Indian Ocean Countries Adopt Bali Communique to Bolster Cooperation

Jakarta Globe, Alin Almanar, October 27, 2016

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, center, with her Australian counterpart
Julie Bishop, second from left, chairing a ministerial meeting by member states of
the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Thursday (27/10).
(Antara Photo/Nyoman Budhiana)

Nusa Dua. Countries bordering the Indian Ocean adopted a communique aimed at joint efforts to tackle various problems, ranging from maritime threats to economic inequality, at a meeting hosted by Indonesia.

The 21 member states of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) completed a draft late on Wednesday (26/10), during a meeting by senior officials in Nusa Dua, Bali.

The "Bali Communique" was adopted during a ministerial meeting, opened by Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Thursday.

"We welcome the initiatives to promote economic cooperation and continue to explore all the possibilities and avenues to establish a work program for enhanced cooperation," the communique states.

Ambassador K.V. Bhagirath, secretary general of the IORA, said on the sidelines of Wednesday's meeting that it is "a very important document encapsulating the intent for cooperation in various sectors."

He said the communique mainly addresses six issues that have long been prioritized by the regional grouping of the world's third-largest ocean.

Those are maritime safety and security, trade and investment, fisheries management, disaster risk management, tourism and culture, as well as science and technology.

"The communique is already very clear. It surely tells you the steps to be taken," Bhagirath, who is from India, told the Jakarta Globe. "The IORA secretariat will carry out those programs, consulting with the member states."

"We'll meet regularly to assess progress of the communique in the months to come. We'll be reviewing how much we have implemented in upcoming meetings, which will probably be held early next year," he added.

A series of meetings scheduled for March next year will conclude with the inaugural IORA summit led by Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in Jakarta.

Southeast Asia's largest country is chairing the association of Indian Ocean rim countries, which have a combined population of more than two billion people, for the period of 2015-17. IORA has observer status at the United Nations.

The member states are Australia, Bangladesh, the Comoros, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Oman, Seychelles, South Africa, Singapore, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Indonesia succeeded Australia as IORA chair and will be replaced by South Africa late next year.

China starts key four-day meeting to set tone for rest of President Xi's tenure

China's most senior Communist Party leaders have gathered in Beijing for a four-day meeting that could set the tone for the rest of President Xi Jinping's tenure. It comes in the wake of a clampdown on corruption.

Deutsche Welle, 25 Oct 2016

The leaders of China's communist party began a key plenary meeting on Monday as President Xi Jinping sought to instill the message that his campaign against corruption is far from over. Some 370 Central Committee members have gathered in Beijing's Jingxi Hotel, the historic site where former leader Deng Xiaoping launched reforms that opened up China's economy in 1978.

The closed-door meeting comes in the wake of Xi punishing more than one million party members over graft allegations.

The party's official newspaper wrote on Monday that the summit would "forge an even stronger, energetic leadership core, ready and waiting to guide China at its new starting point".

Xi seeks to shore up power

 According to insiders, Xi hopes to finally overcome opposition to new regulations forcing party members to disclose foreign assets, many of them hidden under the names of relatives or foreign business partners. Previous attempts by Xi to root out official corruption have been shot down by some of the more powerful members of the Central Committee.

Some commentators also believe the purpose of the meeting is for the president to crack down on dissent to his administration.

"To strengthen 'party self-discipline' is just an excuse. The core issue that the party wants to work on during the plenary is to confirm the new power centre. It is quite an important meeting, because Xi still hasn't fully established his power," longtime political commentator Zhang Lifan told German news agency DPA.

China's state news outlet Xinhua reported that the main purpose of the meeting is to get a new set of disciplinary rules approved, but Xi may have a more difficult time than anticipated. Although party meetings take place behind closed doors, in-fighting between different factions is known to be rampant - especially between Xi's group and those led by former presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

Xinhua is expected to release a lengthy dispatch on the outcome of the proceedings once they end on Thursday.

es/jm (AP, dpa, Reuters)

Opposition to nuclear energy grows in Japan

Opinion polls show the Japanese people oppose nuclear plants going back into operation. It underlines the scale of the problem facing the government in convincing everyone that it's safe. Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo.

