Zimbabwe: Mugabe and military talks continue amid political limbo

Senior church leaders and South African envoys also involved in mediation efforts, with Mugabe under house arrest after military takeover

People walk past an armoured vehicle in Harare, one of the vehicles cordoning off Zimbabwe’s presidential seat of power and parliament building after the military takeover. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Jason BurkeAfrica correspondent and Alex Maher in Harare-Thursday 16 November 2017 12.58 GMT

Zimbabwe remains in political limbo a day-and-a-half after the military takeoverthat appears to have put an end to Robert Mugabe’s 37-year grip on power.

As talks between Mugabe - who has been confined to his residence in Harare by the army, and senior military officers – entered a second day, there were reports that he is resisting pressure to resign as president. A Catholic priest close to the veteran leader is involved in mediation efforts.

The Zimbabwean capital was tense but calm amid the political uncertainty. Troops have secured the airport, government offices, parliament and other key sites. The rest of the country has remained peaceful. The takeover has been cautiously welcomed by many Zimbabweans.

Regional power South Africa appears to be backing the takeover, and has sent ministers to Harare to help with negotiations to form a new government and decide the terms of Mugabe’s resignation.
An emergency meeting of the Southern African Development Community regional bloc is scheduled to take place in Botswana at 3pm (1pm GMT).

The military declared on national television in the early hours of Wednesday morning that it had temporarily taken control of the country to “target criminals”around the 93-year-old president. It now seems likely that the ruthless rule of the world’s oldest leader will be definitively over within days.

The takeover by the armed forces appears to have resolved a bitter battle to succeed Mugabe that had pitted his wife, Grace, against the former vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Mnangagwa was reported to have returned to Zimbabwe on Tuesday evening from South Africa, where he fled last week after being stripped of his office by Mugabe in an apparent attempt to clear Grace Mugabe’s path to power.

Reports that Grace Mugabe had fled to Namibia on Wednesday appeared false, with several sources saying she was detained with her husband in their residence in Harare.

The future of the first lady is a key element in the ongoing discussions between Mugabe and the military. Singapore and Malaysia, where the Mugabes own property, are potential destinations if she is allowed to travel into exile.

Forty-eight hours of drama and confusion had begun on Monday when the army chief – flanked by other senior officers – warned he was prepared to “step in” to end turmoil in the ruling Zanu-PF party.

By Wednesday, it was “game over” for Mugabe, as Piers Pigou, a South Africa-based analyst for the International Crisis Group put it. “It’s just a question of how soft the landing is .... But the [army] still need him to provide a veneer of legitimacy and constitutionalism. If he doesn’t want to play ball that is a bit of a problem.”

The 93-year-old has ruled over Zimbabwe like a medieval monarch, favouring loyal followers with gifts of land, office and money, but pursuing those seen as traitors with a cruelty only marginally moderated by a residual respect for legal process.

A former guerrilla leader, Mugabe was ready to sacrifice his country’s economy to maintain his grip on power, turning to increasingly tired revolutionary rhetoric, corruption and coercion to stave off any threats. Few other than the close associates who benefited directly from Mugabe’s rule will mourn his passing from power.

One high-profile opposition leader said there was “a lot of talking going on”, with the army “reaching out to different factions to discuss the formation of a transitional government.

Negotiations had been ongoing for several months with “certain people within the army”, a second senior opposition official said.

The official said Mugabe would resign this week and be replaced by Mnangagwa, with opposition leaders taking posts as vice-president and prime minister. There was no independent confirmation of his claim.

The fragmented opposition has not publicly condemned the military move. Nelson Chamisa, the deputy head of the opposition MDC party, called for “peace, constitutionalism, democratisation, the rule of law and the sanctity of human life”.

The MDC’s leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, arrived in Harare from Johannesburg on Wednesday night. He has been tipped as a potential prime minister in a new political set-up.

Tendai Biti, an opposition leader and former finance minister, called for a transitional authority to take over. His party said in a statement on Thursday it should be “made up of competent Zimbabweans whose mandate will be to put in place measures to turn around the economy.”

There has been no sign of any resistance to the takeover or to the arrest of a series of senior officials associated with Grace Mugabe and her G40 faction. The youth wing of the ruling Zanu-PF, which had made defiant statements directed at the military earlier in the week, appeared to condone the military action.

Late on Wednesday, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation interrupted its programming to broadcast a statement by the party’s youth leader, Kudzai Chipanga, who apologised for “denigrating” military chiefs.

Grace Mugabe is deeply unpopular and has few allies internally or, crucially, regionally. In contrast, Mnangagwa, a former spy chief, has strong support among many in Zimbabwe’s armed forces, and it is unclear who might oppose him in coming days.

Mugabe’s sacking of Mnangagwa came as a shock to many observers. Nicknamed “the Crocodile” from his time fighting in the country’s liberation wars, he had been considered the most likely candidate to succeed Mugabe if the president decided to step down or died in office.
But the increasingly infirm president’s gamble exposed deep factional divides within the ranks of Zanu-PF as well as the political weakness of his wife and her faction. “It was a spectacular miscalculation,” said Pigou.

The crisis comes at a time when Zimbabwe faces severe economic problems. The country is struggling to pay for imports due to a shortage of dollars, which has also caused acute cash shortages.
State employees, including some soldiers and policemen, have gone for months without payment of their salaries, deepening discontent with the government.

Russian Billionaire Files Application Seeking Testimony of British Spy Behind Trump Dossier

Documents filed in a British court are the latest move in a complex international legal battle.

