Inside the secretive nerve center of the Mueller investigation

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has already interviewed two dozen current and former Trump aides, according to people familiar with the investigation. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

By Robert Costa, Carol D. Leonnig and Josh Dawsey December 2 at 8:50 PM

A white sedan whisked a man into the loading dock of a glass and concrete building in a drab office district in Southwest Washington. Security guards quickly waved the vehicle inside, then pushed a button that closed the garage door and shielded the guest’s arrival from public view.

With his stealth morning arrival Thursday, White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II became the latest in a string of high-level witnesses to enter the secretive nerve center of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Twenty hours later, Mueller and his team emerged into public view to rattle Washington with the dramatic announcement that former national security adviser Michael Flynn would plead guilty to lying to the FBI.

The ensnaring of Flynn, the second former aide to President Trump to cooperate with the inquiry, serves as the latest indication that Mueller’s operation is rapidly pursuing an expansive mission, drilling deeper into Trump’s inner circle.

In the past two months, Mueller and his deputies have received private debriefs from two dozen current and former Trump advisers, each of whom has made the trek to the special counsel’s secure office suite.

The Washington Post's Amber Phillips discusses what likely caused Michael Flynn to flip on his old boss.(Jason Aldag, Amber Phillips/The Washington Post)

Once inside, most witnesses are seated in a windowless conference room where two- and three-person teams of FBI agents and prosecutors rotate in and out, pressing them for answers.

Among the topics that have been of keen interest to investigators: how foreign government officials and their emissaries contacted Trump officials, as well as the actions and interplay of Flynn and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

Mueller’s group has also inquired whether Flynn recommended specific foreign meetings to senior aides, including Kushner. Investigators were particularly interested in how certain foreign officials got on Kushner’s calendar and the discussions that Flynn and Kushner had about those encounters, according to people familiar with the questions.

Often listening in is the special counsel himself, a sphinx-like presence who sits quietly along the wall for portions of key interviews.

This picture of Mueller’s operation — drawn from descriptions of witnesses, lawyers and others briefed on the interviews — provides a rare look inside the high-stakes investigation that could implicate Trump’s circle and determine the future of his presidency.

The locked-down nature of the probe has left both the witnesses and the public scrutinizing every move of the special counsel for meaning, without any certainty about the full scope of his investigation.

Trump and his lawyers have expressed confidence that Mueller will swiftly conclude his examination of the White House, perhaps even by the year’s end. Trump’s Democratic opponents hope the investigation will uncover more crimes and ultimately force the president’s removal from office.

Meanwhile, some witnesses who have been interviewed came away with the impression that the probe is unfolding and far from over.

“When they were questioning me, it seemed like they were still trying to get a feel of the basic landscape of the place,” said one witness who was questioned in late October for several hours and, like others, requested anonymity to describe the confidential sessions. “I didn’t get the sense they had anything incriminating on the president. Nor were they anywhere close to done.”

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation.
White House lawyer Ty Cobb said he believes the probe’s focus on Trump’s White House is wrapping up, noting that all White House staffer interviews will be completed by the end of next week.

“At the end of the interviews, it would be reasonable to expect that it would not take long to bring this to conclusion,” Cobb said. “I commend the Office of Special Counsel for their acknowledged hard work on behalf of the country, to undertake this serious responsibility, and to perform it in an expedited but deliberate, thorough way.”

[Top FBI official assigned to Mueller’s Russia probe said to have been removed after sending anti-Trump texts]

At least two dozen people who traveled in Trump’s orbit in 2016 and 2017 — on the campaign trail, in his transition operation and then in the White House — have been questioned in the past 10 weeks, according to people familiar with the interviews.

The most high profile is Kushner, who met with Mueller’s team in November, as well as former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former press secretary Sean Spicer. Former foreign policy adviser J.D. Gordon has also been interviewed.

White House communications director Hope Hicks was scheduled to sit down with Mueller’s team a few days before Thanksgiving. Mueller’s team has also indicated plans to interview senior associate White House counsel James Burnham and policy adviser Stephen Miller.

McGahn, who was interviewed by Mueller’s prosecutors for a full day Thursday, was scheduled to return Friday to complete his interview. However, the special counsel postponed the session as a courtesy to allow McGahn to help the White House manage the response to Flynn’s plea, a person familiar with the interview said.

Cobb declined to say which White House aides remain to be interviewed.

Several people who worked shoulder to shoulder with Flynn have also been interviewed by Mueller’s operation. That includes retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, the chief of staff to the National Security Council, as well as several people who worked with Flynn Intel Group, a now-shuttered private consulting firm.

During the transition, Kushner and Flynn met with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. At the early December meeting, Kushner suggested establishing a secure communications line between Trump officials and the Kremlin at a Russian diplomatic facility, according to U.S. officials who reviewed intelligence reports describing Kislyak’s account.
Kushner has said that Kislyak sought the secure line as a way for Russian generals to communicate to the incoming administration about U.S. policy on Syria.

Trump’s son-in-law has also been identified by people familiar with his role as the “very senior member” of the transition team who directed Flynn in December to reach out to Kislyak and lobby him about a U.N. resolution on Israeli settlements, according to new court filings.

The volume of questions about Kushner in their interviews surprised some witnesses.

“I remember specifically being asked about Jared a number of times,” said one witness.

Another witness said agents and prosecutors repeatedly asked him about Trump’s decision-making during the May weekend he decided to fire FBI Director James B. Comey. Prosecutors inquired whether Kushner had pushed the president to jettison Comey, according to two people familiar with the interview.

Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell declined to comment on what the president’s son-in-law discussed at his November session with Mueller. “Mr. Kushner has voluntarily cooperated with all relevant inquiries and will continue to do so,” he said.

Two administration officials said that it would be natural for investigators to ask a lot of questions about Kushner, whom Trump put in charge of communicating with foreign officials, adding that such inquiries do not indicate he is a target.

The special counsel has continued to make ongoing requests for records from associates of the Trump campaign, according to two people familiar with the requests. The campaign associates aren’t expected to finish producing these documents by the end of the year. Mueller’s team is also newly scrutinizing an Alexandria-based office and advisers who worked there on foreign policy for the campaign.

In the past several weeks, Mueller’s operation has reached out to new witnesses in Trump’s circle, telling them they may be asked to come in for an interview. One person who was recently contacted said it is hard to find a lawyer available for advice on how to interact with the special counsel because so many Trump aides have already hired attorneys.

“It was kind of a pain,” the person said. “It’s hard to find a lawyer who wasn’t already conflicted out.”

People who have gone before Mueller’s team describe polite but detailed and intense grillings that at times have lasted all day and involved more than a dozen investigators. Spicer, for example, was in the office from about 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. for his fall session. Mueller’s team has recommended nearby lunch spots, but many witnesses have food brought in for fear of being spotted if they go outside.

Mueller has attended some interviews, introducing himself to witnesses when he enters and then sitting along the wall. Sometimes he is joined by his deputy, longtime friend and law partner James Quarles, a former Watergate prosecutor who is the main point of contact for the White House.

Investigators bring large binders filled with emails and documents into the interview room. One witness described the barrage of questions that followed each time an agent passed them a copy of an email they had been copied on: “Do you remember this email? How does the White House work? How does the transition work? Who was taking the lead on foreign contacts? How did that work? Who was involved in this decision? Who was there that weekend?”

[Here are the people investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election]

Some witnesses were introduced to so many federal agents and lawyers that they later lamented that they had largely forgotten many of their names by the time one team left the room and a new team entered.

“They say, ‘Hey, we’re not trying to be rude, but people are going to come in and out a lot,’ ” one witness explained about the teams. “They kind of cycle in and out of the room.”

One contingent of investigators is focused on whether Trump tried to obstruct justice and head off the investigation into Russian meddling by firing Comey in May. Prosecutors Brandon Van Grack and Jeannie Rhee have been involved in matters related to Flynn.

Yet another team is led by the former head of the Justice Department’s fraud prosecutions, Andrew Weissman, and foreign bribery expert Greg Andres. Those investigators queried lobbyists from some of the most powerful lobby shops in town about their interactions with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and campaign adviser Rick Gates.

Mueller’s team charged Manafort and Gates last month with engaging in a conspiracy to hide millions of dollars in foreign accounts and secretly creating an elaborate cover story to conceal their lobbying work for a former Ukrainian president and his pro-Russian political party. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Lawyers familiar with prosecutors’ questions about Manafort said they expect several more charges to come from this portion of the case.

People familiar with the Mueller team said they convey a sense of calm that is unsettling.

“These guys are confident, impressive, pretty friendly — joking a little, even,” one lawyer said. When prosecutors strike that kind of tone, he said, defense lawyers tend to think: “Uh oh, my guy is in a heap of trouble.”

Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.

Is the Philippines the Next Caliphate?

ISIS is looking to regroup, and is setting its sights eastward.

Government troops keep watch as bombed-out buildings are seen in what was the main battle area in Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao on Oct. 25, days after the military declared the fighting against IS-inspired Muslim militants over. (Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images) 

BY PATRICK B. JOHNSTON, COLIN P. CLARKE-NOVEMBER 27, 2017

Both Western leaders and those involved within the region have been eager to declare victory over the Islamic State after retaking the major cities, such as Mosul and Raqqa, that the group has controlled since 2013. But it’s too soon to be complacent. The Islamic State is already thinking about how to regroup. The Philippines is a long way from the group’s birthplace in the Middle East — but the jihadis have already seized and held a city there for three months, and exerted a grim cost on the country’s security forces to retake it.

The Philippines has a long history of Islamic militancy dating back to the 1970s, when the Moro National Liberation Front began battling the government in its quest for greater autonomy from the central government in Manila. After various splits and splintering within the Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front emerged in 1984 and continued to wage a low-intensity insurgency throughout the southern Philippines. Another Islamic militant organization, the Abu Sayyaf Group, formed in the early 1990s and has formed links with al Qaeda and other Islamic militant groups throughout Southeast Asia, including Jemaah Islamiyah.

Islamic State is a latecomer to the islands. It had only limited interest in the Philippines before 2016, when its caliphate in the Middle East was already under severe strain. Moreover, while over a half-dozen Philippine factions pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, the organization didn’t reciprocate: It never publicly acknowledged an official wilayat, or franchise, in the Philippines. In a video produced at the end of June 2016 by the Philippines media office, the Islamic State highlighted the formal relationship between its core and the militants in the Philippines, but this was not an official wilayat announcement.

Southeast Asian militants also have little battle experience with the Islamic State. The nearly 1,600 South and Southeast Asian foreign fighters who traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the group would have made up just 5 percent of the total number of Islamic State foreign fighters, estimated to be pushing 30,000, according to a report by The Soufan Center, an international consulting company.

And yet, despite receiving far less attention than other Islamic State franchise groups — including in Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, and Afghanistan — Islamist militants who have espoused an affinity for the Islamic State were able to dramatically seize Marawi, the largest city in Mindanao’s autonomous region, with a population of 200,000. And even though militants in the Philippines never received official Islamic State wilayat status, there are strong ideological links that have even extended to something more tangible. The combined counteroffensive against the militants failed to recapture Marawi from a loose coalition of these Islamic State-linked factions, including the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Maute group, whose effectiveness was bolstered by Islamic State material support. The core group reportedly sent nearly $2 million to militants in the Philippines to help the group wage battle.

