Riding ‘The Death Train’ to America’s border

Guillermo Galdos-1 Aug 2018Latin America Correspondent

We have following two people who, with tens of thousands of others, are so desperate to flee the danger and destruction in their homelands, they risk everything in the attempt to make it to the United States on the ‘El tren de la muerte’ – the Death Train.

When President Trump introduced tough new policies to stop migrants crossing the US border, the result was immediate: thousands of children separated from their parents, hundreds of families with no idea when they would see each other again.

In a new book, Bob Woodward plans to reveal the ‘harrowing life’ inside Donald Trump’s White House

Bob Woodward speaks at the White House correspondents' dinner in April 2017. (Cliff Owen/AP)

By Manuel Roig-FranziaJuly 30Email the author

In the worldwide capital of leaks and anonymous dishing that is Washington, secrets can be almost impossible to keep.

But somehow over the past 19 months, the fact that America’s most famous investigative journalist was quietly chipping away at a book that delves into the dysfunctions of President Trump’s White House remained largely unknown. On Monday night, that veil of secrecy will be lifted when Simon & Schuster plans to announce that it will publish “Fear: Trump in the White House” by Bob Woodward on Sept. 11, according to a copy of the release obtained by The Washington Post.

In the book, Woodward’s 19th, the 75-year-old journalist and author “reveals in unprecedented detail the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump’s White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies,” the publisher’s release states.

The expected tenor of the book is underscored by its unsettling cover, an extreme close-up of a squinty-eyed Trump depicted through a gauzy red filter. The hush-hush project derives its title from an offhand remark that then-candidate Trump made in an interview with Woodward and Post political reporter Robert Costa in April 2016. Costa asked Trump whether he agreed with a statement by then-President Barack Obama, who had said in an Atlantic magazine interview that “real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.”

At first Trump seemed to agree, saying: “Well, I think there’s a certain truth to that. . . . Real power is through respect.”

But then he added a personal twist: “Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word: ‘Fear.’ ”

Woodward, who declined to be quoted for this article, has privately described the remark as “an almost Shakespearean aside.”

[In a revealing interview, Trump predicts a “massive recession,” but intends to eliminate the national debt in eight years]

Woodward, an associate editor at The Post, is deeply embedded in the cultural fabric of American journalism. He is famed for his Pulitzer-winning reporting at The Post with Carl Bernstein on the deceptions and misdeeds of President Richard Nixon in the 1970s that eventually led to the resignation of the 37th president of the United States. Their work was immortalized in the film “All the President’s Men,” in which Robert Redford played Woodward and Dustin Hoffman portrayed Bernstein.

The Washington Post's Bob Woodward reflects on the Watergate scandal and the tapes President Nixon recorded, which turned out to be key evidence. (Peter Stevenson, Thomas LeGro/The Washington Post)

A casual observer of American political news might be excused for thinking the 1970s never ended. Not only is Woodward publishing a Trump book, but Bernstein is also appearing regularly on American television screens after recently co-writing a scoopy piece for CNN that asserted Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen is willing to testify that Trump was aware in advance of a now-infamous meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russians offering dirt of Hillary Clinton.

The cover of Woodward’s upcoming book. (Courtesy of Bob Woodard)

Woodward is one of the best-selling American nonfiction authors of the modern era, and the publication of his books generally become news events in their own right. As usual, Woodward was represented by Robert B. Barnett, the powerhouse Washington attorney who also has negotiated literary contracts for former presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign opponent, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Woodward’s most recent work, “The Last of the President’s Men,”chronicled the story of Alexander Butterfield, the Nixon aide who revealed the existence of an Oval Office taping system. But with his new book, “Fear,” Woodward will be returning to the sort of endeavor for which he has been best known during his long career: real-time reporting on American power and the presidency.

His previous works on American presidents, including books about George W. Bush and Obama, have tended to focus primarily on single, all-important decisions, such as whether to engage in foreign wars. “Fear” is expected to be a broader examination of the presidency.

“Fear” will add to the avalanche of books that focus on the Trump presidency or issues related to his time in office. Among those who have generated headlines are former FBI director James B. Comey’s, “A Higher Loyalty,” Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,”and the just-released book by Trump’s former press secretary, Sean Spicer: “The Briefing: Politics, the Press and the President.”

Woodward’s new book draws on the hallmarks of his approach to investigative reporting, pulling details from “hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, contemporaneous meeting notes, files, documents and personal diaries,” according to his publisher. “FEAR brings to light the explosive debates that drive decision-making in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Air Force One and the White House residence.”

Jonathan Karp, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster, touted the work as “the most acute and penetrating portrait of a sitting president ever published during the first years of an administration.”

While working on the book, Woodward has kept a lower profile than usual, limiting cable news appearances and attempting to stay out of the public eye. Instead, the author has told friends, he’s gone back to some of the signature moves of his youthful reporting days.

Late at night, he’s been prone to show up at important people’s houses unannounced to ask for interviews. He’s told friends that it feels like a “rebirth.”

America’s unending hostage crisis with Iran

For nearly four decades, Iran has imprisoned American citizens. And for nearly four decades, Washington has strived to free prisoners through diplomacy, force or persuasion. The dynamic has bedeviled presidents Democratic and Republican

By YEGANEH TORBATI and JOEL SCHECTMAN-Filed Aug. 1, 2018, 11:15 a.m. GMT

WASHINGTON – A year before leaving office, Barack Obama stunned the world with a prisoner trade with Iran. After more than a year of secret negotiations, the U.S. president announced that five Americans were freed from captivity, closing a deal he dubbed a “one-time gesture.”

