I saw Palestine

Mousa Tawfiq- 4 December 2017

I have always dreamed of traveling.

In Gaza, we are born believing that happiness is beyond the borders. We study, work, get married, have children and die without ever feeling that we have experienced true happiness.

I tried to seek it. I formed a music ensemble. I worked as a journalist, despite being a student in a city with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. I graduated from university with excellent grades.

But there was always something missing: freedom.

In 2014, I had an opportunity to attend a language course in France, but I couldn’t travel because of Israel’s assault on Gaza that year. Instead of visiting France, I faced imminent death for 51 days.

That long, exhausting experience compelled me to question my future and my choices.

I applied for a scholarship to complete my master’s degree in France. I was the only Palestinian in Gaza chosen for the scholarship the year I applied. I won a place in a master’s program in communications at Paris 8 University.

Cost of freedom

For a Palestinian in Gaza, to choose freedom means to lose many other things.
First, I had to leave my home.

“When someone leaves Gaza,” my mother says, “it always feels like the last time we’ll see them.”
Other students are able to go home during school breaks. But I cannot, for fear of being trapped in Gaza again.

To be free and happy, I had to begin from scratch.

I spent my last months in Gaza obsessing over the possibility of not being able to travel because of the siege. I wanted to spend that time savoring my mother’s cooking and walking around my hometown.

But, not knowing if I would be able to leave in time for the beginning of my program in France, all I could do was wait. I spent my days and nights worrying, instead of making proper goodbyes.
My course was set to start in September, so in August I tried to make my way out of Gaza, easier said than done.

I tried to go to Egypt through Rafah crossing, the sole point of entry and exit for most of Gaza’s two million residents, but Cairo’s prolonged closure of the gates meant there was no guarantee I could travel. I was number 17,000 on the list of people registered and waiting to cross – there were that many others waiting in line ahead of me.

I considered paying smugglers a small fortune in advance to ensure my exit from Gaza – a journey that would entail crossing from Gaza to Egypt, sleeping on the ground for one night and crossing the Sinai the next day. A very dangerous trip, given the instability and violence in the region.

Leaving

But after I said my goodbyes and was on my way to Rafah, I received the phone call that changed my life.

A French consulate employee told me: “Mousa, don’t go through Rafah. We got Israeli and Jordanian permits so you can leave from Erez.”

I was skeptical at first, but accepted when told I would be solely responsible for myself should I choose to cross through Rafah.

Erez checkpoint is the only point of passage for travelers between Gaza and Israel, and it’s almost impossible to attain a permit to leave through it.

In late August, Israeli authorities imposed new restrictions on Palestinians leaving Gaza via Erez. I wasn’t allowed to take any electronic devices other than my mobile phone. I also had to pack everything I owned into two handbags because hard shell cases are prohibited at Erez.

My biggest fear was not being able to take my musical instrument, the oud, with me. But I decided to try.

On 7 September, I headed to Erez with two heavy duffle bags and my fragile oud in its soft case, unfit for a three-day journey to Paris.

After long hours of stalling and intensive scanning of my oud, I was allowed to enter Erez. I was made to sign a document agreeing I would not go back to Gaza for one year. I was not told by the Israeli agents why.

Mousa, Moses, Moshe

Being named after the prophet of Judaism is common among Muslims, as we believe in Judaism and Christianity as part of our religion.

At first, I thought it was a coincidence that every officer at Erez smiled after reading my name. But that did not spare me the two-hour wait. Even Moshe from Gaza needs a permit to enter Israel, the Jewish state.

“How do you feel?” the driver, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, asked me as we left Erez, the worst question a prisoner can be asked when leaving the only place they’d ever known.

I expected to spend a while in the car before feeling like I was in a different place. But I was shocked: a new world was just beyond Erez. What a world! Two million people imprisoned just behind those gates!

I did not answer the driver’s question. I was completely speechless.

“Enjoy Palestine”

I kept asking myself: is this Palestine? Or is it Israel? My father fought for this land. Is it ours? My father’s phone call interrupted my thoughts.

“Did you see the land?” he asked.

“What land? Everything in front of me is endless flat landscape.”

“Al-Masmiyya is just after the plain. Don’t miss it.”

“Even you wouldn’t be able to recognize it after all those years! I will try to find it.”
“Enjoy Palestine, son.”

Al-Masmiyya is the village my grandparents were expelled from in 1948. Although I couldn’t find it, just the idea of looking for it made me feel like I was in Palestine. Nothing but Palestine.

In the day I spent in Amman, Jordan, and during my flights from Amman to Rome, and from Rome to Paris, I asked myself if I would ever get used to freedom.

It’s a confusing feeling. I am free, but my family and loved ones are still trapped in Gaza, many of them waiting for a chance to escape to a cold and distant place, just for the chance to feel free.

It does not feel like home here. There is no mother, cute nephews, or even the sea. But the feeling of freedom is worth every tear that follows video calls with my family in our cozy home.

Mine wasn’t a hero’s journey. I am just an ambitious young man who worked hard to realize his dream. The hardships we face in Gaza don’t make us superhumans. We are normal people with legitimate dreams and resilient hope.

Mousa Tawfiq is a journalist from Gaza.

Ex-president Saleh dead after switching sides in Yemen's civil war

Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh (in red neck tie) is surrounded by guards as he attends a rally held to mark the 35th anniversary of the establishment of his General People's Congress party in Sanaa, Yemen August 24, 2017. Picture taken August 24, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Noah Browning, Sami Aboudi-DECEMBER 4, 2017

SANAA/DUBAI (Reuters) - Veteran former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed in a roadside attack on Monday after switching sides in Yemen’s civil war, abandoning his Iran-aligned Houthi allies in favour of a Saudi-led coalition, foes and supporters said. 

