KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan troops backed by U.S forces gained control of most of the embattled city of Ghazni on Tuesday, officials said, while a Taliban attack in another province raised new questions about Afghanistan’s defences against the insurgency.
After five days of fighting, Ghazni, a strategically vital centre two hours from Kabul on the main highway between the capital and southern Afghanistan was a city of burned-out buildings and vehicles with bodies lying in the streets.
Local officials had been warning for months that the Taliban’s growing control over surrounding districts had left Ghazni vulnerable to attack and President Ashraf Ghani faced bitter accusations over the failure to protect the city.
The government has faced accusations of incompetence, neglect and complacency, as well as anger at its repeated assurances that the Taliban attack had failed, even while hundreds of fighters were roaming at will through the city.
“The government knew about Ghazni very long ago and did little to protect it. “All we heard from officials were lies and deceit and the people know this,” said Etemadi, who added that fighting was still going on.
The assault, which shocked the country, raises fresh questions over parliamentary elections scheduled for Oct. 20 as well as over hopes for peace talks with the Taliban, which had grown following a three-day truce in June.
A senior Taliban official said the attack on a strategic city so close to the capital was intended as a demonstration that the insurgents held the upper hand on the battlefield, which would strengthen their position in talks.
“We wanted to convey a message to the Americans, their allies and the puppet government in Afghanistan that if we want, we can target them anytime and anywhere,” he said.
Hundreds of people have been killed and wounded in the fighting, some of the heaviest seen in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized the northern city of Kunduz in 2015.
ATTENTION EDITORS - VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH A man stands near dead bodies at the compound of Ghazni Provincial Hospital in Ghazni City, Afghanistan in this still image taken from a video by Ariana News on August 13, 2018. Ariana News via REUTERS TV
Government officials said nearly 100 members of the security forces have been killed while the U.S. military said it had carried out more than 30 air strikes that had killed more than 220 Taliban since Friday.
There have been no reliable estimates of civilian casualties but the city’s hospitals have been overwhelmed.
“Bodies of Taliban fighters and police can be seen in the streets. I saw two bodies that were eaten by dogs,” said Abdul Hakim Sulaimankhel, 37, who owns an auto parts shop in Ghazni.
He said shops and a big carpet market had been burned out and a neighbour’s granddaughter had died of illness because her family could not take her to hospital.
“There is no bread and shops have all been destroyed. It will take months for it all to be rebuilt,” he said.
ATTACK IN NORTH
“The Taliban, who falsely and repeatedly claim that they do not target civilians, have executed innocents, destroyed homes, burned a market and created the conditions for a potential humanitarian crisis with this attack,” Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, spokesman for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.
He said some Taliban fighters remained in the city but did not pose a threat and clearing operations were underway by Afghan forces.
While the security forces appeared to reassert control over Ghazni, the Taliban attacked and seized large parts of an army base in the northern province of Faryab, killing at least 10 soldiers and capturing dozens over two days of clashes, officials said.
Mohammad Tahir Rahmani, head of the Faryab provincial council, said the insurgents had seized tanks and ammunition.
Slideshow (5 Images)
“We have not been able to enter the base. Large parts of it are still under the Taliban control,” Rahmani said.
Another official in Faryab said the Taliban had captured 40 soldiers, while 30 militants had been killed.
The Taliban are fighting to expel foreign forces, topple the government and impose their version of hardline Islamic law 17 years after they were ousted by U.S.-backed forces.
The fighting has underlined the struggle security forces have been facing to confront the insurgents, who have steadily extended their control over the countryside even though they have been unable to take and hold a major city.
Western diplomats said the fighting raised questions about the viability of the U.S. strategy to end the war, which for the past year has focused on pressing the militants, largely with more air strikes, to force them to the negotiating table.
An unprecedented three-day truce during the Eid al-Fitr holiday in June and a meeting between a senior U.S. diplomat and Taliban representatives in Doha had raised hopes of further moves but the fighting in Ghazni had dampened optimism.
“The Taliban are asserting themselves on the battlefield even as U.S. officials talk of hopes for peace. War and peace talks cannot happen together,” said one diplomat in Kabul.
Ghazni parliamentarian Chaman Shah Etemadi said the events in Ghazni would destroy confidence in a government which had proved incapable of providing security.
“It doesn’t make much difference if government troops secure full control of Ghazni, it is a disaster - destruction, burned out buildings and panic,” he said. It will be impossible to encourage people to take part in democratic processes like elections.”
Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR; Ahmad Sultan, Writing by Rupam Jain and James Mackenzie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Robert Birsel, Richard Balmforth
Section of motorway bridge comes down during storm in port city in northern Italy
Motorway bridge in Genoa collapses – video report
Angela Giuffrida in Rome and agencies Tue 14 Aug 2018 20.51 BST
Rescuers were continuing to work in extreme conditions late on Tuesday after a bridge collapsed in the northern Italian city of Genoa, killing at least 23 people and injuring 15.