The logo of news website BuzzFeed is seen on a computer screen in Washington on March 25, 2014. AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMM 

BY JANA WINTER-

NOVEMBER 11, 2017, 11:39 AM
A Russian tech billionaire is asking a U.K. court to compel testimony from a former British intelligence officer who compiled the now-famous dossier on U.S. President Donald Trump’s alleged links to Russia, according to court documents reviewed by Foreign Policy.

The application to the British court, dated Nov. 3, is just the latest legal maneuver in a case that has become emblematic of the international political intrigue that followed Trump’s surprise electoral victory a year ago. The three-way legal battle involves a Russian businessman who says he’s been unfairly linked to the hacking of the Democratic Party, a former spy paid to dig up dirt on a real estate mogul who is now president, and a feisty news organization best known for publishing cat videos and listicles.

Lawyers for Aleksej Gubarev, who owns the Dallas-based web hosting firm Webzilla, are seeking to force Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer, to provide testimony in the billionaire’s case against the American news organization BuzzFeed, and its editor, Ben Smith, in a U.S. court in the southern district of Florida.

The application filed in U.K. court last week is the second step in a complex process required to compel testimony from someone in another country for a U.S. court case. In July, a U.S. federal judge in Miami issued an order in the suit against BuzzFeed, allowing Gubarev’s lawyers to seek a British order to depose Steele, who lives in the United Kingdom.

Steele was hired in 2016 by an American firm, Fusion GPS, to compile information on Trump, who was then running for president. Initially, Fusion was paid by the Washington Free Beacon to investigate Republican candidates, including Trump; later, the firm received money from a law firm tied to the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton campaign.

The 35-page dossier Steele wrote, which included allegations of a Trump sex tape’s existence, was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017 and is now at the center of several legal cases. Among other unverified claims, the dossier asserts that Gubarev’s company, Webzilla, was involved in a Russia-directed campaign to hack Democratic Party computer systems in the runup to the 2016 presidential election.
Gubarev has strongly disputed that claim and is now suing both BuzzFeed and Steele.

In parallel to those court cases is special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which overlaps with allegations made in the dossier.

The application to the British court seeks testimony from Steele on, among other issues, payments he received, the reasons for the dossier’s creation, sources and methods for its preparation, and information on who it was distributed to, including media organizations.

Lawyers for Steele and Gubarev have been wrangling for months over whether the former intelligence officer will have to testify in the BuzzFeed case.

Compelling Steele to testify in the U.S. case is part of Gubarev’s strategy to demonstrate that BuzzFeed was negligent in publishing the unverified allegations in the dossier. BuzzFeed’s legal strategy, on the other hand, is to use the court case to prove that the allegations contained in the dossier might indeed be true.

Last week, BuzzFeed subpoenaed the Democratic National Committee for records relating to last year’s hack of its servers.

A spokesperson for BuzzFeed declined to comment on Gubarev’s application in the British courts. Lawyers representing Steele did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lawyers for Steele have previously argued that making him testify in the U.S. court case against BuzzFeed is simply a way of getting information for use in a separate British court case that Gubarev is pursuing against Steele and his U.K.-based company, Orbis Business Intelligence.

It’s unclear if the bid to compel Steele’s testimony will be successful. Gubarev’s lawyer, Evan Fray-Witzer, told FP that Steele is “attempting to resist having to testify in London, just as he did in Florida.”

The application in the U.K. says Gubarev’s lawyers intend to depose Steele in London in December, but no immediate ruling is expected in the British court case, according to Fray-Witzer.

“If and when we get to depose Mr. Steele, we expect to hear that he made no attempts whatsoever to verify the allegations, had no reason to trust the source of the allegations, but passed them on anyway because it made for a good story,” he said. “Surely if Mr. Steele or Fusion thought their work could withstand scrutiny, they wouldn’t be working so hard to keep it hidden.”
— Elias Groll contributed to this article. 

Two more women describe unwanted overtures by Roy Moore at Alabama mall

Kayla McLaughlin, left, and Gena Richardson worked together at Sears in the late 1970s. The pair is seen in this image from 1977. Richardson says Roy Moore, then in his 30s, visited her at Sears and that Moore later called her school to ask her out. (Provided by Kayla McLaughlin )

By Stephanie McCrummen, Beth Reinhard and Alice Crites November 15 at 8:09 PM

Gena Richardson says she was a high school senior working in the men’s department of Sears at the Gadsden Mall when a man approached her and introduced himself as Roy Moore.

“He said, ‘You can just call me Roy,’ ” says Richardson, who says this first encounter happened in the fall of 1977, just before or after her 18th birthday, as Moore, then a 30-year-old local attorney, was gaining a reputation for pursuing young women at the mall in Gadsden, Ala. His overtures caused one store manager to tell new hires to “watch out for this guy,” another young woman to complain to her supervisor and Richardson to eventually hide from him when he came in Sears, the women say.

Richardson says Moore — now a candidate for U.S. Senate — asked her where she went to school, and then for her phone number, which she says she declined to give, telling him that her father, a Southern Baptist preacher, would never approve.

A few days later, she says, she was in trigonometry class at Gadsden High when she was summoned to the principal’s office over the intercom in her classroom. She had a phone call.

“I said ‘Hello?’” Richardson recalls. “And the male on the other line said, ‘Gena, this is Roy Moore.’ I was like, ‘What?!’ He said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m in trig class.’ ”

Richardson says Moore asked her out again on the call. A few days later, after he asked her out at Sears, she relented and agreed, feeling both nervous and flattered. They met that night at a movie theater in the mall after she got off work, a date that ended with Moore driving her to her car in a dark parking lot behind Sears and giving her what she called an unwanted, “forceful” kiss that left her scared.