Analysts said Saleh’s death would be a huge moral boost for the Houthis and a serious blow to the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in the conflict to try to restore the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Any hope within the coalition that Saleh could have been bought off to help turn the tables against the Houthis after a protracted stalemate, in which a Saudi-led blockade and internal fighting have exposed millions to hunger and an epidemic, has been dashed.

The coalition will either have to continue waging a grinding war, possibly trying big offensives against Houthi-held areas at the risk of high civilian casualties, or offer compromises to bring the Houthis to the negotiating table.

Sources in the Houthi militia said its fighters had stopped Saleh’s armoured vehicle with an RPG rocket south of the embattled capital Sanaa and then shot him dead. Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) party, in a statement on its website, mourned its leader.

Footage circulated on social media showing his bloodied body lolling in a red blanket and being loaded into a pickup truck, just days after he tore up his alliance with the Houthis following nearly three years in which they had jointly battled the Saudi-led coalition.

In a televised speech on Monday, Houthi leader Abdul-Malek al-Houthi hailed Saleh’s death as a victory against the Saudi-led bloc, congratulating Yemenis “on this historic, exceptional and great day in which the conspiracy of betrayal and treason failed, this black day for the forces of the aggression”.

He said the Houthis, who follow the Zaidi branch of Shi‘ite Islam, would maintain Yemen’s republican system and not pursue a vendetta against Saleh’s party.

HOUTHI JUBILATION

Supporters of the Houthis drove through Sanaa’s streets blasting celebratory war songs.

Abdul-Malek also hailed a missile launch announced by the group toward the United Arab Emirates this week as a message to its enemies, advising against foreign investment in the UAE and Saudi Arabia as their campaign in Yemen continues.

The Houthi group’s spokesman, Mohammed Abdul-Salem, in remarks to Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV, accused the UAE of helping Saleh switch sides, and said the security establishment would publish documents of his contacts with the Saudi-led coalition.

Saleh, 75, had said on Saturday that he was ready for a “new page” in ties with the coalition and called the Houthis a “coup militia”.

Warfare between the erstwhile allies has rocked densely populated Sanaa for days, with Houthi fighters seizing control of much of the capital and on Monday blowing up Saleh’s house while coalition jets bombed their own positions.

The United Nations said roads were blocked and tanks deployed on many streets, trapping civilians and halting delivery of vital aid including fuel to supply clean water.

Residents reported fresh air strikes on a compound that had been used by the Houthi-led government for the first time since the war began in 2015.

The United Nations, which had appealed for a humanitarian pause on Tuesday, said aid flights in and out of Sanaa had been suspended. New fighting had also flared in other governorates such as Hajjah, it added.

In Washington, the United States called on all sides in Yemen to re-energize political negotiations to end the war, according to a Trump administration official.

Hadi, in a speech carried live on Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV, called for a new chapter in the battle against the Houthis after Saleh’s death. “I call upon … the Yemeni people in all provinces still suffering under this criminal and terrorist (Houthi) militia to rise in its face … and cast it out.”

Houthi militants react as they ride on a truck after Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed, in Sanaa, Yemen December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah 

Analyst Hafez Albukari of the Yemen Polling Centre said he now expected the conflict to escalate. “I believe this will give the coalition and the legitimate authority (Hadi) an opportunity to press ahead militarily against the Houthis on several fronts to try to benefit from the new development,” he told Reuters.

“But this carries major danger to civilians, especially if the coalition tries to invade Sanaa, where the Houthis will fight fiercely.”

For two years the war has been one of attrition along mostly static front lines.

Coupled with a Saudi-led blockade and internal clashes, the stalemate has contributed to a human catastrophe. Some 7 million people are on the brink of famine, while one million are suspected to be infected with cholera.

Eyes will now turn to Saleh’s political allies and military commanders, whom analysts credited with aiding the Houthi march southwards in 2014 to dominate swathes of western Yemen.

Adam Baron, a Yemen expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said it was not yet clear what Saleh’s family and political allies would do.

A Houthi militant reacts as he sits on a tank after the death of Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa, Yemen December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah 

“His people will be angry, and many will certainly be out for blood, but there are many in the middle, especially among the tribes, who will fall in with whoever appears stronger,” he said.

“The (Saudi-led) coalition may have put a lot of their eggs in Saleh’s basket, only for it to fall over now. They appeared to strongly support his attempt to confront the Houthis, and now that bid may have failed.”

HEADS OF SNAKES

Saleh, a master of weaving alliances and advancing his personal and family interests in Yemen’s heavily armed and deeply fractious tribal society, unified his country by force, but he also helped guide it toward collapse in its latest war.

Saleh once compared his 33-year rule over Yemen to “dancing on the heads of snakes”, a period that included unification of conservative north and Marxist south Yemen, civil war, revolts, Islamist militant campaigns and tribal feuds.

But he was forced from power in 2012 after an Arab Spring uprising that left him wounded by an attempted assassination, leading to a Saudi-brokered political transition.

He fled to Saudi Arabia, his former ally, for treatment of his injuries and the princes in Riyadh allowed him to return to Yemen months later – something they came to bitterly regret as he undermined the transition plan and later joined the Houthis.

That set the stage for his final role – that of ally to the Houthi movement which he had previously fought six times during his own presidency, and to Iran, the Houthis’ political backer.

But Houthi and Saleh loyalist forces jostled for supremacy over the territory they ran together, including Sanaa, and their feud burst into open combat on Nov. 29.

Residents reported that the situation in Sanaa calmed later on Monday. Most people were indoors, and streets were deserted as the Houthis asserted full control. Saudi-led aircraft continued to pass overhead.

The Houthi movement’s TV channel al-Masirah and witnesses said Houthi fighters had seized the downtown home of Saleh’s nephew Tareq, an army general.