In what witnesses described as an “apocalypse”, an 80-metre section of the Morandi bridge on the A10 motorway came down in an industrial area of the port city during a sudden and violent storm about 11.30am on Tuesday.
The Twitter account for the Liguria region said that of the 23 confirmed dead, 19 had been identified, and 15 people had been injured, the majority seriously.
Luigi D’Angelo, head of the emergency unit at the civil protection service, warned the death toll was likely to rise.He added that the cause of the collapse should be known within hours.
About 30 vehicles, including cars and trucks, were on the affected section of the bridge when it fell 100 metres, mostly on to rail tracks, the fire service said.
Rescuers compared the conditions to the aftermath of an earthquake, as sniffer dogs searched through the rubble and heavy equipment was moved in to lift pieces of the bridge. Heavy rain made conditions more challenging.
Aerial footage showed that the falling structure narrowly missed houses and other buildings as it collapsed over a river.
The disaster occurred on a major artery to the Italian Riviera and to France’s southern coast. Traffic would have been heavier than usual as many Italians were travelling to beaches or mountains on the eve of a public holiday, Ferragosto.
“The scene is apocalyptic, like a bomb had hit the bridge,” Matteo Pucciarelli, a journalist for La Repubblica who lives in Genoa, told the Guardian. “There are about 200 rescuers working continuously. People are in shock, it’s a very important arterial road that connects Lombardy and Piedmont with Liguria.”
Aerial footage shows scale of destruction after Genoa bridge collapse – video
Alberto Lercari, a bus driver, earlier told Corriere della Sera: “I saw people running towards me, barefoot and terrified. I heard a roar. People ran away coming towards me. It was horrible.”
Davide Ricci, who had been travelling south, told La Stampa: “The debris landed about 20 metres from my car. First the central pillar crumbled and then everything else came down.”
Matteo Pierami drove across the bridge with his wife and child, aged two months, almost an hour before it collapsed. The family had been making their way from Lucca, in Tuscany, to the Ligurian town of Imperia. A couple of friends and their baby had been travelling in another car.
“I’ve had some time to calm down and am now trying to understand what happened, but my wife and our friends are very shocked,” Pierami said.
“We didn’t hear or see anything, but after passing the bridge stopped at an Autogrill [roadside restaurant], and started to receive calls from family.”
Aftermath of motorway bridge collapse in Genoa – videoPierami, an engineer, had driven over the bridge many times before. “There was lots of traffic; there is always a lot of traffic there.”
The Italian transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, immediately blamed the collapse on poor infrastructure maintenance and pledged that those responsible “would pay”. The minister, from the Five Star Movement, was rebuked by the opposition for using “political propaganda” so soon after the tragedy.
Giuseppe Conte, the prime minister, arrived in Genoa on Tuesday night and was expected to be joined later by his deputy, Luigi Di Maio.
Conte said: “It’s too early to talk about the causes and hypothesis, but one thing is certain, a tragedy of this kind cannot be repeated.”
The president, Sergio Mattarella, expressed his condolences in a statement, while stressing that Italians should be guaranteed the right “to modern and efficient infrastructure that accompanies everyday life”.
“Now is the time for a common commitment towards dealing with the emergency, assisting the injured and supporting those hit by the pain,” he added. “Then a serious investigation into the cause of what happened must follow. No authority can evade an exercise of full responsibility.”
The Morandi bridge, which was inaugurated in 1967, is 90-metres high and just over 1km long. Restructuring work on the bridge was carried out in 2016. The highway operator said work to strengthen the road foundations of the bridge was being carried out at the time of the collapse, and the bridge was constantly monitored.
Rescuers among the rubble. Photograph: Luca Zennaro/EPA
Andrea Montefusco, an engineering expert at Luiss University in Rome, said: “It’s difficult to make any serious hypothesis right now. Some people are saying maybe lightning could have struck a cable on the bridge, but at this moment it’s too early to say anything about the cause.”
Montefusco, who grew up in Genoa, added: “It [the bridge] was a sort of jewel in Italian engineering, because at that time it was built with new engineering techniques. I used to enjoy passing over the bridge as a child, it was a novelty.”
About 12 bridges and overpasses have collapsed in Italy since 2004, killing seven people between them. In early 2015 a €13m viaduct in Palermo collapsed within days of opening. Poor structural maintenance was identified as the cause in most of the cases.
The Fact Checker is keeping a running list of the false or misleading claims Trump says most regularly. Here's our latest tally as of July 31, 2018.(Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
Because so many of us got it wrong in 2016, we often tend to reflexively tell ourselves that President Trump must be working some kind of hidden magic over public opinion that we’re all missing. One place this constantly manifests itself is with special counsel Robert S. Mueller’s III’s investigation: If Mueller’s approval falls a few points, a throng of pundits and hand-wringing liberals rushes forth to tell us that Trump is “winning” his battle with Mueller.
But what if public opinion about Trump and the Russia probe is a lot simpler than we think? What if the story is that large majorities think Trump is probably guilty of some sort of wrongdoing; believe that Mueller’s investigation is legitimately in keeping with the rule of law and is pursuing matters that are important to the public interest; want Trump to face questioning over these matters; don’t like Trump’s constant attacks on the investigation; and believe Trump has been trying to interfere with the probe and has been steadily lying about it all along?
