The working poor: Britain’s families living on the breadline

Jackie Long-19 Jun 2018Social Affairs Editor and Presenter

Work is the best route out of poverty – it’s a slogan popular with politicians both left and right for the past two decades.

But as the country surges towards record numbers of people in work – the number of those in work and in poverty too is also rising.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, 57 per cent of people in poverty live in households where at least one person has a job – up more than twenty per cent since 1995.

Trump Is Playing Chicken With Children’s Lives

The U.S. child welfare system is strained to its limits. Family separation could push it over the edge.

A child at the U.S.-Mexico fence in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on April 4. (Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images)

BY ERIC BRENNAN-

 JUNE 20, 2018

In the last week, the U.S. public has been shocked by the newly instituted policy of separating children from their families at the border. Obviously, breaking up families unnecessarily is abhorrent. But the true ramifications are even worse. The child welfare system is primed — deliberately — for crisis.

I spent five years in social work, and then another eight years as an attorney specializing in family protection. For people at the intersection of immigration and child welfare, the current crisis is terrifying. The Trump administration is turning the known failure points of the broader child welfare system in the United States into a weapon against those seeking safety by exploiting the system’s natural weaknesses and pushing them to the point of collapse. The resulting tragedies will terrify potential migrants — and permanently harm the image of the United States as surely as, for instance, Romania’s loveless orphanages did that country’s reputation.

This situation is dire. Over the last century, child welfare programs in the United States have developed a hard-won set of guiding principles. First and most importantly, the best interests of the child are paramount, not fuzzier political goals. The children entering care are victims of abuse and neglect, and they’re often in need of aid themselves for trauma, psychological issues, and physical ailments.

Second, children should be reunited with parents as soon as it is safe, but if it is not safe, then children should be placed with relatives or, if that is not possible, with foster parents as soon as possible. Group homes and institutional settings are places of last resort, often reserved for children in the juvenile justice system. All of those places — kinship placements, foster homes, group settings, and even juvenile detention facilities — are subject to close oversight by the states, which typically receive funding from the federal government.

[George Takei was sent to a Japanese American internment camp at just 5 years old — but they didn’t separate children from families.]

Even with those guiding principles in place, the U.S. child welfare system is dependent on social workers with large caseloads, and decades of financial starvation made even worse by the recent sequestration by Congress. The average child protective worker is handling a caseload in excess of that recommended, and sometimes drastically more — far beyond their contemporaries in other developed economies like the United Kingdom. Time and again, when the system is overburdened by large caseloads, mistakes happen, sometimes fatal ones. The majority of participants in the system, both foster parents and social workers, are well-meaning and heroically strive for the best for their charges, but it only takes a handful of bad actors or neglectful officials to create situations where children end up sexually or physically abused, or dead.

The influx created by the new policies is likely to break the system entirely.

 Up until now, the intersection of child welfare and immigration enforcement came through the relatively obscure Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a program under the Department of Health and Human Services. The stated goal of ORR is to place refugees, asylum-seekers, and others in the best position to succeed in the United States by helping them settle, finding employment for them, and providing necessary services. The Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Program was a part of this effort, meant to provide a safe environment for children who enter the United States without lawful immigration status and without parents.

The majority of children in this program were placed with a close relative when possible. According to the ORR’s own reporting, before the current crisis, the program used child welfare best practices to attempt to keep children safe but lacked the manpower to utilize the full panoply of social work tools to follow up with these children, instead relying on the immigration process to oversee their continued health and well-being. This means that, as the agency itself has admitted, it often loses track of children once they have been placed, with no attendant agency at the local level responsible for taking up the slack.

A year ago, President Donald Trump’s now-chief of staff, then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, mused that it might be necessary to separate children from their parents. Despite the administration’s protestations to the contrary that its hand was forced by the Democrats and existing law, the policy was framed then as a new tactic, to function as a deterrent. And starting in May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would begin prosecuting all individuals crossing the border — while separating parents from their children: “If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally.”

After that speech, the plan went into wide operation, immediately overburdening the ORR and pushing the already strained UAC Program to the breaking point. The program was already struggling with record numbers of children being referred to it by Homeland Security. The number of children entering the program had nearly doubled between 2015 and 2016. The number of children in care went from 3,503 to 6,508 during that period, mostly coming from countries in Central America suffering from internal strife.

At that time, before the decision to separate children from their parents unnecessarily, the UAC Program was only dealing with children whom it recognized as possessing refugee and asylum-seeking status. Since then, the Trump administration’s current tactics have meant that almost 2,000 children have entered ORR’s care between April 19 and the end of May alone. If the Trump administration’s efforts continue, ORR is on track to have to deal with as many children in the next three months as it did in the record-setting 2016 fiscal year alone.