Residents said the warring sides traded heavy automatic and artillery fire as the Houthis advanced in the central Political District, a redoubt of Saleh and his family.

Houthi media and political sources also reported the Houthis advancing towards Saleh’s birthplace in a village outside Sanaa where he maintained a fortified palace.

Honduras election board refrains from declaring winner as violence continues

Voting authorities have drawn back from naming a winner and hinted that a wider recount could still be possible in fiercely contested presidential election

Supporters of Salvador Nasralla set fire to a barricade to block the passage between San Pedro Sula and El Progreso on Monday. Photograph: Jordan Perdomo/AFP/Getty Images

Sarah Kinosian in Tegucigalpa-Monday 4 December 2017 23.01 GMT

More than a week after a fiercely contested presidential election, Honduran voting authorities have drawn back from naming a winner, after days of deadly violence and mounting pressure to investigate opposition allegations of fraud.

Early on Monday, the government-controlled electoral commission found that US-backed incumbent Juan Orlando Hernandez was ahead of opposition candidate, Salvador Nasralla, by 42.98% to 41.39%, after a recount of suspicious votes from just over 1,000 polling stations.

But the Supreme Electoral Commission, known as the TSE, refrained from declaring a winner and hinted that a wider recount could still be possible.

The delay comes after days of confusion, following delays in the vote count and a sudden reversal of initial exit polls. The string of irregularities has fulled growing frustrations that have boiled over onto the streets and caused many people, including international observers, to question the legitimacy of TSE’s results.

As negotiations continued on Monday, Nasralla’s Alliance party repeated calls for a recount of results from more than 5,000 polling stations which were tabulated after an alleged glitch in the TSE’s vote-counting system on Tuesday – and ultimately reversed a trend that showed he would be the winner. Protestors accuse Hernandez of manipulating votes and “stealing” the election.

“We a going to demand they review the votes from 5,179 stations. If not, we will protest,” spokesperson Rodolfo Pastor wrote to the Guardian.

The TSE’s decision to delay the announcement comes after election monitors from Organization of American States and the European Union called for the commision to honor the opposition’s request to ensure a fair and transparent vote count that all parties will respect.

TSE magistrate Marco Lobo agreed that the votes in question should be recounted and all other allegations of fraud investigated, telling the Guardian that “otherwise the opposition and many Hondurans won’t respect the announcement”.

But late on Monday afternoon, Lobo said that the TSE had still not met to decide whether or not to announce a winner – and had not discussed whether or not it plans to widen the vote count.

Since Sunday, Hondurans have taken to the streets across the country, facing off against security forces clad in riot gear, who used tear gas and water canons. A night-time curfew imposed on Friday has curbed protests, but not put an end to the violence.

On Monday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported that they have received preliminary information on the deaths of 11 Hondurans during the protests that have gripped the streets since the election crisis began.

“We condemn all forms of repression (and) regret all the deaths. In a democracy, it’s normal that people have the right to peacefully protest,” said Marisa Matias, head of the EU mission. The United States’ top official, Heide Fulton, congratulated the TSE for the “orderly count” of votes it conducting on Sunday night.

Hernandez is a close ally of the United States, and his government has closely cooperated with Washington on border security, counternarcotics operations and migration policy.

On Monday, Reuters reported that the US state department had certified that Honduras has been supporting human rights and fighting corruption. The certification will allow the Hernandez government to receive millions in US security assistance. In 2017, the US provided 17.3 million in security assistance to Honduras. 

Ethical Behaviour at End-of-Year Staff Parties

Moral behaviour consists of desisting from satisfying one’s reptilian desires and basic instincts at the expense of others.  Drunken lechers (and even the sober ones) flout this basic principle. 

by Ruwantissa Abeyratne-Dec 2, 2017

Ethical behaviour is acting in ways consistent with what society and individuals typically think are good values. Ethical behaviour tends to be good for business and involves demonstrating respect for key moral principles that include honesty, fairness, equality, dignity, diversity and individual rights ~ Business Dictionary 

( December 2, 2017, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) Starting every December, we enter a period when we must walk the line.  This year is a bit different and the line has got thinner.  On the one hand, over the past weeks there has been a proliferation of lecherous scumbags crawling out of the woodwork facing allegations of sexual harassment and abuse of women in their past and present lives.  This opens our eyes to the peril lurking out there in the corporate world. On the other hand, we have begun what we in North America call the “Holiday Season” which heralds staff parties celebrating the end of year festivities of Christmas, Hanukkah and other religious festivals. For some of us it is a joyous event to celebrate with our colleagues (over a glass that cheers) the successful completion of another year of rewarding professional work.  For others, the party would be an excuse for getting drunk and giving way to their most devious reptilian instincts and obsessions at the expense of vulnerable female prey.

Employers must be particularly cautious during this time to ensure that the corporate parties they throw guarantee the safety of female employees at the hand of their fecklessly insouciant male peers. UN WOMEN – an entity of the United Nations which promotes gender equality and the empowerment of women – defines harassment as: “any improper and unwelcome conduct that might reasonably be expected or be perceived to cause offence or humiliation to another person. Harassment may take the form of words, gestures or actions which tend to annoy, alarm, abuse, demean, intimidate, belittle, humiliate or embarrass another or which create an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment”.

The need to ensure equitable, just and non-objectionable work conditions for employees is enshrined in Article 101 of the United Nations Charter which recognizes that: “The paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity”.   These fundamental values are further expanded in the United Nations Staff Rules which set out core values in staff regulation 1.2 (a) and staff rules 101.2 (d), 201.2 (d) and 301.3 (d) – that every staff member has the right to be treated with dignity and respect, and to work in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and abuse. Consequently, the Staff Rules prohibit any form of discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment, and abuse of authority.