Deutsche Welle, 21 Oct 2016

Before October 16, Ryuichi Yoneyama had contested four regional elections and been soundly beaten each time. Now, however, the 49-year-old qualified doctor and lawyer is to be sworn in as governor of Niigata Prefecture after defeating a candidate who had the backing of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and was considered the firm favorite.

Yoneyama worked hard for his victory over Tamio Mori, a former bureaucrat with the construction ministry, but when the voters stepped into the voting booths there was a single issue that occupied their minds.

Mori and the LDP want to restart the world's largest nuclear power station, the sprawling Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which lies on the prefecture's coast. They insist that as Japan moves towards the sixth anniversary of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, triggering the second-worst nuclear crisis in history, new safety measures have been implemented that ensure the same thing could not happen in Niigata.

The voters did not agree, with 528,455 supporting Yoneyama's pledge to not grant approval for Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant to be restarted. In comparison, 465,044 voted for Mori.

Nationwide opposition

Those figures are broadly replicated across Japan, with a poll conducted by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on October 15 and 16 determining that 57 percent of the public is against the nation's nuclear power plants being restarted, and just 29 percent supporting the resumption of reactors that have nearly all been mothballed since 2011.

At present, only two of the nation's 54 reactors have been restarted - and that after much wrangling through the courts after local residents and environmental groups expressed their opposition.

Nevertheless, a report issued by the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ) in July predicts that seven additional reactors will be on-line by the end of March next year and a further 12 will be operational one year later.

But as the opinion polls show, the majority of the public is against a policy that the government tells them is in the nation's best interests.

Poll: 57 percent of the public is against the nuclear power plants being restarted

"Since the accident at Fukushima, many people have realized the negatives that go along with the positives of nuclear power, and they simply do not want to take that sort of risk again," said Hiroko Moriwaki, a librarian who lives in Tokyo.

"And many think that we do not need to," she added. "Since the disaster, the reactors have not been operational and look around you; we have all the electricity that we need, there are no blackouts and everything is normal.

"Just after the earthquake, we were told to do everything we could to save energy, but not any more," Moriwaki told DW.

"So maybe we have reached the point where we don't actually need nuclear energy and that this is in fact an opportunity that the country can take advantage of," she said.

Japan is an advanced and industrialized nation with vast amounts of skills and technologies that could be put to use to develop and then commercialize new sources of safe, environment-friendly energy, she said.

As well as solar and wind power, which are already visible across Japan, there are moves afoot to harness Japan's tidal and wave energy, while vast amounts of potential geothermal energy remain virtually untapped.

"We have so much technology, so wouldn't it be best to divert some of that away from more investment in nuclear energy and put it into fuel sources that are safer and do not harm the environment at all?" Moriwaki asked.

The government says Japanese
 industry needs a secure supply
of energy

Japan's energy needs

Critics of this approach - of which the government is one - say Japanese industry needs a secure supply of energy right now and that Japan is presently importing 84 percent of its energy needs, primarily in the form of coal, gas and oil. And that is both expensive and to blame for the nation's emissions of carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gases climbing.

Still, the Japanese public is far from convinced that nuclear energy is the answer.

"It's complicated and we keep hearing from the government how important it is to have the nuclear plants operating again, but after Fukushima, I think, a lot of people no longer trust the operators or the government," said Kanako Hosomura, a housewife whose family home is north of Tokyo and only about 250 km from the Fukushima plant.

Inquiries after the disaster revealed that TEPCO ignored experts' warnings about the potential size and power of tsunami and had failed to take precautions such as ensuring a backup power supply in the event the generators used to cool the reactors were out of operation.

The government also came under fire after the media reported that it did not have a full understanding of the severity of the crisis, while it was also issuing statements that the situation was completely under control at the same time as drawing up plans to evacuate tens of millions of people from a huge swathe of eastern Japan.

"When it comes down to it, I have a young son and a family and their safety is my number one priority," said Hosomura. "Maybe Japan was lucky the Fukushima disaster was not worse than it was. Maybe next time we will not be so lucky."

