A Pakistani helicopter crossed 700 metres into Indian air space along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch sector on Sunday afternoon. According to reports from Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s prime minister Raja Farooq Haider Khan was travelling in this chopper.
Reuters quoted Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s PM Raja Farooq Haider Khan as saying that his civilian helicopter was fired upon by India. “The Indian army fired to show that Pakistan had violated their airspace,” Khan’s office said in a statement, but added “when the firing took place, we were within our own airspace”.
Khan claimed his helicopter was not armed in any way, and called for calm heads. “We do not want any war hysteria in this region,” he said.
Defence spokesman Lt Col Devender Anand said a white-coloured Pakistani helicopter had violated Indian airspace around noon on Sunday.
It entered around 700m inside the Indian territory and flew over Krishna Ghati sector before returning, he said.
Air sentries at forward locations had engaged it with small arms, a move intended to warn the pilot about the intrusion and force the chopper to turn back. The chopper wasn’t hit.
Defence sources said the chopper flew over Gulpur area across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir’s Krishna Ghati sector at 12:13 pm before returning to Pakistani airspace.
A 30-second video of the chopper flying over Indian airspace was also released by news agency ANI.
The incident comes at a time when relations between the two neighbours are at a low.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had launched a particularly stinging attack on Pakistan at the UN General Assembly on Saturday, accusing it of funding and glorifying terrorists and warning of a “conflagration” if terrorism was not rooted out.
“It has now been decided that our soldiers will give a befitting reply to whosoever makes an attempt to destroy the atmosphere of peace and progress in our nation,” PM Modi said, a message that was widely seen to have been targeted at Pakistan.
In February this year, a Pakistani military helicopter flew dangerously close to the LoC) in Khari Karmara area of Poonch district, where Indian army had foiled an attack by Pakistan’s Border Action Team (BAT) on January 18 killing a heavily armed terrorist.
As Africa seeks new ways to tackle high debt, low pay and inequality, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz believes two countries offer an alternative to the ‘Asian tiger’ model
There’s a speech that the Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has been taking around African countries these past few years.
Last autumn the venue was South Africa’s capital, Cape Town, and the issue was among the most pressing facing the continent: how its economies can grow fast enough to keep up with the world’s most sharply expanding and youthful populations, which will include three-quarters of the additional 4 billion people on the planet by the end of this century.
The Asian miracle of manufacturing export-led growth, he told his audience bluntly, can’t and won’t be repeated in sub-Saharan Africa.
Something different is needed, he said. The question, however, is precisely what.
Stiglitz’s interventions in the debate matter. A series of worrying economic indicators are emerging exactly at the moment of maximum concern over how African countries – and the international aid strategies supporting them – can create sufficient jobs, especially for young people amid a population bulge.
Not least among the various alarm bells that have been rung this year are warnings over faltering efforts to reduce chronic poverty, reflected in the fact that Nigeria – one of the region’s biggest growth economies – has overtaken India in terms of numbers of the very poorest.
Another cause of concern has been the growing indebtedness of African countries, often for costly infrastructure projects backed by China, which some fear may soon be unsustainable.
Instead of the “Asian tiger” model – or even suggestions that African countries could model themselves on China – Stiglitz favours a more complex and multi-faceted appro
ach. The economist
has singled out countries as diverse as the tiny Indian Ocean island of Mauritius – which he dubbed a “miracle” after a visit in 2011 – and Ethiopia.
Turtle Bay in Mauritius has become famed for its ability to attract tourists. Photograph: EyesWideOpen/Getty Images
While Mauritius ticks multiple boxes as a success story in economic development and adaptability, how far its achievements are exportable is open to question.
The island has a population of 1.3 million, political stability and an effective welfare state providing free education and healthcare, but it is also attractive for other reasons. It has a largely bilingual population, with most Mauritians speaking both English and French, and also has ties to India, China and the African mainland.
Historically, it has managed the transition since independence in the late 1960s from reliance largely on a single resource – sugar – through a period of textiles manufacturing in the 80s and 90s to where it is now, emerging as a hub for offshore financial services (some of them murky), call centres and an emerging tech focus combined. All in addition to the tourism for which it is most famous.
