Namal, Yoshitha, Chichi the three masqueraders are in Russia seeking IT pirates to topple govt. in November..!

(Lanka e News – 26.July.2018, 10.45PM) Namal Rajapakse and his two brothers are in Russia with a  view to hatch  a conspiracy to topple the good governance government with the aid of Russian IT (Information technology) pirates (the IT underworld)

Namal  during the last 3 months has travelled to Russia on three occasions , and this time his brothers have also accompanied him. The three of them are in the photograph herein when they were at Red square , Moscow  on the 20 th.

It is learnt the  Rajapakses are getting ready   to stage protests, strikes and engage in sabotage activities targeting  the present government which is completing three years of its rule on 2018-08-17 . And it is their plan to play a ‘game’ with ’head count’  in parliament through dubious and devious methods in November, and topple the government .

Through social media network, bogus news are to be published in this connection , and the ‘social media network operation’ has  been entrusted to Namal. With this in view he is already in the process of creating  spurious cluster twitter accounts , cluster face book profiles, cluster Instagram accounts etc.  

These are not what are done by individuals but are tasks of  Robots. It is a well and widely known fact that Russian IT pirates (underworld) are most famous for these sly and stealthy activities.  They  would do anything if they are offered money. These evil minded expert Russian IT pirates have been able to even manipulate the US presidential election results.  In Sri Lanka it is only the Rajapakses who have all the hidden wealth (country’s robbed wealth) to pay colossal sums of money in dollars to accomplish their traitorous and venomous goals.

Given their putrid antecedence , it is obvious though Namal and his brothers are in Russia  ostensibly on a pilgrimage ,in truth  it is for a clandestine crooked purpose. Like father like sons. 

The need  to oust the government is most paramount to them in order to halt the special court now  hearing cases daily .These  courts are taking expeditious action to deliver verdicts . Hence , verdicts of  their so many cases pending against them too will  be delivered quickly.  That is the fear haunting them. 

Since Russian president Putin  aids and abets  the underworld members across the entire world , the IT pirates of Russia have become a dangerous and deadly threat to the entire world. One good example is the series of killings in Britain using radioactive toxins by Russia .The Crown court of Britain, 8 years ago heard the case relating to first such murder, and delivered a judgment recently that Putin is guilty.

Today ,these most dangerous scoundrels have become the rescuers of traitorous Rajapakses.  

A detailed survey was conducted on the spurious  cluster accounts and the rackets of Namal Rajapakse , and its report can be read by clicking on the headline below.

Namal Rajapaksa, bots and trolls: New contours of digital propaganda and online discourse in Sri Lanka

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by     (2018-07-26 17:30:02)

Something Humane President Sirisena Can Do; Ban Corporal Punishment In Schools

By Raj Gonsalkorale –JULY 25, 2018

Raj Gonsalkorale

Those who cannot teach young children without resorting to hitting them need serious psychotherapy. They invariably come from broken families being subjected to such traumatic treatments from their childhood, more often than not ending up in marriages that went sour. Now they let out their pent up frustrations on helpless children who have been entrusted to their care. It’s interesting to note that they tend to choose their victims carefully-more often than not from a minority ethnic group or an economically challenged background (one of the recent victims who had to be hospitalized was a Muslim boy. Isn’t it strange that you have never heard of a teacher at Royal Primary thrashing a child of a top politician requiring hospitalization? – Padmasena Dissanayake

Padmasena Dissanayake is an alumnus of Royal College, Colombo and a member of Royal ’64 Group and the Olive Group of Royal College. He is also a past Secretary of Royal College Old Hostellers Association and the main architect of the Royal Millennium March. He is a father of three children and a grand father of five.  In an open letter to all parents of the Royal Primary School, Colombo an elite school in Sri Lanka although some may disagree with that label, he is canvassing for a just and humane cause on behalf of many students in the country from the age of 5 years, and an overwhelming number of parents and teachers who probably feel helpless to take on the high and mighty of the education system in the country.

He goes onto say “We were also very surprised to learn that we were the first complainants as many parents backed down due to pressure and left without making an official complaint.  We not only went through all the procedures and declared that we’re prepared to take the perpetrator to courts on criminal charges. The Principal and the Head of the Primary School were summoned to the NCPA where both admitted to the charges and solemnly agreed to put the house in order. Just to make sure that all the teachers were made fully aware of the gravity of the crime, repercussions and legal positions NCPA conducted a three day workshop where all primary teachers participated. The workshop was conducted by the top authorities in the field. What they discovered was the larger majority of them weren’t guilty: few who used it were habitual offenders and they had no respect for Ministry circulars, NCPA warnings and the authority of the Principal or the head of the Primary. They were a law unto themselves! We thought our complaint, which led to a chain reaction, finally eliminated the scourge for good. Not so. Few months afterwards a friend whom I consider another son, sought my guidance as his son has been constantly hit by his class-teacher. I wasted no time in introducing him to the then the acting Chairman NCPA under whose instructions my friend immediately lodged a complaint at the Cinnamon Gardens Police Station. He went very far. Having met the Minister of Education and explained how rotten some teachers of the Primary were and it resulted in transferring out 35 teachers who had served over 10 years. We thought the problem was over. Apparently not! The latest I hear is that a teacher, who one might call a serial offender judging by past abuses, has struck again. This time the victims are three year 4 students. Her choice of weapons are said to be music instruments. Would any child love music after her training?”

