US will lose the trade war – but the whole world will suffer

Cargo ships (C) hold shipping containers as other containers sit at the Port of Los Angeles, the nation's busiest container port, on September 18, 2018 in San Pedro, California. Source: Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP

 11th October 2018

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s moves to hinder the rise of China’s economy and reverse the trade deficit is “ill-advised” and will only cause the US to “suffer more” in the long run, Alibaba’s head executives said Wednesday.

Speaking at the South China Morning Post’s (SCMP) China Conference in Kuala Lumpur, CEO Jack Ma said he didn’t understand the logic behind Trump’s approach of imposing tariffs on huge numbers of Chinese imports.

The business mogul also pointed out that America has benefitted from its trade relationship with China, predominantly due to outsourcing jobs to Asia’s biggest economy.

Despite fearing the tactics would damage global trade, Ma said he still remained “optimistic.”
SEE ALSO: US-China Trade: Are we heading for the next cold war?

Citing America’s US$350 billion trade deficit with China, and Beijing’s intellectual property theft, Trump has mounted up tariffs on large chunks of Chinese imports, causing the global economy to slow.

On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report setting the world’s projected economic growth for 2019 at 3.7 percent. This signals a slowdown after it was lowered by 0.2 percent from original projections, due in large part to Trump’s policies.

“The forecast for 2019 has been revised down due to recently announced trade measures, including the tariffs imposed on US$200 billion of US imports from China,” reads the World Economic Outlook report.

The measures have also slowed China’s economy, dropping to 6.2 percent growth from a previously anticipated 6.6 percent.

Ma’s second in command at Alibaba, Joe Tsai, went further in his criticism of US tactics, saying Washington was pushing the sides into a “cold war or geopolitical war.”


“I think what the United States is doing is a reaction to an unfounded fear that China’s rise is somehow going to threaten the national security and well-being of the American people,” said Tsai, as reported by SCMP.

This fear was unfounded, Tsai said, due to the full integration of national economies; the only result would be global suffering.

“It is really ill-advised for the United States to launch a war of some sort targeting China thinking that they can treat China like the way they treated Russia by isolating the economy and bringing on pain,” Tsai said.

“We are so integrated that the pain is going to be felt all over the world. Everybody is going to feel the pain.”

But Trump shows no signs of slowing down his campaign. On Tuesday he repeated his threat to slap tariffs on an additional US$267 billion of Chinese imports if Beijing retaliates.

SEE ALSO: Fears of global trade war spark steep drop in business confidence

He also signaled the two sides were not close to reaching a deal despite months of negotiations.

“China wants to make a deal, and I say they’re not ready yet,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“I just say they’re not ready yet. And we’ve cancelled a couple of meetings because I say they’re not ready to make a deal.”

The White House has upped the ante in their disapproval of China in recent weeks, taking the criticism beyond just trade.

Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence very publicly accused Beijing of trying to tamper in the US mid-term elections to harm Trump’s chances of success.

China was forced to deny the accusations at the United Nations General Assembly, but Trump’s administration has not given up on the accusation, despite offering no evidence to support their claim.

Bangladesh: We have not come here to cry, but with the lasso of gibbet

We were made shattered; a ruined soul now exists where a whole person once was. I break plates and glasses, smashing them for release; the fractured pieces litter the floor and we can’t help but relate to each broken fragment.

---

by Anwar Khan-Oct 8, 2018

( October 8, 2018, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 of Dhaka fixes October 10, 2018 to deliver the verdict of the 21 August 2004 grenade attack cases. We hope the perps responsible for the heinous act would get due punishment.

The state shopped role under the past Begum Zia government and its confederates in the bloodletting by grenade attack on that day has been described as a final solution and mow down. The assault launched on at an anti-terrorism rally organised by Awami League at Bangabandhu Avenue, Dhaka on the afternoon of 21 August 2004 dissenting bangs against its party’s workers in Sylhet. As Hasina terminated her speech, 13 virile grenades were blasted into the crowd from the rooftops of nearby buildings. The splurge left 24 dead and more than 300 bruised. It was actioned after Sheikh Hasina, the-then leader of opposition which ended up accosting a brobdingnagian assemblage of citizenry from the dorsum of a motor-truck.

In March 2012, the son of opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia, Tarique Rahman, and 28 others were adjudicated in absentia for their swanned affaire in the attacks. The charge sheets also charged Huji, authoritative leaders of the BNP and the Jamaat, including former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, former member of parliament Kazi Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad and some officials of police department of the Home Ministry, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), National Security Intelligence (NSI) and Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) with amour in the contriving of this grenade blasting.

The list of the 19 fugitive accused has been forwarded to the Interpol seeking help to capture them as they are believed to be obliterating in different countries, according to the news agencies. Of the 19 fleers criminated, Tarique Rahman is now staying in London, Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad is believed to be in Saudi Arabia, owner of Hanif Enterprise Mohammad Hanif is in Kolkata, Maj Gen (retd) ATM Amin in America, Lt Col (retd) Saiful Islam Joarder in Canada, Babu alias Ratul Babu is in India, Anisul Morsalin and his brother Mohibul Muttakin in an Indian jail and Maulana Tajul Islam in South Africa, intelligence sources have said. Jamal Ahmed, also known as Joj Mia was hauled into giving a fictive penitence by security forces during the-then BNP reign.

This horrific attack prompted international outrage and a groundswell of support for the capture of those vile perps. It is strongly believed the whole thing was a screwed-up bumble, a long-drawn-out confederacy of camarilla by the state shopped whined by Khaleda Zia regime and her cronies. The AL protestation rally met with brutal repressions. It was one of the darkest periods in Bangladesh’s history. A number of bodies were found piled in the mass gathering place and literally blown up. It was basically…a breakdown in the political regime ran by the-then PM Khaleda Zia and her paisanos.

