MikeLigalig.com

Kim Philby
1912-1988

Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a double agent before defecting to the Soviet Union in 1963. He served as both an NKVD and KGB operative.

Of the five Cambridge Spy Ring, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviet Union. His activities were moderated only by Joseph Stalin's fears that he was secretly on Britain's side. Philby was an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from 1946 to 1965.

Donald Maclean
1913-1983

In 1938 Maclean was Third Secretary at the Paris embassy then served in Washington from 1944 to 1948 and promoted to First Secretary. By the time he was appointed head of the American Department in the Foreign Office, Maclean was widely suspected of being a spy, and the Russians persuaded him to defect in 1951. In Moscow, he worked as a specialist on British policy and relations between the Soviet Union and NATO. He was reported to have died there on March 6, 1983.

THE CAMBRIDGE SPY RING


Guy Burgess
1911-1963

Burgess was a former BBC radio producer, M15 intelligence officer, and Foreign Office official. He defected to Russia in 1951. He died lonely and depressed in 1963 due to acute liver failure.

The term "Cambridge" refers to the recruitment of the group during their education at the University of Cambridge in the 1930s. Debate surrounds the exact timing of their recruitment by Soviet intelligence; Anthony Blunt claimed that they were not recruited as agents until they had graduated. Blunt, an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, was several years older than Burgess, Maclean, and Philby; he acted as a talent-spotter and recruiter for most of the group save Burgess.

Several people have been suspected of being additional members of the group; John Cairncross (cryptonym: Liszt) was identified as such by Oleg Gordievsky, although many others have also been accused of membership in the Cambridge ring. Both Blunt and Burgess were members of the Cambridge Apostles, an exclusive and prestigious society based at Trinity and King's Colleges. Cairncross was also an Apostle. Other Apostles accused of having spied for the Soviets include Michael Whitney Straight, Victor Rothschild and Guy Liddell.

wikipedia/

The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies recruited in part by Soviet scout Arnold Deutsch in the United Kingdom, who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and active at least into the early 1950s.

Four members of the ring were originally identified: Kim Philby (cryptonym: Stanley), Donald Duart Maclean (cryptonym: Homer), Guy Burgess (cryptonym: Hicks) and Anthony Blunt (cryptonym: Johnson). Once jointly known as the Cambridge Four and later as the Cambridge Five, the number increased as more evidence came to light.

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America’s engagement policy was a bad idea that Washington is now reconsidering. Great Britain has even less justification for it. Alone, it doesn’t have the power to stand up to China. Although it has not had a leadership role in Asia since the end of its empire, its close ally the United States does. Its lack of power does not absolve it of responsibility. London would do well to get together with Washington and European leaders to identify a better approach for the years to come.

Ellen Bork's blog
worldaffairsjournal.org/

Engagement made tough diplomacy and sanctions unnecessary, delivering benefits without effort, sacrifice, or confrontation. President Clinton “delinked” trade from human rights and eventually made China’s full, unconditional trade relations with the US permanent. This idea served US business interests, especially the tech industry, and was bipartisan. (The move also damaged human rights as a priority in US foreign policy across the board, a position which the 2012 adoption of visa and financial sanctions for Russia has only begun to turn around.)

It should have been obvious then, and it certainly is now, that Chinese Communist leaders have no interest in abandoning power to this purported sweep of history.

The second difference between Great Britain’s overtures to China and America’s is that Great Britain’s leaders are unburdened by strategic responsibilities, such as the defense of Taiwan or the security of Asia’s sea-lanes, both threatened by Beijing. That was quite obvious when London flirted with helping to lift the EU arms embargo, imposed in response to June 4th massacre of the Tiananmen democracy protesters of 1989.

First, the geopolitical situation is much changed. An economically and militarily powerful China is leading a challenge to the dominance of liberal democracy as a global norm. Second, the UK does not have the strategic responsibilities in Asia that the US does.

When the US embraced “engagement” in the 1990s, the Cold War had just ended. The idea in fashion was the Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history.” According to Fukuyama, that liberal democracy had emerged victorious from the competition of ideologies.

This intellectual claim dovetailed with politicians’ eagerness to pursue trade and investment and let them justify it as helping along China’s inevitable trend toward political reform and integration with the world.

Democracy Road

Ellen Bork

The UK's Misplaced China Policy

21 October 2015

The state visit of China’s Communist Party general secretary, Xi Jinping, to the United Kingdom has had trappings that only Great Britain could deliver: a speech to the oldest parliament in the world, dinner with the queen at Buckingham Palace, and a visit to Chequers, Prime Minister David Cameron’s country retreat. More important, a Chinese state-owned company has gained entrée into the British nuclear power industry, a development that experts have warned presents a security risk.



