Army responsible for deaths at Rathupaswela: SLHRC

2015-07-31
Investigations conducted by the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission had revealed that the Sri Lanka Army was responsible for the shooting and assaults that took place while dispersing the crowd at Rathupaswela. 

The incidents occurred on August 1, 2013. Three persons including two students were shot and killed by the army, and more than 37 were injured in the melee.

 There had been contradictory evidence regarding the person responsible for summoning the army, the commission said. Tear gas and water cannon had been used by the army to disperse the crowd. It had been established that the protestors did not carry firearms. 

After a lengthy investigation, the Human Rights Commission said that the army should conduct proper inquiries against the senior officers and commanding officers who participated in dispersing the protestors in Weliveriya and Belummahara. (Tharindu Jayawardene and Deepa Adikari)   

Palestinian child dead in suspected Jewish extremist arson attack on home

Officials say 18-month-old killed and his father, mother and brother injured after West Bank house set on fire and ‘price tag’ slogan daubed on walls

Kate Shuttleworth in Duma and Mairav Zonszein
Friday 31 July 2015
A Palestinian child was killed and three family members critically wounded in a suspected arson attack by Jewish extremists on two homes in the West Bank village of Duma early on Friday.

Eighteen-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha burned to death, while his father and mother, Saad and Reham Dawabsha, and another son, Ahmad, 4, were taken to a hospital in critical condition.

Graffiti saying “revenge” and “long live the messiah” and “price tag” was found on the home.

Police described it as a “suspected attack with nationalist motives”. Such attacks by Jewish extremists have become known as “price tag” attacks.

The Palestinian chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said it held the Israeli government fully responsible.

“This is a direct consequence of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism,” he said in a statement. “We cannot separate the barbaric attack that took place in Duma last night from the recent settlement approvals by the Israeli government.”

The Israeli prime minster, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: “I am shocked over this reprehensible and horrific act. This is an act of terrorism in every respect. The state of Israel takes a strong line against terrorism regardless of who the perpetrators are.”

A search was under way to find the assailants. The Israel Defence Forces set up road blocks and increased its presence. Spokesman Peter Lerner said the “attack against Palestinian civilians is a barbaric act of terrorism”.

Two settlers wearing black balaclavas allegedly entered Duma through a nearby gate, smashed a window and threw a molotov cocktail into Reham and Saad’s bedroom while they were asleep just after 2am on Friday morning.

Ibrahim Dawabsheh, a Palestinian construction worker in the nearby Jewish settlement of Shilo was talking to his fiancee on the phone on an upstairs balcony early on Friday morning when he heard his neighbours screams.

“I heard Saad shouting, ‘help, they have slaughtered me’ and I dropped the phone,” he said. Ibrahim was first on the scene and said he found two men standing over the burning bodies of Reham and Saad. Saad.

“There were two masked men, one of them was standing by Reham looking at her and the second was standing next to Saad checking if they were alive or not”

Ibrahim said he didn’t see any weapons on the men but they followed him and he ran back to his property to safety. “The settlers tried to follow me back to my house, but they left after Bashar, my brother came,” he said.

After the two men left, Reham and her husband were carried into the neighbour’s courtyard. The couple had tried to protect themselves from the fire by covering themselves with synthetic bedclothes but they had stuck to their bodies. The neighbours showed the Guardian a pile of melted bedclothes and a woman’s bra lying on the ground surrounded by blood.

Ibrahim was in tears when he told the Guardian he was able to rescue four-year-old Ahmad but not 18-month-old Ali. “I went to find Ahmad, I used my cellphone as a light at the doorway to the bedroom, I could hear him but I couldn’t see him. I eventually pulled him out,” said Ibrahim. He said later when the fire brigade arrived they retrieved Ali’s body, which was burned beyond recognition.

The attack appeared to be an act of revenge for the recent demolition of two buildings in the nearby settlement Beit El, where settlers and Israeli police clashed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, said he was “outraged” by the attack.