Map showing Japan's nuclear plants (AFP Photo)

Related Articles:

Japan orders shutdown of two nuclear reactors over safety fears

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)

“... Japan

Let us talk for a moment about Japan, and then I'll close the day of messages. There are thousands of souls on my side of the veil and they're just fine, more than fine. We have spoken so often of what happens at the Wind of Birth. I told you, before they even came in, they saw the potential. I looked in their eyes. "You may not last long. You know that, don't you? You're coming into this planet and you may not be here very long. And the passing that you will have with your family will not be pleasant, if any ever are. Why would you come in anyway?" I want to tell you what they said. When a soul has the mind of God, it understands fully what generates peace and what generates energy shift. You can clearly see what generates what the planet needs the most when you are about to arrive. So they said, "We're going to be part of one of the biggest compassion events the planet has ever seen." One earthquake, one tsunami. All of those who left that day will change the earth forever. And it already has. It was the same for the last tsunami as well.

Every single one of them on my side of the veil is getting ready to come back. Many old souls were involved, and just for a moment, if they could give you any information, if they could talk to you right now, if they could speak your language and look into your eyes, they would thank you for your compassion for them and those who are left. And they would say, "Be with those family members who are still alive. Enter their hearts every day and give them peace and keep them from crying, because we're OK."

Nuclear Power Revealed

So let me tell you what else they did. They just showed you what's wrong with nuclear power. "Safe to the maximum," they said. "Our devices are strong and cannot fail." But they did. They are no match for Gaia.

It seems that for more than 20 years, every single time we sit in the chair and speak of electric power, we tell you that hundreds of thousands of tons of push/pull energy on a regular schedule is available to you. It is moon-driven, forever. It can make all of the electricity for all of the cities on your planet, no matter how much you use. There's no environmental impact at all. Use the power of the tides, the oceans, the waves in clever ways. Use them in a bigger way than any designer has ever put together yet, to power your cities. The largest cities on your planet are on the coasts, and that's where the power source is. Hydro is the answer. It's not dangerous. You've ignored it because it seems harder to engineer and it's not in a controlled environment. Yet, you've chosen to build one of the most complex and dangerous steam engines on Earth - nuclear power.

We also have indicated that all you have to do is dig down deep enough and the planet will give you heat. It's right below the surface, not too far away all the time. You'll have a Gaia steam engine that way, too. There's no danger at all and you don't have to dig that far. All you have to do is heat fluid, and there are some fluids that boil far faster than water. So we say it again and again. Maybe this will show you what's wrong with what you've been doing, and this will turn the attitudes of your science to create something so beautiful and so powerful for your grandchildren. Why do you think you were given the moon? Now you know.

This benevolent Universe gave you an astral body that allows the waters in your ocean to push and pull and push on the most regular schedule of anything you know of. Yet there you sit enjoying just looking at it instead of using it. It could be enormous, free energy forever, ready to be converted when you design the methods of capturing it. It's time.

So in closing, do you understand what you're seeing? You're seeing intelligent design, quantum energy and high consciousness. You are seeing changes in Human nature. You're seeing countries putting things together instead of separating. You are seeing those who don't want war and instead want peace, good schools for their children, safety in their streets and a say in their government. We told you it was going to happen this way. I want my partner to teach these things that I have said in his 3D lectures for awhile. Many won't be able to know these things otherwise.  …”

Pakistan's 'cat-eyed' tea seller sparks national soul searching

Yahoo – AFP, Caroline Nelly Perrot, October 20, 2016

Islamabad (AFP) - A Pakistani tea merchant with velvet eyes saw his life changed this week when his portrait spread around the Internet, sparking ardent debates on class, objectification, and the place of ethnic Pashtuns in society.

Arshad Khan had no idea he had set the Internet alight from Pakistan to India and beyond: he has no phone, and cannot read.

"It was a real surprise," the young "chai wala", or tea seller, told AFP.

"I was aware that I am handsome but you can't do anything when you are poor," he said, adding that the image has "changed the way I think."

In the candid photograph, snapped by a passing photographer and posted on Instagram, Khan prepares Pakistan's ubiquitous milk tea, his blue green eyes looking frankly into the camera.

It set social media users swooning, with the 18-year-old's image shared tens of thousands of times since October 14.

By Tuesday, the Islamabad market where photographer Javeria Ali took the fateful shot was swarmed by dozens eager to gawk at the young worker.

But in a country where women have long fought for rights and rarely express their feelings publicly, that fervour soon morphed into an intense debate on what it meant to reduce a poor man to a beautiful object.