“I never wanted to see him again,” says Richardson, who is now 58 and a community college teacher living in Birmingham. She describes herself as a moderate Republican and says she didn’t vote in the 2016 general election or in this year’s Republican Senate primary in Alabama.

Moore’s campaign did not directly address the new allegations. In a statement, a campaign spokesman cast the growing number of allegations against Moore as politically motivated.

“If you are a liberal and hate Judge Moore, apparently he groped you,” the statement said. “If you are a conservative and love Judge Moore, you know these allegations are a political farce.”

Richardson, whose account was corroborated by classmate and Sears co-worker Kayla McLaughlin, is among four women who say Moore pursued them when they were teenagers or young women working at the mall — from Sears at one end to the Pizitz department store at the other. Richardson and Becky Gray, the woman who complained to her manager, have not previously spoken publicly.

The accounts of the other two women — Wendy Miller and Gloria Thacker Deason — have previously been reported by The Washington Post.

Phyllis Smith, who was 18 when she began working at Brooks, a clothing store geared toward young women, said teenage girls counseled each other to “just make yourself scarce when Roy’s in here, he’s just here to bother you, don’t pay attention to him and he’ll go away.’ ”

Phyllis Smith worked at a mall store called Brooks, a clothing store geared toward young women. She said young co-workers told each other to “just make yourself scarce when Roy’s in here, he’s just here to bother you, don’t pay attention to him and he’ll go away." (Provided by Phyllis Smith)

****
The encounters described by the women occurred between 1977 and 1982, when Moore was single, in his early 30s and an attorney in Etowah County in northeastern Alabama. In October 1977, he was appointed deputy district attorney.

In all, The Post spoke to a dozen people who worked at the mall or hung out there as teenagers during the late ’70s and early ’80s and recall Moore as a frequent presence — a well-dressed man walking around alone, leaning on counters, spending enough time in the stores, especially on weekend nights, that some of the young women who worked there said they became uncomfortable.

Several of the women said they decided to share their accounts after reading a Post story last week in which four women said Moore pursued them as teenagers, including one who said she was 14 and Moore was 32 when he touched her sexually.

Since that story was published, another woman, Beverly Young Nelson, appearing with lawyer Gloria Allred, accused Moore of sexually assaulting her in his car when she was 16. A lawyer for Moore’s campaign held a news conference on Wednesday to dispute Nelson’s account, suggesting that a signature in her yearbook she said was Moore’s might have been forged.

Moore has denied engaging in any kind of sexual misconduct. In an interview last week with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Moore did not rule out that he may have dated teenage girls when he was in his 30s, though he said he could not recall. Moore said he doesn’t remember “ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother.”

Moore has brushed off mounting calls from Republican leaders in Washington to end his campaign, saying the media and the GOP establishment are aligned against him. The reaction in Alabama, among voters and elected officials, has been more mixed.

Republican senators continue to urge Senate candidate Roy Moore to end his campaign in Alabama amid allegations of sexual misconduct. (Jordan Frasier, Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

President Trump has not gone as far as other Republican leaders, saying through press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that Moore should drop out if the allegations are true. Trump ignored questions Wednesday from reporters asking if Moore should quit the race.

****
The sprawling Gadsden Mall opened in 1974 with a Sears at one end, a Pizitz department store at the other, a movie theater in the middle and plenty of parking all around. It quickly became a social hub for teenagers.

By 1977, Moore had returned home from law school after attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and serving in Vietnam. It was around that time, people say, that he became a regular at the mall.

“It would always be on Friday or Saturday night,” says Becky Gray, who was then 22 and working in the men’s department of Pizitz. “Parents would drop kids off, let them roam the mall. Well, he started coming up to me.”

She says Moore kept asking her out and she kept saying no.

“I’d always say no, I’m dating someone, no, I’m in a relationship,” says Gray, now 62, a retired teacher and a Democrat who supports Moore’s opponent in the Senate race. “I thought he was old at that time. Anyone over 22 was just old.”

Gray says he was persistent in a way that made her uncomfortable. She says he lingered in her section, or else by the bathroom area, and that she became so disturbed that she complained to the Pizitz manager, Maynard von Spiegelfeld. Gray says he told her that it was “not the first time he had a complaint about him hanging out at the mall.” Von Spiegelfeld has since died, according to a relative.

Pizitz is also where Deason told The Post last week that Moore asked her out when she was 18 and working behind the jewelry counter.

Beyond Pizitz was a long corridor of shops, including Brooks, which sold rabbit fur coats and fashions geared toward young women. Smith, the one-time Brooks employee, says she was probably 19 when Moore began coming into the store, which she says employed many teenage girls. She remembers him being alone and had the strong impression he wasn’t looking to shop.

“I can remember him walking in and the whole mood would change with us girls,” says Smith, 59, who lives in Gadsden and says she is a Democrat. “It would be like we were on guard. I would find something else to do. I remember being creeped out.”

Smith says Moore never approached her personally, but she saw him chatting with other young clerks, and that she would tell new hires to “watch out for this guy.” She says that occasionally, one of the store managers would have to deal with bounced checks, which meant going to the district attorney’s office where Moore worked. She says the managers would “draw straws” to decide who had to go talk to him about the cases.

“It was just sort of a dreadful experience,” she says.

