The Crisis In Governance: Likely Economic Consequences & The End Game 

By SWR de A Samarasinghe –DECEMBER 2, 2018

Prof. S W R de A Samarasinghe 

The crisis of governance that Sri Lanka is currently facing is unprecedented in post-war Sri Lankan politics. Two individuals claiming to be prime minister and one major party boycotting parliament illustrate the point. There is no need to recount in detail the events of the past five weeks that are publicly known. The purpose of this article is to note some of the serious implications of this crisis for the economy of the country and to stress the importance of resolving the crisis in a manner that would reverse these adverse trends. 

Political Economy

Politics and Economics are closely inter-twined in the real world. Thus the term “political economy’ is used here to describe the conceptual framework that best suits to understand the ramifications of the crisis for the nation’s economic health and the economic welfare of its people. 

Growth

First, political uncertainty causes policy uncertainty. That in turn makes investors hold back investment and wait to see which way the pendulum would swing. In short political uncertainty is bad for jobs and economic growth. Sooner the crisis is resolved the better. 

Tourism

Second, there are credible reports of short-term adverse economic consequences attributable to the current crisis. Recall that in May of this year Tourism Minister John Amaratunga officially announced that the number of tourist arrivals in 2018 first projected to be 3.0 million had been cut back to 2.5 million on account of the Anti-Muslim riots in March and the outbreak of Dengue fever. That announcement notwithstanding, the respected travel guide Lonely Plant last October named Sri Lanka as the “best in travel for 2019”. With such a boost, it is unfortunate that tourism, that generate about 5% of Sri Lanka’s GDP worth about $88 billion, faces a serious setback owing to events completely beyond the control of the industry. 

Bureaucracy

Third, there are credible reports, albeit informal, that many government officials are reluctant to sign off on legitimate economic transactions – contracts, release of funds payable, release of imported material from ports, and a myriad of other routine things – that must happen for a complex economy to function smoothly. One example that the present writer is aware of involves literally dozens of small contractors who are involved in construction in almost every district of the country. The funds for the project concerned come from a major western donor and the flow of funds came to a virtual halt for about one month because of bureaucratic uncertainty arising from the crisis.   

US Assistance

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CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS, RISKS AND ADAPTATION

Jeevan Thiagarajah-Monday, December 3, 2018

The text contains sections summary for the multi US Federal agency report on the impact of Climate Change in the US rejected by President Trump. Much of which would be relevant to most countries.
More frequent and intense extreme weather and climate-related events, as well as changes in average climate conditions, are expected to continue to damage infrastructure, ecosystems, and social systems that provide essential benefits to communities. Impacts within and across regions will not be distributed equally. People who are already vulnerable, including lower-income and other marginalized communities, have a lower capacity to prepare for and cope with extreme weather and climate-related events and are expected to experience greater impacts. Prioritizing adaptation actions for the most vulnerable populations would contribute to a more equitable future within and across communities.

Economy

Regional economies and industries that depend on natural resources and favourable climate conditions, such as agriculture, tourism, and fisheries, are vulnerable to the growing impacts of climate change. Rising temperatures are projected to reduce the efficiency of power generation while increasing energy demands, resulting in higher electricity costs. The continued warming that is projected to occur without substantial and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions is expected to cause substantial net damage to the U.S. economy throughout this century, especially in the absence of increased adaptation efforts. With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century—more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many U.S. states.

Interconnected impacts

Climate change affects the natural, built, and social systems we rely on individuals and through their connections to one another. These interconnected systems are increasingly vulnerable to cascading impacts that are often difficult to predict, threatening essential services within and beyond the nation’s borders. The full extent of climate change risks to interconnected systems, many of which span regional and national boundaries, is often greater than the sum of risks to individual sectors. Failure to anticipate interconnected impacts can lead to missed opportunities for effectively managing the risks of climate change and can also lead to management responses that increase risks to other sectors and regions. Joint planning with stakeholders across sectors, regions, and jurisdictions can help identify critical risks arising from the interaction among systems ahead of time.

Water

Rising air and water temperatures and changes in precipitation are intensifying droughts, increasing heavy downpours, reducing snowpack, and causing declines in surface water quality, with varying impacts across regions. Future warming will add to the stress on water supplies and adversely impact the availability of water in parts of the United States. Changes in the relative amounts and timing of snow and rainfall are leading to mismatches between water availability and needs in some regions, posing threats to, for example, the future reliability of hydropower production in the Southwest and the Northwest. Groundwater depletion is exacerbating drought risk in many parts of the United States, particularly in the Southwest and Southern Great Plains. Dependable and safe water supplies for U.S. Caribbean, Hawai‘i, and U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Island communities are threatened by drought, flooding, and saltwater contamination due to sea level rise. Most U.S. power plants rely on a steady supply of water for cooling, and operations are expected to be affected by changes in water availability and temperature increases. Ageing and deteriorating water infrastructure, typically designed for past environmental conditions, compounds the climate risk faced by society.