Away from the more familiar images of beaches dotted with honeymooning couples, and the expensive second homes of European expats along the west coast, the Mauritian approach is represented by the growing cyber city of Ebene on the outskirts of the capital, Port Louis, where shiny new office blocks housing banks and call centres jostle by the highway.
Pratima Sewpal of the Mauritius Economic Development Board is among those with an interest in promoting tech businesses and services.
“When we started promoting this in 2004 there were some 60 companies,” says Sewpal, “and now we have around 800 companies employing 24,000 people engaged in various activities. The objective is to create 15,000 additional jobs by 2030 through initiatives put in place by the government.”
The core of Cybercity in Ebene, Mauritius, with the Indian Ocean in the background. Photograph: Christopher Schuetze for the Guardian
That, explains Sewpal, has included doubling the size of the university engineering programme and the promotion of “reconversion” courses to encourage graduates from other disciplines to retrain for the service industries.
If there is a catch-22, it is that roughly 24% of 16- to 24-year-olds and 30% of women are unemployed, despite labour shortages and an ageing population with a stagnant birthrate, a problem usually blamed on a mismatch in educational skills.
Moreover, despite the region’s impressive growth in the past 10 years, as the World Bank has made clear, the same decade has also brought a sharp increase in inequality, with the gap between the island’s poorest and the richest 10% of households increasing by approximately 37%.
Akbar Khan is among the more fortunate. Now aged 30, he left school at 13 to work as a casual labourer. He learned to become a car mechanic, earning £2 a day.
His life was transformed by the Halley Foundation, a small organisation run by two lawyers based in his hometown, Nouvelle France. The foundation ran a mentoring scheme to encourage 10 young people a year to establish a business on their own.
“Before joining the scheme in 2015, it was difficult. I didn’t have many prospects, so I wanted to set up on my own. Now I have my own garage and I have four people working for me,” he says.
Many of his friends, he admits, have not done so well. “Some of them are working, in shops and tea cultivation. But others are unemployed.”
Workers unload goods at the Bois Cheri tea factory in Mauritius. Photograph: Sergi Reboredo/Alamy
While Mauritius has unique advantages that have projected the tiny nation to the top of development tables, regionally the challenges, set against the ongoing population bubble, defy simple solutions.
Despite a large potential pool of cheap labour, costs remain higher than in Asia. The long-vaunted demographic dividend, which some had argued would bring growth and jobs to Africa, no longer seems a given. So, how to square the circle of African economic development and job creation?
For Stiglitz, there is no economic deus ex machina waiting in the wings, capable of delivering a sudden surge in jobs and prosperity – certainly not in the form of a new manufacturing boom.
“The basic thing – and it is almost a corollary of what I have been saying about the US – is that global employment in manufacturing is going down because productivity is going up faster than demand,” says Stiglitz.
“There are going to be fewer of those jobs globally. And even if all the jobs in Chinese manufacturing … went to Africa, with the current birthrate it would only fill a fraction of their employment needs.
“It doesn’t mean that manufacturing [in Africa] can’t be an important part of the strategy, as it was part of Asia’s growth – but you have to ask the question: if that doesn’t work, what can work?
“What I have argued is that the reason exports were so important [to Asia beginning in the 1960s] is threefold: it created jobs, created goods for exchange and was the basis of modernisation. There won’t be a single sector or activity that will do all three for Africa, so its approach will need to be more subtle.
“It follows that you need to have a multi-pronged strategy. Some African countries have natural resources, which means they can get foreign exchange – but that won’t create jobs. But there are a variety of sectors that can embed modernisation, including advanced tourism and telecoms.”
Pedestrians pass beneath a giant mobile phone advertisement in Nairobi, Kenya. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
So where else does he see signs of success?
“I think Ethiopia does have an industrial strategy and has been very successful through a combination with modernisation of agriculture.
“Then I think about Rwanda’s attempts to be a hi-tech hub but also develop hotels and conventions.”
