aljazeera--2019-11-15--Sri Lanka set for presidential vote after divisive campaign

Colombo, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankans are set to vote on Saturday to elect a new president in an election that has seen rising religious tensions and a slowing economy take centre stage in the South Asian island nation.  Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former defence minister and brother of two-time former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Sajith Premadasa, the ruling United National Party's (UNP) candidate, are the top two contenders in a poll that has a record 35 candidates vying to lead Sri Lanka's government.  Polls are due to open at 7:00am local time (01:30 GMT), with 15.9 million Sri Lankans eligible to vote at 12,845 polling stations in the country's 22 electoral districts, according to the Election Commission. • Sri Lanka's presidential election 2019: All you need to know  Historically, voter turnout for presidential elections has been high, with more than 81.5 percent of voters casting their ballots in the last election in 2015.  Outgoing President Maithripala Sirisena, who won that vote, will not be seeking re-election, but his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) is backing Rajapaksa.  Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who Sirisena unsuccessfully attempted to remove in October last year, is backing his own party's candidate, Premadasa.  The six-week campaign divided the country, with Rajapaksa promising to bring in strong, centralised leadership to tackle security, boasting of his credentials of being the defence minister who presided over the end of Sri Lanka's 26-year war with Tamil rebels.  Rights group have long called for accountability for allegations of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and other violations allegedly committed during that tenure.  According to a United Nations report, as many as 40,000 Tamils may have been killed in the final months of the war.  Mahinda Rajapaksa, who Gotabaya says he will name prime minister if he is elected, has also been accused of widespread rights abuses aimed at silencing dissent during his previous two terms in power.  For voters, the election comes as economic growth is slated to slow to 2.7 percent this year, according to the IMF, and security has become a major issue following the Easter Sunday suicide attacks that killed more than 269 people.  "The cost of living and the state of the economy, these are our biggest issues," said Shriyani Gamage, 56, a homemaker in capital Colombo. "We don't have enough money … this country has gone to the dogs."  Analysts say there is little to choose between the candidates' economic policies.  "It's a form of crude mercantilism where the rich in Colombo can prosper but the middle class will also feel squeezed out," said Kumaradivel Guruparan, an academic in the northern city of Jaffna. "It is crude capitalism that is then sprinkled with here-and-there policies inspired by welfare economics or socialism."  The six-week campaign in a neck-and-neck race has seen tensions mount across Sri Lanka, with the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) documenting at least 743 electoral violations, including at least 45 cases of assaults or threats.  The alleged violations are split relatively equally between the two leading parties, Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka People's Front (SLPP) and Premadasa's UNP, the CMEV data shows.  Election observers say there has been widespread misuse of government resources in the run-up to the poll, with state governors, local government officials and others all using state resources to illegally back both candidates.  "I am not willing to say this election is free and fair," said Manjula Gajanayake, CMEV's national coordinator. "Due to these [violations], elections can be manipulated."  Gajayanake pointed in particular to the backing of Gotabaya Rajapaksa by prominent Buddhist religious leaders, who have allowed his party to campaign on temple premises.  Sinhalese - who are mainly Buddhists - form about 70 percent of Sri Lanka's 21.8 million citizens, according to the Sri Lankan government data.  Tamils form roughly 15 percent of the population, with Muslims - many of whom consider themselves a distinct ethnic group - forming roughly 10 percent.  Analysts say the minority vote will be crucial in determining who wins the election.  "Both Tamils and Muslims are likely to vote overwhelmingly for Sajith Premadasa, although not necessarily because of his policies," said Ahilan Kadirgamar, a Jaffna-based political economist, citing fears among minority communities of repression under a Rajapaksa government.  On Wednesday, the International Crisis Group said the prospect of a Gotabaya Rajapaksa win had created "fear of a return to [a] violent past".  "The prospect of a new Rajapaksa presidency has heightened ethnic tensions and raised fears among minorities and democratic activists," wrote ICG Sri Lanka director Alan Keenan.  "They worry electing Gotabaya, a strong Sinhala nationalist, would deepen already serious divides among the country's ethnic communities and threaten its recent modest democratic gains."  Analysts say Saturday's vote can also be seen as a continuation of last year's constitutional crisis, when President Sirisena attempted to replace Wickremesinghe with Mahinda Rajapaksa, but was ultimately forced to reverse his decision after the Supreme Court said he did not have the power to dismiss the prime minister.  With both top candidates having stated their intention to replace PM Wickremesinghe if elected, the possibility of a standoff immediately following the vote is strong, said Kadirgamar.  "Once the presidential elections are over and the president is elected, there will very quickly be a reconfiguration of forces in parliament," he said.  If Rajapaksa wins, analysts told Al Jazeera he is likely to attempt a vote of no-confidence against PM Wickremesinghe in parliament. If Premadasa wins, he may ask Wickremesinghe - his party's leader - to step down, they said.  "You'll have an awkward cohabitation, either a temporary one if Gotabaya Rajapaksa wins, and a possibly more long-lasting one under Sajith Premadasa," the ICG's Keenan told Al Jazeera.  The potential political ramifications are complicated by recent changes to Sri Lanka's constitution that weaken the power of the presidency and will become effective for the first time following this vote.  "Previously everyone knew and assumed that the new president would set up his own administration, his own cabinet and appoint his own PM," says Asanga Welikala, a Sri Lankan constitutional expert. "That is no longer a power that the president has."  Under the 19th amendment to the constitution, the presidency has been stripped of key powers, including eligibility to hold ministerial portfolios, from this election onwards.  Sri Lanka operates a semi-presidential system of government, where the executive comprises of the president, who is directly elected, and a prime minister and cabinet which are drawn from and answerable to parliament. It is "a system built on tension", according to Welikala.  "It is essentially a hybrid system between the US presidentialism and the UK parliament system," he said.  "The president is head of state, head of cabinet and head of government. He is the only person who is directly elected. The president does have power, but it is not untrammelled power [anymore]."


aljazeera--2019-11-21--Sri Lanka's Muslims have reason to fear the new Rajapaksa era