“This heinous murder was carried out for a political objective. We must not permit such acts to allow hate and violence to bring more personal tragedies and to bury any prospect of peace. This reinforces the need for an immediate resolution of the conflict and an end to the occupation.”

The EU on Friday called on Israel to show “zero tolerance” for settler violence, while Jordan, the only Arab state apart from Egypt to have signed peace with Israel, strongly condemned the arson attack and said it held Israel responsible for the death of 18-month-old Ali and for all attacks on the Palestinian people.

“This ugly crime could have been avoided if the Israeli government had not ignored the rights of the Palestinian people and turned its back on peace... in the region,” government spokesman Mohammed Momani said.

It is the worst attack by suspected Israeli extremists since a Palestinian teenager was burned to death in a retribution killing for three Israelis killed by abductors a year ago.

The “Price Tag” group has been blamed for a string of mosque torchings in the West Bank in the past few years, often in retribution for Israeli actions against illegally built settlements.

Brigadier General Moti Elmoz told Israeli media: “I don’t remember such a grave incident in recent years. It is a crime, and there is a reason why we are calling it an act of terror.”

The education minister and Jewish Home chairman, Naftali Bennett, tweeted on the attack: “It’s not a hate crime or price tag, it’s murder. Terror is terror is terror.” He called for the terrorists to be tracked down immediately.

MILITANTS IN INDIA

ALI SUKHANVER-Date: 30 Jul 2015

On 27th July 2015, The Washington Post published a report regarding the gun-battle between the Indian security forces and the so-called militants in Gurdaspur, a border town in Indian Punjab. The report was prepared by Ashok Sharma, an Indian journalist. According to the details the militants first attacked a moving bus and then stormed into a police station. The incident took lives of more than ten innocent people including four policemen. This fight between the security forces and the ‘militants’ lasted for about 12 hours and ultimately the three alleged militants were shot dead. In this operation against the militants, the troops of the Indian Army also provided help and support to the police. The Press Trust of India also reported the same incident but with a slight variation, ‘The attackers hijacked a car and then fired at the bus and a roadside eatery before entering a police station near. Eight injured people were hospitalized, seven of them in serious condition. Police are investigating whether the militants came from the Indian portion of Kashmir which borders Punjab or from Pakistan. Rebels routinely stage attacks in Indian-held Kashmir, where they’ve been fighting since 1989 for an independent Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.’ State-run All India Radio said, ‘ The police had discovered five bombs on a railway track in the area, causing train service to be suspended, though it was unclear whether it was related to the Gurdaspur attack.’. Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) fulfilled its official responsibility very honestly by bluntly blaming Pakistan for the terrorist attack on Indian police station on Monday. UK based news Agency the News Tribe reported the claim of an officer from the Indian Intelligence Bureau with reference to the sources from the Indian media. The officer said, ‘The militants who attacked Indian police station had come from Pakistan.’ In short almost everyone from India directly or indirectly blamed Pakistan for the Gurdaspur Terror Attack. It seems they all are trying to paint this incident as another Mumbai Attack Episode. In spite of this hurricane of blames and allegations, Pakistan following its old tradition, expressed deep grief over the sad incident. Pakistan’s foreign ministry in its official statement condemned the attack by saying, ‘Pakistan reiterates its condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.’

But there is another side of ‘midnight’ too. Earlier in July, Pakistani Troops shot down an Indian Quad-copter, commonly known as spy-drone, inside the Pakistani side of LOC. According to the Inter-Services Public Relations Pakistan, the drone intruded from Jaurian Sector of the Indian Occupied Kashmir and was flying over Banchirian Sector near Bhimber in Pakistani area when it was shot down by Pakistani troops. The ISPR stressed that the spy-drone was sent for reconnaissance and secret surveillance and Pakistan has irrefutable evidence that it was flown by the Indian Army. There is a very clear connection between these two incidents; Pakistan’s shooting down of the Indian drone on 15th July and ‘militants’ attack on Gurdaspur police station on 27th July. Whatever happened there in Gurdaspur seems a desperate effort of face saving by the Indian authorities. They were facing no doubt very bitter criticism from their own nation and from the International forces on sending a spy-drone to Pakistan and just to pacify and cool-down the critics and to give the world an impression that India is in a serious trouble at the hands of Pakistan-supported ‘Militants’.

