90 Percent Of Sri Lanka’s Corals Are Dead

Coral. Photo Credit: Sri Lanka government

By Eurasia Review- June 11, 2019

Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) General Manager Dr. Terney Pradeep Kumara said Sri Lanka’s corals are faced with an imminent threat of destruction due to climate change, pollution and illegal fishing methods. Observing that 90 percent of corals in Sri Lankan waters are already dead, he warned that the remaining 10 percent would also be lost in another 10 years.

“Sri Lankans will lose the luxury of viewing colourful corals 10 years from now if urgent steps are not taken to stop their current rate of destruction,” he said.He was speaking at a media workshop on ‘Conservation of Corals and Marine Environment’ organized by the MEPA in Trincomalee parallel to World Ocean Day which fell on June 8.

“The percentage of live corals in Hikkaduwa is about 7 percent. The Bar reef in Kalpitiya has suffered a severe coral bleaching event. In shallow waters down South, you can only see coral rubble now. Illegal fishing methods such as dynamiting have destroyed corals in Silavathura. Some patches of corals still remain in the Eastern waters such as in Pigeon Islands in Trincomalee, the newly gazetted Kayankerni Marine Sanctuary and Pasikuda. The pressure on these corals is also very high due to human activities such as tourism, discharge of industrial effluent, agriculture, aquaculture, discharge of municipal sewerage and squatter settlements. We need a collective national effort to protect the remaining live coral patches,” he explained.

Dr. Pradeep Kumara, illustrating a series of examples of marine pollution, stressed that plastic and polythene waste poses a great threat to marine environment. “We need an attitudinal change to restrict our plastic and polythene consumption.

Avoid plastic packaging as much as possible. In beach clean-up campaigns we regularly collect a large number of plastic straws and plastic water bottles. Tons of plastic waste ends up in the ocean every year and the trash stays there infecting, damaging, and killing coral reefs. Plastic waste entangle in corals. This poses a severe threat to marine bio-diversity. Coral reefs provide homes and nursery grounds to many fish species,” he said.

The General Manager also pointed out that though the use of all forms of polythene, polypropylene and polyethylene for decorative purposes has been banned by law, such decorations are still prevalent in the country.

“For example, Vesak lanterns made of or covered with plastic wrappings were seen everywhere,” he remarked.

He said that the MEPA on its own initiative handed over a policy guideline to minimize marine pollution from the fisheries industry to the relevant authorities. He also stressed the need to declare more Marine Protection Areas to control excessive fishing. He warned that the fishing industry will fall into trouble in the near future if such measures were not adhered to. “We may even lose wild catch fisheries if the current rate of fishing continues,” he remarked.

He also highlighted that even though Sri Lanka banned two-stroke engines in three wheels several years ago, two-stroke boat engines are still widely being used and that they cause no less pollution. “There is not even a discussion to ban two stroke boat engines. Their emissions cause marine pollution,” he added.

Responding to a question by a journalist as to why the MEPA does not take stringent legal action against the offenders of marine polluters, the General Manager cited lack of legal provisions for the MEPA to act in many instances. “The role of MEPA is preventing marine pollution. We can act on instances such as oil spills, chemical spills and ship accidents etc, but when it comes to taking legal action against instances such as discharge of effluent to the sea we have no authority. Also our purview is limited to a few Km stretch of sea and land,” he responded.

MEPA Chairman Rear Admiral Rohana Perera speaking at the workshop said that the MEPA signed an agreement with the Samurdhi Development Department to get the participation of Samurdhi beneficiaries for daily coastal cleanup campaigns.

He said Samurdhi beneficiaries who are willing to join in the programme, would be assigned a stretch of one kilometre and would be paid Rs 100 per hour. “They have been asked to attend to beach cleanup twice a day one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. Likewise, they can earn about Rs 6,000 supplementary income per month. This amount is more than the monthly Samurdhi allowance.