Health

Impacts from climate change on extreme weather and climate-related events, air quality, and the transmission of disease through insects and pests, food, and water increasingly threaten the health and well-being of the American people, particularly populations that are already vulnerable. With continued warming, cold-related deaths are projected to decrease and heat-related deaths are projected to increase; in most regions, increases in heat-related deaths are expected to outpace reductions in cold-related deaths. The frequency and severity of allergic illnesses, including asthma and hay fever, are expected to increase as a result of a changing climate. Climate change is also projected to alter the geographic range and distribution of disease-carrying insects and pests, exposing more people to ticks that carry Lyme disease and mosquitoes that transmit viruses such as Zika, West Nile, and dengue, with varying impacts across regions. Communities in the Southeast, for example, are particularly vulnerable to the combined health impacts of vector-borne disease, heat, and flooding. Populations including older adults, children, low-income communities, and some communities of colour are often disproportionately affected by and less resilient to the health impacts of climate change.

Ecosystems and ecosystem services

Ecosystems and the benefits they provide to society are being altered by climate change, and these impacts are projected to continue. Without substantial and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, transformative impacts on some ecosystems will occur; some coral reef and sea ice ecosystems are already experiencing such transformational changes.
Many benefits provided by ecosystems and the environment, such as clean air and water, protection from coastal flooding, wood and fibre, crop pollination, hunting and fishing, tourism, cultural identities, and more will continue to be degraded by the impacts of climate change.

Agriculture and food

Rising temperatures, extreme heat, drought, wildfire on rangelands, and heavy downpours are expected to increasingly disrupt agricultural productivity in the United States. Expected increases in challenges to livestock health, the decline in crop yields and quality, and changes in extreme events in the United States and abroad threaten rural livelihoods, sustainable food security, and price stability. While some regions (such as the Northern Great Plains) may see conditions conducive to expanded or alternative crop productivity over the next few decades, overall, yields from major U.S. crops are expected to decline as a consequence of increases in temperatures and possibly changes in water availability, soil erosion, and disease and pest outbreaks. Projected increases in extreme heat conditions are expected to lead to further heat stress for livestock, which can result in large economic losses for producers.

Oceans and coasts

Rising water temperatures, ocean acidification, retreating Arctic sea ice, sea level rise, high-tide flooding, coastal erosion, higher storm surge, and heavier precipitation events threaten oceans and coasts.

Lasting damage to coastal property and infrastructure driven by sea level rise and storm surge is expected to lead to financial losses for individuals, businesses, and communities, with the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts facing above-average risks.

Even if significant emission reductions occur, many of the effects from sea level rise over this century—and particularly through mid-century—are already locked in due to historical emissions, and many communities are already dealing with the consequences. 

Accelerate progress against HIV/AIDS by making quality testing accessible to all

 Monday, 3 December 2018

Ensuring all people everywhere have access to quality HIV testing and can know their status is critical to preventing and controlling HIV/AIDS. Across the WHO South-East Asia Region, as across the world, many people living with HIV (PLHIV) lack access to testing and hence do not know their HIV status. This inhibits access to treatment and enhances the likelihood of AIDS-related complications and death. It also allows the virus to spread.

In recent years Member States have made strong progress in all aspects of HIV/AIDS prevention and control. Between 2010 and 2017 AIDS-related deaths declined by 40%. Between 2000 and 2017 new infections were more than halved, from 318,000 to 157,000. Still, an estimated 3.5 million people region-wide currently live with the disease, with around 51% receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART) and an estimated 36% completely unaware of their status. This must be remedied as a priority.

Fundamental to ensuring all people have access to quality HIV testing is harnessing the many innovations now available. Novel approaches such as community-based testing by lay providers, community-led testing and HIV self-testing are vital tools to help people know their status. To make this happen, countries must ensure WHO prequalified HIV self-test kits are registered with drug regulators and are readily accessible. They must also remove all structural barriers to access testing, including the need for parental consent for adolescents, for example.

Communities themselves must be encouraged to embrace HIV testing. This can be done via communication campaigns that strive to eliminate the stigma and fear surrounding the disease, and which tailor messaging according to key populations.

This is especially important given nearly two-thirds of new infections in the Region occur among key populations, who are at a significantly higher risk of contracting the virus than the general population. As recent regional think tank meetings have stressed, empowering key populations to harness ‘Aids Assets’ will help prevent, test and treat HIV, thereby keeping them safe and reducing the disease’s prevalence.