"We are more used to seeing this happen to women, it is still creepy whan it happens to a boy," feminist columnist Bina Shah told AFP.

"Just because people are bored does not mean you can play with someone's life."

Xi warns of globalisation backlash at BRICS summit

Yahoo – AFP, Bhuvan Bagga, October 16, 2016

(From left) Brazilian President Michel Temer, Chinese President Xi Jingping,
Indian PM Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and South African
President Jacob Zuma in Goa on October 15, 2016 (AFP Photo/Prakash Singh)

Benaulim (India) (AFP) - Chinese President Xi Jinping said Sunday a rising tide of protectionism and anti-globalisation was endangering the world economy's still fragile recovery as BRICS leaders vowed to forge closer business and trade ties.

At a summit in the Indian tourist hub of Goa, host Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leaders of China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa issued a joint declaration on a range of measures, including the setting-up of a new credit ratings agency and fighting tax evasion.

They also agreed to work together to combat "cross-border" terrorism, but Modi's guests held off from signing up to his fierce condemnation of India's arch-rival Pakistan as the "mothership of terrorism".

BRICS was formed in 2011 with the aim of using members' growing economic and political influence to challenge Western hegemony.

The nations, with a joint estimated GDP of $16 trillion, set up their own bank in parallel to the Washington-based International Monetary Fund and World Bank and hold summits rivalling the G7 forum.

But the countries, accounting for 53 percent of world population, have been hit by falling global demand and lower commodity prices, while several have also been mired in corruption scandals.

Russia and Brazil have fallen into recession recently, South Africa only just managed to avoid the same fate last month and China's economy has slowed sharply.

Both Xi and Modi said the group must stick together, insisting there was much to remain positive about even though its members have been beset by domestic woes and problems sparked by the 2008 financial crisis.

"At present the deep-seated impact of the international financial crisis is still unfolding. The global economy is still going through a treacherous recovery and deep adjustments," Xi said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir

Putin at the BRICS Summit in Goa on October 15, 2016 (AFP Photo)

The Chinese president said "deep-seated imbalances that triggered the financial crisis" were far from being resolved.

"Some countries are getting more inward-looking in their policies. Protectionism is rising and forces against globalisation are posing an emerging risk," he added.

While Xi did not single anyone out, Republican candidate Donald Trump has threatened to erect trade barriers to Chinese products if elected US president. Britain's vote to leave the European Union has been interpreted partly as a backlash against globalisation.

While China's economy has been running out of steam of late --although it is still the world's second largest -- India is now the fastest-growing major economy and its GDP is expected to increase 7.6 percent in 2016–17.

'Deeper bonds'

Modi said it was vital the BRICS nations increased cooperation by dismantling trade barriers and developing infrastructure.

"I think I speak for all when I say that through a common vision and collective action, we will create and sustain deeper bonds among BRICS nations, develop our economies and secure our societies," he said.

"While our achievements have been substantial, we need to sustain the positive direction and strong momentum of intra-BRICS engagement."

Xi said BRICS countries had much to be proud of and had contributed to more than 50 percent of global growth in the last decade.

"The past decade has seen BRICS partnership expanding with win-win results," he said.

"We need to deepen our partnership: we BRICS countries are good friends, brothers and partners that treat each other with sincerity."

Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile called for closer cooperation in areas such as e-commerce and space exploration. Modi confirmed that the leaders had agreed to fast-track setting up a new ratings agency amid accusations from within the bloc that the three traditional agencies -- Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings -- are all Western-based.

"We look forward to translating into reality the idea of a BRICS Credit Rating Agency," he said, without giving details of the much-trailed agency or timeline for its establishment.

Modi, who is pushing to isolate Pakistan following a surge in tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, urged his peers to take a strong united stand against the "mothership of terrorism" in the South Asian region, in a thinly veiled reference to Pakistan.

But with China reluctant to embarrass its traditional allies in Islamabad, a joint statement at the end of the summit only referred to a vague goal of combating "cross-border terrorism and its supporters".

