Is Israel testing new types of tear gas in Bethlehem?

Israeli soldiers fire tear gas in Aida refugee camp in September 2013.

 Ryan Rodrick BeilerActiveStills

Ryan Rodrick Beiler-3 January 2018

Every resident in Aida refugee camp – beside the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem – may have been exposed to tear gas fired by Israeli forces, according to a new study.

Conducted by University of California researchers, the study notes Israel’s “widespread, frequent and indiscriminate” use of tear gas against Palestinians.

The report cites incidents of tear gas as often as two to three times a week for more than a year, and in some months, almost every day.

In a November speech, Pierre Krähenbühl, the top official with UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, said such research suggests that Aida’s residents “are exposed to more tear gas than any other population surveyed globally.”

“They’re shooting everywhere in the camp,” Salah Ajarma, a director at Lajee, the cultural center in Aida, told The Electronic Intifada. “They don’t care about where they shoot.”

The new report used a questionnaire tool developed by the US Centers for Disease Control to survey a sample of 236 Palestinians living in Aida, which hosts 6,400 residents.

Aida – covering just 0.071 square kilometers – has a greater population density than some of the world’s largest cities.

Dangerous to go outside

Members of the team which conducted the study, published by the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, witnessed several tear gas incidents while conducting their research. They concluded from their interviews that Israeli forces’ use of tear gas “is not limited to protests or to those at risk of causing violence.”

“Sometimes it’s dangerous to leave the center when there is tear gas outside,” said Ajarma. He recalled a day he confronted soldiers firing tear gas, asking why they were shooting when no children were throwing stones.

“They said, ‘Yesterday they [the children] threw stones and we want to start the tear gas today before the children start.’ So it’s a kind of practice for them,” he added.

The University of California report defines tear gas as a general term for chemical irritants designed for crowd control. The report also notes that newer forms of tear gas have been developed in the recent past that are more potent, last longer and cause more severe pain and injury, as well as being more water resistant.

One child interviewed for the report described the effects of tear gas: “My face burns, I feel dizzy.”
The child added: “It’s hard to breathe. I sneeze. My throat burns. I can’t open my eyes. Sometimes I faint.”

The precise type of gas used by Israeli forces in Aida is unknown. However, the consistent testimonies provided by the camp’s residents suggest that they are being exposed to more potent forms of the weapon.

A health care worker quoted in the report stated: “The old tear gas would be better with some water but [now] that only makes it worse. Obviously, it’s a different chemical.”

Mohammad al-Azza, a journalist and camp resident, told The Electronic Intifada that he agrees that the gas is now stronger than before.

Al-Azza, who also teaches photography at Lajee Center, has first-hand experience of Israeli forces’ use of “crowd control” weapons.

In April 2013, as he was photographing Israeli forces invading the camp, a soldier shot him in the face at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet that shattered his cheekbone, requiring multiple reconstructive surgeries.

In addition to tear gas, the new report finds that most of Aida’s residents have been exposed to stun grenades, skunk water – a foul-smelling mixture of unknown chemicals fired from high-pressure water cannons – and pepper spray. More than 50 percent of residents interviewed have witnessed the use of rubber-coated steel bullets, while about six percent were “directly witness” to live ammunition being shot.

More than 22 percent of people surveyed said they had been struck directly by a tear gas canister at some point in their lives.

These findings correspond with my own observations. I have witnessed numerous instances of Israeli forces firing tear gas projectiles directly at Palestinian demonstrators in Aida and elsewhere.

Lethal

The new report notes that tear gas and other chemical irritants are banned from use as a weapon of war by the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, but not for civil law enforcement “as long as the types and quantities are consistent with such purposes.”

The report concludes, however, that Israeli forces’ use of tear gas “is in discordance with all publicly available international guidelines on how it should be used.”

Aida residents who took part in the survey reported a number of physical effects from tear gas exposure, including asthma, rashes and headaches. It also notes how a 25-year-old woman who took part in the survey had a miscarriage late in the third trimester of pregnancy. A tear gas canister had landed on that woman’s patio several days before she miscarried; she had severe respiratory systems while being exposed to tear gas.

Tear gas has proven to be a lethal weapon on a number of occasions. In April 2014, for example, I attended the funeral of Noha Katamish – a 45-year-old resident of Aida – who died from the effects of tear gas that Israeli forces fired through her living room window.

Salah Ajarma from the Lajee Center described how homes in the camp offer no refuge from the gas. “Sometimes [people] go to their neighbors because they feel it’s safer, but it’s not,” he added.
Many of the psychological impacts of Israeli forces’ use of tear gas stem from its frequency, unpredictability and the inability to escape its effects.

One teenager testified in the report: “We don’t feel safe in our homes. We don’t feel safe anywhere.”
The report states that unpredictability is especially stress-inducing because raids involving tear gas are not always tied to specific incidents, creating “a state of hyper-arousal, fear and worry.”

Made in US

Residents testified that peaceful events, such as a child’s birthday party or family picnics, had been disrupted by tear gas raids, often captured on video.

One interviewee said Israeli soldiers use tear gas “when they are bored, when they want to provoke a clash, or when they want to get into the camp.”

“Sometimes, it feels like they do it just for fun,” said one elderly resident.

As a result, Aida’s residents report high levels of anxiety, depression, fear, sleep disturbance and cognitive dysfunction. According to the report’s authors, these symptoms are consistent with acute stress disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

According to one teen surveyed, “We have adapted, but this is not normal. This shouldn’t be how children live.”