In 2005, The Secretary General of The United Nations established a self-administered learning programme entitled “Prevention of workplace harassment, sexual harassment and abuse of authority” for UN staff.  This Prgramme was developed jointly and in collaboration with the United Nations Development Group, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Population Fund, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Office for Project Services and the World Food Programme. The learning programme was designed to raise awareness of the Organization’s zero tolerance of harassment, sexual harassment and abuse of authority; to provide guidance on the Organization’s policy and procedures on harassment; and to foster the creation of a harmonious working environment, free from intimidation, hostility, offence and any form of discrimination or retaliation.

An official bulletin, issued by the Secretary General of The United Nations in 2008 defines sexual harassment as: “ any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favour, verbal or physical conduct or gesture of a sexual nature, or any other behaviour of a sexual nature that might reasonably be expected or be perceived to cause offence or humiliation to another, when such conduct interferes with work, is made a condition of employment or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. While typically involving a pattern of behaviour, it can take the form of a single incident. Sexual harassment may occur between persons of the opposite or same sex. Both males and females can be either the victims or the offenders”.

However, The United Nations can only do so much.  It is for individual countries to enact zero tolerance legislation against sexual harassment and abuse. The Canadian Human Rights Act in Section 14 (1) explicitly recognizes that sexual harassment is deemed to be harassment on a prohibited ground of discrimination. In Quebec where the author resides, The Labour Standards Act of 2002 emphatically states that every employee has the right to work in an environment free from psychological harassment, giving five criteria for conduct to be legally regarded  as psychological harassment: vexatious behaviour in the form of verbal comments, actions or gestures;  behaviour, comments, actions or gestures which are  hostile; behaviour, comments, actions or gestures that take place repeatedly; behaviour or conduct that adversely affects the employee’s dignity or psychological or physical integrity; and vexatious conduct that results in a harmful work environment for the employee. A single incidence of serious misconduct that has an ongoing harmful effect on the employee may be characterized as psychological harassment.

The 18th Century German philosopher Immanuel Kant propounded his supreme morality theory which he called the Categorical Imperative. Kant called his moral philosophy that is enshrined in the Categorical Imperative “an objective, rationally necessary and unconditional principle that we must always follow despite any natural desires or inclinations we may have to the contrary”. Kant justified overall general moral turpitude within the parameters of this philosophy where all specific moral requirements are justified by this principle.  In other words, all immoral actions are despicable because they violate the Categorical Imperative.

Moral behaviour consists of desisting from satisfying one’s reptilian desires and basic instincts at the expense of others.  Drunken lechers (and even the sober ones) flout this basic principle.  A categorical moral imperative must be based on the common concepts of “duty” and “good will”.  Morality should be a harmonious blend of the elements of freedom and compulsion.  The compulsive element in this equation is what makes the limbic part (emotional part) of the human brain triumph over the reptilian part and let the cortex (the analytical part), in analyzing what is right and what is wrong, take over.  Happy holidays to everyone.

How Donald Trump needs to exit the White House

There are many ways that Donald Trump can cease being president. One path is far superior to all others.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a regular contributor to PostEverything.

President Trump makes his way toward Air Force One before departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. (AFP/Getty Images)

By Daniel W. Drezner December 4 at 8:15 AM

Speculation about how long Donald Trump will last as president has been rampant since the spring. By summer it was quite clear that: a) Trump was not going to grow up in office; and b) the best staffing in the world would not be able to make him even a mediocre president. Yes, constitutional checks and balances are still working, but that is cold comfort when so many officials and analysts are talking so casually about war with North Korea.

The past week seemed to spark anew frenzied cries that the president is seriously unwell and therefore something must be done. The president’s reported conviction that it wasn’t him on the Access Hollywood tape bordered on the delusional. The plea deal with Michael Flynn reminded everyone of the legal threats that have been tapping, as of Robert Mueller gently rapping, rapping at Trump’s chamber door. The Senate passed a garbage tax bill, even as the president’s Gallup poll numbers plummeted. The White House’s orchestrated leaks about Rex Tillerson’s departure, clearly designed to shame him into stepping down, seemed redundant. At this point, nothing can shame Tillerson more than the job he has done as secretary of state.

So it is no surprise that some hope the Mueller investigation will bring Trump down, or that the president will eat himself into a coronary. It is certainly possible that these things will happen. As someone who has vehemently opposed Trump for years, however, I hope they do not.

Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubin explains the probability of impeachment or enacting the 25th Amendment in the Trump era. (Adriana Usero, Kate Woodsome, Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)

To be clear, it is not that I believe the Mueller investigation to be a fruitless endeavor. In a little over six months, the special counsel has managed to indict Trump’s former campaign manager and reach a plea deal with Trump’s first national security adviser. The more malfeasance Mueller and his team exposes, the better. He has done a far better job of draining the swamp than the president of the United States.

Still, if Trump is forced out by constitutional-but-unprecedented means, I fear the repercussions. Consider the 25th Amendment. As Ezra Klein observes — in a Vox article making the case for impeachment, no less — removing Trump this way would lead to all kinds of blowback:

Imagine that Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet did compel Trump to undergo psychiatric evaluation. And imagine the psychiatrist did return a diagnosis of some kind, be it early-stage dementia or narcissistic personality disorder (plenty of psychiatrists stand ready to diagnose Trump with all manner of mental ailments, so this is not far-fetched). The vote is taken, and Trump is removed from office. 

To many of Trump’s supporters — and perhaps many of his opponents — this would look like nothing less than a coup; the swamp swallowing the man who sought to drain it. Imagine the Breitbart headlines, the Fox News chyrons. And would they truly be wrong?