The UK wants to become China’s “best partner in the West,” an objective set out by George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, who is taking the lead on China policy. Great Britain’s approachâ€"engagement with a pronounced emphasis on trade, at the expense of human rightsâ€"resembles America’s policy of the 1990s, but with important differences.

8. Proxy war


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What began as another Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic ruler has mushroomed into a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers.

Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased their support.

Tehran is believed to be spending billions of dollars a year to bolster Mr Assad, providing military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit and oil transfers. In September 2015, Russia launched an air campaign against Mr Assad's opponents. Moscow said it was targeting only "all terrorists", above all members of Islamic State, but many of the strikes hit Western-backed rebels and civilians.

The Syrian government has also enjoyed the support of Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, whose fighters have provided important battlefield support since 2013.

The Sunni-dominated opposition has, meanwhile, attracted varying degrees of support from its main backers - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab states along with the US, UK and France. However, the rise of hardline Islamist rebels and the arrival of jihadists from across the world have led to a marked cooling of Western backing.

US-led coalition aircraft provide significant support to Kurdish militia fighters seeking to defend three autonomous enclaves in the country's north from attacks by IS. But a programme to train and arm 5,000 Syrian rebels to take the fight to IS on the ground has suffered embarrassing setbacks.

"The disappointment caused by the West's inaction created a fertile recruiting ground for extremists, who told those who had lost their loved ones that they were their only hope." - Majed, a 26-year-old civil society activist

Produced by Lucy Rodgers, David Gritten, James Offer and Patrick Asare

BBC

7. Peace efforts


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With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other, the international community long ago concluded that only a political solution could end the conflict in Syria. However, a number of attempts by the Arab League and the UN to broker ceasefires and start dialogue have failed.

In January 2014, the US, Russia and UN convened a conference in Switzerland to implement the 2012 Geneva Communique, an internationally backed agreement that called for the establishment of a transitional governing body in Syria formed on the basis of mutual consent.

The talks, which became known as Geneva II, broke down in February after only two rounds. The then-UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi blamed the Syrian government's refusal to discuss opposition demands and its insistence on a focus on fighting "terrorists" - a term Damascus uses to describe rebel groups.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the organisation's long-term strategic objective remains a political solution based on the Geneva Communique. The UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura has also proposed establishing a series of "freeze zones", where local ceasefires would be negotiated to allow aid deliveries in besieged areas. But his attempt to broker a truce in Aleppo in March 2015 was rejected by rebels in the city, who feared the government would use it to redeploy its forces elsewhere and that IS militants would simply ignore it.

US-led coalition air strikes in Syria and Iraq

6. Rebels and the rise of the jihadists


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The armed rebellion has evolved significantly since its inception. Secular moderates are now outnumbered by Islamists and jihadists, whose brutal tactics have caused widespread concern and triggered rebel infighting.

Capitalising on the chaos in the region, Islamic State - the extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq - has taken control of huge swathes of territory across northern and eastern Syria, as well as neighbouring Iraq. Its many foreign fighters in Syria are now involved in a "war within a war", battling rebels and jihadists from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, who object to their tactics, as well as Kurdish and government forces.

In September 2014, a US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Syria in an effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy" IS, helping the Kurds repel a major assault on the northern town of Kobane. But the coalition has avoided attacks that might benefit Mr Assad's forces or intervening in battles between them and the rebels.

In the political arena, opposition groups are also deeply divided, with rival alliances battling for supremacy. The most prominent is the moderate National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, backed by several Western and Gulf Arab states. However, the coalition has little influence on the ground in Syria and its primacy is rejected by other groups, leaving the country without a convincing alternative to the Assad government.

Syrian refugees in the region

5. Humanitarian crisis


EPA

More than four million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most of them women and children. It is one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history. Neighbouring countries have borne the brunt of the refugee crisis, with Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey struggling to accommodate the flood of new arrivals. The exodus accelerated dramatically in 2013, as conditions in Syria deteriorated.

A further 7.6 million Syrians have been internally displaced within the country, bringing the total number forced to flee their homes to more than 11 million - half the country's pre-crisis population. Overall, an estimated 12.2 million are in need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria, including 5.6 million children, the UN says.

In December 2014, the UN launched an appeal for $8.4bn (£5.6bn) to provide help to 18 million Syrians, after only securing about half the funding it asked for in 2014. By a year later, it was less than half funded.