India's Narendra Modi shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin 

ahead of the Indo-Russia Annual Summit at Taj Exotica Hotel in Goa on 

October 15, 2016 (AFP Photo/Prakash Singh)

Related Article:

Modi, Putin set to sign energy deals ahead of BRICS

Grieving Thailand salutes late King Bhumibol Adulyadej

Yahoo – AFP, Thanaporn Promyamyai, Anusak Konglang, October 14, 2016

Crowds line the streets in Bangkok as the body of late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej
is taken to his palace on October 14, 2016 (AFP Photo/Manan Vatsyayana)

Bangkok (AFP) - Massive crowds of weeping Thais and saluting soldiers lined the streets Friday as late King Bhumibol Adulyadej was borne through Bangkok, a day after his death left an apprehensive country facing an uncertain future.

Bhumibol, the world's longest-reigning monarch, passed away at 88 on Thursday after years of ill health, ending seven decades as a stabilising figure in a nation of deep political divisions.

The phenomenal reverence towards him in Thailand was on clear display as mourners sat for hours in Bangkok's urban heat awaiting the passage of his motorcade, in scenes reminiscent of religious devotees.

Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej,

 pictured in May 2010 (AFP Photo/

Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Pensive-looking men and women dressed in black were jammed cheek by jowl along roadsides in the capital on the short route from the hospital where Bhumibol died to his royal palace.

Some fainted and were carried away on stretchers, while others shouted "King of the people!" as the convoy of several vans bearing his body and the royal family slowly wheeled through hushed streets.

The king ruled 70 years and was the only monarch most Thais knew.

"We no longer have him," wept Phongsri Chompoonuch, 77, as she clutched the late monarch's portrait.

"I don't know whether I can accept that. I fear, because I don't know what will come next."

Mourning begins

At the palace, the crown prince was to preside over the bathing of the king's body, a traditional Buddhist funeral rite and the start of official mourning that will include at least 100 days of chanting by monks and months more of palace rituals.

Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, 64, is the king's named successor but has made a surprise request to delay formally assuming the throne, according to Thailand's junta leader, who appealed for citizens to "not cause chaos".

Late Friday a senior junta official confirmed that under Thailand's constitution Prem Tinsulanonda, the head of Bhumibol's Privy Council, will act as regent until Vajiralongkorn officially takes the throne.

"It's temporary to solve the immediate problem as the throne is vacant," deputy prime minister Wissanu Krea-ngam told reporters.

Prem is a retired general, a former prime minister and a staunch Bhumibol ally who remains sprightly and highly influential even at the age of 96.

Bhumibol was seen as a pillar of stability during his politically turbulent reign, and uncertainty for the future rests largely on doubts over whether his son can exert the same calming moral authority.

The crown prince spends much of his time overseas and does not command the reverence at home that his father did.

There was no indication of a threat to the crown prince's eventual succession, however, and analysts said the pause could merely be out of respect for the deeply revered king.

Strict lese majeste laws muffle detailed discussion of the sensitive succession issue.

A woman mourns the death of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej at 

Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital (AFP Photo/Manan Vatsyayana)

'Element of ambiguity'

"We maybe shouldn't read too much into (the delay)," said David Streckfuss, an expert on the Thai monarchy.

"But we have already departed from what should have been a normal succession process. An element of ambiguity has been injected into the situation."

The current junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014, saying it wanted to end a decade of political strife.

Yingluck's brother, exiled tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, had previously been ousted in a 2006 coup.

Since then, tensions have simmered between his throngs of supporters and a competing faction seen as aligned to the crown and military.

Some analysts believe the 2014 takeover was prompted in part by concerns over an unstable succession in which Thaksin's faction could seek to exert influence.

Bhumibol's reign saw decades of rapid economic development but also frequent military coups that set back democracy.

Although the king approved most of the army's many successful coups, he also sometimes intervened to quell political violence, and his loss worries many Thais.

"Now I am afraid of what may happen, about the administration of the country, the type of regime in the long term," said Arnon Sangwiman, a 54-year-old electricity company employee.

Government offices and state-run enterprises were closed out of respect Friday, but commercial activity otherwise carried on.

Stocks, pressured all week as the king's health worsened, rebounded Friday, with the benchmark index closing 4.59 percent higher.

Authorities continued to interrupt all television programming in the country -- including international networks such as the BBC and CNN -- using their signals to broadcast non-stop hagiographic fare on the king's life.

But colour was restored, a day after all TV images were transmitted in black and white out of mourning.

