Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Rome, 05 November.

An inter-religious delegation from Sri Lanka is on a four-nation tour in a bid to win support to convince the European Union to change its stance on the awarding of GSP+ concessions to Sri Lanka, due to be taken up for consideration by the EU Council in Brussels.

The delegation, arrived in Rome Tuesday (Nov. 3), comprises the Ven. Bellanwila Wimalaratana Nayaka Thero, Chief Incumbent of the Bellanwila Raja Maha Viharaya, Ven. Kamburugamuwe Vajira Thero, Rt. Rev. Malcom Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, Hindu Vidyanith Brahmasri Kuhananda Sarma, Alhaj Moulavi Viyas Mohamed J.P., Coordinator of Muslim Affairs to the President and Rev. Fr. Damian Fernando. From Rome it will travel to Brussels, Paris and London to meet the respective Foreign Ministers of Belgium, France and the United Kingdom.

She is debuting in the movie Aladin in the end of this month. She is half Sri Lankan and half Malaysian.

Jacqueline Fernandes was born to father Elroy and mom Kim, who is a Malaysian. Her parents moved to Bahrain due to civil war and other problems in her country, Sri Lanka. She did her schooling in Bahrain and also pursued other areas of interest like athletics, drama, etc.

He was the hunger striker at the centre of one of the longest-running demonstrations ever mounted in Britain.

For weeks Parameswaran Subramaniyan lay in a tent outside the Houses of Parliament as Tamils protested about the plight of relatives under attack in Sri Lanka.

At one stage, his supporters claimed he was `critically weak`.

The protest finally ended in June, but two revelations put it back in the spotlight yesterday.

First, police said it had left them with a 7.1million overtime bill.

Summer Cox sings Sri Lankan National Anthem

Sept 29, Colombo: Freedom Watch, a voluntary political group in Sri Lanka says the attempts by Western countries to pressure Sri Lanka on alleged war crimes and violations of human rights would help to increase the popularity of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and help him win the next elections with an unparalleled majority.

Following is the Freedom Watch`s outlook on the next presidential and general elections:

The General Election of April 2004 brought to power the UPFA with 105 seats, while the UNP with 82 seats became the strongest party in the opposition.

[ Fr. Sunil De Silva - 21.09.2009 ]

In a Press Releasse issued today by His Grace Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo appelas to the European Union to ` I would appeal personally to our friends in the European Community, to help us bring about true peace and justice to all our citizens by continuing to accord the GSP PLUS facility and all the other possible assistance to Sri Lanka. Achieving a sense of trust among us would best be served by that. Such would also be the best way in which the European Community could help the speedy resettlement of the internally displaced people, whose sufferings originated largely due to the destructive war foisted on this country by racial extremism. We need to experience your hand of friendship and help not only in the demining of the areas affected and relief and humanitarian assistance for the displaced, but also their speedy resettlement, development of vital infrastructure in the different towns and villages of the North and East and means of employment and economic activity for those affected. Sanctions will never be helpful in this kind of endeavour.....`

By Kelum Bandara and Yohan Perera

In a surprising development, the TNA has for the first time in its history played the National Anthem at the swearing-in ceremony of its members elected to the Vavuniya Urban Council.

The TNA members were seen standing to attention and humming the National Anthem.

Party leader R. Sampanthan administered the oaths to five TNA members including the chairman and the vice chairman, and the solitary SLMC member who pledged his support to the TNA and thus providing it with a majority to administer the Council.

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 23:36 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) or any other political party claiming that they represent Tamils have no right to proclaim that they have moved away from the 1977 mandate for independence and sovereignty of the Eezham Tamil nation, to satisfy India, Mahinda Rajapaksa or any other power. They may negotiate but without dropping the fundamentals, until any acceptable formula is freshly mandated by all Tamils including those who are now in the diaspora. Meanwhile, the emerging novel concept of transnational governance will be misled if it is orientated merely with an idea of negotiation. It is not just a negotiation platform. There is no need to show Tamils have `democratically` dropped their aspiration just because some powers want it as a pre-requisite for negotiation.