While the report underscores the Israeli military forces’ responsibility under international law for the safety of the Palestinian civilians under its control, it also urges UNRWA to respect its mandate to provide practical protection and assistance to refugees in Aida.

“The UN must do something more useful for the people here,” al-Azza from the Lajee Center said.
Teachers and guards employed by UNRWA have asked for specific protocols on how to respond to tear gas attacks, as well as improved facilities, equipment and protective gear.

“The [Israeli] wall is across the street from the school,” said one teacher quoted in the report. “We are the front line.”

Ajarma noted that many families have taken their boys out of the UNRWA school in Aida and sent them elsewhere – or moved out of the camp entirely – because of the constant incursions by Israeli forces.

The US also bears responsibility for the impact of tear gas on Aida. Al-Azza pointed out that like many of the weapons used by the Israeli military, tear gas used in Aida is made in the US.

Shell casings discarded by Israeli forces have frequently been found bearing full contact information for the manufacturer, Combined Systems of Jamestown, Pennsylvania.

In years past, activists have hung “Made in the USA” tear gas grenades and shell casings from trees in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, intentionally juxtaposing them with nearby banners promoting US sponsorship of local holiday light displays.

Activists have often used the Christmas holiday and the camp’s proximity to the Church of the Nativity, believed by many Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus, to focus attention on the present realities faced by Bethlehem-area residents.

Alongside the grenades and shell casings, the activists hung signs reading: “This is the US aid to the Palestinians,” and “US military industrial complex, stop making our Christmas hell by sending us your aid and sending Israel your guns.”

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is a freelance photojournalist and member of the ActiveStills collective. Twitter: @RRodrickBeiler

Trump gambles with aid, but Pakistan has the ace

2018-01-05

The United States President Donald Trump’s first tweet for 2018 concerning foreign relations should have been on North Korea. Instead, he targeted Pakistan. His tweet was not spontaneous. Trump appeared well briefed by his advisors. Otherwise, he would not have known how much aid Pakistan had received in the past 15 years. What is Trumpish in the tweet is the hallmark provocative tone with a thick coat of imprudence, as was also evident in the subsequent North Korea tweet where he ridiculously boasted about his finger being kept on a bigger and more powerful nuclear button than the North Korean leader has.  

“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the past 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit… They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” Trump bellowed in his tweets, prompting a chorus of protests from Pakistanis across the political divide. 

The tweets were followed by action to stop aid. Brandishing foreign aid as a weapon to punish weaker states, Trump’s United Nations envoy Nikki Haley announced the US was withholding $255 million in aid to Pakistan. Palestine was also added to the aid-cut list.

In Islamabad, the government summoned the US ambassador to register its disappointment and convened the National Security Council to discuss the developments. The NSC said in a statement that Trump’s insensitive comments “negated the decades of sacrifices made by the Pakistani nation”. 
Pakistan could not be blamed for US failures in Afghanistan, the statement said, adding that accusing allies would not lead to the establishment of peace in Afghanistan.

Pakistan was once the United States’ most allied ally in Asia, for the two countries were bound by four defence agreements during the Cold War. Despite its leadership role in the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement, Pakistan threw its weight behind the US-led defence bloc within the first decade of independence itself. The two nations first signed the Mutual Defence Assistance Agreement in 1954. This was followed by Pakistan joining the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and the Baghdad Pact, and signing a bilateral defence cooperation agreement. 

Yet, when Pakistan was in crisis during its wars with India, the US conveniently failed to come to its aid, reasoning out that the defence arrangements were aimed at meeting the threat from the Soviet Union, not India. These agreements gradually became defunct. In 1979, Pakistan joined the Non-Aligned Movement. But the very year, military cooperation between Pakistan and the US increased, with the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan. Ten years later, when the Soviets left Afghanistan, the US degraded Pakistan in favour India that had just begun opening up its economy. 

US officials’ rant against Pakistan was nothing new. In recent years and months, Senior US officials and military commanders have publicly questioned Pakistan’s commitment to the US-led war on terror. They include former Defence Secretary Robert Gates, the present Defence Secretary James Mattis, and present Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. They complained that Pakistan was not doing enough, but they did not negate Pakistan’s contribution outright, like Trump has done.
How can they? After all, no country that joined the US war on terror had made so much of a sacrifice at so huge a cost to its national security and sovereignty. 

Cricket star-turned-political party leader Imran Khan in a series of tweets hit out at Trump, calling him “ignorant and ungrateful”. 

“…. Our society became radicalised and polarised as we helped CIA create jihadi groups; then, a decade later, we tried to eliminate them as terrorists on US orders,” said Khan who leads the opposition Tehreek-e-Insaf. He was referring to the US role in nourishing the Afghan Mujahideen and later the Taliban.

When the war on terror was about to be unleashed on Afghanistan in 2001 following the Spetember 11 terror attacks on the United States, Pakistan was warned by US defence bosses that if it did not join the war, it would be bombed back to the Stone Age . Still reluctant to join the war despite the threat, the then military ruler Pervez Musharraf war-gamed to assess Pakistan’s ability to take on the US, in case it refused to join the war. He did not want his country to become another Laos, where the US dropped more than two million tons of ordnance from 1964 to 1973 during the Vietnam War. Besides, at stake were Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and facilities. In addition, a bombed-out Pakistan without its nuclear weapons would only invite India to invade and annex Pakistan-administered Kashmir. 

Musharraf joined the US war and allowed the US to launch attacks from Pakistan’s air bases. Pakistan’s sovereignty became a mockery, with the US using Pakistan’s very own bases to kill Pakistani civilians during raids on terrorist hideouts.