A report published by the UN in March 2015 estimated the total economic loss since the start of the conflict was $202bn and that four in every five Syrians were now living in poverty - 30% of them in abject poverty. Syria's education, health and social welfare systems are also in a state of collapse.

4. Chemical weapons


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Hundreds of people were killed in August 2013 after rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at several agricultural districts around Damascus. Western powers, outraged by the attack, said it could only have been carried out by Syria's government. The regime and its ally Russia blamed rebels.

Facing the prospect of US military intervention, President Assad agreed to the complete removal or destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal as part of a joint mission led by the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The destruction of chemical agents and munitions was completed a year later.

Despite the operation, the OPCW has since documented the use of toxic chemicals, such as chlorine and ammonia, by the government in attacks on rebel-held northern villages between April and July 2014 that resulted in the deaths of at least 13 people.

Islamic State has also been accused of using homemade chemical weapons, possibly including the blistering agent sulphur mustard, against Kurdish forces and civilians in northern Syria.

3. War crimes


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A UN commission of inquiry, investigating alleged human rights violations since March 2011, has evidence that those on both sides of the conflict have committed war crimes - including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances. Government and rebel forces have also been accused by investigators of using civilian suffering - such as blocking access to food, water and health services - as a method of war.

In February 2014, a UN Security Council resolution demanded all parties end the "indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas". Since then, activists say, more than 6,000 civilians have been killed by barrel bombs dropped by government aircraft on rebel-held areas. The UN says in some instances, civilian gatherings have been deliberately targeted, constituting massacres.

Islamic State has also been accused by the UN of waging a campaign of terror in northern and eastern Syria. It has inflicted severe punishments on those who transgress or refuse to accept its rule, including hundreds of public executions and amputations. Its fighters have also carried out mass killings of rival armed groups, members of the security forces and religious minorities, and beheaded hostages, including several Westerners.

"We're just living on the edge of life. We're always nervous, we're always afraid." - Mother-of-nine Mariam Akash, whose husband was killed by a sniper

2. Descent into civil war


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Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades were formed to battle government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. Fighting reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo in 2012.

By June 2013, the UN said 90,000 people had been killed in the conflict. However, by August 2014 that figure had more than doubled to 191,000 - and continued to climb to 250,000 by August 2015, according to activists and the UN.

The conflict is now more than just a battle between those for or against President Assad. It has acquired sectarian overtones, pitching the country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect, and drawn in neighbouring countries and world powers. The rise of the jihadist groups, including Islamic State, has added a further dimension.

1. Uprising turns violent


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Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 in the southern city of Deraa after the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. After security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets.

The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation. The government's use of force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. By July 2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets across the country.

Opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas.

Syria: The story of the conflict



BBC
9 October 2015

More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from Islamic State. This is the story of the civil war so far, in eight short chapters.

Quote from: hubag bohol on October 21, 2015, 08:02:29 PM
Instead, 700-odd workers in the eastern Chinese province of Nanchang will smelt and cast components for the statue at the Jiangxi Tongqing Metal Handicrafts Company, the world’s biggest foundry. Many of them are expected to come to India by the end of the year to help with the construction at Sadhu Bet, a river island in the western Indian city of Vadodara.

as usual, where chinese projects anywhere in the world are, chinese workers follow as part of the contract.  india may be flooded with chinese workers thus.  it may not be a surprise if some parts of india may end up as chinese territory.

Machu Picchu in Peru as seen from the Sun Gate â€" the end of the Inca Trail, featuring breathtaking views of site, as the clouds part for a golden sunrise. (Photo taken by Carolyn Presutti/VoA)

Cuban soldiers celebrating after the failed U.S. invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, 1961. (AP Photo/Prensa Latina via AP Images/Miguel Vinas)

Old post card with the young image of the Cuban President Fidel Castro

This is an old post card with the young image portrait of the legendary Cuba President Fidel Castro. Inscription on reverse: Comandante Fidel Castro, Primer Ministro del Gobierno Revolucionario.


The lion in winter

the Cuban dictator


Col. Fulgencio Batista, who commanded the Cuban government's armed forces, when he arrived in Camp Columbia, Havana, on November 12, 1933. (AP Photo)

American author Ernest Hemingway (left) and Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro chatting in Havana on May 15, 1960. (AP Photo)

April 18, 1961: Fidel Castro, at a stadium in Havana, speaks with Cubans who were captured after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. (AP)


Fidel Castro at about 18 years old

Brigade 2506
A group of captured U.S.-backed Cuban exiles, known as Brigade 2506, being lined up by Fidel Castro’s soldiers at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), Cuba, following an unsuccessful invasion of the island, April 1961.