On Saturday, Sri Lankans elected Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former secretary of defence and brother of two-time former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as their new president in an election that has seen rising religious tensions take centre stage.  Gotabaya's election marked a return to majoritarian politics in the predominantly Buddhist South Asian island nation and left Sri Lanka's myriad minorities, especially the Muslims who constitute roughly 10 percent of the population, in a precarious position.  He secured victory with an impressive 52.25 percent of the vote but achieved this result with hardly any support from Sri Lanka's minorities. This marked a significant shift in Sri Lankan politics since Muslims have long been perceived as "kingmakers" in the country and played a key role in determining the winners of presidential and parliamentary elections. In the 2015 presidential elections, for example, they formed a united front with Tamil and Sinhalese opposition groups to defeat then-President Mahinda. But this time around they failed to influence the result of the election and likely lost the opportunity to have a representative in the new cabinet that will be sworn-in in January 2020.  But not having any representation in the cabinet is only the tip of an iceberg of problems awaiting Sri Lanka's Muslims following Gotabaya's election.  The newly-elected president, who served as defence secretary under his authoritarian older brother between 2005-2015 and helped him bring an end to Sri Lanka's 26-year war with Tamil rebels, based his campaign for Saturday's election on providing strong leadership on national security issues in general and the perceived threat of "Muslim extremism" in particular. This raised concerns among Sri Lanka's human rights activists, who fear Gotabaya could repeat the human rights violations allegedly committed against minorities during his brother's tenure.  Gotabaya's election victory came on the back of a series of coordinated bombings on Easter Sunday that killed at least 257 people and wounded hundreds of others. The attacks, which were claimed by a little known local Muslim armed group, caused the country's Sinhalese Buddhist majority to openly turn on the Muslim community. In the months that followed, as the International Crisis Group (ICG) documented in a recent report, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists waged a campaign of "violence and hate" against Sri Lanka's Muslims, while "a weak and divided political leadership has either stood idly by or, worse, egged on the abuse".  Large-scale violence was seen in Kurunegala, Kuliyapitiya and Minuwangoda among other places. As part of the Buddhist hardliners' campaign against Muslims, it is estimated that more than 30 mosques and Quranic schools, as well as 50 Muslim-owned shops and more than 100 houses, were attacked. Leading Buddhist monks, such as Venerable Rathna Himi and Galaboda Ghanasara, also openly criticised Muslims and encouraged violence against them.  All this boosted the political fortunes of Gotabaya who seized the opportunity to position himself as the nation's protector against the "Muslim threat" and to run for president on a security ticket.  The dramatic shift in Sri Lankan society's perception of Muslims and its decision to elect a strictly majoritarian leader like Gotabaya, however, cannot be tied solely to the Easter Sunday bombings.  Tensions had long been simmering under the surface  The growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Sri Lanka that at least partially led to the election of Gotabaya as president is the cumulative result of a set of insecurities specific to the Sinhalese majority.  First, the Sinhalese believe that Muslims in Sri Lanka, who first arrived on the island as traders and continued to be involved in trade over the centuries, are economically better-off than the rest of the Sri Lankan population. This perception fosters a sense of unfair distribution of wealth and is one of the underlying causes behind the long-simmering tensions between the Sinhalese and Muslim communities, which led to bursts of communal violence even before the Easter Sunday attacks.  Second, while the Sinhalese are clearly the majority in Sri Lanka, they carry significant demographic insecurities stemming from the fact that they are a minority in their wider neighbourhood, which is home to some 70 million Indian Tamils. As a result, even a decade after their victory against Tamil rebels, they still have deep-rooted fears about being "outnumbered" in their own homeland. Today, certain politicians and military leaders are using this deep-rooted fear to fuel not only anti-Tamil but also anti-Muslim sentiments in Sri Lanka in order to retain power and advantageous access to resources.  Following the definitive defeat of Tamil separatists in 2009, the post-war economic and social challenges, particularly the lack of progress in terms of reconciliation and resettlement of displaced people, caused the Sri Lankan population to slowly cease its support for Mahinda's government. Sri Lankans raised questions about the need to maintain the very high levels of military expenditure, given that the threat posed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had been eliminated completely.  The only way for the government to hold on to power at the time was to turn a blind eye to or even actively encourage the creation of "extremist" Buddhist groups, such as Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and Ravana Balaya; groups which sought to represent the country's Muslim minority as the new enemy of the state and, in so doing, helped the government to justify its high military spending. Moreover, the creation of this new "threat" allowed Mahinda to ask the public to support the incumbent government that defeated the LTTE in the face of a new security crisis.  While all these efforts did not prove enough to keep Mahinda in power - he lost the presidency in 2015 when the minorities he tried to turn into public enemies joined forces against him - it slowly paved the way for his brother's election some four years later. Even after Mahinda's removal from office, radical Buddhist groups continued to steer anti-Muslim feelings in the Sinhalese population. They even tried to use the desperate attempts by a very small number of Muslim-majority Rohingya to reach the shores of the island to convince the Sinhalese majority that Muslims present a threat to them.  The BBS was very vocal of its criticism of the arrival of Rohingya refugees on the island and heavily lobbied the government to "send them back". The group argued that allowing the arrival of a small number of Rohingya refugees could pave the way for a major Muslim refugee influx which, they claimed, would cause a "religious imbalance" and a higher number of terror incidents on the island. These very same groups also led the attacks and boycotts on Muslim businesses following the Easter Sunday bombings.  Third, Sri Lankan Muslims are treated with a growing sense of suspicion by the Sinhalese partly due to a rising conservative trend linked to religious influence from the Middle East. In early 1980, Following the entry of Saudi-funded mosques and satellite television channels proselytising Wahhabi ideals into the country, Muslims in Sri Lanka started to take on increasing signs of religious identity, beginning with the introduction of Hijab as part of school uniforms for girls in the 1980s. This caused alarm among the Sinhalese, who viewed the growing conservatism of the Sri Lankan Muslim community as a worrying sign of its descent into extremism.  These insecurities, exacerbated by the fears triggered by the 9/11 attacks and the consequent mainstreaming of Islamophobia across the world, led the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka to grow increasingly suspicious of Muslims. With some politicians and nationalist groups using these fears and insecurities to gain favour in the eyes of the public, and fringe Muslim extremist groups targeting innocent civilians, these suspicions transformed into outright hostility and caused a return to majoritarian politics in the country.  Following the election of Gotabaya as president, Muslims in Sri Lanka are facing the risk of being marginalised further. As he was elected on the premise of restoring security, Gotabaya is likely to bring forth a government that will play on Sinhalese fears about Muslims and prioritise security on the national agenda. In short, Muslims in Sri Lanka are likely to face a harsher crackdown under Gotabaya's leadership than ever before.  The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.


aljazeera--2019-12-12--Citizenship Bill: India deploys army in Assam to quell unrest

India deployed thousands of troops to the northeastern state of Assam on Thursday as violent protests erupted against a new law that would make it easier for non-Muslim minorities from some neighbouring countries to seek citizenship.  A curfew was imposed in parts of northeast India, including Assam, after protesters came out on the streets against the bill that they fear will encourage Hindus from Bangladesh to settle in the region. • What you should know about India's 'anti-Muslim' citizenship bill • Are the foundations of India's secular democracy crumbling?  Resistance to the bill has been the strongest in the Assam state, where a movement against undocumented immigrants has simmered for decades.  The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) passed by parliament's upper house on Wednesday blocks naturalisation for Muslims from neighbouring countries - a fact critics say violates India's secular constitution.  "It is constitutionally suspect and legally untenable but let's see what the Supreme Court does in this case," said Faizan Mustafa, an expert on constitutional law and vice chancellor at NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government has said the CAB is meant to protect besieged minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.  In Assam, protesters defied a curfew, torching cars and tyres and chanting anti-Modi slogans.  While the streets of Assam's capital Guwahati were largely calm as troops moved in from neighbouring states, protesters were back on the streets in other parts such as Morigaon, where they set tyres alight.  Mobile internet has been suspended in 10 districts in Assam for 24 hours until 7pm Thursday, the government said in an order, adding that social media platforms could potentially be used to "inflame passions and thus exacerbate the law and order situation".  "It looks like the government is perhaps planning to send more boots on the ground," Al Jazeera’s Anchal Vohra, reporting from Guwahati, said.  "The protesters are not giving up, they have blocked many roads and are chanting slogans around burnt tires.  "They say their struggle is to protect their indigenous culture and livelihoods."  The turmoil in Assam comes just days ahead of an annual summit there in which Modi plans to host Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as part of his campaign to move high-profile diplomatic events outside Delhi to different parts of India, to showcase its diversity.  Protesters attacked the homes of Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and other members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) overnight, blaming them for playing politics in a region with a history of ethnic and religious tensions and by opening the floodgates to more outsiders.  "This a spontaneous public outburst," said Nehal Jain, a masters student in communications in Guwahati. "First, they tell us there are too many illegal immigrants and we need to get rid of them. Then they bring in this law that would allow citizenship to immigrants," she said.  The Indian Express said the law, which now only requires presidential assent, unfairly targets India's 170 million Muslims.  "It is a political signal of a terrible narrowing, a chilling exclusion, directed at India’s own largest minority. India is to be redefined as the natural home of Hindus, it says to India’s Muslims. And that they must, therefore, be content with a less natural citizenship."  The Amnesty International dubbed it a "bigoted law that must be immediately repealed".  "The Bill, while inclusionary in its stated objective, is exclusionary in its structure and intent," it said in a statement on Thursdsy.  Meanwhile, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a regional political party based in southern Kerala state, on Thursday filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the bill.  The government has said the new law will be followed by a national citizenship register which will put the onus on Muslims to prove they are original residents of India and not refugees from these three countries, potentially rendering some of them stateless.  Members of other faiths listed in the new law, by contrast, have a clear path to citizenship.  Also left out are other minorities fleeing political or religious persecution elsewhere in the region such as Tamils from Sri Lanka, Rohingya from Myanmar and Tibetans from China.


aljazeera--2019-12-24--Turkey in talks with Russia as thousands flee bombing in Syria

A Turkish delegation was in Russia on Monday for talks on Syria, following reports that Russian-backed attacks there were forcing tens of thousands more Syrians to flee towards Turkey.  This developed as a car bombing in northern Syria, near the border with Turkey, killed at least eight civilians, including a woman and a child.  Turkey already hosts at least 3.7 million Syrians - the world's biggest refugee population. • Clash at UN Security Council over cross-border aid for Syria  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday it could not handle a new influx and was urging Russia to stop the attacks in Syria's northwestern Idlib province.  The Turkey-based Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said on Monday 120,000 Syrians were fleeing towards the Turkish border - higher than Erdogan's estimate of 80,000.  UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to the hostilities, which he said had displaced 30,000 people in the last week alone, his spokesman said.  "The Secretary-General reminds all parties of their obligations to protect civilians and ensure freedom of movement," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has promised to recapture the Idlib region, the last significant area of Syria still under rebel control after eight-and-a-half years of civil war.  Russia and Iran have supported Assad's forces during the Syrian conflict while Turkey has backed Syrian rebels fighting Assad.  Russian and Syrian army jets have been hitting civilian convoys trying to flee the Idlib city of Maarat el-Numan, leaving hundreds of families still trapped there, activists and aid groups have said.  "It's a tragic situation for civilians remaining in the city since Russian jets are hitting any convoy that leaves the city, while those who were able to reach areas closer to the border have nowhere to shelter," said Mohamad Rasheed, an activist in the area.  Libya also on the agenda  The Syrian army said on Monday it had fought fierce battles in southeastern Idlib and seized several villages after killing large numbers of what it called "terrorists".  "People are lying on the ground sleeping in the open with no blankets and under rain and cold," said Feras Saad, who fled the city with his family and found shelter in the border village of Harabosh.  Moscow and Damascus deny allegations of indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and say they are fighting al Qaeda-inspired religious fighters.  A Turkish diplomatic source said the delegation in Russia will also discuss Turkey's potential troop deployment and military support to Libya, after Ankara and Tripoli signed a military cooperation accord last month.  Russia has said it is concerned about any such deployment.  Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey could increase military support to Fayez al-Sarraj's UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), which has been fighting off an offensive by east Libya forces led by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar.  Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have backed Haftar's forces.  Later on Monday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to discuss developments in Syria and Libya. It did not give further details.