Mr Dissanayake’s exposes cannot be considered isolated incidents. Much has been written by others in recent times  including an article by Amanda Moore in the Colombo Telegraph on the 21st of February 2018 (see later in this article) and a more recent on by Vimukthi Fernando and Husna Inayathullah in the Sunday Observer on the 22nd of July 2018. This article mentions the plight of the child of a parent in an international school, Dr Tush Wickremanayake, and an organisation formed by her, ‘Stop Child Cruelty’ which can be contacted by telephone on 0779497265 or by email: info@stopchildcruelty.com.

There cannot be any doubt that something needs to be done as whatever that has been done has not worked, although very possibly, an overwhelming number of teachers and principals are parents themselves and respects and loves their school children as their own.

In looking at some articles that have been written, it appears that there is some ambiguity whether Corporal punishment has been banned in Sri Lanka or not. 

Section 308 A of the Sri Lankan Penal Code (amendment) states that cruelty against children causing hurt, grievous or simple as well as torture, is a criminal offence. This Section, reproduced below however, is not about Corporal punishment but more generally about cruelty against children.

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Tragedy doctoring the Health Service What JVP MP Dr Nalinda Jayatissa proposes is to produce more doctors for the private sector at public expense

JVP MP moves wants two more medical faculties, saying country has only 50 per cent of required doctors 

In addition to Teaching Hospitals medical faculties need more resources and facilities to turn out quality products

Already the existing medical faculties do not have the required full-time teachers

None of the successful campaigns against diseases had doctors involved-all were by PHIs and PHMs

 2018-07-27

Can more medical doctors reverse the continuing decline in our health service? JVP member in Parliament Dr Nalinda Jayatissa has moved two private member motions to establish medical faculties at the Uva Wellassa and Moratuwa Universities, with Badulla and Nagoda Hospitals proposed as “Teaching Hospitals”.   
His argument is that Sri Lanka has only 50 per cent of the required number of medical doctors and medical faculties in State Universities can only accommodate 1,200 to 1,300 medical undergraduates each year-therefore, the need to establish two more medical faculties to increase the number of student intake.   

There is something rather sneaky in his proposal to have Nagoda Hospital as the Teaching Hospital for the proposed Moratuwa Faculty. Why go that far when there are two other hospitals much closer in Panadura and Bandaragama?

Besides that, though a medical doctor, the JVP politician fails to understand that to produce a ‘quality’ medical professional, a Teaching Hospital is not the only necessity.   

A Medical Faculty needs many more resources and facilities to turn out quality professionals.   

Though the GMOA and Deans of Medical Faculties in State Universities cry foul over the SAITM Medical Faculty, they are selfishly silent on the quality of education in their own medical faculties including Rajarata, Ruhuna (Karapitiya) and Eastern University.   

Most faculties don’t have permanent qualified teaching staff and are wholly dependent on “visiting” professors and lecturers from elsewhere.   

The Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC), throttled by the GMOA mafia in decision making, has evaded this lapse and the necessity of having a permanent teaching staff in their draft on ‘minimum standards in medical education’ by allowing medical professionals in Teaching Hospitals to be counted as teaching staff.   

This is one of the many reasons, the GMOA as a trade union, should be completely barred from running for positions in the SLMC and the reason, why the SLMC should be restructured anew to give it better representation from other professions and to “societal” interests.  

The whole approach in shaping our health service with medical doctors and the argument that we need more medical doctors raises the vital question, “what we as a society expect from our health service?”   

Do we want more and more patients to seek outdoor and indoor treatment in hospitals for medical doctors and specialists to have a thriving private practice?   

Do we have to keep increasing the number of medical doctors to treat increasing numbers of patients? Is that what we are looking for?  

The argument for more medical doctors, the JVP MP Dr Jayatissa is echoing, is one borrowed from his own ilk in the GMOA.   

If the existing number of medical doctors is 50 per cent of the required number, he should explain, why medical doctors are posted in numerous offices to attend to administrative work.   

On the Health Services, Minutes Gazetted in October 2014 that comes after the GMOA mafia endorses it, there are 324 administrative posts strictly for medical doctors.   

There are also 341 MOH positions for medical doctors. Lately, there are other stupidly unnecessary office positions created in the 25 RDHS offices with designations like MO-IT, MO - Planning and MO-Health Education, while in Colombo Hospitals, there are other posts that keep cropping up like MO-5S and MO-QC.  

These office-based positions totalling around 800 don’t need medical graduates.   

While increasing numbers of medical doctors take over such idling administrative positions, the overall health service is on the decline. 

The alarming spread of Dengue Fever (DF) and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) is one proof.   

The spread of dengue is mainly due to the callous disregard of the once very effective monitoring and regulating mechanism that was then under a Senior Public Health Inspector (PHI) but now controlled by medical doctors sitting in MOH Chairs.  

With medical doctors in office as MOHs, not interested in enforcing monitoring proper and regulating, there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence in most Provinces although the highest incidence of DF/DHF is seen in the Western Province (44.9% in 2007).   

In the recent past, the incidence of DF/DHF has been more marked in the NCP (4.8% in 2004 vs. 11.8% in 2007), Wayamba (10.2% in 2004 vs. 15.9% in 2007) and Sabaragamuwa (6% in 2004 vs. 12.2% in 2007) and with 35,008 cases reported in 2009 with 346 deaths, according to the Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry.   
With all the rhetoric available from medical officers manning decision-making and implementing positions in the health sector, during the first three months of 2018, there were 14,627 reported cases of DF/DHF.   

The result is that we have hospitals with DF/DHF patients cramped everywhere in the hospitals.  