While championing the need for each person to know their status – the theme of this year’s World AIDS Day – as the ‘WHO Treat All’ guidelines make clear, knowledge alone will not solve the problem: All cases should be provided free treatment as soon after diagnosis as possible, especially given WHO removed limitations on the eligibility of receiving ART in 2016. It is to the credit of each of the Region’s Member States that the WHO Treat All guidelines have been universally adopted, with each of them striving to reach the 90-90-90 target by 2020.

To that end, WHO will continue to support Member States via technical and operational assistance as they work to ensure that by 2020 at least 90% of PLHIV in the Region know their status; at least 90% of those who know their status are on treatment; and at least 90% of those on treatment have suppressed viral loads. By sustaining present gains, accelerating progress, and harnessing the full power of innovation, these outcomes are within our grasp. They can – and must – be reached.

(The writer is the WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia.) 

Israeli police recommend Netanyahu and his wife be charged with corruption

Israeli prime minister accused of giving favourable contracts to Bezeq Telecom in return for positive news coverage of him and his wife

In a statement on Sunday, the Israeli leader rejected the claims (Reuters)

Sunday 2 December 2018

Israeli police have said they have found evidence to recommend pursuing bribery and corruption charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife. 

Authorities claimed on Sunday that Netanyahu gave favourable contracts to Bezeq Telecom in exchange for better coverage of the prime minister and his wife on its news website.

The latest round of allegations comprise the third corruption case to be levelled against the Israeli leader.

The decision on whether to charge Netanyahu rests with Israel's attorney-general, who is still weighing whether to indict the prime minister in the other two cases.

Netanyahu has denied all charges of corruption, claiming "these recommendations were determined and leaked even before the investigations began".

READ MORE►

Netanyahu corruption probe: The five cases hanging over Israeli prime minister

In a statement on Sunday, the Israeli leader said that the allegations had no legal basis.

"I'm sure that in this case the relevant authorities, after examining the issue, will reach the same conclusion: that there was nothing because there is nothing," he said.

Police said there was evidence to charge Netanyahu with bribery, fraud, breach of trust and unlawful acceptance.

They also recommended his wife, Sara Netanyahu, face charges of bribery, fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of evidence.

In a joint statement with the Israel Securities Authority, police said they had also found sufficient evidence to charge Bezeq's controlling shareholder with bribery as well as other officials at the company.

"The main suspicion is that the prime minister took bribes and acted in a conflict of interest by intervening and making regulatory decision(s) that favour Shaul Elovitch and Bezeq, and in parallel demanded directly and indirectly to interfere with content of the Walla website in a way that would benefit him," the statement said.

The three cases involving the long-serving premier have led to speculation over whether he will eventually have to step down.

California faculty vote to suspend Israel study abroad program

Faculty at California’s Pitzer College have voted to suspend discriminatory study abroad in Israel programs. (Pitzer College Facebook)

Nora Barrows-Friedman - 29 November 2018

In an effort to fight discrimination against their students, faculty at Pitzer College have called for the suspension of study abroad in Israel programs with the University of Haifa.

Voting by a 4-to-1 ratio in favor, faculty said the programs should be curtailed “until the Israeli state ends its restrictions on entry to Israel based on ancestry and/or political speech” and until Israel “adopts policies granting visas for exchanges to Palestinian universities on a fully equal basis as it does to Israeli universities.”

Professors also rejected their administration’s move to nullify a resolution passed by Pitzer’s student senate last year in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights.

In what the board of trustees admitted was an unprecedented step after decades of respecting student autonomy, it had rescinded the students’ vote to suspend purchases from corporations that profit from Israel’s occupation after coming under fire from Israel lobby organizations, according to civil rights group Palestine Legal.

Pitzer is one of several campuses in the Claremont Colleges consortium in southern California.
Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) said it received the news of the two motions “with great joy.”

“The University of Haifa program is deeply problematic and it is imperative that the colleges withdraw this program from their study abroad curriculums,” the student group said.

View image on Twitter

PACBI

✔@PACBI

Good News! Faculty at @pitzercollege in California overwhelmingly voted in support of the BDS movement for Palestinian rights. As Israel’s attacks on Palestinian education escalate, professors & students are standing up for what's right https://buff.ly/2ADafCX  #RightToEducation

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2:49 AM - Nov 28, 2018

View image on Twitter

Liza Julia@lizaveta9

Thank you @pitzercollege faculty for opposing discriminatory study abroad program in Haifa. As a young Jewish person who supports #BDS, I probably won’t be allowed in Israel. But more importantly, Palestinians are routinely denied entry. http://bit.ly/2E0FgVs  via @BDSmovement

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3:20 PM - Nov 28, 2018

Such study abroad programs are part of an Israeli propaganda effort “designed to give international students a ‘positive experience’ of Israel, whitewashing its occupation and denial of Palestinian rights,” according to PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

They also violate equal rights clauses because Israel regularly denies entry to persons on the basis of their Palestinian, Arab, Middle Eastern, or Muslim ancestry.