A private company has come forward to sponsor the programme and bear the cost of payments to the participants. We invite other private companies too to join in. About 110 Samurdhi beneficiaries are currently registered with the programme,” he said.

US: Chapel Hill shooter gets life in prison for murder of Muslim-American students

Victims' families had pressed for shooter to be charged with hate crime for deadly 2015 attack

Vigil in February 2015 for three young Muslims killed in Chapel Hill (AFP/File photo)

By Sheren Khalel-12 June 2019

The man who shot and killed three Muslim-American college students at their apartment in North Carolina has been sentenced to life in prison, years after the murders first drew headlines amid a spike in Islamophobia in the United States.

Craig Hicks pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder on Wednesday, US media outlets widely reported.

Hicks killed three of his neighbours in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on 10 February 2015: Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Yusor's sister, Razan Abu-Salha, 19.

The father of Chapel Hill shooting victims has spoken out during a hearing on hate crime

Read More »

While local police attributed the shooting to a long-simmering parking dispute, the victims' families and their supporters said it was an anti-Muslim hate crime.

"If a Muslim man knocked on a door and executed a Christian family in their home with no provocation, that would be called terrorism," said Mohammad Abu-Salha, the sisters' father, on Wednesday after the sentence was handed down.

"But we Muslims are soft targets," he said, as reported by the New York Times.

North Carolina does not have a hate crime statute that can apply to first-degree murder, the Times reported.

But the victims' families had tried to press prosecutors to find a way to designate the murders as an act of hate.

In April, Abu-Salha spoke at a congressional hearing on hate crimes, where he told legislators that "there is no question in our minds that this tragedy was born of bigotry and hate".

'Not about parking'

On Wednesday, both the state district attorney and a behavioural psychologist echoed that, saying the murders should be classified as hate crimes.

'If a Muslim man knocked on a door and executed a Christian family in their home with no provocation, that would be called terrorism'

- Mohammad Abu-Salha, victims' father

During the court hearing, the prosecutor played for the first time a video that had been taken on one of the victims' phones right before the shooting.

"You've got three cars in the lot, and I don't have a parking spot," Hicks is heard saying seconds before he opened fire, as reported by the Times.

Still, District Attorney Satana Deberry insisted on Wednesday that the murders were over more than just a parking spot.

"It is about cold-hearted madness and murder," Deberry said, as reported by local media. "It is not about parking."

Since the murders, the families of the victims had reached out to the US government in an attempt to use federal law to recognise the murders as being motivated by hate.

The Chapel Hill murders: The beast of New Atheism?

Read More »

They met twice with Vanita Gupta, then the assistant attorney general in charge of the US Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the New York Times reported.

Gupta declined to discuss the case in detail, but told the newspaper that "the proof must be very clear that the only motivation for the crime is hate".

According to an FBI report released in November, hate crimes were up by 17 percent in the US in 2017, compared with the previous year.

Of the 1,749 victims of anti-religious hate crimes that year, 18.6 percent of the victims were Muslim, the FBI report also stated.

Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas and Wyoming are the only states in the US that have not yet enacted hate crime laws, according to data from the US Department of Justice.

Inside Israel’s million dollar troll army

Act.IL’s Israeli headquaters in Herzliya. (Act.IL/Facebook)

Asa Winstanley-12 June 2019

A global influence campaign funded by the Israeli government had a $1.1 million budget last year, a document obtained by The Electronic Intifada shows.

Act.IL says it has offices in three countries and an online army of more than 15,000.

In its annual report, from January, Act.IL says its goal is to “influence foreign publics” and “battle” BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

Through its app, Act.IL issues “missions” to this troll army in exchange for “cool prizes” and scholarships.

The app directs comments towards news websites in support of Israeli wars and racism, while attacking Palestinians and solidarity campaigners.

The leaked report claims Act.IL’s app completes 1,580 such missions every week.

Act.IL’s report was obtained by The Electronic Intifada thanks to researcher Michael Bueckert.

