Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

The Reservations!

Toronto s Star newspaper said that the new Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP, a most wanted man by the Interpol and wanted for the Rajiv Gandhi assassination in India is a man believed to be in control between US $ 1 billion to 5 billion of LTTE s ill gotten money.

The newspaper quoting terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratne said in the coming months the LTTE is expected to spend part of that money in international lobbying against Sri Lanka.

The Star said, In Washington, Tamil expats have formed lobby groups such as Americans for Peace in Sri Lanka and Tamils for Justice, whose efforts to curry favour with the U.S. government is led by Bruce Fein, a former lawyer in the Reagan administration.

'This is how the Tigers are going to go forward,' Gunaratna said. 'They will be lobbying and investing in human-rights organizations, trying to convince foreign governments to pressure Sri Lanka to accept change.'

Accordingly, the face value of the total new currency notes issued is Rs. 124,581,060,000 while the value of notes withdrawn from circulation stands at Rs. 72,701,010,370 making the net value of notes added to the circulation to stand at Rs. 51,880,049,630

The above currency notes, as per parliamentary records have been printed at a cost of Rs. 2,224,671,709 while the underlying seigniorage or the net revenue derived from issuing coins or currency notes remains at a mammoth Rs. 49,228,094,549.

Through the printing of currency notes and minting coins, some Rs. 8,000 million had been transferred to the Consolidated Fund in 2007 and another Rs. 4,000 million in 2006. While in 2005 this exercise was not carried out, the Consolidated Fund received Rs. 5,565 million in 2004 and Rs. 3,500 million in 2003 from the money printing exercise.

http://www.divaina.com/2009/06/28/defence.html