By encouraging Pitzer students to participate in the Israel program, “the college has been consciously supporting these discriminatory practices,” Claremont SJP noted.

Israel’s racial profiling has a “discriminatory impact on students participating in educational programs,” while the 2017 passage of its anti-BDS law “means that US students could be prohibited entry into the country for an act of political expression that is fully protected under the US Constitution,” warned the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).

The group recently launched a call to students and educators not to support or participate in Israel study abroad programs.

“Israeli universities have deep ties to Israeli military occupation and colonization throughout Palestine and are boycottable for this reason alone,” Heike Schotten, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a member of USACBI’s organizing collective, told The Electronic Intifada.

“But Israel’s racist and ideological litmus tests that determine who may – and may not – pass through Israeli-controlled borders means that any US study abroad program in Israel would subject US students to this racist and politically objectionable discrimination,” Schotten added.

“We wouldn’t allow our own students to be treated this way on our campuses. We shouldn’t allow Israel to treat our students this way in an attempt to study at theirs.”

In a statement condemning the Pitzer faculty vote, the University of Haifa alleged that its campus – which is inaccessible to the vast majority of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and from elsewhere around the world – is evidence of Israel’s “commitment to an open and inclusive society in which multiculturalism and interfaith tolerance thrive.”

The university touted the fact that 25 percent of its students are Palestinian citizens of Israel.
But it failed to note that Israel has never allowed the establishment of an Arabic-language university – forcing many Palestinian citizens of Israel who want to pursue higher education in their native language, rather than in Hebrew, to leave their homeland.

Israel supporters have slammed the faculty’s votes and are demanding that the university block implementation of the motions, claiming that they single out Israel and promote “bigotry and anti-Semitism.”

“Falling down on the job”

The move by Pitzer’s faculty to suspend programs with Israeli institutions “is particularly significant because in general, administrations are falling down on the job here,” New York University professor Andrew Ross told The Electronic Intifada. Ross is also a member of USACBI’s organizing collective.

If universities are willing to violate their own basic principles by promoting programs with Israeli institutions in which not all students can participate, Ross said, “it’s up to faculty and students to be the conscience of these institutions.”

For a smaller college like Pitzer, “it does seem possible that faculty votes have a certain amount of power and consequence. It’s not the case everywhere, but they’ve managed to prevail in the face of administrative efforts to suppress this vote,” he added.

The Pitzer faculty motions come on the heels of recent attacks on two instructors at the University of Michiganwho refused to write recommendation letters for students wishing to join study abroad programs in Israel.

Under pressure from Israel lobby groups who smeared professor John Cheney-Lippold’s refusal to write a recommendation letter as anti-Semitism, the University of Michigan took away his merit pay raise and sabbatical and charged him with interfering in the student’s request with his own “personal views and politics.”

University of Michigan graduate student instructor Lucy Peterson, who pledged to support the call to boycott Israeli institutions, also faces potential discipline for refusing to write a recommendation letter.

“The two professors at the University of Michigan began by setting us all an example of our proper conduct in relation to education abroad programs in Israel,” said David Lloyd, a professor at the University of California, Riverside.

“They refused to collaborate with them by writing letters, but there are other ways of not cooperating – including pressuring the institution not to participate in them,” Lloyd told The Electronic Intifada.

Lloyd said that his students who have traveled to Palestine for research or just to visit family have been routinely detained, interrogated and strip-searched.

He added that students understand that they can “put themselves in danger by applying to such programs, so they avoid them.”

Lloyd called the move by Pitzer’s faculty a “major advance” for the academic boycott movement.

He added, “it’s time for some of the larger academic institutions to take the right kind of ethical stand now.”

Will the Brits Muddle Through?

Many pro-Brexit voters misunderstood the real issues and regret their hastiness. Divorce is always ugly and painful

by Eric S. Margolis-Dec 1, 2018

( December 1,2 108, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Two of the most perilous military operations are crossing rivers while under enemy fire, and retreat while engaged with enemy forces.

Britain’s embattled Prime Minister, Theresa May, must accomplish both maneuvers if she is to extract her very confused nation from the horrid Brexit mess and save her job. We wish her lots of luck.