Bay of Pigs, aka Bahia de Cochinos

On April 17, 1961 the exiled-Cuban military landed on the south coast of Cuba in the Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs). These exiles, not as severely trained as the Cuban army, were either killed or captured by as early as April 20th. This invasion caused bitter feelings toward US-Cuban relations in both Latin America and Europe, causing President Kennedy to receive harsh criticism. In December of 1962, Fidel Castro released thousands of captured exiles for $53 million in food and medicine, both provided by United States private donations.

Analysis

The Bay of Pigs Invasion is a significant event in history because it lead to the separation of the US-Cuban comradeship. This event began harsh criticism of President John F. Kennedy. The CIA said that because of Kennedy’s actions, thousands of Cubans were killed. Not only did the Bay of Pigs Invasion start the trouble with the US-Cuban relations, the criticism of Kennedy, but it also sparked problems in Europe and Latin America with the trust of the CIA. (hum3bg.wikispaces.com/)

Nikolai Gogol

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ivan Turgenev

The dark area across the top of the sun in this image of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is a coronal hole, a region on the sun where the magnetic field is open to interplanetary space, sending coronal material speeding out in what is called a "high-speed solar wind stream." (NASA)

High-speed solar-wind streams emanate from solar coronal holes; the fast wind interacts with upstream slow streams producing regions of enhanced magnetic field strength and particle density that are known as co-rotating interaction regions. Due to the recurring nature of coronal holes near solar minimum, this results in periodic driving of the magnetosphere that can last for several days and input as much energy as a storm driven by a coronal mass ejection.

When we talk about space weather we can often conjure images of large coronal mass ejections (CMEs) or dramatic solar flares that drive spectacular effects in the Earth's near-space environment, such as the northern and southern lights.

more at http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals.org/content/48/6/6.24.full

North Korean military participates in the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang. (Reuters/VoA)

Women dressed in traditional attire pose after taking part in rehearsals for the "garba" dance ahead of Navratri festival in Ahmedabad, India. Navratri, held in honor of Hindu Goddess Durga, is celebrated over a period of nine days where thousands of youths dance the night away in traditional costumes. (Reuters/VoA)

An injured Palestinian demonstrator is helped during clashes at the Hawara checkpoint near of the West Bank city of Nablus. At least 45 Palestinians were wounded by live bullets in clashes between university students and Israeli forces at the military checkpoint near Nablus, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. (AP/VoA)

Family members of Korkmaz Tedik, a victim of bomb blasts, mourn over his coffin during a funeral ceremony in Ankara, Turkey. Thousands of people, many chanting anti-government slogans, gathered in central Ankara near the scene of bomb blasts which killed at least 95 people, mourning the victims of the most deadly attack of its kind on Turkish soil. (Reuters/VoA)

Opposition lawmakers in Kosovo disrupt Parliament's session by using tear gas and whistles, in the capital Pristina to protest against the government's recent EU-sponsored deal with Serbia giving the country's Serb-majority areas greater powers. (AP/VoA)

North Korean fans in national colors sing their national anthem before their team's preliminary 2018 World Cup and 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualifying soccer match against Philippines at the Kim Il Sung Stadium in Pyongyang. (Reuters/VoA)

6 The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter often takes images of Martian sand dunes to study the mobile soils. These images provide information about erosion and movement of surface material, about wind and weather patterns, even about the soil grains and grain sizes. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

2 Trucks cross a bridge shrouded in haze in Klang, Malaysia. The thick so-called "haze," caused by slash-and-burn clearances on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, has pushed air quality to unhealthy levels in Malaysia and neighboring Singapore. (Reuters/VoA)

Flood waters rise around a title loan store on Garners Ferry Road in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. South Carolina experienced a record rainfall, with at least 11.5 inches falling on Oct. 3. (AP/VoA)

Bishops and cardinals pray as Pope Francis celebrates the opening Mass of the Synod of bishops, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. (AP/VoA)

Schoolchildren dressed as Mahatma Gandhi take part in an attempt to set a new Guiness World Record, for the largest gathering of people dressed as Gandhi, during celebrations to mark his 146th birth anniversary, in Bengaluru, India. (Reuters/VoA)

na, hala...

Thabo Mbeki



While his father was imprisoned with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, Mbeki spent decades in exile from South Africa working for the struggle against apartheid. After stays in the USSR, Britain and Zimbabwe among other countries, he returned to his homeland in 1990 and succeeded Mandela as President in 1999.

CNN

Victor Hugo



The great French writer, best known internationally as the author of "Les Miserables," was also an ardent political activist. He opposed Napoleon III's authoritarian rule in the mid-19th century, a stance that forced him to flee France and spend nearly two decades in exile, most of it in Guernsey in the British Channel Islands.