If the images of children being taken from their parents and housed behind chain-link fences in massive warehouses is offensive to the average American, it is doubly so to those in the child welfare field. The Trump administration knows this. It knows this because child welfare programs in the United States are overseen at the federal level by the Department of Health and Human Services, which in turn oversees the ORR and its UAC Program. Data from all 50 states, U.S. territories, and Native American reservations all feed into the department, and it in turn sifts through it and promulgates best practices. Not only is the current practice contrary to the standards recommended by its own agencies over the last few decades, but also the cost will be paid by innocents — both migrant children in custody through no fault of their own and children already in the U.S. system who will suffer further as resources become critically overstretched.

If there is a basic law of child welfare in the United States, it is to not remove a child from their parents without cause, but that is exactly what is being done here. As the ORR’s own reporting shows, the system was strained to the breaking point already. Adding thousands more children to the UAC Program as part of a purely political attempt at deterrence is not just a mistake — it’s a mistake that will traumatize children, cause lasting damage to the image of the United States, and inevitably lead to tragedy. Children will be lost in the system and unable to reunite with parents. Children will die from medically avoidable causes. And children will be raped by the predators who seek out the weak and vulnerable. The damage done to the image of the United States will be as sure and permanent as the stain left on the Catholic Church by its tolerance of child abuse.

But the Trump administration knows that tragedy is coming, and it suits its purposes. Overburdening the system means that images of children living under mylar blankets in huge warehouses make it into the mass media, which then dissuade those who might come here seeking safety. Whatever tragedies come will be international news and will strike fear into the heart of any parent who wants to cross the border. It will also permanently tarnish the reputation of the United States — but that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

The underlying logic of the administration is that, no matter what happens, no matter how bad the appearance or the scandal, its larger policy goal of discouraging immigration to this country will succeed. In fact, the worse the crisis, and the more horrifying the outcome, the better. This is a game of chicken being played against families who have no choice but to run to this country — one where the worse the crash, as far as the administration is concerned, the better.

Accountability is the only way to end violence in Myanmar

The global community’s inertia while the military wages vicious campaigns must cease - we must establish an accountability structure and end impunity
A Rohingya refugee woman shows bullet and shrapnel wounds on her arm at Shamlapur refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Yanghee Lee and Georgia Drake-Thu 21 Jun 2018

Three women were at their farm when they were taken by 80 soldiers belonging to Myanmar military, and were repeatedly gang-raped by the troops before eventually being released four days later. This tragically now familiar sounding story of a crime in Myanmar did not occur during the “clearance operations” following August 2017 in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State, but in July 2000 on the other side of the country in Shan State. This case was documented in a 2002 report Licence to Rape, along with 172 other cases of sexual violence perpetrated in Shan State between 1991 and 2001.
Far too many such crimes have been committed with scant consequences faced by the culprits. On ensuring accountability for gross violations of human rights in Myanmar, so far the international community has failed.

Evidence of the crimes abounds, with local and international human rights groups and the UN documenting and reporting serious violations and abuses for decades. The culprits are overwhelmingly members of Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, which has long enjoyed impunity for its crimes. Myanmar has faced civil war since shortly after independence in 1948, and there are countless instances of its peoples facing serious violations at the hands of the Tatmadaw, including killings, torture and rape. Ethnic armed organisations, who fight against the Tatmadaw, are also responsible for human rights violations, including torture, use of child soldiers and forced labour, for which they have neither been held accountable.

With much of the violence taking place on the borderlands of the country, members of ethnic minority populations living in those areas have been particularly targeted by a disturbingly similar pattern of violence.

In the 1990s, the Tatmadaw waged a brutal campaign in Kayin State in the east of Myanmar that tens of thousands of people fleeing for their lives to Thailand, many of whom still remain there, just across the border today. From 1996-1998, villagers in central Shan State, to the north of the country, faced savagery at the hands of the Tatmadaw and over 300,000 people were driven from their homes.
Following the breakdown of a 17-year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army, around 100,000 people were forced from villages in Kachin and northern Shan States in 2011. They languish in camps for which international humanitarian assistance has largely been blocked for years.

In the west of Myanmar, the Rohingya Muslim minority group in Rakhine State have suffered systematic human rights violations at the hands of security forces since the 1970s. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have repeatedly being driven out to Bangladesh as a result of brutality inflicted on them. This culminated in over 700,000, the vast majority of the Rohingyapopulation, being forcibly displaced to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh in an exodus that is continuing.

