (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador sent shock waves across the globe.

The Zimbabwean dictator oppressed his people while dismantling his country’s health care system.

The outrage was near universal. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wondered if this was a “bad April Fool’s joke.” The British called the appointment “surprising and disappointing.” Perhaps the only one surprised by the outcry was the embattled head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

There are too many examples in recent history of the United Nations turning a blind eye on individuals and countries with appalling human rights records.

The United Nations Peacekeeping Conference taking place in Vancouver on Nov. 14 is a case in point. Many countries being invited to this conference have problematic militaries with allegations of international human rights, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. One such country invited this year is the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, whose military has a long record of rights violations.

According to the Associated Press, the Sri Lankan peacekeepers deployed to Haiti between 2004 and 2007 by the UN ran a sex ring operation with nine children, some as young as 12. Some 134 members of the Sri Lankan military were implicated, with 114 of these men being returned to Sri Lanka by the UN without any consequences.

In 2013, a young Haitian woman accused a Sri Lankan soldier of rape. The UN mandated the Sri Lankan military to investigate. Maj.-Gen. Jagath Dias was charged with investigating this incident. General Dias, who himself is alleged to have committed war crimes in Sri Lanka, reported back that the rape allegation was fabricated. He apparently did not even speak to the actual victim in the case.
But Sri Lanka’s record of violations of international law, nor the impunity it affords its soldiers, does not end there. The Sri Lankan armed forces have been the subject of several United Nations investigations. In 2011, the Panel of Experts appointed by then-Secretary General Ban Ki-moon concluded that allegations leveled against the Sri Lankan armed forces during the last phase of the war on the island in 2008 and 2009, if proven, amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

These include indiscriminate bombings of hospitals and no-fly zones, rape and sexual violence, violating the Geneva Convention by conducting summary executions of those who surrendered, enforced disappearances and more. In 2015, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found the Sri Lankan military had indeed committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the period of the war and beyond.

The Sri Lankan military continues to violate the rights of Tamils in the North and East of the island. The army occupies as much as 60,000 acres of civilian land just in the Mullaithivu district in Northern Sri Lanka, with massive camps that encroach on the daily lives of civilians.

According to a report recently released jointly by Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research and People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), the Vanni region, where much of the civilian carnage took place, has one army personnel per two civilians. There are ongoing reports of torture, rape, and suppression of journalists and human rights defenders.

Notwithstanding any of these findings, the Sri Lankan government refuses to hold any military personnel accountable for these crimes. Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena has recently said that he would not prosecute a single soldier who fought for his country. The Sri Lankan legal system appears unwilling and unable to handle any of these international crimes.

On the other hand, the victims in Sri Lanka continue to live with the military intruding in their daily lives, while they search for justice. Similarly, the poor victims in Haiti are awaiting answers.

It is with this backdrop that Sri Lanka’s invitation to be part of this noble role as International Peacekeeper is very troubling. Peacekeeping is a very complicated undertaking. Many militaries have had checkered pasts relating to peacekeeping, including our Canadian forces in Somalia.

Canada undertook a process of truth-seeking that built the confidence of our military to peacekeeping operations. One of the goals of the Vancouver conference is to promote a gender perspective on peacekeeping. While these are laudable goals and highlight the progress of the United Nations in addressing some of its previous failings, the question of Sri Lanka being invited to this table remains problematic.

Had Sri Lanka embraced a process of accountability and sought truth, a valid argument for engagement could have been made. By inviting Sri Lanka to take part in discussions on peacekeeping without substantive progress on accountability, the UN is validating the island nation on the world stage, thereby sending the message to other despotic leaders and rogue countries that they too could violate the rights of their people without consequences.

Ironically, while the Sri Lankan delegation is in Vancouver, another delegation is in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Council, defending Sri Lanka’s human rights record as part of the Universal Periodic Review. Given Sri Lanka’s history in Haiti, its treatment of Tamils on the island, and its history of impunity, its soldiers should not be allowed to wear the blue helmet, which is often seen as the embodiment of peace and protection of the innocent.

Gary Anandasangaree is the Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Rouge Park.

Read more about: 

Sri Lanka, United Nations

Danger alert ! Racketing Ranatunge Bros., create artificial shortage of petrol in country ! Know the conspiracy ……

(Lanka-e-News - 04.Nov.2017, 12.45PM) Ranatunge brothers who are by now a byword for fraudulent  and selfish illicit earnings at the expense of national interests have once again indulged in another anti national subterfuge to the detriment of the country . In order to sell rejected inferior quality petrol somehow , they have indulged in another racket by creating an artificial shortage of petrol in the country , according to reports reaching Lanka e news inside information division.