Iman



The 1969 coup and its bloody aftermath in Somalia prompted the family of Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid to leave in the dead of night and cross into Kenya. She was discovered there years later by a photographer, setting her on a career as a supermodel in the United States, where she has started her own cosmetics company, taken up humanitarian causes and married David Bowie.

Sigmund Freud



The father of psychoanalysis, who reshaped how people all over the world thought about the workings of their own minds, became a refugee near the very end of his life. After the Nazis, who had burned Freud's books, took control of Austria in 1938, the psychologist and his wife fled Vienna for London. He died there the following year.

Madeleine Albright



The United States' first female Secretary of State was born in 1937 in the country then known as Czechoslovakia. Her family fled the Nazis during World War II and then, after returning, were forced to leave again after the Communist takeover of 1948.

Luol Deng



Born in 1985 amid civil war in Sudan, Deng fled the fighting with his family as a young child, settling first in Egypt and later Britain. He went on to study in the United States before beginning a career in professional basketball. A two-time NBA All-Star, Deng has played for the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat.

Gloria Estefan



The "Queen of Latin Pop" spent the first two years of her life in Havana, Cuba. But the Communist revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959 prompted her family to leave for Miami. Her father returned to Cuba to fight in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Estefan went on to sell more than 100 million albums and win seven Grammys in a dazzling pop career.

Albert Einstein



The most important physicist of the 20th century was persecuted in Germany by the Nazis, who branded his groundbreaking theory of relativity "Jewish physics." He left for the United States in 1933 and never returned to Germany.

Freddie Mercury



The frontman of stadium rock legends Queen was born Farrokh Bulsara in 1946, the son of an Indian Parsee couple living on the African island of Zanzibar. The family fled the bloody revolution that shook the island in 1964, moving to suburban London where the aspiring musician eventually met his future band mates.

Marlene Dietrich



The cinematic icon and legendary cabaret singer rose to fame in Germany in the 1920s. She left to pursue a career in Hollywood in 1930 and watched with horror as the Nazis proceeded to seize power in her homeland. She rejected overtures from Hitler's regime to return to Germany, became an American citizen and performed for Allied troops during World War II.

Refugees who changed the world

By Jethro Mullen, CNN
October 22, 2015
Source: CNN

(CNN)They are destitute, desperate but determined. Thousands of them flee their homes every year, risking their lives in unseaworthy boats or crammed in trucks.

Refugees struggling to find a new life in Europe have seized the world's attention. In some places, they have faced a backlash from anti-immigration groups who claim they are a drain on resources.

But history is full of examples of refugees who went on to leave lasting contributions in the realms of science, arts, politics and sports.

Here are just some of the most prominent, in their own words:

Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru, appeared to nod off at a hearing during his trial over alleged human rights violations in Lima in May 2008.

CNN

Austrian President Heinz Fischer conserves his energy during a commemoration ceremony against violence and racism in Parliament in May 2012.

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro takes a nap during the final session of the 6th Cuban Communist Party Congress in April 2011 in Havana.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends the opening (with her eyes closed) of the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting in Beijing in October 2008.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (L) and Finance Minister Taro Aso "listen" to a question from an opposition lawmaker during a budget session at the National Diet in Tokyo in February 2013.

It seems there were few places that the former Italian Premier didn't see as potential nap spots. Here, Berlusconi rests his heavy eyelids at a press conference in Jerusalem in January 2009.

Berlusconi also found time to catch a few winks during the opening session at the Arab Summit in Libya in March 2010.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (C) takes a nap during a military parade to mark the the 150th anniversary of Italian unification in Rome in June 2011.

Then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (L) "rests his eyes" during a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York in April 2008.

Pope Benedict XVI (C), 83 at the time, falls asleep during the celebration of a Pontifical Mass on the Granaries in April 2010 in Floriana.

It's one thing to fall asleep at work, quite another to snooze in front of the President. But that's what former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers appeared to be doing during this press conference in April 2009 at the White House.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (C) fell asleep during Barack Obama's State of the Union speech in January 2015. It wasn't the first time, she says. The reason? "I was not 100% sober," Ginsburg said, blaming fellow Justice Anthony Kennedy for bringing a bottle of red wine to their pre-speech dinner.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke at a banquet in London on Wednesday, October 21 during his state visit to the UK, nearby attendees -- including Britain's Prince Andrew -- could be seen nodding off.