Let us cast a look at a report on the working and professional status of world’s one of the most proficient intelligence agency, the ISI. According to that report Pakistan’s spy agency ISI sought to intercept all communications passing through the country in 2013, the most significant expansion of its capacity to conduct mass surveillance till date and rivaling that of the US and UK. The report was prepared by Privacy International. The report revealed that in June 2013, the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, sought to develop a mass surveillance system by directly tapping the main fiber optic cables entering Pakistan that carried most of the nation’s network communication data. The Guardian commented upon the report that through this surveillance program ISI would rival some of the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies including those of the US and Britain. This report by the Privacy International added a lot of salt to the already injured Indian strategy of destabilizing Pakistan. It was very difficult for the Indian Authorities to ‘swallow’ ISI’s professional supremacy admitted by the International forces. So to give the world an impression that Pakistan is a supporter of the militants and ISI is not a strong and competent intelligence agency, the Indian conspirators planned to stage the Gurdaspur Attacks and earlier the Drone Drama. India must not behave in such a non-sense criminal way. This world has realized that nothing more is important than peace and friendship; conspiracies based on blame, accusations and allegations are no more welcomed and admired here. India would get nothing by going against this positively cool and comfortably calm wind of peace and tranquility. 

Searchers scour Reunion beaches in hope of finding MH370 clues

Air safety investigators, one of them a Boeing investigator, have identified the component as a “flaperon” from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing. Pic: AP.

By Asian Correspondent Staff Jul 31, 2015

Searchers were scouring the Reunion coastline Friday in hopes of finding more debris that officials hope will unlock the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

Philippe Sidam, head of an association that maintains the Bois Rouge beach near where the aircraft wing was found Wednesday, said the ocean currents bring all kinds of debris. He displayed a laundry bottle from Indonesia, 6,700 kilometers (4,100 miles) away, as an example.

A Malaysian team is on its way Friday to Toulouse, France, where the wing fragment will be taken for investigation. It will be analyzed in special defense facilities used for airplane testing and analysis, according to the Defense Ministry.

The sea-crusted wing part that washed up on the island in the western Indian Ocean may be the first trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 since it vanished nearly a year and a half ago.

(READ MORE: Flight MH370 passenger’s sister skeptical over debris find)

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak promised to make any new information public quickly.

“We have had many false alarms before, but for the sake of the families who have lost loved ones, and suffered such heartbreaking uncertainty, I pray that we will find out the truth so that they may have closure and peace,” the statement said.

“I promise the families of those lost that whatever happens, we will not give up.

Air safety investigators — one of them a Boeing investigator — have identified the component found on the French island of Reunion as a “flaperon” from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing, a U.S. official said.

The wing component may be brought to mainland France on Saturday morning for full investigation, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Image via Twitter.

Spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre says the flight may leave the French island of Reunion on Friday night for an expected arrival Saturday in the city of Toulouse, hub to Europe’s aviation industry.

French investigators will analyze the wing part because it was found on French territory, and will cooperate with international investigators, she said.

French investigators have been carrying out their own probe into the disappearance last year of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 because there were French citizens among the missing.

A Reunion police official said the wing was found Wednesday in the Bois Rouge neighborhood of the small town of Saint Andre, and was transferred Thursday to the civil aviation authority’s offices at the airport in the island’s capital, Saint-Denis. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

France’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that the origin of the wing part remains unclear, and that the French justice system currently has responsibility for it and will cooperate with international authorities investigating last year’s disappearance of MH370.

A French law enforcement helicopter scoured the waters around Reunion Thursday in hopes of spotting more debris like the piece of aircraft wing found on the island in the western Indian Ocean.

A French law enforcement helicopter flies over the beach in Saint-Andre, Reunion Island, in the hope of finding more plane debris, Thursday. Pic: AP.