Bangladesh was just then made about a banana republic. The dumbest thing they ever did. As for the Bengali nation, it needs charity neither from arrant like politicians nor from any other rogue politicos. It wants only its rights! It will secure for itself this right to life even if thousands of mendacious and fusty hoi pollois conspire against it.

But 14 years are on and we are still waiting. We fight, we cry, we scream and we are waiting. We wake up afraid to open our eyes being afraid to start our day; afraid who or what will trigger it; afraid every minute; we are waiting. We are afraid to walk out the door; afraid of who is out there; afraid of what will happen; afraid that we may not escape; but we are waiting. We are afraid to close our eyes; afraid of what we will see, hear; afraid of what we will dream; afraid of screaming; afraid we won’t wake up in time, but we are waiting. We are afraid to start a new day; and we are waiting.

Those are pieces of dead bodies of our near and dear ones but they are not our whole. We are more than this flesh and blood. Our skin does not portray who or what lies beneath. Our expressions do not necessarily show how we really feel and our eyes do not allow us to see the depths of our souls. We are no longer an object of someone else’s will. We are not prisoners of our minds or bodies. While a simple smell, touch or sight may trigger a memory, we no longer allow our senses to control the us that we have become.

While all of these pieces are built together may seem disjointed, they are the us we were always meant to be; the us we deserve to be. We are a collage of many pieces. Separately the picture alone has no meaning or significant worth, but together it forms a beautiful and distinct representation of something bigger and better than its original piece.
The puzzle is finally to be finished. It took more than 14 long years in the making. It is an eclectic montage of who we are and all that we aspire to be. A survivour, a daughter, a wife, a daughter-in-law, a sister, a granddaughter, a niece, a mother, a teacher, a pacifist, a perfectionist, a romantic, and a bleeding heart liberal! We are the us we are meant to be. The pieces have slowly come together to create a gruesome picture of who we were. The pieces cannot be reconfigured to change the ultimate image; and our picture of our past will always be the same. The difference now lies in how we view ourselves and our future.

We were made shattered; a ruined soul now exists where a whole person once was. I break plates and glasses, smashing them for release; the fractured pieces litter the floor and we can’t help but relate to each broken fragment. We are the broken vase that lies on the floor, the spilled water decorating the tile with the tattered roses begging for life. The body is soft and supple able to absorb blows. Identities are fragile and difficult to repair. We are destroyed. We have put the pieces back together with glue-that’s progress- but the glue is still curing and the pieces don’t fit together quite right. We are not okay. We work with available light to mend the fractured soul like plates we are the product of human efforts. They made us shattered on that late afternoon.

Wounded and broken, Sheikh Hasina has raised hands clenched, her face pointed up toward the sky; tears sting her eyes but she willed them away resolving once more she would not see us cry. She looked in the eyes of our own people, knowing her pain had become part of them with soft words to offer them comfort; she gives of herself as she was almost dying within. Swiftly she put things in order, washed the blood and got on with her day. But each time is worse than the last time, and it’s getting much harder to mask how she feels; some make-up would fix up the outside, but inside it seems like the wound never heals. We promise you that we were frightened. We swear to our people that she never asked for this pain.

Sometimes when you get dragged down too far, it just gets so hard to get back up again. Let us show her the kindness of strangers as strangers so often turn out to be friends, then, as friends we can guide her to freedom; and rejoice in the person she becomes – when the pain finally ends. Today is the day where we will let you go like ashes into the wind. Today we will set the past on fire and all things that remind us all. We want you to know that we are not mad at you for moving on with your life. Time will not stand still. We understand you are not the same as you used to be. Today there might be in tears, but we would never wish you, PM Hasina, harm because that would mean we still care, but we will never forget our past.

Today we will let you go with looking back. The grenade attack on that day has been one of the heinous crimes in our history. The massacre is unpardonable. Coward is the word for those who attack the country’s peaceful rally and tranquility. We stared dumfounded at our TVs as appalling scenes of …Bangladesh was being attacked by a known enemy. All we could do was to watch then with a horrific mind. Bangladesh’s people, all of us share in the sorrow of this hideous massacre of innocent people. In one way or another, this tragedy affected all civilised people across the country. A tribute must go to the innocent victims and the heroes of 21st August 2004. We Remember! It was a repugnant and cowardly act of terrorism against innocuous civilians.

We shall never pardon the brutal gang violence busted by those keratoscleritis. As I look back, I am filled with foreboding…I seem to see the River Padma foaming with much blood. After 14 years of grenade barbarity, the families of victims and I still have as many questions as we did when we first learnt of the tragic loss of so many lives. We will not rest until our questions have been satisfactorily answered and unless and until, those perpetrators are hanged to death.

The grenade assault carried through was manifestly aimed at ingeminating carnage of 1975. Sheikh Hasina has urged all to remain alert so that killers and anti-liberation force can never come to power again. And at a time that the country is trying to develop…, the perpetrators must be dealt with firmly to send a strong message to would-be perpetrators of violence. Campaign rallies should be platforms of preaching peace rather than inflicting violence, yet scores of innocent people were needlessly murdered and injured in the fracas. It is also important that as a country, we strengthen the culture of peace and dialogue as a way of resolving our differences than resort to cowardly acts of violence. But the dialogue must not be with anti-Bangladesh liberation force and their mango-twigs. This message must be sent loud and clear.

-The End-

The writer is a senior citizen of Bangladesh, writes about politics, political and human-centred figures and international affairs.

Starvation and Child Soldiers: On the Ground in Yemen

International Rescue Committee chief sees the devastation firsthand and calls on the United States to end support for the Saudi-led coalition.

Families wait for care at a health center in Yemen in September. (Courtesy International Rescue Committee) 

BY LARA SELIGMAN

 | OCTOBER 9, 2018, 4:38 PM

In health centers across Yemen, children are weighed and measured for signs of severe malnutrition. At checkpoints from Sanaa to the port city of Hodeida, child soldiers stand guard, knowing full well it is American bombs that are falling from the skies.