America’s unending hostage crisis with Iran.docx by Thavam on Scribd

America first means America withdrawn first

We cannot and shall not forget all the gangs of ruffians of American establishment, an uncultured, aggressive, rude, noisy troublemaker.

by Anwar A. Khan-Jul 30, 2018

( July 30, 2018, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) America is the Beelzebub’s Country. In 1913, with the establishment of the usurious, unconstitutional, and criminal Federal Reserve Bank, Old Nick’s minions secretly stole the soul of America and turned the American people into mindless destructive creatures. Hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of human beings throughout the world have been killed and wounded in Lucifer’s false wars, from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria to many more countries.

We want to be brought in as possible. America is not the Kingdom of morning star, but it is occupied by the forces who work for the Kingdom of chief spirit of evil. The principle of power in human and political affairs is the principle of Satan. Washington is the Kingdom of Prince of Darkness because the Old Nick has been ruling for more than seven decades; Berlin was the Kingdom of the Tempter when Hitler ruled; and in Genghis Khan’s dark heart laid the Kingdom of daemon. And so on.

America has been the Kingdom of archfiend since long. The American people are told that those who expose the Dark Heart of Washington D.C. are derisive and crackpot conspiracy theorists who deserve to be brushed off and guyed. But these conspiracy theorists are rebels of thought who will never go away and shut up. We will never be silenced.

At some point, the power elite and the disdainful CIA will learn that you can’t assassinate and demonise every political leader and whistleblower across the world. This isn’t the 60’s and 70’s. Times have changed. In the last several decades, there has been a great political arousing, especially since the events of colossal misdoings by America after Second World War. If the Kennedys and King were killed today by the United States government, there would be riots and mini-uprisings which would eventually grow into a revolution.

Millions of people know the American government has been hijacked by traitors, thieves, and state terrorists and those other Western governments are also guilty of covering up what really happened in the past decades perpetrated by American establishment. People know they are under attack. The modern police force is viewed in America, Canada, and Europe as an occupying army. Cops are Redcoats. They are brainwashed machines who have been trained to carry out the will of destruction and tyranny. The American founding fathers believed that there were cosmic forces at work during the creation of America. John Adams attributed America’s success to divine providence. He said: “But I must submit all my Hopes and Fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the Faith may be, I firmly believe.”

The more I think about America’s and the world’s current troubles the more I lean towards the belief that some great cosmic force is present on Earth and within each of us. With that said, I believe human beings are a creative force, either for good or for evil. We have free will. The future can be in our control. We all have to think and act creatively to bring about a world order where people all over the world can live in peace, not in war, destruction, killing of mankind promiscuously…

World history abounds with examples of one tyrant after another forcing their wills upon that of the people, to gain political power and personal wealth. It is so common of human nature that we now view it as almost a given—sooner or later someone else will add their name to the now infamous list of despots. But we also know that there is another interesting and sad fact of humanity: we seldom pay attention until it is too late. Philosopher Hagel rightly said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn anything from history.”

Adolf Hitler, during his rise to power, made sure that the youth of Germany were taught the principles necessary for them to be useful members of the “Third Reich.” And if we were to say that he was successful in propagandising them, we would be guilty of gross understatement! He was widely viewed by the people as being the saviour of Germany. America that gave Martin Luther to the world, but it violated every principle of Christianity in following Hitler’s demonic leadership to moral ruin and national destruction. Could it happen again? Certainly, and it is probably much closer than you would dare imagine!

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We, at cutting edge, are constantly accused of being paranoid because of the Western media’s deliberate prevarication on stance on world affairs.

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We, at cutting edge, are constantly accused of being paranoid because of the Western media’s deliberate prevarication on stance on world affairs. But as the old joke goes, “You would be paranoid too, if everyone were after you!” Yes, we do plead guilty to seeing demons under many bushes and, without apology, maintain that every religion warns us of such. It also seems reasonable to us that anyone with an ounce of horse sense should be able to discern that things just aren’t going as well today as many seem to believe. But the giddy majority is rolling merrily along, totally oblivious to the unmistakable signs of catastrophe looming just over the horizon. And upon the mirage of the financial picture alone we could have much to say, but that is another story.

My friends, take a hard look around you and observe how few people today really and truly have to earn their living through arduous physical work. To be sure, some still do, but they are so few in number compared to 50-75 years ago as to be practically nonexistent. The overwhelming majority of people in the industrialised nations today expend far less physical effort to earn their daily bread than did their predecessors. This is a good thing you say? Well, that depends upon how you look at it! Pleasure and recreation is the number one priority of the average guy today right behind his insatiable desire to have more of it by working himself to death through long hours and stress. Does this describe anyone you know? At least, those who did hard manual labour in the past, generally only worked during daylight hours and had to have sufficient rest in order to continue. So, if you were plotting a national and international take-over, would you want the masses of cattle to have enough time or mental capacity to take note of what was really taking place around them? As a sage is fond of saying, “Wake up and smell the coffee!”

After the Second World War, America’s abominable bullyragging into the internal affairs of independent and sovereign states across the world has been going on at full strength or intensity. This is quite unbearable and irremissible. The flunkies like Britain, France, Germany… have joined the world’s rogue village headman as its stooges. This so-called big brother and its client states have been bringing about unspeakable human disasters across the world. Sometimes I think that Newton’s Third Law, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” stands as grossly faulty, at least, in case of America.

