United Nations calls for a ‘planning revolution’ to save Asia’s megacities

Indian residents walk past murals in an area of Mumbai, June 1, 2018. Mumbai's slums are getting a colourful makeover thanks to an organisation that aims to change how people perceive deprived areas in India's financial capital. Source: Punit Paranjpe/AFP

 22nd November 2018

WITH 64 percent of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050 and mounting pollution problems, the United Nations is calling for a “planning revolution” that reimagines cities as we know them, making them sustainable and safe places to live.

“We are at a tipping point,” head of the Cities Unit at UN Environment, Martina Otto, said in a statement.

“We have seen sub-national and local governments stepping up and taking forceful commitments… While it is increasingly recognised that urban planning is critical, in many places planning capacity is lacking.”

SEE ALSO: 4 Sinking Asian cities that could be drowned by climate change

Otto called for a strategic overhaul, forcing planners to strive for compact cities with mixed-use neighbourhoods and buildings, and with an emphasis on integrated urban systems.

She would also like to see green roofs and walls and biodiversity corridors; decentralised energy systems, complementing grids and powered by renewables; and a better use of spare capacity through a sharing economy.

Her calls echo those made by the International Resource Panel in a recent report entitled The Weight of Cities, Resource Requirements of Future Urbanization.

Sewage drain canal full of garbage next to the Taimur Nagar slum area in New Delhi, May 30, 2018. Source: Dominique Faget/AFP

The group, set up by UN Environment, believes the world has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shift future urbanisation on to a more environmentally sustainable and socially just path.

The expert group said urban demand for resources could rise by 125 percent by 2050 with at least 200 new cities expected to be built in Asia over the next 30 years.

Asia’s current megacities are already struggling to keep up with the inflow of people and infrastructure is struggling under the weight.

SEE ALSO: Here are the top 3 most & least sustainable cities in Asia

Dean of RICS School of Built Environment, KT Ravindran, said in an article for Economic Times that cities in India will need to create hundreds of new housing, provide access to quality education, health care services, water, and transportation infrastructure to accommodate the flow of migrants. But the municipal government is failing and woefully underresourced, meaning it will never reach these goals.

“City infrastructure such as water supply, sewerage, solid waste management and transport are all under pressure. There is a complete lack of planning and governance at the urban local body level,” Ravindran said.

“Urban planning is critical to ensure success of cities. Planning allows cities to make informed decisions. Indian municipalities do not have the management capacity to either plan economic activity or execute it.”

People gather near their houses at a slum area at the Ciliwung river bank at Jatinegara district. Source: Reuters

But there are signs of improvement. India’s capital, Delhi, which is home to 19 million people, generates over 9,000 tonnes of waste every day. To combat the build-up, the city recently opened a composting plant to produce compost and resource-derived fuel from municipal waste. The plant handles 200 tonnes of waste per day, but that capacity is due to be expanded.

What is needed in developing countries to ensure a sustainable urban development path is support in devising and enforcing sustainable planning and cross-sectoral policies, Otto said.

“We cannot afford to get the infrastructure investments, which will be made over the next 15 years, wrong,” she said.

Hillary Clinton: Europe must curb immigration to stop rightwing populists

Hillary Clinton, a former US presidential candidate, suggests immigration contributed to Brexit and Donald Trump’s election. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

Patrick Wintour-Diplomatic editor-Thu 22 Nov 2018 14.00 GMT

Europe and centre left everywhere need tougher approach to phenomenon that fuelled Trump and Brexit, says Clinton

Europe must get a handle on immigration to combat a growing threat from rightwing populists, Hillary Clinton has said, calling on the continent’s leaders to send out a stronger signal showing they are “not going to be able to continue to provide refuge and support”.

In an interview with the Guardian, the former Democratic presidential candidate praised the generosity shown by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, but suggested immigration was inflaming voters and contributed to the election of Donald Trump and Britain’s vote to leave the EU.

“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.

“I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like Angela Merkel, but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic.”

What is populism?

Populists tend to frame politics as a battle between the virtuous 'ordinary' masses and a nefarious or corrupt elite – and insist that the general will of the people must always triumph. The Guardian is adopting the classic definition of populism proposed by political scientist Cas Mudde. Populism, he says, is often combined with a "host" ideology, which can either be on the left or right.