These were some of the scenes that David Miliband, the president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), witnessed during a September visit to Yemen, where a civil war has raged since 2015.

“There is undue risk being posed to civilians because of the fact that this is a war being conducted from 20,000 feet,” Miliband said in an interview with Foreign Policy. “The excesses of the Houthis do not excuse the flouting of international humanitarian norms.”

Yemen’s infrastructure and civilian population have been decimated by the war between Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led and U.S. military-supported coalition of Gulf states. With 22 million civilians in need of humanitarian aid and nearly 10 million facing famine by the end of the year, Yemen has been called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. More than half the population does not have access to drinking water, and according to UNICEF, a child in Yemen dies every 10 minutes from illness and starvation.

Miliband, who is also a former member of the British Parliament, arrived in Yemen soon after the most violent month this year for civilians and one of the deadliest since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015. In total, 450 civilians were killed in the first nine days of August, and many more are at risk of dying of starvation or preventable conditions, he said.

Illness is also a significant threat, Miliband stressed. Yemenis lived through the worst cholera outbreak in modern history last year, with more than 1 million cases (over half of which were children). While the mass outbreak was stemmed, the cases of cholera havetripled in Hodeida since the coalition launched its offensive in June, according to reports.

“When the war has been going on for so long, three and a half years, with no real movement in the front line, you realize that the so-called stalemate is far from static—it is actually imposing enormous human suffering,” Miliband said.

The IRC has one of the largest humanitarian operations in Yemen and has been able to reach 1 million people across the country with about 800 staff working in both Houthi- and government-controlled areas. Miliband’s staff is training Yemenis to provide essential services.

“It’s really important to understand that aid workers are local people,” Miliband said. “We are hiring in vast bulk Yemenis and local people, and we train them, and they then have local intelligence, the local credibility, the local consent to be able to do their work.”

But the blockade of Hodeida, where 70 to 80 percent of Yemen’s commercial and humanitarian imports enter the country, means that aid workers do not have enough medicine, fuel, or essential items to do their work. Not only does the blockade obstruct access to food and medicine, but it also means that the cost of fuel is skyrocketing, making it vastly more difficult for IRC staff to travel around the country. Meanwhile, humanitarian workers have had a hard time obtaining the necessary permits required to pass safely through checkpoints due to bureaucratic red tape.

Of course, the workers themselves also face violence on both sides of the conflict. During his trip, Miliband heard from staff members about the risk of being targeted by missile strikes or setting off land mines.

The violence in Yemen poses political dangers as well, Miliband stressed. As the conflict metastasizes, radical militant groups, such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State, have been “thriving on the chaos,” he said. While U.S. involvement aims to reduce Iranian influence, Tehran is actually becoming more influential, he added.

Miliband called on the international community to agree to an immediate cease-fire. The next step, he said, is to allow the flow of humanitarian aid through Hodeida and open Sanaa’s airport to commercial traffic. To halt further economic collapse, Miliband urged that salaries be paid to the 1.2 million civil servants providing life-saving assistance across the country.

“I’m a great believer in the philosophy that when you are in a hole, you should stop digging,” Miliband said. “The war strategy that is being pursued is digging a deeper hole rather than helping us out of it.”

While the humanitarian effort can lessen the number of those dying, Miliband stressed that only “effective politics” could stop the killing. He pointed to a “complete lack of military progress,” noting that after 18,000 bombing raids since 2015, which caused 75 percent of the war’s civilian casualties, the Houthis still control 70 percent of the country.

But diplomatic efforts hit a snag recently, when Houthi representatives failed to show up to the first meeting in Geneva convened by the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths. Miliband urged all sides in the conflict to engage in the peace process.

He also called on the U.S. government to end its support for the Saudi-led coalition and take a more forceful approach to halting the violence. He disputed the claim that the coalition is doing everything possible to minimize civilian casualties. This argument “obviously sits askance with the reality on the ground,” he said.

The United States has more leverage than it claims, he added.

“Everything we know about the U.S. stance is that it does make a difference because the actors in the drama do look to the U.S. for actions or restraints,” Miliband said. “The great danger is the Yemeni conflict becomes a terrible stain on the U.S. reputation.”

China 'legalises' internment camps for million Uighurs

Laws revised in Xinjiang region to permit ‘education centres’ for ‘people influenced by extremism’

A truck carrying paramilitary policemen passes a Uighur man during an anti-terrorism oath-taking rally in Urumqi, Xinjiang. Photograph: China Stringer Network/Reuters

Associated Press-Thu 11 Oct 2018

China’s far north-western region of Xinjiang has “legalised” internment camps where up to one million Muslims are being held.

Amid sustained international criticism, Chinese authorities have revised legislation to allow the regional government to officially permit the use of “education and training centres” to incarcerate “people influenced by extremism”.

Chinese authorities deny that the internment camps exist but say petty criminals are sent to vocational “training centres”. Former detainees say they were forced to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the Communist party in what they describe as political indoctrination camps.

“It’s a retrospective justification for the mass detainment of Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang,” said James Leibold, a scholar of Chinese ethnic policies at Melbourne’s La Trobe University. “It’s a new form of re-education that’s unprecedented and doesn’t really have a legal basis, and I see them scrambling to try to create a legal basis for this policy.”

The revisions, published on Tuesday, say government agencies at the county level and above “may establish occupational skills education and training centres, education transformation organisations and management departments to transform people influenced by extremism through education”.

A new clause directs the centres to teach the Mandarin language and provide occupational and legal education, as well as “ideological education, psychological rehabilitation and behaviour correction”.

The original legislation announced in 2017 banned the wearing of veils, “extreme speech and behaviour” and the refusal to listen to public radio and television broadcasts.

Beijing has spent decades trying to suppress pro-independence sentiment in Xinjiang fuelled in part by frustration about an influx of migrants from China’s Han majority. Authorities say extremists there have ties to foreign terror groups but have given little evidence to support the claim.