In Sri Lanka, this needs to be stressed and emphasized with the GMOA mafia wanting to portray and project the medical profession as the sole saviour and guardian of our health services. It is a total and an absolute lie.   

It wasn’t medical doctors who worked towards lifting Sri Lanka’s health status to that of the more advanced countries. 

From hookworm to poliomyelitis, from malaria to whooping cough, smallpox and filariasis, all outbreaks and recurrences were eradicated through a well monitored and regulated community based preventive healthcare service handled by paramedical servicemen and not by medical doctors.   

PHIs played a very vital role in carrying out an islandwide awareness on personal hygiene and developing cleaner sanitation. They were responsible for creating a new generation that paid more attention to personal cleanliness and better family hygiene. It was also PHIs and the Midwives who played a very committed role in making immunization and vaccination programmes a success in the 1960s.  

In the 1980s with WHO support and guidance the anti-leprosy campaign was efficiently and successfully carried through to declare leprosy as eradicated in 1992, without medical doctors playing any significant role.   

Now that medical doctors have taken over leprosy prevention, there is once again a warning of a possible increase in leprosy cases.   

Yet, another interesting piece of news was from Moneragala, when the now hyped Gam Peraliya development programme was launched over a month ago.   It was reported, 25,000 households were without proper toilets. A special allocation was set aside for their construction. Truth is, if the MOH was effectively monitoring and regulating community health in his or her area, this lack of toilets should have been remedied, long before Gam Peraliya was launched.   

This also raises the question why allocations for their construction were channelled through the Divisional Secretariat (DS) and not through the MOH.   

The fact is, MOH is now a wholly irrelevant position in community life even after the spread of dengue fever.   

MOH is not seen or heard of even in dengue prevention campaigns that are carried through Development Officers in DS offices, LG councillors and local area Police, at times backed by the STF as well.  

Therefore what we should as a society demand from our health service is a very strong preventive community healthcare system to reduce numbers admitted to hospitals.   

A preventive healthcare system makes hospitals in the curative healthcare system less important. Sri Lanka’s proud status on health rankings was achieved on a comparatively very low budget that depended more on preventive health care and sanitation than on curative healthcare and medical doctors.  

Preventive community health care with trained paramedics checking on households regularly is certainly not as expensive as curative health care with sophisticated hospitals, long lists of expensive medicinal drugs prescribed by medical doctors and specialists, supported by semi-professional staff like MLTs, Radiographers and Physiotherapists.   

Sri Lanka needs to give more importance to preventive community health care over curative healthcare that should have a strict referral system.  

We are wasting money on curative health with heavy investments going in search of the most modern and expensive health equipment to meet ever-increasing numbers of patients.   

This is due to GMOA backed medical professionals holding all key positions in the health hierarchy who are not “pro-people” as they project themselves to be.   
We also need to break out of international norms and standards, where and when necessary to design programmes for our own need(s).   

We should get back to the well-knit preventive healthcare service with paramedics at the community level that we had till the 70s. This can be redesigned under specially trained senior PHIs designated as “Area Community Health Officers” (ACHO) to clear out this mess. The ACHOs should also have well trained “Public Health Midwives” (PHM) in the field.   

The present WHO norm of having one PHI for 10,000 persons and one PHM for 3,000 persons should be revised for a more practically valid ratio. 

It is humanly impossible for a PHM to care for 3,000 pregnant mothers and infants within a month that includes home visits too. 

So is it with PHIs. The present MOH who is a medical doctor can thus be repositioned as the GP in outpatient dispensaries in ACHO divisions.  

A community based preventive healthcare system would help reduce the heavy cost of producing medical doctors through low-quality medical faculties proposed at public expense.   

Experience during past decades proves that increasing the numbers of medical doctors produced does not in any way improve the health of people. 

They only get comfortably absorbed into the thriving private sector health industry that lacks full-time medical doctors.   

Thus, what JVP MP Dr Nalinda Jayatissa actually proposes is to produce more medical doctors in the private sector health industry at public expense.  

 The medical profession now only feels money, not human pain.  

President stubborn as a Mule: Capital punishment even at cost of GSP ; to kill 19 based on specific choice!

(Lanka e News – 26.July.2018, 10.45PM)  The president has decided to implement the capital punishment even  if the GSP concessions are  lost , said minister Rajitha Senaratne  the cabinet spokesman when addressing the media briefing  yesterday (25)  to reveal the cabinet decisions . The punishment will be meted out only to those facing charges of smuggling drugs into SL while already  in jail serving death sentence on charges of drug deals  ,  the minister went on to highlight.

The police sleuths have identified 19 such culprits , the minister further disclosed.

The answers provided by the minster to questions posed by the journalists are hereunder ..

Question : Has the government taken a definite decision in regard to implementation of death sentence ?

Answer:  The decision has been taken . The cabinet too has unanimously  ratified.

Question : Countries of the European  union are against it , aren’t they ?

Answer:  They are talking about death sentence . We are  not  talking about delivering death sentence. This situation is unique. That is , the death penalty is  against those main drug dealers who are smuggling heroin into SL. The capital punishment is to be implemented against  the dealers against whom are charges of smuggling drugs into SL while they are   already incarcerated on drug charges and facing death sentence .  

The police sleuths have identified 19 such smugglers .It is to them the capital punishment is to be carried out. It does not apply to others who are facing  death sentence.

Question : The EU says , if capital punishment is to be implemented , granting of GSP concession may have to be reviewed?