Yet even in Ethiopia – perhaps the last great hope in Africa for manufacturing-led development – the chances of success hang in the balance.
Asanakech Dere sits on a wooden stool, carefully tending the beans roasting in front of her. The coffee shop is cramped, with little protection from the rains when they come. Is this the job she hoped for when she decided to move from Ethiopia’s poor southern farmlands to its booming capital?
“Well, it’s much better than working in the factory,” the 22-year-old says matter-of-factly. She can earn more than 3,000 birr (£81) in a good month, more than twice what she used to earn sewing garments in the industrial park nearby. “I’m even able to save money now. I would never go back.”
Since the turn of the decade, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front has pursued industrial revolution with an activist zeal unmatched on the continent. Industrial parks have been built all across this vast country of more than 100 million people, with the government doggedly pursuing big-name international investors to occupy them.
Ethiopia has been touted as Africa’s best bet to replace Asian countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia as the world’s workshop, in large part due to the plentiful supply of cheap labour. Between 2010 and 2016, apparel exports – the linchpin of the government’s strategy rose from $13m (£10m) to $87m.
But if the government is to succeed, it needs to convince young men and women like Asanakech to stick with their new jobs. A recent study of five industrial firms – including a garment maker and a shoe factory – found that only a third of new employees remained in the industrial sector after a year.
In parks like Bole-Lemi, on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, labour turnover has proved especially problematic, with employees often lured away by the prospect of better jobs in the city. Asanakech quit after a year.
But even the newly launched Hawassa industrial park, in the country’s rural and densely populated south, is struggling with this problem.
“Labour is much more footloose and willing to leave than was witnessed in Cambodia and Vietnam,” says Lindsay Whitfield, an Oxford economist who has studied Ethiopia’s apparel sector. “Thus, firms are on the offensive in Ethiopia, trying to keep labour.”
Workers sew clothes at a textile factory in Hawassa industrial park, Ethiopia. Photograph: Tiksa Negeri/Reuters
It is a delicate balancing act. Critics, including the International Trade Union Confederation, have argued that pay is simply too miserly. Wages in Ethiopia’s apparel sector are the lowest in Africa, and there is no legal minimum.
“You cannot live on that amount in Addis,” says Alemu Abebe, a 22-year-old outside the gates of Bole-Lemi, who quit his sewing job for one in construction after only three months. With construction over for now, he’s back looking for factory work. “Maybe it will have changed a bit,” he says, hopefully.
But in the cut-throat world of light manufacturing, there is little room for a pay rise. Although base wages are low – 750 birr in Hawassa, up from 650 birr at the beginning of June 2017 – “non-wage” benefits such as food, transport and accommodation allowances effectively double it, notes Whitfield.
The government is looking at new ways to share these costs with firms, in particular to reduce the cost of housing.
Though it is said to be improving, worker productivity remains far lower than in countries like Bangladesh. The government and donors now need age-old rural attitudes to adapt quickly to the industrial workplace, to which end they are rolling out large-scale programmes.
“Things are really on a knife-edge at the moment,” says Stefano Caria of Bristol University. “There’s a real possibility the firms will decide in the next couple of years that the constraints are just too high.”
Hungary is a frequent sacrificial lamb on the altar of international conflict.
by Michael R. Czinkota-
( September 29, 2018, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) Hungary’s revolution against its Soviet occupiers in 1956 was three generations ago. Back then, Hungarians had come to believe that their uprising would be supported by American might. But no U.S. intervention ever arrived and the Soviet Union employed a tank force larger than the number of tanks used in WWII Germany, to destroy mostly unarmed Hungarians.
Hungary is a frequent sacrificial lamb on the altar of international conflict. Hungarians well remember occupation by the Ottomans and Islam. Those 150 years brought de-population, destruction of land and buildings, uncontrolled migration and major displacement of resources.