Bueckert monitors the app, and posts screenshots of its missions to the Twitter account Behind Israel’s Troll Army.

Act.IL directs users of its app to promote negative comments on Facebook videos about Palestinians, such as this one about the Palestinian community in El Salvador. (Michael Bueckert)

The report was sent out to app users. You can read it in full below.

It claims that Act.IL’s 15,000 “online volunteers” come from 73 countries

As well as its Israeli headquarters, the report lists seven offices – its “media rooms.”

These are mainly in the US, with the report giving details from its New Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia, Orange County, New York, Florida and then-forthcoming Los Angeles offices.

The home page of Act.IL’s website sports a British flag alongside the Israeli and American, suggesting the organization has another “local media room” in Britain.

The report doesn’t give details of any UK office. But it does name UK lobby group We Believe in Israel and the far-right group Sussex Friends of Israel as among its “partnerships.”

We Believe in Israel’s director, the right-wing Labour activist Luke Akehurst, did not reply to a request for comment.

Act.IL claims to be a “grassroots” group, but has been described by one expert as “advanced digital political astroturfing” – in other words, a fake “grassroots” campaign.

The app’s users pose as ordinary members of the public. But many of the most active users are actually Act.IL staff.

At least six out of nine “top activists” named by Act.IL in a screenshot from April work for the group, an investigation by The Electronic Intifada has established.

Screenshots from the app’s rankings taken in June provided to The Electronic Intifada by Bueckert show that four of the top 11 “activists” this month are actually current or former Act.IL staff.

This Act.IL staff member is also employed by an Israeli ministry, according to his LinkedIn profile.

These include Lior Sirkis, a former Israeli army spokesperson, and Daniel Gavriel the group’s data analyst. According to his LinkedIn profile, Gavriel also works as “security officer” for Israel’s public security ministry – a government entity led by Gilad Erdan.

The report states that Act.IL has 13 employees plus 150 year-long interns.

Contrary to claims about being run by “volunteers,” in a Hebrew-language interview with Forbes Israel last year, the group’s chief executive Yarden Ben Yosef admits students help Act.IL “in return for a scholarship.”

The report obtained by The Electronic Intifada makes it clear that Act.IL employees and volunteers are told not to disclose their links to the organization while disseminating Israeli disinformation.

Deception

Describing its “no logo” strategy, the report says Act.IL wants to “reach audiences that aren’t necessarily pro-Israel.”

Despite the report’s spin about “online community,” a freedom of information disclosure by an Israeli media watchdog has shown that Act.IL was actually founded partly thanks to Israeli government money.

Watchdog The Seventh Eye revealed that Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs spent almost $2 million on one propaganda campaign in 2017 – part of which was allocated to Act.IL.

The ministry is responsible for Israel’s semi-covert “war” against BDS, and had a budget of almost $13 million that year alone.

The Seventh Eye revealed that $1.3 million was spent on “building the Act.IL website and producing multimedia content for it,” as well as ads on Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Plausible deniability

The “no logo” strategy Act.IL describes is identical to how other global proxy organizations for Israel’s anti-BDS ministry operate.

The Israel Project for example, supplies what it calls “white label,” unbranded material to launder through other groups.

This was revealed in The Lobby – USA, a four-part documentary by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit. You can watch the relevant clip in the video above.

The film was suppressed after an Israel lobby campaign targeting Qatar, the gas-rich Gulf emirate which funds the network.

But last year The Electronic Intifada obtained and released the full film.

In it, an Israel Project director said the group worked with many other organizations, explaining: “We produce content that they then publish with their own name on it.”

$1.1 million budget

According to the report obtained by The Electronic Intifada, the entire Act.IL budget for 2016-17 was $700,000, while in 2017-18 it was $1.1 million.

If the report’s figures are accurate, Israeli government funding seems to account for a majority of the group’s 2017 budget – the same year it launched the app.

The report does not disclose Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs as being among the funders it lists – though it does thank “private anonymous donors.”