The Philippines fits the Islamic State’s template of seeking to instigate and latch onto existing ethnic conflicts with sectarian issues, with Muslims from the south competing with Christians from the predominantly Catholic north.

Despite intense assaults and heavy doses of firepower by Philippine security forces, the militants were able to hold the city for more than three months. The feat was even more impressive considering the counterinsurgent force included elite U.S.-trained special operations forces, and — reportedly — U.S. forces that operated quietly alongside them on the ground.

The situation on the ground in the southern Philippines is uncertain today. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte proclaimed Marawi “liberated” on Oct. 17, one day after his security forces killed Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute, the top two leaders of the jihadis in Marawi. However, looming insecurity and a humanitarian crisis will pose a major challenge to reconstruction efforts in Marawi, and extremism is likely to increase among the population in response to the bloody government counterterror campaign and threaten the peace process between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Meanwhile, experts suspect Duterte might have inflated enemy casualty statistics in order to declare Marawi liberated, making it possible for surviving fighters to return to localities where they enjoyed local support and to regroup for future combat.

Marawi may be a taste of things to come. With its Middle Eastern strongholds destroyed, the Islamic State is likely to become more fragmented and to shift greater attention to new regions, from Southeast Asia to sub-Saharan Africa. The foreign fighters who came to Iraq and Syria from around the world may become the nucleus of expanded movements in their home regions. And with its caliphate gone, the Islamic State may attempt to revisit its strategy of designating official franchise groups in an attempt to give its brand a much-needed refurbishment and boost.

Southeast Asia has long been a hotbed of Islamic extremism and violence. For example, neighboring Indonesia — the world’s most populous Muslim country — was the original home of key al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks. More recently it has seen an uptick of arrests related to terrorist plots by Islamic extremists. Still, the nucleus of jihadis actively fighting in, and possibly returning to, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries is relatively small compared to other countries in other regions such as North Africa. Nonetheless, as the core Islamic State unravels, the Philippines is likely to continue to become increasingly useful to the group as a safety valve outside of the Middle East.

The Philippines is likely to remain a ripe target due to its large Muslim population, the presence of pre-existing radical Islamist violent and nonviolent fringe movements, the permissiveness of its formal and informal financial systems, weak local institutions, and a leader in Duterte who is heading an administration that has overseen a crisis in Marawi that has resulted in dozens of civilians killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

For much of the past 15 years, U.S. special operations forces were active in the Philippinessupporting elite Philippine military and law enforcement counterterrorism units as part of the global war on terror. This light-footprint effort is considered among the most successful counterterrorism campaigns in Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines, the largest U.S. counterterrorism effort in the Pacific theater during the war on terror.

The United States ended this campaign in 2015, and whatever successes it had now are in jeopardy of being short-lived: By early 2017, an Islamic State-linked group had captured and held a major city U.S. special forces had helped defend for over a decade — drawing immediate concern from U.S. policymakers.

Although the U.S. counterterrorism support to liberate Marawi from Islamic State-linked groups demonstrates a willingness to intervene in the Philippines in the event of a crisis, it does little to indicate that the kind of U.S. military support provided to Philippine security forces previously is feasible as a longer-term solution for preventing the Philippines from becoming a safe haven for radical Islamic terrorists. Given the degree to which U.S. forces are already overstretched worldwide, there seems unlikely to be much enthusiasm for a serious commitment to yet another country.

Trump and Duterte dealing on terms that included a longer, more open-ended commitment of troops would be uncharacteristic for either leader. Both have demonstrated a preference for shorter, more decisive actions. This cuts off the possibility of an “indirect” approach that would involve training, equipping, and advising Philippine counterterrorism units as part of a longer-term commitment to help ensure a potential crisis could be stemmed before it could grow to the scale of the one in Marawi. The mass killings undertaken by Philippine security forces, backed by Duterte, under the cover of a “war on drugs” also call into question the form of potential U.S. military support.

Islamic insurgency and terrorist activity are alive and well in the southern Philippines. Before this fight is over, more punches and counterpunches between the Islamists and the regime will surely be thrown.

And although the Duterte administration has claimed it is committed to finishing this fight, the Philippines’ history as a major hub for insurgents motivated by radical Islamic ideology demonstrates that quelling the fighting will be far more difficult in practice.

Even if the Philippines fails to mature into a major node in the Islamic State’s protean global network, it will likely remain fertile ground for the future recruitment, financing, and propagation of propaganda inspired by or directly supporting the Islamic State and its violent agenda.

Remembrance of things past and future prospects

The first-cause of Zimbabwe’s downfall was tribal conflict in the 1980s

Sathiyagnams – circa 2003

Kumar David-December 2, 2017, 7:17 pm 

Every beast of the earth and every fowl of the air, and everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there if life . . . and it was very good

Genesis 1; 30-31
(Abbreviated)

If you ask my family what was the happiest period of their lives you may get varied answers; but if you were to insist on a collective view, the three years (July 1980 to July 1983) in Zimbabwe will come out the consensus winner. Climate, environment, ambience, the high (4,500ft) Southern African Plateau, it’s the nearest you will find to the Garden of Eden. It was a breadbasket. Its corn harvest, plentiful in Rhodesia and early Zimbabwe days, fed its people with food to spare for its northern and eastern neighbours Zambia and Mozambique. Its dairy products were abundant and the choicest beef was smuggled on rogue Rhodesian flights to Europe throughout the UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) period.