On many other occasions, Hungary has been obligated to take risks, invest its manpower and subjugate its own political ambitions for the sake of Western security. The gratitude for such dedication and depletion of resources has been scant. Steps by the West which share resources, offer equal treatment or extension of the partnership are still absent. Hungary continues to suffer from being too close to the East and too far from the West but is damaged in any conflict between the two.
Today one would expect a new era for Europe. Since its founding, the European Union is to be driven by cooperation and cohesiveness which leads to progress for all of its members. Not an easy task since joint undertakings with a large diversity of regions and people require adjustment and flexibility. In a U.S. comparison, the absence of any separation of states or physical altercation is no coincidence but rather the result of bypassing any abyss through thoughtful and restrained approaches. President Trump and his team recognize that ‘hanging together’ presages global capability. And it occasionally may mean biting one’s tongue when it comes to disagreements.
The European Union would do well to learn from the United States. Right now, this large group of states is taking punitive measures against some of its members, particularly those from Central Europe. Sanctions are undertaken to demonstrate displeasure with immigration restrictions, judicial appointments, retirement policies, and the regulation of foreign universities. Hungary and Poland are at the forefront of EU attacks, particularly for restrictions of immigration. Migrant streams rolled into the EU by the hundreds of thousands from Libya, Syria, and Lebanon, via the first open southern borders of Hungary. Hungarian prime minister Orban put an end to it by using EU rules on registration, documentation, and control. Massive human inflow without the ability to understand and plan for the resulting displacements cannot be accepted in a small country with very limited resources.
It turns out that even large nations with many resources cannot disregard the consequences of unplanned for pressures due to unexpected and unrestricted policies. Years after the delimitingvHungarian first steps, Germany is beginning to recognize how fallacious and consequential its missteps are.
One might assume that Chancellor Merkel would express her gratitude for Hungary’s policy and implementation leadership. Alas – the contrary is the case. In EU debates there are always the displeased looks, the invisible barriers and the ignominious ignorance of Hungary and its government. No matter the strong democratic elections and popular support, things in Hungary are seen as ‘just not right’.
EU politics towards Hungary are wrong. Many of the loudly pronounced disappointments are nothing but envious party hacks trying to retain votes in upcoming elections. Some of the EU steps might even reflect an unwillingness to tolerate and develop new approaches and change. The U.S. government should not accept such overpowering opposition to local priorities. Careful examination will demonstrate that Hungary’s actions are, akin to governmental adjustments in the United States, a new direction with a new emphasis. The U.S. should exercise global leadership and help a nation whose democratically elected government moves beyond long-term traditions. “No bullying” also applies to European politics. Member nations have the right to self-determination, particularly after more than one thousand years of history. We should smilingly help them along when they intend to do what has made America so successful.
Professor Czinkota (Czinkotm@Georgetown.edu) teaches International Business and Trade at Georgetown University and the University of Kent in Canterbury. His forthcoming book in October is “In Search For The Soul of International Business.
FILE PHOTO: Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 27, 2018.
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh will consider making changes to a proposed law that journalists and countries such as the United States say could suppress free speech, a government minister said on Sunday after a meeting with a group of editors.
The South Asian nation’s parliament passed the Digital Security Act on Sept. 19, combining the colonial-era Official Secrets Act with tough new provisions such as allowing police to arrest individuals without a warrant.
It would have come into force with the signature of President Abdul Hamid ahead of a general election expected in December.
But Anisul Huq, Bangladesh’s law, justice and parliamentary affairs minister, said the concerns will be raised in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet. He did not say when that could happen.
“We had a detailed discussion with representatives of the Editors’ Council and took serious note of their concerns,” Huq told Reuters.
“We assured them that if the cabinet agrees, then we may make some amendments. We will also take some measures to make (some of the contentious) sections clear that those will not target the journalist community or silence their voices to reveal the truth.”
The government will again meet with the journalists once the matter is taken up in cabinet, Huq said.
Matiur Rahman Chowdhury, who attended the meeting in his capacity as editor of the Bangla daily Manab Zamin, said: “It’s a rare instance that after passing a law in parliament the cabinet has agreed to sit again to discuss that.