Praise for Bhumibol's role as a ruler devoted to his subjects has poured in from across the globe including from US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The death of long-serving King Bhumibol Adulyadej is being marked by an intense

 period of national mourning in Thailand, where he was seen as a stabilising father

figure in troubled times (AFP Photo/Lakruwan Wanniarachchi)

Related Article:

Europe's royals enjoy strong, but fragile, support

Graphic on the longest reigning monarchs since Louix XIV, following the death of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej pic.twitter.com/67zLcJcy6T

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 14, 2016

Maldives quits Commonwealth over rights row

Yahoo – AFP, October 13, 2016

Flags of the Commonwealth nations fly outside the House of Commons in
London on March 10, 2013 (AFP Photo/Justin Tallis)

Malé (Maldives) (AFP) - The Maldives angrily quit the Commonwealth on Thursday after years of wrangling over its human rights record since the toppling of its first democratically elected leader four years ago.

The troubled honeymoon island nation said it had been treated "unjustly and unfairly" by the bloc, a voluntary association of more than 50 countries, mostly former territories of the British empire.

"The decision to leave the Commonwealth was difficult, but inevitable," said a statement from the foreign ministry.

The former British protectorate has come under intense international pressure since the controversial conviction of former president Mohamed Nasheed on terrorism charges.

The Commonwealth put Male on notice after Nasheed stood down as president in February 2012 and said he had been forced out in a coup.

It has since criticised the government over its crackdown on dissidents and its controversial judiciary, and sent a special envoy to try to improve the archipelago's rights record.

In its statement Thursday, the Maldives, which had previously threatened to pull out of the bloc, accused the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat of interfering in its affairs.

"The Commonwealth has sought to become an active participant in the domestic political discourse in the Maldives, which is contrary to the principles of the charters of the UN and the Commonwealth," it said.

"The Commonwealth Secretariat seem to be convinced that the Maldives... would be an easy object that can be used, especially in the name of democracy promotion, to increase the organisation's own relevance and leverage in international politics."

The Commonwealth's watchdog committee of foreign ministers last month voiced "deep disappointment at the lack of progress" in Maldives.

It said it would consider suspension at its next gathering in March 2017.

The Maldives has come under intense international pressure since the

 controversial conviction of former president Mohamed Nasheed on terrorism 

charges (AFP Photo/Ben Stansall)

Hope for return

In a statement received by AFP, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said the organisation's members and peoples "will share my sadness and disappointment" at Maldives' decision to quit.

"The Commonwealth Charter reflects the commitment of our member states to democracy and human rights, development and growth, and diversity," she said.

"We will continue to champion these values and to support all member states, especially small and developing states, in upholding and advancing these practically for the enduring benefit of their citizens.

"Therefore, we hope that this will be a temporary separation and that Maldives will feel able to return to the Commonwealth family and all that it represents in due course."

The United States has said democracy is under threat in the strategically located archipelago, which sits on key international shipping lanes.

Washington has criticised the rush trial against Nasheed and demanded his release.

A UN panel has also ruled that Nasheed's imprisonment last year was illegal and ordered the regime of President Abdulla Yameen to pay him compensation.

The Maldives has become the latest country to leave the Commonwealth after

Gambia, which quit in October 2013 (AFP Photo/Sanka Vidanagama)

Political unrest

The country of 340,000 Sunni Muslims is famed for its coral-fringed islands but has been gripped by political unrest since the fall of Nasheed and there are regular anti-government protests.

The government faces allegations of corruption as well as cracking down on any dissent while all its opposition leaders are either in exile or in jail.

Nasheed secured political asylum in Britain this year after travelling to London for medical treatment while on prison leave from a controversial 13-year prison sentence.

He travelled to neighbouring Sri Lanka last month to meet with other exiled Maldivian dissidents in a bid to agree on a plan to "legally topple" Yameen.

While dissidents met in Sri Lanka, Maldivian police raided the offices of the Maldives Independent website in the capital Male hours after Al Jazeera aired a documentary accusing Yameen and his government of massive corruption and money laundering.

The country becomes the latest to leave the Commonwealth after Gambia, which quit in October 2013.

Juan Manuel Santos: Colombia rebels' archfoe turned peacemaker

Yahoo – AFP, Alina Dieste, October 7, 2016

Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos came to power in 2010 (AFP

Photo/Guillermo Legaria)

Bogota (AFP) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday, is a son of a powerful family who staked his legacy on troubled efforts to make peace with the communist FARC rebels.

