Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake yesterday warned that he would be compelled to cancel the polls in two areas in the Hambantota District where none of the cut-outs or banners of some candidates are removed.

Mr. Dissanayake told a news conference yesterday that the police have not heeded his repeated requests to remove those banners and cut-outs. However he said he cannot reveal the location of the two areas.

Asked whether these cut-outs and banners are not removed due to political pressure he said he was not aware of any reason.

Treasure hunters have damaged a Buddha statue at an ancient temple at Veheragala, Dehigama in the Yatinuwara Pradeshiya Sabha Division.The Chief incumbent of the Vihare, Ven. Madugalle Sri Saralankara Thero said that the Buddha statue had been damaged on September 18.He said that the crown (head) had been severed from the body and placed on the Mal Asane (altar). The Weheragala Purana Vihare dates back to 1755, during the rule of King Keerthi Sri Rajasinghe.

Pic Cyril Wimalasurendre

by Shamindra Ferdinando

While people are being asked to tighten their belts, Members of the Parliament, irrespective of their political differences, can spend a day at General`s House in Nuwara Eliya, the luxurious MPs holiday bungalow, at a cost of just Rs. 100.

Rooms are available at Rs. 90 and Rs. 80 too in this bungalow with 19 separate units, well informed sources said.

Speaker W. J. M. Lokubandara recently requested all MPs using the facility to strictly adhere to the applicable rules and regulations warning that any breach would prompt him to issue a letter of warning and suspension of reservations for three months.

Friday, 26 September 2008

by: Dr. Tilak S. Fernando

REMEMBERED: On September 26 1959, Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was assassinated in cold blood, by a person clad in yellow robes. Bandaranaike had an enlightened philosophy, the full realisation of which suffered certain setbacks.

SWRD Bandaranaike was educated at Oxford, UK, according to his father`s wish. Solomon Dias Bandaranaike was determined that his son graduated from one of the best seats of learning in the world and the result was, he was `packed up` into a ship to England to study at the Oxford University.

India`s cricketers at the Champions Trophy in South Africa are being encouraged by their coach to have sex to boost their on-field performance, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The benefits of sex feature prominently in a secret document circulated among players by coach Gary Kirsten and mental conditioning expert Paddy Upton, the Hindustan Times said in a front-page report. It came as India take on arch-rivals Pakistan in their first Champions Trophy match in Centurion on Saturday.

Colombian rock superstar Juanes takes to the stage in Havana`s Revolution Square on Sunday in a concert that has caused discord in Miami but that some hope may provide a pathway to better relations with the U.S. Juanes, whose real name is Juan Esteban Aristizabal, will perform with 14 other acts from Latin America and Europe, in what should be the biggest show in Havana in years. As many as half a million people are expected to attend.

Billed as a concert for peace, the event has produced a war of words in Miami where a majority of Cuban exiles feel the Colombian singer, who lives in the tony Miami suburb of Key Biscayne, will help legitimize the Castro gerontocracy. Some protesters say they will use a small steam roller in Miami`s Little Havana neighborhood to flatten a mountain of Juanes CDs as he takes to the stage in Havana. (Juanes didn`t immediately respond to interview requests.)

Galle town has been aroused after a clash between Nishanthe Muthuhettigama, UPFA candidate for Southern PC election, and the police which occurred yesterday (18th) evening.

The commotion erupted when Mr. Nishanthe Muthuhettigama was coming on a demonstration from Magalla to Galle town after he was released on bail by Galle Magistrates Court. While the demonstration was on its way the demonstrators had attacked an election office of the UPFA candidate Anarkali Akarsha and damaged it. There had been a heated argument between supporters of Mr. Muthuhettigama and the police.

UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe shares a light moment with his party strongman S.B. Dissanayake during a ceremony held at the BMICH yesterday to launch ten books written by Dissanayake while serving a term at the Welikada prison. MP Mano Ganeshan looks on.

Abraham Thomas Kovoor (April 10, 1898 - September 18, 1978) was an Indian professor and Rationalist who gained prominence after retirement for his campaign to expose as frauds various Indian and Sri Lankan `god-men` and so-called paranormal phenomena. His direct, trenchant criticism of spiritual frauds and organized religions were enthusiastically received by audiences, initiating a new dynamism in the Rationalist movement, especially in Sri Lanka and India.

by Rex Clementine

Question: It`s your 44th ODI hundred and that played a crucial part in India winning the final. How much do you cherish this hundred?

Answer: I would put this knock high up the order. The conditions were tough and the heat was such that it drained us out. We were not only fighting the Sri Lankan team, but conditions as well. Considering all that, I would not hesitate to rate this very high in the order.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - At least 18 women and girls died when a crowd waiting for handouts of flour swelled and panicked in Pakistan`s most populous city, officials said.

The stampede in Karachi came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a traditional time for charitable acts including giving away food. Pakistan`s battered economy, combined with higher than usual prices for staples such as sugar due to alleged hoarding by producers, has made this Ramadan a particularly needy time for the country`s largely impoverished population of 175 million.

he University of Moratuwa (UoM) recorded significant achievement when it was placed as the top University worldwide in terms of the number of awards received by students at the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) competitions from the inception in 2005 to 2009.

UoM won the highest number of awards consecutively at the annual competitions in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In the five years of competition 1384 universities worldwide had received at least one award which measures students` talent, creativity, ability and performance. The GSoC is a global software development competition organized by the Search Engine Giant.

A rare surgical operation was performed on a woman patient at the Kandy General Hospital, with the aid of light from mobile phones, when the operating theatre was plunged into darkness and the back-up generator at the hospital functioned only for around ten minutes.

This is said to be the first such surgical operation at the hospital since its establishment. Dr.M.M.Niyaz was performing a surgical operation on a woman patient when the electricity supply failed and the back-up lights lasted only ten minutes.

`I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. Thus Barack Obama, late in the day, took his quest to reform America`s expensive and flawed health-care system to the floor of Congress with a mighty speech that will surely stand as one of the defining moments of his presidency, whether it leads to eventual triumph or disaster. His is a bold ambition indeed but this week the president looked a bit closer to fulfilling it.
Politics, as everyone knows, is the art of the possible and there have been times over this ill-tempered summer when the idea of tackling a system that costs almost twice as much as any other rich country`s, yet yields substandard results and leaves tens of millions of people with no health insurance at all, has seemed simply impossible. Mr Obama has to find a package of policies that is fiscally and politically moderate enough to win over a vital few Republicans to his side (and also prevent the defection of nervous conservative Democrats). But at the same time he has to keep the support of the leftish Democratic Party base, which wants to see a more expansive and costly set of reforms. He may well fail. But on September 9th the president for the first time laid out in some detail what such a plan might look like. Cleverly borrowing good ideas from both sides of the party divide, his proposals at least look like a plausible basis for agreement.

U.S. fast food giant McDonald`s (MCD-N) lost an eight-year trademark battle to prevent local restaurant McCurry from using the `Mc` prefix in a precedent-setting judgment by Malaysia`s highest court.

The Federal Court ruled Tuesday that McDonald`s cannot appeal against another court`s verdict that had allowed McCurry to use `Mc` in its name. The owner says McCurry, which serves Indian food, is an abbreviation for Malaysian Chicken Curry.

The ruling by a three-member panel of the Federal Court ends all legal avenues for McDonald`s to protect its name from what it said was a trademark infringement.