At the center of the mall was a photo booth, where Wendy Miller earlier told The Post her mother worked. Miller said she hung out there with her mom when she was 16 and that Moore repeatedly asked her out on dates, which her mother forbade. Miller’s mother, Martha Brackett, confirmed her account.
****
At the other end of the mall was Sears, where Richardson says she was among a clique of Gadsden High girls who worked at the store during their senior year.

Richardson, whose maiden name is Burgess, was assigned to the men’s section, and her friend and classmate McLaughlin worked at the cosmetics and jewelry counter at the front of the store with a view down the long mall corridor.

“I could see when he came in,” says McLaughlin, whose maiden name was Shirley and who says that she and Richardson usually worked evening shifts on the weekends. “He didn’t really talk to me, he was over there visiting with Gena a lot. And that got to be a pattern.”

McLaughlin says she told her friend to stay away from Moore. “I hate to say this, but Gena was like my little sister. She was raised by a Southern Baptist preacher and a little naive. So I’d let her know: ‘Here he comes.’ ”

When Richardson met Moore she says he introduced himself as an attorney, and says she found it odd that he asked her to call him “Roy.”

“That was strange in the first place, because of the way we were always taught to call someone Mr. or Mrs.,” she says.

When he asked for her number, she says that she told him, “No, my dad is so strict. Mm-mm. No.” She and McLaughlin both say they talked about Moore after that, with McLaughlin telling her friend, “You can’t go out with him. He’s old.”

It was a few days later, Richardson says, when she was called out of her trigonometry class.

Richardson says she was startled, thinking maybe her dad was calling, and that when she realized it was Moore, “I felt like every person in that office was staring at me.”

“At that point, he said, ‘Would you like to go out some time?’ ” recalls Richardson, who says she described the call right afterward to McLaughlin, who confirmed the account. “I said, ‘Well, I can’t talk right now.’ And being so naive, and so not worldly, I said, ‘I’ll be at work Friday or Saturday.’”
The next Friday or Saturday night, she says, he came in to Sears and asked her out again and she again told him, “Look, my dad is so strict.”

She recalls Moore suggesting that they meet for a late movie after she got off work. She says she called her parents and told them she was going out with friends.

Instead, she says she met Moore at the movie theater. She says she can’t remember what they saw, but she remembers clearly what happened after. She says it was cold and Moore offered to drive her to her car, which was more than a football field’s distance away in a parking area behind Sears. She says he parked by her car and began chatting with her, and she says she told him again about her dad.

“I just explained to him that my dad’s a minister, and you know, I just can’t sneak around because that’s wrong,” she recalls. “So I thanked him and started to get out and he grabbed me and pulled me in and that’s when he kissed me.

“It was a man kiss — like really deep tongue. Like very forceful tongue. It was a surprise. I’d never been kissed like that,” she says. “And the minute that happened, I got scared then. I really did. Something came over me that scared me. And so I said, ‘I’ve got to go, because my curfew is now.’ ”
She says she got out of the car and into her own.

Richardson and McLaughlin say they talked about it afterward, and when Moore came into Sears after that, McLaughlin would warn her friend so she could hide in the back of the store. “I would call and say he’s coming this way,” McLaughlin says. “She would go to the back. She was uncomfortable.”

Richardson says she never spoke to Moore again. She says she first told her father about the incident on Wednesday. She says she never told her mother, who is deceased.

“All these years, I thought that was an isolated incident,” Richardson says. “Now, as a mother and a grandmother, it just makes me physically sick. I realize that it didn’t just happen to me.”

May vs Corbyn on public spending

By Patrick Worrall-16 NOV 2017

“We have seen over a quarter of a trillion pounds in infrastructure spending since 2010.”Theresa May, 15 November 2017

Theresa May’s first proper question at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions was about whether the government would spend more on Britain’s infrastructure.

You might have taken her answer, then, to refer to government spending.

But the Treasury told us they get to this figure of a quarter of a trillion pounds by adding together public and private sector investment in Britain’s infrastructure. They haven’t published the full methodology.

What about public money alone? These figures from the House of Commons Library show what has happened to Public Sector Net Investment on infrastructure since 2010:


As we can see, government investment as a share of national wealth was cut year-on-year several times under the Conservatives, but it is predicted to rise to 2.3 per cent by 2020.

Is this a lot? The Commons Library also compares Britain’s infrastructure spending with other major advanced economies. (These international figures include private investment, like the Treasury, but they may not be calculated in the same way.)

We can see that Britain lags behind other wealthy countries and spends less than the G7 average on infrastructure:

“We have protected police budgets.”Theresa May, Prime Minister’s Questions, 15 Nov 2017

The current government has promised to “protect” – that is, to not cut – police budgets in the current parliament, but this claim is arguable.

The money police forces get from central government has in fact been cut, and they have had to increase the share they get from local council taxes to make up the shortfall.

After doing this, the total amount forces have to spend has remained “broadly flat in cash terms”, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

This means revenues have continued to fall in real terms (adjusting for inflation). And the continuing real-terms cut comes after a 14 per cent fall in real terms spending in the last parliament, the think-tank adds.

“There are 11,000 fewer firefighters in England since 2010, and last year deaths in fires increased by 20 per cent.”Jeremy Corbyn

The number of firefighters has actually fallen by around 8,500 (full-time equivalent since 2010. Labour told us that Mr Corbyn meant fire service staff overall, who have indeed dwindled by more than 11,000.

Has this cut come during a time of rising threat to life from fire? Not if you follow the long-term trend in the figures.