The modus operandi based on reports is thus … 

It has come to light that 40,000 metric tons of petrol imported by Indian oil Co. , following analytical tests by the Ceylon petroleum storage terminal , Kolonnawa and Lanka petroleum Corporation ,Sapugaskanda refinery analytical tests are of inferior quality . Owing to that , this quantity of petrol that was to be unloaded in  Sri Lanka on October 17 th was rejected. Yet , notorious Arjuna Ranatunge brothers along with a team of high rung officers are moving heaven and earth to get the inferior quality petrol unloaded to the Kolonnawa and Muturajawela tanks .

Therefore, while cunningly divesting themselves of the responsibility for the shortage of petrol, a well planned conspiratorial  attempt is being made to get this inferior quality petrol imported by the Indian oil Co. into the country .Though this quantity of petrol was rejected , since 17 th October until now the vessel ‘Torm Astrid’ with the inferior quality petrol is laying at anchor off the coast  in the vicinity of Colombo , with Ajuna Ranatunge corrupt  team   hatching conspiracies in the meanwhile  to get this inferior quality petrol somehow unloaded into  the Kolonnawa and Muturajawela storage tanks citing false excuses and justifications .

The 40,000 metric tons of petrol that was scheduled to arrive in SL on the 2nd by the vessel ‘Neverska Lady’ has been deliberately delayed without the petrol being loaded  into it .Consequently , its arrival in Colombo from Middle east  getting delayed until 10 th November is inevitable. 

Because of this,  the quantity of petrol now available at the Corporation is sufficient to provide supplies to meet the country’s requirements only for a further 4 days- that is after the 7 th there is going to be an unavoidable petrol shortage in the country  . With this information coming to the open , since  attempts were  being made by all to increase their petrol reserves, a petrol shortage has arisen  from  3rd itself  across the country.  

While this is the dire situation in the country , the conspirators on the other hand are trying to make hay while the sun shines regardless of national interests. That is  ,exploiting this shortage , the inferior quality petrol is being sought to be unloaded into country’s  storage tanks .

It is well to recall  it is while the whole country is aware of the putrid antecedence of the duo -  traitorous racketing Ranatunge brothers who have broken records in scams , Maithripala the so called president of much hyped good governance deemed it fit to appoint this most infamous  racketing Ranatunge duo to the Petroleum Corporation where the opportunities for illicit earnings are very much more . 

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by     (2017-11-04 07:34:02)

Convicted Trump adviser George Papadopoulos championed Israeli settlers

Michael F. Brown -2 November 2017

Lying to the FBI is a felony that can entail serious punishment.

But supporting violations of international law by Israeli settlers is, well, generally ignored or acclaimed by many in Washington.

George Papadopoulos, former foreign policy adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, provides a prime example.

Americans learned Monday that he pleaded guilty early last month to making a false statement to the FBI “about the timing, extent and nature of his relationships and interactions with certain foreign nationals whom he understood to have close connections with senior Russian government officials.”

He was arrested in July and later agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Close readers of the news may have also learned of Papadopoulos’ close connection to Israel and its West Bank settlers.

Heres Yossi Dagan showing George Papadopoulos where the Jordan Valley is before latter plead guilty to lying 2 FBI about his Russia contacts pic.twitter.com/CpCuNMN3RC

— Jacob Magid (@JacobMagid) 30 October 2017

Jacob Magid 

✔@JacobMagid

Heres Yossi Dagan showing George Papadopoulos where the Jordan Valley is before latter plead guilty to lying 2 FBI about his Russia contacts

2:59 PM - Oct 30, 2017

In a video addressed to the settlers coinciding with Trump’s inauguration as president, Papadopoulos said, “We are looking forward to ushering in a new relationship with all of Israel, including the historic Judea and Samaria” – calling the West Bank by the name Israel uses.

Papadopoulos appeared in the video with Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, a settler body in the occupied West Bank.

Dagan was among a number of settler leaders who traveled to Washington for Trump’s inauguration, where they received a warm welcome.

All of Israel’s settlements on occupied Palestinian land are illegal under international law. But those violations, which are subsidized by the US government and by tax-deductible US charitable contributions, have never been a concern for US prosecutors.