UDI (1970-1980) was a when white power prevailed. Blacks through disenfranchised and excluded from government were not ill treated or beaten as in apartheid South Africa next door. They were second class but healthy, well-fed and treated tolerably. A kind of modern feudalism prevailed. Blacks were mostly poor farmers or workers, whites the boss-class. The relationship was akin to that between a benevolent master and a loyal domestic helper in a British Raj household.

The source of exploitation was land. The white settler community owned the choicest lands; blacks were agricultural labourers, farmed marginal plots or worked in mines. It was on this semi-feudal latifundia (great landed estate) model that Rhodesian farming and animal husbandry thrived. Whites argued that locals were too backward to farm efficiently and if lands were fragmented output would collapse. The devastation of the breadbasket was not because land was redistributed to small farmers; no, the best was grabbed and stripped by crooked ruling-party cronies. Marginal un-irrigated land went to peasants but withered for want of support structures. Land reform is now irreversible; new ways to go forward have to be worked out. Indigenisation in business and employment, like bhumiputra a pseudonym for discrimination in favour of locals, is also here to stay.

The irresistible call of Africa

Yesterday a majestic canvas devoid of life

Today, overflowing, a palette gorged with colours rife

The cycle begins anew; the Serengeti awakes to thrive.

Adapted from The Rain by Trisha Sugarek

I was the first black employed by the prestigious Faculty of Engineering of the University. My letter of appointment, on elegant University of Rhodesia letterhead, arrived soon after the Lancaster House settlement granting Rhodesia independence and majority rule. When we landed, the country was Zimbabwe; Salisbury was Harare; and Mugabe was prime minister. ZANU had won the February 1980 election by a landslide. We did not face a trace of hostility – there were already a few staff members of Indian origin in the university who were excellently integrated. Professor Richard Harlen, my head of department, a charming fellow, and warm-hearted Logan Pakkiri in Economics and their lovely families befriended us. Then Sathi (Gnapragasam Sathiagnam) – what a character - a Ceylonese planter in Mutare (three hundred miles away) turned up one evening. His family too have remained lifelong friends.

Sathi, Logan and Richard are firmly etched in my memory, but the good die young. All three are gone and of the quartet I alone am left to ponder the vagaries of fate. Sathi’s daughters Jasmin and recently Mary Anne, Logan’s wife Devi and daughter Priya and Richard’s daughters Victoria and Charlotte, spread in far corners of the earth, keep in touch thanks to the Internet. It would be incomplete if I left it at that; Rohini and I had loads of other friends who helped make Zimbabwe joyful. The children Asela and Anusha (adults now – how time flies) made chums of their own. The youngest, Amrit, was a toddler; his best friends were Zaris the dog and Lucia the housemaid.

Were I to write a personal memoire, I could fill it with reminiscences of friends - Asian, white and black - wildlife parks, elephants and lions, the glorious Zambesi, stunning Victoria Falls, the lovely houses of those who had been settled long, swimming pools, gin and tonics, wine and barbecue. The life of a sahib you might say. The happy holidays on Sathi’s tea estate, jaunts to lodges in wildlife parks with Logan’s family, and beers with the Harlans are memories enough for a lifetime. But I must draw up my paper and turn to affairs of state before I get carried away and overrun my permitted word count.

Paradise Lost

Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven

Paradise Lost: Milton

So thought Robert Gabrielle Mugabe!

But Zimbabwe’s original sin runs deeper. It starts prior to the old despot becoming altogether idiosyncratic, and coincidentally reaches a crescendo at the same time as Sri Lanka plunged into purgatory, July 1983, and for much the same reason; tribal strife there, racial strife here. Maybe JR and Mugabe share a common lagna. Relations between Ndebele (10 to 15%) and majority Shona (80 to 85%) had been deteriorating even when they were united in the independence struggle of the 1980s. After that, Mugabe resorted to the abuse of state power and in 1983 sent in the military in to kill, maim, murder and rape – a familiar story? Conflict, and totalisation of power in his hands in the resolution of conflict, left Zimbabwe a chronically failed state.

Estimates are that 20,000 died at the hands of Mugabe’s dreaded battalions.

I had an advantage. Witness to the racial calamities of Sri Lanka I could see that history was tracking a similar trajectory; the writing was on the wall. There you have my reason for abandoning Zimbabwe and moving elsewhere. My instinct proved right, though family and friends could not comprehend it at the time.

Mugabe’s tribal massacres created chaos, the mayhem was fertile ground for a reckless land grab which in turn underwrote economic collapse.

Then, desperate, the regime switched to money printing. Inflation, at the worst, reached 500 billion percent (you’re not misreading) and in 2009 the Z$ was abandoned and the country switched to the US$. The rest is well known; a prosperous African country with a splendid (I am not embellishing) prospects, ended up a ruined hunting ground for a mad-hatter dictator. Currently unemployment stands at a staggering 90%.

Paradise Regained; perhaps

A moment comes, that comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. Nehru – The Constituent Assembly; Midnight August 14-15, 1947.

The coup that pretends it was not a coup is the outcome of three factors; economic catastrophe, conflict within ZANU-PF and fears in the military about succession. The doddering devil was planning to plant his crafty second wife Grace in power, when he croaked. Her gang was hostile to vice-president (now president) Emmerson Mnangagwa, an obstacle to her ambitions. He was driven out three weeks ago, but remained the military’s blue-eyed boy. The brass was petrified that years of corruption and rights abuses would come to light if there was change at the top. A broken country was a necessary condition, a sine qua non, for this oddly constructed coup. Mnangagwa, known as the crocodile for his cunning, is cut from the same cloth as Mugabe. As security minister he directed the 1983 Ndebele massacre. He has looted farms, attacked workers and was Mugabe’s henchman in the bloodbaths. It was self-defence when he sang the old dotards praises in his inaugural address!