Answer:  Yes. The president however is taking a steadfast stance that capital punishment shall be implemented, and the   other issues are to be  looked into later.

Question : That means even at the cost of GSP concessions death penalty will be implemented?

Answer:  Yes

Question : But , aren’t the other countries saying it is a cruelty?

Answer:  But when this is happening continuously, why say  death penalty shall not be implemented. When it is said do not impose death penalty , that implies  the culprit shall be given an opportunity for rehabilitation. But if  he/she instead of rehabilitating , is continuing  his/her  activities even while he/she  is imprisoned , how many others are dying owing to them ? 

Question : There are accusations that even prison officers are also implicated . It is alleged without their aiding and abetting , these criminals cannot  pursue their dastardly activities while being  within prison . As a government what is the action you are going to take against  those officers?

Answer:  This is not something that started since 2015. That situation existed in the prisons all along. May be it was difficult to detect that. Now the STF has been entrusted with the task of providing security to prisons. I saw names of six individuals linked   with telephone calls . Stern action should be taken against those prison officers.

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by     (2018-07-26 17:39:45)

The War On Drugs In Sri Lanka: Science Or Fiction?

By Nimesh Samarasinghe –JULY 25, 2018

Dr. Nimesh Samarasinghe

“Some may think that the death penalty is too harsh a penalty. I do not think so. Many countries have come to the stage where they accept the death penalty” ~ Ranil Wickremesinghe, 1984.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickermesinghe stated the above during the parliamentary debate on the Poisons Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of 1929 Amendment Bill on 22 March 1984. At the time, he was the Minister of Education who endorsed President J.R Jayewardene’s proposal to introduce the death sentence for drug related offences. Despite its inefficacy, the death sentence for drug related offences is back on the policy agenda and political limelight. The evidence of the steady rise in drug seizures, arrests, drug-related prison admissions, drug use, drug related harm and relatively stable drug prices suggests that the nation’s policy on drugs that existed for over three decades needs re-thinking.  

There had been a number of articles written on the subject matter although none looked at the origins of the death sentence for drug related offences in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, there is little information on the socio-economic and political factors associated in adopting and implementing this policy choice. This article will focus on the above information gap, identifying and discussing some of the drivers for the ‘war on drugs’. I will apply a policy science approach to understand drug policy development that is situated in the history of Sri Lanka.

The heroin epidemic in the 1980s

By the late 1970s’ there existed a growing cohort of ageing opium and cannabis users. The novelty of a heroin epidemic, introduced by tourists in the late 1970s was largely confined to Colombo and some parts of southern Sri Lanka. Young people started using heroin, which concerned politicians, the clergy and general public due to the uncertainties created on how to manage a ‘novel drug problem’. There also existed a belief among policy-makers and politicians that a drug-free society is absolutely required for the socio-economic development of the country, particularly as young people were considered as the wealth of the nation. 

Politicians, prominent Buddhist monks and Christian priests were questioning the meaning of moral values and good citizenship in society. The use of intoxicants was seen as immoral, and those who use drugs were seen as social outcasts. Consequently there was a moral underpinning to the policy-making and political concerns at the time. Their moral ideology regarded drugs as dangerous, threatening to cultural values and as evil substances that compromise the values in Sri Lankan culture. State intervention and tough law enforcement were seen as legitimate responses to foster moral and upright behaviour.

By 1982, Interpol confirmed Sri Lanka’s status as a transit country for the movement of heroin from countries in the Golden Triangle into Europe, with organised international drug trafficking syndicates operating within Sri Lanka. During this period, evidence also emerged of a link between heroin trafficking carried out by the LTTE and financial proceeds being used to fund terrorism. With the escalation of violence between Sinhalese and Tamils, and the demand for a separate Tamil state in the North and East of Sri Lanka, drug trafficking was perceived as a major problem and a direct threat to national security and stability of government. Politicians and law enforcement personnel viewed the existing legislation at the time as being outdated to manage the emerging new trends of drug use and trafficking. The Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of 1929 was amended within this national context. The amendments ensured the introduction of the death sentence for drug related offences, stringent law enforcement on drug users and traffickers, and the creation of the National Dangerous Drug Control Board to coordinate all efforts related to drug control. 

Policies adopted since 1984 ensured that the response to the drug problem was firmly located within the criminal justice system leading to a large number of drug users being imprisoned.  Out of the total prison population in the country, nearly 45% of men and women were admitted for narcotic-related offences in 2000, the largest single category according to the Handbook of Drug Abuse Information published by the National Dangerous drug Control Board in 2002. The majority of drug-related prison admissions were for heroin related offences (88%) with the remaining (12%) for cannabis. These figures remain stable 17 years later and indicate that a large proportion of people who are in the prison system are drug users as opposed to large scale traffickers. 

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The story of Singapore: Lessons for Sri Lanka

By Talal Rafi-Friday, 27 July 2018

A financial hub capable of competing with the likes of New York and London. A country that decades ago was a poor country whose rulers dreamt of trying to make it like Sri Lanka. At least Dubai had some oil in the beginning which was used to kick-start the economy but Singapore had no natural resources at all. How did this tiny city state become so successful?

The poor

Singapore of 1965

Being under the rule of the British for over 100 years, Singapore was merged with Malaysia under the Federation of Malaysia. After two years, in 1965 the Malaysia Parliament voted to expel Singapore from the Federation of Malaysia.

A tiny country, just expelled from a federation and sandwiched between two large and powerful countries, Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore was on its own with no natural resources and a largely uneducated populace.