Promoting Israel’s interests

David M. Weinberg, a columnist for the right-wing Jerusalem Post, reported last year that Papadopoulos visited Israel in April 2016, where he spoke to Weinberg and associates of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Weinberg, an apparent Trump enthusiast, wrote that he did not hear from Papadopoulos “any dialing-back of the ridiculous Trump boast that he could get an Israeli-Palestinian deal in a flash.”

According to Weinberg’s account, Papadopoulos told his Israeli audience that Trump views Russian President Vladimir Putin “as a responsible actor and potential partner.”

Putin “has been respectful of Israeli concerns in Syria and elsewhere, too,” Weinberg wrote, describing one of Papadopoulos’ reasons for Trump’s rosy view of the Russian leader.

While Papadopoulos is not thought to have played a major part in the president’s election campaign, Trump did praise him in a March 2016 Washington Post interview as “an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy.”

In fact, Papadopoulos has written op-eds promoting Israel’s energy exports in right-wing settler publication Arutz Sheva and the reputedly more liberal Haaretz.

He has expressed no concern about Israel impeding and even plundering Palestinian oil and gas resources.

Based on Papadopoulos’ remarks, Weinberg – who has close ties to Israel’s right-wing think tanks and political establishment – called it “refreshing” to learn that “Trump has somewhat of a prism on world affairs, and that there are some reasonably informed people trying to advise him.”

Failing upwards

It might appear that this is the end of Papadopoulos’ political aspirations and that he will never have any sway over US policy toward Israeli settlements. He still faces sentencing, though his cooperation means he is likely to get less than the maximum five years and $250,000 fine the law allows.

But that’s not necessarily the case. Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration, pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal – where US officials secretly facilitated arms sales to Iran in order to funnel the proceeds to US-backed militias trying to overthrow Nicaragua’s left-wing government.

He looked finished politically. As The New York Times wrote at the time, “Few members of the Iran-Contra crew more symbolized the lawlessness of the Reagan administration than Mr. Abrams.”

But less than a decade later Abrams was back. President George W. Bush picked the man his father, President George H. W. Bush, pardoned.

Abrams served in a variety of roles – beginning in 2001 – including deputy national security adviser starting in February 2005.

The fiercely pro-Israel Abrams was a key proponent of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

Abrams successfully pressed for funding and arming militias linked to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to undercut Hamas following its 2006 election victory – setting the stage for a decade of Palestinian division and infighting after Hamas foiled the plan by ousting their rivals from Gaza.

The plan was as disastrous as Abrams’ previous interventions in Nicaragua. Vanity Fair described the botched anti-Hamas putsch as “yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-Contra, part Bay of Pigs.”

Remarkably, even Trump briefly considered Abrams for a position at the State Department – despite Trump’s campaign criticisms of the Iraq war.

Perhaps Papadopoulos will, like Abrams, receive his own presidential pardon and somehow continue to rise through the ranks in Washington.

Four foreign engineers kidnapped in Libya

Three Turks and a South African were seized while travelling from the airport in the town of Ubari to a power plant in southwest Libya

Kidnapping is rife across Libya, which has been in turmoil since 2011 (AFP)

Friday 3 November 2017

Four foreign engineers working for the Turkish construction firm Enka were kidnapped in southwest Libya on Friday, a Libyan state electricity official said.

The men, who were Turkish and South African, were seized while travelling from the airport in the town of Ubari to a power plant they were helping to build, the official said, asking not to be identified. There was no immediate indication who had abducted them.

In a statement on its website, Enka referred to three Turkish citizens being kidnapped.

"Around midday today in Libya three of our citizens, two of them our personnel who were temporarily working in the country, were kidnapped by unidentified people while they were travelling outside the building site," the statement said.

"Our company is following the subject closely, in contact with Turkish and Libyan authorities."

Kidnapping is rife across Libya, which has been in turmoil since an uprising followed by a civil war unseated longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Work at the Ubari plant has been going on for years, disrupted periodically by tribal clashes or other security problems.

Militant groups have often targeted foreign workers and diplomatic missions, taking advantage of the lawlessness that has swept Libya since 2011.

In June, gunmen briefly abducted seven members of the UN mission after an attack on their convoy.

Despite losing their Sirte stronghold in December last year, the Islamic State (IS) group remains active in Libya where it has since claimed several attacks.