The Nobel Committee hailed the two-term president's "resolute" bid to end Latin America's longest conflict -- despite a shock referendum defeat last weekend for the peace accord he has championed.

"I prefer an imperfect accord that saves lives to a perfect war that keeps sowing death and pain," Santos had said as he signed the historic deal last month with his erstwhile mortal enemy, the FARC guerrilla leader Timoleon "Timochenko" Jimenez.

Juan Manuel Santos (AFP Photo/Gustavo IZUS,

Tatiana Magarinos)

Voters rejected the deal to end five decades of conflict by a razor-thin margin in Sunday's referendum -- a move the Nobel committee warned could plunge the country into fresh civil war.

The 65-year-old Santos, a career politician, led a major offensive against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as defense minister from 2006 to 2009.

But after becoming president in 2010, he changed tack and negotiated for a settlement with the guerrillas.

"I was never a hawk or a dove. I've always been a standard-bearer for peace," he told AFP in an interview before the September deal.

'Do the right thing'

Santos defied fierce opposition to the talks from some former allies.

"I am not looking for applause. I just want to do the right thing," he once said.

He won reelection in 2014 in a vote widely seen as a referendum on the talks. But his popularity rating has since plunged.

Santos said receiving the Nobel Prize would be "a great stimulus" for efforts to achieve peace.

"We are very, very close, we just need to push a bit further," he told the Nobel Foundation in a telephone interview.

He accepted the prize "not in my own name, but in the name of all Colombians, especially the millions of victims," he added later in a televised address.

"I will dedicate all my strength to this cause for the rest of my life."

'Political courage'

UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi hailed Santos's "political courage" and voiced hope the impasse could be overcome.

A former hostage of the FARC, Ingrid Betancourt -- a Franco-Colombian former politician who was held in the jungle for six years -- said it was a "just" reward for Santos, but added that the rebels should have shared the Nobel.

Since Santos launched peace negotiations four years ago, his predecessor, ex-president Alvaro Uribe, has become his main critic, arguing that the peace accord offered the rebels impunity for their crimes.

Both Uribe and FARC leader Timochenko congratulated Santos on the award, however.

Santos "made war as a means to achieve peace," Santos's brother-in-law and adviser, Mauricio Rodriguez, told AFP recently.

"He weakened the FARC to make them sit at the negotiating table," he added.

The peace drive "required courage, audacity, perseverance and a lot of strategy -- those are Santos's strengths."

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (left) and FARC leader Timoleon 

Jimenez, aka Timochenko, shake hands after signing a historic peace agreement 

in Cartagena, on September 26, 2016 (AFP Photo/Luis Acosta)

'Extreme center' politician

Santos was born in August 1951 in Bogota into a rich, powerful family entrenched in Colombian politics and the media.

He has described himself as politically in the "extreme center."

He was educated at a top naval academy in the Colombian city of Cartagena and later at the London School of Economics.

Santos began his career as a journalist, winning a Spanish award for his coverage of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua as a young man.

The work he did along with his brother Enrique in Nicaragua "had a profound impact on us both," Santos once said.

In 1991 he switched to politics, and has served in various ministerial posts.

An admirer of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Nelson Mandela, Santos is said to be an early riser and late sleeper. He survived prostate cancer in 2012.

His source of strength, he says, is his family -- "my saints," he has called them, playing on his surname which means saints in Spanish.

He and his wife Maria Clemencia Rodriguez have three children.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos wins Nobel Peace Prize for "resolute" efforts to end over 5 decades of war https://t.co/9f5Lf5eDGU pic.twitter.com/0XB1ve9yDe

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 7, 2016

Related Articles:

Santos to donate Nobel prize money to Colombia conflict victims - New


THE OLD SOUL 2013 TOOLKIT" – Jan 13, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)  (Text version)

"... The Change in the Way Things Work

Now I'm going to be very cautious with number five, and I'm going to change a paradigm of the way we channel. For 23 years, we have given you information in the soup of potentials that we read around you as the highest probable potential that exists. These things eventually become your reality because they are your free choice, and we know what you're thinking. We know what the potentials are because we know what the biases are, and we see all of humanity as a whole. Potentials are energy, and it gives us the ability to project your future based on how you are working these potentials. We have done this for a long time. Twenty-three years ago, we told you about many things that were potentially going to happen, and now they are your reality.