A police official who was not authorized to speak about the search on the record said the goal is to “check if there are other pieces of the plane that would have been stranded on the shore.”

David Ferreira, an oceanographer at the University of Reading, said the strong currents of the Indian Ocean could conceivably have pushed debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 several thousand kilometers from the area where it was believed to have gone down.

“On its own, this piece of debris will not do much to narrow down the search area by very much,” Ferreira said.

You can watch footage of the debris find here:

David Cameron warns migrant crisis will last all summer

Britain to send sniffer dogs and more fencing to Calais as the prime minister says disruption could last throughout the summer

FRIDAY 31 JULY 2015

The prime minister has said that the fallout from the growing migrant crisis in Calais will last throughout the summer as he pledges MoD land to ease traffic chaos in Kent.

David Cameron said that that the current situation of "people trying to illegally enter our country" is "absolutely not acceptable".

Britain, he said, was going to send France more fences, resources and sniffer dog teams to stop migrants from getting access to the Channel Tunnel.

MoD land will also be used to ease pressure on the motorways caused by lorries which have been unable to cross into France being "stacked" on the M20

The migrants would have eluded French security measures and managed to get on to the top of the lorry undetected - and can now claim asylum in Britain

He added that Britain was going to work "hand in glove" with the French police to stop migrants getting access to the tunnel terminals.

The prime minister has been criticised for his language surrounding the crisis, describing the desperate migrants attempting to enter Britain as a "storm".

His comments come as Eurotunnel officials met with security experts at the French interior ministry and confirmed confirmed new high security fencing around platforms in Calais.

The company, which has criticised the response of the French and British governments, said that its own high security fencing around platforms has become operational today.

Security fencing, previously used at the 2012 Olympics and the Nato summit, will be "completed in the coming days".

Meanwhile french ferry workers have restarted their protests at the port of Calais.

The striking French workers have been filmed throwing tyres onto a burning barricade on the motorway outside the port, causing more travel problems for holiday makers and lorry drivers attempting to make the crossing to Britain.

The employees at the Eurotunnel owned, MyFerryLink, are protesting looming job cuts.

Wikileaks says U.S. spied on another ally -- this time, Japan

By Anna Fifield-July 31 

The United States has for years been intercepting phone calls between Japanese officials on sensitive issues including trade, climate change and bilateral relations, according to a cache of cables that anti-secrecy group Wikileaks released Friday.

With American and Japanese officials meeting in Hawaii – along with representatives of 10 other Pacific Rim nations – to try to close the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, Wikileaks released the potentially damaging cables that included conversations about trade.

The release could pose another hurdle to the already difficult TPP negotiations, and will compound Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s domestic woes. Abe is facing loud protests at home over his attempts to loosen the restrictions on Japan’s military and allow it to play a more active role in its alliance with the United States.

In the cache dubbed “Target Tokyo” released Friday, Wikileaks alleges that the National Security Agency had 35 targets in Japan going back at least as far as 2006, when Abe began his first stint as prime minister.

The targets included the switchboard for the Japanese Cabinet office, the official workplace of the prime minister, and the line of the executive secretary to Abe’s chief cabinet secretary. Officials from the central bank and the finance and trade ministries also had their phones tapped, as did the natural gas division of Mitsubishi and the petroleum division of Mitsui, Wikileaks claimed. 

“The reports demonstrate the depth of U.S. surveillance of the Japanese government, indicating that intelligence was gathered and processed from numerous Japanese government ministries and offices,” the group, which is led by Julian Assange, said in a statement.

[Being Julian Assange]

Four of the reports that Wikileaks released are classified “top secret,” and one is categorized so that it can be shared with the U.S.’ "Five Eyes" intelligence partners: Australia, Canada, Britain and New Zealand.

One of the reports, from 2009, purports to show that the NSA intercepted talking points drafted for the agriculture minister to present at World Trade Organization negotiations with the U.S. trade representative.