The ministry’s director general has made it clear that their work “stays under the radar,” and has attempted to change Israeli law to render it classified in the same way as Israeli intelligence agencies.

Gilad Erdan – a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – is both strategic affairs minister and public security minister.

In 2017, Erdan explained why his ministry uses front organizations like Act.IL: “Most of the ministry’s actions are not of the ministry, but through bodies around the world who do not want to expose their connection with the state.”

But as the Israeli news report in the video below shows, Act.IL is one of the Israeli government’s less subtle projects.

Erdan himself launched the app at a lavish rooftop party in New York in 2017, doing his best “down with the kids” act by donning a DJ’s headphones.

Posing for the cameras with him was model and former Miss Israel Yityish “Titi” Aynaw.

A former platoon commander overseeing the anti-Palestinian checkpoints that surround Jerusalem, the Ethiopian-born Aynaw has been a high profile promoter of Israeli government propaganda since winning the 2013 beauty contest.

That year, Israeli President Shimon Peres introduced her to US President Barack Obama at a reception.

Despite her efforts to spin Israel as a beacon of diversity, she admitted in January to fearing for her life due to the Israeli police’s racism.

In an opinion piece for news website Ynet, she recounted being frequently asked by US students about racism against Black people in Israel.

She admitted to ambivalence about her efforts to deflect these questions: “In recent years, it has become hard to say it and mean it.”

But such doubts didn’t stop Aynaw from starring in the Ministry of Strategic Affairs’ glossy online launch video promoting the Act.IL app as “the easy way” to spread Israel’s message.

Over the last year, since The Electronic Intifada and other publications have exposed Act.IL’s activities, the group has taken measures to obscure its links to the Israeli government – all while claiming to be a grassroots “student initiative.”

One of the ministry’s websites – named 4IL – was set up in 2017 and was initially dedicated to promoting the Act.IL app.

At first, the site’s home page displayed the ministry’s small logo at the top. But as of this writing, it has been moved to the bottom, where it is easy to miss.

All mention of Act.IL and its app appears to have been recently scrubbed from the site.

“They’re trying to create some sort of firewall,” researcher Michael Bueckert told The Electronic Intifada. “Whereas 4IL is explicitly a ministry, Israeli government campaign, they’re trying to sell the app itself as entirely independent from the government.”

Although these ties to the state are now more obscure, there’s no doubt they remain a reality.

The 4IL site also seems to have links to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself.

Clicking on a tiny “Contact us” web link on the front page opens a new message addressed to a “pmo.gov.il” email address – the Israeli prime minister’s office.

Real-world consequences

Act.IL’s interventions are not limited to social media.

The leaked report gives one “case study” of how they got a Palestinian American student fired from his paid campus position after a Facebook posting, which included a joking promise to “physically fight” anti-Palestinian students.

Hamzeh Daoud wrote that he wanted to “abolish” Israel.

The report says Act.IL led a campaign of more than “4,500 emails that were sent to the administration” with thousands signing a petition against Daoud.

It states that the university “decided to fire the student.” In reality, Daoud resigned his post – although apparently under pressure.

Another part of the report – with typical disregard for the truth – claims that when Act.IL’s Boston office “disrupted a BDS resolution and blocked its passing” that “The Electronic Intifada wrote an article calling the Boston media room ‘agents of Mossad.’”

In reality the article in question, by The Electronic Intifada’s Nora Barrows-Friedman, did not mention the Mossad.

Interference

Much of the last several years of the establishment media’s time has been wasted raising hell about supposed Russian interference in US elections, despite a lack of real evidence.

Israel’s interference in western democracies, however, is now very well documented, and is often quite open.

This newly obtained Act.IL report seems to have been pitched at expanding its funding base beyond the Israeli state, and openly speaks of aiming to “influence foreign publics.”

It boasts of manipulating “international public opinion towards the state of Israel via social media platforms.”

