ourselves for others and for our country."
- US Presidential Candidate Sen. John Kerry
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It is not memories of a gruesome ethnic conflict and the ceasefire that followed,
all of which she covered as a media professional, that she is likely to carry with
her as she leaves our shores. For Frances Harrison, the outgoing Colombo
Correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), what constitutes
"cherished memories" of the island are its pristine beaches, lush foliage and
more importantly, the serene beauty of temple flowers.
Indian security
[The Hindu]
By V. Suryanarayan
India should work with the
objective of neutralising
the Sea Tigers at the
earliest.
TWO SIGNIFICANT
statements on the ongoing
military preparations of the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) have not
received much attention
from the Sri Lanka-
watchers in India. The first
pronouncement was made
by the former civil servant,
Bradman Weerakoon, in
his recent Dudley
Senanayake Memorial
Lecture. Based on
information provided by
"high authority," Mr.
Weerakoon underlined the
fact that the Tigers had
acquired 11 shiploads of
arms during the "current
peace process." `Colonel'
Karuna, the leader of the
breakaway faction of the
LTTE, made the second
statement. In a recent
revelation to the media, he
revealed he had
personally handed over an
arms procurement list to
Kumaran Padmanabhan
(`KP'), the well-known arms
procurer of the Tigers,
when he went to Bangkok
as a member of the LTTE
negotiating team.
Good Bye Sri Lanka by Frances Harrison [BBC News]
[Sunday Observer]
Former Mayor of Jaffna and parliamentarian of Tamil Arasu Kacchi NADARAJAH
RAVIRAJ in an interview with the SUNDAY OBSERVER has also welcomed
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's recent statements that the
government would continue with the peace efforts.
Actor Kamal Haasan might have to change the title of his upcoming Vasool Raja
MBBS, a Tamil remake of the Hindi hit Munnabhai MBBS, after the Madras High
Court’s order restrained the Censor Board from granting a censor certificate to
the film.
celebrating and did not sleep the entire night when the Sri Lankan team won
the World Cup in 1996.
"Cricket fever has transcended the island's ethnic conflict between the Tamil
and the majority Sinhalese people. It is time peace returned permanently in
this island," he says.[BBC News]
Warning that extended stalemate between the Government of Sri Lanka and
the Liberation Tigers may be leading Sri Lanka in a slippery slope towards
war, Professor Uyangoda, in a political analysis column in Friday's Daily
Mirror, says that "without partnership building premised on mutual trust and
respect, there is no way for the UPFA [United Peoples Freedom Alliance] and
the LTTE to return to the negotiation table in the foreseeable future."
Editor]
closes collectors' gold
mine [BBC News]
Sri Lanka's central bank
has halted sales of gold
and silver commemorative
coins after the value of
the metals soared above
the asking price.
To prove this point, York researchers tested the cognitive function of 104
adults aged 30 to 59, and 50 adults aged 60 to 88. Half of the participants in
each age group were monolingual, the other half bilingual.
The monolinguals were English-only speakers, but there were three types of
lifelong bilinguals: English-Tamil, English-French and English-Cantonese. All
subjects had similar education and income levels.
angers women [BBC News]
Women activists in the
Indian state of Tamil Nadu
have demanded a ban on
a film, New, which they
say contains obscene sex
scenes.
After water, tea is the most commonly consumed beverage in the world.
People drink more tea than alcohol, coffee, soda and hot chocolate
combined. In Britain alone, 165 million cups of the stuff are drunk every day.
That's more than three cups for every man, woman and child. In terms of
sheer human suffering, tea easily eclipses coal and cod and salt. No one
knows how many hundreds of thousands of Indian peasants died so that
British factory workers could have their cuppa. No one knows because no
one cared. No one in Britain, that is. Still less did Britons protest when
armies and adventurers expropriated the jungles of Assam and then Sri
Lanka, converting them into vast tea plantations. Reader beware: Your cup
of tea is steeped in sorrow.
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Hostilities between forces loyal to LTTE leader Prabhakaran and his former
confidant Karuna, confined to the North East, spilled over to Colombo last
week with the massacre of eight persons, identified as senior aides of the
renegade commander, at a safe house in Kottawa. Preliminary investigations
point to the LTTE as being the perpetrators of the brutal slaying.