At least 6,700 people were allegedly killed, many women raped and hundreds of villages burned down following “clearance operations” carried out by security forces beginning in August 2017 in which severe violence was perpetrated against the population that bears the hallmarks of genocide. An unknown number of Rohingya remain in northern Rakhine State, living without access to basic rights including freedom of movement, while over 120,000 live in camps in Sittwe, central Rakhine State, where they have been since 2012.

One would think that such an atrocious situation would lead to righteous outrage around the world that spurs action to achieve justice for victims. However, nearly 10 months on, despite laudable condemnations and statements of serious concern by the international community, there has been an outright failure to put an end to atrocities by holding perpetrators accountable.

Continued failure to act by the international community will only result in the commission of yet more violations. The international community’s pause has given the Tatmadaw the green light to continue its campaign of violence, aggression and domination of Myanmar’s ethnic peoples across the country. The lack of consequences faced by the Tatmadaw has led to its being emboldened to wage escalated offensives in Kachin, Shan and Kayin States this year, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries, and thousands of civilians escaping violence in their villages in the last few months. Indeed, reportedly the very same battalions that carried out the “clearance operations” in Rakhine State are now waging war in Kachin State.

The international community’s inertia while Myanmar’s military wages its vicious campaigns against the people of Myanmar must not continue. Accountability is the only way to end the violence, achieve justice and redress for victims, enforce the rule of law, and deter future perpetration of crimes. Doing so will assist the transition to real democracy, and pave the way for reconciliation.
To end its complacence, the international community should establish a structure under the auspices of the United Nations to monitor, document and report violations and abuses in Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States.

The structure would consolidate the investigations undertaken by others and build cases that can be used by future prosecutorial and judicial mechanisms. The structure would have investigators and experts based in Cox’s Bazar, with legal and judicial experts building up cases, examining participation and responsibility of individual perpetrators. These people would engage with victims and other stakeholders located elsewhere in the region. The structure would also develop a framework for victim support, reconciliation and reintegration.

The international community should seize upon the tragic opportunity it is presented with; there are around a million Rohingya in camps near Cox’s Bazar, with stories to tell that need to be heard.
Preparing information about violations and abuses so that it is ready to be deployed at the appropriate time is a constructive, practical and meaningful effort that can be done in a timely, relatively low cost manner.

It is essential that the international community act now, and not let this be yet another wasted opportunity to work towards achieving justice, and ending impunity, for all the people of Myanmar.

• Yanghee Lee is the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar and Georgia Drake is a research assistant to the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar

Transgenderism no longer listed as ‘mental illness’

The UN World Health Organisation has removed transgenderism from the list of mental disorders. Source: Shutterstock

20th June 2018

TRANSGENDERISM is no longer listed as a “mental disorder” in the World Health Organisation’s updated catalogue of diseases.

In the newly issued WHO’s International Classification of Diseases catalogue, which classifies more than 55,000 diseases, injuries and causes of death, “gender incongruence” is now listed under “conditions related to sexual health”, instead of “mental, behavioural and neurodevelopmental disorders”.

SEE ALSO: Nightmare looms for transgender Thais at army draft

“We think it (the re-categorisation) will reduce stigma so that it may help better social acceptance for these individuals,” Lale Say, the coordinator of WHO’s department of reproductive health and research, told AFP.

WHO says gender incongruence is characterised as a “marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex.”

The document still needs to be approved by United Nations member states before it can take effect.

It is used by doctors and insurers to determine coverage, meaning the reclassification of gender incongruence could have a tangible impact on transgender people’s access to healthcare, Says said.

SEE ALSO: As Trump bans transgender soldiers, Australia pushes for diversity in armed forces

The WHO follows the likes of France and Denmark who have already removed transgenderism from the list of mental disorders.

The latest catalogue also includes new chapters on video gaming and recognises gaming disorder as a pathological condition, considered addictive in the same way as cocaine.

A section on traditional medicine is also included for the first time.

Member states are expected to vote on the document at the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May 2019. If adopted, it will take effect from January 1, 2022.

Walking ability before heart surgery tied to brain function afterward

Lisa Rapaport-JUNE 20, 2018 

(Reuters Health) - Older adults who are faster on their feet may be less likely to suffer cognitive problems after heart surgery than patients who have difficulty walking, a Japanese study suggests.

All 181 patients in the study were undergoing non-emergency heart surgery at Nagoya University Hospital. Before surgery, researchers measured how far each participant could walk in six minutes and did assessments of memory, concentration and attention.