Yet – exactly as in the case of The Israel Project – Facebook and the other Silicon Valley giants have so far refused to take action.

Who has the political will to do something?

With translation by Dena Shunra.

My Friend Che Guevara

by Anwar A. Khan-2019-06-12

• 2019-06-12 

"For us there is no valid definition of socialism

other than the abolition of the exploitation of

one human being by another." – Ernesto Che Guevara

June 14, 2019 will be the 91st birthday of Che Guevara.

Che’s friend Ricardo Rojo wrote a far-famed book on him titled, “My friend Che.” Tears welled up my eyes every time whenever I read it. To me, Che is more than my friend, and more than my soulfulness kinsman. Acclaimed around the world, he is the dashing rebel whose epic dream was to end poverty and injustice in Latin America and the developing world through armed revolution. One can trace Che's extraordinary life, from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from the halls of power in Castro's government to his failed campaign in the Congo and assassination in the Bolivian Jungle.

 

 

 

He was the Argentine Marxist and a guerrilla fighter whose famous portrait by Alberto Korda still adorns everything from t-shirts and baseball caps to hagiographic murals, MAD magazine covers and high-end panties. He was brutally killed 52 years ago, on 9th October 1967. He had been captured with the help of disdainful CIA operatives of USA in Bolivia, where he was attempting to spark a continent-wide revolution in the mold of the Cuban rebellion of the previous decade. Che Guevara illuminates as the mythic figure that embodied the high-water mark of revolutionary communism to establish people’s proletariats throughout the world as a force in history.

 

 

In his journal, Guevara writes of the encounter with the forces of Batista government, "I talked all night with Fidel. And in the morning I had become the doctor of his new expedition. To tell the truth, after my experiences across Latin America I didn't need much more to enlist for a revolution against a tyrant. But I was particularly impressed with Fidel. I shared his optimism. We needed to act, to struggle, to materialise our beliefs. Stop whining and fight." The handsome, youthful, cigar-smoking, beret-clad looking revolutionary has become an icon of protest the world over since long. By the late 1950s, Ernesto Che Guevara began appearing in newsreels, and within less than a year after his death the legendary freedom fighter was spawning cinematic works, depicted by famous actors in fiction films. Many books are written by many writers on this great revolutionary. He has inspired numerous documentaries and features. To remember and honour this indefatigable champion of the wretched of the Earth, there are the top ten films about him —fallen, but not forgotten.

 

If, as Mao Tse Tsung puts it, “the people are the sea and the guerrillas are the fish,” Che’s lack of local support doomed his final struggle. A fish out of water, Guevara was caught on October 8, 1967, by the US trained and armed Bolivian military, with CIA participation. He was summarily executed the following day, thus avoiding a sensational trial and bringing to a devastating end Che’s tri-continental strategy. According to 3rd June 1975 declassified document of America, “When Che Guevara was executed… one disdainful CIA (the whole CIA is a disdainful outfit) official was present -- a Cuban-American operative named Félix Rodríguez… After the execution, Rodríguez took Che’s Rolex watch, often proudly showing it to reporters...” So much inhuman an act! Che Guevara wrote that we must be "guided by a great feeling of love" for the oppressed, and "strive every day so that this love of living humanity is transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force". Nelson Mandela correctly spelt out, "Che's life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom. We will always honor his memory."

 

The book “My Friend Che” by Ricardo Rojo was first published in 1968 and translated in 11 languages was the first direct testimony written on Ernesto Guevara. The book sold more than half a million copies, own facets of the guerilla leader and helps discover the man before he was converted in a myth. Ricardo Rojo was a rare species on the Argentine political landscape: he put principles before power and profit, and thus fell out with all those he started off supporting. But Rojo will be commemorated for his best-known book, “My Friend Che.”

