It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, September 24, 2022
Energy-related issues continue to dominate agendas of European countries
Spanish consumers seeing monthly electricity bills increase, Belgium closes nuclear reactor in Doel, among other measures in Europe
Anadolu Agency Staff |24.09.2022 ANKARA
Energy-related issues continue to dominate the agenda of European countries, as they could face major challenges in supplying affordable energy to households and industries this winter.
New plans were put forward Friday in response to the deepening crisis. Spain
Despite major interventions in Spain’s electricity markets, including a cap on the price of gas, consumers are seeing their monthly electricity bills increase faster than many of their European peers.
In August, average electricity bills were up 60.6% compared to last year, according to Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) data from Eurostat.
In Germany, by contrast, which has been heavily reliant on Russian gas, average electricity bills climbed just 16.6% in the same period.
France, which has suffered prolonged shutdowns of its nuclear reactors due to a lack of water for cooling and maintenance issues, has also protected consumers from dramatic electricity bill increases. There, prices only rose 7.7%.
Across the EU, there are dramatic differences in how much bills have risen in the last 12 months, with the average annual increase sitting at 35.7%. Belgium
The Doel 3 reactor that has been in operation for 40 years will be shut down Friday in compliance with a law on a nuclear phase-out.
Despite the energy crisis in Europe, the nuclear reactor in Doel, north of the port city of Antwerp, will close Friday.
This is the first time that a nuclear reactor will be permanently shut down in Belgium.
The Doel 3 reactor, one of four reactors of the Doel Nuclear Power Plant, will disconnect from the grid at 21.15 local time due to the nuclear phase-out law enforced by past governments.
The 1,006 megawatt-hours capacitated reactor was built in 1978 and was grid connected in 1982.
Switzerland
Swiss retail giants Migros and Coop have decided to reduce thermostat and light use in shops due to the looming energy crisis, according to media reports on Friday.
At Migros, the temperature will be reduced to 19 degrees Celsius (66 F), news portal Nau.ch reported.
Coop will also reduce the temperature in stores and offices by 2 degrees, it added.
Customers will not only have to prepare for cooler temperatures but less lighting, according to the report.
Both wholesalers confirmed they will do without Christmas lights this year, to save energy. Greece
Main opposition SYRIZA spokesman, Nasos Iliopoulos, blamed the ruling New Democracy government of "making a deliberate political choice to plunder society in the energy sector."
Iliopoulos, who gave an interview Friday to the left-wing affiliated Sto Kokkino 105.5 FM radio station, accused the government of giving subsidies to the people from money taken from them.
"The money for the subsidies that the government is giving to keep down prices is taken from society, at a time when there are increased tax revenues, which from VAT alone amount to 2.5 billion, and inflation is running at 11-12%, when the ruling New Democracy party refuses to reduce the excise tax on fuel or the VAT on basic foodstuffs,” he said.
Juul Sues FDA for Documents Said to Justify E-Cigarette Ban
JUUL Labs Inc. Virginia tobacco and menthol flavored vaping e-cigarette products are displayed in a convenience store in El Segundo, Calif., on June 23, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
Juul Labs has sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the agency’s refusal to disclose documents supporting its order banning the company, which has been blamed for fueling a teenage vaping crisis, from selling e-cigarettes on the U.S. market.
In a complaint filed on Tuesday with a federal court in Washington, D.C., Juul accused the FDA of invoking the “widely abused” deliberative process privilege to improperly withhold scientific materials that are “central” to understanding the basis for the June 23 sales ban.
Juul said the materials would show whether the FDA conducted a legally required balancing of the public health benefits and risks of its products, including claims they help smokers quit cigarettes, and whether the agency’s reasoning was scientifically sound.
“The public deserves a complete picture of the scientific facts behind one of the agency’s most controversial and closely scrutinized decisions in recent years,” Juul said.
An FDA spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the agency does not discuss pending litigation.
Juul accused the FDA of violating the federal Freedom of Information Act by withholding a majority of the “scientific disciplinary reviews” underlying the sales ban.
It said it filed an administrative appeal through the agency, but the FDA missed a Sept. 13 deadline to resolve it.
A federal appeals court temporarily stayed the sales ban on June 24.
The FDA then decided on July 5 to let Juul keep selling its products for the time being, saying “scientific issues” unique to the company warranted further review.
On Sept. 6, Juul agreed to pay $438.5 million to settle claims by 34 U.S. states and territories over its marketing and sales practices, including that it improperly courted teenage buyers.
Marlboro cigarette maker Altria Group Inc paid $12.8 billion in 2018 for a 35 percent stake in Juul. Altria valued that stake at $450 million as of June 30.
The case is Juul Labs Inc. v Food & Drug Administration, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, No. 22—02853.