Populism is as old as democracy itself, but the last 10 years have proven particularly fertile: populist leaders now govern countries with a combined population of almost two billion people, while populist parties are gaining ground in more than a dozen other democracies, many of them in Europe.
Against this backdrop, the Guardian is launching a six-month investigative series to explore who the new populists are, what factors brought them to power, and what they are doing once in office.

Clinton’s remarks are likely to prove controversial across Europe, which has struggled to form a unified position ever since more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived in the EU in 2015.

While some countries who have borne the brunt, such as Germany, Italy and Greece, have argued for the burden to be shared more evenly, some, particularly in central and eastern Europe, have rejected demands to take in refugees.

Migration numbers have fallen sharply since 2015, while a series of initiatives have been tabled, from a 10,000-member European border and coastguard agency to an overhaul of EU asylum procedures.
You’ve got to deal with the legitimate grievances and answer them.

Tony Blair

Clinton was one of three heavyweights of the centre-left interviewed by the Guardian to better understand why their brand of politics appears to be failing. All three have seen their countries upended by political events that to some degree can be explained by the success of rightwing populism.

The other two interviewees, Tony Blair and Matteo Renzi, agreed that the migration issue had posed significant problems for centrist politics.

“You’ve got to deal with the legitimate grievances and answer them, which is why today in Europe you cannot possibly stand for election unless you’ve got a strong position on immigration because people are worried about it,” Blair said. “You’ve got to answer those problems. If you don’t answer them then … you leave a large space into which the populists can march.”

Clinton urged forces opposed to rightwing populism in Europe and the US not to neglect the concerns about race and identity issues that she says were behind her losing key votes in 2016. She accused Trump of exploiting the issue in the election contest – and in office.

“The use of immigrants as a political device and as a symbol of government gone wrong, of attacks on one’s heritage, one’s identity, one’s national unity has been very much exploited by the current administration here,” she said.

“There are solutions to migration that do not require clamping down on the press, on your political opponents and trying to suborn the judiciary, or seeking financial and political help from Russia to support your political parties and movements.”

Brexit, described by Clinton as the biggest act of national economic self-harm in modern history, “was largely about immigration”, she said.

Clinton, Blair and Renzi all said rightwing populism had not just fed off issues of identity but was also driven by a disruptive way of conducting politics that dramatises divisions and uses a rhetoric of crisis. The centre left struggles to get its voice heard over the simplistic, emotional language used against it, they said.

Blair said populism would continue to rise until mainstream parties found a way to cut through the reductive soundbites that populists deploy so effectively.

“I don’t think it’s reached its peak,” he said, when asked about the electoral success of populists globally. “I think it will peak, in my view, when the centre ground recovers its mojo and has a strong forward agenda.”

“A significant part of the problem here is people’s desire for a leader that is going to just push through change without regard to political pressures, you know, that ‘getting things done’ mentality.”
Clinton said rightwing populists in the west met “a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do, and where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality.

“The whole American system was designed so that you would eliminate the threat from a strong, authoritarian king or other leader and maybe people are just tired of it. They don’t want that much responsibility and freedom. They want to be told what to do and where to go and how to live … and only given one version of reality.

“I don’t know why at this moment that is so attractive to people, but it’s a serious threat to our freedom and our democratic institutions, and it goes very deep and very far and we’ve got to do a better job of shining a light on it and trying to combat it.”

She also reveals her contempt for Steve Bannon, whose attempt to bolster rightwing populist parties in Europe is stalling everywhere outside of Italy. “Rome is the right place for him since it is bread and circuses and it’s as old as recorded history. Keep people diverted, keep them riled up appeal to their prejudices, give them a sense they are part of something bigger than themselves – while elected leaders and business leaders steal them blind. It’s a classic story and Bannon is the latest avatar of it.”
Renzi bemoaned a generational shift that he said had elevated hate and confrontation over admiration and respect. “There is a climate of hate that has come from the Five Star Movement and the League,” he said of his political opponents in Italy. “This is the problem of the new generation – they are educated to hate and to envy.”

In the Interest of Food

In overseas markets, new conditions will apply

by Michael R. Czinkota-Nov 21, 2018

( November 21, 2018, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) While around the globe we all celebrate some form of Thanksgiving, the food consumed does vary. In the U.S. we consume Turkey – usually store bought, not hunted. Bavaria sees such celebration with Beer and Bratwurst. In China, the celebratory meal consists of tea and Hot Pot.