Did Iran Sanctions Make the Revolutionary Guard Stronger?

Sanctions regimes aren't simple, and they only work when their negative secondary effects do not outweigh their primary achievements.

An IRGC Raad air defense system on display in Tehran on Sept. 21, 2012. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images) 

BY MEGAN REISS-NOVEMBER 3, 2017, 4:30 PM

Did the sanctions regime that preceded the Iran nuclear deal enable the Iranian regime’s most notorious actor, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)? That’s among the implications of a recent New York Times piece by Thomas Erdbrink, which notes that by hobbling the private sector, the sanctions bolstered the IRGC’s relative power within Iran.

The piece points to evidence that the IRGC was able to cement its privileged position because it was the entity most capable of evading sanctions, including by developing or partnering with bogus “private” companies. Now that the United States and the international community have lifted most of the sanctions, Erdbrink assesses that President Hassan Rouhani’s government is rooting out corruption and putting limits on the IRGC. Thus, he posits, “President Trump’s refusal last week to recertify the Iran nuclear deal — and the possibility of new unilateral sanctions that brings — could be welcome news for the Revolutionary Guards, restoring them to a central role in the economy.”

But even if the analysis of the sanctions boost to the IRGC is spot-on, that doesn’t mean the sanctions regime was a bad model or one that Congress and the president should eschew as they look to alter the behavior of bad actors, either inside or outside Iran, in the future. It does, however, suggest that there are important lessons to learn.

From the perspective of the United States, the narrative of the lead up to the negotiations that produced the nuclear deal remains that of a successful sanctions regime. Comprehensive international sanctions isolated the Iranian economy to such an extent that Tehran had no choice but to come to the negotiating table. While Iran holds to a different story — it says the sanctions played no real role in its decision to come to a deal — the $160 billion in lost oil revenue, $100 billion in frozen assets, and an economy estimated to have been 15 to 20 percent smaller than it would have been without sanctions all certainly contributed to confidence on the part of American officials that the sanctions regime is what brought the Iranians to the table.

Setting aside whether the final deal was beneficial for the United States, the focus of that narrative is on the question of whether the sanctions worked as intended. As former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew put it, “that is exactly what happened.”

Of course, getting the Iranians to the negotiating table was only a win if the negative secondary effects did not outweigh the primary achievement. The United States considers the IRGC one of the most destabilizing forces in the Middle East. Empowering the Revolutionary Guard certainly would call the success of the sanctions regime into question.

But a deeper look at the IRGC efforts abroad instead suggests that the Revolutionary Guard largely continued its normal activity during the sanctions period, advancing longstanding Iranian objectives. Similarly, structural changes in the Iranian economy to make it resistant to external pressures have gone, and will likely continue to go, unrealized.

To be certain, the news in recent years has been full of headlines about IRGC involvement across the Middle East, from material and military support for the murderous Assad regime in Syria to supporting Hamas in Gaza. Yet the IRGC’s support has hardly been different from before the broad international sanctions regime. The United States first designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984. It has been rearming Hezbollah since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict, supporting the Shia insurgencythat targeted U.S. troops during the Iraq War, and allowing al Qaeda to move “funds and fighters” through Iran since at least 2009. While reports say that Iran expanded its involvement in proxy wars while the sanctions regime was in place, this is largely a result of the continued fighting in Iraq and Iranian support for the Assad government in Syria. Iran’s behavior has generally been predictable.

In fact, it was only after the JCPOA led to an infusion of cash back to Iran that Rouhani increased the IRGC’s budget by 145 percent, not during the sanctions. The Revolutionary Guard’s budget doesn’t tell the full story of its relative power before and after sanctions. But it does suggest that it was constrained during sanctions, just as policymakers would have hoped.

As the sanctions took hold, Iranian authorities recognized the need for a different economic plan, although they still haven’t agreed on what that plan should look like. The election of Rouhani in 2013 was partly a rejection of isolationism and a mandate to change Iran’s future—including its economic future. Meanwhile, in February 2014, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for creation of a “resistance economy” that would better insulate the nation from exposure to market fluctuations and, more importantly, from the impact of sanctions. Under this plan, higher oil production, growth of the knowledge economy, financial reform, and greater economic independence all would help Iran establish self-sufficiency and escape dependence on the West.