Because of America’s colossal misdoings to independent and sovereign countries of the world for long, we should express our strong disapproval of such a rogue state like it and its establishment in the harshest language so that it ceases its operations of unspeakable sufferings for human beings throughout the terra firma of the Earth. Only then, people of other nations will be able to live in peace. And the world is for peaceful living for all nations, not to destroy them or murdering of people recklessly. Humanity must prevail everywhere and that should be our core compass point.

We cannot and shall not forget all the gangs of ruffians of American establishment, an uncultured, aggressive, rude, noisy troublemaker. A noted columnist John Lloyd has correctly said, “America First means America Withdrawn.” As a matter of fact, America has in possession of awful nuclear military weapons, tomahawks like stupefied destructive weapons of mankind…in abundance, but they are not willing to destroy those dreadful weapons nor do they say anything about them. Look at their audacity. If you read the Western Newspapers, you will also find that their styles of writings are full of lies only.

Noted journalist Maksud Ibna Rahaman has written, “The US reduced Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Syria to rubble. Yemen too is on the verge of ruin. It has now set its sight on Venezuela. It plotted with the oligarchs and the right wing opposition of Venezuela to overthrow the Chavez regime. Chavez died in 2013 but the plot still continues. The US is now trying to get rid of Nicolas Maduro, the successor of Chavez.”

He further has said, “US intentions were crystal clear: it wanted to destabilise the country through a military coup in a bid to overhaul the Venezuelan political and economic system. In 2002 the US with the local oligarchs attempted to overthrow Hugo Chavez but failed. People in support of Chavez and Bolivarian revolution took to the streets and thwarted the attempt. The US and the domestic capitalists desired a more pliant constitution that will favour their businesses and trades. The current constitution of the country enshrined the political ideology of socialism that went against them.”

America’s nuclear doctrine says it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in any sovereign and independent country at its free-will. It is affording free passage or view that response to a nuclear attack or an attack with other weapons of mass destruction against any state or its allies, or a conventional attack against them.

Any attempt to undermine American so-called interests, politics, political institutions, and values cannot be tolerated. As such, America is the country of chafe, carousing, ogres and evil supernatural being. In point of fact, America first means America must withdraw first from its all misdoings all over the world and let people of all nations around the World live in peace with cooperation and interchange.

-The End-

Zimbabwe election unrest turns deadly as army opens fire on protesters

Three people killed after live ammunition, water cannon and teargas fired in capital

 Tensions rise after Zimbabwe election as police and protesters clash – video

Jason Burke in Harare-Wed 1 Aug 2018 

Three people have been killed in Harare as soldiers and police fought running battles with hundreds of protesters, firing live ammunition, teargas and water cannon amid rising tension following Zimbabwe’s presidential election.

The army was deployed in the capital on Wednesday after police proved unable to quell demonstrators who claim Monday’s historic election is being rigged.

A soldier fires shots towards demonstrators. Photograph: Zinyange Auntony/AFP/Getty Images
By mid-afternoon much of the city centre resembled a war zone, with military helicopters flying overhead, armoured personnel carriers moving through burning debris and patrols of soldiers chasing stone throwers down narrow streets. A pall of smoke filled the sky. On cracked pavements there was glass and – in some places – blood.

Terrified commuters took cover in shop doorways or behind walls still covered in posters bearing portraits of election candidates as volleys of shots rang out and stones flew through the air. Witnesses reported seeing soldiers beating people with makeshift batons.

 An armed soldier patrols a street in Harare during protests. Photograph: Mujahis Safodien/AP
Opposition supporters have expressed growing impatience over delays in releasing the results of the historic vote, the first since Robert Mugabe was ousted after four decades in charge.

The scenes of violence contrasted dramatically with the jubilation and joy on the same streets that greeted the end of Mugabe’s rule in November. Then soldiers were seen as patriotic heroes. On Wednesday afternoon, in the opposition stronghold of Harare at least, they were seen once more as thuggish defenders of the ruling Zanu-PF party.

Early clashes took place outside the headquarters of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), which opposition supporters accuse of bias, and spread rapidly.

“We support [opposition leader Nelson] Chamisa and we want him to be our president. The electoral commission is not fair. Our election is being stolen,” said a 19-year-old student among the protesters.
Some chanted: “This is war,” while others shouted slogans calling for the country’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, to step down.

MDC supporters burn an election banner bearing the face of Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare. Photograph: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

“This is all the government’s fault,” Abigail Nganlo, a 29-year-old nurse, told the Guardian as she sheltered from the clashes in a narrow alley. “We are on our knees with the economic situation.
People are so angry. The [election] figures they are producing are fake. Where there are 500 people at a polling station, they are saying 5,000.”

Alex Kamasa, 30, an unemployed graduate, said: “They are desperate. It is a big robbery. At least Mugabe rigged with brains. These guys rig like school children. They insult us.”

The country’s justice minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi, said the army had been deployed to disperse a violent crowd and restore “peace and tranquility.”

“The presence of the army is not to intimidate people but to ensure that law and order is maintained. They are there to assist the police,” Ziyambi said in an interview broadcast on eNCA television. “They are there as a people’s army to ensure that peace and security prevails.”