This morning, Trump is once again raging at Mueller on Twitter, calling for his probe to be shut down. Uh-oh. His base will march in lockstep with him on this, and that’s all that matters! He’s flooding the media zone!! We are doomed to helplessness while his mighty social media presence mesmerizes the electorate!!! He’s winning!!!!
Only 34 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the Russia investigation, vs. 55 percent who disapprove.
58 percent say this is a serious matter that should be investigated, vs. only 37 percent who think it’s mainly an effort to discredit Trump.
56 percent say Trump has interfered with the investigation, vs. only 38 percent who say he has not.
Only 37 percent say the things Trump has said publicly about the investigation are true, vs. 56 percent who say they are false.
70 percent say Trump should testify to Mueller, vs. only 25 percent who say he should not.
57 percent say Trump knew about contacts between his campaign operatives and Russians, vs. only 36 percent who say he did not.
Trump is losing every single public argument about the Mueller probe. His latest, in a tweet citing Judicial Watch, is that the firing of former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who authored texts critical of Trump, shows that the “fundamental underpinnings of the investigation were corrupt.” This is a lie:
The inspector general’s report into all this actually found that the FBI decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton was untainted by bias or politics, completely laying waste to Trump’s narrative. Regardless, this is only the latest in a long string of things that was supposed to “give Trump fodder” to disqualify the investigation, to use that deeply misleading and self-reinforcing journalistic cliche.
Despite President Trump’s tweets, meeting with a foreign power to get ‘dirt’ is not opposition research, argues deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus.(Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
But the fodder is failing, and so are all his lies. Only small minorities believe the probe is a witch hunt; think he hasn’t interfered in it; believe he’s telling the truth about these matters; and don’t think he should testify. And those minorities are largely dominated by Republicans: In all these cases, independents — who matter in midterms — are tilted against him, a trend that other polls have also demonstrated.
It is often suggested that all Trump has to do to “win” is keep his base behind him against Mueller. The idea is supposed to be that this will ensure that House Republicans won’t impeach Trump. But House Republicans are almost certainly never going to impeach Trump, no matter what Mueller finds. The only way Trump will be held accountable, should those findings be very serious, is if Democrats take back the House.
And so, what will matter for accountability purposes is whether Trump’s lies about the Mueller probe are enough to prevent a Democratic takeover. And on this score, the CNN poll is notable: The college-educated white voters who will be so important this fall tilt heavily against Trump: 60 percent say the Russia affair is serious and should be investigated; 61 percent say Trump interfered in the investigation; and 58 percent say he has been lying about it.
Non-college-educated whites, by contrast, side with Trump on these things (though far more narrowly than you might think). Indeed, it’s worth asking whether the Mueller investigation constitutes another matter in what David French calls the “great white culture war.” It’s plausible that college-educated whites see Trump’s handling of the Mueller probe as part of his broader degradation of our democracy and institutions, and see this as very troubling, in a manner that non-college-educated whites (perhaps believing that our system has failed them, thus making them responsive to Trump in the first place) do not.
It is often also suggested that Trump’s attacks on the Mueller probe work by galvanizing his base, which could help keep the House in GOP hands. But here, too, the CNN poll is instructive: While large majorities of Republican voters say the Mueller probe will be important to them this fall, similarly large majorities of Democrats say the same.
I’m not claiming the Mueller probe will necessarily give a big lift to Democratic efforts to take the House. My view is that Trump’s handling of it is part of a broader story about Trumpian self-dealing and corruption and his reliance on the House GOP to shield him from accountability and allow him to act with impunity on many fronts. And the precise impact of the Russia story as part of that broader narrative is hard to gauge.
But there is no evidence Trump’s lies are likely to give the GOP a boost in keeping the House. The Russia story is probably hurting Republicans more than it is helping. Which means that on this score, Trump isn’t “winning” at all.
The country’s strongman plans to step down, but the United States must tread carefully.
A supporter of Congolese leader Joseph Kabila holds a picture of the president outside Parliament in Kinshasa on July 19. JUNIOR D. KANNAH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
BYSTUART A. REID-
In recent years, one of the chief questions in African politics was whether the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila, would “leave through the front door”—that is, step down voluntarily, rather than being forced out through a military coup, an invasion, or even an assassination. After all, since the 75 brutal years of Belgian rule came to an end in 1960, every one of Congo’s leaders has left through the back door. Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was deposed in a coup in 1960, just months after he took office. He was executed soon after that. Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo’s extravagantly corrupt dictator who held power for 32 years, was overthrown by a coalition of rebels and invading armies in 1997. His successor, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Joseph’s father, was assassinated by a teenage bodyguard in 2001. Never in its history has Congo experienced a peaceful transfer of power.