The 2015 JCPOA brought the debate over the future structure of the Iranian economy to the forefront of the nation’s political establishment. Rouhani‘s active moves to constrain the IRGC are, in part, an attempt to make the Iranian economy more palatable for investment. But as Ayatollah Khamenei’s support for rolling back IRGC power appears tepid, the Guard is expected to remain a major player in the economy. Both leaders hope to “sanction-proof” the economy, but have competing objectives about the degree to which either wants Iran to be brought back into the international system. The disagreement over these end goals underscores that the advertised economic restructuring is far from full realization and that Iran still does not have a sanctions-proof economy.

Developing a successful sanctions package is inherently difficult. Policymakers have to think seriously about the secondary effects of any sanctions regime, which means avoiding overly simplistic narratives. The Iran sanctions should serve as a blueprint for how to develop primary and secondary sanctions to achieve a specific objective. However, it also can serve as a case study in how sanctions may be evaded, how bad actors might benefit from them, and how hostile states may try, successfully or not, to sanction-proof their economies.

At the end of the day, justifying the downsides of a particular sanctions regime are will always depend on the significance of the threat to be addressed and whether the United States has other mechanisms that could mitigate the negative consequences.

Revolutions should not live in Museums

Sanjay Kapoor

Posted on : October 29, 2017  

Frida Kahlo attracted the attention of photographers, but what caught her attention was the revolution that promised to change the world, which now gathers dust in a museum down the road

In the quiet and leafy Coyoacan neighbourhood of Mexico City a bus rolls in, carrying earnest tourists who join a long queue alongside a tall blue wall. It is a long wait to enter the house behind the blue walls, which is now a museum to Mexico’s most enigmatic but colourful personality –  Frida Kahlo.

Thousands of these tourists converge from different parts of the world to get a peep into the life of Kahlo, who is now being celebrated in new writing, not from the standpoint of her commitment to Communism but for her narcissism and what is being described today as her love for “selfies” –  most of her paintings are about herself. People have wondered what kind of following she would have got on Instagram or other social media platforms if she walked the world today. In her time, she was not short on publicity. Perhaps the most photographed female artist ever. Her father, a photographer, took some 6,000 pictures of her alone. And there were other photographers – at least one of them her lover – who took some stunning portraits of her. She knew all the angles that enhanced her unconventional beauty and seduced many of her lovers and disciples.

Every time she left her house wearing her exotic jewelry and her uneven high heels to compensate for her polio leg, she would make an impression all around, including on little boys who followed her to ask: “Where is the circus?”

What is glossed over and made light of is how she lent glamour to the cause of the revolution. In her last years –  her body racked by more than 40 operations – she worried about how she could paint and draw more to help revolutionary causes. So obsessed was Kahlo about the revolution and how it could end the misery of the poor that she had paintings of Russian revolutionaries hang around her bed. Besides, she had a sickle and hammer drawn on her corset that she wore under her long dress from the matriarchal area of Mexico’s Tehuantepec. 

Kahlo’s short life – she was 47 when she died – was not only defined by the zeitgeist of those times, socialism, but also by her physical infirmities and a crippling accident. Fascination for her stems from how she could rise above her pain, physical limitations, her tumultuous marriage to a famous muralist, Diego Rivera, to produce a body of work that continues to intrigue those who just knew her as a fridge magnet or the character played by Hollywood actor Salma Hayek in the film Frida. 

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So obsessed was Kahlo about the revolution and how it could end the misery of the poor that she had paintings of Russian revolutionaries hang around her bed

The enigmatic artist mostly drew herself, but in doing that she created a cult that attracts an unimaginable following. The web is littered with her followers who travel long distances to visit her exhibitions not just in her blue house, where she was born and died on the same day, but also in different cities of the world where her exhibitions are mounted. She inspires, she titillates and she does far more – by displaying her ability to turn every physical adversity into a creative opportunity to produce work that has endured time and geography. Today Kahlo is far more popular than she was when alive. This would have made her happy as she hungered for publicity and acclaim. Just a few days before she died she was sedated and carried on a stretcher to her last exhibition where hundreds turned up. Her final journey to a crematorium saw admirers lunging at her body to get something of her jewelry or her dress as a valuable memorabilia. Perhaps they knew that Kahlo would always command value and attention – dead or alive.

This explosion of popularity and aggressive branding through merchandising has contributed in unhinging Kahlo from her revolutionary belief. In a certain way market has reclaimed Kahlo from the clutches of a non-fashionable ideology. Though her fate is a little better than the famed Cuban revolutionary, Che Guevara, who has been reduced to a mere T-shirt icon.