In 1965, much of the Singaporean population was unemployed and two-thirds of Singaporeans were living in slums. Singapore lacked water supply, sanitation and infrastructure. It tried to ask help from the rest of the world to develop but no help came. Singapore was in a state envied by none.

Globalisation

Lee Kuan Yew set about industrialising Singapore. But the problem was Singapore was a trading nation. But trading too was shaky as its two neighbours were not very friendly to it at that time. One of the few but greatest asset Singapore had was its geographic location. A huge fraction of the world’s shipping passed through the Strait of Malacca. Singapore started spending on the manufacturing and shipping sectors.

Singapore needed a lot of investment and it had to come from the West as its neighbours were not approachable at that time. For the Americans and the Europeans to invest in a faraway Singapore, Singapore had to portray itself as a very attractive place to invest.

Attract foreign investment

With its geographic location, Singapore was not only a good place to trade but also to manufacture as Western and Japanese companies can manufacture in Singapore and export it elsewhere.

Singapore created an environment where it was attractive to investors. Taxes were reduced and trade unions were strictly controlled. Lower taxation later attracted even Swiss banks to set up in Singapore after the Swiss Government increased taxes. With low taxation and no trade unions and strikes to worry about, many foreign countries started moving their companies into Singapore. Within a decade, 25% of Singapore’s manufacturing was foreign owned or a joint venture with a foreign investor.

Lee Kuan Yew went further to keep Singapore safe and business-friendly. The death penalty was brought in to punish anyone dealing with narcotic trade and involved in large scale corruption. In addition to making starting a business in Singapore easier, these made Singapore very attractive.

Most of these came at a price. Singaporeans lost a lot of their freedom. Trade unions were suppressed and media freedom was limited. Anyone causing harm to national interests were arrested without proper legal procedure. But with Singapore rapidly growing at double digits, the economic growth seemed to make the majority of the people happy.

Keep the people happy

The success story of Singapore cannot be told without mentioning its founder Lee Kuan Yew. He had a vision to transform this city state into a success story. With no natural resources, it was a tough task. But for any country to develop, its citizens have to be made satisfied. So Lee Kuan Yew created the Housing Development Board and the Economic Development Board.

Singapore was a poor nation which had got its independence from Malaysia in 1965. So many Singaporeans were living in ghettos. The Housing Development Board set about building high rise apartments for the people and moving them in.

As Singapore is small and with a high population density, apartments were the solution to the housing problem. The housing development board transformed Singapore into a world class metropolis and gave the citizens of Singapore a superior standard of living.

The Economic Development Board helped Singapore build up local businesses and industries which resulted in a lot of job creation. This has seen a phenomenal rise in income for Singaporeans. In 1965, Singapore’s per capita was $ 500 but today it is over $60,000. That is a 120-fold increase. This meant the people of Singapore were happy with the progress of their country and it gave a stable government which resulted in further growth.

Investment in

human resources

As FDI poured into Singapore, its Government focused on its human resources. Many technical schools were set up. Multinationals were encouraged to educate the local workforce. In the late 1960s, Singapore was manufacturing textiles and other basic items. But the Government trained its workforce in electronics and petrochemicals.

This had a very good long term effect. Two decades later, Singapore would be into industries ranging from logistics and information technology to biotech research, pharmaceuticals and aerospace engineering. A remarkable achievement by investing in the people of Singapore. Even the world’s leading biotech companies have set up in Singapore.

Investment in infrastructure

Today the Port in Singapore is the busiest in the world and when it comes to the cargo tonnage handling, it is second only to the port in Shanghai. Singapore invested heavily in infrastructure. It built its airport to a world class level at the beginning itself. This was crucial as anyone visiting Singapore came through the airport and the first impression was the best.

To explain Singapore’s size, Sri Lanka is 90 times larger than Singapore. Singapore has no natural tourist attractions yet it draws in 10 million tourists a year. It even has a night safari and a nature reserve. Singapore has two of the most expensive integrated casino resorts in the world. In addition to medical tourism which is thanks to its heavy investment on world class hospitals and medical professionals.

Lessons for Sri Lanka

There is a lot to learn from Singapore, from its very strict laws to its zero tolerance for corruption. Singapore’s massive investment on human resources which moved the country from manufacturing basic goods to advanced biotech products which give a much bigger profit and revenue to the country. Investing in the youth of the country is the best way forward.

Singapore’s investment on infrastructure is also to be noted. Its world class airport gives an impressive impression first to anyone travelling into Singapore. Lastly, Singapore ranks second in the world in Ease of Doing Business. This I feel is the most important as foreign investors do not like wasting time on government red tape.

Sri Lanka used to be a model for Singapore decades ago. Sri Lanka is 90 times bigger than Singapore and has four times the population. Sri Lanka has many natural resources including tea and rubber which Singapore doesn’t have.

Singapore’s geographic location was its most important asset but Sri Lanka’s location is not all that bad either. If Singapore with no natural resources can become an economic superpower, there is no excuse for other developing countries.

Israeli “self-defense” against Palestinians is logically impossible

Every aspect of Israeli policy toward Palestinians is undergirded by violence or its threat.

 Oren ZivActiveStills

Greg Shupak-26 July 2018

News media outlets frequently present outbreaks of large-scale violence in Palestine-Israel in terms of “Israel’s right to defend itself.” This narrative says that whatever Israel may be guilty of, the state is justified in using military force to respond to Palestinian attacks.

But such media narratives about Israel’s “right to defend itself” mislead readers by ignoring the permanent violence of Israel’s colonization of Palestine and the aggressive pursuit of ethnic supremacy that this colonization entails.