The prospects that it might do so soon grew brighter last week, when a government spokesman announced that Kabila will not stand for elections scheduled for this December. Instead, he has endorsed a candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, from his own party. Kabila has taken an unexpected first step toward walking out the front door. Now, the very same Western governments and international organizations that can claim some credit for pushing him toward the exit should make sure he steps through it—and applaud him when he does.
For years, Kabila delayed a vote that, according to the country’s constitution, was supposed to take place in November 2016. His government made an art of generating excuses for delay, offering laughable constitutional arguments and absurd claims of logistical difficulties—everything short of “the dog ate my ballot.” Kabila co-opted those members of the political opposition he could and sidelined those he could not. Within his own ruling coalition, he ensured that no successor emerged.
The Congolese came up with their own term for Kabila’s stalling tactics, calling them glissement (slipping), but the play for an extra term was part of a regional trend. In recent years, the leaders of Burundi, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda have maneuvered to stay in power long after their constitutions said they should have gone. In Burundi, the president’s push for a third term set off violent riots and a coup attempt. Yet the stakes were always much higher in Congo, a country the size of Western Europe and home to some 83 million people.
As Congo’s electoral timeline stretched longer and longer, the resulting political crisis threatened to engulf the whole country. Armed violence has been a permanent feature of Kabila’s Congo, thanks above all to the weakness of the state, but it had recently become more widespread, and the economy had begun cratering.
And still, Kabila showed no signs of stepping down as president.
Ironically, he never wanted the job in the first place. Kabila was raised in Uganda and Tanzania, where his father lived in exile after giving up on leading a Marxist rebellion in Congo. He therefore spoke little French and even less Lingala, Congo’s most prominent African language, a deficit that would have put a damper on his political ambitions—had he harbored any. As one longtime Africa expert at the U.S. State Department once told me, “Probably his greatest aspiration was to own a fleet of taxis in Dar es Salaam.” After Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s assassination, however, the late president’s advisors settled on Kabila fils as successor during a late-night meeting. “The final hurdle was convincing Joseph himself of the plan,” a U.S. diplomatic cable at the time reported. “This proved to be more difficult than expected as Joseph was initially ‘very resistant’ to the idea.”
Why the change of heart once in office? Fear was one motivation for holding on to power. Kabila was well aware of the violent ends his predecessors met, and out of power, he could have wound up in prison or dead. To step down was to enter the great unknown, and so, for the sake of his personal safety, he chose to temporize.
Money probably played a role in his thinking, too. As detailed in a 2017 report from the Congo Research Group at New York University (published in collaboration with Bloomberg), Kabila’s family has been lining its pockets through a vast and legally complicated collection of businesses in Congo, including luxury hotels, fast-food restaurants, mobile phone networks, and insurance companies. Then there are the far more profitable off-the-books schemes—namely, corrupt mining deals that divert billions of dollars of state revenues into private bank accounts. Congo is the world’s top producer of cobalt and Africa’s top producer of copper, and every year, it exports hundreds of millions of dollars of oil, diamonds, gold, and coltan (an ore used in electronics). There is a lot of cash moving around and little transparency.
As Kabila dug in, he faced greater pressure to leave. He is deeply unpopular—one pollreleased in March found that 74 percent of Congolese wanted him to relinquish power immediately—and protesters took to the streets to express their displeasure, braving live fire from security forces. Youth activist groups gained strength. Kabila responded by rounding up critics and stocking up on water cannons, riot gear, and tear gas. Western governments, for their part, steadily ratcheted up sanctions against Congolese officials, freezing their assets and restricting their travel. In June, the U.S. State Department imposedfresh sanctions and visa bans on several unidentified “senior DRC officials,” and in the last week, the Trump administration signaled that sanctions targeting Kabila’s family and assets would be forthcoming if he formally declared his candidacy.
We may never know precisely which factors weighed most on Kabila’s thinking, but the sanctions clearly hit their targets. Congo’s foreign minister complained about them publicly, and other officials did so privately when meeting with Western diplomats. The United States laid down a sharp redline, making it clear that Kabila had to hold elections before the end of this year. On this front, give credit where credit is due: Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-authoritarian bent, his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has made pushing for a transition in Congo a priority.
Kabila being Kabila, however, one cannot be certain elections will be held until they actually are. Some activists worry that his announcement was merely a way to navigate the immediate crisis posed by the deadline for registering to run, and that he could still find a way to renege on his promise.
And even if elections do finally take place, there is no guarantee they will be free and fair. The last round of elections, held in 2011, were not: Turnout rates in some districts were suspiciously high, and hundreds of thousands of paper ballots disappeared. This time, the electoral commission, whose head is appointed by Kabila, is planning on using electronic voting machines, which could be easier to tamper with. Moreover, popular opposition figures may not be able to run. Moise Katumbi, a former ally of Kabila who served as governor of Katanga province from 2007 to 2015, has been barred from entering Congo after being convicted on charges that are widely believed to be politically motivated. Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of a rebel group-turned-political party, just returned to the country from ten years in The Hague after the International Criminal Court acquitted him of war crimes. He has had his eligibility as a candidate questioned and the road to his house blocked.