The authorities are under increasing pressure to release the results of Monday’s poll, which pitted Chamisa, a 40-year-old lawyer, pastor and leader of the main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change, against Mnangagwa, 75, a longtime Mugabe aide and head of the Zanu-PF.
Zimbabwe’s rulers know that the widespread perception overseas that they have rigged an election would block the country’s reintegration into the international community and deny it the huge bailout package needed to avoid economic meltdown.

So too could scenes such as those seen in Harare on Wednesday afternoon. Images of soldiers firing on civilian protesters recall the darkest days of Mugabe’s rule and are a serious setback to Zanu-PF’s effort to improve its image overseas.

The US embassy said it was “deeply concerned by events unfolding in Harare”, called on leaders of all parties to call for calm and urged the military “to use restraint in dispersing” protesters.
Less than an hour before the violence, election monitors called for votes to be counted in an open and timely way.

Soldiers beat a protester outside the Movement for Democratic Change party headquarters in Harare. Photograph: Mike Hutchings/Reuters

Zanu-PF has already won a massive majority in parliament after sweeping rural constituencies by significant margins, official results show, but the parliamentary outcome does not necessarily indicate voters’ choice of head of state.

Under electoral law the result in the presidential vote has to be announced by 4 August.

Elmar Brok, the head of the first EU monitors to be allowed into Zimbabwe for 16 years, praised an “opening up of political space” before the poll but said the government had failed to ensure a level playing field and accused the ZEC of bias.

Brok called on the ZEC to make detailed results public to ensure the credibility of the election given earlier shortcomings. Other monitors also expressed concerns as the count went into a third day.

“Election day is only a snapshot of a long electoral process,” said the US congresswoman Karen Bass, one of the monitors deployed jointly by the US International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute.

“It is vital to see the electoral process to its conclusion, and it is still too early to make an assessment on the nature of these elections.”

If no candidate wins more than half of the votes in the presidential election, there will be a runoff in five weeks. Negotiations to form a coalition government are another possibility.

The two presidential candidates represent dramatically different ideologies and political styles, as well as generations. Pre-election opinion polls gave Mnangagwa, a dour former spy chief known as “the Crocodile” due to his reputation for ruthless cunning, a slim lead over Chamisa, a brilliant if sometimes wayward orator.

Fake Monitors Endorse Cambodia’s Sham Election

Dubious electoral endorsements are becoming normal for dictators worldwide.

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen (C) casts his vote during the general elections as his wife Bun Rany (centre L) looks on in Phnom Penh on July 29, 2018. (MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images)

BY LEE MORGENBESSER-

 JULY 30, 2018, 8:32 AM

Cambodians went to the polls last weekend, but it was a sham of an election, dominated by Hun Sen, the country’s aging autocrat. With the opposition party banned and soldiers at polling booths to ensure the outcome went only one way, no credible organization signed off on the election’s validity—but quite a few fake organizations did.

Election observation in authoritarian regimes is a relatively new phenomenon. Beginning in the late 1980s, the number of elections monitored by intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and sovereign states increased substantially. This brought increased criticism of the behavior of authoritarian regimes, which signaled their compliance to the norm of external observation in exchange for certain benefits, such as legitimacy, foreign direct investment, and membership in international organizations. This gave democracy promotion actors, which coordinated a majority of election-monitoring missions, newfound leverage over the behavior of authoritarian regimes. In the last decade, however, dictators have fought back.

Writing in Foreign Policy in October 2013, Christopher Walker and Alexander Cooley identified the sudden emergence and increasing use of what they termed “zombie monitors” among a small group of savvy dictators. In the intervening years, there has been a wider effort to understand how exactly these groups erode domestic perceptions of electoral integrity and corrode the international norm of external election observation.

The inconvenient truth, however, is that our determination to identify and analyze these zombie monitors has not kept pace with the more cunning ways dictators have subsequently deployed them. The last few years has witnessed a few distinct changes in the use of fake election observation groups, which has coincided with the rise of more sophisticated forms of cooperation among authoritarian regimes.

The existence of zombie monitors generally does not become apparent until they release a deceptive statement after the election outcome, which makes glowing reference to the vagaries of integrity, peace, stability, and transparency. The opportunity to observe zombie monitors before they reveal themselves is thus rare. Unless, of course, you look to Cambodia’s general election last weekend.
With no credible groups willing to validate a sham election, Hun Sen turned to zombie monitors to do so. This included more well-known groups such as the Centrist Asia Pacific Democrats International, International Conference of Asian Political Parties, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. All of them have a documented history of prejudicial election assessments.

At the center of the zombie horde in Cambodia last weekend was Anton Caragea, who has established ties to Hun Sen and who has previously bestowed strange awards upon dictators in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Zimbabwe. Caragea’s Twitter account is a stream of praise for Cambodia and Hun Sen.  Using his leadership of the European Council on International Relations (not to be confused with the European Council on Foreign Relations), Caragea has also previously provided flattering assessments of highly flawed elections in Kazakhstan.

Described as a professor of international relations from Spiru Haret University in Bucharest (declared to be a “diploma mill” by local journalists), Caragea is the recipient of dubious titles and awards bestowed by dictators around the world. He claims to be the author of 20 books and more than 300 articles across the fields of cultural history, development, heritage, history, humanitarian activities, international relations and diplomacy, political and economic doctrines, and theology. None of these books appear anywhere online, except on his website.