“Everything can be solved by a hot-pot. If not, it can be solved by two.” These words are popular in China. A staple comfort food, the hotpot is a symbol of Chinese leisure life and culture. Similar to the French cheese fondue, the traditional Chinese dish consists of a communal pot in which small ingredients are dipped. The ritual always involves gathering around the dining table, with a large hot pot of broth placed at the center. While simmering, the broth is then enriched by fresh and raw ingredients. These include finely cut meats, vegetables, tofu, and seafood that are cooked in the broth.

The dish can be found in homes and in restaurants across China and other parts of Asia. Recently, the hotpot found its way in other regions around the world as Hai Di Lao International Holding Ltd. – China’s largest hotpot restaurant group in terms of sales – gained market shares abroad. Most hotpot restaurants will attempt to distinguish themselves with their unique flavors and taste, but nothing compares to Hai Di Lao’s secret recipe.

Aside from the delicious hotpot, Hai Di Lao’s success is due to its remarkable service strategy. Hai Di Lao aspires to make every customer feel special. Outside the restaurants, customers line up at the door, waiting with great patience as they indulge in Hai Di Lao’s complimentary services. Such services range from free snacks and beverages, to free massages and manicures. Once customers enter the restaurant, waiters greet them, always with a smile, while subsequently taking their order with speed and accuracy. If dining alone, the restaurant provides its customers with a stuffed toy to be seated in front of them, in order to keep them company.

Although the hotpot restaurant business is extremely competitive, the chain succeeded in standing out from other hotpot restaurants by creating the ultimate dining experience. Branches are managed directly by a shared and central distribution network, ensuring the standardization of food quality across all its stores. By offering exceptional customer service, and adopting a supply chain management system, all Hai Di Lao subsidiaries tend to fulfill, and at times exceed, customer expectations.

Gaining increasing popularity in China, plans call for the chain to enter overseas markets, including the UK and Canada. In late September, Hai Di Lao presented an IPO to help fund and continue its expansion. Initially priced at $2.27 per share, the public offering gave the firm a valuation of about $12 billion. Some people may argue that Hai Di Lao’s IPO value is a bit high, considering its lack of success in the United States.

Back in 2013, Hai Di Lao opened its first U.S. restaurant in Arcadia, California. The restaurant received negative reviews on Yelp and less and less customer retention. Reviewers complained about Hai Di Lao’s overpriced menu, and intrusive and incompetent staff service. Despite its roaring success in China, the company failed to stand out in the United States and was proven to be a big disappointment.

Fast forward to today – with an international expansion right around the corner, how can Hai Di Lao succeed outside of China? Hai Di Lao will have to face more than its competing hotpot counterparts, and learn from its mistakes with the earlier US expansion. Challenges will also come from the local food industry, including other comfort foods such as hamburgers and hot dogs.

In overseas markets, new conditions will apply. First, the chain needs to develop a differentiation strategy by offering complimentary services that are less intrusive and that adhere to U.S. standards. Since offering mani-pedis would be considered a health code violation and waiting to hand tissue paper to customers after washing their hands would seem strange, Hai Di Lao needs to tailor its services to fit the American market’s wants and needs. Such services comprise complimentary hair ties, phone chargers, restroom grooming kits, and an iPad ordering system. They also provide video conferencing rooms, in which customers can enjoy their hotpot experience while video chatting.

Additionally, the firm needs to focus on the product and pricing strategy. Chinese food in the U.S. is still labeled as inexpensive, fast food. Hai Di Lao prices its authentic dining experience between $30 and $50 per person, which may seem costly to American customers. In an attempt to retain more customers, the company can either expect to lower its prices to be more local-consumer friendly or to provide more value to its American patrons through its complimentary services.

To succeed in overseas markets, Hai Di Lao needs to gain a comprehensive understanding of its target markets. Hai Di Lao is strengthening its products by offering locally grown items. The flavors will reflect more local preferences and flavors. This strategy should attract the American consumer who is used to eating fast food and “bowling alone”. Hai Di Lao will take their habit of eating alone into account by offering small one-person pots, perhaps at the expense of an authentic, communal Chinese hotpot experience. Some people may argue that Haidilao’s IPO value is a bit high. It took place on September 26 and initially got the price at $2.27 per share, giving it a valuation of about $12 billion. But if the demand is strong and the company is able to appeal to the American consumer, Hai Di Lao will gain more deal size and American patrons willing to invest. As the Chinese proverb goes, “There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes”. There also can be a thousand hotpots in a thousand people’s mouths.