Almost certainly, only in a rigged election could Kabila’s chosen successor, Ramazani, win. That would be worrisome: he is a staunch Kabila loyalist whom the European Union sanctioned last year on account of his responsibility as interior minister for rounding up activists and committing other human rights violations. If Ramazani did become president, it’s possible Kabila could continue to pull the strings from behind the scenes, in the way that Vladimir Putin skirted term limits in Russia by serving as prime minister while Dmitry Medvedev was president. Indeed, there is some precedent for such an arrangement in Congo: For five years after Lumumba was ousted, a president held formal office while Mobutu acted as the power behind the throne. And Ramazani seems like good puppet material, since he has no political base of his own.
Yet even if one of the opposition candidates became president—which, to be clear, would be a very-good-case scenario—Congo would not be righted overnight. It will not be easy to strengthen the state and stamp out the county’s persistent conflicts, thus obviating the need for what is currently the world’s largest and most expensive U.N. peacekeeping mission. The problem of violence, while exacerbated by Kabila, predates him, as do the drivers of conflict, including ethnic tensions, foreign intervention, and resource competition.
Nor will corruption disappear anytime soon. Mobutu once admonished officials to “steal cleverly,” and theft is still endemic to Congolese political culture. “Here, if a street kid steals a telephone, a watch, or your voice recorder, he is in prison that same evening,” Jérôme Sekana Pene Papa, a financial journalist, told me in Kinshasa last year. “But someone who embezzles 3 or 5 million dollars? Several weeks later, he’s named to another position.”
Those would be good problems to have. They are many “ifs” down the road. In the coming months, the name of the game for outsiders with influence should be to do everything possible to ensure that elections are held on time and are as competitive as is realistically possible and, above all, to deter Kabila from breaking his promise not to run. That means sticking to clear redlines, not tolerating excuses, calling out any repression, and insisting that global and regional organizations be allowed to monitor the vote.
Once Kabila follows through on his promise, however, the international community will have to change its tune. Some will no doubt call for commissions to prosecute Kabila for the many human rights abuses that have taken place on his watch and for the profligate corruption that has impoverished so many Congolese. Tempting as justice may be, it would be a mistake to try to hold Kabila to account for his disastrous rule.
If the pressure that Western governments and international organizations put on Kabila turns out to have worked, the strategy will have succeeded because it held out the promise of a viable off-ramp for him. Yet if that off-ramp turns out to be a dead end, then future attempts at persuading dictatorial leaders to step down will suffer. Consider the bad precedent that the United States set in Libya: After convincing Muammar al-Qaddafi to eliminate his nuclear weapons program in 2003, Washington helped topple him eight years later, a lesson that is unlikely to be lost on, say, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. If we want dictators to make concessions, then we will have to prove not just that they will be punished for defiance but also that they will be rewarded for compliance.
Mo Ibrahim, the Sudanese-born telecommunications billionaire and democracy activist, once told me that the solution to Africa’s democratic deficit might be to offer presidents-for-life the chance to become monarchs. They would agree to stay out of politics in exchange for the right to continue to live like kings. “If they are interested in the glamour of the office, and the helicopters, and limousine cars, maybe they’ll like it,” he said. Ibrahim was half-joking, but his point was correct: if it takes wasting money and foregoing justice to further the cause of democracy, then that is a tradeoff worth making.
Ever since its independence, Congo has been an international concern. In the 1960s, the country became an active front in the Cold War; in the 1970s and 1980s, the Western-backed dictatorship was a global embarrassment; and in the 1990s and early years of this century, Congo was the site of a bloody civil war involving nine African countries. Kabila’s announcement that he is stepping down represents the most promising sign to date that Congo has a chance of becoming something resembling a normal country, with its fate not imposed from without but chosen from within. Only once the West works itself out of a job will the country enjoy what it has been denied for too long: true independence.
Tamil Nadu has to conserve the water available during the bountiful monsoon period and use it in the drought period.
by N.S.Venkataraman-
( August 12, 2018, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Now, Tamil Nadu is facing an awkward and embarrassing situation, as millions of cusecs of Cauvery water is now being let into the sea due to want of storage capacity.
This is not the first time in recent years that such awkward and unacceptable situation has arisen in Tamil Nadu.
In the year 2005, around 349 tmc of water went into the sea in Tamil Nadu as storage capacity was inadequate. Due to the same reason, between 1991 and 2015, around 1165 tmc of Cauvery water went into the sea via the Kollidam river in Tamil Nadu.
It has been repeatedly seen in the past that in a bountiful monsoon year, around 170 tmc of water was being let into the sea.
Obviously, Tamil Nadu government has not learnt any lessons from past experience to avoid such situation , which obviously highlights the fact that the governance of water resources in the state has been extremely poor and those in charge of governance in the last few decades have shown shocking level of lack of commitment to the highest principles of water management.
While thousands of cusecs of valuable Cauvery water is now being drained into the sea, Tamil Nadu has seen vigorous and violent protests due to water shortage in the last three years due to drought conditions in the delta region. Neighbouring Karnataka state was accused of not providing adequate water to Tamil Nadu and several violent protests and demonstrations were organized by the politicians and farmers associations.