To lend credibility to Hun Sen’s sham election, Caragea has mobilized a horde of zombie monitors, listed on his own website, including the Diplomatic Center, Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation, European Council on Tourism and Trade, European Council on International Relations, European Diplomatic Academy, Parliamentary Assembly for Sustainable Development Goals, and World Elections Monitors Organization. Despite the plethora of names, Caragea appears to be either the director or president of every single group. A preliminary monitoring report released by a few of them declared that the election has all the hallmarks of being a “transparent, free, fair and democratic valid polls.” In a meeting with Hun Sen the morning after the vote,
Caregea congratulated the dictator for holding a “free, fair and transparent election.”
Cambodia isn’t the only country using such groups.

Eurasia was the birthplace of zombie monitors. In their original analysis, Walker and Cooley identified the deployment of these groups in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The scourge of fake election observation groups is now a global problem. In May, for example, then-Prime Minister Najib Razak attempted to use the Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centre to lend credibility to the general election. (This represents an exceptional case of a dictator who used a zombie election monitor and still lost an election.) Similar zombie monitors have been reported in Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sudan, Tajikistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe, to name but a few countries. The appeal of fake election observation groups is evidently spreading.

Beyond the fact that zombie monitors are now operating on four continents, the target of their subterfuge has also expanded. The initial purview of these groups was national elections held periodically for executive and legislative office. Despite that still being the primary focus, dictators have begun employing zombie monitors for subnational elections and referendums. In Venezuela, for example, President Nicolás Maduro had the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America give a clean bill of health to the 2017 gubernatorial elections, which were judged to be clean and transparent by its 1,300-member delegation. In Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin used the Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections to recruit scores of politicians from far-right parties to validate the 2014 Crimea referendum, which was regarded as illegitimate by the European Union and the United States.

Another distinct change in the way authoritarian regimes employ fake election observation groups is denoted by the decline of regional zombies. The most systematic account of this phenomenon identifies intergovernmental organizations or international nongovernmental organizations run by authoritarian states as the main antagonists, such as the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. But in recent years dictators have increasingly turned to an endless array of smaller organizations, some of them and some themselves with ties to authoritarian states.  In such cases, prominent individuals representing these organizations have been recruited as agents of manipulation and misconduct.

The few distinct changes dictators have made to the deployment of fake election observation groups has compounded the difficulty of identifying and analyzing their activities. The zombie show taking place in Cambodia this weekend represents the most egregious example yet of an authoritarian regime using fake election observation groups.

Despite the growing audacity of dictators, a coordinated response from the democratic states that have long promoted the international norm of external election observation has yet to emerge. The evolution of zombie monitors requires demands more resources be devoted to identifying, analyzing and, ultimately, discrediting them. The worst-case scenario is that these fake election observation groups become indistinguishable in the public eye from professional observation groups. This eventuality would do quick and lasting damage to the cause of democracy around the world.

Vagina rejuvenating therapies 'pose serious risk'

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

31 July 2018

Women are being warned against risky cosmetic "rejuvenating" procedures to reshape and tighten the vagina.

Experts say the "therapies", offered by some private clinics in the UK and the US, pose a serious risk of burns, scarring and recurring pain.

Typically during these procedures, a probe is inserted into the vagina to heat or laser the vaginal tissue.

Although it is non-surgical and can be done in a lunch hour, it is not necessarily safe, say officials.
Laser and energy-based devices have been approved for use in destroying pre-cancerous cells in cervical or vaginal tissue, as well as genital warts, but they have not undergone testing for rejuvenation therapies.

Serious harm

US regulator the FDA says it will take action if deceptive marketing of the "dangerous procedure with no proven benefit" continues.

It says a growing number of manufacturers have been claiming the procedure can treat conditions and symptoms related to menopause, urinary incontinence or sexual function.

"These products have serious risks and don't have adequate evidence to support their use for these purposes. We are deeply concerned women are being harmed," says the FDA warning.

Paul Banwell, consultant plastic surgeon and member of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, shared the FDA's concerns: "There has been an exponential rise in the interest in women's health and sexual well-being and whilst this should be encouraged, it is vital that any educational and treatment initiatives are provided in a sensitive manner free of any misleading or marketing hyperbole."

Dr Vanessa Mackay, from the UK's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), said: "There is no evidence to suggest that non-surgical 'vaginal rejuvenation' devices are effective in improving vaginal muscle tone or reshaping vaginal tissue. If women are concerned about the appearance or feel of their vagina, they should speak to a healthcare professional. It is important to remember, however, that every woman's vagina is different. Labia are as individual as women themselves and vary in appearance and colour.

"To strengthen the muscles around the vagina, women are encouraged to try pelvic floor exercises which can help to improve muscle tone and sensitivity during sex."
How to do pelvic floor exercises:

• Sit or stand comfortably with knees slightly apart and then draw up the pelvic floor muscles as if trying to avoid passing urine
• It is important not to tighten the stomach, buttock or thigh muscles during the exercises
• Do 10 slow contractions, holding them for about 10 seconds each
• The length of time can be increased gradually and the slow contractions can then be followed by a set of quick contractions
• The whole process should be carried out three or four times a day

Tips for a strong pelvic floor
Vaginal dryness is a common but treatable problem that many women experience at some point in their lives.

It can be caused by a number of things including the menopause, breastfeeding, childbirth, not being aroused before sex and some types of contraception.

Women are encouraged to try self-help options before seeing a healthcare professional, including vaginal moisturisers and lubricants. If these aren't effective, a doctor may prescribe vaginal oestrogen, says the RCOG.