On December 11th, British members of parliament must vote to accept some sort of Brexit deal; a negotiated withdrawal and/or trade association. But there is bitter opposition within May’s Conservative Party and rival Labour Party to Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. The rump Northern Irish Unionist Party, which shores up May’s Tories in parliament, is making everyone crazy.

Increasing numbers of British voters now think that the original referendum to withdraw Britain from the European Union after four decades of grudging membership was a catastrophic mistake. Britain was one of Europe’s big three members; without with EU, Britain will be marooned somewhere off the coast of northern Europe and forced to become totally responsive to US demands and policies.

Equally vexing, the proud Brits, who a century ago ruled a quarter of the globe’s surface, will be forced to see old rivals Germany and France become the undisputed kingpins of Europe while no one pays attention to the toothless old British lion.

British supporters of Brexit don’t care. They tend to dislike foreigners…aka ‘bloody wogs’…, chafe at regulations imposed by faceless bureaucrats in remote Brussels, fret over a rising tide of EU immigrants, fulminate over the steep costs imposed by the EU, and deeply resent being compelled to accept working in the EU collective instead of trumpeting imperial demands.

But times and economic realities have changed. Britain is no longer the manufacturing powerhouse it was before World War II. Its industries are rusting, the quality of its manufactured products questioned (Dyson excepted) and the once mighty financial power of the City of London diminished.

Europe’s money lenders and their ilk are slinking off to Frankfurt and Paris; the City of London is no longer the wild, anything goes casino where all sorts of financial chicanery was quietly tolerated. London is slowly losing its charmed existence as a tax refuge – or to quote Somerset Maugham’s great quip about Monaco, ‘a sunny place for shady people’.

As Britain’s economy deflates under Brexit, its working class will have refuge against the snobs and toffs who sneered at them for generations and perpetuated the class system. But ditching the EU will be like Britain shooting itself in the foot. All economic signs show that Britain will be impoverished if Brexit happens. Everything – the stock markets, industry, trade, housing – are pointed downhill. Divorcing Britain from the EU will be nightmarishly complex and fraught. The Bank of England warns that Brexit will plunge the country into a serious recession.

All this for the sake of national ego and a chance to stick it to the ‘bloody foreigners’. Certainly not worth the expense or national anguish, say many sensible Brits and the Labour Party. The Tories are split over the issue and locked in bitter infighting. The leading Conservative MP’s remind one of all the things we didn’t like about snobby, imperial Britain.

The way out of this nasty mess is for Parliament to do its job and mandate another referendum. Many pro-Brexit voters misunderstood the real issues and regret their hastiness. Divorce is always ugly and painful. After all the shouting and name-calling, Britain will be left with a cup of cold flat tea, not the golden chalice it hoped for.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2018

Revealed: the stark evidence of everyday racial bias in Britain

Half of black, Asian and minority ethnic respondents in the poll said they believed people sometimes did not realise they were treating them differently because of their ethnicity. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

Robert Booth and Aamna Mohdin-Sun 2 Dec 2018 18.00 GMT

 

Poll commissioned to launch series on unconscious bias shows gulf in negative experiences by ethnicity

The extent of racial bias faced by black, Asian and minority ethnic citizens in 21st-century Britain has been laid bare in an unprecedented study showing a gulf in how people of different ethnicities are treated in their daily lives.

A survey for the Guardian of 1,000 people from minority ethnic backgrounds found they were consistently more likely to have faced negative everyday experiences – all frequently associated with racism – than white people in a comparison poll.

The survey found that 43% of those from a minority ethnic background had been overlooked for a work promotion in a way that felt unfair in the last five years – more than twice the proportion of white people (18%) who reported the same experience.

The results show that ethnic minorities are three times as likely to have been thrown out of or denied entrance to a restaurant, bar or club in the last five years, and that more than two-thirds believe Britain has a problem with racism.

The ICM poll, commissioned to launch a week-long investigation into bias in Britain, focuses on everyday experiences of prejudice that could be a result of unconscious bias – quick decisions conditioned by our backgrounds, cultural environment and personal experiences.

It is believed to be the first major piece of UK public polling to focus on ethnic minorities’ experiences of unconscious bias, and comes amid wider concerns about a shortage of research capturing the views of minority groups.

The poll found comprehensive evidence to support concerns that unconscious bias has a negative effect on the lives of Britain’s 8.5 million people from minority backgrounds that is not revealed by typical data on racism. For example:

• 38% of people from ethnic minorities said they had been wrongly suspected of shoplifting in the last five years, compared with 14% of white people, with black people and women in particular more likely to be wrongly suspected.

• Minorities were more than twice as likely to have encountered abuse or rudeness from a stranger in the last week.

• 53% of people from a minority background believed they had been treated differently because of their hair, clothes or appearance, compared with 29% of white people.