In return, what Pakistan got was bloody mayhem. The 33 billion dollars Trump was trumpeting about were not development aid to Pakistan, but the money was largely in military aid directed at meeting the cost of waging America’s war. 

The price Pakistan had to pay was heavy. A country that had produced widely respected Islamic scholars and philosophers was devastated by the so-called Islamic terrorism of unknown origin. Foreign investors and tourists avoided the country. As a result its economy suffered. Major international sports events have not been held in Pakistan since a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers came under attack in 2009.  According to a report prepared by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 81,000 Pakistanis had died by the end of 2013 due to the war on terror. Pakistan government statistics say more than 48,000 Pakistani civilians and 26,000 militants died in the war on terror. The number of Pakistani soldiers who have died in America’s war on terror was around 6,000. In contrast, the number of US soldiers killed in the war on terror in the Af-Pak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) region was just 2,300. 

Yet, US policy makers continue to blame Pakistan, perhaps, in a bid to cover up their dismal failure in Afghanistan – both militarily and diplomatically -- after 16 years of military operations. They accuse Pakistan of hunting with the US and running with the terrorists. The charges cover providing safe haven to the Taliban, especially the Haqqani network, Pakistan’s alleged role in providing safe haven to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the garrison city of Abottabad and the closing down of supply routes for Nato troops. 

The aid cut to Pakistan is not new. In 2015, the Obama administration held back US$ 300 million. However, if Pakistan officially withdraws from the war on terror, it will do much good for the country and its people. Instead, it should enhance defence relations with China, an all-weather friend, which came to Pakistan’s defence in the wake of Trump’s tweet.  The US will then realise it cannot survive in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s support, for the military supplies have to come through Pakistan.

Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire backer of Bannon and Trump, chooses sides

 Before his work in the White House, Stephen K. Bannon was involved in several ventures with mega-donor Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah. (Bastien Inzaurralde, Dani Player/The Washington Post)

By Kyle Swenson January 5 at 6:04 AM

The security guards were done up as Hell’s Angels. Kellyanne Conway was wearing a Superwoman suit. And as then-President-elect Donald Trump slipped out of an SUV onto the grounds of a Long Island estate in December 2016, a gaudy “Villains and Heroes”-themed costume party swirling around him, the press pool reportedly asked the next president who he was dressed as.

Trump — wearing his standard-issue baggy suit and long tie — pointed a finger at himself. “Me,” he mouthed.

Party-going is not normally a top priority for a president-elect in the middle of a transition. But Trump was not calling on just anyone.

The fete was thrown by Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaire turned conservative donor who, along with his daughter Rebekah, had played a key role in Trump’s White House run. As The Washington Post’s Matea Gold reported last year, the Mercers have given at least $36.6 million to GOP candidates and super PACs since 2010. The family had also poured money into Breitbart News, the populist platform previously run by Stephen K. Bannon before he took over Trump’s campaign.

The strategist was also at the December party. Bannon’s planning and Mercer’s money were among the key drivers of Trump’s success. Trump, Mercer and Bannon were enjoying a moment of victory.

“The Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution,” Bannon told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer last March. “Irrefutably, when you look at the donors during the past four years, they have had the single biggest impact of anybody, including the Kochs.”

Billionaire Rebekah Mercer attends a conference hosted by the Heartland Institute in March 2017 in D.C. (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post)

But the once-close bond between candidate, strategist and mega-donors was torched this week. On Wednesday, excerpts of Michael Wolff’s new book on the administration hit the news cycle, including explosive comments Bannon reportedly made about Trump’s family. The president responded with a blistering attack on his former adviser, who left the White House last August and returned to Breitbart News as chairman. “Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” the president said Wednesday. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.” Thursday night he called Bannon “Sloppy Steve” in a tweet.

The rift between the two deepened Thursday, when the notoriously press-shy Rebekah Mercer — whom Newsmax Media owner Christopher Ruddy has admiringly called “the First Lady of the alt-right” — publicly rebuked Bannon and stood by the president in a statement. “I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected,” Mercer said. “My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements.”

And although Rebekah Mercer remains a stakeholder in Breitbart News, the significance of her public slap at Bannon can’t be overstated. Long before Trump stepped onto the campaign trail, the Mercer family and Bannon were drawing up schematics for an outsider populist presidential candidate who could topple the establishment. It was a dream years in the making. And now Trump, who fulfilled their hopes, has come between Mercer and Bannon, a further escalation of the conflict ripping through the president’s base.


The Mercers and Stephen Bannon: How a populist power base was funded and built VIEW GRAPHIC 

Robert and Rebekah Mercer’s rise as Republican power brokers was unique.

Robert Mercer is a former IBM computer scientist who made billions later in life by applying complex programming techniques to financial trading as the co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies, Bloomberg reported. Quiet and socially awkward — he once told a friend he preferred the company of cats to people, according to the Wall Street Journal — Mercer has an extreme views on small government and wealth.

“Bob believes that human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make,” a colleague told the New Yorker. “If someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he’s a thousand times more valuable.”

Rebekah, the middle of the Mercer’s three daughters, studied biology and math at Stanford, and earned a master’s degree there in management science and engineering, The Post has reported. She worked for a brief period at her father’s hedge fund, then raised four children with her husband, a French-born Morgan Stanley managing director. The couple live in a $28 million apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, according to Bloomberg.

As her family became more involved in conservative causes, Rebekah took the reins of the family foundation. According to an analysis by The Post, the foundation put $35 million into right-wing think tanks and policy groups between 2009 and 2014.