UK: Ian Paisley suspension exposes efforts to assist cover-up of Sri Lankan bloodbath

By Steve James -28 July 2018

Britain’s House of Commons Standards Committee has suspended Ian Paisley, Jr., Member of Parliament for the North Antrim constituency in Northern Ireland, for 30 days from September 4. Paisley was found to have committed “serious misconduct” by actions “of a nature to bring the House of Commons into disrepute.” Paisley is only one of three MPs to be suspended for this length of time since 1949.

The move imperils the fragile British government of Theresa May, dependent as it is for a parliamentary majority on Paisley’s party, the right wing pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Paisley has even been suspended from the DUP itself, “pending further investigation.”

He is also likely to be the first sitting British MP ever to face a recall by-election challenge. Under the terms of the Recall of Parliament Act, recall petitions must be available for his constituents in North Antrim to sign for six weeks. If 10 percent of voters favour a recall by-election, it must be held unless a general election is less than six months away.

The standards committee found that Paisley failed to register two lavish holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government. According to the committee, the 2013 trips involved “business-class air travel, accommodation at first-class hotels, helicopter trips and visits to tourist attractions for Mr. Paisley and his wider family.”

Following this, Paisley was amongst the signatories to a letter to then Prime Minister David Cameron in 2014 criticising British support for a resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for an investigation into human rights violations during the final phases of the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka’s decades long conflict culminated in 2009, with government forces massacring tens of thousands of mainly Tamil civilians, along with members and leaders of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) separatist movement. The UNHRC resolution authorised “an international investigation which will uncover the truth about alleged violations on both sides of the conflict.”

The British MPs’ 2014 letter noted “with alarm the decision by HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] to internationalize the internal affairs of Sri Lanka, and its post conflict process.”

Paisley knows whereof he speaks. Paisley is the son of the Protestant demagogue, hard-right sectarian bigot and former Northern Ireland First Minister, the Reverend Ian Paisley. Paisley senior founded the DUP as a political ally and voice for pro-British loyalist paramilitary groups assisting British imperialism’s sectarian “dirty war” in Northern Ireland. His entire career was based on whipping up Protestant prejudice against Catholics to reinforce religious divisions in the working class of Ireland.

Over decades, British armed and intelligence forces conducted a war of great brutality and unparalleled skullduggery, which cost over 3,000 lives. The “Troubles” only ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement that paved the way for both unionists and nationalists to share power in the British-controlled administration in Northern Ireland.

The MPs’ letter noted merely that the UK “has correctly and steadfastly opposed internationalization of the conflict in Northern Ireland.” The same approach, they insisted, should be adopted in Sri Lanka.

The letter pointed out that the former British colony “has been a friend of the UK for decades,” whose “Government supported the UK in its defence of the Falklands and we should tread more consistently with them.”

“They have emerged from 40 years of conflict,” the letter continued, and “must be given space to come to terms with the past and encouraged to pursue conflict resolution not brow beaten as appears to be the UN way.”

In other words, investigation of the bloodbath organised and implemented by the Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapaksa in the final stages of the war should have been left to the then Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The UNHRC report the MPs wanted to avoid was published in 2015. The conclusions to its 261 pages noted “harrowing descriptions ... of the carnage, bloodshed and psychological trauma of bombardments in which entire families were killed.”

No full estimate of the number of dead civilians was possible, but “likely tens of thousands lost their lives.” The report described “patterns of commission of gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law, the indications of their systematic nature, combined with the widespread character of the attacks” as pointing “to the possible perpetration of international crimes.”

Post conflict, the report warned of “extensive and endemic patterns of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, abductions, unlawful arrests and arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence committed with impunity by the Government forces over many years, as well as by paramilitary organisations linked to them.”

Paisley was only one of several British parliamentarians apparently junketed during and after the final phases of the civil war. One of the most active was Lord Naseby (Michael Morris), former RAF and NATO pilot, Islington councillor, Tory MP and now a life peer. Naseby has systematically sought to downplay the scale of the Sri Lankan killings and the brutality of the weaponry deployed, which included cluster bombs.

Another leading British Tory involved was Liam Fox, Defense Secretary in the Cameron government and currently Secretary of State for International Trade. Fox was hosted a number of times by the Rajapakse government. He spoke in support of the Sri Lanka government in Westminster. He told the BBC, which investigated his role, that his trips in the midst of the government’s slaughter of Tamil civilians were to “promote peace and reconciliation.” Former British Labour MP Andy Love played a similar role.

Other current and former MPs who have registered expenses paid trips to Sri Lanka, according to the Tamil Guardian, included Tories James Wharton, Aidan Burley, Matthew Offord and David Morris.

The Independent wrote that by 2012, the then 28-year-old Wharton had clocked up four trips to Sri Lanka and met Rajapaksa. Wharton claimed that his lack of any prior connection to Sri Lanka meant he could take an objective view. Nevertheless, he asked the House of Commons regarding an earlier UN report detailing human rights violations, “Is it not clear that, while the report sets out a narrative and raises legitimate concerns, it must not be taken as a factual account?”

Paisley, of course, was not suspended for trying to suppress an international investigation into the Sri Lankan government’s war crimes but for not declaring his holidays. MPs are required to register gifts and perks over the value of £660. Paisley’s two Sri Lankan trips are estimated to have been worth over £100,000.

The Northern Ireland politician’s deeply corrupt activities are of a piece with the role of the DUP in Northern Ireland. The party has been mired in a series of financial scandals since coming into power, alongside Sinn Fein in 2007.