“The minister could also address the need to ensure that the results of the WTO agriculture negotiations do not curtail agriculture in the member countries, and Japan's anticipation of an early appointment by the USTR of a chief agricultural negotiator,” the report says. Fisheries subsidies, and tariffs on forestry and fishery products, might also come up, it said.

Other parts of the leak deal with climate change negotiations and a feud between the U.S. and Japan over cherries, but it is the trade component that will probably be most controversial.

Japan has an entrenched agriculture lobby, and farm products have been one of the most difficult parts of the TPP negotiations between the U.S. and Japan, by far the two biggest economies in the 12-nation pact.

The U.S. is pushing to seal the deal this weekend at the talks in Hawaii, and any delay could imperil the whole proposal. The completed deal will need to go through Congress before the end of the year – before lawmakers begin their 2016 election campaigns in earnest.

The documents were released in the middle of the afternoon in Japan, but the initial response in Tokyo was muted.

“We are closely communicating with the U.S. on NSA’s information gathering, but we refrain from commenting on this matter because of the character of this issue,” said Kenko Sone, a spokesman for the prime minister. “The government continues to make every effort to secure the information.”

Wikileaks’ previous disclosures that the United States had been intercepting phone calls from the leaders of Germany, France and Brazil led to indignation in those countries and rebukes.

 

Julian Assange granted political asylum by Ecuador; Britain maintains extradition pledge

Assange not under sealed indictment, U.S. officials say

The saga of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Anna Fifield is The Post’s bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

Big powers jostling for influence in security-starved Africa 

July 29, 2015, 12:00 pm

Even if some sections of the world are currently seeing the African continent through the eyes of US President Barrack Obama, who is on an historic African tour, the more knowledgeable among them would need to concede that the continent has not changed much over the decades since decolonization.

If these perceptive sections are familiar with the work of that famous Algerian psychoanalyst and political activist of the fifties and sixties, Frantz Fanon, they would be struck by the fact that the common people of Africa are being compelled by many of their rulers to remain bogged down in the situation of ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, the title given by Fanon for his remarkable socio-political tract on Africa’s development dilemmas.

Political observers and students of Africa would do well to read ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, if they have not already done so, to better understand the exploitative mindset of some of the continent’s rulers and to gain a deeper insight into the political, economic and social ‘dynamics’ of the continent, which have conspired to keep the majority of Africa’s people in abject poverty and deprivation. The socio-political and economic conditions in most of Africa are remaining unchanged, the readers of Fanon would realize.

To be sure, most of us in Asia are in no position to speak patronizingly about Africa. For the majority of the people of Asia, and even for those of Latin America, nothing has changed markedly over the decades from the development point of view. Some of the political classes of the Asian continent, for instance, are thriving, mostly on the basis of ‘Black Money’ and we in Sri Lanka are more than familiar with this species of parasitism.

We realize that President Obama could very well have been speaking about the political and social elites of the majority of the developing countries when he was quoted as saying by the media, during his tour of Kenya, that one ‘does not have to be a forensic accountant to know what is going on.’ Obama gave the examples of ‘officials driving expensive cars or building houses far above what their salaries would allow.’

In ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, Fanon, elucidating on what went wrong with post-independence Africa, pinpoints in particular the parasitic role of the ruling classes in the continent’s economic, political and social backwardness. If national unity, for example, is continuing to evade some countries of Africa, it is mainly because the continent’s ruling classes have failed to work towards it over the years. However, they have not forgotten to work assiduously towards their class and self interests. This is, of course, applicable to the majority of the countries of South Asia too, with Sri Lanka’s political elite ‘outshining’ its counterparts in the region from the viewpoint of acquisitiveness.

What the US President had to say of gay rights and ‘difference’ in Kenya is, in fact, profoundly relevant to the problem of ethnicity which affects the majority of developing countries. Obama said: ’When you start treating people differently, because they’re different, that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode. And bad things happen.’ The US President has gone to the heart of the problem of ethnicity here. When minority communities, for example, are treated ‘differently’ by governments, things begin to ‘go wrong’ for countries. But it is the bounden duty of democratic governments to build national unity within their boundaries. Fanon has proved prophetic in this regard because most developing countries have failed to address the issue of ethnicity earnestly and knowledgeably.