Kahlo lived in interesting times. A revolution in faraway Russia that overthrew an imperial power, the tsar, to bring the working class to power in Moscow was challenging governments all around and creating exciting and interesting possibilities for those fighting injustice inherent in capitalists and feudal societies. The rise of the proletariat was firing the imagination of the creative community in different parts of the world. Mexico was settling down with its own revolution after the overthrow of an authoritarian ruler. The country expectedly was intellectually engaging with the ideas emanating from the workers’ revolution and providing refuge to revolutionaries and subversives as they plotted their next move. Kahlo was first a member of the communist youth league and later a member of the Mexican Communist party, which was founded by an Indian, M.N. Roy, who also sought refuge in Mexico City. Crazily enough, Roy is remembered in this city now as a high-end night club and not someone who set off on a journey to change the world.

Kahlo’s husband, Rivera’s influence with the Mexican leadership helped in the granting of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky refuge in Mexico City. Trotsky was banished by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin into, first, an internal exile in Alma Ata and later thrown out of the country. During the early days of his exile, Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, stayed in Kahlo’s house. Here Trotsky, a ladies’ man, had a torrid affair with Kahlo till she got bored of the “old man”. Trotsky, too, moved to his house a few streets away in Coyoacan, where he lived for about nine years till he was assassinated by a hired assassin.

Trotsky’s house has been turned into a museum, which, expectedly, does not get the kind of footfall that Kahlo does. Many of the visitors see Trotsky in the context of the affair that he had with the Mexican artist, but that means doing injustice to his contribution to the Russian revolution and, subsequently, as a man on the run. Though the little details of Trotsky’s affair with Kahlo make for interesting reading as they shared small notes written in English so that Sedova could not read them. Sedova did not need to know the English language to know what was going on between the seductive Mexican artist and
her husband.

What is truly remarkable about the Trotsky museum is the largeheartedness of Mexican society and how it provided asylum to ideas and people clearly subversive to conventional societies. A walk around the museum shows that Trotsky not just lived in relative luxury, but the place provided him a conducive environment to write for 10 hours every day. The Mexican government also provided him security – there is a guard room – to save him from murderous attempts by those who followed Stalin’s order. The museum shows how security changed the living arrangements in his house, but that proved inadequate when an assassin, a Spanish spy on the payroll of Stalin’s security apparatus, plunged an ice pick in his head.

Trotsky, who was 61 years old, died two days later. His was a life of tragedy. Nearly everyone in his family, including his son, were killed due to his views that were seen by Stalin as a threat to his stability and the Russian revolution. Trotskyism has thrived amongst those who believe in permanent revolution to protect ideals from the bureaucratisation of socialism.

The Kahlo and Trotsky museums provide a fascinating glimpse of how revolutionary ideas and individuals shaped Mexico’s society and, interestingly, the city itself that sits atop a drying lake. The neighbourhood of Coyoacan, which is now part of Mexico City, where Kahlo and Trotsky lived, continues to nurture a creative and argumentative community that can only be sustained in a liberal intellectual environment. That is why Mexico City remains an intellectual oasis in a world impatient with diversity and dissent.

Why is Trump so obsessed with Russia? We’re finally going to find out.

President Trump's troubles have only just begun with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's charges against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, his associate Rick Gates and former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, says Washington Post editorial writer Quinta Jurecic. (Adriana Usero, Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)

By Joe Scarborough  November 2 at 7:44 PM

I don’t get it, and I never have. Why has President Trump kowtowed to Russian President Vladimir Putin since the beginning of his presidential campaign? I’ve asked this question on the air, and off, to those close to the president and to the president himself. No one has a good answer. The man has insulted everyone from war heroes to the pope, and yet his admiration of the Russian dictator remains intact.

During my Dec. 18, 2015, “Morning Joe” interview with Trump, I tried throwing some cold water on the then-candidate’s adoration of the Russian leader.

“He kills journalists, political opponents and . . . ”

“Invades countries,” co-anchor Willie Geist helpfully added.

“ . . . and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?” I asked.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Michael Klimentyev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/Pool/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Any other candidate would have hit this softball out of the park. But not Trump.

“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.”

I tried slowing down for emphasis.

“But, again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.”

“Well,” Trump weakly argued, “I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.”