Annual fire deaths in England have actually been falling consistently for decades, as this graph shows (the original figures are here):


Mr Corbyn’s claim about a rise in deaths is true if you zoom in on a very specific time period – the year ending June 2017, compared to the previous 12 months:

This means the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster in June are included in the figures, which massively increases the overall death toll for England in 2017.

“Crime is up, violent crime is up.”Jeremy Corbyn
“In fact, crimes traditionally measured by the independent crime survey, are down by well over a third since 2010.”Theresa May

These statements sound completely contradictory, but they reflect the simple fact that there are two main measures of crime in this country, and they tell us different stories.

Jeremy Corbyn is quoting statistics recorded by the police, and it’s true that in those figures, overall crime and violent crime are on the rise.

Theresa May prefers to quote from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which says the opposite: crime – including violent crime – is falling.
The two data sets measure different things, and both have their weaknesses.

The Crime Survey is based on a questionnaire, with members of the public asked whether they have been the victim of a crime, regardless of whether they have gone to the police or not. Police figures can only show crimes that have been reported.

The figures Mr Corbyn relies upon are considered so unreliable as a true measure of crime that they lost their designation as an official national statistic in 2014, although they are still published alongside figures from the crime survey.

ONS statisticians say rises in police recorded crime reflect a number of factors including “continuing improvements to recording processes and practices, more victims reporting crime, or genuine increases in crime”.

Mrs May prefers the survey – but this does not count some of the most serious crimes like homicide, and sexual offences aren’t recorded in its main tables.

As Tillerson visits Burma, Holocaust Museum points to ‘mounting evidence of genocide’

Ismot Ara, 7, a sick Rohingya refugee girl is pictured as she sits on the doorway of her makeshift shelter at Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 12, 2017. Source: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

By Max Walden | 16th November 2017

THERE is “mounting evidence of genocide” in Burma (Myanmar) according to a report published this week, as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed the need for a “credible and impartial investigation” into alleged abuses against Rohingya Muslims during a one-day state visit.

Speaking during a joint press conference with the Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in the capital Naypyidaw on Wednesday, Tillerson said that the US was “deeply concerned by credible reports of widespread atrocities” committed by the country’s Tatmadaw army.

While dozens of American lawmakers have pressured President Donald Trump’s administration to impose targeted sanctions and travel bans against Burma’s military leadership, Tillerson said that sanctions were not “advisable at this time”.

Suu Kyi and Tillerson at a news conference at Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on Nov 15, 2015. Source: Reuters

“The recent serious allegations of abuses in Rakhine State demand a credible and impartial investigation, and those who commit human rights abuses or violations must be held accountable,” said Tillerson.

The Secretary of State also met with the powerful Tatmadaw chief General Min Aung Hlaing, who claimed in a Facebook post to have informed Tillerson of the “real situation” in the Rakhine.

SEE ALSO: Rohingya crisis: Organisation warns of 200,000 extra arrivals in coming weeks

Min Aung Hlaing reiterated the Burmese government’s official line, that “ARSA extremist Bengali terrorists fled to Bangladesh fearing counter-attack of security forces after they failed to carry out successful attacks on the security outposts.”

“Terrorists brutally killed all including children, women and Bengalis of their same race cooperating with the government,” said the post, echoing the findings of a supposed investigation by the Burmese military released this week which exonerated it of any wrongdoing during the Rohingya crisis.

Myanmar border guard police force patrol near the Myanmar-Bangladeshi border outside Maungdaw, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, on Nov 12, 2017. Source: Reuters/Wa Lone

Fastest exodus since Rwanda

A report entitled They tried to kill us all released this week by Fortify Rights and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, meanwhile, alleged that there is “mounting evidence of genocide” against Rohingya Muslims.

More than 600,000 refugees have fled into neighbouring Bangladesh since the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) launched attacks on police and military outposts on Aug 25, sparking so-called “clearing operations” in the Rakhine by Burmese security forces.

SEE ALSO: Rohingya crisis: Burmese military slammed after clearing itself of any wrongdoing

The army and Buddhist vigilantes have now been accused of mass killings, arson and rape, allegations which are evidenced throughout Fortify Rights and the Simon-Skjodt Center’s report.

“Clearance operations” in the Rakhine have been used by the Burmese military as a “mechanism to commit mass atrocities” against Rohingya men, women and children, it said, causing the “fastest-growing outflow of refugees from a country since the Rwandan genocide.”

Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River with an improvised raft to reach to Bangladesh in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Nov 12, 2017. Source: Reuters/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

“The evidence available thus far should serve as the highest of alarms to leaders within Myanmar and the international community to prevent genocide and to protect people who remain at risk,” it said, pointing to eyewitness accounts of mass killings, gang rapes and arbitrary arrests along with satellite imagery indicating that arson attacks had destroyed more than 200 villages.

“Soldiers gang-raped women and girls in homes, schools, other community buildings, paddy fields, and forested areas, often in plain view of other soldiers and civilians,” claimed the report.

One 27-year-old woman described being gang raped along with three other women by Burmese soldiers in her own home, stating that “I grabbed my legs, saying, ‘Please do not do this. I already have a husband. Please do not do this.’”

Genocide is defined as the committing of acts such as killings and enforcing conditions intended to bring about physical destruction of a population with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Aerial view of a burned Rohingya village near Maungdaw, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, on Nov 12, 2017. Source: Reuters/Wa Lone

Based upon interviews with more than 200 people, including more than 100 Rohingya women, the report claimed that Suu Kyi’s government has “perpetuated an environment for mass violence and atrocities” including by fostering discrimination against the Rohingya community.