Professor Czinkota teaches international business and trade at Georgetown University and the University of Kent. His latest book is ‘In Search For The Soul Of International Business (Businessexpertpress.com) 2018

How Private Lawsuits Could Save the Climate

Forget the Paris accord. Lawsuits from aggrieved individuals are going to force Big Oil to knuckle under just as Big Tobacco did.

Fishermen capture glass eels in Yilan, Taiwan, in the early hours of Dec. 25, 2015. Japanese and European glass eels have been on the danger of extinction as the ocean gets warmer as a result of climate change. (Billy H.C. Kwok/Getty Images)

BY MICHAEL HIRSH-

 NOVEMBER 21, 2018, 3:03 PM
Can a bunch of crab fishermen save the earth?

It’s not as silly a question as you might think. On Nov. 14, in an unprecedented action by private individuals in a U.S. court, commercial fishermen in California and Oregon sued 30 oil, gas and coal companies, seeking compensation for their losses because the Dungeness crab market in the Pacific Ocean has been harmed by rising temperatures caused by burning fossil fuels.

Some legal experts say the little-noticed lawsuit filed in Superior Court in San Francisco was a legal earthquake. It shows that lawyers and private individuals are ready to use the overwhelming evidence of climate change—and Big Oil’s efforts to suppress the facts of its culpability—to their advantage in the courts, even as politicians such as U.S. President Donald Trump continue to cast doubt on the science that demonstrates it is man-made.

“It is the first time in the United States that a private plaintiff has sued the fossil fuel industry for damages,” said David Bookbinder of the Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank based in Washington that is leading efforts to change conservative thinking on climate change. The suit joins a slew of recent lawsuits that have been filed by U.S. towns and other public entities against Big Oil and Gas.

Many activists and lawyers hope a large number of lawsuits will force the fossil fuel industry to drop its opposition to climate-saving devices such as a carbon tax—or turn what is now tepid or cosmetic support of these tougher measures into real advocacy.

In the case of ExxonMobil, one of the defendants in the fisheries cases, such limp environmentalism included an announcement earlier in October that it was spending $1 million over two years—a rounding error for the multinational giant—to back a carbon tax to help the environment. But according to one lawyer who is pursuing ExxonMobil, that’s just “greenwashing,” or a PR push.
 
“Exxon is backing the one carbon tax bill in Congress that will never become law,” he said. That’s a bill that would dictate that 100 percent of the tax money be returned to taxpayers, which sounds idealistic “but will never happen,” the lawyer said.

ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case involving the fishermen is significant because it’s the first time one industry has gone after another over the uneven commercial benefits of fossil fuels and climate change. While the big energy companies have amassed huge cost-free profits, other industries have suffered all the costs.

“For us it’s a simple tort claim, one industry harming another,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the plaintiff, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

“These lawsuits are evidence of changing societal attitudes,” said Nigel Purvis, a former senior U.S. climate negotiator who directed environmental diplomacy in the Clinton and Bush administrations. “We’ve gotten to the point in climate science where individual communities can see the harm to them, and you can go credibly into court and say climate was the reason we had bad fishing. The science wasn’t good enough 10 years ago. You had correlation. Now we have causation.”

He added: “Oil and gas is slowly but surely becoming like tobacco. People are seeing that we are addicted to it, but perceiving for the first time it’s bad for us. And the science has gotten strong enough that we can attribute impacts to climate to a small number of companies in the crosshairs.”
For the energy companies, the comparison to tobacco is not a comforting one. Under the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement of 1998, the major tobacco manufacturers settled Medicaid lawsuits with the attorneys general of 46 states seeking compensation of tobacco-related health care costs. The companies, which were accused of suppressing decades of research about the harmful effects of smoking, agreed to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in perpetuity and radically alter the way they market tobacco.