“For now, we are not going to hold any protest or movement as the minister has promised to do something positive. We will wait until that cabinet decision.”
U.S. CONCERN
The proposed law stipulates a maximum jail sentence of 14 years for espionage if an individual is found secretly recording information with electronic instruments inside a government building or for spreading “propaganda” against Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan.
A further element journalists have opposed is the inclusion of the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which includes a 14-year sentence for sharing state secrets with an enemy.
Since Hasina’s election victory in 2009 scores of people, including journalists, have been jailed in Bangladesh for criticising the government on the internet. A Bangladesh court this month rejected bail for prominent social activist and photographer Shahidul Alam, who was arrested last month for spreading “propaganda and false information” during widespread student protests.
The proposed law has also attracted strong criticism internationally.
“The United States shares the concerns of the international community that the recently passed Digital Security Act could be used to suppress and criminalise free speech, all to the detriment of Bangladesh’s democracy, development and prosperity,” the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh, Marcia Bernicat, said in a statement on Sunday.
“We encourage the Government of Bangladesh to consider changes to the law that would bring it into conformity with the Bangladesh constitution and with Bangladesh’s international commitments on human, civil and political rights.”
The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, meanwhile, held a public meeting in Dhaka on Sunday,
attended by tens of thousands of people, to demand that former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia be released from jail.
Khaleda was jailed in February for five years on what BNP describes as trumped-up corruption charges, an allegation the government denies, citing court independence.
Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by David Goodman
At least 800 people are dead after devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Indonesia on Sept. 28. At least 200 aftershocks have hit the area since the quake.(Amber Ferguson /The Washington Post)
JAKARTA — The death toll on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi from twin disasters, a major earthquake and the tsunami that followed, jumped to more than 800 on Sunday as rescue workers began to take stock of the wreckage — pulling out survivors buried under the rubble from a collapsed hotel, treating patients in tents and racing to get food and water to survivors.
Most of those killed were in the city of Palu, a spokesman for Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said during a news conference Sunday. But just 11 deaths were reported from Donggala, a town of 300,000 that has been largely cut off from rescuers, with poor communications. Officials have warned that the death toll could rise to the thousands.
“The death toll is believed to be still increasing since many bodies were still under the wreckage” and others were out of reach, Nugroho said. The dead, he said, either drowned when the tsunami hit or were killed by collapsed buildings and rubble.
Photos on his Twitter account show bodies lined up in bags, as police begin the grim task of identifying them and reporting to their families. Victims are being buried in mass graves, but all victims will later be “buried properly,” Nugroho said.
A 7.5-magnitude earthquake triggered the massive tsunami Friday evening that crashed into Palu, Donggala and the surrounding settlements. Officials on Sunday shared chilling videos and photos on social media of land “liquefaction” in the wake of the disaster, during which the soil turns into something akin to quicksand and drags buildings into it.
Even as relief efforts were underway, questions remained about the apparent failure of a warning system and a tsunami alert that was quickly dropped by the Indonesian geophysics agency.
The scene after an earthquake and tsunami strike Indonesia
View Photos
A 10-foot tsunami was triggered late Friday afternoon by a 7.5-magnitude earthquake and quickly hit the two cities and nearby settlements, about 800 miles northeast of Jakarta.
In the city of Palu, rescue teams were evacuating almost 50 people trapped in the ruins of the Roa Roa Hotel, a 50-room, eight-story building that collapsed after the earthquake. Several people were pulled out alive, and rescuers could hear the screams and cries of others throughout the night and see lights shining from cellphones underneath the rubble. A correspondent for a local newspaper wrote on his Facebook page that at least three other hotels with guests in them have also collapsed. Heavy equipment able to move rubble was on its way to the city.
Traumatized victims, many of whom were sleeping in tents and being treated for injuries outside their homes, continued to be shaken by aftershocks. At least 200 have hit the area since the quake, according to local officials.
Whenever there are aftershocks, people have “become panicked, running away with some yelling ‘Tsunami!’ ” said Radika Pinto, a manager in Palu for World Vision, a Christian aid group.