The Runnymede Trust, a racial equality thinktank, described the findings as “stark” and said they illustrated “everyday micro-aggressions” that had profound effects on Britain’s social structure.

“Racism and discrimination for BAME people and minority faith groups isn’t restricted to one area of life,” said Zubaida Haque, the trust’s deputy director. “If you’re not welcome in a restaurant as a guest because of the colour of your skin, you’re unlikely to get a job in the restaurant for the same reason. Structural and institutional racism is difficult to identify or prove, but it has much more far-reaching effects on people’s life chances.”

David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, said the findings were upsetting. “Racial prejudice continues to weigh on the lives of black and ethnic minority people in the UK. While we all share the same hard-won rights, our lived experience and opportunity can vary,” he said.

Recalling being stopped and searched when he was 12, Lammy said: “Stereotyping is not just something that happens, stereotyping is something that is felt, and it feels like sheer terror, confusion and shame.”

Half of the respondents from a minority background said they believed people sometimes did not realise they were treating them differently because of their ethnicity, suggesting unconscious bias, as well as more explicit and deliberate racism, has a major influence on the way millions of people who were born in the UK or moved here are treated.

As well as demonstrating how much more likely ethnic minorities are to report negative experiences that did not feature an explicitly racist element, the poll found that one in eight had heard racist language directed at them in the month before they were surveyed.

It also found troubling levels of concern about bias in the workplace, with 57% of minorities saying they felt they had to work harder to succeed in Britain because of their ethnicity, and 40% saying they earned less or had worse employment prospects for the same reason.

The poll persistently found evidence that the gap in negative experiences was not confined to the past. For example, one in seven people from ethnic minorities said they had been treated as a potential shoplifter in the last month, against one in 25 white people.

US-Saudi Relations: A Diabolical Rendezvous

Featured image courtesy Mark Wilson/Getty Images

DR AMEER ALI-11/30/2018

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron. (H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26 1920)                       

By turning a blind eye to the brutal murder of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in the name of making ‘America Great Again’, President Donald Trump has sacrificed justice for power and profit; and by continuing his rendezvous with the Saudi Royal household and Crown Prince Mohammed Ibn Salman, US-Saudi “eternal friendship” has turned into a diabolic and personal courtship. How did this come about?

The Saudi-born Jamal Khashoggi, an acute observer of developments in that country and a fearless critic of Saudi Royalty was killed inside the walls of Saudi Embassy in Istanbul, allegedly by a group of Saudi assassins flown to Turkey for that purpose with instructions from the Royal household (Saudi Arabia has issued varied explanations for Khashoggi’s death inside the consulate, first denying all knowledge, then saying he had been killed in a fight). The Saudi Government failed to cover up what it finally accepted as a ‘heinous crime’. However, Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdogan, a man who has also been responsible for the detention of 245 journalists, according to Stockholm Centre for Freedom, had been relentless in getting to the bottom of the crime. Erdogan produced some hard evidence and pinpointed  Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman, who is now accused of masterminding the operation. Recently, the CIA released its own report and confirmed Turkey’s accusation. The murder is said to have been premeditated and planned at least twelve days before it was executed. The civilised world is obviously outraged, particularly at the gruesome barbarity of that murder. There is pressure on the UN to initiate an independent investigation. In spite of all this, President Trump  after casting doubt on Saudi’s culpability said at last that he was not going to sacrifice the financial and business bonanza from an important ally even though it this ally may have killed a journalist. He has also cast doubt on CIA findings and refused to listen to a recorded tape released by Turkey. All this boils down to one important conclusion about this president. To him whoever or whatever country promises money and business is an ally, no matter how murderous. Under Trump, the US has certainly lost among many things its moral high ground to lead the world. In the case of US-Saudi relations, it is cash, carbon and cannons that cements it and nothing else.

From the day he was elected as President, Trump has behaved like the proverbial bull in a China shop wrecking practically every previously agreed treaty and arrangements not only nationally but also internationally. It makes one wonder whether this president has made Mencken, quoted above, a prophet.

Saudi Arabia, formerly known as the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd, was carved out of the Ottoman Caliphate by as some might say, by imperialist design from former superpower, Britain. The kingdom’s friendship with US started in 1945 when Franklin Roosevelt, while returning from Yalta, met the “robed resplendent” King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud on USS Quincey. That meeting, in the wake of the discovery of the first oil well in commercial quantities in Dhahran in 1938, and withdrawal of Soviet diplomats from the kingdom by Stalin (Soviet Russia was the first country to recognize the kingdom and open a consulate there), partly because of the monarch turning anti-communist after Stalin executed Aziz’s trusted Russian Consul, Karim Khakimov and his associate Nazir Bey Turyakulov. More importantly, it was also because of the dictator’s decision to form friendships with Britain and join in the war against Hitler, which heralded the beginning of a friendship, which, in the 1970s and particularly after 1979, grew into more than a strategic alliance. Three epoch making events in that year, the Iranian revolution, the siege of Mecca and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, made Saudi Arabia an indispensable US ally in the Middle East and the world of Islam.