Elijah McClain amended autopsy: Black man died due to sedative and restraint
AP
A protester carries an image of Elijah McClain during a rally in Aurora, in 2020. A Colorado judge last week responded to a request to release an amended autopsy report of McClain's death. Photo / AP
A Black man died after a police encounter in a Denver suburb in 2019 because he was injected with a powerful sedative after being forcibly restrained, according to an amended autopsy report.
Despite the finding, the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was still listed as undetermined, not a homicide, the report publicly released on Friday shows.
McClain was put in a neck hold and injected with ketamine after being stopped by police in Aurora for "being suspicious." He was unarmed.
The original autopsy report that was written soon after his death in August 2019 did not reach a conclusion about how he died or what type of death his was - eg, if it was natural, accidental or a homicide.
That was a major reason why prosecutors initially decided not to pursue charges.
Demonstrators move along Interstate 225 after stopping traffic during a rally and march over the death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain, in 2020, in Aurora. Photo / A
But a state grand jury last year indicted three officers and two paramedics on manslaughter and reckless homicide charges in McClain's death after the case drew renewed attention following the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
It became a rallying cry during the national reckoning over racism and police brutality.
The five accused have not yet entered pleas and their lawyers have not commented publicly on the charges.
In the updated report, completed in July 2021, Dr Stephen Cina, a pathologist, concluded that the ketamine dosage given to McClain was higher than recommended for someone his size.
"(It) was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose, even though his blood ketamine level was consistent with a 'therapeutic' blood concentration."
Cina said he could not rule out that changes in McClain's blood chemistry, such as an increase in lactic acid due to his exertion while being restrained by police, contributed to his death.
However, he concluded there was no evidence that injuries inflicted by police caused McClain's death.
"I believe that Mr McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine," said Cina, who noted that body camera footage shows McClain becoming "extremely sedated" within a few minutes of being given the drug.
Cina acknowledged that other reasonable pathologists with different experience and training may have labeled such a death, while in police custody, as a homicide or accident, but that he believes the appropriate classification is undetermined.
Qusair Mohamedbhai, attorney for McClain's mother, Sheneen McClain, declined a request for comment.
Dr Carl Wigren, a forensic pathologist in Washington state, questioned the report's focus on ketamine.
Wigren said all the available evidence — including a highly critical independent review of McClain's death commissioned by Aurora last year — point to McClain dying as a result of compressional asphyxia, a type of suffocation, from officers putting pressure on his body while restraining him.
Wigren was struck by one passage in the city's review citing the ambulance company's report that its crew found McClain lying on the ground on his stomach, his arms handcuffed behind his back, his torso and legs held down, with at least three officers on top of him.
A makeshift memorial stands at a site across the street from where Elijah McClain was stopped by police officers while walking home. Photo / A
That scene was not captured on body camera footage, the report said, but much of what happened between police was not visually recorded as the officers' cameras came off soon after McClain was approached.
The cameras did continue to record audio where they fell and captured people talking.
Just because McClain, who said he couldn't breathe, could be heard making some statements on the footage, does not mean he was able to fully breathe, Wigren said.
Ketamine, which slows breathing, could have just exacerbated McClain's condition, but Wigren does not think it caused his death.
However, another pathologist, Dr Deborah G Johnson of Colorado, said McClain's quick reaction to ketamine suggests that it was a cause of McClain's death.
However, she said its use cannot be separated from the impact that the police restraint may have had.
McClain may have had trouble breathing because of the restraint and having less oxygen in his system would make the sedative take effect more quickly, she said.
Both thought the death could have been labeled as a homicide — a death caused by the actions of other people — which they pointed out is a separate judgment from deciding whether someone should be prosecuted with a crime for causing it.
McClain got an overdose of ketamine, Johnson said, noting that the paramedics were working at night when it is hard to judge someone's weight.
"Was that a mistake to send someone to prison for? I don't think so," she said.
The updated autopsy was released Friday under a court order in a lawsuit brought by Colorado Public Radio, joined by other media organisations including The Associated Press.
Colorado Public Radio sued the coroner to release the report after learning it had been updated, arguing that it should be made available under the state's public records law.
Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan had said she could not release it because it contained confidential grand jury information and that releasing it would violate the oath she made not to share it when she obtained it last year.
But Adams County District Judge Kyle Seedorf ordered the coroner to release the updated report, and Denver judge Christopher Baumann, who oversees state grand jury proceedings, ruled on Thursday that grand jury information did not have be redacted from the updated report.
Cina noted that the report was updated based on extensive body camera footage, witness statements and records that he did not have at the time of the original autopsy report, which were not made available to the coroner's office at all or in their entirety before.
Last year, Cina and Broncucia-Jordan received some material that was made available to the grand jury in 2021, according to court documents, but they did not say what exactly that material was.
McClain's death fueled renewed scrutiny about the use of ketamine and led Colorado's health department to issue a new rule limiting when emergency workers can use it.
Last year, the city of Aurora agreed to pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit brought by McClain's parents.
The lawsuit alleged the force officers used against McClain and his struggle to survive it dramatically increased the amount of lactic acid in his system, leading to his death, possibly along with the large dose of ketamine he was given.