About two weeks after the surgery, they repeated the same battery of cognitive tests. Overall, 51 patients, or 28 percent, had developed cognitive problems. Half of these patients were unable to walk more than 400 meters in six minutes before surgery, while half of the participants who didn’t develop cognitive issues had walked at least 450 meters.

Each increase of 50 meters in walking distance before surgery was linked to a 19 percent decrease in the odds of cognitive problems after surgery, researchers found.

“This study is the first to indicate that the walking ability is a risk factor for postoperative cognitive dysfunction,” said lead study author Kazuhiro Hayashi of Nagoya University Hospital.

“Fortunately for patients, physical function could be improved . . . regardless of age,” Hayashi said by email.

Temporary cognitive problems are common after heart surgery, the authors point out. A week after such operations, as many as 50 percent to 70 percent of patients have problems with memory, attention and other skills. The rate falls to 30 percent to 50 percent after six weeks, but persistent cognitive dysfunction at five years after surgery has been observed in 20 percent to 40 percent of patients, they write.

Physical frailty and cognitive decline before surgery have long been linked to worse outcomes afterward, and the current study suggests that addressing these issues before people undergo operations may lead to better results and a better quality of life afterward.

Basically, patients could get what Hayashi describes as “prehabilitation”: customized exercise regimens to improve walking, sitting, moving extremities, and talking abilities before non-emergency operations.

“This study indicates that the easy and inexpensive six-minute walking distance test is a valuable assessment for identifying patients at a high risk for postoperative cognitive decline,” Hayashi said. “If we are able to identify patients who are at risk for postoperative cognitive decline, we can provide early treatment and encourage them to better understand the dysfunction.”

Shorter distances on the walking tests in the study were linked to larger cognitive declines after the operations, researchers report in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

Researchers excluded people from the study who had significant mobility challenges or dementia before surgery, and they also left out people who might have an increased risk of cognitive problems like those with a history of stroke.

One limitation of the study is that the amount of time that passed after surgery before patients had cognitive tests varied. Researchers also didn’t do other tests of physical or psychological function, both of which can have a big impact on quality of life after surgery.

Results from heart surgery patients might not apply to other people, either, because cardiac procedures often involve cardiopulmonary bypass and major shifts in blood pressure during operations, both of which can affect brain function, said Dr. Carolyn Dacey Seib, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center who wasn’t involved in the study.

“It is possible that the association between functional capacity and postoperative cognitive function would be less pronounced in non-cardiac surgery, especially low risk surgeries that are shorter in duration and have less impact on (the brain),” Seib said by email.

Still, poor performance on a preoperative walking test might indicate frailty, which has long been linked to worse outcomes after surgery, Seib added. “Therefore, it is very possible that this walking test is identifying frail patients who lack both physical and cognitive reserve to deal with the stresses of surgery.”

 

SOURCE: bit.ly/2ytpobV The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, online May 9, 2018.

Human Rights Concerns in Sri Lanka - J. S. Tissainayagam,Journalist and Human Rights Advocate

http://www.tamilcanadian.com/news/

Human Rights Concerns in Sri Lanka - J. S. Tissainayagam,Journalist and Human Rights Advocate

Disappearances, torture and militarisation are all carryovers from the wartime Sri Lanka to the post-war period. They manifest clearly that despite the formal control of the military by civilian authority in Sri Lanka’s constitution, in reality, the military enjoys impunity for past and ongoing human rights abuses, some of which are characterised as war crimes…

House Committee on Foreign Affairs - Jun 19 17:31 GMT - more ... [ Tags: History, SriLanka, WarCrimes ]

Related:

  - Hearing: Human Rights Concerns in Sri Lanka - House Committee on Foreign Affairs

HHRG-115-FA16-Wstate-TissainayagamJ-20180620.pdf by Thavam on Scribd

Why Vote At The Next Presidential & Parliamentary Elections?

By Raj Gonsalkorale –JUNE 19, 2018

Raj Gonsalkorale

If voters vote at the next election, they could be electing a President who cannot lead, and could be electing one political combine or the other and the country will have the same set of politicians and the same system that elects them. Voters therefore will have to decide whether they wish to continue with this charade, and if they do decide to vote, then, they too will be part of this charade.  

The known Devil is better than the unknown idiots seems to be the prevailing view amongst many voters in Sri Lanka today. The government of the day is taken as some kind of puppet show with unseen puppeteers, both from within and without manipulating the puppets in Sri Jayewardenepura.