Power napping? World leaders and VIPs doze off

CNN
October 22, 2015

The pomp! The circumstance! The ... drowsiness? Being rich and powerful can really take it out of you -- and when your days are packed to the gills with a seemingly endless list of official obligations, political summits, and glamorous state dinners with other powerful people, it's tempting to catch a little shut-eye when you can.

Here's an inexhaustive list of foreign dignitaries and world leaders who appear to be snoozing in public.

“The shooting incident in Cebu was a breach of Philippine penal laws and should be investigated and prosecuted as an ordinary crime,” said Roque in a statement later sent to reporters.

Perhaps the most popular illustration of the limits to diplomatic immunity was the denial of diplomatic immunity to Domique Strauss-Kahn, a French economist and former presidential hopeful who faced sex charges in New York in 2012, when he was still head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Strauss-Kahn was arrested at a United States airport on May 14, 2011 for allegedly attempting to rape hotel housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo. He was denied full immunity by a New York state court despite claims that the IMF’s ties with the United Nations extended such protection from suit to “acts done in the executive’s personal capacity.”

New York prosecutors dropped the criminal charges against him citing “substantial credibility issues,” and he later agreed to a settlement of Diallo’s civil case for a confidential amount.  SFM

newsinfo.inquirer.net/

Roque believes the husband and wife should be prosecuted in the Philippines.

“Consuls only have functional and not full immunity. They can and should be prosecuted,” said Roque in a text message yesterday.

“Murder has no relation to consular functions. The Philippines should exercise jurisdiction. This is pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” said the lawyer of the 1961 treaty.

Article 31 of the Convention spells out the bounds of immunity from criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction of a host state, saying this applies to only to “an action relating to any professional or commercial activity exercised by the diplomatic agent in the receiving State outside his official functions.”

Such ruling echoed the application of “functional immunity,” or protection from suit that would apply only in the performance of a diplomat’s official functions.

International law expert Harry Roque said such a principle applied to the Cebu shooting, where a Chinese consul and her husband were tagged in the deaths of two of her fellow consuls and for injuring Consul General Song Rong Hua.

The couple has invoked diplomatic immunity.

In a March 26, 2001 resolution that junked Liang’s plea with finality, the court maintained its original ruling, saying slander “cannot be considered as an act performed in his official capacity.”

“…[T]he slander of a person, by any stretch, cannot be considered as falling within the purview of the immunity granted to ADB officers and personnel,” read the resolution, which dismissed Liang’s reconsideration plea.

“Petitioner argues that the Decision had the effect of prejudging the criminal case for oral defamation against him. We wish to stress that it did not. What we merely stated therein is that slander, in general, cannot be considered as an act performed in an official capacity,” the high court said.

At the time, the DFA maintained that the economist was protected from criminal prosecution under his immunity privilege. It held the same stand in 2012 when it invoked full diplomatic immunity for Panamanian diplomat Erick Bairnals Shcks, who was accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old girl.

Shcks was able to leave the Philippines. Spared from prosecution here, he was later declared persona non-grata by the DFA.

“The immunity mentioned therein is not absolute, but subject to the exception that the act was done in ‘official capacity,'” said the high court, in a ruling penned by the then Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago.

The Jan. 28, 2000 First Division ruling denied Liang’s plea against the Pasig Regional Trial Court’s arrest order against him for defamatory statements against his secretary six years earlier, drawing the line between immunity covering acts performed in a diplomat’s official capacity, and those outside of duty.

“[C]ourts cannot blindly adhere and take on its face the communication from the DFA that petitioner is covered by immunity. The DFA’s determination that a certain person is covered by immunity is only preliminary, which has no binding effect in courts,” read the ruling.

It cited how the immunity privilege granted to ADB officials in Manila under an agreement between the bank and the Philippine government was not limitless.

SC: Envoy’s unofficial acts not covered by diplomatic immunity

INTERNATIONAL LAW EXPERT AGREES, SAYING CONSULS ACCUSED OF MURDER IN PH SHOULD BE TRIED IN THE COUNTRY

By: Tarra Quismundo
@inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer
October 22nd, 2015

MANILA, Philippines â€" Does diplomatic immunity grant bearers blanket license to commit crimes without liability and penalty?

No, according to a 2000 ruling by the Supreme Court.

In ruling on a slander case against Chinese national Jeffrey Liang, at the time an economist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the high court said the Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) grant of diplomatic immunity “has no binding effect in courts.”

DFA: Suspects in killing of Chinese consular officers enjoy diplomatic immunity

By CNN Philippines Staff
Thu, October 22, 2015


Suspects Li Qing Li and Guo Jing at the Cebu City Police, City Intelligence Branch office on Wednesday (October 21).