The outside investigation commissioned by the city faulted the police probe into McClain's arrest for not pressing for answers about how officers treated him.
It found there was no evidence justifying officers' decision to stop McClain, who had been reported as suspicious because he was wearing a ski mask as he walked down the street waving his hands.
He was not accused of breaking any law.
Police reform activist Candice Bailey had mixed emotions about seeing the amended autopsy.
"I do believe that it does get us a step closer to anything that is a semblance of justice," said Bailey, an activist in the city of Aurora who has led demonstrations over the death of McClain.
But Bailey added that she is "extremely saddened that there is still a controversy around whether or not the EMTs and officers should be held responsible for what they did, and as to whether or not this was actually murder".
As Ukraine worries UN, some leaders rue what's pushed aside
By Jennifer Peltz | AP September 24, 2022
Foreign Minister of South Africa Naledi Pandor addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
UNITED NATIONS — In speech after speech, world leaders dwelled on the topic consuming this year’s U.N. General Assembly meeting: Russia’s war in Ukraine.
A few, like Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, prodded the world not to forget everything else.
He, too, was quick to bring up the biggest military confrontation in Europe since World War II. But he wasn’t there to discuss the conflict itself, nor its disruption of food, fuel and fertilizer markets.
“The ongoing war in Ukraine is making it more difficult,” Buhari lamented, “to tackle the perennial issues that feature each year in the deliberations of this assembly.”
He went on to name a few: inequality, nuclear disarmament, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the more than 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar who have been living in limbo for years in Bangladesh.
In an environment where words are parsed, confrontations are calibrated and worry is acute that the war and its wider effects could worsen, no one dismissed the importance of the conflict. But comments such as Buhari’s quietly spoke to a certain unease, sometimes bordering on frustration, about the international community’s absorption in Ukraine.
Those murmurs are audible enough that the United States’ U.N. ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, made a point of previewing Washington’s plans to address climate change, food insecurity, health and other issues during the diplomatic community’s premier annual gathering.
“Other countries have expressed a concern that as we focus on Ukraine, we are not paying attention to what is happening in other crises around the world,” she said, vowing that it wasn’t so. Still, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken complained at a Security Council meeting days later that Russia’s invasion is distracting the U.N. from working on other important matters.
In many years at the assembly, there’s a hot spot or news development that takes up a lot of diplomatic oxygen. As former U.N. official Jan Egeland puts it, “the world manages to focus on one crisis at a time.”
“But I cannot, in these many years as a humanitarian worker or a diplomat, remember any time when the focus was so strongly on one conflict only while the world was falling apart elsewhere,” Egeland, now secretary-general of an international aid group called the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a phone interview.
Certainly, no one was surprised by the attention devoted to a conflict with Cold War echoes, oblique nuclear threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin, shelling that has endangered the continent’s largest atomic power plant, and far-reaching economic effects. The urgency only intensified during the weeklong meeting as Russia mobilized some of its military reserves.
President Andrzej Duda of Poland — on Ukraine’s doorstep — stressed in his speech that “we mustn’t show any ‘war fatigue’” regarding the conflict. But he also noted that a recent trip to Africa left him pondering how the West has treated other conflicts.
“Were we equally resolute during the tragedies of Syria, Libya, Yemen?” he asked himself, and the assembly. And didn’t the West return to “business as usual” after wars in Congo and the Horn of Africa?
“While condemning the invasion of Ukraine,” Duda added, “do we give equal weight to fighting mercenaries who seek to destabilize the Sahel and threaten many other states in Africa?”
He isn’t the only one asking.
Over seven months of war, there have been pointed observations from some quarters about how quickly and extensively wealthy and powerful nations mobilized money, military aid, General Assembly votes to support Ukraine and offer refuge to its residents, compared to the global response to some other conflicts.
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor last month told reporters – and the visiting Blinken — that while the war is awful, “we should be equally concerned at what is happening to the people of Palestine as we are with what is happening to the people of Ukraine.”
At the General Assembly, she added that, from South Africa’s vantage point, “our greatest global challenges are poverty, inequality, joblessness and a feeling of being entirely ignored and excluded.”
Tuvalu’s prime minister, Kausea Natano, said in an interview on the assembly’s sidelines that the war shouldn’t “be an excuse” for countries to ignore their financial commitments to a top priority for his island nation: fighting climate change. Part of Bolivian President Luis Arce’s speech compared the untold billions of dollars spent on fighting in Ukraine in a matter of months to the $11 billion committed to the U.N.-sponsored Green Climate Fund over more than a decade.