Members of Uighur, Kazakh and other Muslim minorities who live abroad say they have not been able to contact relatives in China, while authorities are placing children separated from their detained or exiled parents into dozens of state-run orphanages across Xinjiang.

Leibold said the revisionswere an attempt to deflect international criticism. China has come under increasing pressure from the US and the European Union after a United Nations panel confronted Chinese diplomats in August over reports of arbitrary mass detentions and harsh security measures aimed at Muslims. China is up for review by the UN’s human rights council in November.

“Regardless of these revisions I still believe the practice of coercively detaining Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang in ‘education through transformation centres’ not only violates Chinese law but also international legal norms against the extrajudicial deprivation of liberty,” Leibold said.

Life when you live in a bin

By Paul McNamara-9 Oct 2018

The number of people sleeping rough on the streets has doubled in the last eight years. Last night we revealed that hundreds of people are dying homeless on the streets. Tonight we can report new data released by the charity St Mungo’s showing that more and more people are getting themselves off the streets only to find they’re homeless again because of issues like rising housing costs.

A fork in the road: IPCC’s ‘Special Report on 1.5 Degrees’ and the future of the world

The disparities between a 1.5- and a 2-degree scenario are immense. With 1.5 degrees, several hundred million fewer people will be exposed to climate-related risks and poverty, suffer from heat extremes or water scarcity, and lose their livelihoods– Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

Wednesday, 10 October 2018

The IPCC has released its most comprehensive and critical report on climate change for years to come. Its findings show the profound impacts on human life and the decisive actions necessary to keep global temperature rise below 2 or 1.5 degrees Celsius, as well as the huge differences between these two scenarios. If the world as we know it is to survive climate change, this report is required reading for everyone

Climate change is real, and its impacts cannot be overstated. Climate change is happening now and happening everywhere, from developing to developed nations, from North to South and East to West.

The 2015 Paris Agreement has set the governments of the world on a path of mitigation and adaptation, and the Conference of the Parties (COP24) in December 2018 will assess their collective commitments (the Nationally Determined Contributions) and efforts.

The world has warmed over 1 degree Celsius already and is headed toward at least 3 degrees of global warming. Time is running out fast: but at this juncture, the world still has the means and enough years left to change its path and choose one of two possible futures: one with 1.5 degrees or one with 2 or more degrees of warming.

A report of critical importance

On 8 October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the final version of its ‘Special Report on 1.5 Degrees’. Scientists and government delegates from around the world met in Incheon, South Korea the previous week, where they went word by word through the 15-page summary and agreed on a final version.

Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries, nominated by governments and institutions, have compiled this report over more than two years. They have evaluated an extremely wide range of literature and cite over 6,000 references in the report. Their findings rest on the broadest possible consensus and are beyond doubt.

Global warming : 1.5 versus 2 degrees

The key goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep the rise of global mean temperatures below 2 and ideally below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Since the 1850s, the world has already passed 1 degree of global warming, and things are about to get much worse. All current commitments made under the Paris Agreement will together still lead to a global warming of 3 or more degrees by the end of this century.

The IPCC’s report shows that there are grave impacts at 1.5 degrees of global warming and already at the present 1 degree: anything more than a 1.5-degree rise will lead to catastrophic climate change around the globe. This poses an existential threat to billions of people, many of them in the poorest regions of the world: from island nations swallowed by the sea to flooded coastal megacities, extreme storms, mass displacement, and droughts that will cripple agricultural production and turn vast lands into desert.

The disparities between a 1.5- and a 2-degree scenario are immense. With 1.5 degrees, several hundred million fewer people will be exposed to climate-related risks and poverty, suffer from heat extremes or water scarcity, and lose their livelihoods. The risk of heavy precipitation decreases significantly, and the mean sea level will rise by 0.1 m less until 2100, a difference of life and death for many small island states.

If global warming reaches two or more degrees, coral reefs will be completely destroyed by 2100. The arctic will experience ice-free summers at least once a decade (ten times more often than at 1.5 degrees), diseases like malaria and dengue will spread far beyond their current range, and deaths related to heat and ozone will increase greatly. Especially for a tropical island country like Sri Lanka, the impacts cannot be overstated: agriculture, coastal resources, heat extremes, droughts, storms, precipitation patterns and loss of biodiversity will present almost insurmountable challenges.

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees with no overshoot also keeps many adaptation options more viable. Vulnerable populations will have time to adapt to the changing climate, and less extreme circumstances to adapt to.

Two pathways into the future

According to the IPCC report, achieving the target of 1.5 degrees requires drastic steps. Human-induced CO2 emissions need to reduce by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 (for a 2-degree target, the numbers would be 20% by 2030 and net zero by 2075). Without decisive action, the world is likely to reach 1.5 degrees between 2030 and 2052, and warming will only accelerate from there.

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees depends on large-scale transitions in energy, land, urban, infrastructure, and industrial systems, with deep emissions reductions and significant investment in a range of mitigation options. Cuts to CO2 emissions, a rapid move to renewable energy, changes in lifestyle and consumption, and efforts to remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere are among the main actions recommended by the report.

Investments of around $ 2.4 trillion per year (2.5% of global GDP) in the energy system will be required: and while this sounds extreme, the costs of unchecked global warming are likely to be higher by magnitudes. There are also a number of synergies and cross-benefits that might offset these investments and even turn them into an economic net gain.

The necessary resources, technologies, and knowledge are ready and proven, but they need to be implemented across the board. Keeping global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees is still possible, and given the findings on the 2-degree scenario and the enormous differences to the 1.5-degree one, it has never been more essential to try everything in our power to do so.

The report also sends a clear message not to rely on future technology to remove carbon from the air or modify solar radiation. Even if this technology works—and it has yet to be proven on the required scale—it will not be able to reverse or stop the impacts of climate change that happened before. If global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees, some ecosystems will be gone forever, and the catastrophic impacts of climate change will persist for decades and centuries to come, even if emission levels and temperatures are brought down again.