The Israeli state was founded by massacring and ethnically cleansing Palestinians. Since Israel was created, it has repeatedly massacred Palestinians and Arabs in other countries, particularly Lebanon.

News outlets are not telling an accurate story when they frame Palestine-Israel in terms of “Israel’s right to defend itself.” The state cannot be seen as defending itself when it has carried out the most frequent and most deadly killings in the history of its relations with Palestinians and Arabs in neighboring countries.

The untenable narrative that describes Israel’s use of force as a just form of “self-defense” against the threat of Palestinian violence elides the ways in which the entire Zionist project, which long predates the existence of Israel as a state, has involved violently subjugating the Palestinians.

In a 2012 article in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Israeli historian Avi Shlaim finds that “violence was implicit in Zionism from the beginning, that the Arab-Israeli conflict was an inescapable consequence of the Zionist program” because “Zionism sought to create a Jewish state in a land that was already inhabited by another people.”

Shlaim’s research indicates that “since the 1920s the Zionist movement has had a clear strategy for dealing with the Arabs – the strategy of relying on military power in order to achieve its political ends,” which is known as “the strategy of the iron wall.”

Because the Israeli state and its forerunners in the Zionist movement have pursued their aims through the perpetual use of violence against Palestinians, Palestinians by definition cannot initiate violence against Israel. That means that the idea of “Israeli self-defense” is a logical impossibility.

Maximum Arabs on minimum land

Darryl Li, a former human rights worker in Gaza and researcher with Human Rights Watch now at the University of Chicago, similarly describes the Zionist enterprise as “the creation, maintenance, with (when possible) the expansion of a state for the Jewish people” that, when it is faced with opposition from the indigenous non-Jewish population, “produces a well-known longstanding operational mantra guiding Zionist settlement and annexation policies: maximum land, minimum Arabs.”

“When circumstances prohibit Israel from pushing natives beyond the territory it controls, this dictum produces a corollary: maximum Arabs on minimum land,” Li states in an article in the Journal of Palestine Studies in 2006.

Pursuing the largest possible amount of land and the fewest possible number of Arabs has entailed forcibly taking Palestinian land while separating Palestinians from each other and preventing them from having a viable, independent society.

In 1970, Israel began creating a “Greater Jerusalem” by redrawing the boundaries of the city to include Jewish-only settlements and by restricting the natural growth of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. Three years later the Israeli state legally mandated a 74.5-25.5 demographic advantage for Jewish people in Jerusalem.

It is prohibitively difficult for a Palestinian to get a building permit because these are very expensive and because they are not granted in areas with infrastructure shortages, which is an Israeli-created problem in many Palestinian neighborhoods.

Because these Palestinian homes are deemed illegal, Israel has a pretext for demolishing them. It is seriously misleading to cast a state that bulldozes houses and takes land at gunpoint as acting in self-defense against the people being dispossessed.

On the West Bank, vast areas have been effectively annexed to Israel through the wall and through the expansion of settlements and their infrastructure so that now Palestinians cannot access a near majority of West Bank lands for residential or economic use.

Such walls are built, Li explains, because Israel’s notion of “security” is inherently expansive: security of the Jewish population demands that Palestinian movement be controlled and that Palestinians be kept away from Jews. Securing this arrangement requires putting those Palestinians behind a wall. And such a wall in turn demands its own protection. The ideal way to secure a barrier is through a vacant “buffer zone.”

In Gaza, creating buffer zones has meant forcibly emptying the spaces in which they have been created of Palestinians, their houses, and their agriculture.

According to scholar Sara Roy in her 2006 essay “Economic Siege and Political Isolation: The Gaza Strip in the Second Intifada,” the years of the second intifada saw an intensification of Israel’s closure policy as well as the destruction of physical resources – such as homes, businesses, public buildings, factories, electricity infrastructure, vehicles, roads, schools, clinics, waste disposal and sanitation systems, water supply networks, telecommunications equipment, and agriculture, land, crops and infrastructure – all of which depleted Palestinians’ capital stock and immobilized the population, leaving the local economy dramatically eroded and their access to work, food, housing and other necessities severely undermined.

Acts of war

In these ways, Israeli violence against Palestinians is manifest not only in its immediate physical impact on Palestinian persons but in its consequences for their capacity to have a society in which they develop an economy and social services.

Furthermore, Roy points out that both the redeployment from Gaza in 2005 and the Oslo negotiations process in the mid-1990s serve Israel’s goals of maintaining “full control – both direct and indirect – over all Palestinian lands and resources; … securing, to the extent possible, demographic separation with the Palestinians, and thereby guaranteeing a Jewish majority within Israel … and insuring that if a Palestinian state is declared, it will be weak, diminished, and highly dependent on Israel.”

Moreover, military sieges of the sort imposed on Gaza are acts of war. In 2006, when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, a senior Israeli official said that Israel’s planned response “is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

Israeli health officials calculated the minimum number of calories needed by Gaza’s then 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition and translated them into the number of truckloads of food Israel was supposed to allow in each day. They said Israel should allow 170 trucks per day but only an average of 67 per day entered compared to more than 400 trucks before the blockade was enacted.

Christian Cardon, then head of the Red Cross’ Gaza office, said in April 2014 that Palestinians in Gaza face one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, “poverty, chronic fuel shortages and a scarcity of materials and equipment, which adversely affects health, water, sanitation and electricity infrastructures.” Cardon added that “in 2013 the Gazan gross domestic product fell by around three percent and is still below 1990s levels. In fact, the real average daily wage was lower in 2013 than it was in the 1990s.”