Some politicians who were labelled as corrupt, anti-democratic and dangerous, and the power behind White vans, although none of these accusations are yet to be proven, are ascendant again, while those who promised to rid the country of this unsavoriness, now stand accused of the very same misdemeanours they accused their predecessors. While there was no one single misdemeanour to define the status of the earlier administration, the yet unsolved Bond Scam stands as the flag bearer of misdemeanours of the current regime.

At least the previous regime was a functional one, although some argue, with the use of authoritarian means, to keep it functional. There was a leader who ruled. On the other hand they say the current regime is dysfunctional, leaderless and rudderless. 

Besides the major parties, with the UNP working behind the scenes to find a new leader and divisions patched together thanks to the absolute disarray in the SLFP, the new political combine, the SLPP or the “Pohottuwa” as it’s commonly known, bloomed during the local government elections and it’s been blooming even more since. If it does take the Presidency and the government at the next elections, and many voters including even a segment of hard core UNP voters, believe they will, the country will be back with a regime with all its positives, but all its warts as well.

What does the average voter think of all this? Hobson’s choice? Who is the best of the bad lot? Shame, credibility, morality are no longer virtues in the country’s value system.

If voters vote at the next election, they could be electing a President who cannot lead, and could be electing one political combine or the other and the country will have the same set of self-serving politicians and the same broken system that elects them. Voters therefore will have to decide whether they wish to continue with this charade, and if they do decide to vote, then, they too will be part of this charade.  

The Puppet show at Sri Jayewardenepura is not by inanimate Puppets. Many say they are Monkeys in Puppet gear, with Olympic level abilities to jump to any side that offers them the best deal. Elections cost a lot of money. In the past, politicians spent most of their wealth to fight at elections with hardly a return on their investments in monetary terms, if getting elected could be called an investment.  Their ROI was their ability to serve the country in framing policies. Today, elections are mostly about the going price for Monkey puppeteers showing a very ready willingness to jump at the right price. Their ROI is purely in monetary terms, for themselves.

What of the government, the current one and the past ones in recent times? Do they deliver on what tax payers in Sri Lanka and elsewhere pays them? They are funded by tax payers of one country or another as even aid and grants that are given are funds diverted from tax payers in other countries.

Some argue that the previous government invested heavily on infrastructure including in agricultural infrastructure as these areas had been badly neglected for more than three decades. There are genuine detractors and opportunistic political detractors who argue that other priorities should have been addressed first.

What of the succeeding regime? The prevailing view seems to be that they have only either laid “mul gal” to projects that were already in the planning boards of the previous regime, or they declared open projects already underway when the previous regime lost power.

Both sides accuse each other of how much they lined their pockets and how they manipulated processes to give some kind of legitimacy to fraudulent decisions involving vast sums of money.

The list of alleged misdemeanours is endless.

In this climate, what good will it do to change the current Puppet show and bring back the earlier one? If processes can be manipulated, isn’t time to look at the political system that produces these processes?

What Sri Lanka needs is very likely a non-violent revolution that will be like a broom that sweeps away the puppets and the puppeteers.

When one mentions a revolution, there is always the tendency to look at it from the prism of violence or the prisms of historical, socialist revolutions. All these have failed, so why repeat mistakes?

Sri Lanka needs a different revolution to hand the country back to its people and take it away from self-serving politicians. What is needed is a revolution that rejects the status quo, both in terms of the governance model, and how representatives are elected to be part of this governance model. 

Bringing about this change however cannot be entrusted to persons who are elected through the current system, as they will not introduce any change that disadvantages them. 

In this context, the first step that is proposed is for a mass campaign to ask voters not to vote at the next Presidential and Parliamentary elections. If such a boycott could reduce the voter turn out say to a paltry 10% or less of the number of registered voters, it will be a revolution that is non-violent and without precedent anywhere else in the world. Such a low turnout in a country that records an average turn out in excess of 70% will be a referendum on the current political system and on those within the system. It will signify without any ambiguity that voters have rejected the system and what it produces.

The writer does not wish to offer proposals as to how one could proceed after an outcome as noted above as it is felt that the people by whatever means available should now start a discussion as to what steps should follow once the current system and people within it are rejected by the people.

One hopes that civil society and community organisations, religious organisations and people themselves individually and collectively, will commence discussions so that a clear picture will emerge as to what kind of system should replace the current system, and what calibre of people should be elected by people to the new system before the next set of elections. The next set of elections has to be a clash of ideas. It should be referendum on whether the country wishes to continue with the status quo or whether it wants a different system that brings back some honour to the task of governance. 

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Will Ranil be able to halt the illicit Titania deal involving billions of Gamarala and his son in law ?