The Mercers’ journey to the White House began in 2011. It hinges on a Jimmy Stewart character.

Here are some of the most striking quotes from the upcoming book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” by Michael Wolff. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

In 2011, the future president first met Bannon to discuss a possible presidential run. The same year, the Mercers were introduced to conservative flamethrower Andrew Breitbart and Bannon, agreeing to invest $10 million into Breitbart News, according to the New Yorker. One stipulation of the Mercers’ deal was to place Bannon on the news company’s board. Breitbart died months later, which left the news operation in Bannon’s hands.

The key figure in the Bannon-Trump-Mercer White House success is Patrick Caddell, a former Democratic pollster. If the Mercers were the money, Bannon the strategist and Trump the candidate, Caddell was the player who first wrote the instruction manual. For years, the
pollster conducted extensive public opinion research showing Americans were sick of the two-party system and “ripe for an outsider candidate to take the White House,” Mayer wrote in the New Yorker. The longtime political operative would eventually term this the Candidate Smith project, a reference to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” a 1939 Jimmy Stewart film about an outsider political candidate.
The data increasing showed “mounting anger toward wealthy elites, who many Americans believed had corrupted the government so that it served only their interests,” Mayer wrote. By 2012, Caddell was sharing the populist trend in the numbers with Bannon. The data began to shape Bannon, and Breitbart’s, worldview.

The same year, the Mercers became fed up with the Republican establishment after President Barack Obama’s reelection. After Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s loss, Rebekah Mercer chewed out a room full of party donors at a meeting at New York’s University Club for bungling the election.

In 2013, Caddell showed his polling data to both Robert Mercer and Bannon at a conservative conference in Palm Beach. The donor was so intrigued with the populist trend he would keep Caddell polling data right up to the 2016 election. The results eventually found their way to Roger Stone, who shared them with his longtime confidant, Trump. As the Republican presidential primary season started, Caddell tested the field as potential Mr. Smith upstarts.

“People didn’t think Trump had the temperament to be President,”  Caddell told Mayer. “He clearly wasn’t the best Smith, but he was the only Smith.”

The Mercers, born number-crunchers, were impressed with Caddell’s work. When their initial preferred presidential candidate — Ted Cruz — left the campaign trail, the family switched to Trump. And when Trump’s campaign lagged in the middle of the 2016 campaign, the Mercers were quick to push their own associates — Bannon and Conway — into the campaign’s powers structure.

Ukraine Needs U.S. Help to Fight Corruption

An activists hold up flares during an anti-corruption protest in front of the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev, on July 11, 2017. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images) 

BY MICHAEL CARPENTER-

 JANUARY 4, 2018, 8:17 AM
By providing Ukraine with defensive antitank weapons, the Trump administration has taken an important step towards helping the country defend itself against Russian aggression. The administration should now build on this enhanced relationship by upgrading and expanding the U.S. military’s training program in Ukraine and by using U.S. leverage to press Ukrainian leaders to follow through on anti-corruption reforms.

The grim reality today is that Ukraine is waging a war on two fronts. While defending against Russian tanks, missiles, and artillery in the east, the Ukrainian state is battling corrupt actors on the inside. When the kleptocratic regime of Viktor Yanukovych absconded from power in February 2014, Russia’s “little green men” and their covert proxies emerged as the pre-eminent threats to the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Now that Ukraine’s military is stronger and can hold the line against Russian forces, corruption has arguably emerged as the greatest threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty and Euro-Atlantic aspirations.

The Kremlin understands this better than anyone. Kremlin strategists initially failed to anticipate that Russia’s invasion would galvanize a more cohesive Ukrainian national identity and sense of civic responsibility, especially among the younger generation. But now Moscow has adjusted. Where tanks and mortars failed, Russia’s political technologists are now counting on the nonlethal but potentially more potent and subversive weapon of corruption to weaken Ukraine internally. Their goal is simple: use corruption to set Ukrainians against each other and block the country’s path towards European integration. With presidential and parliamentary elections approaching in 2019, the Kremlin is focusing on supporting those parties and politicians who can be most easily bought or manipulated by its proxies. While Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ultimate goal is to control the government in Kiev, he would also be quite happy with a fragmented and divided Ukrainian polity.

That is why the current administration must use its leverage to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses against corruption, while continuing to build up Ukraine’s military. On the anticorruption front, the Obama administration sent FBI, Department of Justice, and State Department experts to Ukraine to help create from scratch an independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau, an independent National Agency on Corruption Prevention, and an independent Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor. In addition, the United States is providing the expertise to create a new patrol police in local communities across Ukraine. This force is now cited as one of the most tangible signs of change from the previous regime, with bribery diminishing considerably. The Obama administration also provided advanced training to National Guard and Border Guard services, helping increase the capacities of these key forces, along with their ability to protect Ukraine from outside threats.

None of these reforms were easy. They required constant minding and diplomatic pressure to get Ukraine’s leaders to follow through on their commitments. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, for example, insisted repeatedly that Ukraine’s leaders create independent anti-corruption institutions to prevent and prosecute graft. Biden pressed this point home at just about every opportunity, and he was on the phone with Ukraine’s leaders almost every week.