A connected question which should have the developing countries concerned is whether the presence of the major global powers in Africa is contributing in a substantial way towards the development and material uplift of the continent. Sections in China are reportedly pooh-poohing the US President's visit to the African continent by saying that the US is merely trying to upstage China, which is already enjoying a substantial presence in the continent by way of its involvement in the latter's infrastructure development. These quarters have gone on to suggest that the US suffers from policy inconsistency in Africa.

While it should not come as a surprise that the world's biggest powers are jostling for influence in the African continent, for this is the veritable natural tendency of powers of this kind, the issue that needs to be broached is whether the African people are enjoying a notable degree of security as a result of such involvement of the major powers in the affairs of the region.

What is pinpointed as 'security' here is not the mere enforcement of law and order by states. The US President too had occasion to emphasize the need for 'security' during his visits to Kenya and Ethiopia in the course of his talks with the relevant authorities, but what he apparently implied was mainly law enforcement.

But the law-enforcement dimension of security has gone very little distance in satisfying the fundamental emotional and material needs of the people of Africa, as the current conditions of instability in the continent amply demonstrate. As could be seen, internal conflicts and wars have only multiplied over the years in Africa, leaving people in their tens of thousands homeless and destitute. At present there are more than 30 million destitute and displaced persons in sub-Saharan Africa alone and neither law enforcement nor infrastructure development has helped their cause.

The US President has done right to focus on the rights of the 'different' sections of African society but it is also mandatory that the right to food and other aspects of the African people's material needs are met. It is also essential to increasingly democratize these societies so that the people will be saved from the clutches of the repressive sections of the political class.

Accordingly, a broad interpretation needs to be placed on 'security'. A purely law and order approach to security would lead to the repression of civilian publics everywhere in the developing world. However, if 'security' is understood to mean increasing democratization of polities, the liberation of the peoples of the developing world could be achieved to a degree.

Defending Religion From Itself

BY KNOX THAMES-JULY 30, 2015

There is a growing threat to religious freedom around the globe. In an earlier era, the greatest hostility to faith came from secular autocracies or totalitarian regimes. But that has changed. Today, the most active persecutors of religious minorities and dissenters are religious extremists. In this still-young century, the world has witnessed a sharp rise in the number of extremist groups who attack the religious “other” for perceived transgressions.

No longer are states the sole perpetrator of abuses, as was the case during the Cold War. In the Middle East, the Islamic State has become the chief exemplar of a terrorist organization espousing a vile, religiously inspired ideology that despises diversity of thought and belief. Its genocidal attacks on the Yazidis almost one year ago and the choice “convert or die” it offers to Christians (also documented in a recent and much-discussed article in the New York Times) are gruesome evidence of its intentions. But Muslims aren’t safe, either. Shiite Muslims or dissenting Sunnis can also find themselves facing death sentences.

The Middle East is not the only region grappling with this new trend. In South Asia, the Taliban (in both its Afghan and Pakistani versions) have struck at Christians and other non-Muslims, while also viciously attacking other Islamic sects for being the “wrong” kind of Muslim. In Burma, the 969 movement of radical Buddhist monks has incited mob attacks against Rohingya Muslims. And these extremist monks are following the same agenda as like-minded Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka, who have targeted Christians and Muslims in that small island nation.

In Africa, too, violent religious extremism can be found in a growing number of countries. The terrorist organization Boko Haram has assaulted bothchurches and mosques who speak out against its ideology and attacks. In the Central African Republic, religiously affiliated militias have been responsible for mass violence in Christian and Muslim communities. Extremists in various other parts of the continent have announced the founding of Islamic State franchises.

This new reality presents a vexing challenge to the international community and its commitment to human rights and religious freedom. These groups are often outside the reach of normal diplomatic channels. They don’t care what the world thinks, as they are actively trying to upend the international order.