 

 

As a young medical student, Guevara travelled throughout South America and was radicalised by the poverty, hunger and disease he witnessed. His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara's political ideology. Later in Mexico City, Guevara met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht Granma with the intention of overthrowing US backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime. The United States supplied Batista with planes, ships and tanks, but the advantage of using the latest technology such as napalm failed to win them victory against the guerrillas of Fidel and Che.

 

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government under his friend Fidel Casto. Additionally, Guevara was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World's underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedy being proletarian internationalism and world revolution. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia.

 

Guevara remains a revered historical figure. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle and desire to create the consciousness of a new man driven by moral rather than material incentives, he has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist movements. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda’s photograph of him, titled Guerrillero Heroico (shown), was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as "the most famous photograph in the world".

 

The day after his execution on October 10, 1967, Guevara's corpse was displayed to the world press in the laundry house of the Vallegrande hospital. Cruelty should have its limit!

 

Guevara received several honours of state during his life, such as, 1960: Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the White Lion, 1961: Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the Southern Cross… His life and legacy will remain alive till this civilisation is having life, vigour or spirit. He will remain a transcendent figure both in specifically political contexts and as a wide-ranging popular icon of youthful rebellion. A revolutionary leader, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born on June 14, 1928, in Rosario, Argentina. After completing his medical studies at the University of Buenos Aires, Guevara became politically active first in his native Argentina and then in neighbouring Bolivia and Guatemala. In 1954, he met Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro and his brother Raul while in Mexico. But one thing is very clear that he was a prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution (1956–59) who went on to become a guerrilla leader in South America. Executed by the Bolivian army in 1967, he has since been regarded as a martyred hero by generations of leftists worldwide. Guevara’s image remains a prevalent icon of leftist idealism and anti-imperialism.

 

Since his death, Guevara has become a legendary political figure. His name is often equated with rebellion, revolution, and socialism. His life continues to be a subject of great public interest and has still been explored and portrayed in numerous books and films. His famous quote reads, “Better to die standing than to live on your knees.” As Guevara's interest in Marxism grew, he decided to abandon medicine, believing that only revolution could bring justice to the people of South America. In 1953 he travelled to Guatemala, where he witnessed the CIA-backed overthrow of its leftist government, which only served to deepen his convictions. In his book, Man and Socialism in Cuba, Che wrote, “Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.” With deep-chested, I remember Che Guevara, the revolutionary hero of the world’s proletariats.

 

-The End-

 

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

Pay, time, respect: nearly three decades on, Swiss women strike again

A leaflet and badges are pictured ahead of the women's strike (June 14) in Sierre, Switzerland May 17, 2019. Picture taken May 17, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi, Denis Balibouse-JUNE 12, 2019

ZURICH/GENEVA (Reuters) - Women from across Swiss society plan to take to the streets this Friday for a nationwide strike aimed at highlighting the country’s poor record on defending the rights of women and families.

Despite its high quality of life, Switzerland lags other developed economies in female pay and workplace gender equality.

Using the slogan “Pay, time, respect!” Friday’s event echoes a strike held in 1991, five years before Switzerland Gender Equality Act came into force.

That law banned workplace discrimination and sexual harassment and protected women from bias or dismissal over pregnancy, marital status, or gender.

But more than 20 years later, women argue they face earning less than men, routine questioning of their competence, and condescension and paternalism on the job.

“I think the time has come to finally take measures so that women can take their rightful place in the decision-making spheres and defend their interests at all levels of society,” said Adele Thorens, a 48-year-old politician for the Green Party in Lausanne.

“There is a real ‘glass ceiling’, the way of treating women is different than the way they treat men,” Lynn Bertholet, a 60-year-old private bank manager from Geneva, who is transgender, told Reuters. “I realise that because most of my existence has been as a man.”

Organisers say the strike is aimed at highlighting wages, recognition of care work, violence against women, the need for greater representation in positions of power and for more equitable family policy.

In schools in Zurich, teachers and caregivers will strike for better pay in female-dominated roles and for better work-family balance, asking fathers to pick children up early and leaving other children in the care of male peers.