This sort of diplomatic pressure is needed now more than ever. Unfortunately, as a result of the distraction of their own elections (and the Brexit vote), leaders in the United States, Britain, France, and Germany have paid scant attention to Ukraine over the last year. This has led entrenched interests within Ukraine’s ruling class to launch a broadside against the country’s nascent anti-corruption institutions. Correctly perceiving these institutions as a threat to all manner of corrupt schemes, the vested interests have tried to neuter or politically subordinate them to the government. This past month, representatives of the ruling parties publicly attacked the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (conveniently, during a visit to Washington when he was unable to rebut their allegations in person) and then summarily dismissed the chairman of the parliament’s anti-corruption committee because of his political independence (he belongs to an opposition party). Despite these audacious moves, there was no flurry of calls from Western leaders to register concern. This is where the current administration must apply its diplomatic leverage, as the previous administration did on so many occasions. The message has to be simple: Western support is baed on conditions, not automatic, so you either agree to fight corruption or lose our support.

On the military front, the United States can further augment its enhanced leverage by continuing to expand and upgrade its training program, Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine. This training mission currently graduates five land forces battalions and one special operations battalion annually. If Ukraine were to invest the resources by providing top-quality trainers (a persistent shortcoming faced by leaders of the program from the start), the mission could be expanded from its current focus on small-unit tactics to more sophisticated combined-arms training modeled on real-life conditions in the Donbass. Upgraded training would help counter Russia’s sophisticated electronic warfare measures and lethal drones, and allow the strategic advice being providing by former U.S. Centcom commander John Abizaid, a senior defense advisor to the Ukrainian military, to be translated down from the General Staff to the unit level. In terms of long-term strategic effect, enhanced training would be a real game-changer and far more significant than a few hundred antitank missiles (though, to be clear, weapons are needed too).

Finally, the United States must also think bigger. In addition to applying leverage to encourage anti-corruption reforms and expanding its military footprint, Washington should press its European partners and allies to step up. This means encouraging NATO countries to follow the U.S. lead by providing weapons to Ukraine. It also means beginning serious discussions with the EU on a Western-managed investment fund as a means to encourage deeper anti-corruption reforms.

Lithuania’s former prime minister, Andrius Kubilius, is one of a growing number of European leaders who have proposed creating such a fund. Because Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the EU is not realistic in the near future, the political incentives are not currently strong enough for Ukrainian party leaders to back difficult reforms and cut off the vested interests that finance their re-election campaigns. A Western-managed investment fund would serve as a bridging mechanism to spur reforms and good governance until a realistic Euro-Atlantic perspective emerges in the future.
Ukraine has many brilliant reformers in senior government positions who are impatient to implement the various plans they have drawn up. They now need to be empowered to put in place these reforms, free from the interference of vested interests. Western investments into Ukraine’s real economy would finally offer the right mix of political incentives to drive reforms forward, and investments would come in tranches that would be conditioned on strict anti-corruption benchmarks. The amount of capital required to stand up this investment fund — somewhere on the order of $6 billion annually — is quite modest in comparison with the EU’s $378 billion European Fund for Strategic Investments.

Some will ask whether this amounts to throwing good money after bad. The answer is that it depends on whether Europe and the United States are willing to take a proactive, hands-on approach to helping Ukraine fight corruption. If structured the right way and backed by the EU’s political clout, a Ukraine Investment Fund has the power to drive change in ways no outside actor can match. The mechanisms of the market provide the most powerful incentives for reform, particularly when augmented by political conditionality. The precedents can be found in Ukraine’s own neighborhood, in countries like Poland, Romania, and Lithuania.

The alternative to a proactive, hands-on approach is the current laissez-faire attitude towards Ukraine. If this remains the state of affairs, however, then the United States risks seeing Ukraine’s vested interests, backed by Russian money with its own special conditionality, wipe out the reforms of the last few years. And if these corrupt interests claw their way back, as happened after the Orange Revolution, the result will be far more costly for the West over the long run — economically and geopolitically. That is why it is imperative for the United States and Europe to focus attention on helping Ukraine win on both of its strategic fronts: in the east where its soldiers are defending Ukrainian sovereignty and territory against continuing Russian aggression, and internally, as reformers are increasingly embattled in their fight against the old system. The stakes are simply too high for the West to stand on the sidelines.

Feeding India

350 million of India’s 1.3 billion people live in rural locations where electricity is unreliable and erratic so the use of cold storage facilities limited.

( January 5, 2018, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) 194 million Indians go hungry daily, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) yet India, one of the world’s largest food producers.

As the World Economic Forum has highlighted, food production is clearly not the main issue as India needs 225-230 million tonnes of food per year to feed its population – and farm output in 2015-2016 hit more than 270 million tonnes. India is the world’s largest producer of milk, at 146 million tonnes (mt) in 2015. Smallholder dairy farming systems supply over 90 per cent of its milk.

Sharad Pawar, a former agriculture minister, told parliament that nearly 40 percent of the value of annual production was wasted, with crops left to rot in the sun without storage or transportation, or eaten by insects and rats.

Sagheer Ahmed, professor at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, said a lack of storage was the main reason for wasted food grain along with no concrete system for processing perishable fruits and vegetables.

350 million of India’s 1.3 billion people live in rural locations where electricity is unreliable and erratic so the use of cold storage facilities limited.

Ashish Agarwal, a food rights activist with Aligarh-based non-profit group UDAAN Society that focuses on rural development.

“The under-5 mortality rate is 4.8 percent in India, partially because of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environment.”

The government distributes excess grain through a public distribution system. Under this system the government buys food grain from farmers and distributes it at subsidised prices to the poor, selling wheat and rice at two and three rupees a kg compared to the market price of 12 and 13 rupees. But the system has come under fire from some locals who say supplies and the quality can be erratic with grain from the distribution system being siphoned off by middlemen w ..