(Lanka e News -20.June.2018, 7.00AM) It has come to light that  the president and his wheeler dealer son in law are seeking to sell a most valuable commodity in the world which  is available in Sri Lanka to Japan on the sly to  become instant billionaires. While they are having secret discussions with Japanese millionaires to the detriment of the country , the prime minister on the other hand has held  official discussions in London to confer the benefits thereof on the country , based on reports reaching Lanka e news  .

The most valuable commodities in the world today  are gold, diamonds and Titania ( Titanium Dioxide ) .This commodity is obtained from Ilmenite  a  kind of mineral sand.  Currently the market price of Titania is US dollars 1.6 million per kilo which in SL rupees is approximately  256 million.

Along the coastal strip  from Pulmoddai downwards , ilmenite which can produce Titania  is generated .Right now the ilmenite in its raw form is being sold at a paltry price instead of being turned into the most valuable Titania aforementioned .

If only Titania can be turned out in SL, all the country’s debts can be repaid within two years , and the country can be transformed into a wealthiest state, in which event if those who are shouting hoarse in the streets that they have no jobs and get attacked by tear gas are asked to stay at home and given food free ,even then  it will not be a  loss. However there is an  unfortunate side to this – SL does not have the high cost technology  to convert Ilmenite to Titania.

Our president Pallewatte Gamarala who is also the minister of environment well noted for having a roving eye to seize opportunities where he can make a fast buck on the sly realizing this is where his fortune lies even at the expense of the country joined with a billionaire Japanese company and planned a joint venture with a view to pocket a share of the profits   ..

The president had discussions in this regard during his tour of Japan , and for the final discussions he appointed his wheeler dealer son in law Thilina Suranjith .According to reports reaching Lanka e News, Thilina has visited Japan on three occasions after president’s Japanese tour, in this connection. One can  verify the truth of our allegations if one examines the passport of Thilina. Even last week Thilina was in Japan . All these are for clandestine discussions.

Meanwhile Ranil Wickremesinghe who is currently on a tour of Britain had official discussions with British Minister of State for Trade and Investment Greg Hands pertaining to Britain’s trade policy with a view to appropriate  the benefit of this huge  valuable natural resource for the country. The P.M.’s media division revealed that the discussion between Hands and P.M. centered on foreign investment  in this SL’s most common mineral resource  project; and  the possibility for England to provide the financial resources and necessary technology in this direction.

The possibility of British common law operating within Colombo Port city which is going to be an international financial  headquarter in the future was also discussed , the P.M.’s media division  disclosed.

It is most intriguing,  when president  through his son in law is on the sly having discussions surreptitiously with Japanese billionaires with regard to this Titania deal , in profound contrast the P.M. is having frank  and open discussions officially  with British trade policy  minister  in the best interests of the country .   How bizarre ?

Let us issue a dire warning that LeN is keeping a watchful eye over the moves and maneuvers of   president Pallewatte Gamarala who is now precariously clinging on to a meager 4 % popularity base , and on the verge of being thrown out from the post , and therefore doing everything possible to earn most fast and big before he meets his final disastrous end which is imminent and ominously staring in his face .

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by     (2018-06-20 01:56:13)

Students from Trinco campus protest against arbitrary suspensions

June 19, 2018 by

The students of the Trincomalee Campus of the Eastern University engaged in another protest campaign yesterday (18th) to demand solutions for their grievances that include withdrawing of suspension orders imposed due to arbitrary moves of the authorities, finding solutions for examination irregularities, shortage of teachers, raising the quality of the degree and students’ welfare issues.

Despite the boycotting of lectures the students have begun to get their grievances solved has exceeded its 50th day, the authorities have completely ignored the issue.

The students carried out protest campaign opposite the campus protesting against closing down the campus arbitrarily.

SP Police for Trincomalee District, who had arrived at the site the students were engaged in their campaign unsuccessfully attempted to get the Minister connected. However, after a telephone conversation with the Governor, he had promised to arrange a discussion with the Governor and the Rector on the 21st. With this promise, the students have temporarily suspended their campaign.

Muslim markers in Sri Lanka: Changes and challenges

kIf we exclude from our consideration the wars that owe their origin to religious hatred, or to difference in fundamental principles, such as the struggle of democracy with autocracy, of personal liberty with feudal tyranny, there is no cause more enduring or more persistent, either in Asia or in Europe, among Christians or among Moslems, in keeping asunder people and nationalities and in involving them in disastrous and sanguinary warfare, as antipathy of race – a sentiment which casts its lurid shadow over centuries, and survives all political, social, and religious revolutions – Ameer Ali, A Short History of The Saracens, London: Kegan Paul, 2004, p. 73

 Wednesday, 20 June 2018

The end of the civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009 marks a watershed in the island’s political development. The Government’s military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was also a victory for militant Buddhist Sinhala nationalism over militant Tamil nationalism. Yet, the twins have not yielded the promised peace dividend to the country.