To be sure, most leaders made time for issues beyond Ukraine in their allotted, if not always enforced, 15 minutes at the mic. And some mentioned the war only in passing, or not at all.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro devoted his time to lambasting capitalism, consumerism and the U.S.-led war on drugs, particularly its focus on coca plant eradication. Krygyz President Sadyr Zhaparov, whose country has close ties to Russia, homed in on his homeland’s border dispute with Tajikistan. Jordan’s King Abdullah II briefly mentioned the war’s effects on food supplies, then moved on to sustainable economic growth, Syrian refugees and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ukraine is undeniably a dominant concern for the European Union. But foreign policy chief Josep Borrell insisted the bloc hasn’t lost sight of other problems.
“It’s not a question of choosing between Ukraine and the others. We can do all at the same time,” he said on the eve of the assembly.
Yet diplomatic attention and time are precious, sought-after resources. So, too, the will and money to help.
And those are big campaigns. Just $428 million has been raised for Myanmar and for the Rohingya in Bangladesh.
Egeland’s organization helps uprooted people around the world, including in Ukraine. But he feels an “urgent need to get attention to absolute freefalls elsewhere.”
“It didn’t get better in Congo or in Yemen or in Myanmar or in Venezuela because it got so much worse in Europe, in and around Ukraine,” Egeland said. “We need to fight for those who are starving in the shadows of this horrific war in Ukraine.”
___
Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, and Aya Batrawy and Pia Sarkar at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Bailouts Won’t Save Sri Lanka. Ending Dynastic Politics Might.
For far too long Sri Lanka has been a stage with the Rajapaksas as the only meaningful actors. A democratic renewal may be all that can save the country in the long run.
By Debrah Gomes and Vineeth Krishnan September 20, 2022 In this Aug. 11, 2019, file photo, former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, left, and former Defense Secretary and his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa wave to supporters during a party convention held to announce the presidential candidacy in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Credit: AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena
Sri Lanka is in crisis: a battered economy, sovereign default, food and fuel shortages, and now renewed international pressure on how Colombo mismanaged the political settlement of the ethnic conflict with the Tamils.
Indeed, ahead of the ongoing session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the organization released a report that went as far as to claim that Sri Lanka’s economic travails are in part a consequence of the “embedded impunity for past and present human rights abuses, economic crimes, and corruption.” The U.N. report has received moderate validation from some of Sri Lanka’s most significant potential allies, including India, which has voiced concerns over the lack of “measurable progress” with respect to addressing the ethnic problem.
Drawing a direct correlation between such “impunity” and the current economic crisis may admittedly be a bit of a stretch. However, what the report somewhat accidentally sheds light on is the political consequences of winning a civil war, particularly with respect to the level of adulation and freedom afforded to the perceived “heroes” of such a struggle – in this case, the country’s prominent Rajapaksa family.
The protracted war against certain Tamil groups, most prominently the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was one of the most significant challenges Sri Lanka has had to endure since its independence. It had been expected that following the declaration of victory against the LTTE in 2009, the country would return to being a leading figure in the Global South with respect to its advocacy of free-market liberalization.
During the 1970s, Sri Lanka started attracting foreign investors in droves, primarily due to its willingness to buck the trend in much of the developing world and initiate liberalized trade reforms. The announcement of economic reform policies and tax benefits in 1977 paved the way for foreign direct investment (FDI) to flow into the country, which spent significantly over the next decade in improving basic infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities for export-oriented products. However, before such policies could truly start bearing fruit, a succession of internal armed conflicts from 1983 onward led to foreign investors fleeing Sri Lanka, with some – like the American giants Motorola and Harris Corporation – having never returned to the island state.
While Sri Lanka initiated a second wave of trade reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it would not be a stretch to suggest that the state never truly recovered the sheen of its brief economic success in the late 1970s. With successive governments embroiled in tackling the civil war, Sri Lanka’s economy devolved into an export hub for certain natural resources such as rubber and coconuts, and low-level value-added products such as Ceylon Tea. There was also a growing demand in the textile sector, which quickly emerged as one of the largest sources of foreign exchange for the Sri Lankan economy. Since the end of the civil war, tourism has also picked up as a major source of revenue for the state, while the global fixation on the Blue Economy also augured well for the island nation and its 22 million-strong population.
It is to be expected that a state would suffer in terms of setting up a strong, resilient economy while it is engaged in fighting a credible security threat within its borders. While economic and military aid flows into Sri Lanka helped keep it afloat for much of this period, the onus on any state in a post-war recovery stage is to address any structural shortcomings that may have become entrenched during the long years spent focusing primarily on security and territorial integrity. However, since the second wave of trade policies petered out by the end of the 1990s, much of the economic measures initiated in the last two decades have been rather piecemeal and reeked of short-termism. The lack of adequate reforms has resulted in the definite mishandling of Sri Lanka’s economy. The Destiny of a Dynasty
For over 20 years, the Rajapaksa family dynasty has controlled Sri Lankan politics.
They have been accused of nepotism, corruption, and poor administration. Mahinda Rajapaksa served two terms as president of Sri Lanka, from 2005 to 2015, while his brother Gotabaya was elected president in 2019. While Mahinda had been active in political circles since the 1970s, Gotabaya retired from the Sri Lankan Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1991, having seen action during the First Eelam War. When Mahinda entered office as president in 2005, he named his brother secretary to the Ministry of Defense and Urban Development, a post he held until 2015.