Underscoring the complicity of British imperialism in Sri Lankan war crimes, media coverage of Paisley’s suspension focused almost entirely on his shifting claims to parliament as to when he needed to register interests. Very little mention was made of the atrocity Paisley was being paid to cover over. The Telegraph gently chided Paisley to be “more candid with the voters than he was with this newspaper or his fellow parliamentarians.”

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Nine years since Sri Lankan civil war ended in massacre of Tamils [5 May 2018]

Sri Lanka: A Nation of Lost Cause

We still live in the long shadow of 1983. We have been propelled from 1983 to a drastic war which has ruined this country.

by Frances Bulathsinghala-Jul 31, 2018

( July 31, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The July 1983 anti-Tamil riots is a watershed in the recent history of this country, and 35 years later, with a three-decade war over and thousands killed, we are still left asking ‘Quo Vadis Lanka?’

This writer was seven years old when Colombo went up in flames on a seemingly ordinary July day. As a child, I did not know that 13 members of the government military had been killed in an ambush by the then fledging rebel outfit, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Neither did I know then that, twenty years later, I will be covering Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict and the 2002 peace process as a journalist. All I knew was that I was travelling in a school van with four Tamil female teachers wedged in our midst. I remember that these teachers were shaking in fear and trying hard to look nondescript with their pottus removed from their forehead.

To recall now the carnage of that afternoon is like bringing forth a horror movie. Our van was travelling to Panadura, about 25km outside Colombo. The driver drove through flames and often nearly lost his nerve every time mobs asked us to halt, demanding if there were any Tamils in the van. Several times along the way, the driver was asked for petrol. Thankfully, this petrol being used to burn people alive I did not see, as my mother forced me and the other children travelling in that vehicle to ‘sleep’.

Having in July 1983 mourned the deaths of 13 soldiers, by 2003, Sri Lanka had mourned thousands of its youth.

Covering the 2002 peace process for a national newspaper as a staff journalist and for a couple of South Asian publications as a correspondent, I recall the many interviews with parents of cadres, with female cadres and with rebels of diverse ranks, and being amazed at how some of them had grown up in the South and come to the North only after July 1983.

One of the conversations with the then police head of the LTTE, Nadesan, was significant. He was preoccupied with sharing details on how he was a police constable in the ‘Sinhalese police’, as he put it, but which was supposed to be the Sri Lankan police. He was married to a Sinhalese (who lived with him in the North). Speaking in fluent Sinhalese, and insisting that he speak in Sinhalese (and not in English), he began to talk of how earnestly he had served as a police constable officer in the ‘Sinhalese police’. Following is a part of his statement as I remember it:

“I was in the Narahenpita police and was proud of my job. My wife, a Sinhalese, was also working in the police. I would never have dreamed of coming to the North and joining the LTTE if I was not helpless from protection from rioters, even as a police personnel.”

The writer mentions these comments not to take away from the LTTE leadership the accountability they should bear towards the Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims for having unleashed unprecedented terror for over thirty years until the annihilation of their organisation by the Lankan military in 2009. But, the reason for recalling Nadesan’s words is to understand how a Tamil police constable, married to a Sinhalese police personnel, living an ordinary life in Colombo and until 1983,was a law abiding citizen who was responsible for instilling the law, was made to feel helpless on account of his ethnicity and thus driven to support a group resorting to terror.

How many questions spring up that we do not ask when we think of 1983? One of the primary questions that crop up is of the then political leaders using the Sinhalese people as a cover to arm goons with electoral lists around the country to set about vandalising property and destroying lives and passing off the catastrophe as a spontaneous reaction by the Sinhalese masses. As one veteran Tamil analyst put it,“If it was in actuality 70% of the Sinhalese against the Tamils who made about 12% of the population, there would not be any Tamils left in the island”.

It was the beginning of passing off a politically created problem initiated compounded by weak policymaking and inefficient strategies as a ‘Sinhala-Tamil’ problem.

Many of those who held important positions in the LTTE were educated. Many of them had the suffix ‘Master’ after their name, indicating that they were teachers prior to joining the movement. Could not the country have benefited from them if we did not lose these Sri Lankan citizens to a rebel movement? Why were post-independence policymakers so short-sighted that they did not foresee that unrest would occur and such movements would crop up if sections of the populace were not made to feel equal as the rest?

Did not Sri Lanka suffer its first massive brain drain when it lost the English-educated Sinhala, Tamil and Burgher intellectuals to the West after the Sinhala Only Act in 1956? What can we say of political leaders who failed in governance in 1983 to prevent an entire ethnic group having to pay for the act of a few? Could not wise policymaking have made Tamil/Sinhala intellectuals rise to prevent Prabhakaran or any other like him from creating terror outfits for the purpose of dividing the nation? What was the need to impose a language-based apartheid where a Sinhala child studied in Sinhala and a Tamil child in Tamil and thereby consigned to language-divided segregation? Why was the folly of imposing in 1972 the standardisation of university admission based on ethnic representation that was discriminative of the Tamils not realised before the damage was done?

Did we not lose a dedicated and committed workforce when we prevented the Tamils from entering the civil service by making the Sinhala language a pre-requisite for entering the public service?

I recall wondering at the LTTE Police Chief Nadesan, a ruthless leader who nevertheless sounded nostalgic as he patted the phone next to him and said in Sinhalese that he yearned to talk to his Sinhala friends from his ‘Sinhala police days’. He recalled how his Sinhala friends helped to save his life and the life of his Sinhala wife in 1983.