It called upon Burma’s government to cease violence against Rohingya civilians, allow access to humanitarian organisations and rights monitors, and prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses.

SEE ALSO: Suu Kyi pushes female empowerment as UN flags rape, torture of Rohingya women

While Suu Kyi has claimed her country “does not fear international scrutiny”, to date the Burmese government has refused to allow investigations of alleged crimes including barring entry to a specially created UN fact-finding mission.

Fatema, 40, a Rohingya refugee woman and her her two children sit inside a mosquito net in Palong Khali refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on Nov 15, 2017. Source: Reuters/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

“Regardless, the Government of Myanmar and the international community should not wait for a formal legal determination of genocide to take immediate action,” said the report, which recommended that the international community refer the case to the International Criminal Court, which tries and prosecutes atrocity crimes.

Tillerson said on Wednesday that the US was calling upon Burma’s government “to lead a full and effective, independent investigation” into abuses, with which the military should cooperate.

While the United Nations has said it is a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” France’s President Emmanuel Macron said in September that attacks against the Rohingya community amounted to genocide.

Indulgent grandparents 'bad for children's health'

Indulgent grandparents may be having an adverse impact on their grandchildren's health, say researchers.

15 November 2017

The University of Glasgow study, published in PLOS One journal, suggests grandparents are often inclined to treat and overfeed children.

The study also found some were smoking in front of their grandchildren and not giving them sufficient exercise.

But Maureen Lipman, a grandmother of two, said: "The grandparents' job is always definitely to indulge."

• Children with obesity 'need NHS help'
• Parents 'may be overfeeding infants'

The researchers looked at 56 studies with data from 18 countries, including the UK, US, China and Japan.

The report focused on the potential influence of grandparents who were significant - but not primary - caregivers in a child's early years.

The review considered three key areas of influence:

• diet and weight
• physical activity
• smoking

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

In terms of both diet and weight, the report concluded that grandparents' behaviour had an adverse effect.

Grandparents were characterised by parents as "indulgent" and "misinformed", and accused of using food as an emotional tool.

Many studies found they were inclined to feed grandchildren high-sugar or high-fat foods - often in the guise of a treat.

Parents felt unable to interfere because they were reliant on grandparents helping them out.
The study also found that grandchildren were perceived to be getting too little exercise while under the care of their grandparents.

Physical activity levels appeared to be related to whether grandparents were active themselves, or whether there was appropriate space where children could be active.
Image captionMaureen Lipman likes giving her grandchildren ice cream and jelly

But actress Maureen Lipman said there was a big difference between grandparents who looked after their grandchildren everyday compared to those who see them at the weekends.

"If you're seeing them once a week you're going to overindulge but if you work with them every day, you're going to treat them as your own children," she said.

She keeps turkey dinosaurs in the freezer for her grandchildren Ava and Sacha and likes giving them ice cream with jelly.

"I try with the vegetables and fail," she said. "You can't train other people's children."
"The grandparents' job is kind of to be in cahoots with the grandchildren against the parents."
She said being a mother could be "quite challenging", but being a grandmother was "just pure pleasure".

Ms Lipman said: "It's a walking miracle that you've brought something into the world that's brought something into the world."

She's also conscious of an "unspoken rivalry".

"There are two sets of grandparents - and you don't want to be the one that isn't giving them the nice piece of cake."

'Unintentional'

In the study, smoking around the children, even when they had been asked not to, became an area of conflict between grandparents and parents.

Conversely, in certain cases, the birth of a grandchild became a catalyst to a grandparent giving up smoking - or changing their habits.

Lead researcher Dr Stephanie Chambers said: "From the studies we looked at, it appears that parents often find it difficult to discuss the issues of passive smoking and over-treating grandchildren.

"While the results of this review are clear that behaviour such as exposure to smoking and regularly treating children increases cancer risks as children grow into adulthood, it is also clear from the evidence that these risks are unintentional.

"Given that many parents now rely on grandparents for care, the mixed messages about health that children might be getting is perhaps an important discussion that needs to be had."

'Healthy habits'

According to Grandparents Plus, grandparents are "the largest provider of informal childcare" in the UK and they need to be "better recognised and supported".

The charity's chief executive, Lucy Peake, said: "Grandparents want the best for their grandchildren, and the more they're informed and enabled to play a positive role in their grandchildren's lives the better things will be.

"We know that children benefit enormously from having close relationships with their grandparents right through childhood into adolescence.

"What this study shows is that the role they're playing in children's lives needs to be better recognised and supported.

"We'd like to see more focus on ensuring that information available to parents about children's health reaches grandparents too."

Prof Linda Bauld, from Cancer Research UK, which part-funded the study, said: "With both smoking and obesity being the two biggest preventable causes of cancer in the UK, it's important for the whole family to work together.

"If healthy habits begin early in life, it's much easier to continue them as an adult."

On the blocking of Lanka E News website in Sri Lanka - Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA)

(Lanka-e-News - 14.Nov.2017, 9.10AM) The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) notes with concern the inaccessibility of online news website Lanka E News from within Sri Lanka since 8th November 2017. AFP reports that the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) had ordered internet service providers “to block Lanka E News”. Mainstream media in Sri Lanka reported that President’s Counsel Hemantha Warnakulasuriya, in his capacity as a member of the TRCSL, had strongly defended the decision to block the website, calling the operation of the website, in his opinion, “illegal”. Network measurements conducted by CPA on the independent online censorship monitoring service run by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) confirm that Lanka E News is blocked in the country.