But one has to be pragmatic; the vice-president is the natural constitutional choice for interim-president, though technically, there had been a brief break in his tenure. However, the ball game has changed. There is an awakening; democratic activists and human rights fighters are alert; Mnangagwa clings like a limpet but he will have to tiptoe. He will be allowed to remain in office but his power and that of the military will be circumscribed.

Cassandra voices of gloom bemoan ‘Nothing will change’; ‘Africa will never improve’, but Zimbabwe must shun despair and dedicate itself to the uphill tasks ahead. A transitional coalition with a mandate to prepare the country for a new order, reverse ruinous economic policies, and conduct fresh elections, is desirable. However, Morgan Tsvangirai, though stricken with cancer, may prefer to keep his hands free for a presidential bid at next year’s election. He was Prime Minister under Mugabe from 2009 to 2013, then, fired and the post abolished. He won a plurality (48%) in the 2008 election to Mugabe’s 43%, but Mugabe and Mnangagwa unleashed fire and fury before to the runoff forcing him to cut and run. He was roundly defeated in the 2013 presidential election; his 2009-2013 prime ministerial stint with Mugabe may have been read as self-serving opportunism.

A disadvantage attending the overthrow of Mugabe is that the initiative was a military coup, not a people’s uprising. Having taken power on the backs of the military, can Mnangagwa function as an independent president? The dynamic is evolving; he and the military must be put on a short leash by public vigilance and the de facto one-party state and its repressive institutions dismantled. Even if Mnangagwa ducks accounting for 30 years of crime he must be held to his promise of untrammelled democracy, free and fair presidential elections next year when they are due in any case, and bold economic reforms taking the country into an investment climate beyond exclusive reliance on China.

Wendell Phillips thought ‘only the people’s vigilance can prevent power from hardening into despotism’ and Jefferson added ‘there is no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society than the people themselves’; all familiar clichés, but there are times when it is useful to recall them.

Interview: Cholera could resurge in Yemen due to lack of aid, fuel - WHO

A malnourished boy lies on a bed at a malnutrition treatment center in Sanaa, Yemen November 21, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Stephanie Nebehay-DECEMBER 3, 2017

GENEVA (Reuters) - Another wave of cholera could strike Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition blockade has cut off fuel for hospitals, water pumps and vital aid supplies for starving children, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.

Dr. Nevio Zagaria, WHO country representative in Yemen, told Reuters that 16 percent of Yemeni children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition, including 5.2 percent with a severe form that is life-threatening, and the problem is increasing.

 

Yemen, where 8 million people face famine, is mired in a proxy war between the Iran-aligned Houthi armed movement and the U.S.-backed military coalition that the United Nations says has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Some 960,000 suspected cases of cholera and 2,219 deaths have been reported since the epidemic began in April, WHO figures show.

Children account for nearly a third of infections of the waterborne disease, spread by food or water contaminated with human feces, that causes acute diarrhoea and dehydration and can kill within hours if untreated.

Although the number of new cases has dropped for 11 straight weeks, 35 districts in Yemen are still reporting cholera with “high attack rates” in communities, Zagaria said.

A deteriorating economic situation and lack of safe drinking water, due to water sewage systems in many cities lacking fuel for the pumps, have compounded the humanitarian crisis, he said.

“This is a perfect mix to have a new explosion of a cholera epidemic at the beginning of the rainy season in March of next year,” Zagaria said in a telephone interview from Sanaa, amid four days of clashes in the capital city.

WHO is working with local authorities in both the internationally recognised government and Houthi-controlled Sana‘a to identify areas at highest risk of a spike in the cholera epidemic and to boost defences, he said.

A campaign of oral cholera vaccination - initially planned last July during an acute phase and then abandoned by authorities - is now under reconsideration but as a preventive action next year, he said.

Meanwhile, a ship carrying 35 tonnes of WHO surgical and medical supplies is being diverted to Aden after waiting weeks to offload at Hodeidah port, Zagaria said.

A woman sits with her sons while they are treated at a cholera treatment center in Sanaa, Yemen October 8, 2017. Picture taken October 8, 2017.REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

“We are waiting and hoping that the situation of the blockade will be resolved. We have an opening to the humanitarian blockade but the opening to the commercial blockade is only partial,” he added.

The United Nations appealed on Friday to the coalition to fully lift its blockade of Yemen, which was partially eased last week to let aid into Hodeidah and Salif, and U.N. flights into Sanaa.

The U.S.-backed military coalition closed air, land and sea access on Nov. 6 in a move it said was to stop the flow of Iranian arms to the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen.

Aid shipments cover only a fraction of Yemen’s needs, since almost all food, fuel and medicine are commercially imported.

CONSTANT FLOW OF PATIENTS

Yemen’s health system has virtually collapsed, with most health workers unpaid for seven months.

WHO supports 130 hospitals across the country, providing fuel, water, oxygen, drugs, medical supplies and essential equipment, Zagaria said.

“The (fuel) contractors that we are working with are finding difficulty in keeping the stock,” he said, noting that some hospitals require 60,000 litres of fuel per month.

WHO runs 15 stabilisation centres for severely acute malnourished children with medical complications and is expanding with 10 more, Zagaria said.

”We see that there is a constant flow of newly admitted patients to these centres.