In response, governments need to develop fresh approaches. There is no single recipe for fighting religious bigotry. Violent religious extremism grows out of many factors and is often situation-specific. So the response must be flexible, comprehensive, and coordinated, not fragmented across different bureaus and agencies. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (of which I am director of policy and research) proposed aseries of changes to U.S. law and policy last year that would better position the United States to engage on these issues. The Commission’s recommendations include expanding the “country of particular concern” designation of worst religious-freedom violators to include failed states and nonstate actors, increasing funding for fieldwork grants, and including messaging on the importance of religious freedom and tolerance in strategic communications programs.

Concerns about religious freedom are interwoven with many of the greatest foreign-policy challenges facing the United States. President Barack Obama recognized this in his speech at the Countering Violent Extremism summit in February, noting that genuine democracy and political stability require “freedom of religion — because when people are free to practice their faith as they choose, it helps hold diverse societies together.”

Better incorporating promotion of freedom of religion into American efforts to confront ISIS and others extremists can enhance efforts to fight terrorism. Religious freedom is ultimately about freedom of thought — the right of individuals to believe what they want and to act on those beliefs in peaceful and noncoercive ways. Environments that support religious freedom are therefore better positioned to reject violent ideologies. Religious freedom is certainly not a cure-all. But it can make counter-terrorism efforts more durable by protecting civic space for diversity of thought and belief.

But this cannot be the United States’ fight alone. The challenges are transnational, with extremist groups linked across borders through ideology and criminality. To respond effectively, countries that value diversity of thought and belief must, too, work in coalition. Already there are multinational efforts against extremism and terrorism, such as the Global Counterterrorism Forum. But other efforts are under way to build coalitions of like-minded governments to advance freedom of religion. A network of legislators from around the world has leveraged the political capital of its individual members to protect religious freedom in places like Pakistan, Burma, and Indonesia. The European Union’s new human rights action planplaces a greater emphasis on promoting religious freedom and protecting religious minorities, more tightly focusing the 28-nation union on this issue.

And while the United States and other governments need new proactive policies, they must also discourage bad policies by partner governments that fuel extremism. Separate studies by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life have shown that, while the world is overwhelmingly religious, government restrictions on the free practice of religion are increasing. This is a recipe for increased violations and instability. In many places, heavy-handed government responses have made martyrs out of extremists and created grievances that fuel insurgencies. The recently released State Department country reports on terrorism noted this dynamic, especially in reference to several Central Asian states. To name but one example, the report on Tajikistan underscored the “negative impact on religious freedoms” of the government’s efforts to stem violent religious extremism, such as banning women and minors from attending mosques. These abuses can trigger violent reactions. In 2010, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistankilled 25 Tajik soldiers in response to the country’s oppressive religion law, which limits the free practice of Islam.

Extremist groups can also find inspiration from regressive laws in the nations where they operate. Take the example of blasphemy laws. When such laws are on the books, extremists often feel emboldened to enforce them through their own rough justice. In Pakistan, which leads the world in the number of people jailed for this so-called “crime,” the blasphemy law has fueled extremist violence against human rights defenders and has instigated mob attacks against Christians and Ahmadi Muslims.In an ironic twist, blasphemy laws empower the very extremists governments claim to be fighting against.

Religious extremists are killing religious minorities and dissenting members of their own faith, and they represent a clear and present danger to diversity of thought and belief. These violent groups will, for the foreseeable future, present a major challenge to the United States and its allies for reasons of national security, humanitarian concerns, and human rights. To be sure, secular authoritarian regimes like North Korea and Eritrea will continue their abusive ways, and the United States and the international community should redouble their efforts to press for authoritarian regimes to reform. But the rise of violent religious extremism requires a new approach — one where governments recognize the problem, pivot quickly, and work in concert to meet this challenge.

Tokyo Electric execs to be charged over Fukushima nuclear disaster

General aerial view of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, taken by Kyodo March 11, 2015.

REUTERS/KYODO

 Fri Jul 31, 2015

A Japanese civilian judiciary panel on Friday forced prosecutors to indict three former Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) executives for failing to take measures to prevent the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The decision is unlikely to lead to a conviction of the former executives, after prosecutors twice said they would not bring charges, but means they will be summoned to appear in court to give evidence.