Whether by executive order or based on a unilateral decision by the TRCSL, CPA notes that the blocking of Lanka E News has not followed due process and is completely extra-judicial in nature. Revealingly, the move comes soon after a public pronouncement by Government Spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne requesting the President to arrest those who post abusive language or content criticising him on social media and websites. Mr. Senaratne went on to note that one could criticise the President, but not personally abuse him.

The recent action and statements by government officials and Ministers constitute a direct and real threat to the open questioning of political leadership and official policies, the very foundation of yahapalanaya. The renewed extra-judicial blocking of websites sadly mirrors the awful tactics adopted by the Rajapaksa regime to quell dissent and suppress inconvenient truths. Domestic and international media watchdogs at the time regularly flagged online censorship as a means through which the Rajapaksa regime controlled the flow of news and information, in addition to other more violent means.

CPA stresses that due process and the Rule of Law need to be followed when dealing with any inaccurate, false or defamatory content. The arbitrary, extra-judicial blocking of websites runs counter to the mandate given to the government in January 2015 to strengthen and secure dissent, debate and dialogue. We also note that online censorship often leads to the Streisand Effect, where what is sought to be hidden or made inaccessible becomes that much more credible and visible, a result that is precisely the opposite of what is intended.

Furthermore, CPA strongly cautions the government that online surveillance and censorship contribute to a chilling effect on democratic dialogue. This in turn places vital processes like an online referendum, proposed by the Prime Minister recently, on the Interim Report of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly, at great risk of failure and rejection.

We call upon the government and TRCSL to instruct all ISPs to immediately suspend the blocking of Lanka E News. ISPs in Sri Lanka are urged to use the full weight of the law to combat arbitrary orders from the State that violate rights of customers to freely access information online. We also call upon the government to conduct effective and sustained media and information literacy programmes as an effective counter against the spread of disinformation and fake news.

Education and awareness, not censorship, are the keys to a healthy democracy.

13th November 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka

---------------------------
by     (2017-11-14 04:22:11)

When Sri Lanka re-writes its constitution trade union rights should be considered

2017-11-15

Gautam Mody General Secretary of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) of India says ;

Gautam Mody is the General Secretary of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) of India. When still a student he joined the trade union movement inspired by some workers taking over a metal factory. Although he joined as an activist he went onto become the leader of that union which eventually joined other trade unions to form the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI). The NTUI is a national trade union centre committed to building working class power through democratic and militant unions. In an interview with the Daily Mirror during his recent visit to Sri Lanka, Gautam said that violence was the strategy of capitalism, and not of trade unionism. Excerpts:  

• The contention of capitalism that it can deal one- on- one with employees is historically invalidated 
• Three or four decades back people didn’t talk about inconvenience. There used to be solidarity strikes; this was in essence [the result] of the expansion of the media, the capital control over the media and the presentation of a message
• There was a recent judgement of the Supreme Court of India in the case of municipal workers who were irregular at work pronouncing that every resident of the city of Mumbai has the right to a clean city
• When does a strike happen? It happens when there is a break down, when workers-be they doctors or factory workers- believe they have no resort but to strike
• The Government has to put in place strong laws that protect the right to form trade unions and the right to the recognition of trade unions​
• The problem is the working class is being divided like a cake by political parties. This is where parties of the Left and progressive parties particularly in our sub-continent have failed the working class
• We are opposed to all forms of violence. I don’t think that it even enters our minds that violence is a strategy or tactic. Violence from the working class never originates from workers

QWhat is the necessity for trade unionism in a country?

As long as there is capitalism, there will be trade unions. The contention of capitalism that it can deal one- on- one with employees is historically invalidated. A trade union is a legitimate, democratic, self-managed and self-governed forum of working people. It is there to stay whether people like it or not.

QPeople have been greatly inconvenienced by trade union action. For instance, by doctors’ strikes, bus strikes etc. Forming a trade union and joining a trade union is a right. But does this right encompass inconveniencing the general public?

The general public comprises mostly working class people. To some extent yes, it is our failure that one section of working people have not been able to connect with another section. But it’s also the nature of how capital has rolled out especially in the last thirty years, culminating in more divisions and more  layers between working people. Three or four decades back people didn’t talk about inconvenience. There used to be solidarity strikes; this was in essence [the result] of the expansion of the media, the capital control over the media and the presentation of a message. It’s not even clear how many people are actually opposed to this kind of action and how much of it is played out from the capital side trying to create an environment of irresponsibility among sections of workers. 

There was a recent judgement of the Supreme Court of India in the case of municipal workers who were irregular at work pronouncing that every resident of the city of Mumbai has the right to a clean city. Correspondingly every worker who keeps the city clean has his or her rights as a worker. So the two are intertwined. I have a right as a patient in a hospital and that includes my right to life. Every employee in the hospital also has a right and this is really for the State and society to reconcile. Doctors don’t strike because they are mean people. Doctor’s don’t strike because they don’t want to treat patients. Doctors strike because they are also oppressed and are treated unfairly.

Q But when doctors go on strike for twenty four hours on end wouldn’t that jeopardize the lives of patients?

What are the number of deaths recorded when doctors go on strike? Doctors are not criminals; let’s look at the real environment. I’ve not heard a story of a doctors’ strike causing fatalities; they pull it off somehow and mildly break their strikes to make sure emergencies are dealt with.
 