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) â€" Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesperson Assistant Secretary Charles Jose confirmed on Thursday (October 22) that the Chinese diplomat couple, who shot dead two consular officers and wounded a Chinese consul general in Cebu on Wednesday, is indeed immune from suit.

Jose said that diplomatic immunity is provided for in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. China's embassy also requested the Philippine government not to give special treatment to Chinese diplomats Li Qing Li and wife Guo Jing.

According to Regional Police Director for Central Visayas, Chief Supt. Tom Bañas, Li Qing Li is a consul whose wife Guo Jing also enjoys immunity.

DFA officials, as of posting, are waiting for a security envoy from China to fetch the suspects from Cebu.

The suspects will be prosecuted for murder in China. The city police investigators will also turn over the evidence gathered in the shooting to the Chinese government.

more at http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2015/10/22/Chinese-consul-general-suspects-diplomatic-immunity.html

An investigator marks the crime scene where two Chinese diplomats were killed inside a restaurant in Cebu province, central Philippines on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015. Two Chinese diplomats in the Philippines were killed and the consul-general was wounded Wednesday by a Chinese attacker armed with a pistol during a birthday celebration at a restaurant, police said. (Alan Tangcawan via AP)

Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/129784/two-chinese-diplomats-shot-dead-in-cebu-resto#ixzz3pIPb9PM3

FIGHTING FOR LIFE Hui Li, a finance officer of the Chinese Consul Office who was shot in Lighthouse Restaurant, gets medical aid in an ambulance. Hui later died in a hospital. CHRISTIAN MANINGO / CEBU DAILY NEWS

At least nine Chinese nationals attended the luncheon, including Li and Gou, Bañas said.

He said that based on the statements of food servers, the group was taking lunch about 1:20 p.m. when an argument broke out.


IN CUSTODY Suspect Chinese Consul Gou Jing is being held by police for questioning. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

SHOOTING IN LIGHTHOUSE Police scene of crime investigators enter Lighthouse Restaurant on Gen. Maxilom Avenue in Cebu City following the shooting of two Chinese diplomats allegedly by a fellow Chinese consular officer over lunch Wednesday. CHRISTIAN MANINGO / CEBU DAILY NEWS

Two Chinese diplomats shot dead in Cebu resto

SINO CONSUL, HUSBAND HELD FOR QUESTIONING

By: Connie E. Fernandez
@inquirerdotnet
Inquirer Visayas
October 22nd, 2015

CEBU CITYâ€"A birthday luncheon for a staff member of the Chinese consulate in a restaurant here turned tragic on Wednesday when the husband of a consular officer  allegedly shot and killed two of her fellow officers.

The motive, however, remained unknown as the suspectsâ€"Li Qing Ling, 60, and his wife, Consul Gou Jingâ€"were still in police custody undergoing questioning.

https://youtu.be/QBp8wx4d4zk

Complex lives designed to forget

But we are too busy dealing with traffic, pollution, flooding, the latest weather disturbance, and our ridiculous income tax rates. We are too busy figuring out how to get customs to not charge us for our balikbayan box. It's as if the country's problems are designed to keep us busy and distract us enough so we don't have time to complain beyond what immediately bothers us. When it is life-threatening to get to and from work each day, it is ridiculous to expect anyone else to look past themselves, much less to see what their fellow citizen is doing or what opinions they have.

Our professional politicians think we don't keep track of their mistakes. Or even if we do, it's not our opinions that matter. They believe that the people whose favor they care about are those who are swayed by a sexy dance, and that those who fill our social media feeds with their complaints cannot influence what the voters they care about will decide come election time.

We all know our politicians think we're all stupid, but have we actually asked ourselves if we actually thrive in this flawed system where those on the lowest rung never advance? Are our leaders correct in thinking we are stupid because we keep each other dumb? â€" Rappler.com

We run the cinemas that stop showing independent films that make people think. We put up the billboards that turn our focus on physical beauty, so that money is spent on visual self-interest instead of focusing on the benefits of educating our women over keeping their skin light. We brag when we visit a public official's extravagant home. We don't have a problem when the daughter of a corrupt leader calls us her friend and asks us aboard her yacht.

Majority of middle and upper class Filipinos have employees - both household and business workers, if not workplace subordinates. Knowing that the face of the future president lies on their shoulders, have we ever asked our employees who they're voting for and why? Have we checked if they remember or have even heard of the horrors of Martial Law? Have we reminded them about the current candidates' corruption scandals? How about their past performance and policy track record? Have we reminded our employees what their president needs to do to better their lives?