With the defense portfolio under Mahinda and with his brother serving as the secretary, the Rajapaksa brothers held sway over Sri Lanka’s National Security Council during this period and were effectively credited with bringing an end to the decades-long armed conflict with the Tamil groups. It would not be remiss to state that apart from belts in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksa brothers were seen as the heroes who brought the LTTE to heel, even if this required brutal strength to achieve. Mahinda’s re-election in 2010 with nearly 58 percent of the popular vote, a year after the end of the war, is testament to this notion.
During his years in power, Mahinda was criticized for placing dozens of relatives – including Gotabaya – in government positions. Upon becoming president in 2019, Gotabaya effectively returned the favor, appointing Mahinda as prime minister. Furthermore, Gotabaya also continued the trend of delegating important positions to his wider family.
Dynastic politics is nothing new in South Asia, let alone Sri Lanka. Still, it can be argued that the Rajapaksas have managed to take this to a whole new level, all the while winning elections (except for Mahinda’s second re-election campaign of 2015) with the utmost ease. If they enjoyed public support for so long, then where did things go wrong? Arguably, it is exactly the sort of unprecedented public approval that the Rajapaksas once enjoyed that has landed the country in such trouble.
As a nation, Sri Lanka has lurched from crisis to crisis during the years of the Rajapaksa dynasty. For Mahinda, on assuming power in 2005, just as important as ending the civil war was the reconstruction efforts in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. For Gotabaya, one of the main catalysts for his appointment as president in November 2019 was the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks earlier that year. Then, immediately after he entered office, Sri Lanka (and the world) was rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the intervening years, the Rajapaksas, particularly Mahinda, cultivated an image of flamboyant leaders, able to negotiate from a position of strength and keep both China and India on their toes. Cognizant of China’s expanding interests in the Indian Ocean and the potential threat India foresaw from this, Sri Lanka enjoyed a period where bigger powers were falling over themselves to gain favor in Colombo. Major infrastructure projects were signed off on, with Sri Lanka borrowing from all manner of lenders – from sovereign states to private creditors – to finance ambitious ventures like the Hambantota port, Colombo Port City, Lotus Tower, and Mattala International Airport, to name but a few.
All the while both Mahinda and Gotabaya ensured that key posts related to such projects were held by those close to them. This is perhaps what the UNHRC report alleging “economic crimes and corruption” is most specifically referring to. Some of the Rajapaksa brothers’ extended family who held key posts during 2005-2015 and 2019-2022 are listed below (the periods of service are provided where available):
Chamal Rajapaksa, eldest brother of Mahinda and Gotabaya: Speaker of Parliament (2010-15), Minister of Irrigation and Water Management (2007-2010).
Basil Rajapaksa, younger brother of Mahinda and Gotabaya: Minister of Finance (2021-22), Minister of Economic Development (2010-15).
Namal Rajapaksa, son of Mahinda: Minister of Youth and Sports (2020-22)
. Yoshitha Rajapaksa, son of Mahinda: Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff.
Nirupama Rajapaksa, niece of Mahinda and Gotabaya: Deputy Minister of Water Supply and Drainage (2010-2015).
Chandra Rajapaksa, younger brother of Mahinda, elder to Gotabaya: Private Secretary to the Minister of Finance, Private Secretary to the Minister of Ports and Highways.
Shashindra Rajapaksa, son of Chamal: Chief Minister of Uva Province (2009-2015), Private Secretary to the President.
Shamindra Rajapaksa, son of Chamal: Director Sri Lankan Airlines (2010-2014), Director of Sri Lanka Telecom (2010-2014).
Chaminda Rajapaksa, son of Chandra: Presidential Adviser, Coordinator for Hambantota.
Lalith Chandradasa, husband of Preethi Rajapaksa, younger sister of Mahinda and Gotabaya: Chairman of Sri Lanka Ports Authority, Chairman of National Aquaculture Development Authority, Chairman of Ceylon Fisheries Harbors Corporation, Member of Securities & Exchange Commission.
Anoma Laphir, niece of Mahinda and Gotabaya: Coordinating Secretary to the President. Jaliya Wickramasuriya, nephew of Mahinda and Gotabaya: Ambassador to the U.S. (2008-2014).
Prasanna Wickramasuriya, nephew of Mahinda and Gotabaya: Chairman of Airport and Aviation Services Limited.
Udayanga Weeratunga, cousin of Mahinda and Gotabaya: Ambassador to Russia. Srimal Wickramasinghe, brother-in-law of Mahinda: Deputy Chief of Mission and Minister at Embassy in Vienna.
Nishantha Wickramasinghe, brother-in-law of Mahinda: Chairman of Sri Lankan Airlines, Chairman of Mihin Lanka.