It is imperative not to let global warming overshoot the 1.5 threshold if the adverse effects of climate change are to be minimised to save countless lives, livelihoods, ecosystems, and trillions of dollars.

Outlook

Whether global warming reaches 1.5, 2, or 3.5 degrees, the world will change dramatically over the next decades. There cannot be a neutral stance on climate change, only different courses of action.

If the signatories to the Paris Agreement want to keep true to their ambitions and achieve their stated goals, they will need to commit to urgent and far-reaching actions at the December conference in Katowice, Poland. Climate change mitigation is now the highest priority for the world. It will require political, economic, technological, social, and personal efforts as well as international cooperation on all levels to succeed.

The IPCC report is the most comprehensive and critical report on climate change for years to come. Its findings show the profound impacts on human life and the decisive actions necessary to keep global temperature rise below 2 or 1.5 degrees Celsius, as well as the huge differences between these two scenarios. If the world as we know it is to survive climate change, this report is required reading for everyone.

(The writer currently lives in Colombo as a freelance writer and researcher on climate change and education. He focuses on ecosystem-based adaptation and sustainable urban development as well as on autism spectrum disorder in the field of education. Besides articles and research, he has published numerous works of fiction in German and English.)

Criminalizing the right to health: The shared struggle of the HIV and safe abortion movements

Supporters of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community hold placards as they celebrate the Supreme Court's verdict of decriminalizing gay sex and revocation of the archaic Section 377 law, during a march in New Delhi, September 24, 2018. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Edwin Cameron, Anand Grover-OCTOBER 10, 2018 

Last month, India's Supreme Court struck down Section 377 - a colonial-era law that banned same-sex activity and led to the systemic discrimination and persecution of LGBTQ Indians. This was a huge victory for India and - as two lawyers who have spent decades fighting for the rights of LGBTQ individuals - a very personal one.

Yet, while we celebrate this incredible achievement, we must remember that criminalization remains a potent threat for the health and lives of many people around the world. And those that often bear the largest burden are people living with HIV and AIDS and women and girls seeking abortion services.

While accessing legal and safe abortion services may seem very different from preventing or treating HIV, profound linkages bind the two struggles. Both HIV and AIDS and unsafe abortion endanger life and health, with a disproportionate impact on people living in developing countries. Both impose vast burdens on the sexual and reproductive lives of women and girls and imperil their equal citizenship. And both have the harsh, often cruel and blunt methods of criminal law imposed upon them.

Around the world, governments have used such criminal laws to police sexuality and reproduction, including for same-sex activity, HIV non-disclosure and exposure, and abortion services. These laws are often cloaked in the guise of keeping people safe or evoke morality as a justification.

But, as lawyers and advocates, we know that punitive provisions are not only ineffective, but have damaging and deadly consequences. They cause acute pain, suffering and even death. The fight to lift legal barriers to care is core to the fight for just healthcare for all.

We have both been part of the struggle for justice and rationality in the HIV epidemic and, more recently, in advocating safe abortion care. We know from personal experience how criminal laws, prosecutions and punishments grossly hamper human rights, particularly the right to health.

Unjust laws also propagate stigma and discrimination, which, in turn, further impedes access to healthcare services, blocks dissemination of accurate and pertinent health information, and makes it difficult, if not impossible, to seek medical services, facilities and medicines. This severely impairs the dignity of women and girls.

We also recognize what science and the right to health has long told us: criminalization of health services almost invariably hits marginalized, vulnerable communities hardest and has a disastrous impact on health outcomes worldwide.

All of us, men and women, should have the freedom to decide if and when to reproduce and the right to access safe, effective, affordable and appropriate health care services, facilities and commodities. But, speaking as two males, we recognize the lamentable and grievous fact that this right is of particular urgency and concern to women and girls. And that its denial is harshest - indeed, too often fatal - for women and girls.

Every single year, more than 22,800 women and girls die due to complications from unsafe abortion - a stark reminder of the life and death consequences of criminalizing health care.

In 68 countries, people living with HIV face laws that criminalize non-disclosure, exposure or transmission, which not only have a negative impact on prevention, but can discourage HIV testing and disclosure. The dream of “an AIDS-free world” will remain a dream if people are afraid to get tested or speak about their status for fear of arrest.

HIV is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age in developing regions. The second biggest killer is maternal death, of which unsafe abortion accounts for a disquieting share. It is vital that women and girls remain at the center of these battles and their voices and experiences lead these movements. But we all lose if men shy away from the vital importance, to all, of life-saving care for women and girls.

We know that progress is possible. Beyond the recent victory to overturn Section 377, we’ve also seen the repeal of HIV criminalization laws in countries as diverse as Ghana, Tajikistan and Switzerland. Earlier this year, the Irish people overwhelmingly voted to overturn a constitutional ban on abortion.

As we learned in our decades of HIV/AIDS activism, the more people who fight for a just cause, the more change we can achieve. The fight for justice and plain sense in HIV must join the fight to decriminalize abortion. HIV and safe abortion activists around the world have already begun to make the connections - in thought and action - to come together and raise their voices against unjust laws, coercion and stigma, and demand accountability from governments.

Unison in understanding the issues and in tackling them brings fresh power to the fight for reproductive justice. Too many lives depend on it for any of us to be indifferent.

Justice Edwin Cameron is a judge on the Constitutional Court in South Africa and author of the prize-winning memoir “Witness to AIDS”, about his own experience of living with HIV. Anand Grover is a designated Senior Advocate practicing in the Supreme Court of India, and the Director of the HIV/AIDS Unit of Lawyer’s Collective. He represented Naz Foundation, one of the petitioners in the Section 377 case.

A student displays his hands painted with messages as he poses during an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign to mark the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial, in Chandigarh, May 20, 2018. REUTERS/Ajay Verma/Files

The views expressed in this article are not those of Reuters News. This article is website-exclusive and cannot be reproduced without permission.