Swiss women earn roughly 20% less than men. While that is down from about a third in 1991, the discrimination gap — meaning differences that cannot be explained by rank or role — has actually worsened since 2000, Federal Statistics Office data show.

“We’re striking because women earn less for the same work, are passed over for promotions, are hardly represented at the executive level and because typically female jobs are poorly paid,” co-organisers the Women*strike Collective Zurich wrote in a manifesto.

The collective said its temporary office has been flooded with visitors and hundreds of people, including men, have sent emails expressing solidarity and asking about how they can participate.
Professional snowboarder Anne-Flore Marxer, 35, said she had seen first-hand how discrimination persists in sport as well.

Slideshow (10 Images)

“In free ride competitions ...the first male skier gets $8,000 while the first woman snowboarder gets $4,000 for the same competition, the same day, on the same mountain,” Marxer told Reuters.

On June 14, 1991, women blocked trams during a sit-in in the heart of Zurich’s financial district and gathered outside schools, hospitals and across cities with purple balloons and banners to demand equal pay for equal work.

That came a decade after basic gender equality was enshrined in the Swiss constitution and less than three months after women for the first time were allowed to participate in a regional vote in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden.

“I think that on June 14, 1991, women invented a new form of expression,” Social Democrat Ruth Dreifuss, who that year became Switzerland’s first female president, told the daily Tribune de Geneve. “Everything converged into a single message: we want to come out of the shadow and have our work finally be recognised.”

'It is a done deal': Turkey says it has already purchased Russian S-400s

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says missile defence systems should arrive next month

Turkey and US have sparred publicly for months over Ankara's order for S-400s (AFP file photo/Russian Defence Ministry)

By MEE and agencies- 12 June 2019

Turkey has already purchased S-400 missile defence systems from Russia and expects delivery next month, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, despite Washington's objections to the deal.

Turkey and the United States have sparred publicly for months over Ankara's order for the S-400s, which the US says are incompatible with NATO's defence network and pose a threat to US F-35 fighter jets that Turkey also plans to buy.

Erdogan: Turkey committed to Russian missile deal, US offer not 'as good'

Read More »

Still, speaking at a meeting of his AK Party members, Erdogan said the purchase was "a done deal", Reuters news agency reported.

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan outlined on 31 May how Turkey would be pulled out of the F-35 fighter jet programme unless Ankara changed course from its plans to purchase the S-400 missile defence system.

The US has also threatened to hit Turkey with sanctions if it goes ahead with the deal.

During Wednesday's meeting, Erdogan said Turkey will "hold to account" anyone who excludes Turkey from the F-35 programme "due to reasons without reason or legitimacy". He noted that Turkey is also a manufacturing partner in the programme.

Erdogan also said he wanted to talk about the issue on the phone before he meets US President Donald Trump in Osaka, Japan, at the end of this month.

It is unclear whether Turkey and the US still plan to participate in a joint technical study group to investigate Washington's concerns over Ankara's purchase of the Russian systems.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump approves Turkish offer for joint S-400 study group

Read More »

Official Turkish sources told Middle East Eye in May that Trump had accepted an offer to form the group during a phone conversation with Erdogan.

But in the following days, Shanahan told reporters he was unaware of the Turkish request to form a working group. He did add that he was speaking to his Turkish counterpart and they were "making progress on discussions" about the S-400.

Earlier this month Erdogan said Turkey had also been discussing a US offer to sell Patriot missiles.

"However, unfortunately, the US side has not given us an offer as good as the S-400s," he said.

US envoy green lights annexation of West Bank

David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, looks into Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. He has his eyes set on the occupied West Bank next.

 Matty SternZUMA Press

Michael F. -11 June 2019

David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, has asserted that Israel has the right to annex West Bank land.

“Under certain circumstances,” Friedman told The New York Times, “I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”

He put it differently in his 2017 Senate confirmation hearing when he declared he did not personally support Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

At the time, Senator Bob Corker, the committee’s chair, called Friedman out for changing positions leading the nominee to “recant every strongly held belief that you’ve expressed, almost.”