bbc--2019-04-27--Sri Lanka attacks Children of the Easter Sunday carnage

Sri Lanka attacks: Children of the Easter Sunday carnage

One week ago many dozens of children were killed in Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday attacks. Dressed in their finest clothes for one of the most important church services of the year, this was the first generation in decades to grow up free of violence. Their stories - and the struggle for the surviving children to comprehend the carnage - take the island down a devastatingly familiar path.  When bubbly Sneha Savindri Fernando went along for the Easter Sunday Mass at St Sebastian's church in Negombo, her mind was on something else entirely. She had spent weeks excitedly making plans for her 13th birthday - a day she would never get the chance to celebrate.  "She was like a little bird. She loved to dance. She danced to anything. If you asked her to dance, she would immediately jump into a sari or a long skirt and oblige," her mother, Nirasha Fernando says. Sneha, Ms Fernando and their neighbours Gayani and Tyronne all left together in Tyronne's auto-rickshaw.  Sneha was among many children who died when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the church in the Negombo community of Katuwapitiya. At almost that precise moment five other locations, churches and hotels, were hit by bombers.  It was the first thing that first responders I talked to noticed as soon as they walked into the churches that had been targeted: the large number of children among the dead. The overall number of casualties from the attacks is unclear but officials believe children could end up accounting for more than a fifth of the final death toll.  This is because the bombers' targets were the softest of them all - morning church services on a major religious festival and luxury hotels where families settled down to Sri Lanka's generous breakfast buffets.  Now Sneha's mother Nirasha gazes in anguish at her daughter's photo. Part of the bomb embedded itself in her upper lip - a constant irritant, a permanent physical mark and reminder of her loss.  "We called her duwani (daughter) at home. She was my first. I rocked her to sleep... I held her in my hands... I brought her up with so much love and now she's gone."  They were in the third pew of the church - very close to the front - when the bomb went off. The damage to Sneha's body was so severe she was brought home in a sealed casket.  "I couldn't even see her face," Nirasha says blankly.  A hall in another Negombo home hosts an unbearable scene. Four open caskets lie next to each other. Three contain bodies of children: siblings Rashini Praveesha aged 14, Shalomi Himaya, nine, and Shalom Shathiska who was seven.  Shocked relatives keep walking into the house as though to confirm the truth of what they are seeing.  An elderly relative enters and immediately becomes incoherent with grief. "Shalom! Shalom! Our youngest, our baby," she says, almost falling on to his coffin. "You were always so naughty, you always loved playing tricks on us. Get up my baby, please get up!"  Relatives rush in and take her away, even as she keeps shouting.  It is a similar story in the eastern coastal town of Batticaloa on the other side of the country. Like Negombo, Batticaloa is adorned with banners strung up to commemorate the dead, many of them children.  Among them is the banner for 13-year-old John Jesuran Jayaratnam dressed in his finest red shirt and braces. He had just finished his Sunday school lesson. His mother tells the BBC she had been standing outside with him as they waited to enter the Zion church for Easter service.  He told her he would get a drink of water from the fountain and come back. That was the last time she saw him.  Outside John's house, a basketball hoop attached to a dusty wall sways in the breeze.  "He used to love basketball. I used to sit here and watch him play," his mother says, as she stares out of the living room window. The youngest of three sons, John was her baby and a regular worshipper at the church.  For Sri Lankans the loss of so many children has been one of the most defining features of these attacks. It is not the bombers who are the subject of conversation - but the children. In the days immediately after the attacks, versions of events involving the children began to circulate on WhatsApp and Facebook, in family conversations and even during exchanges in the street.  They were narratives about the children who died. People began saying there were so many of them because bombs exploded as children were called up for a blessing, or because a choir was at the front when the bombs hit, or that they had all been dressed as angels.  It has been difficult to confirm such details - and few of these stories appear to have any foundation.  One survivor of the Negombo attack told me that so many women and children were among the casualties only because they sat inside, where it was cooler, while the men stood outside.  But the narratives about the children kept spreading.  Counselling psychologist Nivendra Uduman says such narratives can take hold for a number of reasons - it could be seen as a way of feeling useful at a time of crisis, an important way to connect.  Whatever the reason, it was the images of innocence that gripped the public imagination.  In Sri Lanka, however, these children also represented what could be called the first "innocent" generation. War, division and brutality were not part of their daily diet.  In just a few weeks, the country is due to mark 10 years from the end of a 30-year civil war between government forces and separatist Tamil militants. It was a conflict that saw bomb attacks unleashed across the country and brutal violence meted out by both sides.  The "pre-war" generations witnessed two bloody Marxist insurrections - first in the late 1970s, then in the late '80s and early '90s, which saw massive and violent disruptions to daily life, including months-long shutdowns of schools. A brutal retaliation from the government saw even more bloodshed.  So the deaths of so many of these children on Easter Sunday felt especially poignant because this was the first generation for decades for whom violence wasn't part of their day-to-day lives. That's not to say there wasn't strife - there have been anti-Muslim riots and attacks on churches. Religious tensions were on the rise albeit never on this scale. However, the bloodshed that regularly affected Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims of generations before had all but gone.  For Dr Ajith Danthanarayana, director of Lady Ridgeway children's hospital in Colombo, the aftermath of the bomb attacks are a bitter reminder of the past.  "These are all children. There is no race, no religion. We have faced 30 years of war, and also the tsunami. We faced so many bad things and we managed to tolerate and do the best for our patients. That's all we can do."  On the ward, it's a similar sentiment.  "At least I was used to this. We all either knew or heard of people who had been killed in violence, and we constantly saw pictures on TV and in the newspapers. But how can I explain this to my son? How will he even process it?" Wasantha Fernando asks me, while standing at his son's bedside at the hospital.  Seven-year-old Akalanka was among those injured at St Sebastian's church. An iron ball bearing had ripped into his leg, fracturing the bone and embedding itself into his muscle. He was being discharged that day, but still had no clear idea of why he was in hospital.  "He has heard us use the word bomb and is asking us what it means. I have told him that it is something that makes a loud noise like a firecracker. He doesn't know that it can hurt or cause death. But I will have to say something to him, because so many of his friends and peers are gone," Mr Fernando says.  This represents the second big challenge to a population already reeling from the brutality of these attacks. How do they explain it to their children, many of whom are already traumatised?  Dr Gadambanathan, the consultant psychiatrist at the Batticaloa Hospital, visited some of the injured children immediately after the attacks.  His staff had identified a range of immediate challenges - panic attacks, sleep disturbances and nightmares, worries about facial disfigurement due to injuries, parents overwhelmed by grief who were unable to care for their remaining children, or adults who struggled to communicate the loss of a sibling or parent to a child.  A mental health and psychosocial support worker in Batticaloa, who does not wish to be identified, says the most obvious impact was on those children directly connected to the attacks. However, watching videos of the attacks, experiencing the panic induced by rumours or perceiving the fears of the adults around them could also affect children quite distant from events, he says.  "I have been in contact with parents from across the island whose children have been terrified by the thought that bombers may target their homes or towns, who are unable to sleep, who have questions about why this happened, or who are expressing strong feelings of anger towards the perpetrators," he said.  A number of organisations including Unicef have been putting out guidelines to help adults talk to their children about what happened in an age-appropriate way. These have been shared widely on social media and also with parents and medical staff in hospitals as well as teachers.  In fact, returning to school, experts say, is another good way to help children process such events. Dayani Samarakoon, who teaches children between seven and 12 at a Colombo school, describes how she had been preparing for the return of her students. Her approach, she says, depends on the age group.  "The youngest ones may or may not know some of what has happened. I will get them to talk to me about what they know. Some of what they know could be the truth while the rest could be hearsay. But the important thing is to hear them out and listen to their fears," she says.  The extent to which such services are freely available is unclear. In Sri Lanka, seeking help for mental health conditions is still considered taboo and adults - many themselves traumatised - may not have the necessary tools to comfort their children.  But in the meantime, loss and funerals still consume the living.  Back in Negombo, a woman wails in anguish, beating her chest in agony. She has lost her husband and both her children in the St Sebastian's attack. Her daughter Sachini Appuhami was 21, and Vimukthi, her son, was 14.  Her brother-in-law Jude Prasad says both children were bright students. Sachini had finished secondary school and was doing a course in accounting. Vimukthi, apparently never had to be nagged to do his homework.  "We tried so many times to get them interested in sports, but they were much more interested in their books," he says smiling. Yet Vimukthi, he adds, also had a keen interest in music.  "When he passed his standard five examinations, he asked his father for that," he says his voice breaking, pointing to the mezzanine floor above with an elaborate drum set.  "My brother and I went all the way to Wennappuwa (a large town 21km away) to get this for him. He really loved it."  Just then, another relative walks in and heads straight to a wall on which framed photographs of the family are displayed.  She touches the faces of the two children in a photo taken when they were much younger. "Why couldn't even one of you live for your mother?" she demands, growing increasingly hysterical. "Why couldn't at least one of you stay?"  Additional reporting in Batticaloa from the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan


bbc--2019-11-09--Ayodhya verdict: Indian top court gives holy site to Hindus

The disputed holy site of Ayodhya in northern India should be given to Hindus who want a temple built there, the country's Supreme Court has ruled.  The case, which has been bitterly contested for decades by Hindus and Muslims, centres on the ownership of the land in Uttar Pradesh state.  Muslims would get another plot of land to construct a mosque, the court said.  Many Hindus believe the site is the birthplace of one of their most revered deities, Lord Ram.  Muslims say they have worshipped there for generations.  At the centre of the row is the 16th Century Babri mosque which was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots that killed nearly 2,000 people.  What did the court say?  In the unanimous verdict, the court said that a report by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) provided evidence that the remains of a building "that was not Islamic" was beneath the structure of the demolished Babri mosque.  The court said that, given all the evidence presented, it had determined that the disputed land should be given to Hindus for a temple to Lord Ram, while Muslims would be given land elsewhere to construct a mosque.  It then directed the federal government to set up a trust to manage and oversee the construction of the temple.  However, the court added that the demolition of the Babri mosque was against the rule of law.  What has the reaction to the verdict been?  Despite warnings by authorities not to celebrate the verdict, BBC correspondents in court say they heard chants of "Jai Shree Ram" (Hail Lord Ram) outside as the judgement was pronounced.  "It's a very balanced judgement and it is a victory for people of India," a lawyer for one of the Hindu parties told reporters soon after.  Initially, a representative for the Muslim litigants said they were not satisfied and would decide whether to ask for a review after they had read the whole judgement.  However, the main group of litigants has now said that it will not appeal against the verdict.  Outside the court, the situation has been largely calm.  Hundreds of people were detained in Ayodhya on Friday ahead of the verdict, amid fears of violence.  Thousands of police officers have also been deployed in the city, while shops and colleges have been shut until Monday.  The government issued an order banning the publication of images of the destruction of the Babri mosque.  Social media platforms are being monitored for inflammatory content, with police even replying to tweets and asking users to delete them.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi reacted to the verdict on Twitter and said that it should not be seen as a "win or loss for anybody".  What was arguably one of the world's most contentious property dispute has finally come to an end.  The dispute over the plot has polarised, frustrated and exhausted India.  The reason is that this is not a humdrum civil matter. It was touched by faith (Hindus believe the plot was the birthplace of Lord Ram, a revered deity) violence (the demolition of the mosque in 1992) and subterfuge (idols of Lord Ram were placed in the mosque surreptitiously in 1949).  Saturday's unanimous judgement by the five most senior judges of the court will hopefully lead to some reconciliation that the country badly needs.  The verdict showed "judicial craftsmanship and statesmanship where the letter of the law was adhered to, but the relief was moulded, taking into account the ground realities," lawyer Sanjay Hegde told me. The judges appear to have gone by the evidence laid before it. "They have applied a plaster. Let's not reopen the wounds," Mr Hegde added.  Will the verdict lead to a closure of past animosities and help close India's deepening religious fissures? Only time will tell.  For the moment, India's main communities need to avoid triumphalism - because eventually there are no victors and vanquished, in what is essentially a contestation of faith.  What is the row actually about?  Many Hindus believe the Babri Masjid was actually constructed on the ruins of a Hindu temple that was demolished by Muslim invaders in the 16th Century.  Muslims say they offered prayers at the mosque until December 1949 when some Hindus placed an idol of Ram in the mosque and began to worship the idols.  The two religious groups have gone to court many times over who should control the site.  Since then, there have been calls to build a temple on the spot where the mosque once stood.  Hinduism is India's majority religion and is thought to be more than 4,000 years old. India's first Islamic dynasty was established in the early 13th Century.  Have religious tensions eased in India in recent years?  Ever since the Narendra Modi-led Hindu nationalist BJP first came to power in 2014, India has seen deepening social and religious divisions.  The call for the construction of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya has grown particularly loud, and has mostly come from MPs, ministers and leaders from the BJP since it took office.  Restrictions on the sale and slaughter of cows - considered a holy animal by the majority Hindus - have led to vigilante killings of a number of people, most of them Muslims who were transporting cattle.  An uninhibited display of muscular Hindu nationalism in other areas has also contributed to religious tension.  Most recently, the country's home minister Amit Shah said he would remove "illegal migrants" - understood to be Muslim - from the country through a government scheme that was used recently in the north-eastern state of Assam.


bbc--2019-11-14--Sabarimala temple: India court to review ruling on women's entry

India's Supreme Court has agreed to review its landmark judgement allowing women of menstruating age to enter a controversial Hindu shrine.  A five-judge bench last year ruled that keeping women out of the Sabarimala shrine in the southern state of Kerala was discriminatory.  The verdict led to massive protests in the state.  Women who tried to enter the shrine were either sent back or, in some cases, even assaulted.  The move is likely to anger women who fought hard to win the right to enter the temple.  Hinduism regards menstruating women as unclean and bars them from participating in religious rituals.  Many temples bar women during their periods and many devout women voluntarily stay away, but Sabarimala had a blanket ban on all women between the ages of 10 and 50.  What did the court say?  On Thursday the five-judge bench, responding to dozens of review petitions challenging the court's landmark judgement last year, said that the matter would now be heard by a larger bench.  In doing so, however, it did not stay its earlier order. This means women can still legally enter the temple.  But it's not going to be easy for them.  A temple official welcomed the ruling and appealed to women to stay away.  Women trying to enter the temple after the verdict last year were attacked by mobs blocking the way.  Many checked vehicles heading towards the temple to see if any women of a "menstruating age" - deemed to be those aged between 10 and 50 years - were trying to enter.  Following Thursday's verdict, police in Kerala have appealed for calm, saying that action will be taken "against those who take the law into their own hands". They added that social media accounts would be under surveillance and those stoking religious tensions online would be arrested.  Today's verdict will come as a massive disappointment to women's rights campaigners. It's a case of one step forward, two steps back.  In 2018, while lifting the ban on women's entry into the shrine, the Supreme Court had said that everyone had the right to practice religion and that the ban was a form of "untouchability".  It was seen as a hugely progressive ruling and had given hope to women that they were equal before the law and could now claim equality before the gods too. What happened in court today has taken that sense away.  The Supreme Court has not put its earlier order on hold, but with the ambiguity over women's entry continuing, it's very likely they could be kept out in the name of keeping peace.  With the case now to be reopened by a larger seven-judge bench, the fight will have to be fought all over again.  Why is the temple so controversial?  Part of the violent opposition to the Supreme Court order to reverse the temple's historical ban on women was because protesters felt the ruling goes against the wishes of the deity, Lord Ayappa, himself.  While most Hindu temples allow women to enter as long as they are not menstruating, the Sabarimala temple is unusual in that it was one of the few that did not allow women in a broad age group to enter at all.  Hindu devotees say that the ban on women entering Sabarimala is not about menstruation alone - it is also in keeping with the wish of the deity who is believed to have laid down clear rules about the pilgrimage to seek his blessings.  Every year, millions of male devotees trek up a steep hill, often barefoot, to visit the shrine. They also undertake a rigorous 41-day fast, abstaining from smoking, alcohol, meat, sex and contact with menstruating women before they begin the journey.  Women's rights campaigners who appealed to the Supreme Court to lift the ban said that this custom violated equality guaranteed under India's constitution. They added that it was prejudiced against women and their right to worship.  Supporters of the ban argued that the practice had been in effect for centuries, and there was no need to change it now.  So, were any women able to enter last year?  In January, two women defied protesters and entered the shrine.  Kanakadurga, 39, and Bindu Ammini, 40, made history when they entered the Sabarimala shrine - but they had to do so under heavy police protection and were also met with massive protests after.  Right-wing groups, supported by India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), demanded a state-wide shutdown after, and businesses and transportation became paralysed.  Across the state hundreds were arrested, and at least one person was killed in clashes.  In an interview with the BBC, the women said they felt it necessary to uphold women's rights and they weren't afraid of mobs "enraged" by their actions.  "I am not afraid. But every time women make any progress, society has always made a lot of noise," Ms Kanakadurga told the BBC in January.  But their decision to enter the temple also came at heavy personal cost.  She alleged that she had been beaten by her mother-in-law and abandoned. She has since filed for divorce.  Read more on the Sabarimala temple: • The Indian god who bars women from his temple