But now I'm going to depart from that scenario and I'm going to give you a potential on Earth that is not the strongest. I am going to tell you about a Human Being who has a choice. This potential is only about 50 percent. But I'm going to "read a potential" to you that you didn't expect. It's about a paradigm that is starting to shift.

Let's talk about North Korea. There's a young, new leader there. The potential is that he will never, ever hear this channel, so I can talk freely about him. He is facing a dilemma, for he is young and he knows about the differences in the energy in his land. He feels it. The lineage of his departed father lies upon him and all that is around him expects him to be a clone of this lineage. He is expected to continue the things that he has been taught and make North Korea great.

But he's starting to rethink them. Indeed, he wants to be a great leader, and to be heard and seen, and to make his mark on North Korea's history. His father showed him that this was very important. So he ponders a question: What makes a world leader great?

Let's ask that question to someone in an older earth paradigm from not that long ago. He will be an expert and a successful one. So this is a valid exercise, asking someone from the past who knows. We will ask that question to a man who you know and whose name is Napoleon. For us, this was yesterday and some of you were there. 

If you asked Napoleon, "What makes a world leader great?", he will say, "the size of the army, how much area can be efficiently conquered with a given amount of resources and men, how important the leader appears will then be based upon how many citizens call him emperor or king, the taxes he can impose, and how many fear him." Not only was that Napoleon's reality, but he was right for the energy he was part of at the time. So Napoleon went back and forth between world leader, general and prisoner. He accomplished almost everything he set out to do. His expertise was obvious, and you remember his name to this day. He was famous.

What makes a world leader great? What I am showing you is the difference in thinking between then and now. There are some choices that this evolving young Human Being has that could change everything on the planet if he wanted. His father would tell this boy that what makes a world leader great is the potential of his missile power, or how close he can get to having a nuclear weapon, or how he stands up against the power of the West, or how he continues to aggravate and stir drama as a small country - getting noticed and being feared. His father would tell him that this is his lineage and that is what he's been told all his life. His father did it well and surrounded himself with advisors who he then passed on to his son.

Now, there's a 50 percent chance of something happening here, but this is not a strong potential, dear ones. I'm bringing this forward so you can watch it work one way or the other. For if the son continues in his father's footsteps, he is doomed to failure. The energy on the earth will see it as old and he will be seen as a fool. If, however, he figures it out, he could be the most famous man on the planet... which is really what his father wanted.

If Kryon were to advise this man, here's what I would tell him. He could be the greatest known leader the current world has ever known, for what he does now will be something the world will see as a demarcation point from the old ways. Not only that, but what he does now will be in the history books forever, and because of his youth, he has the potential to outlive every other leader on the planet! So he's going to have longer fame than anyone ever has.

I would tell him this: Tell the border guards to go home. Greet the south and begin to unify North and South Korea in a way that no past prophet ever said could happen. Allow the two countries to be separate, but have them as two parts of a larger Korean family with free trade and travel. Start alliances with the West and show them that you mean it. Drop the missile programs because you will never need them!

This will bring abundance to the North Korean people that they never expected! They will have great economic sustenance, schools, hospitals and more respect than ever for their amazing leader. The result would be fame and glory for the son, which the father had never achieved, something that the world would talk about for hundreds of years. It would cause a United Nations to stand and applaud as the son walked into the Grand Assembly. I would ask him, "Wouldn't you like that?"

Doesn't this seem obvious to most of you? He could achieve instant fame and be seen as the one who made the difference and started something amazing. But watch him. He has a choice, but it's not simple. He still has his father's advisors, but one of which he's already dismissed. He may get it, or he may not. There is a 50 percent chance. But I'll tell you that if he doesn't do it, the one after him will. Because it is so obvious. 

We show you this to tell you that this is the evolvement of the Human species. It is the slow realization that putting things together is the answer to all things, instead of separating them or conquering them. Those who start promoting compromise and begin to create these energies that never were here before will be the ones you're going to remember. Dear ones, it's going to happen in leadership and politics and in business. It's a new paradigm...."