A drone camera shows a collapsed mosque in Palu, Indonesia, on Sunday. (Str/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Hungry survivors have been going into unstable shopping centers to take food, clothing and water. Adding to the chaos, local media outlets have reported that a prison wall collapsed, setting free hundreds of inmates.
The head of Palu Penitentiary, Adhi Yan Ricoh, told the Indonesian magazine Tempo that more than half of the 560 inmates at the prison escaped.
“At that time, the electricity went out, and there were only a few officers,” Adhi said. “They also panicked and tried to save themselves.”
Nugroho, the disaster agency’s spokesman, said a Hercules C-130 plane was deployed to the area to evacuate the hordes racing to get out of the city. Water, he added, was an urgent need.
“The water turned turbid and cannot be consumed. Clean water is an urgent need for the people of Palu,” he said.
People survey damage outside a Palu shopping mall. (Tatan Syuflana/AP)
Thousands of homes, hotels, shopping centers, hospitals and other public facilities were damaged, Nugroho said. Hospital patients in Palu are being treated outside to avoid the danger of aftershocks.
International relief agencies were just starting to reach the area on Sunday, after hours-long overnight drives through landslide-prone areas and badly damaged roads. Dozens of calls made to residents and hotels in Palu were unsuccessful, an indication that widespread communication outages continue.
Nugroho blamed the rising death toll on a lack of warnings and “limited shelter and spatial planning.”
“There is no sound of siren,” he said. Hundreds of people who were gathered on the beach for a festival didn’t know there was tsunami risk, he said.
The head of Indonesia’s geophysics agency, Dwikorita Karnawati, said her agency immediately issued a tsunami warning after the earthquake. The agency estimated the tsunami would occur at 5:22 p.m. local time. But it ended the tsunami warning at 5:36 p.m., prompting criticism that it was lifted too soon. Officials say the tsunami had struck by the time the alert was removed.
“We ended the tsunami warning when the tsunami happened,” Karnawati said.
Videos circulating online showed residents still milling around the beach, unconcerned, as those on higher ground tried to warn them.
Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.
People evacuate on an air force plane in Palu. (Antara Foto/Reuters)
Dr Camille Lasalle, who carried out the analysis with colleagues at University College London, said the evidence so far pointed to the idea that the foods we eat can make a difference in lowering our risk of depression, even though there is no solid clinical proof yet.
Mood food
Explaining the link between mood and food is tricky.
There are lots of other factors that may be involved.
Being depressed can cause loss of appetite, and someone who is feeling low might not look after themselves so well
Happy people may be more likely to lead healthier lifestyles (not drinking too much alcohol - a known mood depressant)
It might be that eating bad foods - lots of sugar and highly processed foods - increases the risk of depression, meaning eliminating these from your diet is important
Without tightly controlled trials, it is unclear how big an impact following a Mediterranean diet might have.
'More trials needed'
Prof Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, recommended "a heavy dose of caution".
"Whilst eating healthier is good for many reasons, we need more evidence before we can say plant-rich diets can improve mental health," he said.
"The only way to prove whether the links are genuine is to conduct large randomised trials in people at risk of depression. Such trials would take considerable effort but seem worthwhile to conduct."
Stephen Buckley, from mental-health charity Mind, said it was good advice to eat a healthy diet, get regular physical activity and cut down on "mood-altering products, such as sugar, caffeine and alcohol".
"It's widely accepted that there's a strong connection between what we eat and how we feel, with blood-sugar levels affecting our mood and energy.
"If you are experiencing depression or anxiety, it might be hard to focus on your health, or you may resort to unhelpful coping strategies, such as drugs or alcohol.
"If this is the case, you might benefit from other forms of treatment such as medication or talking therapies."
Research into the traditional Mediterranean diet has shown it may reduce our risk of developing conditions like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and raised cholesterol, which are all risk factors for heart disease. Researchers have also found that people who closely follow a Mediterranean diet may live a longer life and be less likely to put on weight.