“The superior quality food grains are sold in the black market by the middlemen and the bad quality wheat and rice is given to us at a subsidised rate,” said Ali Sher, head of Pilakhana village in Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh state.

“A small quantity of good quality rice is mixed with rotten portion to increase the volume and sold to us at subsidy. It is better to starve than to eat rodent-infested food.”

The next generation of Rohingya are being born into squalor and uncertainty

Four week-old boy was born in a makeshift settlement for displaced Rohingya people in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.Source: Hanna Adcock/Save the Children

By Emma Richards | 5th January 2018

OVER 48,000 babies are expected to be born in Cox’s Bazar in the coming year, leaving the next generation of Rohingya refugees exposed to the squalor and uncertainty of life as a persecuted minority from day one.

New figures from Save the Children show 130 births a day are expected across 2018 in the Bangladesh refugee camp, which is home to close to a million Rohingya, 655,500 of whom fled from Burma following an outbreak of violent clashes in Rakhine State in August 2017.

A Rohingya mother sits with her 25 day-old baby in a makeshift tent in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Source: Hanna Adcock/Save the Children

Pregnant mothers have made the sometimes weeks-long trip, often by foot and makeshift rafts, to escape the Burmese military clearance operations and find refuge across the border. Their children are born into dangerous and squalid conditions that pose an immediate threat to their health and well-being.

Most of these women are giving birth in makeshift shelters, cobbled together from bamboo and tarpaulin, Daphne Cook, communications manager for Save the Children’s Rohingya response, told Asian Correspondent. This insecure environment, coupled with unhygienic conditions, places these newborns at significant risk.

“The conditions are really squalid. There are not enough toilets, not enough clean water, not enough access to 24-hour healthcare systems,” Cook said.

“These babies are being born at a major disadvantage and as a result are much more likely to suffer from diseases and face an earlier prospect of illness in those first years of life.”

Due to poor sanitation, the camps have become a breeding ground for diseases like diphtheria, measles and cholera, to which newborn babies are particularly vulnerable

SEE ALSO: Diphtheria hits Rohingya camps amid rising evidence of genocide

Cold, tired and afraid

Hanida, 35, fled Burma with her husband and children after seeing her house and farm lands razed. She was heavily pregnant at the time and would give birth to her youngest child on the floor of a makeshift tent in Bangladesh.

“During the night I felt very cold and tired. I was also afraid. I had no energy and was weak.

 There was nothing to hold on to. I was trying to grab at anything, but ended up lying down,” Hanida told Save the Children.

“For one hour, I was lying on the ground, feeling tired and without energy to even eat. I was afraid… there was seemingly not enough space to give birth, but somehow I managed.”

SEE ALSO: ‘He stuck a knife into my side’: Burmese army accused of gang-raping women and girls

As she nurses her infant child, Hanida’s primary concern now is making sure she has enough food to sustain her newborn through breastfeeding. Without nourishment, she is unable to produce enough milk, leaving her ten-day-old son susceptible to malnutrition and disease.

Critical situation

Hanida’s story is a common one in the sprawling camp as aid agencies struggle to meet the demand for healthcare.

Save the Children runs a network of nine community health posts in Cox’s Bazar, each facility sees about 70 people a day, many of whom are expectant or new mothers. Its health adviser Rachael Cummings has made a plea for international assistance in meeting the needs of the camp’s most vulnerable.

A four-week-old boy was born in Cox’s Bazar. Source: Hanna Adcock/Save the Children

“Aid organisations like Save the Children are doing all we can. However, the needs are simply enormous and we don’t have enough resources and funding to ensure every mother and child receives the medical care they require,” Cummings said.

“We urge the international community to step up and provide funding for this response so that vulnerable Rohingya children and families continue to receive the support they so desperately need.”

SEE ALSO: Blockchain technology employed to give Rohingya refugees identity cards

According to a report from the World Health Organisation (WHO), a quarter of children under five in Cox’s Bazar are suffering from malnutrition. Only 22 percent of births in the area take place in health facilities, so when complications occur, mothers are unable to access expert care.

The future of this next generation, born into refugeedom, remains uncertain. While a deal for repatriation has been agreed between the Burmese and Bangladeshi government, concrete measures to ensure the safety of the returning Rohingya population have not been put in place. Until those assurances are guaranteed, the critical situation at Cox’s Bazar looks set to continue.

More than 1,000 pupils penalised for phones in GCSE and A-level exams

Unauthorised materials accounted for half of all students given penalties for cheating, Ofqual figures for 2017 show. Photograph: David Jones/PA

Richard AdamsEducation editor-Fri 5 Jan ‘18 18.54 GMT

Ofqual data for 2017 exams in England shows 25% rise in number of penalties issued to students for trying to cheat

The number of pupils penalised for cheating during GCSE and A-level exams rose sharply last year, mostly as a result of mobile phones being smuggled into exam halls.

Official figures also show the number of teachers and school staff involved in exam malpractice more than doubled between 2016 and 2017.

Ofqual, the exam regulator for England, said the most common category of malpractice was the introduction of “unauthorised materials” into exam venues.

“In most cases, this was a mobile phone or other electronic communications device,” it said.

Unauthorised materials accounted for half of all students given penalties for cheating, and of those nearly 80% related to the use of mobile phones. Plagiarism was the other man category, accounting for 17% of cases.

But Ofqual said the overall number of cheating cases remained low despite the 25% rsise. The 2,715 penalties issued to 2,585 students represent just 0.015% out of more than 18m exam entries. In 2016, a total of 2,180 students were caught, a rate of 0.011%.

