Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Page last updated at 18:03 GMT, Friday, 20 November 2009

Political parties representing minority Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka are holding talks in Switzerland, the first since the conflict ended in May.

Sri Lanka`s social welfare minister said they aim to find a shared position on issues affecting minorities.

The meeting, organised by the Tamil diaspora, gathers representatives from across the political spectrum.

Although there is no formal agenda, issues about the return of internally displaced people will be discussed.

As promised, this weekends postings will be on local traditions.

The first one will bring us to the international city of Geneva / Switzerland, surrounded by a border with neighbouring France and only linked with a 3 km large band with the rest of the country.

Enjoy the pictures.

Elephantboy

F te de l`Escalade
A yearly celebration in Geneva in memory of the night attack by the Savoyards in 1602


For over 400 years, the citizens of Geneva have been commemorating the defeat of the surprise attack by Duke Charles Emmanuel of Savoy`s troops with their annual F te de l`Escalade, the Celebration of the Scaling.

Sri Lanka`s retired army chief

General intentions

Nov 19th 2009 | COLOMBO
From The Economist print edition

The war’ s winners fall out

WHEN Sarath Fonseka sought permission this month to retire as chief of Sri Lanka’ s defence staff from December 1st, President Mahinda Rajapaksa replied through his secretary that the general, who had led his government’ s victory against the Tamil Tigers, could consider himself retired with immediate effect. So General Fonseka had to vacate his office in less than two days. He was told his large security detail would be slashed. He must quit his official residence. The impromptu farewell ceremony for him was so hastily arranged, apparently, that the commanders of the army, navy and air force could not attend.

South Asia
Nov 20, 2009

Sri Lanka hastens Tamil camp clearance
By Feizal Samath

COLOMBO - Thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils, forced to stay in camps after being displaced from their homes by fighting between government troops and separatist rebels, will be returning to their homes in war-torn areas by January, sooner than expected.

The government on Tuesday said it was speeding ahead to complete the process of resettling the displaced in two months. The change is being linked to a radical change in the political firmament.

By Shenali Waduge
The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that they can fool all of the people all of the time. This more or less sums up the state of affairs in Sri Lanka and begs to question the contributing factors that have waned Sri Lanka’ s growth over the years.

We are well aware that the scrooge of terrorism existed for almost three decades. Leaving aside the foreign connections and influences that contributed to the prevalence of terror over the years, we need to at best applaud the will that it took the present Government to withstand these external pressures and provide the leadership and backing to the armed forces to completely annihilate LTTE terror. To this effort it cannot be stressed enough that no single person can take credit for the downfall & extermination of the LTTE.

TANJUNG PINANG, Indonesia (AFP) – Dozens of Sri Lankan asylum seekers left an Australian customs ship in Indonesia on Wednesday, ending a three-week protest over their claims for refugee status.

The ethnic Tamil migrants were seen being ferried away from the ship, the Oceanic Viking, on an Indonesian vessel amid heavy rain and high waves off Bintan island near Singapore.

The Indian media in its reports earlier speculated that India’ s Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee who is due to visit Sri Lanka (SL) in connection with the former Foreign Minister of SL Late Lakshman Kadirgamar’ s memorial oration will be meeting President Mahinda Rajapakse and inquiring about the current political situation in the country vis a vis General Sarath Fonseka’ s resignation.

C. Bryson Hull

Colombo — Reuters
Published on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009 1:24PM EST


Billionaire hedge fund titan Raj Rajaratnam`s shadow in Sri Lanka is so big that his arrest in the United States initially knocked 5 per cent off the local stock market.

But ask about Mr. Rajaratnam on the island of his birth and few will say anything about the man considered to be Sri Lanka`s richest, now accused in the largest hedge-fund related insider trading case in U.S. history. The silence speaks volumes about Sri Lanka`s scarred modern history, and its persistent entanglement in suspicion brewed by the 25-year war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which Sri Lanka won in May.

By Anbarasan Ethirajan
BBC News

It is six months since the end of the conflict in Sri Lanka but Tamil Tiger rebels and their supporters are yet to recover from the dramatic military defeat by security forces earlier this year.

The recent attempts by remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) abroad to revive the movement have not succeeded so far.

Mon Nov 16, 2009 6:50pm IST
By Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka`s top general Sarath Fonseka bid farewell to his uniform on Monday and said he will announce a decision on entering politics within two to three days, amid speculation he may run for presidency. [ID:nCOL362269]

His comments came a day after President Mahinda Rajapaksa had failed to make an expected announcement on timing of elections.

Under the heading recession I have seen the following interesting article:

New Bubble For China?
by Jim Zarroli

November 15, 2009
The United States isn`t the only government in the world that`s spending money to stimulate its economy. Since the start of the recession, China has been spending some of its vast foreign reserves on a long series of capital and infrastructure projects, and the evidence suggests the effort is succeeding.
NPR`s Jim Zarroli spoke with Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, about what China`s been doing and whether all that building and spending may turn out to be too much of a good thing.

Lars Rasmussen, the conceptor and developer of Google Wave, presented this strange baby at the Google EMEA HQ here in Zurich / Switzerland. After Google Chrome OS and the Chrome Navigator, Google Docs and Gmail, Google Earth and Street View, here is the latest product called Wave. It’ s the beginning of a new era.

Since October 1, 100 000 privileged people have a beta version of Wave and a good idea how it looks like, but for the others it is like driving in the fog. The difficulty is that it doesnt look like any other known product and its applications are really not yet clearly defined. It will largely depend on the end user. Still, lets give it a try:

For this weekend I have selected high tech as the main subject for my postings.
The first one is on odour being the new selection criteria to meet people online!

Yes, you are not dreaming, the words high tech, partner search and olfactory profile are really compatible. At least this is what the strange guys from behind the mountains, also called the Swiss, think!

In cooperation with Basisnote, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Lausanne, Swissfriends, the largest dating site in this country, is going to launch the worlds first chemistry-check on November 17, 09. So, after the cat, the picture and the video, this will be your new selection criteria on the way to happiness!

Speculation continues to grow in Sri Lanka that there is a rift at the top of the country`s establishment.

It is said to pit the armed forces chief, Gen Sarath Fonseka, against two ultra-powerful brothers, the president and the defence secretary, Mahinda and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Well, economical progress is not everything. India still has some room for improvement.

Just picked up the following article from the Indian Times:

India at bottom in man-woman equality index: World Economic Forum

PTI 9 November 2009, 06:23pm IST

NEW DELHI: India may be the world`s second fastest growing economy but when it comes to man-woman equality the country figures at the bottom of the table, ranked 114th among 134 countries by the World Economic Forum.