He noted that “the limits on the importation of affordable medical necessities … have created additional medium and long-term strain on an already fragile healthcare system. Many medical items, drugs and disposables have decreased in availability by up to 35 percent since June 2013.” Thus, Cardon said: “The pervasive restrictions on the movement of people for medical, educational and economic purposes should be eased.”

Because the blockade is enforced militarily, Israel is effectively making war against Palestinians as long as the blockade is in place. Thus the Palestinians cannot be said to be initiating violence while they are being besieged and no action Israel takes against Palestinians can be understood as defensive as long as a siege is in place.

These salient features of Palestine-Israel demonstrate that narratives about Israel exercising its legitimate “right to defend itself ” are misguided. In effect every aspect of Israeli policy toward Palestinians is undergirded by violence or its threat.

The record above indicates that a more accurate version of the story of Palestine-Israel would describe how the Palestinians have been violently colonized. Yet nothing in my research indicates that conventional British and American media want their audiences to think of the Palestinians as people, families and communities with a right to defend themselves.

This essay is an adapted excerpt from Greg Shupak’s new book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and the Media.

Dr. Greg Shupak is a writer and activist who teaches Media Studies at the University of Guelph-Humber.

South Africa's deadly involvement in the Saudi war on Yemen

South Africa is helping Saudi Arabia develop its own arms manufacturing capacity and is selling it and the UAE weapons to fight in Yemen

Zeenat Adam

Thursday 26 July 2018 

As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa concluded visits this month to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, securing $10bn worth of investment from each country, questions arise as to what price tag is attached to these investments.

South Africa's arms exports to both Gulf countries have grown since the begining of the war in Yemen, making it potentially complicit in war crimes committed by the two countries in Yemen since 2015.

Dire humanitarian situation

For three years, the war in poverty-stricken Yemen has continued unabated since Houthi rebels took control of Sanaa and began to move southwards towards Aden. A coalition of Arab and Muslim states, led by Saudi Arabia, launched a military campaign aimed at defeating the Houthis.

The Saudi-led campaign exacerbated the humanitarian impact of the war through intense aerial bombardments, causing mass civilian casualties. Saudi control of ports of entry and exit has hindered the delivery of food and basic necessities; creating what has been deemed the world's largest humanitarian catastrophe.

Clear evidence of South African military equipment being used in Yemen by the coalition emerged as early as 2015 when footage was broadcast by Al Masirah news channel depicting a Seeker II that was shot down

Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders/MSF) recently reported that outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and diphtheria and an upsurge in fighting has worsened the dire humanitarian situation, where more than three million people have been displaced since the war began. It is estimated that over 20 million people need humanitarian assistance.

MSF further indicates that indiscriminate bombing and chronic shortages of supplies and staff have led to the closure of more than half of Yemen's health facilities. Human Rights Watch accounts that "the armed conflict has taken a terrible toll on the civilian population. 

"The coalition has conducted scores of indiscriminate and disproportionate air strikes hitting civilian objects that have killed thousands of civilians in violation of the laws of war, with munitions that the US, United Kingdom, and others still supply."

Emirati troops have been serving as part of the Saudi-led, anti-Houthi coalition in Yemen (AFP)

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated that Saudi-led coalition air strikes may be responsible for approximately two-thirds of reported civilian deaths.

'Made in South Africa'

According to the South African National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) annual reports, in 2016 and 2017, South Africa supplied arms, ammunition and armoured vehicles, as well as surveillance and military technology to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, amounting to more than three billion rands (almost $228m) whilst the two countries were deeply embroiled in a conflict of devastating humanitarian consequences.

Despite glaring concerns from a human rights perspective, arms supplying countries like South Africa continue to export weapons to the Saudi-led coalition

Clear evidence of South African military equipment being used in Yemen by the coalition emerged as early as 2015 when footage was broadcast by Al Masirah news channel, a pro-Houthi outlet, depicting a Seeker II drone that was shot down. The images of the crashed drone clearly indicated a plate worded: "Made in South Africa Carl Zeiss Optronics Pty Ltd".

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which documents the flow of arms worldwide, noted that arms sales to the Middle East increased exponentially between 2013 and 2017. Saudi Arabia stands as the most prolific buyer in the region, followed closely by the UAE, which has become the world's fourth-largest arms importer. South Africa ranks amongst the top arms suppliers to the UAE for the period 2007-2017.

Despite glaring concerns from a human rights perspective, arms supplying countries including South Africa continue to export weapons to the Saudi-led coalition.

South Africa's National Conventional Arms Control Act No 41 of 2002 states that the NCACC must "avoid transfers of conventional arms to governments that systematically violate or suppress human rights and fundamental freedoms;" and "avoid transfers of conventional weapons that are likely to contribute to the escalation of regional military conflicts, endanger peace by introducing destabilising military capabilities into a region or otherwise contribute to regional instability”.

South Africa is signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty, which it ratified in 2014. As such it has committed to the conditions of the treaty, which stipulate among other things that the state parties assess the potential that the conventional arms could be used to commit serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

An injured Yemeni child lies on a bed at an emergency clinic following a reported air strike in the Houthis' stronghold of Saada province on 19 July, 2018 (AFP)

South Africa has continued to authorise the sale of conventional weapons that have been used by the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, despite allegations of serious violations of international law by members of the Saudi-led coalition.