A typical Mediterranean diet includes lots of vegetables, fruits, beans, cereals and cereal products, for example wholegrain bread, pasta and brown rice. It also contains moderate amounts of fish, white meat and some dairy produce.
It is the combination of all these elements that seems to bring health benefits, but one of the key aspects is the inclusion of healthy fats.
If you're worried about your mental health, speak to your family doctor.
Sri Lanka’s president handing over the task of determining the fate of thousands of forcibly disappeared Tamils, to a group of ruling party politicians has cast doubt on the government’s political commitment to deliver justice to victims.
P
PRESIDENT MAITHRIPALA SIRISENA
resident Maithripala Sirisena has appointed a ten-member cabinet committee to implement urgent recommendations of the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) meant to address the issue of enforced disappearances.
“There are also concerns that the appointment of this sub-committee could be a delaying tactic to further undermine the process, especially as there is no timeline given for its activities,” says the Johannesburg based International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) in a press release containing damning evidence of the the dismal human rights record of two of the committee members.
Put together by ITJP, the human rights credentials of the head of the cabinet committee, Wijayadasa Rajapakshe and another member Mahinda Samarasinghe raises questions about their suitability for the job.
“Is the Sri Lanka Government serious about its Office of Missing Persons?” asks ITJP.
'Terrorist propaganda'
Most recently, Minister Samarasinghe rejected any suggestion that rebel Tamils who surrendered to the military were killed despite a member of parliament from his own party saying otherwise.
ITJP recalls that the minister has previously denounced reports of enforced disappearance as terrorist propaganda and outrightly dismissed the idea that Tamils disappeared after surrendering at the end of the civil war.
“A
MAHINDA SAMARASINGHE
ppointing individuals like Mahinda Samarasinghe appears to be a deliberate attempt to subvert the entire process, which is already struggling for legitimacy with many Families of the Disappeared. It is also extremely offensive for the families, many of whom handed their loved ones over to the security forces at the end of the war never to see them again,” said the ITJP’s Executive Director and transitional justice expert, Yasmin Sooka.
As Human Rights Minister during the Rajapaksa Government, Mahinda Samarasinghe continuously defended their record and continues to deny state wrongdoing to this day.
“His appointment does not show political commitment to establishing the truth about enforced disappearances,” said Yasmin Sooka.
ITJP also questions the appointment of Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa as head of the cabinet committee.
His record on “minority affairs, alleged support for religious extremists and intolerance of freedom of expression and homosexuality hardly make him the right person to oversee the implementation of a rights-based approach to disappearance,” says ITJP.
ITJP has already documented more than 300 cases of those who did not return after their surrender to the Sri Lankan military in 2009 May.☐
Returning from Malaysia this week, correspondence with a now retired and respected diplomat focused on the ravages that the Malaysian people has had to go through including the gruesome instance of a Malaysian deputy public prosecutor whose body was discovered in a cement-filled oil drum dumped in a river. He had apparently been investigating corruption involving the former Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife, Rosmah Mansor when he had been abducted and later, found killed.
The Bar is duty bound to look at reforms
The deputy prosecutor had been part of a probe by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigating financial irregularities involving a state-backed investment fund and other issues. The former Prime Minister had, during 2015, sacked the attorney general along with senior police chiefs, transferred the deputy head of the police special branch intelligence division and summarily dismissed a special parliamentary committee on corruption while intimidating the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and slapping critics with sedition charges. The killing of the deputy prosecutor is now being investigated afresh in the wake of a celebrated general election in May 2018 which tossed out Najib from political power.
It must be said that despite all the turbulence that had afflicted Sri Lanka during past decades, it had not reached that level of upheaval resulting in threats to the lives of state prosecutors. For that, we must be devoutly thankful. However, this is not to say that we have not had our own problems to deal with, mainly focusing on the integrity of the functioning of the Office of the Attorney General. This issue re-surfaces this week with news reports that a lawyer had complained to the Magistrate’s Court saying that he had been intimidated by two senior officers of the Department of the Attorney General. The allegations present a serious dilemma that has wider ramifications beyond the single case or indeed, the single issue of the professional independence of lawyers in Sri Lanka. Rather it goes to the core of the integrity of the criminal justice process in the country.