A strange situation is now being seen in Tamil Nadu that the politicians, fringe groups and farmers’ representatives who were in the forefront protesting due to water shortage during the last three years are now maintaining deafening silence about the water going into the sea.
It has been seen that drought conditions and bountiful monsoon conditions are happening in alternative way in the state frequently. Such conditions are likely to continue in future due to global warming conditions , where it has become difficult to predict the bountiful monsoon or drought conditions and the established seasonal periods of monsoon are becoming uncertain and unpredictable.
Obviously, Tamil Nadu has to conserve the water available during the bountiful monsoon period and use it in the drought period.
These are all aspects which are well known but the lack of will of the government and the politicians in power to govern with responsible foresight, competence and commitment is the core issue.
It is not that the knowledgeable people in the state have not provided suggestions to the government about building storage capacities for water and conserving the water resources. Several governments in Tamil Nadu have promised to implement such appropriate steps but nothing worthwhile has happened.
Governments in the past in Tamil Nadu have committed themselves to implement the several projects to interlink the rivers in the state and construct check dams to con serve the water, as given below.
PROJECT
Proposed quantity of surplus water for transfer #
Pennaiyar (Krishnagiri reservoir) with Palar
3.5
Pennaiyar (Sathanur Dam) with Palar
3
Cauvery (Mettur dam) with Sarabanga
2
Athikadavu – Avinashi Flood canal
*
Cauvery ( Kattalai barrage ) with Gundar
7
Check dams in 249 locations
–
Total
15.5
* Two thousand cubic feet per second is sought to be transferred
# ( in thousand million cubic feet)
A decade or so back, the above schemes were announced by the Tamil Nadu government as priority projects and an investment of around Rs.9015 Cr. was envisaged. As Tamil Nadu now lost valuable time due to the non-implementation of the above schemes, at present, the cost could have escalated to around Rs.20,000 cr.
Certainly, an efficient government can implement such meaningful projects in stages in a period of four to five years. The cost of implementing the projects would only be spread to over four to five years and such fund requirement can be well met.
The implementation of the above schemes would go a long way in conserving the water during the monsoon period and use it during the drought season, to prevent the recurrence of the practice of letting surplus water into sea during the bountiful monsoon period.
Apart from the above schemes, Tamil Nadu is endowed with large number of lakes and reservoirs and waterways where substantial storage capacity have been lost due to lack of desilting operations over several years. Even suggestions made by the writer to the government to convert the desilting operations into a people’s movement have not even been acknowledged.
Such suggestions and proposals can be useful, only if there would be a government really committed to the cause of quality governance of water resources.
It appears that it is more than likely that in case of the monsoon failure happening in in the next year, Tamil Nadu would once again suffer from severe water shortage and consequent loss of agricultural crops, with storage dams and waterways remaining almost dry.
No strong protests have been made about such dismal scenario in Tamil Nadu, as both the ruling party and the main opposition party, which have been in power alternately, are responsible for such conditions.
China isn't the only country to enforce population control. With aging population, many governments finding ways to encourage big families. Source: Frame China/Shutterstock
AFTER a government-issued stamp depicting a family with three children was released last week, speculation has been rife that China may finally be putting an end to its infamous attempts at population control.
Suffering a booming population and diminishing resources in the 70s, the communist party implemented the one-child policy that proved incredibly effective in lowering birth rates. It was so effective, in fact, that the country is now facing the opposite problem of a rapidly aging population and a shrinking workforce.
They’re now trying to back-peddle and are considering cash handouts and tax breaks to couples willing to procreate.
China is far from the only government that’s wormed its way into people’s bedrooms. Whether they’re trying to stop it or encourage it, governments across the world have found ways to make your business, their business.
Here are some of the most extreme, effective, and just downright weird attempts at population control.
China
Let’s start with probably the most famous example of population control – China.
The communist party’s overzealous enforcement of its one-child policy has been a point of contention for many human rights groups since its inception in 1979.
The stringent policing of the policy saw women subjected to regular gynaecological examinations, forced abortions, and in some instances, surgical sterilisation.
Family’s are also fined if they violate the policy. While rich couples are able to bear the cost, poor couples suffer.
A woman cycles past a billboard encouraging couples to have only one child, along a road leading to a village in the suburb of the Chinese capital Beijing. 25 March 2001. Source: AFP/Goh Chai Hin
In 2014, Wang Guangrong, a 37-year-old father of four, killed himself after he was told his children could not enrol in the local public primary school unless he paid heavy fines of RMB22,500 (US$3,275) for violating the policies.
The communist party eased the restrictions in 2015 when it allowed couples to have two children – but no more.
It now looks like the scheme might be scrapped completely as China hopes to address social and economic problems created by the strict family-planning policies. A shrinking working-age population could threaten its economic development and a huge gender imbalance has made it hard for many men to get married.