QPatients might not have access to immediate healthcare which otherwise could have increased their quality of life.

My point is that this is for the State and society to mediate. Doctors typically strike as a last resort. That’s been the experience of India and I believe in Sri Lanka. It has been the experience across the world. Where did the failure occur? Does the failure occur because doctors strike? Or because the Government wasn’t willing to sit down and talk to doctors? When does a strike happen? It happens when there is a break down, when workers-be they doctors or factory workers- believe they have no resort but to strike. 

Q With globalization and other modern advancements what are the new challenges that workers are facing today?

I think the biggest challenge workers face today with globalization is the continuous and rapid restructuring of production. That means the old composite factory system is broken down and extended to highly decentralized production in many industries. It’s the push of capital to extract higher profits through decentralization which allows it or pushes it to create more and more poor quality jobs and sub- standard work widely known today as precarious jobs. In India you have contract workers. In Sri Lanka you have the man power and workers who come through the third party agencies. I think the biggest challenge the working class faces is actually the irregularization or contractualization which causes enormous job insecurity. It undermines trade union rights. 

QHow can the government address these concerns?

First the Government must ensure that the law of the land as it exists is implemented. In India and across the west and the south Asian sub-continent we see huge violations of laws. So the first task of Government is to ensure that the labour machinery works together with the inspection machinery  robustly. In India the current government has diluted the system of labour inspectors and that’s an enormous concern to trade unions in India. The actions of the Government of India are a complete violation of the ILO convention on inspections. 

The Government has to put in place strong laws that protect the right to form trade unions and the right to the recognition of trade unions. It’s widely and perhaps universally accepted that all citizens have a right to vote. It is a  universal and a necessary right of modern society. But workers’ rights to elect their own union is not a widely accepted universal right. I think the task of Governments today is to recognize that. An enormous amount of so-called ‘capital-working class’ conflicts will be resolved if workers are protected by law and they could choose and constitute their own trade unions. Much of the multiplicity we talk of, much of the dissidence within the trade unions is a creature of capital playing one union against another. 

Q Sri Lanka is in the process of formulating a new constitution. Do you think that by including labour rights and trade union rights into the Fundamental Rights Chapter of the constitution that practically speaking workers will benefit?

Of course. Trade union rights have been recognized in many of the young constitutions that have come out of progressive struggles. The constitution of post-apartheid South Africa, in our own sub-continent, and the constitution of Nepal have recognized trade union rights as democratic and fundamental rights.  I think it’s important that when Sri Lanka re-writes its constitution these rights are considered. And I’m sure that my comrades from the Sri Lankan trade union movement and Sri Lanka left will fight for this; it’s a legitimate fight.

Q How does the NTUI grapple with politicization?

We’re still struggling with it. I wouldn’t say politicization;politics is central to the working class struggle. It’s not politicization that we have a problem with. In fact the need would be to politicize the working class struggle more than it already has. 

The problem is the working class is being divided like a cake by political parties. This is where parties of the Left and progressive parties particularly in our sub-continent have failed the working class. I think our task must be to unite the working class irrespective of party affiliations. It is the only way we can build a progressive working class that can combat the attack we face today by capitalism and neo-liberalism. 

QWhat are the issues the NTUI has tackled so far?

The biggest fights we face are our right to freedom of association, the right of workers to join trade unions of their choice and the right to collective bargaining with employers who are refusing to hear our demands. The only law in India that is universal for all sections of workers is the Minimum Wages Act. And it’s also perhaps the most violated Act. Our right to form unions and workers to join unions of their choice and the minimum wage,are really the two biggest challenges in advancing the working class struggle today. 

Q Does the NTUI approve of violence in trade union action?

Of course not. We are opposed to all forms of violence. I don’t think that it even enters our minds that violence is a strategy or tactic. Violence from the working class never originates from workers. The fact is that capitalism and capital are quintessentially violent.

When the working class is attacked, especially physically,violently and brutally  the working class is going to respond; and they should respond. There’s no other way. Violence is not our strategy; it is that of capital. 

I think today the agenda of capitalists to push the working class increasingly to violence, delegitimize their trade unions is with the objective of criminalizing the working class [giving them a licence] to label the working class as a bunch of criminals. That’s the agenda of capital. But when capital crosses the line, workers will respond.   

Trade union rights have been recognized in many of the young constitutions that have come out of progressive struggles

I think it’s important that when Sri Lanka re-writes its constitution these rights are considered. And I’m sure that my comrades from the Sri Lankan trade union movement and Sri Lanka left will fight for this; it’s a legitimate fight

I think the biggest challenge workers face today with globalization is the continuous and rapid restructuring of production. That means the old composite factory system is broken down and extended to highly decentralized production in many industries

Hundreds of Jaffna Uni students march in protest at detention of Tamil political prisoners

14Nov 2017

Students at the University of Jaffna demonstrated on Monday marching in protest at the ongoing detention of Tamil political prisoners. 

The march saw hundreds of students holding placards in condemnation at the government's failure to act. 

The protest is the latest in a series of protest on the issue at the Jaffna University, which was closed a few weeks ago in protest at the detention. 

Related Articles: 

30 October 2017 : Jaffna Uni closes today in protest at detention of Tamil political prisoners

25 October 2017 : Protests in support of hunger-striking political prisoners continue in Jaffna

23 October 2017 : Jaffna Uni students boycott classes and launch signature campaign in support of Tamil political prisoners

22 October 2017 : Eastern and Jaffna Unis jointly demand release of Tamil political prisoners