“The deterioration of the situation in terms of malnutrition in children is increasing... It is very difficult to quantify with precise numbers,” said Zagaria, who went to the intensive care unit of the pediatric ward in Sadaa last week.

“I am a pediatrician, I worked many years in Africa. You don’t need to take the weight and the height.”

Migraine therapy that cut attacks hailed as 'huge deal'

By James Gallagher-30 November 2017

A new approach to preventing migraines can cut the number and severity of attacks, two clinical trials show.

About 50% of people on one study halved the number of migraines they had each month, which researchers at King's College Hospital called a "huge deal".

The treatment is the first specifically designed for preventing migraine and uses antibodies to alter the activity of chemicals in the brain.

Further trials will need to assess the long-term effects.

• One in seven people around the world live with the regular agony of migraine
• Migraine is up to three times more common in women than men
• The Migraine Trust estimates there are more than 190,000 migraine attacks every day in the UK
• People with headaches for fewer than 15 days a month have episodic migraine
• If it is on more than 15 days it is classed as chronic migraine

Research has shown a chemical in the brain - calcitonin gene-related peptide or CGRP - is involved in both pain and sensitivity to sound and light in migraine.

Four drug companies are racing to develop antibodies that neutralise CGRP. Some work by sticking to CGRP, while others block the part of a brain cell with which it interacts.

Clinical trials on two of the antibodies have now been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

One antibody, erenumab made by Novartis, was trialled on 955 patients with episodic migraine.

At the start of the trial the patients had migraines on an average of eight days a month.

The study found 50% of those given the antibody injections halved their number of migraine days per month. About 27% did have a similar effect without treatment, which reflects the natural ebb and flow of the disease.

Another antibody, fremanezumab made by Teva pharmaceuticals, was trialled on 1,130 patients with chronic migraine.

About 41% of patients halved their number of migraine days compared with 18% without treatment.

• 'I was told I'd be fired because of migraines'

Prof Peter Goadsby, who led the erenumab trials at the NIHR research centre at King's College London, told the BBC: "It's a huge deal because it offers an advance in understanding the disorder and a designer migraine treatment.

"It reduces the frequency and severity of headaches.

"These patients will have parts of their life back and society will have these people back functioning."

He said other data, not published in the latest studies, suggested a fifth of patients had no migraines at all after treatment.

Better option?

The antibodies are not the only preventative drugs for migraine. Others include former epilepsy and heart disease pills as well as botox.

But Simon Evans, the chief executive of Migraine Action, said those drugs came with a lot of side-effects and did not work for everyone.

"Some doctors give patients a choice of being angry or fat-and-dosey and the drug they give them depends on their answer," he said.

The hope is discovering CGRP and precisely targeting it with antibodies should lead to fewer side-effects. Both studies say long-term safety data still needs to be studied.

The problem with antibodies is they tend to be more expensive to make than other therapies.

Prof Goadsby thinks patients who get no benefit from existing treatments or cannot cope with the side-effects are those most likely to benefit.

Dr Andy Dowson, who runs headache services in Kent and London, said: "I am really enthusiastic we have something new that's coming, but we need to know cost, who will respond and a lot more detail as we go down the line.

"Chronic migraine is in the top seven conditions for lifetime disability and yet nothing much is done about it, maybe this is going to help us to make some progress."

Follow James on Twitter.

32 Tamils massacred by Sri Lankan soldiers remembered in Othiyamalai

Residents in Othiyamalai, Mullaitivu came together on Saturday to remember the massacre of 32 Tamils by the Sri Lankan military in 1984.

02Dec 2017

Lamps were lit and flowers were laid in remembrance of those who were killed.

On the 2nd December 1984, men in the village were rounded up by the Sri Lankan army, dragged to the village community centre where they were stripped naked and tied up by their clothes.

Twenty-seven of the men were shot and killed on the spot. A further five were detained and are believed to have been murdered at a later date.

A monument built in memory of the victims of Othiyamalai is reported to have been destroyed in the final stages of the war.

Unemployment plagues residents of Jaffna. 
  

December 3, 2017   

33204 residents of Jaffna lodged a complaint with the District Employment Bureau stating that they were unable to secure employment despite having basic educational qualifications.
It has been reported that undergraduates, A/Level qualified and O/level qualified students made the request.

Speaking to the group of students Ada Derana correspondents learnt that there are over 40000 graduates from Jaffna who have not been able to secure proper employment.   

Bad faith or bad weather?

Sanjana Hattotuwa-December 2, 2017

At the time of writing this column, 11 have died because of a storm that hit Sri Lanka. Five are missing. Over 61,000 people across the island are affected by the disaster. Images of the devastation are all over the news, including over updates on social media pushed out from the Sri Lanka Red Cross. In this context, worth recalling in some detail a news report published in the mainstream media in English quoting Met Department Director and "Forecaster" Anusha Warnasooriya.

Warnasooriya dismissed the storm system as one that would merely travel over Sri Lanka on its way to India. Warning people not to panic over "foreign reports" which according to her are "unreliable", she went on to say that "the build-up of a storm could be identified early and the Met Department would know if there was such a threat". Sri Lanka’s Met Dept, despite regional and global evidence to the contrary, had in under a day before a major storm hit Sri Lanka, no indication around its severity. It issued no public warning. It did nothing.