India
India is experiencing similar problems to those China went through during the 70s and 80s. Its population is booming, and the sheer size poses looming pressures on resources and presents an enormous challenge for the government to expand schooling and other services for the growing young population.
Population control has largely been left to state governments to decide on the policies. While some states have reacted with coercion, forbidding parents with more than two children from holding local office or disqualifying government workers from certain benefits if they have larger families, other states have done little.
Maharashtra state offers newlyweds a cash grant of 5,000 rupees (US$72) to wait two years to have their first child.
The little Southeast Asian city-state wins the award for the weirdest approach to baby making.
Rather than trying to curtail population growth, Singapore is trying to encourage it.
With one of the lowest birth rates in the world at just 1.2 births per woman, the total fertility rate has been below replacement levels for over 40 years. And the government has been trying some unusual methods to pick up the pace.
In 2012, they teamed up with Mentos mints to release a song urging people to do their national duty and get down on national day.
Some of the lyrics include: “It’s national night and I want a baby, boo. I know you want it, so does the SDU (Social Development Unit). I ain’t merlion baby, this is national duty. Let me SMS the details of our late night dooty… call. Singapore’s population, it needs some increasing. So forget waving flags, August 9th we be freaking.”
The country has also placed a limit on the number of small one-bedroom apartments available for rent to encourage people to live together and, presumably, procreate.
Family planning policies of the 60s and 70s were so effective in slowing population growth that South Korea now has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
Last year it recorded its lowest ever fertility rate at just 1.05 births per woman. To keep its population level stable, the country needs a fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman.
It is now the fastest aging developed economy in the world with over-65s outnumbering young people. In December, the country recorded more deaths than births for the first time ever.
In an attempt to restore the balance, the government has poured US$70 billion into incentivising child birth over the last decade.
Expectant couples are given 500,000 won bonuses (US$440) to help cover prenatal expenses. For the child’s first year, parents get monthly cash allowances of up to 200,000 won (US$176) – an amount that increases with each subsequent child.
They also set up a universal free childcare policy in 2013 to reduce the financial burden of having a child.
Other perks include subsidised fertility treatments, housing assistance and even free parking and dinner discounts.
Pharmaceutical group Bayer has dismissed claims that an ingredient used in weed killers is carcinogenic.
The German company, which owns agriculture giant Monsanto, says herbicides containing glyphosate are safe.
On Friday, Monsanto was ordered to pay $289m (£226m) damages to a man who claimed the products caused his cancer.
A Californian jury said Monsanto should have warned users about the dangers of its Roundup and RangerPro weedkillers.
Bayer completed its $66bn takeover of Monsanto in June.
A Bayer spokesperson told the BBC the two companies operate independently. In a statement the company said: "Bayer is confident, based on the strength of the science, the conclusions of regulators around the world and decades of experience, that glyphosate is safe for use and does not cause cancer when used according to the label."
The landmark lawsuit was the first to go to trial alleging a glyphosate link to cancer.
The claimant, groundsman Dewayne Johnson, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014. His lawyers said he regularly used a form of RangerPro while working at a school in Benicia, California.
He is among more than 5,000 similar plaintiffs across the US.
Glyphosate is the world's most common weedkiller. The California ruling could lead to hundreds of other claims against Monsanto.
The company said it intends to appeal against the verdict.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
What is glyphosate and is it dangerous?
Glyphosate was introduced by Monsanto in 1974, but its patent expired in 2000, and now the chemical is sold by various manufacturers. In the US, more than 750 products contain it.
However, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) insists it is safe when used carefully.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) also says glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer in humans.
BBC North American correspondent James Cook reported that in California - where a judge recently ruled that coffee must carry a cancer warning - the agriculture industry sued to prevent such a label for glyphosate, even though the state lists it as a chemical known to cause cancer.
Jurors found on Friday that Monsanto had acted with "malice" and that its weed killers contributed "substantially" to Mr Johnson's terminal illness.
Following an eight-week trial, the jury ordered the company to pay $250m in punitive damages together with other costs that brought the total figure to almost $290m.
Mr Johnson's lawyer, Brent Wisner, said the jury's verdict showed that the evidence against the product was "overwhelming".
"When you are right, it is really easy to win," he said.
Image copyrightAFP / GETTY IMAGESImage captionDewayne Johnson reacting to the verdict in a San Francisco court
How did Monsanto react?
"The jury got it wrong," vice-president Scott Partridge said outside the courthouse in San Francisco.
In a written statement, the company said it was "sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family" but it would "continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use".
"Today's decision does not change the fact that more than 800 scientific studies and reviews - and conclusions by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US National Institutes of Health and regulatory authorities around the world - support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer, and did not cause Mr Johnson's cancer," it added.
The recent establishment by the government of an Office of Missing Persons and the draft law on an Office for Reparations provide concrete material that can be shared with the general population at the present time.