Similarly, energy companies are accused of hiding what they’ve known for decades about the ill effects of fossil fuels on the climate. According to a 2015 Los Angeles Times report, for example, an internal ExxonMobil draft memo from August 1988 titled “The Greenhouse Effect” noted there was scientific consensus on the role that fossil fuels play in global warming, but the author wrote that the company should “emphasize the uncertainty.”

Bookbinder said the lawsuit brought last week by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations is “a big development in two ways. First, in terms of the political and media spin on these cases, the defendants and their political supporters have been saying these are brought by radical politicians with a political agenda. Guess what? The West Coast fishermen are not radical politicians.”

He notes that those in other food-producing industries such as farmers—a group of whom are also considering such a lawsuit—are among the most affected by climate change and are also among the most conservative voters in the United States.

“As temperature goes up, milk yields drop. Dairy farmers need to think about air-conditioned barns for cows. … Who’s going to pay for all this?” he said. “And here’s another one: winter recreation. Ski resorts, what are they going to do?”

In addition, Bookbinder and other lawyers believe the courts will be forced to seriously consider such private “nuisance” suits more seriously than they have the ones filed by local, state, or country governments, some of which have been thrown out. Until now the governments have argued in court that if they can’t sue the fossil fuel industry over damages, they would have to raise taxes, and plaintiffs fear judges may decide to seize on that option as a remedy.

“The courts have been saying ultimately you can tax your residents. You still have another means,”

Bookbinder said. “The crab fishermen, they don’t have any other means” of recovering damages.
Oppenheim said fossil fuel-caused warming has created algal blooms that generated unprecedented concentrations of the neurotoxin domoic acid, causing a kind of shellfish poisoning. This has been “devastating to the industry,” he told Foreign Policy.

The fishermen decided to sue, he said, when they “realized this is the new reality we’re going to have to deal with every year with potential closures and domoic acid impact. I’m a marine biologist. I understand the connection to global warming.”

Until now,  so-called nuisance climate lawsuits haven’t much scared the energy companies. Two have been thrown out (they are on appeal). And with a conservative majority solidifying on the Supreme Court, they may have less reason to worry.

Even so, many of the plaintiffs hope to keep their cases—ten other lawsuits filed by local, county or state governments across the country are still ongoing— in more sympathetic state courts. And on Nov. 2, the Supreme Court turned down a request from the Trump administration to stay another lawsuit filed against the federal government in 2015 by 21 young people who argue that their constitutional right to a clean environment is being violated.

That case was sent back to a federal appeals court. In response, on Nov. 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said it would decide whether the case goes to trial. That was considered a victory for the plaintiffs; the court said in effect it would review whether there is a constitutional right to a climate capable of sustaining human life, and whether the atmosphere is a “public trust” of the federal government.

In an odd twist, U.S. courts appear so taken aback by the breadth and potential of that litigation that all three levels of the judicial system—district, appellate,  and the Supreme Court—are simultaneously studying the merits of the case, which is highly unusual, Bookbinder said. The Supreme Court noted that the “suit is based on an assortment of unprecedented legal theories, such as a substantive due process right to certain climate conditions, and an equal protection right to live in the same climate as enjoyed by prior generations.”

The children and young people’s lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, contends that the government has violated “the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property” by adopting policies that promote the use of fossil fuels even though they cause global warming. It was modeled on a similar one in Holland that won a historic victory against the Dutch government. In 2015, the judge in that case ordered the Netherlands to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions to at least 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. He cited the possibility of climate-related damages to “current and future generations of Dutch nationals” and the government’s “duty of care … to prevent hazardous climate change.” A Dutch appeals court upheld the verdict last month.

Asked to comment on the fisheries case, a spokesman for one of the lead defendants, Chevron, told FP that “this lawsuit, like the similar suits filed by these same plaintiffs’ attorneys, is without merit and counterproductive to real solutions to climate change. The lawsuit seeks to penalize the production of reliable, affordable energy, which has been lawful and encouraged by governments.”

The National Association of Manufacturers, meanwhile, derided the California fisheries lawsuit as doomed to failure. “Out of curiosity, how do these folks power their boats, with sails or the product the defendants make?” the group’s spokesman, Michael Short, told Climatewire.