To this day, Trump has been steadfast in his defense of an autocrat who views the Soviet Union’s collapse as a tragedy and the United States as an enemy. Why? Soon I may not have to speculate. 

This week’s news out of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office suggests that what has long been opaque will soon become clear.

Here’s some of what we know so far. It seems to be enough to make any self-aware president panic.

●• June 16, 2015: Trump announces he’s running for president.

• October 2015 to January 2016: Trump lawyer Michael Cohen tries to make a deal with Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

• Dec. 10, 2015: Top Trump ally Michael Flynn is seated beside Putin to celebrate the Kremlin propaganda outlet Russia Today.

• March 21, 2016: Trump tells The Post that Carter Page and George Papadopoulos are key members of his foreign policy team.

• April 26, 2016: Kremlin-connected professor Joseph Mifsud tells Papadopoulos that Moscow has “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, including “thousands of emails.”

• April 27, 2016: Despite insisting throughout the campaign that they had never met with Russian officials, Trump and Jeff Sessions greet Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at an event at the Mayflower Hotel.

• June 9, 2016: Donald Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Kremlin insider Rinat Akhmetshin to gain information that would allegedly incriminate Clinton and her dealings with Russia. In an email setting up the meeting, Trump Jr. expresses excitement about receiving Russian intelligence about the Democratic nominee.

• July 7, 2016: Manafort offers to provide briefings to a Kremlin-linked Russian billionaire.

• July 18, 2016: Trump campaign members succeed in pressuring Republicans to remove a platform plank in support of providing arms to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression.

• July 27, 2016: Trump makes a direct appeal to the Kremlin during a news conference. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

• Sept. 16, 2016: After admitting that he had been in contact with WikiLeaks — and later revealing that he had contact with a hacker connected to Russia — Trump associate Roger Stone tells Boston Herald Radio that WikiLeaks will soon “drop a payload of new documents on Hillary on a weekly basis” that will damage the Clinton campaign.

• Oct. 7, 2016: The “Access Hollywood” tape is released. About a half-hour later, WikiLeaks begins to publish Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails.

• Dec. 1: Kushner meets with Kislyak in an attempt to create a “channel” for sensitive communications between the transition team and the Russian government, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.

● Dec. 29, 2016: Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn calls Kislyak to discuss sanctions placed on Russia by President Barack Obama.

• Jan. 11: At his first news conference as president-elect, Trump said, “If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That’s called an asset, not a liability. Now, I don’t know that I’m gonna get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do.” He also tweets, “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”

• Feb. 13: Flynn resigns after he reportedly lied to Vice President Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.

• May 9: Trump fires FBI Director James B. Comey.

• May 10: Trump meets in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kislyak, bragging that the firing of “nut job” Comey will ease pressure from the investigation. Trump barred U.S. reporters from the meeting and revealed classified information to the Russian officials.

• May 11: In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump reveals that he had asked Comey whether he was under investigation for alleged ties to Russia.

• June 7: Comey releases a memo recalling his interactions with Trump, who he said asked for an oath of loyalty from him.

• July 7: Trump meets with Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Germany. A second dinner meeting was undisclosed.

• Oct. 5: Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI as part of a cooperation agreement with Mueller.

• Oct. 30: Mueller’s office indicts Manafort and associate Rick Gates on charges of conspiracy against the United States, being an unregistered foreign agent, money laundering, and seven counts of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

I’m starting to think that the answers to our burning questions about Trump’s strange obsession with Russia are revealing themselves in a slow and painful way for the president and all of his men and women. Will the next big reveal in this reality show spectacle come when one of his closest confidants surprises him in the final episode, not with a rose, but with a wire? The ratings would be yuge. Believe me. Yuge.

Read more from Joe Scarborough’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

6 Girls Are Not to be Beheaded in Saudi Arabia

Truth vs Click Bait: Can You See It?

Nov-03-2017

(SALEM, Ore.) - Just because someone says it, writes it or prints it, doesn’t make it true. 

Remember when you heard that? Some lessons from childhood ring true, all through life. Take news, for example.

Many people “get their news” from facebook. That’s got it’s pros and cons. 

We only hope they know their sources.

Maybe you've seen this: there’s a tragic story making the rounds right now of 6 young girls who are allegedly going to be beheaded by the Saudi Arabian government for having boys at a birthday party. The viral article asks for a world outcry to save the girls’ lives.