Jaffna students walk to Anuradhapura as protests for political prisoners continue across Tamil homeland

Students at the University of Jaffna commenced a 194km protest walk to Anuradhapura prison on Tuesday.

09Oct 2018

The walk aims to raise awareness about the plight of Tamil political prisoners and to intensify campaigns for their release.

Daily protests have taken place across the Tamil homeland, in support of Tamil political prisoners who are hunger striking for their release in Anuradhapura prison, and more recently at Colombo’s Magazine prison.

On Monday, a mass demonstration took place at the University of Jaffna in the run-up to the Anuradhapura walk.

A protest also took place in Achchuveli.

Related Articles: 

06 October 2018 : Tamils continue protests across North-East for release of political prisoners

04 October 2018 : Further protest for release of Tamil political prisoners

03 October 2018 : Political prisoners at Magazine prison begin hunger strike

02 October 2018 : Eastern University students call for release of Tamil political prisoners

01 October 2018 : Protests continue for release of Tamil political prisoners

30 September 2018 : Protest in Jaffna calling for release of Tamil political prisoners

29 September 2018 : Hunger striking Tamil political prisoners refuse medical treatment

24 September 2018 : Further protest demanding release of Tamil political prisoners

23 September 2018 : Protesters demand release of political prisoners

22 September 2018 : 4 Tamil political prisoners admitted to hospital after ongoing hunger strike

Sri Lanka: Government Slow to Return Land

Create Consultative Process to End Military Occupation

EXPAND

A Sri Lankan Tamil man holds a placard during a protest in Colombo on August 21, 2018, demanding the release of lands still occupied by the military. © 2018 Eranga Jayawardena/AP Photo

October 9, 2018 12:15AM EDT

 (New York) – The Sri Lankan government has yet to fully restore civilian ownership of land and property nearly a decade since the end of the civil war in 2009, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Progress, particularly since the election of a new government in 2015, has been hindered by broad military claims of national security and the lack of a transparent process.

The 80-page report, “‘Why Can’t We Go Home?’: Military Occupation of Land in Sri Lanka,” details security force occupation of land both during and after the armed conflict. It identifies the lack of transparency and due process, failure to map occupied land, inadequate support to affected people and communities, and prolonged delays in providing appropriate reparations for decades of loss and suffering. The military has also used some confiscated lands for commercial profit rather than national security and returned damaged or destroyed property to owners without compensation.

“All those displaced during Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war are entitled to return to their homes,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. “Despite repeated pledges by the authorities, the military has been frustratingly slow to restore land to its rightful owners.”

The report is based on over 100 interviews between August 2017 to May 2018 with members of affected communities, activists, local officials, and lawyers. It looks into cases of military occupation and land release in 20 areas in six districts, primarily in Sri Lanka’s north and east.

The three-decade civil war in Sri Lanka ended with the decisive defeat of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009. Large areas, including those previously held by the LTTE in the north and east, came under military control. At the end of the war, some 300,000 people ended up in a military detention camp.

While the administration of then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa released some land to its original owners, the military retained control over large areas for military but also non-military purposes, such as agriculture, tourism, and other commercial ventures.

The new government, led by President Maithripala Sirisena, took some steps to release civilian land held by the security forces. At the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2015, the government promised to address conflict-related issues, including returning land to its original owners. However, the government’s response has fallen far short of its promises. On October 4, 2018, the president ordered the state to release all civilian land by December 31, 2018.

The military has also retained control of land it previously announced it would return. For instance, in April 2017, the navy responded to protests by displaced communities from the Mullikulam area in Mannar by announcing it would release 100 acres of the land that security forces had been occupying. More than a year later, people are still waiting.

“Now there is no war,” said Francis Crooss, a village elder. “It’s now peacetime. So why can’t we go back home?”

State agencies have exchanged properties without releasing the land to civilians. In Pallimunai in Mannar, land belonging to residents displaced since 1990 was occupied first by the army and then the police. At war’s end, the police promised to release their land and homes, but instead, the navy took control.

“We’ve been made refugees in our own village,” said Helena Perera, one of the residents.
All three major ethnic communities in the country – the Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims – are affected by military occupation of land in the north and east. However, the vast majority of cases impact the Tamil community.

Human Rights Watch documented a number of cases in which properties were destroyed while held by the military after the war, including Hindu temples, churches, mosques, and Buddhist shrines.
Government authorities have also carried out land grabs since the end of the war. In July 2010, the military forcibly evicted residents of Ragamwela, Panama, in southeastern Ampara district. In November 2011, 200 soldiers arrived in Ashraf Nagar village in Ampara district and demanded that all its occupants leave. In such cases, the security forces set up military camps or used the land for other purposes, including commercial use.

The government’s failure to establish a uniform policy on resettlement remains a critical problem, Human Rights Watch said. Some displaced families did not receive proper resettlement assistance when they returned to formerly occupied lands. The government transferred others from displacement camps, but they then entered into other forms of displacement, such as living with friends and relatives, or moving to other camps closer to their original properties, which the military still occupied. Those resettled more than once were denied full resettlement assistance when their land was eventually released.

A 70-year-old fisherman from Myliddy said his family had moved 24 times in 27 years until the military released his property in July 2017. But without resettlement assistance, he is severely in debt. “We hope the government will at least help us restart our lives this one last time,” he said.

Partial releases pose particular problems for returnee communities. Military control of neighboring areas hinders access to services and jobs, and heightens fears of surveillance and harassment by soldiers.

Establishing ownership of land where multiple displacements have occurred over decades is difficult, Human Rights Watch said. But instead of leaving it exclusively to the military, the government should urgently set up a transparent and consultative process, including displaced communities, to establish land claims and restore civilian ownership.

“The government has adopted an arbitrary, piecemeal approach to land returns, which is fomenting deep distrust among communities wary that the military is still in charge,” Ganguly said. “It should address rights violations and provide remedies to end the distress of those who have long suffered because of the military’s occupation of land.”