Of course, this also undercuts Klein’s argument for a lower threshold for impeachment. If Trump was removed from office that way, the political blowback would probably be the same. Regardless, in contrast to the 25th Amendment, impeaching and removing Trump from office remains a true hypothetical. In this polarized age, the only way Trump would be removed from office is if Democrats win 67 seats in the Senate. That is not going to happen anytime soon.

For Trump to lose properly, it has to be at the ballot box. Trump has to run for reelection and be repudiated by American voters. He has to lose the popular vote again, get trounced in the electoral college, and see his party pay the consequences of backing the most ignorant, illiberal president in modern American history

Jacob T. Levy knows a lot about constitutional democracy, and over at the Niskanen Center’s blog he makes a powerful case of the need for a political over a legal solution to Trump’s failures as a leader:

Law aims at certainty, the definitive and correct protection of those who hold rights against those who would violate or undermine them. Politics offers no such certainties. Even at its best it is a domain of contestable judgments that never stop being contested. There is no final settlement; there is always another election. Liberals worry about majoritarianism, and think law can, as politics cannot, protect individuals and minorities from it. We imagine that constitutional settlements can tame politics, confining it within the boundaries of law, ensuring that it complies with justice and respects rights. But they can’t. … 

The current administration shows why the defense of freedom and of the liberal society can’t be an exclusively legal concern. Rules can be manipulated and danced around by the powerful. Legal proceedings are much slower than changes in political circumstances. And executive power is in its nature somewhat lawless. John Locke described executive prerogative as necessary in any system that separated the executive and legislative powers, and defined it as the “power to act according to discretion, for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it.” 

If the independent executive cannot be successfully bound by law, then there is nothing else for it but politics. I’ve argued several times in this space that we need to understand the defense of the liberal society as a political project, one that is dependent on political resources from motivations for popular mobilization to organizational capacity to institutional counterbalances. (See also Michelle Schwarze’s fine essay.) The liberal order of free and open commerce, of religious liberty and freedom of speech and the press, and of rule-of-law constraints on state arbitrariness and violence requires strong political foundations; while law is a crucial part of that order, it can’t pull itself up by its own bootstraps. The liberal society needs an electorate, and elected officials, who are willing and able to stand up for it.

The absolute best way for Trump and Trumpism to be repudiated is through democratic and not merely legal means. If Doug Jones defeats Roy Moore in Alabama despite a presidential endorsement, that represents a blow to Trump in the same way he was humiliated by the Virginia state elections last month. If the GOP loses badly in the midterms despite a healthy economy, that is an even bigger repudiation of the head of the Republican Party. And if Trump loses bigly in his quest for reelection in 2020, such a resounding defeat might shock the GOP into repudiating white identity politics.

Electing Trump once was a fluke involving a fractured GOP, an unpopular Democrat nominee, and the Democrats having won the previous two terms. Electing Trump twice would be national suicide. If the United States has any chance at regaining its bearings as the greatest constitutional democracy in the world, the populist in chief must be revealed as genuinely unpopular. And it has to happen at the ballot box.

GOP Senator Presses Trump Administration Over Deadly Saudi Blockade in Yemen

Sen. Todd Young is holding up a key State Department confirmation until the White House helps ease the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee member Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) listens to testimony during a hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill November 15, 2017 in Washington, DC. U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams testified before the committee about community-level health promotion programs and businesses that offer incentives to employees that practice healthy lifestyles. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) 

BY DAN DE LUCE, ROBBIE GRAMER- DECEMBER 4, 2017, 10:59 AM

One Republican lawmaker is waging a quiet battle to persuade the Donald Trump administration to pressure Saudi Arabia to end its stranglehold on aid to Yemen, which is facing a spiraling humanitarian crisis with millions of lives threatened by disease and hunger. A Saudi-imposed blockade on fuel and other supplies is the main cause of the man-made catastrophe, aid agencies say, as Riyadh pursues its war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, is holding up the confirmation of the State Department’s nominee for legal advisor, former George W. Bush official Jennifer Newstead, until the Trump administration takes steps to force its Saudi ally to ease the blockade and allow more humanitarian aid into Yemen.

“The senator has been pretty clear about what he’d like to see in order to support her nomination,” a congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Foreign Policy. “The senator is not ready to support a vote on her nomination on the floor.”

The two-and-half-year-old conflict in Yemen is mostly overlooked in Washington, even though the United States aids the Saudi war effort by supplying bombs and refueling fighter jets. But with Newstead’s confirmation in limbo, Young’s focus on the plight of Yemeni civilians has gotten the administration’s attention.

International aid officials said the senator’s lobbying last month helped nudge the White House into persuading the Saudis to partially lift a blockade on United Nations and other humanitarian flights and shipments to Yemen. The conflict and blockade have pushed nearly 7 million in Yemen to the brink of starvation and sparked the largest and fastest-spreading cholera epidemic in history. The deliveries had been cut off on Nov. 6 after a Houthi missile attack on Riyadh airport.

“We’re grateful for the recent steps the administration has taken to press the Saudis to eliminate impediments to the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Yemen,” said the congressional aide.

“Thousands if not millions of lives have been saved as a result of initial steps to end the blockade.”
But lawmakers and aid groups are pleading with the administration to renew pressure on the Saudi-led coalition to open up ports to commercial imports to ensure millions of Yemenis don’t lose access to running water, food, and medicine.

“There’s a few additional and very important steps that would save even more lives, and those steps should not be that hard given what we’ve already accomplished,” the aide said.

The dispute comes amid a dramatic turn in the war and heavy fighting in the capital over the weekend. On Monday, Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed by his former allies, Houthi rebels, who accused him of betrayal.