 

Michael Hirsh is a senior correspondent at Foreign Policy. @michaelphirsh

Global carbon dioxide levels hit a new record in 2017, U.N. says

A woman stands at a bus station on a polluted day after a yellow alert was issued for smog in Beijing, China, November 14, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

Tom Miles-NOVEMBER 22, 2018

GENEVA (Reuters) - The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a new record last year with emissions showing no sign of slowing down, the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said on Thursday.

The annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin dashed hopes for a slowdown in emissions of CO2 - the byproduct of burning fossil fuels that scientists say is the main cause of the greenhouse effect causing global warming.

“The science is clear. Without rapid cuts in CO2 and other greenhouse gases, climate change will have increasingly destructive and irreversible impacts on life on Earth. The window of opportunity for action is almost closed,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

The report found CO2 levels of 405.5 parts per million in 2017, up from 403.3 ppm in 2016.

The rate of increase is in line with the average growth rate over the last decade, which was the fastest rate for 55 million years, the WMO said. Carbon dioxide levels have risen 46 percent since the pre-industrial era, around 1750.

“The most alarming thing is that ... half of the increase from pre-industrial times comes within the last 30 years,” said Oksana Tarasova, head of WMO’s atmospheric environment research.

The rise was expected to be much lower in 2017, because the previous year saw “El Nino” weather conditions, which are normally followed by a big slowdown in the growth of CO2 concentrations.

U.N. climate talks in Poland next month are meant to agree a rule book for the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change, which set a sweeping goal of ending the fossil fuel era this century.

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has sent a letter to all states, telling them they have legal obligations under international human rights law to prevent climate change and try to mitigate its effects.

The United States is the only country to have announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris accord, and President Donald Trump has cast doubt on the science underpinning it.

“Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?”, Trump tweeted on Wednesday.

WMO chief scientist Pavel Kabat said unusually cold weather was consistent with climate change.
“On the longer timescale we are not that much worried about the current political disturbance,” he said.

“Global warming is unequivocal,” added WMO Deputy Secretary-General Elena Manaenkova. “Climate change is scientifically proven.”

Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Robin Pomeroy

Sugary supplement mannose could help fight cancer

 

 Mannose is available as a supplement but is also found naturally in fruits such as cranberries

 By Alex Therrien-21 November 2018

A nutritional supplement may be able to slow the development of some cancers and enhance the effects of treatment, a study in mice suggests.

Mice with pancreatic, lung or skin cancer were given mannose, a sugar also found in cranberries and other fruits.

It significantly slowed the growth of their tumours, with no obvious side-effects, researchers found.

However, patients are being told not to start supplementing with mannose because of the risk of side-effects.

Scientists hope to test the supplement in people soon.

Mannose, which can be bought in health food shops and is sometimes used to treat urinary tract infections, is thought to interfere with the ability of tumours to use glucose to grow.

• The hospitals that fail to treat patients on time
• Early risers have lower breast cancer risk

'Perfect balance'

Scientists also looked at how mannose might affect cancer treatment by giving it to mice that had been treated with two of the most widely used chemotherapy drugs, cisplatin and doxorubicin.

They found it enhanced the effects of chemotherapy, slowing the growth of tumours and reducing their size. It also increased the lifespan of some mice.

In further tests, cells from other types of cancer, including leukaemia, osteosarcoma (bone cancer), ovarian and bowel cancer were exposed to mannose in the laboratory.

Some cells responded well, while others did not.

How well the cells responded appeared to depend on the levels they had of an enzyme that breaks down mannose.

Lead author Prof Kevin Ryan, from the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, said his team had found a dosage of mannose that "could block enough glucose to slow tumour growth in mice but not so much that normal tissues were affected".

Bodies require glucose for energy but cancerous tumours also use it to fuel their growth.

"This is early research but it is hoped that finding this perfect balance means that, in the future, mannose could be given to cancer patients to enhance chemotherapy without damaging their overall health," he said.

Supplement warning

One advantage of mannose is that it is cheaper than drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies.

And Prof Ryan said he hoped tests in people could begin soon.

However, he and other experts warn that the findings do not mean people with cancer should start supplementing with mannose.

Martin Ledwick, Cancer Research UK's head nurse, said: "Although these results are very promising for the future of some cancer treatments, this is very early research and has not yet been tested in humans.

"Patients should not self-prescribe mannose, as there is a real risk of negative side-effects that haven't been tested for yet.

"It's important to consult with a doctor before drastically changing your diet or taking new supplements."