Yet it should come as no surprise to the US Senate that Friedman was not honest with them after years of fundraising to advance the Israeli settlement enterprise.

Friedman’s comment comes two months after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced just prior to the April Israeli election that he intended to annex parts of the West Bank.

Flawed Democratic response

Senate Democrats, unnerved at the impending Netanyahu and Trump-led foreclosing on the two-state solution, have pushed forward a resolution this month “noting that Israeli annexation of territory in the West Bank would undermine peace.”

Co-sponsors include presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

The resolution, however, is deeply flawed. Democrats are rightly expressing alarm at the prospect of annexation, but they embrace Israeli propaganda in noting that annexation would undermine “Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.”

Such language is overtly racist and echoes the commonly expressed view in Israel that Palestinians, if given full rights, would constitute a “demographic threat” to Israel merely for being born and existing.

Indeed, Warren warned in February that “realities are bearing down on Israel, demographic realities, births and deaths.”

If Warren uttered the same words about, say, Latinos, in the US context, she would be rightly lambasted for Trump-like nativism and white supremacism.

Yet Warren, like other liberals, views segregating Palestinians and Israelis into separate entities – a “two-state solution” in which Israel would inevitably maintain all the real power – as the best way to solve what she sees as the problem of there being too many Palestinians.

The insistence on maintaining a Jewish majority – and therefore Israeli Jewish political power – at the expense of Palestinian rights is no different in principle than if Democrats, or Republicans, supported a white and Christian “democratic” United States of America.

Yet most 21st century Democrats would see such a “white and Christian democracy” as a farce, antithetical to bedrock Democratic principles.

But when it comes to Israel they fail to grasp the import of their own words and how a “Jewish and democratic state” is totally incompatible with the rights of Palestinians.

A similar resolution introduced in the House claims that “the United States has long sought a just and stable future for Palestinians, and an end to the occupation, including opposing settlement activity and moves toward unilateral annexation in Palestinian territory.”

Setting aside Democratic mythmaking that the US has seriously sought an end to the occupation and justice for Palestinians – when it has long helped finance the occupation and armed Israel during horrific military attacks on Palestinian civilians, while denying Palestinian refugees’ right of return – the House resolution has similar problems to the one in the Senate.

Representative Alan Lowenthal’s resolution, with its 122 Democratic co-sponsors, resolves to “ensure the State of Israel’s survival as a secure Jewish and democratic state.”

There is nothing there about a state for all its people.

Israel has effectively imposed an undemocratic one-state solution – in other words apartheid – and is on the path to formalizing it.

But members of Congress are still insisting on a two-state solution – without calling for any effective measures to hold Israel accountable for blocking it – rather than demanding that everyone living in the territories currently under Israeli rule be granted full and equal rights.

They are late to understand what is happening, indeed, they still do not even understand Netanyahu, President Donald Trump and Friedman are changing the fundamental realities on the ground toward entrenching the system of apartheid Israel has spent decades creating without anything more than verbal opposition from the United States and the so-called international community.

Partial annexation would leave Palestinians in their truncated and disconnected bantustans, but would kill the pretense that Israel ever intends to leave the West Bank. And it may well prove to be only another step towards a future Israeli goal: full annexation of all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Yet even partial annexation may leave Democrats slumbering and oblivious that Israel is hewing closely to South Africa’s bantustan model. In fact, members of Congress and some in the international community may be more likely to accept partial annexation because it would permit Palestinian municipal government over remaining Palestinian cantons.

Only one sitting member of Congress, Minnesota’s Betty McCollum, has had the courage to name the system Israel has created as apartheid. Her name is on the House resolution as well.

Trump and Netanyahu’s trial run with the Golan Heights certainly gives no reason to think that Democrats will rise to the occasion when it comes to similar moves against the West Bank.