FORMER NAVY COMMANDER KARANNAGODA SAYS STUDENTS ABDUCTED COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED.

mage: Abducted children were kept in Navy camp, in Trincomalee.

08/10/2018

Denying  the news item on the front page of The Sunday Island of Oct. 07, under the headline, “Ex-08
navy Chief Karannagoda emerges as key suspect in killing of children”, former Navy Commander Admiral (Rtd.) Wasantha Karannagoda has issued a statement.In his statement he confirmed the abduction of students by the Navy personal and says that ” Had Rear Admiral Fernando informed me or the Area Commander Trincomaleee of the youth being kept by Cdr. Ranasinghe in the Navy camp Trincomalee, after checking with Lt. Cdr Sampath who had given the orders to abduct the youth, instead of informing Hon. Felix Perera , perhaps there would have been the possibility of saving the youth”.

Text of Karannagoda’s statement:

“According to the “B” report submitted by the CID to Fort Magistrate based on evidence given by Rear Admiral Shemal Fernando on 18th September 2018 (after 8 years, for the second time) following facts are relevant:

a. It is very clear that at no stage Rear Admiral Fernando “had informed me” or the Trincomalee Area Commander, about the abduction of the youth and their presence in the Trincomalee Navy camp, but had chosen to inform Hon. Felix Perera the Minister of Fisheries about it.

b. On his own admission, Rear Admiral Fernando is contradicting the evidence given by him on 13/10/2010 (8 years ago), stating that he was a serving member in the Navy at the time, thus negating the credibility of his evidence.

c. Rear Admiral Fernando had expressed his opinion stating, “If something has happened to the youth, Admiral Karannagoda and Commander Ransinghe are responsible for same”, knowing very well the matter had been reported to the relevant authorities by me after a brief preliminary inquiry as soon as this was brought to my attention. Also, having served more than 5 Navy Commanders including me, as the Secretary, he is well aware about the Navy command structure, that there is a chain of Command for the functioning of the Navy, and the Navy Commander deals only with the Area Commander, in this instance with Rear SMB Weerasekara. Cdr. Ransinghe was the Intelligence Officer attached to the Eastern Naval Command.

d. Had Rear Admiral Fernando informed me or the Area Commander Trincomaleee of the youth being kept by Cdr. Ranasinghe in the Navy camp Trincomalee, after checking with Lt. Cdr Sampath who had given the orders to abduct the youth, instead of informing Hon. Felix Perera , perhaps there would have been the possibility of saving the youth.

It is true Minister Perera informed me of the incident by letter on 17th June 2009 (Copy available with the CID). By this time Lt. Cdr. Sampath had been arrested, while hiding at Army HQ, and handed over to the CID on 10th of June 2009, after preliminary inquiries conducted by the Navy.
“I have already instructed my lawyers to issue a letter of demand claiming Rs. 500 million from Rear Admiral Fernando for making false and malicious allegations/statements to the CID on 18th September 2018, against me.

“It is pertinent to mention that the information about the abduction of 5 youth by Lt. Cdr. Sampath, my security officer at the time, was brought to my attention by Capt. JJ Ranasinghe (present Vice Chancellor of Kothalawala Defence University) through Commodore Udaya Bandara, my Naval assistant at that time, around third week of May 2009 (during the last week of the war), more than one month before Hon. Felix Perera’s letter.

“The sequence of events are given below.

a. Around third week of May 2009 on one afternoon, Commodore Udaya Bandara (Naval Assistant to the Navy Commander) informed me that Capt. JJ Ranasinghe (present Vice Chancellor of KDU) who was serving as an Instructor at the Batalanda Defence Services Staff College at the time, had brought to his notice that Lt. Cdr. Sampath (who was serving as the Security officer of the Commander of the Navy) had abducted 5 youth and kept them at a place known as the “Gun Site” in the Trincomalee Navy camp and was demanding a ransom.

b. Immediately, when inquiries were made from Lt. Cdr. Sampath about the incident, he denied any knowledge of it. At that very moment, he was ordered by me to go and meet Capt. JJ Ranasinghe and clarify the matter. Once he left I spoke to the Area Commander In Charge of Trincomalee Navy camp, Rear Admiral SMB Weerasekara, over the phone and instructed him to personally check whether there are any youth kept under arrest at the place called “Gun Site”.

c. After approximately one hour later Rear Admiral Weearasekara informed me over the phone that he had visited the location “Gun Site” and there was nobody. About another two hours later Capt. JJ Ranasinghe informed me over the phone that Lt. Cdr. Sampath had met him and he had told Sampath that the Navy Commander had made a mistake; it was not he but another Capt. Ranasinghe. He said he had handled Sampath in that manner, through fear, as he was aware Sampath was involved with the Colombo underworld. He reiterated the information given to Commodore Banadara and confirmed it was Lt. Cdr. Sampath, who had abducted the five youth according to the information received by him. He and Rear Admiral Udaya Bandara have given statements to the CID in this regard.

d. Capt. JJ Ranasinghe had received the information about the abduction from the relatives of a missing person Rajeeve Naganathan.

Although there was nobody at the place called “Gun Site”, I felt there could be some truth in what Capt. JJ Ranasinghe said and the following day I instructed Lt. Cdr. Sampath to take 7 days leave to facilitate an inquiry into the matter and instructed Naval Provost Marshal and Director Naval Intelligence to look into the matter.

This was a period of intense activities in the Navy as the war had reached its climax with the final stage and everybody in the Navy was busy, particularly due to the public statement made by the Army Commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka that only way Prabhakaran could escape was by sea.