Muslim markers in Sri Lanka Changes and challenges.docx by Thavam on Scribd

Gnanasara Thero’s Imprisonment A Gift For Ramadhan: Virakesari 

By Mohamed R. M. Farook –JUNE 19, 2018

Mohamed R. M. Farook

The above front page headline equivalent in Tamil in the mainstream Tamil language daily ‘Virakesari’ of 16th June 2018 gave a shock to the Muslims for at least two main reasons. Galagoda Atte Gnanasara Thero was convicted for openly threatening the missing person Prageeth Ekneligoda’s wife within the Homagama Magistrate Court. Police filed action under relevant Penal code and the Court found him guilty on two counts and sentenced him for six months rigorous imprisonment on each count to run concurrently. Courts deliver verdicts based on law in dispensing justice and there is no question of anyone getting a gift from a verdict of a Court of law and if anyone were to attribute a verdict as a ‘gift’ it could amount to Contempt of Court. Further, the said verdict against Gnanasara Thero is not for any of his various public pronouncements and/or actions of incitements, insults, hate-speeches and instigations against the Muslims which harmed the Muslim community very badly in persons and properties for which legal remedy has not surfaced yet.

The other reason is that the Muslims do not nurse grudges against those who have harmed them, yet they want the law to take its due process so that they are not discriminated and singled out for attacks by racists and extremists. The forte of the Muslims in facing any adversary is leave the matter to God the Almighty (Allah) for His solutions – and when God’s (Allah’s) punishment befalls on the wrong-doer, there is no escape whatsoever for the latter. Even those who do not believe in God (Allah) are steadfast in the concept of fate (Karma) and repercussions for the wrongs done – and this must be thought of before wronging others. Definitely the wrong-doers will suffer sooner or later absolutely.

Newspapers usually print attention-grabbing headlines and this is alright for many areas such as politics, entertainments, sports, drama, unusual happenings and so on. But when it comes to community, communal, or religious affairs, the persons in charge of forming the Headline must be very careful that the Headline would not arouse the feelings of any group or community leading to unwanted or unnecessary misunderstandings that could hurt that group or community. Sometimes this aspect of care gets overlooked and confusion and chaos reign. This is what befell the above Virakesari Headline. It gave the impression that the Headline was the version of the Virakesari Newspaper whereas it is (was) not. When one reads the full article under the above Headline, it would be noted that the above Headline depicted what the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) said at their press meeting. Virakesari would have avoided all these unwanted commotions had they used a hyphen ( – ) and stated BBS at the tail-end of the Headline. 

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Former police OIC, DIG arrested over Lasantha Wickrematunge's killing further remanded

Wed, Jun 20, 2018, 12:00 am SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

June 19, Colombo: A Sri Lankan court today further remanded the former senior DIG Prasanna Nanayakkara and former Mount Lavinia Police Crimes OIC, SI Tissa Sugathapala who were arrested and in remand custody over the killing of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge.

When the case was called before the Mount Lavinia Magistrate Court today, Chief Magistrate Mohammed Mihal ordered the suspects to be remanded until the 3rd July.

The Judge a granted a request made by the Criminal Investigation Department to obtain a statement from the former DIG Prasanna Nanayakkara in the prison premises.

The CID also informed the court that a statement will be obtained from the former IGP Jayantha Wickramaratne too on 22 June regarding the murder of the journalist.

Former OIC Sugathapala and the Senior DIG Prasanna Nanayakkara were arrested for allegedly concealing evidence and providing false evidence in the murder of former Sunday Leader Chief Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigations have revealed that Prasanna Nanayakkara has pressured the former OIC of the Mount Lavinia Police Tissa Sugathapala not to further investigate the murder.

The two suspects have agreed to testify as state witnesses in the case.

Gota’s knotty bid

 

Sri Lanka needs a leader who can create stability prosperity; Unfortunately, Gotabaya is not that one

2018-06-20

Perhaps the most decisive intervention of America’s Ambassador in Colombo, Atul Keshap during his three-year span seems to be a parting shot at a farewell meeting with ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

During the tete-a-tete, Mr Keshap had cautioned the ex-President against fielding his younger brother as the next Presidential candidate.