After the Iranian revolution and subsequent US debacle there, the popularity of Khomeini’s Shia radicalism leapt far beyond the Shia borders and entered into Sunni zone threatening to bring down tyrannous Muslim regimes, particularly in the Middle East. Inspired by Khomeini’s revolutionary rhetoric, the second event, siege of Mecca by a small band of Saudi Wahhabi rebels with its demand for the overthrow of Saudi Royalty, sent shock waves into Washington. The US-designed Middle East Order appeared in danger of crumbling under the Khomeini tsunami. US was in desperate search for a counter strategy to check Khomeini’s radicalism and protect the Middle East Order. In Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism/Salafism it found the answer. Without realising the inherent danger of this ultra-conservative religious virus, US administration endorsed its spread internationally to de-radicalise the Muslim youth. Shortly after the Mecca siege and under the auspices of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a new drive towards ‘Islamic cohesion’ (al-tamasuk al-islami) was launched by the Saudi Government on the occasion of the fourteenth Islamic century. WAMY, the World Muslim League, Muslim Brotherhood, the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami and Ahli Hadith networks were the main agencies that joined this Wahhabi mission. By encouraging the spread of Saudi Islam, US was aiming to kill two birds with one stone, Khomeini radicalism and Communism.

The third event, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, provided a magnificent laboratory to experiment US strategy. With Saudi petrodollars and American FIM-92 stinger missiles Wahhabi schooled mujahideen rallied under Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda joined US forces and drove out the Russians from Afghanistan, which ultimately led to the break-up and demise of what Ronald Reagan dubbed as the “evil empire”. However, the end of Communism did not mean end of Khomeini inspired radicalism.

After rejoicing the victory in Afghanistan the unemployed mujahideen warriors overestimated their capability and decided to take on US itself. If the September 11 2001 infamy in Washington could be called as the first and the most daring episode of this turn around, the emergence of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant/Syria (ISIL/S) in the summer of 2014 and declaration of a Caliphate on 29 June the same year was perhaps its grand finale. The ISIS/L was actually another Wahhabi state and its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and many of his Saudi supporters were schooled in Wahhabism. In relation to Saudi Royalty, ISIS continued from where the 1979 rebels stopped.

With Saudi monarchy facing existential crisis in the face of radical Islam and US facing s crisis from radical Iran it is no surprise that these two ‘eternal friends’, one with destructive weaponised power and the other with cash and carbon enriched wealth, should strengthen that friendship at any cost.

The election of Donald Trump, an unpredictable narcissist, to the White House, and selection of Mohammed Ibn Salman as Saudi Crown Prince, an unhinged and equally narcissistic, has brought the so called Middle East Order to the brink of disaster. Salman’s diabolic involvement in Yemen causing an unparalleled humanitarian crisis condemned by the world at large, his open support to anti-Assad rebels in Syria including ISIS fighters – whom he wants to keep at bay from interfering in Saudi domestic politics – his hatred of the Shiites and Iran and his uncompromising determination to put down all internal opposition to his untrammelled power, even by killing the opponents as demonstrated by the cruel murder of Khashoggi, is a warning to the world as to what will happen if this so called ‘moderniser’ of the desert kingdom becomes the King. Equally, a president of the only superpower, who is prepared to wreck everything come what it may only for the sake of US power and prosperity, is also a warning to the world that Hitler is not dead. Under these two personalities, is not the US-Saudi rendezvous malevolently dangerous?

Saudi crown prince exchanged messages with aide alleged to have overseen Khashoggi killing

Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi speaks at an event hosted by Middle East Monitor in London on Sept. 29, 2018. (Middle East Monitor/Reuters)

By Shane Harris and Souad Mekhennet December 2 at 4:18 PM

In the hours before and after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a senior aide who allegedly oversaw the assassination exchanged multiple messages, according to people familiar with the matter.

The communications between the two men are another piece of evidence tying the crown prince to the killing of Khashoggi, a former palace insider turned prominent critic, who also was a contributing columnist to The Washington Post.

The CIA included the existence of the messages in its classified assessment that Mohammed is likely to have ordered Khashoggi’s death, a view that agency officials have shared with members of Congress and the White House.