In Washington, the political battle leaves the State Department short-handed in a key post. The legal advisor of the State Department occupies a unique position in the U.S. government, overseeing 300 lawyers and legal experts through which all State Department policies must be vetted. And the legal advisor has a high-profile public role, serving as an administration’s senior-most spokesperson on the world stage on issues of international law, including human rights, trade, maritime law, and armed conflict.

The legal advisor is “a really unique role within the entire U.S. government,” said Brian Egan, who served in the role during the last year of former President Barack Obama’s administration.

With Newstead’s confirmation held up, Richard Visek, a career official whom other State Department employees describe to FP as extremely talented and capable, is filling the role in an interim capacity. But a career official can’t substitute for a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed legal advisor, Egan said.

“There’s just a difference between how the legal advisor would be seen in public forum, internationally, in the U.S. government, probably even with the secretary, than how a career person would be seen,” Egan said. “I think that’s just the reality.”

At Newstead’s October confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Young asked her if she regarded Saudi actions to be in violation of international law or the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits providing assistance to a country that is hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid. Young said he would need “clear and unambiguous responses to these questions from you and from the department before we vote on your confirmation on the floor.”

Newstead has significantly clarified her position to address the senator’s concerns in a series of written responses, a former State Department official familiar with the matter told FP. But there are limits to what any nominee or an administration would be willing to concede, especially before joining the State Department and gaining access to all relevant information, the ex-official added.
The State Department declined to comment on whether the Senate was holding up Newstead’s confirmation.

Newstead “will bring tremendous expertise and legal insights to advance the foreign policy interests of the United States,” a spokesperson told FP. “We look forward to the Senate’s action on her nomination.”

Newstead, now a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, was a key architect of the Bush administration’s controversial Patriot Act, which gave government agencies sweeping surveillance and detention powers in the name of counterterrorism.

Young, a solid conservative who votes with other defense hawks in his party, is perhaps an unlikely champion for the issue, as it involves leveling sharp criticism at an American ally locked in a regional contest for power with an arch-foe of the United States — Iran. Young advocates a tough line on Iran but argues that Washington’s strategic interests are not served by a humanitarian blockade that alienates the civilian population of Yemen and sows instability that can be exploited by Iran and al Qaeda.

International aid groups warn that Saudi actions recently exacerbated that humanitarian crisis. Last month, the Saudis blocked all humanitarian aid — even official U.N. and International Red Cross aid flights — for about a week. Amid an international outcry, the Saudis allowed the humanitarian deliveries to resume to the airport in the capital Sanaa and to two key seaports. But restrictions on commercial shipments remain in place.

Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE, and other relief organizations wrote last week to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other administration officials welcoming that opening, but warned that failure to lift broader restrictions on imports could lead to a “widespread famine” and a “a public health crisis of historic proportions.”

“In the end, for all the people who are going to die in the coming weeks, the cause of death will be the blockade,” said Scott Paul, senior humanitarian policy advisor for Oxfam.

Saudi Arabia insists it abides by the laws of war and defends its actions on grounds that it must prevent the smuggling of weapons to its Iranian-backed adversaries. The Saudis have cited incidents over the past two years in which weapons were discovered on small vessels bound for Yemen, but they have yet to provide proof of a pattern of arms smuggling on larger cargo ships carrying food, fuel, or medicine.

“There’s been no evidence presented that shipments of arms have come through aid shipments or even commercial shipments,” said Kristine Beckerle, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. The fact that no new new security measures were introduced after the blockade was lifted suggests the embargo was punitive, not about stopping smuggling, Beckerle said.

“If nothing changed, in what way was closing those ports related at all to weapons smuggling?”
The State Department has declined to say whether Saudi Arabia is violating international or U.S. law through its actions.

“The Department is sensitive to concerns about the Saudi government’s compliance with the law of armed conflict,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email to FP. The department added that it is working with Riyadh “to ensure unfettered access for humanitarian assistance and commercial goods,” and U.S. civilian and military experts have held discussions with Saudi military personnel to promote “awareness of their obligations under the law of armed conflict.”

In its public comments, the Trump administration, especially the White House, has refrained from sharp criticism of Saudi Arabia over the humanitarian situation. Instead, it has focused more attention on Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, and particularly Iran’s suspected role in supplying the Houthis with more sophisticated weapons. Iranian proxies fighting in Yemen, the administration argues, are the root cause of the disaster today.

“Yemen is a humanitarian disaster, no doubt,” a senior administration official said. But he added: “The Saudis didn’t create the catastrophe.”

Cambodia: Call from MPs around the world to free Kem Sokha

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen (C) holds a ceremony at the Angkor Wat temple to pray for peace and stability in Cambodia, in Siem Reap province, Cambodia December 2, 2017. Source: Reuters/Samrang Pring

By Max Walden | 4th December 2017

PARLIAMENTARIANS from around the world on Monday sent an open letter to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen demanding that his government “immediately and unconditionally release” detained opposition leader Kem Sokha.

Signed by more than 150 members of parliament from 23 countries including the United States, Malaysia, Canada, Indonesia, South Africa, Germany and the UK, the letter states that MPs are “extremely concerned” over treason charges laid against Kem Sokha after he was arrested and detained three months ago.

The leader of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) – which was disbanded by the country’s Supreme Court last month at the request of Hun Sen’s government – was arrested in the middle of the night at his home on charges of conspiring with foreign actors to hurt Cambodia.

SEE ALSO: Cambodia: Release Kem Sokha or face travel ban – US senator

President of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) Kem Sokha casts his vote during local elections in Kandal province, Cambodia June 4, 2017. Source: Reuters/Samrang Pring

The letter said that the CNRP’s dissolution coupled with Kem Sokha’s ongoing detention meant it was “impossible for next year’s elections to be considered free and fair.”

It called for Cambodian authorities to drop charges against Kem Sokha and immediately release him, to reverse the decision to dissolve the CNRP, and to repeal all recent amendments to the Law on Political Parties and electoral laws.