• Gotabaya has three main hurdles; citizenship, 19A and global repercussions
• The process would be further complicated if any of the aggrieved parties filed a case against Gota in US American court.
• Compelled to rely on China for everything and anything

According to the story which first appeared in the Jaffna based newspaper Kaalaikkathir, and reproduced by senior journalist D.B.S Jeyaraj, the US Ambassador has said that the Western nations, including the USA, would not favourably regard Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidential bid.

Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, who edits the Kaalaikkathir, and formerly the editor of Sudor Oli has a love-hate relationship with the Rajapaksas.

He reportedly visited Vanni as an emissary of Mr Rajapaksa soon after the latter’s assuming of Presidency in 2006 in order to cultivate a link between the Government and the LTTE.

Later, during the height of the war, he was abducted in a white van and later emerged in TID custody.
Mr Rajapaksa first denied that the content of the conversation had been divulged by his camp. Since then he has claimed that the US Ambassador had said no such thing. The US Embassy has been non-committal, citing the privacy of private meetings.

None of that clears uncertainty that looms over Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Presidential ambitions. There are three fundamental concerns.

First Gotabaya Rajapaksa is a dual citizen of Sri Lanka and the United States of America. In theory, anyone who becomes a naturalized US citizen is required to renounce any prior ‘allegiance’ to other countries during the naturalization ceremony, though that does not necessarily amount to the renunciation of the other citizenship.

While the American Citizenship Law provides a clear-cut way for the renunciation of American citizenship, in practice, it may not be as straight-forward as it appears. The Foreign Minister of the UK Boris Jonson, himself a dual citizen, but wanted to get rid of his American citizenship to avoid dual taxation, had complained it was very hard.

It should be harder for Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who faces serious allegations of human rights violations.

The process would be further complicated if any of the aggrieved parties filed a case against Gota in an American court.

Mr Rajapaka’s acolytes of Viyath Maga, and other fancy forums and lobby groups have the liberty to cry blue murder, but, when he took oath as an American citizen, Mr Rajapaksa has effectively obliged to follow all its obligations. Now, his Presidential ambitions are placed at the mercy of Washington, which, obviously does not want to see him contesting the Presidential Election.

Second, the 19th amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka precludes any dual citizen from holding the elected office. There is already a judicial precedence in the Supreme Court ruling that revoked the post of Member of Parliament of Geetha Kumarasinghe on the grounds of her dual citizenship.

Indians, who do not want another Rajapaksa.. would destabilize the North. Modi administration is striving to reclaim India’s losing influence in South Asia; Gota’s ego-fuelled antics would trigger an immediate and forceful reaction.

Given the geopolitical connotations of his presidential bid, how soon Mr Rajapaksa can relinquish his American citizenship is not so much a matter of expertise of his lawyers.

His failure to make himself eligible, and the Rajapaksas’ desire to hold on to the dim hope till the eleventh hour, could well expose the SLPP to a rude shock. On the other hand, the Rajapaksa camp has no viable option other than Gota.

The third concern and the far more consequential of all is the international repercussions of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Presidency if it ever materializes by some luck or due to the complacency of the UNP.
It is easy to dismiss international concerns as a blatant interference and claim the public will would prevail. However, things are not as simplistic as that.

In 2006, the Palestinians, fed up with corruption and nepotism of Fatah, the political arm of the PLO, voted militant group Hamas to power in the Palestinian Legislative Council. By doing so, they effectively dug their own grave and that of the nascent peace process.

Palestine is withering the repercussions of that parochial choice with no end in sight.

Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is an equally destructive choice. Not only would his presidency roll-back whatever democratic reforms achieved so far, it would also trigger international repercussions with far-reaching implications, which a small State like Sri Lanka cannot afford.

Indians, who do not want another Rajapaksa in power in Colombo, would destabilize the North.
With the proactive Modi administration that is striving to reclaim India’s losing influence in South Asia, Mr Rajapaksa’s ego-fuelled antics would trigger an immediate and forceful reaction.

Americans and Europeans, who have recently subdued their calls for war-crime investigations…Rather than letting these demands die a natural death, Sri Lankans would help revive them by electing Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Americans and Europeans, who have recently subdued their calls for war-crime investigations, would find no reason for such niceties.

Rather than letting these demands die a natural death, Sri Lankans would help revive them by electing Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The Japanese who have recently shown a special interest in economic cooperation would also slide away- or would be persuaded to do so by their American allies.

Mr Rajapaksa would be compelled to rely on China for everything and anything, and he himself should know from previous experience, such overdependence entails a higher cost than it would otherwise do.

Sri Lanka needs a leader who can create stability and guide the country towards prosperity. Unfortunately, Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa is not that one.