Have we asked the people we might be able to influence how they feel about the political landscape? If, in the end, they are the ones who vote in numbers and decide, can we take the time to remind them that the appearance of their favorite celebrity at their campaign rally is not going to ensure that these candidates will actually ease their plight?

Can't do anything?

There's an air of resignation that it's the same old faces and the same old tricks that will comprise the game in 2016, but the truth is that we're comfortable in these performances. We're fine with a select few being able to lead the masses like a brainless flock. We have accepted the pleasure of having employees and servants who follow our orders instead of questioning the social structures that keep them bound.

We who say we are tired of political dynasties and corruption are also the ones who make money off mindless shows that keep people busy and make them settle for a happiness of seeing their love team. We write the scripts, we produce the story plots. We edit the political commentary out of story lines. We sell the ads that run in between segments and we follow advertiser's requests to keep things light - devoid of seriousness and real world issues. We don't want trouble, we just want to coast. We are complicit in keeping those who don't have the same resources from scratching the surface of what is handed to them.

Just like in the past, there is no doubt that the election will be won by the masa (lower classes), those whose opinions we won't see in our Facebook feeds, and whose voices we often don't even care to know.

It only takes a few seconds of listening to a campaign speech to know that those who seek power are aware that only the votes of the lower classes matter, that all they need are celebrities to come up on stage to endorse them and they will win. That a sob story about being the dark and short Robin Hood of the Philippines is somehow believable.

If it's the D and E classes that put our leaders in power, does that mean that those who have access to education and employment can't do anything about who is elected?

They think we're not watching

Those troublesome prospects, the sleepy "safe" bets, the usual administration's pets, as well as the 130 other presidential candidates that filed their certificates the other day make up this political circus that just can’t wait to begin. As if we're not already laughable. As if this party needs another clown. As if we aren't battered and weary enough from these cycles of distractions, manufactured victories, and lies.

They think we’re not watching this predictable novella, when those we elect pilfer from the nation's coffers, land themselves in jail, feign medical issues, get released, and then run again for office. It's as if impeachment, conviction, and imprisonment are prerequisites to be elected to the highest posts in the land.

Exhausted, we wait for these crooks to die off and be replaced by younger, more conscientious ones. But it seems they raise new models like their families are factories that replace old thieves with younger and more energetic ones. Where their offspring are taught that their parents are sinless and God-fearing, that they did what was right and necessary during their time.

A tradition of theft

They think we're oblivious to that surname that is supposedly the reason the central business district thrives. That we'll overlook the fact that this political dynasty is comprised of a father, mother, sister, and brother who have made corruption cases the tradition of their name. If that's not a family legacy then I don't know what it is. It must make one so proud to follow that tarnished path.

And what about the urong-sulong (back and forth) cha-cha a hopeful dictator tried to pull with his reluctant presidential candidacy? Even the lawyers among my smarter acquaintances have grown so tired of their fellow Filipinos' complacency and lack of discipline that they now believe this man who promotes summary execution has the answers. I understand that it's inspiring to listen to a man who says he'll clean up the streets and eliminate unwanted elements. Sure, until it's a relative of yours who is killed without due process. All of a sudden, we'll regret putting a lawless verdugo in Malacañang. Don't forget that we've seen that iron fist one too many times.

We sighed with relief when a big-haired longtime politician and current catchphrase and meme star decided she's in the game. Until of course she chose an unapologetic murderer's son to be her right-hand man. That was enough admission from the lifelong scholar of laws that she is not bothered by her running mate's family's offenses, but she even took it as far as explicitly stating that an apology is not needed for the deaths and debts that family has incurred with pride.

They must think we're stupid

'Our professional politicians think we don't keep track of their mistakes. Or even if we do, it's not our opinions that matter'


Shakira Sison
October 22, 2015

So they think we're stupid, those people in red, raising each other's arms like they have fresh faces, having the audacity to call for a "revolution" in a country they themselves raped.

So they think we're so forgetful that we'll just admire their smiles and their outfits and not think of their offenses in both the distant and immediate past. That we'll gloss over the fact that those arms are being raised by plunderers, convicted and ejected only years before, but back in power just to show that even the justice system is in the palm of their hands.

They think we don't notice the rehearsed speeches, the practiced Tagalog, the pro-poor messages. They think it covers up the fancy foreign schooling that resulted in crafted diplomas, or how they have maintained their circle of powerful friends who are only too keen to benefit from their secret bank accounts.

They think nobody is watching this theatrical performance from afar, that we don't notice that those sweaty armpits are a result of those lies, that those oily and weary faces are aware that this is all a tired old story that they repackage time after time.