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 11:54 GMT]
Addressing Director Generals and Inspector Generals of Police Monday, India`s National Security Advisor and one of the architects of Indian Establishment`s policy towards Eezham Tamils, M K Narayanan, told them of the need to keep watch against Tamil diaspora reviving the LTTE and cautioned them to be prepared for any eventuality. The funding lines of the LTTE are still intact and there is always a possibility that disgruntled elements in the Tamil diaspora across the globe could get together to help the terror outfit regroup and rearm, said M K Narayanan, according to The Economic Times, Tuesday. His fear stems from his own policy `haunting him back,` commented Tamil circles in the diaspora.

Editorial:

If one is to believe the declarations by senior ministers at Wednesday`s news conference, the government is quite gung ho about turning Sri Lanka into a South Asian miracle virtual heaven on earth.

Their only worry appears to be the conspiracies to topple the government by international players and their local counterparts. According to them everything else is in order the will, the discipline and perhaps even the resources.

The fact is that the whole country knows this is not the case. How many ministers in the Cabinet can vouch that they put country before self? How many can claim that they have never misappropriated ministry funds or misused their privileges for personal gains?

Editorial:

The ruling coalition calls itself the United People`s Freedom Alliance or the UPFA for short. But, if the inane utterances of some government politicians are anything to go by, it is doubtful whether they are au fait with people`s burning problems. They seem to think that the war was the only problem people ever had and now that the LTTE has been crushed, everything is hunky dory.

Yesterday, at a government press briefing, Minister Champika Ranawaka urged the people to bear with three `minor` issues: the cost of living, threats to the media and the executive presidency! Opinion may be divided on safeguarding media freedom and scrapping the executive presidency, depending on the colour of the glasses people use to look at them. Some of them may not care two hoots about attacks on the media or whether the executive presidency stays or goes. But, how on earth could any sensible person discount people`s economic woes? To claim that the cost of living is a minor issue is to make a molehill out of a mountain, to say the least!

- C-4 video created from a video camera, not from a mobile phone.

- Sound dubbed: a case study for gutter journalism.

In video coding or broadcasting to create a final video for any occasion it is the practice to start with high quality video first while transcending with editing for a final product. Mpeg4 is a compressed format.

If one considers the Channel- 4 video:

● It says it came from a mobile phone video source. There are only two formats in mobile video formats. One is an old 3GPP format and the other an advanced Mpeg4, H-264 part 10 which is MP4 format which is highly processor intensive encoding and due to this issue, mobile phones in the present markets does not produce high quality videos. Such processors are not that powerful to take good quality video that Channel- 4 claims since channel - 4 video is much high quality than existing Smart phones can create TODAY.

By Random Jottings
The steely hand behind demise of Tamil Tigers


THE large posters signifying a tale of triumph against seemingly impossible odds can hardly be missed by anyone traveling the length and breadth of Sri Lanka, and that very much includes the battle scared north of the country which has equal reason to rejoice having been liberated from the evil grip of the bloodthirsty Tamil Tigers after three debilitating decades.

Telling in narrative and touching in effect, the posters depict a gleeful Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa giving his somewhat bashful looking younger brother Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa a spontaneous hug gushing with affection and gratitude.

MUMBAI: Mumbai fares the worst among five Asian cities in key human development areas like life expectancy, GDP per capita and literacy,
according to a report released by the NGO Praja on Friday.

Praja released `The Agenda for Mumbai`, which shows that the city is worse off than Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and even Colombo in all these three areas. The parameters are the same as those used by the UN to compile its Human Development Index.

While we all know that cities like Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong are ahead of us when it comes to development, it`s rather telling that a city in Sri Lanka could have a higher Human Development Index when compared to Mumbai, which has standards of living that are amongst the highest in India,`` said Nitai Mehta, managing trustee, Praja.

SLFP (M) wing leader Mangala Samaaweera issued a dire warning to the Govt. yesterday ( 18 Aug) against its cold callous attitude towards the IDPs who are in abysmal suffering in the Govt. camps.

He told a news conference that he will not hesitate to haul up the Govt. before the Int. community to expose the Govt. attitude. 90 days of the Govt`s 180 day deadline to resettle the refugees to their former habitats is over . Yet , so far nothing as been done. It is doubtful that the Govt. can adhere to its deadline , he asserted.