Whilst on leave Sampath submitted a request to leave the Navy and this made the situation more suspicious. Since Sampath did not report after leave his cabin (room) in the officers’ mess was broken open by the Naval Provost Marshal, to facilitate the investigations, in the presence of Naval Police, and many suspicious items were found in his Cabin. At this stage it was felt the investigation was beyond the naval investigators and the matter was reported to the Police on 28th May 2009, on the advice of Judge Advocate General of the Navy (Who was a Senior Deputy Solicitor General in the Attorney General’s Department at the time)

A few days later, the then Army Commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka was instructed to hand over Sampath to the Police as the Police wanted him for questioning. Lt. Cdr. Sampath was handed over to the CID on 10th June 2009.

Returning land to civilians a promise that needs follow up

by Jehan Perera-October 8, 2018, 12:00 pm 

Soon after his return from New York, where he addressed the UN General Assembly, President Maithripala Sirisena ordered the return of all land in the Northern and Eastern provinces that are owned by the people of those areas. He issued these instructions during a meeting of the Presidential Task Force overlooking the development of the Northern and Eastern provinces. The President has instructed the Presidential Task Force to plan out a time frame and a proper structure in order to implement the project and to present its progress at the next meeting. This is in keeping with the letter and spirit of UN Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 of October 2015. When the President announced that he would go to New York and propose a new course of action before the UN, it was assumed that he might be taking a contrary course of action. Many nationalists hoped that he might announce that Sri Lanka would withdraw its assent to that resolution that immediately became a political matter of much contestation within the country.

The co-sponsored resolution 30/ 1 which calls on Sri Lanka to implement provisions relating to transitional justice remains a subject of much criticism by the opposition. Among others, the resolution has called for the return of all military occupied land and a host of other reforms that would reduce the role of the security forces in the governance of the former war zones of the North and East. It also has many other features, relevant to transitional justice, such as making national laws be in compliance with international standards, including the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and also with regard to a constitutional settlement relating to inter-ethnic power sharing. In New York, the President limited his proposal to requesting the international community to respect Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and to appreciate the positive changes that have been taking place in the country.

There is a tendency within the country to downplay the positive changes brought about by the government and instead to focus attention on what has not changed. This is notable both in the North and South of the country. What the government has achieved in terms of the Rule of Law, end to enforced disappearances and killings, and the amicable working relations the government has with the political representatives of the ethnic minorities, is a break with the past. In this context, the anticipated meeting between President Sirisena and former president Mahinda Rajapaksa is unlikely to bear much fruit, let alone bear fruit for the political coalition they are said to be negotiating on. A meeting of hearts and minds does not appear to be possible at the present time, when each of these two political rivals have to be thinking of their electoral prospects.

INCOMPATIBLE PARTNERS

President Sirisena’s declaration that all civilian land will be returned to the people, whether it happens or not, is an indicator that the current thinking of the President and former president are too far apart to be bridged. Former president Rajapaksa continues to hold to the old stance that cost him the presidential election of 2015. The unwavering stance of the former president has been that the forces of national division are on rise, traitors are becoming more prominent, and that the unity of the country is at stake. He has also held that the hard fought military victory over the LTTE in 2009 is being surrendered by the current government which is overly subservient to the international community. He has also affirmed that he will not have any alliance with those who are traitors. President Sirisena’s recent call for the return of all land held by the military in the North and East of the country is at variance with the former president’s exhortations.

With the President ordering the return of land to the Tamil civilians from whom it was taken away, the room for the president and former president to even stand together on the same political platform is remote. However, it is worth noting that the return of military occupied land has been taking place even prior to the change of government in 2015. The previous government also returned land to the people. But neither they nor the present government have been able to resolve the issue. If not for the personality clash it would seem that there is a widespread consensus among the more liberal members of parliament and the national polity and the intelligentsia of the country that this ethnic conflict needs to be brought to a mutually acceptable end.

The problem for the President is that his words have suffered a crisis of confidence. This year alone the President has promised to return the land in January, March and August at different platforms. Three years ago the President visited the North and made a passionate promise to return all land back to the people within six months. But now another two years have elapsed and the job has yet to be done. This has been at the cost of the President’s credibility with the very people who turned out in their numbers to give one of the highest proportions of voter participation at a presidential elections in the North and East and where he swept the polls. With presidential elections due in less than fourteen months the President needs to be more serious this time.

NO FUTURE

However, the government needs to go further than simply returning the land to the people if it is to do justice by them and win their hearts and minds. Last week I was in Myliddy in the Jaffna peninsula which is near the high security zones of Palaly airport and Kankesanthurai harbour. This was one of the first areas of land to be taken over by the military nearly three decades ago. It has also been one of the last areas to be handed back to its civilian owners within the last year. As it is near to the high security zones of the airport and harbour, the people believe that the military did not intend to return this land to them at all. In 2012, three years after the war had ended, bulldozers entered the land and completely flattened all remaining buildings, which in any event had become dilapidated due to being vacant for close to three decades.

Remarkably the people who had returned to their homes to find nothing remaining, not even the boundaries that separated their properties, did not show any sign of racial hatred to the ethnic Sinhalese in their midst. This is a phenomenon that most who go to the North and East would experience, that there remains goodwill and the children will be friendly which shows that their parents have not taught them to hate. But surely within their hearts there would be bitter feelings, perhaps directed more at those institutions that failed them than at individuals. The destruction of their homes, places of religious worship, convents, schools, and even cemeteries has scarred them. They even said that cesspits had been connected to the remaining wells preventing them from using the water. These are the wounds that need to be healed.

The resettled people need to be helped and the Sri Lankan state needs to show it cares. They are being helped by numerous state agencies, and civil society and international organisations. But it is only the government that can make the heavy investments in infrastructure that are urgently needed at this time. When asked to rank their top five priorities in terms of their material lives, the people gave public transport, access to nearby schools, hospitals, job opportunities, water and electricity as their priority concerns. As an example of the hardship of their daily lives, they said that to get to the nearest primary school they had to walk two and a half kilometers and the nearest secondary school was twelve kilometers away. They said that the military had put up a board two weeks ago saying "No future without forgiveness." There is also a need for repentance, reparations and justice for forgiveness, that ideal state, to become a reality.