As reported, the complaint was that the lawyer had been told by the two state prosecutors that action would be taken against him on allegations that he had coached his clients to give false evidence unless he provided certain documentation in relation to investigations connected to the now infamous bond scam involving a company linked to Perpetual Treasuries under investigation. This was on the basis that the clients had apparently stated that they were asked to give false statements to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) by the lawyer (the Daily Mirror, 27/09/2018).
The state prosecutor under scrutiny
It is this allegedly suggested quid pro quo that is scandalous in every sense of the word. While the ongoing inquiry in the Magistrate’s Court will examine these allegations, the very fact that such a charge has been laid against the state prosecutor is unprecedented. It reminds us that essential reforms in the criminal justice process encompassing the Office of the Attorney General must be part of the package of pending law reform along with the enactment of a contempt of court law. Indeed, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka is duty bound to pursue these twin points of reform. But it seems to be noticeably and studiedly inactive on these matters.
Certainly the Office of the Attorney General has rarely been free from controversy in recent decades. During the Rajapaksa Presidency, there were unseemly attempts to withdraw charges by the Attorney General in criminal cases involving prominent politicians and other public figures. In some cases, the Court refused to accept a mere application by the Attorney General for withdrawal and correctly put the matter in issue by insisting that grounds should be furnished as to why charges are being withdrawn after a trial has commenced, the adequacy of which will be tested by the Court.
But the politicization of the office of the Attorney General in Sri Lanka had had a longer precedent than this. One example was the enforced disappearance and brutal slaying of media personality Richard de Zoysa. His mother attested to the identification of one of the abductors as a Senior Superintendent of Police who was thereafter ordered to be arrested by the magistrate. But the police with the compliance of the then officers of the Attorney General did not carry out the arrest. Later, the Attorney General declined to proceed with the case on the spurious basis that evidence was lacking. This refusal was castigated by the Liberal Party at that time, among others, which accused the government of a cover-up.
Judicial reprimands to the AG
Under the Kumaratunge administration, state law officers were implicated in cover-ups of the investigations into civilian massacres in connection with the then ongoing war in the North and East. There were rare exceptions to this pattern as in the Krishanthi Kumaraswamy case where a persevering prosecutorial team successfully prosecuted the rapists and killers of a schoolgirl along with her mother, brother and a neighbour.
But throughout, the functioning of state prosecutors has attracted public scrutiny in unfortunate ways. Meticulous documentation is on record in respect of several ‘sensitive’ cases in regard to which the due diligence of the state prosecutor has been questioned. Prosecutions under the Convention Against Torture and Other Inhuman and Degrading Punishment Act No 22 of 1994 exemplifies this pattern where the High Courts themselves have, on occasion, reprimanded the officers of the Attorney General for lapses in prosecutorial due diligence. The Supreme Court has theoretically asserted its right to examine and critique the actions of the Attorney General but this manner of judicial review has not been actually used.
This is in contrast to other jurisdictions where it has been categorically asserted that where prosecutors depart from pre-existing policies or guidelines in the exercise of their discretion, they will be held accountable. If an applicant is able to establish that the Attorney General is guilty of abusing the process of court or acting in an oppressive manner towards the individual, the court would exercise judicial review. The caution is that such powers are not unfettered.
Structural reforms of the AG’s Office
Whether these allegations that have reportedly been made are substantiated or not is up to the Magistrate’s Court to determine. However, irrespective of the same, public discussions in Sri Lanka as to the manner in which the office of the Attorney General must be structurally reformed must take place. The discretion vested by statute in the Attorney General must be exercised fairly.
For it is important to note that the immunity from liability afforded to the Attorney General is limited and qualified. It is only applicable if the holder in the office acts reasonably and without malice and without culpable ignorance or negligence. The discretion must be exercised in a quasi-judicial way and not arbitrarily, oppressively or in a manner contrary to public policy.
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The Bar is duty bound to look at reforms