The disbanding of the CNRP signals the culmination of what many see as a broad campaign against political opposition, media and civil society by Hun Sen’s government ahead of elections in 2018. The Supreme Court’s ruling also bars some 118 CNRP members from participating in politics for five years.

“Twenty-six years ago, the international community came together for the Paris Peace Conference and pledged to support Cambodia’s goal of building a genuine, multi-party democracy in the aftermath of years of war and turmoil,” read the letter.

“We – and the people we represent – are committed to helping your country achieve these aims. But this can only happen if basic democratic norms and principles are restored.”

Police officers stand guard at the Supreme Court during a hearing to decide whether to dissolve the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, November 16, 2017. Source: Reuters/Samrang Pring

SEE ALSO: After CNRP dissolution, what happens next for Cambodia?

Last week, Hun Sen threatened to shutter the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, an NGO founded by Kem Sohka in 2002. He called upon the Ministry of Interior to investigate the group for collaborating with foreigners and for links to an alleged CNRP “revolution”.

The government on Saturday, however, said that the centre would be allowed to continue operating. Nevertheless, numerous institutions have already faced the wrath of the government including the US-funded National Democratic Institute, the Cambodia Daily newspaper and other local media organisations.

The letter from MPs urged Hun Sen’s government to “recommit to working with the international community to ensure that next year’s national elections are genuine, participatory, and inclusive.”

It follows calls from prominent US Senator Ted Cruz in October to release Kem Sokha, threatening that a failure to do so would endanger the future of US-Cambodian relations.

Keep the pressure down

December 3, 2017, 9:02 pm 

Lifestyle changes can help you control and prevent high blood pressure, even if you’re taking blood pressure medication.

Here’s what you can do:

Eat healthy foods – Eat a healthy diet. Try the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, which emphasises fruits, vegetables, whole grains, poultry, fish and low-fat dairy foods.

Get plenty of potassium, which can help prevent and control high blood pressure. Eat less saturated fat and trans fat.

Decrease the salt in your diet – A lower sodium level – 1,500mg a day – is appropriate for people 51 years of age or older, and individuals of any age who have hypertension, diabetes or chronic kidney disease.

Otherwise healthy people can aim for 2,300mg a day or less.

While you can reduce the amount of salt you eat by putting down the saltshaker, you generally should also pay attention to the amount of salt that’s in the processed foods you eat, such as canned soups or frozen dinners.

Maintain a healthy weight – Keeping a healthy weight, or losing weight if you’re overweight or obese, can help you control your high blood pressure and lower your risk of related health problems. If you’re overweight, losing even 2.3kg can lower your blood pressure.

Increase physical activity – Regular physical activity can help lower your blood pressure, manage stress, reduce your risk of several health problems and keep your weight under control.

For most healthy adults, the US Department of Health and Human Services recommends that you get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes a week of vigorous aerobic activity, or a combination or moderate and vigorous activity. Aim to do muscle-strengthening exercises at least two days a week.

Limit alcohol – Even if you’re healthy, alcohol can raise your blood pressure. If you choose to drink alcohol, do so in moderation. For healthy adults, that means up to one drink a day for women of all ages and men older than age 65, and up to two drinks a day for men age 65 and younger. One drink equals 12 ounces (355ml) of beer, 5 ounces (148ml) of wine or 1.5 ounces (44ml) of 80-proof liquor.

Don’t smoke – Tobacco injures blood vessel walls and speeds up the process of hardening of the arteries. If you smoke, ask your doctor to help you quit.

Manage stress – Reduce stress as much as possible. Practise healthy coping techniques, such as muscle relaxation, deep breathing or meditation.

Getting regular physical activity and plenty of sleep can help, too.

Monitor your blood pressure at home – Home blood pressure monitoring can help you keep closer tabs on your blood pressure, show if medication is working, and even alert you and your doctor to potential complications.

Home blood pressure monitoring isn’t a substitute for visits to your doctor, and home blood pressure monitors may have some limitations.

Even if you get normal readings, don’t stop or change your medications or alter your diet without talking to your doctor first. If your blood pressure is under control, you may be able to make fewer visits to your doctor if you monitor your blood pressure at home.

Practise relaxation or slow, deep breathing – Practise taking deep, slow breaths to help relax.

There are some devices available that promote slow, deep breathing. However, it’s questionable whether these devices have a significant effect on lowering your blood pressure.

Control blood pressure during pregnancy – If you’re a woman with high blood pressure, discuss with your doctor how to control your blood pressure during pregnancy.

Telling stories around an island’s troubled history

A war captured:Sri Lankan soldiers firing shells at positions held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2006; and some of the post-war publicationsAFP & special arrangement  

Writings in English, Tamil and Sinhala offer varying perspectives of civil war

Meera Srinivasan
-DECEMBER 03, 2017

When Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasam recently received the DSC Prize for South Asian literature, the honour shone the international spotlight on the country’s gruesome civil war, yet again. Except that this time, it was a novel that drew attention to it.

A Story of a Brief Marriage is Mr. Arudpragasam’s debut novel published in 2016. A Ph.D candidate at Columbia University, the young author has received accolades for his poetic language and attempt to capture the nuances of a war through everyday ordinariness.

“There are many ways of depicting it [the violence] but I chose to depict a person going through very ordinary human processes — walking, sleeping, eating... Because in such a situation a person wants to retain their humanity,” he told Vaishna Roy of The Hindu in Dhaka. In most media interviews that followed the recognition, Mr. Arudpragasam spoke about his privileged class location in Colombo, and about the modest reach that an English novel like his will have in the South Asian context.