Warnasooriya’s last public Facebook update is from July this year, where she is interviewed by a TV channel on the Meteorological Department’s ability to forecast adverse weather. There are some incredible claims made in the course of a short interview. Referring to Doppler Radar technology, which Sri Lanka does not yet have, she claims that even with it, weather forecasts can only be done two hours in advance. She is asked what measures the Meteorological Department has taken to warn the public around sudden low-pressure systems and the resulting bad weather patterns. Warnasooriya stresses that the public has understood that her Department has made advances in how the public is engaged with and warned. Noting the dangers of false warning, she avers that the Department is able to warn the public no sooner than they are around seventy to eight percent certain of an impending bad weather.

Asked as to how she sees the technical or technological capacity and competence of the Department in relation to other countries, Warnasooriya notes that more than this, the problem lies in where Sri Lanka is situated, and due to the fact that the country "stores a lot of energy", whatever that means. There is a fascination with numerical weather prediction, to what in the interview seems to be the repeated dismissal of technologies like Doppler Radar.

The numerical forecasting she speaks of, that the Meteorological Department in Sri Lanka seems to be married to, isn’t your average Excel spreadsheet running on a normal PC. Currently the world’s most powerful supercomputer – actually an array of three running in tandem - dedicated to weather analysis resides in Met Office in the United Kingdom. As the website of the Met Office notes, the computational power is mind-boggling – fourteen thousand trillion arithmetic operations per second or more than two million calculations per second for every man, woman and child on planet Earth. The supercomputer also has 24 petabytes of storage for saving data, which to put into perspective is enough to store over 100 years’ worth of high definition (Blu-ray) movies.

Warnasooriya’s misplaced patriotism and love for home-grown numerical weather prediction, one doubts very much, is founded on even a fraction of this computation power required to do any sort of accurate forecasting. And therein lies the rub. Sri Lanka’s Met Dept operates with near total impunity. Year and year, even as preventable deaths pile up, even as public anger over any sort of adequate warning grows, its officials claim they are doing a good job and contrary to all discernible evidence, assure us they provide the best possible information in a timely manner. The reality isn’t hard to find, and not just in the death and destruction around us today. The last update on the Met Dept.’s Twitter feed is, at the time of writing, from five days ago. It is an automated update from a service that tracks how many followed and unfollowed the account. The last actual weather update is from April 17. Every single tweet since is an automated tweet that bears no relation whatsoever to the purpose of the Met Dept, and its account on social media.

There is an enduring disaster in Sri Lanka. And it is our public weather forecasting system writ large. Earlier in the year, agencies, departments and line ministries engaged blamed each other for the lack of warning around catastrophic flooding that devastated large parts of the country and our farming output, for the second year in a row. From an incompetent, inconsiderate Minister of Disaster Management who doesn’t even rush back to the country when abroad and after a major disaster hits, to the farcical nature of updates from the Disaster Management Centre, official channels are at best terrible. At least over social media, which now informs many more than just those who have a Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp account, the Sri Lanka Red Cross, renowned journalists and climate change experts like Amantha Perera and even individuals like Gopiharan Perinpam, whose day job is at Sri Lanka Customs, provide trusted, timely and informative updates in the lead up to and during a disaster. It is a remarkable, revealing role reversal, where official information channels and authorities are the least trusted, most hated and the last to update, whereas citizens over social media are the first to inform others with trusted, reliable information sourced from recognised, respected international and regional weather reports which use the latest satellite imagery, forecasting models and weather updates.

Warnasooriya’s comments last week hint also at a larger malaise that bedevils our progress – misplaced patriotism. Weather knows no geographic or political boundary. Nature has no respect whatsoever for man-made borders and sovereignty. In suggesting that Sri Lanka should be inherently sceptical of forecasts issued by foreign agencies and trusted sources outside the country, the Met Dept suggests a modus operandi that is manifestly absurd if not downright tragic – that weather alerts and forecasting can only be done within Sri Lanka, and by Sri Lankans, if they are to be truly believed and reliable. Every single smartphone sold in Sri Lanka today has baked into its operating system weather forecasting better than what the Met Dept in Sri Lanka provides, the DMC alerts the public on, the Ministry of Disaster Management is capable of embracing and the Minister is possibly even remotely aware of.

The impunity around all of this is its own story – there appears to be no real interest in learning from mistakes or meaningful reform. Human resources around, for example, the basic translation of the few alerts that do make it out into Tamil, are almost wholly absent. But they abound in civil society, where a combination of technology, skills and information dissemination are now supplanting the role of official agencies. And that’s possibly where investment needs to occur – towards developing, in a country like Sri Lanka, citizen-driven, citizen-centric, technologically underpinned, public weather alerting models that leverage over twenty-one million SIM cards and coast to coast connectivity to disseminate reliable, fact-based warnings in a timely manner. If this strikes one as far-fetched or absurd, just think about the millions of dollars, year after year, from domestic budgets and foreign financing, that goes into propping up government agencies that openly say they can only predict weather two hours in advance.

The choice surely is clear, even if our weather is not.

Bond Scam: Will The Public Get The Answers?

By Rusiripala Tennakoon –December 3 2017

The President was of the opinion that irregularities committed in respect of the Issuance of Treasury Bonds during the period of 1^st February, 2015 and 31^st March, 2016 –have to be investigated and inquired into by a commission of inquiry in the National Interest. 

Accordingly a 3 member commission was appointed by the President in pursuance of the provisions of Section 2 of the Commission of Inquiry Act (Chapter 393) as amended, to investigate and inquire into and report on the said matter. An Extra Ordinary Gazette Notification was  issued on 27/01/2017  announcing the warrant of the President under the Public Seal of the Republic issued in this regard. 