bbcuk--2019-03-14--Crime author kills it with Yorkshire noir

AA Dhand sits at a table in the balcony cafe at Bradford's magnificent old Wool Exchange and points to the spot where his latest victim was found.  She was hanged in a particularly grisly fashion from a ledge below the hammer-beam roof, suspended between two grand granite pillars.  Her name was Usma and she met her tragic fate at the start of City of Sinners, the Bradford crime author's latest novel.  "That idea came to me when I was doing the Girl Zero book launch," Amit Dhand says, referring to his 2017 thriller. It was launched in the same building, which now houses surely the most beautiful branch of Waterstones in the country.  Dhand continues: "I was being interviewed [at the launch] and mid-question I looked up to the ceiling and thought, it would be really bizarre if there was a dead body hanging from that ceiling. Ideas just ping into your mind.  "I'd finished the interview and she was still just hanging there from the ceiling. I come here quite a lot, and every time I came back she was still there, saying, 'How did I get here? Who put me here? Why?'"  Dhand's fictional detective Hardeep Virdee - known as Harry - had to answer those questions. The title City of Sinners - the third Harry Virdee book - offers a fair idea of how the Yorkshire city is portrayed.  The ornate Wool Exchange, built in 1867, is a symbol of the prosperity Bradford enjoyed as the global centre of the wool trade in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.  The city's subsequent decline provides the grit that is plentiful in Dhand's books. In his 2016 debut Streets of Darkness, Bradford is described as "the cesspit of Yorkshire".  "I do regret that line," the author admits, claiming that it was actually his editor's idea. "I didn't know what a cesspit was until she put that in there."  But at the time he was writing, he says was angry at how the city had been treated, not least after a substantial part of the centre was flattened for a promised regeneration project that then stalled for years after the recession.  "When I put that line in about the cesspit of Yorkshire, it was because I felt angry that the city had just been forgotten," he says. "It had been left. You know, we've knocked it flat, we've cut all of the services - youth services, council services - and we've just left it.  "And nobody cared, and nobody did anything about it. So I wrote the book really bitter. Whoever allowed that to happen allowed Bradford to descend from a position of greatness, which is what it was, into what it became, which was abandoned.  "You only need to go up and down the country and say the word 'Bradford', and people get a very specific image of racial tension and an economy which is on its arse. We are, I think, starting to turn that corner, but it's hard."  The reputation may not be helped by crime thrillers that paint a picture of its mean streets. But Dhand says his books, which tackle racial and religious tensions, child grooming and terrorism, can't try to please anyone but his readers.  "My job as a crime writer is to thrill and entertain and to keep you turning the page," he responds. "It's not to try and make the city read a certain way."  The author moved to Bradford at the age of two, when his dad bought a corner shop there. When they arrived, they discovered they were the first Asians on the estate.  On the first day of business, Dhand says, more than half the customers cancelled their newspaper deliveries and an elderly local dropped dead of a heart attack in the shop.  "What you don't want to happen at that point is for my elderly grandmother to come down the stairs, light some incense and start praying and warding away the evil spirits because a dead body's in the shop - because now we're the voodoo witch doctors that are killing white people. It was just a total catastrophe."  However, Dhand says his father took on the challenge of changing their neighbours' attitudes.  "My mum said we should pack up and leave because they're never going to allow us to stay here. My dad's famous words, which will stay with me, were, 'No, we're going to change the narrative. We're going to win.'  "And we lasted 33 years and left as equals."  Hours upon hours were spent observing human behaviour from behind the corner shop counter. Dhand later trained as a pharmacist and still works in pharmacies in Bradford and Leeds.  He now likes to use his dad's phrase "change the narrative" himself about how he wants to break the mould for British Asian authors and characters.  He is the first Asian author to write a series of crime novels, he says. The books are now being developed for the BBC, and he is desperate to see a TV drama that shows a wider range of Asian characters.  He says: "I'd heard a lot, 'Asian people don't write crime.' I was fed up with that because I'm not a Goodness Gracious Me caricature and I'm not a Citizen Khan sketch.  "There's a place for those and a place for comedy, but we have to balance it with real, gritty heroes who we can look to.  "I've got two boys and I want them to grow up knowing Asian people can be heroes and be compelling and be unlike anything we've ever seen before. That's why I write Harry in the way I do - because I refuse to live in a society where we don't have an Asian lead."  He recalls one occasion when a group of young British Asians challenged Dhand to name a true global superstar and role model from an Asian background.  "I was racking my brain. I said Riz Ahmed, which was the only name I could think of."  He adds: "It was a really sobering moment. The black community have got Beyonce or President Obama or Denzel Washington. They've got real issues in their communities, but they've got real superstars who they can look to and say, 'We want to be like that.' [The youths said] 'Who do you want us to be like?'  "It was a really upsetting conversation because I thought, 'God you're right.'"  If and when Harry Virdee reaches the screen, Dhand hopes he will give those boys a person to look up to.  "That's why I sit in the chair and write," he says. "It feels bigger than me writing a book."  City of Sinners is out in paperback on 21 March. The follow-up, One Way Out, is published on 27 June.  Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


drudgereport--2019-04-22--USA warns terrorists continue to plot attacks

USA warns terrorists continue to plot attacks...

Sunday's attacks saw suicide bombers target churches during Easter services and high-end hotels in Colombo (AFP Photo/Jewel SAMAD)  The US State Department has warned of possible terrorist attacks in a revised travel advisory for Sri Lanka, after a series of deadly blasts killed nearly 300 people -- including Americans -- in the island nation on Easter Sunday.  Sunday's attacks saw suicide bombers target churches during Easter services and high-end hotels in the capital Colombo.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said "several" Americans were killed -- the worst violence to hit Sri Lanka since a long and bloody civil war ended a decade ago.  "Terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka," it said.  "Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls" and other public locations like hotels, clubs, restaurants, and places of worship.  Travel advisories from other nations like Australia and Ireland also suggest citizens exercise caution while in Sri Lanka.  Authorities have said citizens of India, China, Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan, Portugal, Britain, and Turkey died in the attacks.  The US embassy in Colombo said it would remain closed to the public on Monday and Tuesday, but will continue to provide citizen services.  There has been no claim of responsibility yet for the attacks, which the White House described as "despicable and senseless."  Security has been ramped up across Sri Lanka as security forces hunt for suspects, with 24 people arrested so far. Wary of sparking ethnic and religious tensions, the government has given few details about those detained.  Authorities have said, however, that they are looking into whether the attackers had any "overseas" links.  Travel guide book publisher Lonely Planet in October named Sri Lanka as its top destination for 2019, describing it as "the island opening up to new travellers like never before".


theirishtimes--2019-12-03--Private schools keep grip on high-points college courses

Pupils emerging from private schools are keeping a strong grip on the most sought-after third-level courses, despite millions being spent on narrowing the class gap in education.  The annual Irish Times Feeder Schools list – which measures the proportion of pupils who progress to third level – shows a gaping social divide between affluent and poorer areas.  Half of the 25 schools which sent the highest proportion of their students to third level this year were fee-paying schools.  Almost all pupils in these schools went on to higher education, and the bulk were in affluent areas of south Dublin.  By contrast, the proportion of students going to higher education in some of the poorest schools is as low as 15 per cent.  The dominance of the private school sector is likely to spark a fresh debate over State subsidies for the sector, which are worth €90 million a year.  This funding goes on salaries for teachers in the 51 fee-paying schools, along with capital expenditure, grants for computer equipment and sports facilities.  State support for disadvantaged secondary schools – known as the Deis scheme – is worth about €60 million a year.  This targeted funding goes towards additional teachers, grants for school books, school meals and other supports, over and above regular funding.  On average, fee-paying schools send 100 per cent of students to higher education, while this rate falls to 57 per cent among Deis schools. This gap has not narrowed over the past six years, data shows.  The social divide is more stark when third-level participation rates are broken down by schools sending the most pupils to high points courses. These are courses offered in the universities and other colleges.  Some 18 of the 25 schools which sent the highest proportion of their pupils to high points courses were fee-paying schools.  When overall third-level progression rates are broken down by school types, it shows there are significant differences.  Voluntary secondary schools – typically schools owned or run by religious groups – send the highest proportion of pupils to higher education (82 per cent).  They are followed by comprehensive schools (79 per cent), community schools (72 per cent) and Education and Training Board – formerly vocational – schools (69 per cent).  There has been no significant shift in these patterns over the past six years, data shows.  In a sign that the rising cost of college accommodation may be a factor for students, this year’s data shows lower third-level progression rates in counties which do not have a large third-level institution on their doorstep.  For example, third-level progression rates in Cavan (69 per cent) and Longford (66 per cent) lag well behind Galway (82 per cent), home to NUI Galway and GMIT.  When this year’s feeder school figures are broken down to show schools which have recorded the biggest increase in third-level participation in recent years, some disadvantaged schools come out on top.  For example, Adamstown Vocational College in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, a Deis school, has seen its third-level progression rates jump by almost 50 per cent in the past six years.  Education analysts say that while data in the feeder school lists shows the proportion of students who go to third-level, it is not a reflection of whether one school is better than another.  Factors such as social class and geography play a significant role, given that more affluent students can afford additional support such as grinds.  The data also does not show the proportion of students progressing to further education or apprenticeships.  The Irish Times has requested this data, but education authorities have not yet released it.