Mohammed exchanged the messages on Oct. 2 with Saud al-Qahtani, one of his closest aides and a fierce public supporter who has kept a blacklist of those he deems disloyal to the kingdom. The content of the messages, and what form the messages took, was not known, according to people familiar with the matter.

Citing portions of the CIA’s written assessment, the Wall Street Journal first reported on Saturday that Mohammed had sent at least 11 messages to Qahtani before and after the killing.
The CIA has rated its assessment that Mohammed was involved in the killing at “medium-to-high confidence,” and privately, officials have said it is inconceivable that the prince, who exercises total authority over the government, could not have known about such an audacious operation. The Post had previously described officials as saying that the CIA had high confidence in its assessment.


After initially warning of "severe punishment" for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump issued a statement defending Saudi Arabia. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)

“The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” said a U.S. official familiar with the CIA’s conclusions. The CIA has declined to comment, and people familiar with the intelligence said the agency has not found any single piece of evidence that irrefutably links Mohammed directly to the killing.

Trump administration officials on Sunday continued to stress that point and emphasized the importance of the United States maintaining a close relationship with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has acknowledged that its operatives killed Khashoggi, but it says the operation was not authorized by the crown prince and was undertaken by rogue actors.

“I have read every piece of intelligence that is in the possession of the United States government,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with CNN on Saturday, “and when it is done, when you complete that analysis, there’s no direct evidence linking him to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”

Pompeo, who declined to comment on the CIA’s classified assessment, said the United States was working closely with Saudi Arabia on major foreign policy issues, including Afghanistan, and that the kingdom was a vital regional counterweight to Iran.

“They are a relationship that has mattered for 70 years across Republican and Democrat administrations alike,” said Pompeo, who previously served as the CIA director. “It remains an important relationship, and we’re aiming to keep that relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said the question of holding the killers responsible and the strategic importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship were separate issues.

“Accountability for the murder of Khashoggi stands alone. It is distinct from any other factor going on,” Mattis said in remarks at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California.

“Right now, we do not have a smoking gun,” he said, noting that he had seen all the latest intelligence in the matter as of Friday. “We do not have a smoking gun [showing] that the crown prince was involved. We certainly need to continue to explore . . . all aspects of the murder and find anyone who was involved, but that should not in any way dissuade us from basically confronting Iran,” which the Trump administration views as its major adversary in the Middle East and one that Saudi Arabia is essential to confronting.

Responding to the CIA’s findings, a Saudi official said in a written statement that Mohammed “communicates regularly with various senior officials within the Royal Court on different matters. At no time did [he] correspond with any Saudi officials in any government entity on harming Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen. We continue to categorically reject any accusations based on speculations.”

Qahtani has emerged as a key player in the killing and a compelling link to the prince. He shows up in another portion of the CIA’s assessment: An alleged member of the Saudi hit team that U.S. and Turkish officials said Qahtani oversaw, Maher Mutreb, called Qahtani from inside the consulate to inform him Khashoggi was dead, The Post has previously reported. Mutreb, a security official who was often at the crown prince’s side, is seen on security camera footage entering and leaving the consulate on the day Khashoggi was killed.

The U.S. intelligence community also has intercepts of communications before Khashoggi was killed that show Mohammed had ordered an operation to lure him back to Saudi Arabia. Friends of Khashoggi’s have said that Qahtani called the journalist and raised the potential of his working for the crown prince if he would end his self-imposed exile in Virginia and return to his native country.

Communications that the United States intercepted in July show that Mohammed had asked senior Saudi intelligence officials about the status of a plan to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia, according to one intelligence official.

President Trump, who also has been briefed on the CIA’s findings, has been equivocal in assigning blame to the crown prince, who works closely with the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner on Middle East issues.

“Maybe he did or maybe he didn’t!” Trump said in a statement last month, adding that the true culprits might never be known. The president has said that the strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia and the benefit to the U.S. economy from Saudi arms purchases are too important to rupture over the killing of Khashoggi, which he has condemned.

But the latest revelation of intelligence connecting Mohammed and his aide Qahtani to the killing may increase pressure on the administration to take more punitive steps.

The Treasury Department has sanctioned 17 individuals it said were involved in Khashoggi’s death, including Qahtani, Mutreb and the Saudi consul general in Turkey, Mohammad al-Otaibi. But some members of Congress have called for further action, and Republicans have begun defecting from the administration over its support for the Saudis.

Last week, in a rebuke of Saudi Arabia and the administration’s handling of the Khashoggi case, a majority of the Senate voted to advance a measure to end U.S. military support to Saudi Arabia for its war in Yemen against Iranian-backed militants.

Mekhennet reported from Frankfurt, Germany. Missy Ryan in Simi Valley, Calif., and John Hudson and Ellen Nakashima in Washington contributed to this report.