All said, the Rajapaksa brothers are said to have placed more than 40 relatives in influential positions during their respective tenures as president. They got away with it largely because of the instrumental role the two brothers were seen to have played in ending the 26-year long civil war. The Rajapaksas ensured that the key finance portfolio was kept within the family, with Mahinda in charge during 2005-2015 and again from November 2019 to July 2021 under Gotabaya’s presidency, before being replaced as minister by their brother Basil (who remained in the post until April of this year).
Similarly, plum posts in the ministries of Economic Development, Ports and Highways, and Irrigation and Water Management, as well as in major state-run firms like Sri Lankan Airlines, Sri Lanka Telecom, Sri Lanka Ports Authority, and Airport and Aviation Service Limited, always had a Rajapaksa at or near the helm. Even key foreign postings such as the ambassadorships to the United States and Russia were utilized to satiate the wider family’s ambitions and ensure the growth of the dynasty.
Alongside the ill-advised moves by the Gotabaya presidency to slash taxes at a record rate and to implement overnight a practice of organic farming by banning imports of chemical fertilizers, one of the major root causes of Sri Lanka’s current peril has to be the widespread nepotism of the Rajapaksa family. With each new ambitious proposal that was made and with each new ministry or state-run organization helmed by a near-relative, the sovereign debt of Sri Lanka has increased, while the Rajapaksa family coffers kept overflowing. Reports in 2015 suggested that during the two terms of Mahinda’s presidency, over $18 billion was siphoned off by the family. Indeed, the Rajapaksas are by some estimates responsible for over 78 percent of Sri Lanka’s current debt.
What Now?
Whether or not international creditors agree to restructure Sri Lanka’s debt, and whether or not the International Monetary Fund (IMF) follows through on the preliminary agreement to provide a $2.9 billion loan to the state, nothing will change on the ground until the Sri Lankan political landscape takes a turn for the better. The warm welcome that Gotabaya received from political aides on his return to Sri Lanka (having fled seven weeks before in the face of citizen protests) does not leave much room for optimism. It is not loans, aid, or debt restructuring that the island-nation needs the most. A return to grassroots democracy with the coming through of a new crop of leaders is the need of the hour in Sri Lanka.
To that extent, the call by India at the UNHRC for tangible progress toward the implementation of provincial elections as per the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution is a step in the right direction. For far too long all of Sri Lanka has been a stage with the Rajapaksas as the only meaningful actors.
The article expresses the authors’ views alone and does not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any institution to which they belong.
Desmond Tutu's daughter 'banned' from Church of England funeral because of marriage to woman
Daily Telegraph UK By Gareth Davies 23 Sep, 2022
Desmond Tutu. Photo / AP
The daughter of the late Desmond Tutu has reportedly been prohibited from leading her godfather's funeral by the Church of England because she is married to a woman.
Mpho Tutu van Furth, who is a practising Anglican priest in the US, had been asked to officiate the funeral of the late Martin Kenyon in Shropshire.
In a statement carried by the BBC, the Diocese of Hereford said: "Advice was given in line with the House of Bishops' current guidance on same-sex marriage."
Tutu van Furth reportedly told the broadcaster the decision "seemed really churlish and hurtful", and the diocese described it as "a difficult situation".
The Church of England does not allow same-sex marriage in its clergy, but The Episcopal Church in the US - of which Tutu van Furth is a part - does.
She had her licence to officiate as a priest rescinded in South Africa when she revealed her sexuality and married Marceline van Furth, a Dutch academic, in 2015.
When the Kenyon family discovered Tutu van Furth had been barred, they moved the service from St Michael and All Angels in Wentnor, just south of Shrewsbury near the England-Wales border.
The funeral was moved to a marquee in a neighbouring vicarage so the goddaughter could officiate.
Tutu van Furth told the BBC: "It's incredibly sad. It feels like a bureaucratic response with maybe a lack of compassion.
"It seemed really churlish and hurtful. But as sad as that was, there was the joy of having a celebration of a person who could throw open the door to people who are sometimes excluded." Desmond Tutu, who died in December 2021, won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1980s for his work tackling apartheid in South Africa.
He also championed gay rights and campaigned for same-sex marriage.
In 2013, he said: "I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place.
"I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this ... I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level."
FARC dissidents in Colombia accept cease-fire proposed by government
President Gustavo Petro announced cease-fire with Colombia’s illegal armed groups
Laura Gamba |24.09.2022
BOGOTA, Colombia
Dissidents of the FARC guerrilla group have accepted the start of a recent cease-fire proposed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, the group’s leader said Friday.
A group of 20 heavily armed guerrillas dressed in camouflaged uniforms and led by Ivan Mordisco, announced in a video shot from the jungle that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dissidents “reaffirm their commitment to engage in frank dialogues with the national government in its exploratory phase in search of solutions to the social and armed conflict that our country has suffered for decades.
Mordisco, who was believed to be dead, said the guerrillas would “avoid” confrontations with the military “as long as we are not attacked.”