themanchestereveningnews--2019-01-07--Learn a new language with a free Spanish course with Instituto Cervantes

“I would love to learn another language!” It's something we've all said at some point, even more so at this time of year. It may even be one of your new year's resolutions, but for the vast majority of us we always seem to find an excuse as to why we don't fully commit to it: “Not enough time”, “too busy”, “can't find a place near me.”  Luckily for you the Instituto Cervantes are offering the chance to win a free Spanish course to help you take the plunge into learning a new language. The cultural centre offers a wide range of differing courses. The lucky winner will have the option to pick whichever course suits them best, in terms of their existing Spanish language knowledge, from the next term of courses starting on January 14.  The 30 hour course can be broken down into once, or twice a week sessions. So whether you’re a beginner with a burning passion to become bilingual, or an intrepid intermediate looking to delve deeper into all things Spanish, the Instituto Cervantes has got you covered.  The Instituto Cervantes is a public institution founded in 1991, although the Manchester branch opened in 1997, to promote Spanish language teaching and knowledge of the cultures of Spanish speaking countries throughout the world. It is the largest worldwide Spanish teaching organisation, which operates in 40 countries across five continents. It also happens to be the only Spanish language and cultural centre endorsed by the government of Spain.  All of Cervantes' teachers, whose mother tongues are Spanish, are university qualified and have trained specifically to teach Spanish as a foreign language using the most up-to-date methods.  In addition to the general Spanish courses offered, there are also a wide range of more specific courses available, such as; courses to prepare for the DELE Spanish official exams; general business Spanish; translation, language and culture (literature, cinema, history); conversation courses. Other courses and private and corporate tuition are also available on demand.  At the Instituto Cervantes there are a host of workshops you can get involved in to improve your dancing with classes in Salsa, Flamenco and Tango and even an all Spanish singing choir you can join. Also you can take advantage of the on-site library which houses more than 25,000 books.  To enter and stake your claim of winning a free Spanish course with Instituto Cervantes just follow the details below. Competition closes on the 11th and courses start from the 14th January so be quick, and all that’s left to say is: ¡Buena Suerte! (Good Luck!)


thetelegraph--2019-04-21--Pupils being persuaded to come into school during Easter holidays for crammer Sats courses to boos

Pupils being persuaded to come into school during Easter holidays for 'crammer' Sats courses to boost schools' performance in league tables

Easter holiday Sats “cramming” courses are on the rise, a union has warned, as headteachers attempt to boost their school’s league table performance.  Hundreds of schools are now “persuading” parents to send their children in for several days during the holidays, as they seek to get an edge on other local schools by outdoing their results.  Key Stage Two Sats, which are sat in May by pupils in their final year of primary school, test children on spelling, punctation, grammar, maths and science.  While it is common for schools to put on extra lessons for GCSE or A-level students during the Easter holidays, revision classes for eleven-year-olds is a more recent phenomenon.  Darren Northcott, the national official for education at the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), said that the rise in Easter revision courses for Sats could be linked to the introduction of tougher Sats in May 2016.  He said that while it is in a student’s best interest to get good GCSE and A-level grades, this is not the case for Sats where an average score is taken for the year group and results are used as an accountability measure for schools.  “If you go back, let’s say in the last decade, you really didn’t hear of any [primary] schools doing this,” he said. “It is something that’s become increasingly prevalent.


thetelegraph--2019-07-26--University of Oxford a guide to the courses rankings and student life

University of Oxford: a guide to the courses, rankings and student life

As the oldest university in the English-speaking world (and the second oldest surviving in the world after the University of Bologna), the University of Oxford can trace its roots back to at least the 11th century.  Throughout the centuries, the university has seen some of the world's greatest writers, thinkers, politicians and scientists both study or teach at its colleges. The likes of Stephen Hawking, Margaret Thatcher and Bill Clinton included.  The Complete University Guide, which ranks universities nationally and in 70 subjects, currently ranks the university second in the country, behind the University of Cambridge.  One of the most popular courses at Oxford is PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), a programme which is only offered at a handful of institutions across the UK.  Newer combinations such as Economics and Management have also proved popular in recent years, but the university does offer a full spectrum of traditional academic courses from Classics to Physics and Philosophy.  For 2019, the cost of an undergraduate degree at Oxford is £9,250 for Home and EU students. For overseas students, costs can reach up to £34,678.  The 38 individual colleges are a huge source of nightlife activity for Oxford's students, as each one has its own bar. There are also a number of clubs and pubs within walking distance, but Oxford benefits most of all from being a historical city full to the brim with local attractions.


birminghammail--2019-06-19--Primary school to get huge expansion and take on more pupils

Planners have given the green light for a Streetly school to expand and take in more pupils.  Walsall Council's planning committee approved a proposal - without debate - submitted by Manor Primary School in Briar Avenue, to create a new classroom.  The extension will now enable the school to cater for up to 30 more pupils on its roster, in addition to the 340 children already on its roll.  The school, which employs 15 teachers and a further 23 support staff, also houses a 52-place nursery that will not be expanded as part of the plans.  Residents raised objections about the school increasing its capacity as they felt it was unsuitable at that location.  Other concerns raised included noise and pollution, traffic issues and the increased risk for children and parents accessing the school as well as more pressure on parking spaces in the area.  Earlier this year, the school was granted planning permission to bulldoze an existing unused caretaker's house and create an extra 11 parking spaces on the school grounds.  In the report to committee for this application, planning officer Devinder Matharu said: "The proposed classroom would accommodate an increasing number of pupils joining the school in the forthcoming term, September 2019 and as such, the proposal would be supported.  "Neighbouring objectors have stated that the school is located in an inappropriate area and pupil numbers keep increasing.  "The school is located in a residential area where families with school age children reside and where it should be located.  "The increase in pupil numbers at the school, would be over a seven    year period and not with immediate effect.  "The proposed classroom is set away from the neighbouring properties on both Briar Avenue and Hawthorn Road. The classroom would be set in between two existing classrooms as an infill extension.  "It is considered that the proposed classroom would not unduly harm the amenities of these neighbouring properties to warrant refusal of the application."


newyorkpost--2019-02-22--Elementary school apologizes for runaway slave gym lesson

Elementary school apologizes for ‘runaway slave’ gym lesson

A Virginia elementary school apologized after criticism over a Black History Month lesson that instructed children to pose as runaway slaves.  The principal at Madison’s Trust Elementary School acknowledged the mistake after parents complained when teachers modeled a gym exercise after the Underground Railroad.  “The lesson was culturally insensitive to our students and families,” the principal, David Stewart, said in a statement. “I extend my sincerest apology to our students and school community.”  During the class, 3rd-grade students were urged to overcome a physical barrier, said Loudoun County Public School spokesman Wayde Byard.  About 10 families complained after their children participated in the gym class.  “It’s awful,” local NAACP President Michelle Thomas told NBC Washington. “It’s really insulting. It makes me feel unsafe because I have kids in Loudoun County Public Schools.”  “It shows that there’s some implicit bias problems right here at this school,” she added.  Principal Stewart said the school would form an “equity/culturally responsive team” to remedy the issue.


sputnik--2019-05-30--US Teacher Fired for Auctioning Off Black Students as History Lesson

US Teacher Fired for ‘Auctioning Off’ Black Students as History Lesson

In a Wednesday press release, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that an investigation conducted in March found that an unidentified teacher at the Chapel School in Bronxville, New York, conducted reenactments of a slave auction on two different occasions as part of a lesson plan on colonial America.  In two fifth-grade social studies classes, the teacher asked all African-American students in the class to raise their hands, before asking them to exit the classroom and stand in the hallway. The teacher then placed imaginary chains on the students' necks, wrists and ankles before they were allowed to enter the classroom again. The African-American students were then asked to stand against a wall in front of the white students to simulate an auction in which African-Americans are sold as slaves to white people.  According to the attorney general, an investigation was carried out after several complaints from parents regarding "unequal discipline of students on the basis of race, a lack of racial sensitivity and awareness in school curricula, and a lack of diversity among the teaching faculty." The teacher involved in the incident has been fired. The Chapel School, however, did not immediately respond to Sputnik's request for comment.  In the statement, James announced that the state has established a series of actions the school has to implement following the incident, which had a "profoundly negative effect on all of the students present — especially the African-American students."  "Every young person — regardless of race — deserves the chance to attend school free of harassment, bias, and discrimination," James said. "Lessons designed to separate children on the basis of race have no place in New York classrooms, or in classrooms throughout this country."  The school will be required to hire a chief diversity officer and a diversity consultant to help with development training at the school. It will also be required to develop a Staff Diversification Plan, outlining steps the school plans to take on a yearly basis to increase "minority representation among the school's teaching faculty." In addition, the school has committed to a new financial aid effort to increase diversity and will also submit a new code of conduct for approval by the attorney general. The new code will outline how school community members should address racial and ethnic discrimination and harassment.


thedailyrecord--2019-12-09--David Livingstone Memorial Primary kids are given a lesson in health