Prof Ryan said his team would next seek to investigate why mannose worked in some cancer cells and not others, so they could work out which patients might benefit the most.

The research is published in the journal Nature.

Follow Alex on Twitter.

 

 

Sri Lanka political crisis: TNA seeks solution to deadlock

 NOVEMBER 20, 2018

Sri Lanka's persistent political crisis “without a government or a Prime Minister” could embolden anti-social elements to take law into their own hands, Leader of Opposition R. Sampanthan has warned. “In such a situation, the country’s minorities, especially Tamils, may become the victims,” he said.

Mr. Sampanthan, who also leads the Tamil National Alliance, told reporters that its 14 MPs on Tuesday briefed Colombo-based diplomats on current political developments. “Such turbulence seriously impairs ongoing efforts for a political solution through constitutional reform,” he said.

The government’s assurance on returning the remaining military-occupied land belonging to civilians in war-affected areas, the release of political prisoners, ongoing work of the office on missing persons and efforts to set up the office for reparations are all in serious question, according to the Tamil leader.

The latest report on constitutional reform was scheduled to be tabled in Parliament on November 7, but proceedings have been disrupted for over three weeks now.

“It is unacceptable that all these efforts are getting stalled in the absence of a government or a PM. Action should be taken immediately to resolve the crisis,” Mr. Sampanthan said. Observing that illegal power spells dangerous consequences, he said: “The diplomats have said we will do what we can do” in regard to the situation.

After President Maithripala Siriena abruptly appointed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in place of incumbent PM Ranil Wickremesinghe on October 26, no foreign government has officially congratulated or acknowledged the purported new administration. Mr. Rajapaksa, who has since lost three votes in Parliament without proving a majority, has refused to step down, prolonging the political upheaval in the island.

Following the crisis, Sri Lanka’s economy has been badly affected and the country is in a precarious situation without a budget for the new year, according to Mangala Samaraweera, who served as Finance Minister in the controversially ousted government. “Just 9 days prior to the presentation of the 2019 budget, the Sirisena-Rajapaksa coup has thrown the country and citizens into an unprecedented crisis,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

In the absence of a legitimate government, a grave situation has now arisen as there is no legal way to meet public expenditure and obligations of the state from 2019, Mr. Samaraweera said. As Finance Minister he had made allocations to ensure funding until December 31, 2018. “However from January 1, 2019, the country will fall into a crisis”, he said, adding that Sri Lanka was on the brink of economic collapse as it stumbled “on to a road of a Greece like situation”.

President is best situated to resolve political crisis

jNovember 19, 2018, 12:00 pm 

The manner in which chairs were thrown, unarmed policemen assigned to protect the Speaker Karu Jayasuriya were assaulted and even the Holy Bible was flung as a weapon was appalling.

by Jehan Perera-November 19, 2018, 12:00 pm

The political crisis that erupted unexpectedly on October 26 still continues and is now entering its fourth week. President Maithripala Sirisena’s unexpected decision to replace Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa unleashed the problem on an unsuspecting country. The problem is that the former president has been unable to show he has the support of the majority in parliament to legitimately take his new position as prime minister. On two occasions in the past fortnight 122 MPs out of 225 have voted and signed documents of no-confidence in the newly appointed prime minister. On both occasions the President has refused to act citing procedural issues. The entire country is looking to see the deadlock end soon. Unless resolved soon the damage to the country will grow.

The chief protagonist in this unfortunate drama is the President who precipitated the crisis by withdrawing his party’s support for the coalition government, sacked its prime minister and then attempted to dissolve parliament itself. The Supreme Court’s interim order staying the dissolution of parliament suggests that the President, who is so concerned with due process, did not follow it in taking that drastic action. The President has explained his actions as being due to the sale of national assets, the non-cooperation of the Prime Minister and the existence of an assassination plot against him that was not given adequate attention. As the President is the chief actor whose actions precipitated the crisis it is important to figure out his motivations. There may be other motivations in addition to the ones he has publicly articulated.

Sri Lanka has a mixed presidential and parliamentary system of government. Until April 2015 when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, the presidency was the dominant institution and not co-equal with parliament and the judiciary. The late president Ranasinghe Premadasa when he was prime minister described himself as being no more than a peon in relation to the president. Former chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake was severely punished when she ruled against the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s wishes. The 19th Amendment sought to change the balance of power. Sri Lanka’s future now depends on whether the president and prime minister, whoever they be, can share power in a new arrangement where each respects each other. The indication is that personal motivations have taken centre stage.