In most cases students were punished with a reduction in marks or were given a warning, but 490 had their grades disqualified. Students found with mobile phones were more likely to lose marks.

The increase in teachers and other school and college staff involved is more concerning. The number rose from 360 in 2016 to 895 in 2017 after a change in response by the examination boards which offer A-levels and GCSEs.

The regulator said the increase was likely to be the result of the exam boards such as AQA taking a tougher stance on individual wrongdoing.

“Exam boards are more likely to issue formal written warnings for similar offences rather than informal advisory notes this year. This still involves a very small proportion of the total number of staff in England,” Ofqual said.

In more than half of cases the teachers received written warnings, but 185 were required to undergo training, while 90 were barred from involvement in exams. Nearly a third of cases involved teachers giving “improper assistance” to exam candidates.

Despite the rise in student and staff malpractice, the number of schools and colleges given punishments fell sharply, from 155 in 2016 to 120 last year.

The 2017 data included for the first time details of cheating in individual subjects, and showed maths and computing accounted for about a third of all penalties.

Pupils taking computing exams accounted for the majority of plagiarism cases, which reinforces concerns last year that assessment tasks for GCSE computing had been leaked and circulated online.
In November Ofqual said computing coursework would not be used as part of students’ final GCSE grades until reforms had been made.

In Wales, the rise in the number of pupils caught with mobile phones was smaller, up from 70 to 80.
Just 180 pupils in Wales received penalties, fewer than the 195 in 2015. But the proportion penalised, 0.015% was similar to that in England.

The figures do not include the scandal involving Eton over the Pre-U exams revealed by the Guardian last year. This is because the A-level equivalent offered by Cambridge Assessment International Examinations is not part of the body that collects the national data.

Schools collect millions in donations as state funding tightens

By Martin Williams-5 JAN 2018

Schools in England could be raising around £150m a year from voluntary donations, research by Channel 4 News suggests.

With tight budgets, some headteachers told us they are increasingly reliant on donations to plug the gaps.

In November, a primary school in Theresa May’s constituency wrote to parents asking for donations to help pay for items including pens, pencils, exercise books and paper.

Another school in her constituency has told parents: “We are experiencing both rising costs and reduced funding, resulting in challenges to our school budget…

“Whilst we are committed to the principle of state funded education, we have asked parents to consider making voluntary contributions this year.”

Our estimates – based on a sample of data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act – show that the average state school received nearly £10,000 each from donations.

The sample covers hundreds of schools with more than a quarter of a million pupils. Of these, the average pupil was backed by £33 of voluntary donations.

But a lack of transparency around the issue means it is impossible to tell how much of this money covered optional extras, and how much was essential.

The source of donations is also not clear. Many schools have issued letters to parents asking for donations, but others may be helped by teachers, businesses or other organisations. The statistics also include contributions from charities and religious organisations.

Response to budget cuts?

Schools have long done fundraising activities to support additional resources or infrastructure – it is not a new phenomenon in itself.

However, with many schools looking to make savings, some say that this huge funding stream is now very important.

Research by the national PTA has found that “the chances of [parents] being asked for a donation have significantly increased in England”.

Channel 4 News found many examples of schools making desperate pleas for help. One had issued a “wishlist” to parents, asking them to contribute items including pens, pencils, paper and even handsoap.

A school in London said it was becoming more dependent on voluntary contributions and planned to use them to replace broken desks and chairs, among other things.

And the headteacher of a third school has told parents that being an expert fundraiser is “sadly now essential” for his job because of “unprecedented financial challenges”.

He said that one pupil had even “brought me the contents of her piggy bank money”.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are clear that no parent can be required to make financial contributions to a school. No policies have been introduced by this government to allow schools to charge for education provided during school hours. Schools are welcome to ask parents for donations but must make clear these are voluntary.

“We are investing an additional £1.3 billion in schools funding, over and above existing plans, with core schools funding rising from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £43.5 billion in 2019-20. Every school will see an increase in funding through our new National Funding Formula from 2018.

“As the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed, overall per pupil funding across the country will now be maintained in real terms up to 2020, and our formula will provide significant gains for under-funded schools of up to 3% per pupil in 2018-19 and a further 3% in 2019-20.”

A GAP BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE IN SEXUAL HEALTH BEHAVIOUR AMONG FACTORY WORKERS IN SRI LANKA

04/01/2018

More and more people are aware of modes of transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and ways to be protected from them with increased media proliferation in recent years. However, the increased awareness alone does not guarantee safer sexual behaviour, a study in Sri Lanka has shown.

Over one-third of the study population participated in sex with a non-regular partner and a large proportion did so without using a condom.

The study, which was carried out to assess knowledge, attitude and behaviour related to STIs and HIV/AIDS among factory workers in the Seethawaka Export Processing Zone in Sri Lanka, has found that the majority of the respondents had a satisfactory level of knowledge on HIV and STIs, but a very low proportion exhibited safe sexual behaviour.

For example, while 85 percent of the 480 respondents involved in the research were aware of HIV testing, fewer than 10 percent of respondents actually did the testing. Likewise, over one-third of the study population participated in sex with a non-regular partner and a large proportion did so without using a condom.

“The more alarming finding of the study was the prevalence of male-to-male sexual activity (15 percent) with very low condom use,” says the lead author of the article, Dr. Manjula Rajapakshe. “This is worrying as anal sex carries the highest risk of HIV transmission.”