According to a report published by the New York Times in March 2018, Saudi officials claim to have carried out more than 145,000 missions over Yemen since the coalition's involvement.

Lynn Maalouf of Amnesty International has stated that "there is no reasonable explanation by states such as the US and the UK that would justify their continued support and irresponsible arms flows to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, when there is extensive evidence that these have resulted in enormous harm to Yemenis for the past three years”.

In addition to the sale of weapons, assault rifles, heavy artillery guns and armoured vehicles, South Africa has supplied both the UAE and Saudi Arabia with mortar bombs, armoured personnel carriers, artillery, ammunition, electronic attack systems and software, amongst a range of other controlled products.

A Saudi combat drone?

In 2016 when the Obama administration declined Saudi Arabia’s request for the supply of Predator drones, the kingdom turned to South Africa's Denel Dynamics to assist Riyadh in the development of its own armed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programme.

Denel adapted the Seeker-400 with a range of 160 miles and an endurance of 16 hours to carry the Makopa air-to-ground missile and the Impi laser-guided missile, which has a multipurpose warhead suited for assassination missions.

Denel adapted the Seeker-400 with a range of 160 miles to carry the Makopa air-to-ground missile and the Impi laser-guided missile, which has a multipurpose warhead suited for assassination missions

By May 2017, the kingdom unveiled its own combat drone, Saqr 1, which resembled Denel’s design. Saqr 1 is equipped with a satellite data link that enables long-range missiles and infrared opticals that allow for night-targeting.  

In June 2016, former president Jacob Zuma travelled to Saudi Arabia to inaugurate the Al-Kharj (Military Industries Corporation) facility in Riyadh, together with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who is largely seen as the architect of the war in Yemen.

The $240m projectiles factory was built in collaboration with South Africa's Rheinmetall Denel Munitions and is expected to produce a minimum of 300 artillery shells or 600 mortar projectiles per day, as well as aircraft bombs ranging from 500lb-2000lb.

MBS has consolidated power in the rooting out of dissidents within the ruling family and in seizing control of key ministries, including defence. With Saudi Arabia already holding the title of the world’s second largest arms purchaser, the kingdom has plans to grow its arms industry and manufacturing capabilities by 2030 through a newly founded state-owned company, Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI).

In 2018, notorious South African arms dealer, Ivor Ichikowitz, announced that his Paramount Group is in talks with Saudi Arabia with a view to transferring technology and establishing production plants.

Since Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the risk arises that South African companies may end up helping these countries to establish munitions factories that are capable of manufacturing cluster munitions. Both Gulf states have used cluster munitions in the war in Yemen.

UAE's 'private armies'

While Saudi Arabia boldly stands as a major arms importer, the UAE has quietly built a formidable military, using its oil wealth to purchase arms from, among others, South Africa.

It is well documented that the UAE has contracted private military security companies linked to Blackwater's founder Erik Prince to develop a new model army with a strictly "no-Muslim" hiring policy.

Protesters demonstrate against UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia during the visit of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, outside Downing Street, in central London on 7 March 2018 (AFP)

Research by the New York Times revealed that this force consists of foreign troops, trained by Western veterans and that several South African mercenaries are employed in these private militaries in violation of the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.

DefenceWeb reports that between 2006-2016 Denel supplied an estimated 192 Nyala (rebranded as Agrab in the UAE) armoured mortar carriers to the UAE through a local company, International Golden Group. Another significant deal was the sale of Al-Tariq (known as Umbani in South Africa) guided bombs for Mirage jets, produced by Tawazun Dynamics, a joint venture with Denel.

This deal, estimated to be valued at $500m, ensured the delivery of at least 1600 bombs to the UAE by the end of 2016. After their failure to procure Predator drones from the USA, the Emiratis acquired Chinese manufactured drones that have been equipped with South African targeting equipment.

At the Dubai Airshow in 2017, it was announced that the UAE has ordered 180 million Rands worth of surveillance drones from Denel, to be delivered in 2018.

The UAE has a reputation for redirecting and re-exporting weapons to other countries (including African states) in clear contradiction of the Arms Trade Treaty. If South Africa is aware of any such onward sales, it would be in violation of local and international laws.

The right to life

As proxy wars are played out between Iran and the Saudi-led coalition in Syria and Yemen at the expense of innocent civilians, South Africa is joining the list of major arms suppliers that are fuelling these devastating conflicts. Widespread debate about arms transfers from the UK, Europe and the USA has erupted in those countries, considering the human rights atrocities committed in these conflicts.

Germany and Norway have halted the sale of arms to countries involved in the war in Yemen, citing grave concerns over the humanitarian crisis. South Africa must ponder carefully its role in further destabilising a region that is already fraught with conflict through arms exports in a bid to boost economic development.

READ MORE ►

How Saudi cash is luring desperate Yemenis onto the battlefield

The intrinsic values of the right to life and human dignity cannot be forsaken in favour of filling coffers, while blood continues to be spilled. South Africa recently applied to the United Nations for authorisation on a sale of 1.5 billion Rands worth of Umkhonto surface-to-air missiles to Iran.

Former president Zuma engaged in talks with Qatar on the sale of majority shares of Denel in late 2017. These discussions may have extended into the Ramaphosa term.

Both these intended moves may render South Africa culpable in the deaths of innocent people, the implications of which are far-reaching well beyond the Gulf region and would have a direct impact on international stability.

- Zeenat Adam is a former diplomat and an independent international relations strategist based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo: Saudi King Salman(R) receiving South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (L) during his visit in Jeddah on 12 July, 2018 (AFP)