The message was a response to an announcement Thursday by Petro who declared the beginning of a multilateral cease-fire between the state and all organizations willing to engage in dialogue to seek peace.
"In a matter of days a public issue will be raised: the possibility of a multilateral cease-fire that would be the beginning of the end of violence, with all those who adhere to that possibility," Petro told reporters in New York City where world leaders are gathered for UN General Assembly meetings.
The announcements were made in the context of "total peace" proposed by Petro, who seeks to negotiate deals with armed groups that are active in Colombia.
Criticism has poured in from those who say FARC dissidents are criminals without political ideology, who did not want to adhere to a peace treaty signed in 2016.
Mordisco refused to participate in any conversation at the time and gathered 500 dissidents to continue fighting and drug trafficking.
Former Defense Minister Diego Molano announced that Mordisco was killed in a military operation July 9 but his body was never found.
Nearly half of 3 million who fled Myanmar due to conflict did so since coup
The number of internally displaced persons more than doubled in the past 19 months.
By RFA Burmese 2022.09.23
People flee their homes after junta forces raided villages in Khin-U township, Sagaing region, Sept. 21, 2022.Citizen journalist
Nearly 3 million people have fled Myanmar because of armed conflict, nearly half of whom left the country after last year’s military coup, an independent research group said Friday.
The Myanmar Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies (ISP-Myanmar) said 2,930,201 internally displaced persons (IDPs), or slightly more than 5% of Myanmar’s population of 54.4 million, have fled violence in the country. It said 1,413,811 of them, or 48%, fled Myanmar amid the conflict that followed the Feb. 1, 2021, putsch.
According to ISP-Myanmar, the number of people in Myanmar who were classified as IDPs due to civil war more than doubled to 1,019,190 after the coup from 497,200 prior to the takeover.
The research group said its list was compiled from data obtained by organizations that assist refugees in conflict zones, international aid groups, ethnic armed groups, and reporting by independent media. It said the data had been checked and confirmed by its researchers.
ISP-Myanmar senior research officer Kyaw Htet Aung told RFA Burmese that all combatants in Myanmar must adopt measures to reduce civilian suffering.
“IDPs do not have full access to humanitarian aid at present and their number is rising month by month,” he said.
“How are we going to solve the problem? All the adversaries must pay more attention to military codes of conduct to minimize harm to civilians. If they can do that, I think civilian suffering would be substantially reduced. Additionally, IDPs must have better access to international aid.”
According to ISP-Myanmar, 533,833 people displaced by violence since the coup are from Sagaing region, where the military has encountered some of the fiercest resistance to its rule over the past 19 months.
Aid workers told RFA that fighting between the military and the armed opposition is intensifying and spreading rapidly throughout Myanmar, resulting in a substantial increase in the number of IDPs and civilian casualties.
IDPs from Kyaung Pyar, Kyaukkyi township, Bago region, flee their village after military raids, July 4, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist
No access to international aid
A villager who recently fled fighting in Sagaing’s Kanbalu township said that IDPs have had to rely on assistance from people in the region because they have not received any international aid.
“We have been on the run since the moment the military entered our villages, and we’ve faced a lot of difficulties moving through the jungle with the elderly, pregnant women and children,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“People are exhausted from running and hiding for so long without food. These days, it's difficult to get even one or two baskets of rice. We have never received any international aid. We all are struggling to stay alive.”
In addition to the challenges of obtaining food and medicine, the villager said his group also faces dangers such as snake bites while sheltering in the jungle.
Similar problems have been reported in Chin state, where transportation is difficult due to the region’s terrain and lack of infrastructure.
An official with the Mindat Township Refugee Camps Management Committee, who declined to be named, told RFA that basic food items and fuel are getting expensive, leaving IDPs in dire straits.
“The price of rice has risen and with the increase in fuel prices, buying rice has become even more difficult,” he said.
“In the meantime, we are also facing the danger of landslides because it is the rainy season. There are a lot of landslides here as it has been raining non-stop for more than two weeks.”
Banya, the director of the ethnic Karenni Human Rights Group, said IDPs also endure psychological suffering when they lack food, shelter and healthcare.
“The loss of their family members and homes, and being in the jungle for a long time, leaves them stressed,” he said.
“When they go from expecting a month or two of displacement, to six months, and finally more than a year, it’s very difficult to comfort them. Their losses are heavy and it is a difficult situation to bear. Currently, everything — including health conditions — have been quite bad.”
At present, he said, only emergency measures for obtaining food and medicine can be offered to the displaced, while long-term planning has been out of the question.
Aid program status unclear
Win Myat Aye, minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said efforts are underway to provide aid to the country’s IDPs, but he acknowledged the limitations he faces.
“With more than a year and a half of experience, our connection with aid groups has gradually become stronger and we can now provide more effective support,” he said.
“Access to funding and cash flow is a challenge, but now that the NUG has its own sources of income, it can supplement public donations. We are making special efforts in cooperation with ethnic armed groups to provide international support.”