Tokyo prosecutors in January rejected the panel's judgment that the three should be charged, citing insufficient evidence. But the 11 unidentified citizens on the panel forced the indictment after a second vote, which makes an indictment mandatory.

The three are former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 75, and former executives Sakae Muto, 65, and Ichiro Takekuro, 69.

Citizens' panels, made up of residents selected by lottery, are a rarely used but high-profile feature of Japan's legal system introduced after World War Two to curb bureaucratic overreach.

The panel ruled that the former executives had failed to take countermeasures to strengthen the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant despite foreseeing the dangers of a severe nuclear crisis it faced from tsunamis, according to a copy of the 31-page ruling seen by Reuters.

The Tokyo Public Prosecutors' office could not be immediately reached for comment.

An earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 destroyed the plant, 220 km (130 miles) northeast of Tokyo, sparking triple nuclear meltdowns, forcing more than 160,000 residents to flee nearby towns and contaminating water, food and air in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Prosecutors declined in 2013 to charge more than 30 Tepco and other officials who had been accused by residents of ignoring the risks of natural disasters and failing to respond appropriately to the crisis.

Prosecutors reopened the case after the citizens' panel ruled last year that the three former Tepco executives should be charged.

(Editing by Aaron Sheldrick and Nick Macfie)

10 Heart Disease Symptoms You Just Ignore

July 29 at 8:30pm

Our bodies are so intelligent that they always tell us timely if something is wrong with them. Whether it is a disease that is slowly and silently settling in our body or something that might give us a heart attack or stroke tomorrow, our body has its way to show us the symptoms.

Nowadays, heart disease is the main killer in the world and the reasons are quite a few: genetic predispositions, poor diet, no exercise, stress, polluted environment and negligence.

Therefore, we strongly advise you to take care of your health, and once you notice some of the following symptoms, to consult your doctor and go for a medical check-up so that you avoid getting a serious cardiovascular disease.

1. Sickness

If you experience stomach pain, bloating, indigestion, vomiting or feeling sick, it means that you have some heart problems which should be checked.

2. Pressure

Feeling pressure in the chest or even in the upper back area may be a symptom which should be taken care of, especially if it lasts for a long time or becomes unbearable.

3. Chest pain

People experience chest pain because of many different reasons, which doesn’t have to be connected with a heart disease. However, a more precise description of the kind of pain you will feel if it is something that has to do with a cardiovascular disease, is elaborated by Jean C. McSweeney, PhD, RN, and Associate Dean For Research at the University of Arkansas.
She says, if you have a heart disease, you will feel pain under your breast bone, inclined to the left part of your chest. 
In addition, the pain would be constant, as if something hard is giving you a sense of fullness or pressure. 

4. Anxiety

Any feeling of unexplained anxiety, accompanied by a feeling of light-heartedness or dizziness, might be a signal that you have a heart problem.

5. Unusual pain elsewhere

In practice, it seems that in most cases, people who have suffered from a heart disease haven’t experienced chest pain or discomfort. However, they have experienced some other unusual and severe pain elsewhere in their body. According to Amy Thompson, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, most of the pain connected with heart attacks will start in the chest area. However, it will reach its peak somewhere else in the body, for example in the neck or jaw.

6. Looking ill

There will certainly be a change in your complexion, which will be a sign that you are ill and suffering from a heart disease. If your blood pressure is low and your face is pale or grey, you probably need to see your doctor.

7. Sweating

A cold sweat is common prior to a heart attack.

8. Tiredness and weakness

If you are not able to keep up with your daily activities and you feel tired and weak all the time, it means that your body is fighting an illness and therefore has no energy for anything else.

9. Palpitations

A sign of heart failure is also fast or irregular beating of your heart which might be accompanied by dizziness or tiredness.

10. Dizziness and shortness of breath

And, the last but not least, if you are gasping for some air and feel breathless, you should immediately go to the hospital because it could be an indication of an upcoming heart attack.