NO REPRESSION

In getting out of the present crisis it is necessary that President Sirisena be part of the solution. The JVP boycotted the invitation by the President to be part of an all party conference to discuss the issue. The JVP’s position was that the President was the instigator of the problem. However, he is also key to the solution and needs to be engaged with as constructively as possible. So far the President has not crossed the line in terms of moving to suppress the opposition to his actions. Public protests are taking place and there is still no sense of menace. This is unlike in the period before he became President, when protestors were shot or made to disappear. However, the unpredictability of the President, his sudden actions and recalcitrance to solve the problem make a sudden plunge into repression a real possibility.

In these circumstances, it is unfortunate that President Maitripala Sirisena’s summoning of an all party meeting on Sunday to seek a way out of the ongoing political impasse did not yield a solution. The two sides took opposing stances. The President once again repeated his demand that the UNP and its allies should follow what he called proper procedures in parliament to pass a motion of no-confidence in the president’s Prime Ministerial appointee. Motions of no-confidence have now twice been moved by the UNP and its allies in the face of disruptive conduct of members of the recently appointed government. On both occasions President Sirisena declined to act on this no-confidence motion saying he was not satisfied with the process. This is in spite of veteran politicians on his side such as Kumara Welgama saying that if the government cannot show that it has majority support in parliament it should step down.

The problem with the president’s emphasis on proper procedures being followed is that they do not take the prevailing realities in parliament into consideration. The scenes in parliament that were broadcast on the mass media have been unprecedented and shocking. The manner in which chairs were thrown, unarmed policemen assigned to protect the Speaker Karu Jayasuriya were assaulted and even the Holy Bible was flung as a weapon was appalling. In this context the question that arises is whether the president is repeatedly making a call for proper procedures to be followed in order to thwart an outcome he does not wish to have to deal with. The government has outlined a 12 step process to be followed that can be delayed considerably if there is bad faith and delay is the goal.

During the discussions with the president the UNP and its allies had insisted that there were two possible processes for the passage of a no-confidence motion and the process that they have followed is as valid as the one that the president proposed. They also took the position that both no-confidence motions that they passed in parliament last week amidst the fracas were valid. On the other hand, President Sirisena had insisted that the process outlined by his side was the one that should be followed. If the executive and legislative bodies continue to be deadlocked a resort to the judiciary to be the arbiter appears inevitable, and necessary.

POSITIVE INTERPRETATION

What is at stake in this political power struggle is the adherence to the Constitution and the Rule of Law which civilizes the use of power and reins it in. These laws are not, as President Sirisena seems to have been misadvised, mere guidelines for action but are rules that cannot and must not be breached. This is especially so in case of transitions. So far the transition of power from one government to another in Sri Lanka has taken place peacefully according to the law of the land. The interim order of the Supreme Court has stayed the President’s action of dissolving parliament in the present case. If the rules of the game are not followed this time, the next time the violations can be worse.

The longer the delay, the more damage to the country’s economy and to the people’s confidence in their leaders. The portents are ominous. So far the only violence has been within parliament itself where the president heads one of the parties responsible for the violence. But violence can suddenly spill out. A political deadlock that makes parliament unworkable will pose dangers for democracy itself. It can force a mass mobilization of political parties as has already been seen on multiple occasions. So far the security forces have not had to intervene as the demonstrators on both sides have been peaceful, but this situation cannot be taken for granted. It only needs a small group of provocateurs to set in motion acts of violence that can have a cascading effect.

After the all party conference, the president’s media unit reported that the President had cautioned that a no-confidence motion was a matter concerning a change of government and it was essential to win the confidence of the general public as well as the international community. On that basis it reported that the President had said that he required a majority to be shown either by name or electronically. The Venerable Omalpe Sobitha Thero has said that President Sirisena himself should supervise the next vote in parliament. It would be a statemanlike act of the President to go to Parliament, take the seat he is entitled to, and to exert his moral influence to ensure that the vote meets the requisite standards for him to end the political deadlock. As the initiator of the crisis, it is fitting that the president should be the initiator of the solution.