A question I asked myself then and still do is: “How many more Tamils like Nadesan would have been ordinary law abiding citizens who ended up with the militants/LTTE?”

In July 1983, 371 Sri Lankans lay dead because they were Tamils. More than 100,000 Sri Lankans were made homeless because they were Tamils. Over 150,000 Sri Lankans were turned to paupers living in crowded and unhygienic refugee camps, their own homes and business establishments looted, torched and destroyed, because they were Tamils. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of others left the country of their birth, to return only as foreigners, erasing forever any dreams they would have had of using their skill and their professional expertise for their country. In just over a week in that deadly month of July, a motley group, calling themselves the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) became to the Tamil intellectuals, who would not have hitherto thought of supporting them, their only hope.

We still live in the long shadow of 1983. We have been propelled from 1983 to a drastic war which has ruined this country. And today, nine years after the end of this bloodshed, we have not been able to put the Buddhist philosophy into practice and transgress the misfortune of the past which pitted youth against youth as ‘terrorist’ or ‘war hero’. We have not, as Nelson Mandela did in his country after the end of the apartheid, terror, suspicion and victory, given trust a chance.

We have failed to adequately act on the fact that, by May 2009, the LTTE was unpopular among the Tamil people who had to live under their leadership. We have failed to use this comprehension to instil a trust in the Tamil people as opposed to a sense of high handedness by us, the Sinhalese, the victory bearers, and thereby, we have allowed the West to bulldoze us into a brand of reconciliation that has neither soul nor meaning.

Speaking at opulent conference rooms about reconciliation, we have not spiritually or mentally progressed to a level where we bridge the ‘terrorist’ and ‘war hero’ labels to bring unequivocally a change of heart in a people who have been trained by politics, terror and war to think across these lines.

For nine years, we have had events commemorating the war and our dead from each side of the divide. Government leaders have decried the events organised by the ‘terrorists’ to commemorate their war dead. We have then had State-sponsored events to commemorate the Lankan military, the ‘war heroes.’ Why have we not yet had a State-sponsored event to bring together Sinhalese,Tamils and Muslims who have lost their children to guns and terror? Provided such an event was handled with utmost sensitivity and empathy, would that not have been a move towards reconciliation that would have created human bonding irrespective of whatever side of the divide people may have mourned their dead? Why have we not progressed to the level of discussing with the military and the Tamil citizenry soon after 2009 the holding of one commemoration against bloodshed, and thereby begun the enormously difficult journey of healing?

Poetry was an emotional outlet used by both the youth in the LTTE and the Lankan military to get through the mental trauma of war. Why have we missed the opportunity to have a collective poetry exhibition of the youth of our country who suffered in the war, regardless of what label they had, and thereby lead to the long and difficult path towards forgiveness and reconciliation? The question is have we even tried to give depth to the word ‘reconciliation’? If we had, would the nonsensical protesting arguments that ensued over the Sri Lankan National Anthem being sung in Tamil ever have occurred? If reconciliation was truly the aim, would not wisdom have propelled Sinhala politicians to use a well-coordinated consultative process with the Tamils to discuss issues pertaining to land, language and a post-war policy aimed at a people-oriented development in the North-East? Would not such a consultation have isolated from the Tamil masses any Tamil politician who did not give reconciliation a chance?

It is best that this article is ended with the narrative of a Major in the military. This writer was interviewing him for an academic research paper on reconciliation four years ago. He was from Polonnaruwa and his family, kith and kin had suffered inordinately at the hands of the LTTE, who used to invade their village in the night and kill at sight. Despite this, this youth, in his thirties, had no hate in his heart, a more of a trained trait alongside being from a practicing Buddhist family. He was doing an MA in peace studies and was interested in sharing his narrative for my research.

Here is his narrative verbatim:

“I will tell you a story. Stories like this, people won’t get to hear. There are so many accounts like this. This incident occurred around 2008, when I was leading my men and the fighting was bad. We knew there were female cadres who were shooting at us. Somehow, after some time, the shooting from their side ceased. We thought there was no one living. Suddenly, we saw a young woman struggling to reach up to her neck. Her gun was not with her. I quickly instructed my men not to shoot. She was wounded. My conscience told me a wounded person without a weapon should not be shot. She was badly hurt and I could see she feared us and therefore, struggling to reach for the cyanide round her neck. I appealed to her not to do so and not to harm me as I wanted to give her first aid to stem her bleeding so that she could hold on until her people found her. She was very weak. As she collapsed, I gave her water and bandaged her arm and kept some water and other provisions with her. We waited for a while and left as we heard the rebels approach. I still think of that incident. I hope she had survived the war and that she is leading a normal life now.”

How many such stories may there be, living in the minds of Sri Lankan youth who became either members of the military or the LTTE. Would not State-sponsored opportunity for such voices to be heard have brought forth the truth of humanity that is so badly needed in this country? Would not action by the State these past nine years to expedite cases against those held without charge and being accused of LTTE activities have created a sense of normalcy as due in times of peace? Would not the reconciliation process have been helped if, late as it is, the Government took initiative to mourn the 1983 catastrophe and took responsibility where needed? In this month of July, as we recall the heinous beginning of how we pushed the Tamils en masse to the arms of the LTTE, will we ever see policymaking that is based on Buddhist empathy, compassion and wisdom?

( The writer is a columnist for the Dialy FT, Colombo, where this piece originally appeared.)