Many English language writers from Sri Lanka and others abroad have, over the last three decades, written non-fiction accounts of the island’s Sinhalese-Tamil ethnic conflict and the war it entailed. London-based Sri Lankan author A. Sivanandan’s 1997 classic When Memory Dies spoke of a country broken by colonial occupation and torn apart by ethnic divides.

However, not too many English novels followed in the years of a heightening war. A Story of a Brief Marriage stands out as a rare work of fiction coming out of post-war Sri Lanka. It is, perhaps, the only English novel till date that has zoomed into the routine brutality encountered by an individual in the last phase of the war that ended in 2009.

Despite the widely-held view that conflict or turbulence tends to be a wellspring of powerful art and literature, there aren’t too many English novels on the Sri Lankan war. English literature has been relatively slower to respond to the conflict that engulfed the country, say authors and literary critics. They point to many reasons ranging from location or class, to style, purpose and target audience. Some argue that it is a question of time. Good literature, in their view, might need more time for a deeper perspective on a protracted war.

Change in narrative

Sunila Galappatti, author of A Long Watch and former Director of the renowned Galle Literary Festival, says: “I sometimes think we are only just starting to outgrow the sort of self-orientalising storytelling that was encouraged for some years in South Asian fiction in English; those books that were written for readers far away, or hopefully addressing the air.”

In her view, it is only when authors start writing for each other, “for people who know as well as we do the things we are describing”, that they can find new rigour and urgency in the way they write. “My feeling is only then will we also be ready to try describing Sri Lankan fiction in English,” she says.

Tamil fiction, on the other hand, has rapidly responded to the war, with an apparent immediacy and urgency. Hundreds of novels and short stories speak to the conflict in general, and the war, in particular.

A prodigious output

According to Sivamohan Sumathy, Professor in English, University of Peradeniya, the rise of radical militancy and the accompanying literary output created some very powerful Tamil literature. “But this is not a one-dimensional nationalist output. It is said that M.A. Nuhman’s translations of Palestinian poetry were an inspiration for those activists among the Tamil youth that sought a language of liberation,” she says.

Effortlessly listing titles of Tamil novels published over the last seven decades — right from the 1960s — Kilinochchi-based Tamil author and journalist Karunagaran points to Mu. Thalayasingham’s Oru Thani Veedu (A Separate House), Arul Pragasam’s Lanka Rani , People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam member Govinthan’s Puthiyathor Ulagam (A New World) and Shobasakti’sGorilla and Hmm as some of the important novels pegged to the conflict.

“There are many, many other very important short story collections and novels, especially those written by women-authors like Thamilini and Malaimagal, who wrote on the experiences of women combatants,” he says.

Broadly, Mr. Karunagaran classifies Tamil fiction along two tracks — works that are sympathetic to the armed struggle, and others of “dissenting literature”, where writers — many of who were part of different militant groups — questioned militant movements on their apparent lack of democracy within.

“In my view, dissenting literature has become more popular now, especially among younger readers. In fact, younger writers are also beginning to use a more critical lens to look at their past. This sort of honest, reflective writing from within the Tamil community is a very positive trend,” he says.
Prof. Nuhman, senior Tamil academic, poet and literary critic, observes that while many Tamil novels endorsed a nationalist politics, authors such as Shobasakti made a crucial literary intervention, bringing in other narratives to the story of the civil war. “Authors who have had first-hand experience of the war write with a certain intensity that only a lived experience can bring to one’s writing,” he says.

While there was initially a ready rejection of any criticism of Tamil militancy – some Tamil militant groups did not permit the publishing or release of some of the critical novels in Sri Lanka, forcing writers to seek out publishers abroad — the space for that literature has opened up, authors note.

Minority report

Authors such as Oddamavadi Arafath wrote on the experiences of the Muslim community during the war. Some Muslim writers have written subtle commentaries on the sufferings of the Muslims at the hands of the Tigers. Some like Sharmila Seyyid have had to deal with enormous flak for her sharp critique of Tamil nationalism and of the “Talibanisation” of the Muslim community in eastern Sri Lanka. Mounting threats from within her community pushed her into self-exile a few years ago.
Meanwhile, progressive Sinhala fiction has often dealt with the leftist JVP-led youth insurrections in the early 1970s and late 1980s. While many writers were sympathetic to the insurgent youth taking on a repressive, capitalist state, they were quick to challenge the JVP’s nationalist politics and its position on the Tamil question through their writings, says Liyanage Amarakeerthi, author and professor in the Department of Sinhala at the University of Peradeniya. His own novel Atawaka Putthu (Half Moon Sons) is considered an important work on the theme.

“There are some excellent short stories with the civil war as the background, but I suppose for most novelists the war was something ‘far away’. There is a distance,” says Prof. Amarakeerthi.

In the island’s Sinhala-majority south, he notes, there is a tendency to celebrate soldiers as “war heroes” after the war, preventing any critical self-reflection. “Moreover, I think the sense of victory in some cases, or the sense of guilt in others, comes in the way of writing. The Sinhalese who encountered the war closely were mostly soldiers and if they write novels at a later point, we may get some wonderfully intimate takes on it. I think it is too soon to have significant literary output on the war in Sinhala.”

All the same, there is a big appetite among readers for political novels in Sinhala, observes H.D. Premasiri, managing director of the Colombo-based publishing house Sarasavi Books. “Such novels sell up to 30,000 copies in original. Short story writers are now increasingly dwelling on the civil war,” he said, adding that translations of good novels from Tamil to Sinhala also do well.
Prof. Amarakeerthi, who teaches a course on Tamil literature in Sinhala translation, observes that given the language divide in the country, translations are a crucial bridge to accessing important writing in Tamil.

Short stories in Tamil have provided a sharp incisive commentary on society, showing a multidimensionality of feeling, social structure, and a sensitivity to difference, Prof. Sivamohan notes.