Pupils at David Livingstone Memorial Primary and Nursery School, in Blantyre, thoroughly enjoyed their recent annual health week.  The children learned all about having a healthy diet, healthy mind and a healthy body.  During the week they tried out different types of healthy snacks and participated in lots of sporting activities including a whole school fitness workout.  In their classes they rotated around a variety of activities including, orientating, mindfulness, Go Noodle, yoga and smoothie making.  Jennifer Lattimer, principal teacher at the school, said: “Staff and pupils at the school would like to say a great big thank you to all who contributed to make the week such a success.  “A special thank you to Miss Campbell for organising the week.” • If you would like to see your school featured in Class Acts, then call reporter Kirsten McStay on 01698 205202 or email her at kirsten.mcstay@reachplc.com


thedailyrecord--2019-12-11--NL Leisure encourage parents to bring children with disabilities to mainstream swimming lessons

The parents of children with disabilities in North Lanarkshire are being encouraged to send them to mainstream swimming lessons.  Scottish Swimming has launched a campaign to get parents to talk more openly about their children’s needs.  They have partnered with Scottish Water for the #SeeMyAbility inclusion programme, which is being delivered by NL Leisure.  As part of the campaign, swimming teachers and coaches will be provided with a resource toolkit that will help them teach and coach in an inclusive way.  It’s been launched by Learn to Swim ambassador and multi-medal winning para-athlete Toni Shaw who came through a mainstream Learn to Swim programme.  Toni who went on from the programme to join Cults Otters swimming club, said: “I’m really proud to be an ambassador and really pleased that children with a disability are taught in inclusive learn to swim environments.  “If there’s someone with a disability and the swimming teachers are aware of the impairment the lessons can be adapted.  “It’s great to develop as a swimmer and be seen beyond my disability.  “This has helped me integrate into a performance environment where I get to train alongside other world-class athletes.”  The National Learn to Swim Framework aims to raise standards in swimming programmes. The plan is to roll the programme out to 100,000 children across Scotland.  More information can be found on www.learntoswim.scot

reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk (Michael  Pringle)


theguardianuk--2019-01-03--Back in Time for School review alarmingly relevant lessons in empire

Back in Time for School review – alarmingly relevant lessons in empire

It is 1897 and at a school in Coventry the coal burners have been lit, the inkwells filled, and the portrait of Queen Victoria straightened. The classrooms are all worn, wooden desks, wildly inaccurate world maps, and pupils in caps and corsets. Everything looks as cosy as a period drama, except this is a geography lesson. And the subject is the empire. Teacher Sue taps the map to show how Britain holds territories on every continent of the world. She transcribes lines extolling the virtues of colonialism and white British supremacy from a standard Chambers textbook of the time on to a blackboard. The children – a 21st-century mix of races and ethnicities – copy them obediently into their ledgers. “You can see where racism comes from,” says one girl. “It’s really upsetting.”  And so we return to the series format with never-ending potential for resurrection. Back in Time for School (BBC Two) follows similar adventures returning to dinners, weekends, Christmases, teas and factories of the past. The reason for this is ostensibly to see how we used to live, but also to watch folk in olde hats retching over a spoonful of brimstone and treacle.  Fifteen pupils and three teachers, plus Sara Cox presenting and Polly Russell doing the social-historian bit, time-travel through 100 years of education. Which makes this sound like a boring episode of Doctor Who, but it’s actually entertaining – plus I learned stuff. Like, for example, that for a brief period from 1895 to 1902 girls and boys were taught maths and science together in what were known as higher-grade schools. (Then school inspectors found out and they were separated again into Latin for boys and bed-making for girls.) Or that free school dinners were introduced in 1906 when the Liberal party came to power. Which means fish pie and tapioca pudding for lunch, no matter if our 21st-century pupils deem tapioca to be frog spawn by another name.  “It looks like off Coco Pops in sick,” one teenager complains.  In 1895, when just 4% of 11-16 year olds were in education, the school day begins with a rousing rendition of All Things Bright and Beautiful. I sang this in school too, although not quite as long ago. Drama teacher Mr Charles, what with being the only man, is assigned the role of headmaster and fears having to be a stern presence when his style is more “taking the mickey … a lot”. There is a quick rundown of rules (neatly combed hair, no writing with the left hand) and when to opt for corporal punishment (only beat them if you’re about to lose control). Before we know it, it’s 1901. Queen Victoria is dead and a pupil at an after-school club hosted by the temperance movement is asking, apropos of learning that alcohol is legal for over-12s, “but could they get hammered?” Herein lies the problem with this kind of format: it rattles through history at such a pace it ends up feeling like you’re winging it with Cliff’s Notes on the Victorians.  The first episode sticks to the Victorian and Edwardian eras, which always make the best telly. Partly because they look nice, partly because so many of our social mores and deeply ingrained prejudices can be traced back to those times. Which we cannot help but romanticise. Seriously, we will always get top marks for over-sentimentalising the Victorian era, something the sentimental Victorians would no doubt love us for. But the best thing about Back in Time for School is it has less palatable lessons to teach us. Like the boys learning to shoot rifles first as a sport, then in preparation for war. Or the six hours of manual work many children had to do after school – the girls destined for domestic service. And the Empire Day celebrations. In the early 1900s, schools all over the empire led patriotic parades, waving banners bearing the names of colonies even as Britain was losing its grip on world domination. All of which looks both sinister and alarmingly relevant from our vantage point of right now.  As ever, it’s the young people who restore the faith. “I would have rather done needlework,” says one pupil responding to the sexes being split. “It’s good to be a bit more gender neutral.” History isn’t necessarily a story of progress, but we can always learn from kids.


theindependent--2019-06-27--Parents should be stopped from withdrawing children from religious education over Islam lessons hea

Parents should be stopped from withdrawing children from religious education over Islam lessons, headteachers say

Parents should not be allowed to selectively remove their children from religious education (RE) lessons, headteachers say, as study reveals many withdrawal requests are over the teaching of Islam.  More than two in five school leaders and RE teachers have received requests for students to be withdrawn from teaching about one religion, research from Liverpool Hope University has revealed.  Islam is the dominant focus of these parental withdrawal requests, according to the study of 450 school leaders and heads of RE.  One participant, who received requests for children to be withdrawn from mosque visits said: “The students that have been removed are the ones that need to understand different cultures the most.”  The majority (71 per cent) of teachers believe a law allowing parents to withdraw their children from RE is no longer required, according to the study in the British Journal of Religious Education.  It comes after a report from Thurrock council revealed that parents in Essex were withdrawing their children from religious education lessons on Islam and stopping them from visiting mosques.  Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, an activist group which records and measures anti-Muslim incidents in Britain, told The Independent: “We have been hearing about cases where parents are pulling their children out of mosque visits as part of religious education since they do not want them to be near a mosque.  “This has been taking place over the last five years and shows that there are parents who have fears or dislike Islam. This is also concerning, since what kinds of views are their children being exposed to? It does not bode well for the future of people and communities living together”.  The right of parents to withdraw their children from RE and from collective worship has been in enshrined in law by both the 1944 and 1988 education acts. Parents can withdraw their children from some or all of the RE curriculum without giving a reason.  Teachers warned in April last year that parents were increasingly abusing the right to withdraw their children from religious education lessons due to their prejudices.  Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers section of the National Education Union called on the government to take steps to prevent parents from selectively withdrawing youngsters from RE classes.  “Cases of parents withdrawing selectively from teaching of one religion, predominantly Islam, were often presented by participants as representing a hostility and intolerance to those of other faiths,” the new research says.  But it concludes: “While it was true that Islam’s prominence as a target for withdrawal implies prejudice, our findings suggest that teachers saw the reasons for this withdrawal as misunderstanding more than prejudice.”


thesun--2019-06-19--Schoolboy chucked out of lesson by furious teacher after insisting there are only two genders

Schoolboy chucked out of lesson by furious teacher after insisting there are ‘only two genders’

A TEENAGER was chucked out of a lesson by his furious teacher after insisting there are "only two genders".  The unidentified 17-year-old secretly filmed his teacher who was punishing him for his "beliefs".  A three minute clip was uploaded to social media and YouTube where he explains "it's not very inclusive" to kick him out of the classroom.  The incident is understood to have happened within a school in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.    The discussion begins with the teacher explaining to the lad that he is of the opinion that there is "more than one gender" which is an opinion "acceptable" to the school.  He adds in response to the pupil: "Unlike yours where you say there's no such thing other than male or female - that's not inclusive."  The student blasts back saying: "I think it's silly to have other than two genders", to which the teacher again restates: "Could you please keep that opinion to your own house."  After another back-and-forth the pupil adds that the policy is "not scientific whatsoever" before his teacher responds "not every policy is scientific."  Reaffirming his own opinions, the student says: "I'm simply saying there are two genders, male or female.  "Anything else is a personal identification."  He goes on to thank his teacher for "wasting his time" with the argument.  The clip surfaced on YouTube and racked up more than 74,000 views.  It had initially been shared on Reddit but was deleted by its original source.  Aberdeenshire Council explained how the video was taken out of context with regards to the bigger incident that had happened previously within the classroom.  A spokesman said: "As part of our Public Sector Equality Duty we aim to: eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation; advance equality of opportunity between those who have protected characteristics and those who don't; and foster good relations between those who have protected characteristics and those who don’t.  “It is important to understand the context of any video clip taken without a person’s consent. In our schools, fostering good relations among different groups can be a real challenge but our aim is to support a fairer, inclusive environment for all.”  We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.