She says that this issue needs to be addressed in future interventions for factory workers and condoms should be promoted, stressing the high risk of HIV transmission through anal sex.

Likewise, the study, published in the Sri Lanka Journal of Sexual Health and HIV Medicine has shown that a big proportion of people in the area studied had a negative attitude towards people living with HIV. More than half the respondents expressed negative attitudes towards people living with HIV. Ironically, although a large chunk of the respondents resorted to unsafe sexual behaviour, a high level of stigma against people living with HIV was present. The respondents said that people with HIV should not be given a job, should not be given the right to marry and have children, should not be given equal rights. Likewise, over half the respondents said they would not work together, live in the same house or eat together with a person that has HIV.

“As the study shows that the attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDs (PLHIV) was significantly associated with HIV-related knowledge of the factory workers, it is important to further increase the HIV-related knowledge among this group to reduce their negative attitudes towards PLHIV,” says Dr. Rajapakshe.

“Furthermore, the traditional methods of awareness programmes that target only on increasing knowledge [should change] to more focused methods of behaviour change communication (BCC) strategies, both to reduce stigma against people living with HIV/AIDs and to promote safer sexual behaviour. Training of peer leaders and update their knowledge and skills with retraining would be a sustainable intervention in this regard,” she says.
MedicalExpress

Future of Kala Pharma's dry eye drug uncertain after mixed results

Tamara Mathias, Manas Mishra-JANUARY 5, 2018

(Reuters) - Mixed results from two late-stage studies testing Kala Pharmaceuticals Inc’s drug to provide temporary relief from dry eye disease cast doubt on the drug’s path forward and sent shares down 16 percent in early trading on Friday.

The trials met three out of four main goals, falling short of showing a statistically significant reduction in discomfort of the eye in one study.

“The question is will the FDA accept this or make them do another trial before approval?” Wedbush analyst Liana Moussatos told Reuters, dubbing Kala’s first trial “the best results” for dry eye she’d seen in a late-stage study.

The company said it had no immediate discussions with the U.S. regulator and would need to conduct further analyses before determining a path forward.

 

If Kala’s drug, KPI-121, were to secure U.S. approval it would be the first treatment to provide rapid relief for acute, episodic dry eye flares.

The drug would face no real competition as approved treatments for dry eye such as Allergan Plc’s blockbuster Restasis and Shire Plc’s Xiidra are indicated for chronic patients with continuous symptoms of the disease, rather than flare-ups.

Dry eye is caused by either a lack of tears, or a “poor quality” of tears that cannot lubricate the surface of the eye, resulting in itching and inflammation.

The disease affects about 33 million people in the United States, the company said.

Moussatos called KPI-121 a “clean drug” and pointed to the possibility of it gaining approval for use in severely affected patients, with an FDA-mandated requirement for a post-marketing trial.

If approved, the drug could rake in peak sales of $1.9 billion in 2027, she added.

Shares of the Waltham, Massachusetts-based drug developer slumped over 20 percent to about $14 before the bell, but are currently trading at $14.77.

The FDA is currently reviewing Kala’s Inveltys, a treatment for inflammation and pain in patients post eye surgery, and is expected to announce its decision by Aug. 24.

Dry Eye Symptom Checklist

If you experience any of these symptoms or have any of the conditions listed you may be suffering from CDES.  Left untreated, your symptoms may likely intensify, making your daily life unpleasant and may lead to worsening physical problems like reduced vision and damage to the eyes.  Ask a doctor at ProEye for more information.

• Redness
• Dry sensation
• Burning
• Gritty, sandy feeling
• Tired eyes
• Watery eyes
• Stinging
• Itching
• Mucous discharge
• Sensitivity to light
• Soreness, tenderness
• Irritation from wind or smoke
• Inconsistent blurry vision

If you have any of these conditions combined with any of the above symptoms you may be more likely to have Dry Eye:

• Smoking
• Diabetes
• Arthritis
• Joint pain
• Thyroid
• Rosacea
• Birth sontrol
• Computer use
• Antihistamine use
• LASIK
• Dry throat/dry mouth
• Sjogrens Syndrome
• Contact lens sensitivity
• Reduced Contact Lens wearing time

 

New patients receive free consultation.

Killing of 5 youth in Trinco: Case now progressing with Skype evidence

2018-01-04

Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayaka said today the case involving the 2006 killing of five Tamil students in Trincomalee was now progressing as new reforms have allowed the use of Skype evidence.

In a tweet, Minister Ratnayaka said, “We could not proceed with the case as the main witness was overseas and was not in a position to support proceedings. The case is now progressing as new reforms have allowed the use of Skype evidence.”

The Minister made this revelation in response to a tweet by US Ambassador Atul Keshap. Referring to the delay in the case, the US Ambassador said justice delayed is justice denied.

In a statement, Minister Ratnayake’s Media Unit said the five Tamil students were killed on January 2, 2006 in Trincomalee allegedly by a group of Police Special Task Force officers.

Twelve STF officers were later arrested by the Police in connection with the killings.

Dr. Kasipillai Manoharan, the father of one of the five students, attended the UN Human Rights Council annual review meeting in March 2013 to demand justice for the murders.

Dr. Manoharan, in his speech said, “My son Rajigar was one of the five university students assassinated in Trincomalee. On behalf of the five students I am seeking justice. Seven years have elapsed after the brutal killings of the students, but so far justice was not served,”

In Sri Lanka, however, the authorities found it hard to proceed with the case for a long time as Dr. Manoharan, a key witness in the case, was overseas and was not in a position to support proceedings.