Shocking, but because Saudi Arabia has such a terrible track record for human rights violations, even a kid’s birthday party police crackdown is easily believable. That said, the article in question is absolutely FALSE.

This article was written, published and distributed to 1) make money, and 2) fuel the fervor of hate toward “Islam”.

So many online readers do little to find the source of so-called news articles that some of the same hoaxes reoccur, year after year, with very few challenges. They might think it makes no difference if “that type of thing really does happen”, but it does matter. The truth matters.

Saudi Arabia commits plenty of human rights violations, so why not just try to keep up with the actual news instead of the attention-getting headlines, the click bait. Just a few weeks ago, Saudi Arabia executed six people for murder and drugs all on a single day. Public beheading is the most common method of execution in Saudi Arabia. So why make anything up?

If you’re well-versed in world history and pay attention to factual consequences, you may think these type of articles are simple satire and shouldn’t be taken seriously. That would be true, if the hoaxes and other sensational stories weren’t easily believed by so many. And then, because they were convinced (duped), they share. And so on.

How do you know if it’s real news? Sometimes it takes more than a few seconds online, but you can usually discover the source of an article by a few simple searches – reverse engineer the article. Where did it come from?

For instance, this “6 Girls to be Beheaded” article that showed up several times on Facebook today. It just seemed odd. So, I checked it out.

Firstly, is it true?

No. They state that the info came from HRW (Human Rights Watch) and also the UN Human Rights Council. Both archives have been thoroughly researched and there is no such story of 6 girls (or any amount) that matches their details, date or description. It didn’t happen.

Second, who wrote it?

The article was published by wikileaksnews.co, which has no connection to the real WikiLeaks (wikileaks.org), but they have over 65,000 Twitter followers just the same. The text of the heart-breaking story is pretty short, a few paragraphs cluttered with ads you have to work through in order to read the words. At the bottom of the page, Wikileaksnews.co’s Twitter button doesn’t go to a news group, instead it directs readers to Envato (@envato), a “creative ecosystem of sites and services for digital assets and creative people”. Right, a host of unrelated but tempting sites that want you to click on them.

The Wikileaksnews.co staff didn’t write the article though. They republished it, sourcing “xxn”, which is CounterCurrentNews.info. Go to that site, and the same article appears. But again, that’s not where it came originated.

CounterCurrentNews.info republished it from WorldTruth.TV, where the same article appeared with the same amount of ads, and... they didn’t write it either.

WorldTruth.TV sourced Religionmind.com as the original author of said article.

Religionmind.com offers a myriad of sensational articles, including this one, with the DISCLAIMER: This site is designed for educational purposes only and is not engaged in rendering any advice, tangible service or professional service.

Exactly, it is NOT a news service, but people re-publish their product as if it is.

And Finally:

Where do we go from here? There is a great sense of urgency in the article, but no links or addresses in which to add your voice to the outcry. No petition, no court case info, no nothing. So, what’s a reader to do?

It doesn’t matter, not to the non-news site.

Credibility is not a factor as long as enough people click on the page, making money with each ad that appears to litter your potential reading experience. Their articles are more fantasy than fact, but they do have at least a shred of truth to hook the reader.

To further that point, Religionmind.com’s facebook page is “Theist vs Atheist”, an anti-Islamic propaganda page.

One of their dramatic articles is “Trump Meets Dalai Lama and Says He Will Not Go Ahead With Border Wall”, which is... interesting, even if completely inaccurate. (Oct2017)

Another easy-to-flag sensational story by this religious site was “China Bans Islam”. Thousands of people spread the story, probably never even reading more than the headline.

The truth is, No, the country of China did not ban Islam. However, a Chinese Province, Xinjiang, has made several moves in that direction this year, including banning of certain Muslim baby names that they deemed 'overly religious'¹.

Using a piece of fact as a leader to a dubious story is an old tactic, practiced by high schoolers everywhere when creating content for an ill-prepared essay question.

As President Harry Truman said in 1948, “If you can't convince them, confuse them.” Or, in today’s lingo, “Baffle them with Bullshit”.

Sensational publishers aren’t looking to inform or explain, they are happy with confusion. As long as the readers just keep on clicking.

¹China officially guarantees freedom of religion, but authorities have issued a series of measures in different areas recently in response to what it sees as a rise in religious extremism, while strongly denying committing any cultural and religious rights abuses.

Sources: Human Rights Watch; UN Human Rights Council; U.S. Dept. of State #clickbait #hoax #fakenews