By Jehan Perera-August 13, 2018, 9:42 pm
One of the areas in which the present government has been underperforming is in the area of communications. Previous governments have been conscious of the importance of communicating their messages to enable the general public to be informed of their achievements. They have also acted upon that very strong political impulse. There was a cartoon in the early 1990s showing former president Ranasinghe Premadasa emerging from out of multiple television sets. This was at a time when the government had ordered all television stations existing at that time in the country to carry the government news bulletin at the same time. The plethora of television stations of today did not exist at that time and it was easier for the government to compel the few independent television stations at that time to fall into line.
By way of contrast, the present government has been prepared to uphold the freedom of media to the extent that media institutions, including television stations, do not feel intimidated to be critical of the government and supportive of the opposition. The government has also not been fully utilizing the state-owned media to promote the government agenda. It is only in recent times that state media has begun to highlight the government’s achievements in a systematic manner. Nowadays the state media is giving emphasis to the economic development programmes of the government especially in the rural sector. What the government is doing in terms of development in different parts of the country are being communicated in a manner that gives people living in other parts of the country the hope that they too will be beneficiaries in the not-too-distant future. The communication of hope is a necessary one to sustain political support.
However, an area in which there continues to be a lacuna is that of national reconciliation. This continues to be an area of contestation due to the history of war, terrorism and war crimes committed during the campaign to carve out a separate state in the country. Although the war has been over nearly a decade the wounds of war remain unhealed and the divided frames of mind continue to exist at all levels of society, and also within the mass media. The absence of a political solution that would address the roots of the ethnic conflict and the issues of accountability for human rights violations that occurred during the period of the war makes for a potent mix that is being exploited by opposition political parties on both sides of the ethnic divide.
‘AHANNA’ CAMPAIGN
Among the many election slogans of the opposition at the local government elections of February that saw it make significant gains, the issue of the threat posed to the country by separatist forces took a central place in the South of the country, whereas in the North it was the absence of a political solution to the grievances of the ethnic minorities. Addressing the concerns of the people regarding the implications of the reconciliation process requires constant communication with them to counter the polarizing messages of nationalist politicians on both sides of the ethnic divide.
So far the burden of explaining the need for a reconciliation process and the government’s plans in this regard has been left to civil society organisations. The experience of these groups is that the general population is receptive to the need for a reconciliation process. When the government’s plans in this regard are explained to them there is an appreciation of its positive features and their alignment to the national interest. However, the ability of civil society organisations to reach the scale of operations needed for countrywide impact is limited. There has been a need for government-led initiatives that set the tone, gives the necessary official seal of approval and obtains the degree of media publicity in order for the general population to believe that what is being explained to them is also what will happen. One such initiative is that undertaken by the Office of National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR) headed by former president Chandrika Kumaratunga.
This month the government has commenced another awareness creation platform titled "Ahanna" in the Sinhala language ("listen" in English, "kelungal" in Tamil) which is presently engaging with the general population. The programme is being led by the government’s Secretariat to Coordinate Reconciliation Mechanisms in coordination with community police units. They are currently taking two routes from Colombo, one down the Galle Road and the other up the Kandy Road. The word "Ahanna" is more descriptive of what this awareness creation campaign stands for, as it suggests both listening and also asking questions and thereby promotes dialogue between those who are resource persons and the community. The resource persons are drawn from both the government and from civil society.
CONTINUING LACUNA
The ‘Ahanna’ campaign is an indicator that the government takes its mission of national reconciliation seriously and is seeking to mobilise community support for the reconciliation process. The need for the government to give leadership to reconciliation initiatives that bring people belonging to different communities closer to each other is that the answers to their differences cannot come from the communities themselves. The general population is divided on the issue of reconciliation as much as the political parties. There is a need for the government to transcend these ethnic and communal differences and propose those structures of governance in which a reconciled Sri Lankan polity and a Sri Lankan identity can best arise.
There are two important aspects to the reconciliation process that need to be conveyed to the general population. The first is the need for constitutional reform that would embody the principles on which constructive engagement and power sharing between the different ethnic communities will take place. The second is with regard to principles of transitional justice in which issues of past misgovernance and human rights violations are dealt with and reparations made. The recent establishment by the government of an Office of Missing Persons and the draft law on an Office for Reparations provide concrete material that can be shared with the general population at the present time. It is important to note that in taking the reconciliation message to the general population it is also important that a concrete framework for political and constitutional reform is placed before the people.
When the government of former president Chandrika Kumaratunga launched its "Sudu Nelum" campaign on a political solution, it had a concrete framework in terms of a "devolution package" that it had proposed and stood by. By way of contrast, the present government has not yet come out with its political framework for a political solution and constructive engagement between the ethnic communities. So far the government has only presented the different options that its constitutional expert committee has proposed without also stating the options that it will stand behind. Until the government does this, and its leaders champion those specific solutions, the message of Ahanna will necessarily have to be a general one rather than a passionate and committed one.
After five days of fighting, Ghazni, a strategically vital centre two hours from Kabul on the main highway between the capital and southern Afghanistan was a city of burned-out buildings and vehicles with bodies lying in the streets.
“We have not been able to enter the base. Large parts of it are still under the Taliban control,” Rahmani said.
Rescuers among the rubble. Photograph: Luca Zennaro/EPA