He said he believes humanitarian assistance will soon be able to reach the displaced.
At the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Meeting held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on May 6, a decision was reached that the ASEAN Humanitarian Coordination Center (AHA) would act under the supervision of Myanmar military authorities to provide aid to the country’s IDPs.
On Sept. 20 pro-junta media reported that the AHA task force held an interim meeting on the aid situation in Myanmar, but more than four months since the ASEAN decision, RFA has been unable to independently confirm the status of the program.
Attempts by RFA to contact the AHA Center went unanswered on Friday.
According to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 2,316 civilians and arrested more than 15,600 since the coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Drones level playing field for Myanmar’s armed opposition against powerful military
The low-cost technology makes operations safer and more effective, PDF groups say.
By RFA Burmese 2022.09.24
Federal Wings, a drop team fighting along with ethnic militias and local People’s Defense Force groups, Sept. 15, 2022.
Nearly 20 months after the military coup in Myanmar, amid a rapidly intensifying conflict, People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups are turning to drone technology to level the playing field as they engage with better equipped junta troops.
When the PDF formed in the months following the Feb. 1, 2021 military takeover, it’s members were forced to fight Southeast Asia’s second largest army using only slingshots and the same crude flintlock “Tumee” rifles their forefathers used to fight off British colonizers in the 1880s. As the network grew, the groups began to use homemade landmines to target their enemy’s convoys.
The latest addition to the PDF arsenal are civilian drones, refitted to drop explosives on junta troops. PDF sources told RFA Burmese that the drones are safe, accurate, and require little manpower to operate during clashes.
Boh Lin Yaung, leader of the Khin-U Support Organization (KSO) in Sagaing region’s Khin-U township, said his group took civilian drones used for shooting video and upgraded them to drop bombs on specific locations.
“Drones have lots of advantages, so we started buying them,” he said.
“Right now, we are working with small drones used for photography, and therefore can only carry small payloads – around half a viss (24 ounces). The main reason we use them is because it’s the safest way for us to engage the enemy.”
Boh Lin Yaung said his group had previously sought to obtain automatic rifles, but decided to use drones instead because of how effective they are for such a low cost point against the junta’s advantages in modern military equipment, training, and supplies.
Members of Sagaing Region PDFs also reported success using drones, although they acknowledged that they are susceptible to being shot out of the sky. They noted that the junta has been using reconnaissance drones to determine their locations and engage them with heavy weapons and airstrikes.
At left, a bomb [blue] begins to fall towards a target. At right, a bomb hits a Myanmar army trench. Credit: Yangon Revolution Force
‘Our drones dominate the skies’
In Kayin state, where the intensity of fighting rivals that in Sagaing, PDFs are using large-scale drones with six propellers that can carry heavier loads.
Myo Thura Ko, the information officer of the Cobra Regiment, said PDFs have been using combat and patrol drones in Kayin since December 2021.
“The enemy can be easily defeated because the drones unnerve them ... They get scared when they hear the sound of the drones flying,” he said.
“They carry out a lot of airstrikes, but their planes just drop bombs and leave. For the rest of the time, our drones dominate the skies. Our drones also have the ability to scout at night, so they have become a nightmare for the enemy troops.”
Myo Thura Ko said a drone can be equipped with up to five bombs and patrol in dangerous areas using less manpower.
PDFs said the junta has recently begun deploying radio frequency jammers to prevent drones from flying near their camps.
Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Major General Zaw Min Tun about the military response to PDF drones went unanswered. However, at a Sept. 20 press conference in the capital Naypyidaw, he told reporters that anti-drone guns have been installed in strategic locations to protect against attack.
Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayningha Strategy Studies Group, a group of former military officers, said PDFs are limited in their ability to attack using civilian drones because of their need for technical support.
“The drones used for spraying chemicals in agriculture called ‘Hexacopters’ have six propellers. They can carry a larger payload and are now being used to drop bombs from the air. But if we look at it from a technical standpoint, the triggering mechanism isn’t simple to operate,” he said.
“In order to overcome this problem, they require support. So this is not a normal development. It’s not something they can do themselves. It's obvious that someone else is providing the technical know-how.”
Members of Federal Wings prepare two munitions for a drone attack. Credit: Federal Wings
Shadow govt drone unit
The Ministry of Communications, Information and Technology (MOCIT) under Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) recently formed a “Federal Wings” drone unit manned by tech-savvy youth. The Federal Wings’ social media page claims that the unit has already participated in operations on the battlefield using drones.
The NUG Ministry of Defense also said it is seeking funding to consolidate PDF drone attack forces into an armed force.
Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, said he expects both sides to increasingly add drones to their arsenals.
“Using drones not only for scouting, but also to deploy weapons, is a development that has come about mostly since the coup,” he said.
“Drones are a widely available technology that can be used by both sides. The role of drones is of growing importance to modern warfare.”
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
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