People are now awaiting answers to the following:

1. Whether the management, administration and conduct of affairs of the CBSL in respect of the matter were in order;

2. Whether there has been any malpractice or irregularity, or non-compliance with or disregard of the proper procedures applicable in relation to, such management, administration and conduct of affairs in relation to the said matter, resulting in damage or detriment to the Government or any statutory body including the CBSL;

3. Whether any contractual obligation relating to the said matter have been entered into or carried out, fraudulently, recklessly, negligently or irresponsibly, resulting in damage or detriment to the Government or any statutory body including the CBSL;

4. Whether there has been non-compliance with, or disregard of, the proper procedure applicable to the calling of tenders or the entering into of agreements or contracts relating to such matter on behalf of the Government;

5. Whether such non-compliance with, or disregard of proper procedures in respect of the said matter has resulted in the improper or irregular or discriminatory award of any such tender for sale of bonds during this period;

6. Whether proper procedures and adequate safeguards have been adopted to ensure that the said matter resulted in obtaining the optimum price or benefit for the Government;

7. The person or persons responsible for any act, omission, or conduct, which has resulted in such damage or detriment to the Government or any similar body including the CBSL, in respect of the said matter;

8. Whether any inquiry or probe into any of the aforesaid matter had been obstructed or prevented in any manner, resulting in damage or detriment to the Government or any statutory body including the CBSL, and, if so, the person or persons responsible for such obstruction;

9. The procedures which should be adopted in the future to ensure that such matter are carried out with transparency and with proper accountability with a view to securing the optimum price or benefit for the Government;

10. Whether there has been misuse or abuse of power, influence, interference, fraud, malpractice, nepotism or any act or omission connected with corrupt activity in relation to the said matter.
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Progressive masses who are concerned about the country will take a correct decision

December 2, 2017 by NHL Werasinghe Leave a Comment

“When the opinion of the people is considered we believe we have a good opportunity for victories. We believe that we could win the ruling power in many local government councils. According to the political behaviour in the country, we have a better probability of victory. However, the final decision is with the people. We believe that the progressive people who are concerned about the country would take a correct decision at the local government election,” said the General Secretary of the JVP Tilvin Silva speaking to a weekend newspaper.

We publish a translation of the interview…

Q: The main topic at present is the local government election. Is the JVP ready for this election?
A: The JVP got ready for the election a long time in advance. We also attempted to get the election that was overdue held without defects in the system. It has been possible to hold the election under a new system compiled with the mediation of many. Of course, there was an attempt by persons connected to the government to get the election postponed by filing petitions. Now, this issue has been solved. Our wish is that the election should be held for the whole country at once. We have built our forces throughout the country for the election.

Q: although you say those who filed petitions are connected to the government, those in the government deny it.

A: The government cannot deny it. The whole country knows that the party that filed petitions is connected to the government. This is clear when the process of withdrawing the petitions is studied. They expected to postpone the whole election by filing petitions. They had to withdraw the petitions and make room for the elections when it was known that it was not necessary to postpone the whole election. As such, it is very clear who was behind this move and who was to be benefited by the act.

There is also a reason behind it. For, the party of those who wanted the postponement has split. They have failed to have unity in the party. They know they will be defeated at the election. This is why they wanted to postpone the election. They thought they could get time to unite the two factions. We were able to defeat the attempt of the factions of the government. It is a victory for the country. To make it a victory for our party the people should give the ruling power of a large number of local government councils to the JVP. The people should reject the corrupt political parties. Then only it would be a complete victory for the people.

For both these parties ruled the local government councils for ages and have shown their inability. The people must understand this reality in future elections.

Q: Certain parties have already deposited their sureties. What is the position of the JVP?

A: It is those who are not aware of the manner the elections are held according to the new system that runs amok. In this election, the authority of depositing sureties is with the general secretary of the party or a person authorized to do so by the party. If it is an independent group the leader of the group could do it. Anyone else depositing sureties could be rejected. We are not in a hurry. Let those who are not aware of the new system get excited. We would do it at the correct time. Those who have already deposited are not even aware of the election law. We would appoint an authorized person for every council. We would complete depositing sureties through them during the next week.

Q: Are nomination lists ready now?

A: We have already completed nomination lists. We made a request to the people to come forward to change the existing political culture and unite with the JVP to develop the village and the town. We have got a very good response to this request. We have already completed out nomination papers. We have put forward a clean group of candidates who could develop the village or the town to every council. We would not hesitate to say that the team put forward by the JVP would be the best group for every council.

Q: You published an advertisement in newspapers asking those who like to contest from the JVP to apply. Don’t you have enough people to put forward as candidates?

A: There is no such thing. Even at the time of terror, there were people in our party who would come forward to contest elections. There are plenty of party members who could be put forward as candidates. However, our wish was to give an opportunity to those who are not members of the party but progressively minded masses who are genuinely interested in changing the deteriorating political culture of this country to work for the country just as members of our party dedicate themselves for the people and the country. We got a good response to our request. However, we didn’t allow everybody who applied to contest. We gave the opportunity for the highest qualified and who could dedicate themselves to a cause.

Q: Is it true that the SLFP contesting as two faction is favourable to the JVP?

A: According to the political situation in the country we are at an advantage whether they come as two factions or as a single party. Even if they unite there wouldn’t be an end to issues that divide them. There would be issues when preparing nomination papers. If they contest separately they would never win as their voter base gets divided. They would not win when they come as one party or come divided.

Q: Will the JVP able to achieve victories beyond Thissamaharama?

A: When the opinion of the people is considered we believe we have a good opportunity for victories. We believe that we could win the ruling power in many local government councils. According to the political behaviour in the country, we have a better probability of victory. However, the final decision is with the people. We believe that the progressive people who are concerned about the country would take a correct decision at the local government election.”