cnbc--2019-09-04--Back to school and back to another year of our dumb education funding system

Back to school, and back to another year of our dumb education funding system

Tens of millions of American children are back at school this week, and that means we've begun another year of what has to be one of the wackiest and least effective ways of funding education on Earth.  Instead of assessing school taxes directly to the parents of kids currently in the school system, states mostly use property sizes and values to determine how much residents pay in taxes to fund local schools. That's regardless of a homeowner's ability to pay, whether or not he or she has any children in a school system, and no matter how badly a local real estate market may be faring.  That doesn't sound like the best foundation for education, does it?  But wait, there's more! The property tax-dependent education funding system creates a massive disconnect between the consumers of education and those providing it. It's a third-party billing set-up on steroids. People or families who actually pay for education may not ever even receive that education, creating an unpredictable or even non-existent framework for accountability on both the buyer and provider sides of the equation.  This scenario is eerily similar to some other essential services Americans tend to buy in this kind of indirect way, with health care being the best example. The bottom line is when consumers don't pay for something directly, the actual price and even the overall quality of what they're paying for gets murky at best.  On top of all those problems, we have a millennial generation that continues to reject the very idea of home ownership in larger numbers than previous generations. That's an ominous sign for the future of education, especially in suburban areas where millennials aren't even showing much interest in living in rental properties.  Before you throw in more exotic forms of education funding like sales taxes and multi-state lotteries, remember that they're both even more likely to be funds coming from sources disconnected to the actual payer-provider relationship. Also remember that lottery proceeds are not used as extra money for education. Instead, those funds simply replace state income that used to go to education that's been lost or diverted to other areas of the budget. The line fed to the public about lottery money helping to meaningfully boost education spending and quality nationwide has long been debunked over, and over, and over as misleading marketing at best.  Then there's the problem of just how that money is spent. With the rising costs of teacher pensions and retiree benefits, more of the money is not even going to teachers currently in the classrooms. It's not that these pensions or benefits have to be cut or eliminated, it's just that they need to be restructured or at least not included in those highly misleading "spending per student" figures so many school districts pump out to the public.  Lastly, ask any teacher what usually makes the biggest difference in student performance and they'll probably tell you it's less about money and more about parental participation in their child's education and repeated reminders in the home about the importance of education.


cnsnews--2019-05-15--Walter Williams Higher Education in America

Walter Williams: Higher Education in America

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at Ohio University Richard Vedder's new book, "Restoring the Promise," published by the Independent Institute based in Oakland, California, is about the crisis in higher education. He summarizes the three major problems faced by America's colleges and universities. First, our universities "are vastly too expensive, often costing twice as much per student compared with institutions in other industrialized democracies." Second, though there are some important exceptions, students "on average are learning relatively little, spend little time in academic preparation and in some disciplines are indoctrinated by highly subjective ideology." Third, "there is a mismatch between student occupational expectations after graduation and labor market realities." College graduates often find themselves employed as baristas, retail clerks and taxi drivers.  The extraordinary high college cost not only saddles students with debt, it causes them to defer activities such as getting married and starting a family, buying a home and saving for retirement. Research done by the New York Federal Reserve Banks and the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that each dollar of federal aid to college leads to a tuition increase of 60 cents.  For the high cost of college, what do students learn? A seminal study, "Academically Adrift," by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, after surveying 2,300 students at various colleges, argues that very little improvement in critical reasoning skills occurs in college. Adult literacy is falling among college graduates. Large proportions of college graduates do not know simple facts, such as the half-century in which the Civil War occurred. There are some exceptions to this academic incompetency, most notably in technical areas such as engineering, nursing, architecture and accounting, where colleges teach vocationally useful material. Vedder says that student ineptitude is not surprising since they spend little time in classrooms and studying. It's even less surprising when one considers student high school preparation. According to 2010 and 2013 NAEP test scores, only 37 percent of 12th-graders were proficient in reading, 25 percent in math, 12 percent in history, 20 percent in geography and 24 percent in civics.  What happens when many of these students graduate saddled with debt? The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in an October 2018 report, finds that many students are underemployed, filling jobs that can be done with a high school education. More than one-third of currently working college graduates are in jobs that do not require a degree, such as flight attendants, janitors and salesmen. In addition to this kind of resource misallocation, 40 percent or more college students fail to graduate in six years. It is not unreasonable to ask whether college attendance was a wise use of these students' time and the resources of their parents and taxpayers.  Vedder has several important ideas for higher education reform. First, we should put an end to the university monopoly on certifying educational and vocational competency. Non-college organizations could package academic courses and award degrees based upon external examinations.  Regarding financial aid, colleges should be forced to share in covering loan defaults, namely they need to have some skin in the game. More importantly, Vedder says that we should end or revise the federal student aid program.  Vedder ends "Restoring the Promise" with a number of proposals with which I agree:  —College administrative staff often exceeds the teaching staff. Vedder says, "I doubt there is a major campus in America where you couldn't eliminate very conservatively 10 percent of the administrative payroll (in dollar terms) without materially impacting academic performance."  —Reevaluate academic tenure. Tenure is an employment benefit that has costs, and faculty members should be forced to make tradeoffs between it and other forms of university compensation.  —Colleges of education, with their overall poor academic quality, are an embarrassment on most campuses and should be eliminated.  —End speech codes on college campuses by using the University of Chicago Principles on free speech.  —The most important measure of academic reforms is to make university governing boards independent and meaningful. In my opinion, most academic governing boards are little more than yes men for the president and provost.  Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.


cnsnews--2019-06-18--Walter Williams Black Education Decline

Walter Williams: Black Education Decline

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says that the city's specialized high schools have a diversity problem. He's joined by New York City Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza, educators, students and community leaders who want to fix the diversity problem.  I bet you can easily guess what they will do to "improve" the racial mix of students (aka diversity).  If you guessed they would propose eliminating the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test as the sole criterion for admissions, go to the head of the class. The Specialized High Schools Admissions Test is an examination that is administered to New York City's eighth- and ninth-grade students. By state law, it is used to determine admission to all but one of the city's nine specialized high schools.  It's taken as axiomatic that the relatively few blacks admitted to these high-powered schools is somehow tied to racial discrimination. In a June 2, 2018 "Chalkbeat" article (https://tinyurl.com/y64delc3), de Blasio writes: "The problem is clear. Eight of our most renowned high schools — including Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School — rely on a single, high-stakes exam. The Specialized High School Admissions Test isn't just flawed — it's a roadblock to justice, progress and academic excellence."  Let's look at a bit of history to raise some questions about the mayor's diversity hypothesis.  Dr. Thomas Sowell provides some interesting statistics about Stuyvesant High School in his book "Wealth, Poverty and Politics." He reports that, "In 1938, the proportion of blacks attending Stuyvesant High School, a specialized school, was almost as high as the proportion of blacks in the population of New York City." Since then, it has spiraled downward. In 1979, blacks were 12.9% of students at Stuyvesant, falling to 4.8% in 1995. By 2012, The New York Times reported that blacks were 1.2% of the student body.  None of the usual explanations for racial disparities make sense. In other words, would one want to argue that there was less racial discrimination in 1938? Or, argue that in 1938 the "legacy of slavery" had not taken effect whereby now it is in full bloom?  Genetic or environmental arguments cannot explain why blacks of an earlier generation were able to meet the demanding mental test standards to get into an elite high school. Socioeconomic conditions for blacks have improved dramatically since 1938. The only other plausible reason for the decline in academic achievement is that there has been a change in black culture. It doesn't take much to reach this conclusion. Simply look at school behavior today versus yesteryear.  An Education Week article reported that in the 2015-16 school year, "5.8% of the nation's 3.8 million teachers were physically attacked by a student." The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics show that in the 2011-12 academic year, there were a record 209,800 primary- and secondary-school teachers who reported being physically attacked by a student. Nationally, an average of 1,175 teachers and staff were physically attacked, including being knocked out, each day of that school year.  In the city of Baltimore, each school day in 2010, an average of four teachers and staff were assaulted. A National Center for Education Statistics study found that 18% of the nation's schools accounted for 75% of the reported incidents of violence, and 6.6% accounted for half of all reported incidents. These are schools with predominantly black student populations.  It's not only assaults on teachers but cursing and disorderly conduct that are the standard fare in so many predominantly black schools.  Here are questions that might be asked of de Blasio and others who want to "fix the diversity problem" at New York's specialized schools: What has the triumph of egalitarian and diversity principles done for the rest of New York's school system? Are their academic achievement scores better than students at New York's specialized schools?  The most important question for black parents: What has been allowed to happen to cripple black academic excellence?  Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.