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Political
Column |
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Rice and JVP in boiling pot |
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By Our Political Editor |
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 Even if it was a family social last Tuesday, it had the trappings of a summit of the country's two main leaders - President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.They met and sat at the same table in the glittering Grand Ballroom of the Colombo Hilton. The occasion was the wedding of Navindra, the son of the Commissioner of Elections, Dayananda Dissanayake. Wickremesinghe signed as witness for the groom and Rajapaksa as witness to the bride. |
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5th
Column |
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It’s fun to chip away at them! Now, will he turn blue? |
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By Rypvanwinkle |
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“Thaaththa,” Bindu Udagedera asked, “what is all this fuss about the rathu sahodarayas?” |
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Situation
Report |
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War assumes new dimension
in view of poll |
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By Iqbal Athas |
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 Some of the military top brass are now conceding, at least privately, that it is wrong to place time limits. Unexpected rains, muddy terrain and lack of strength are among reasons adduced. That no doubt reflects a doctrine of trial and error if not a militarily unpardonable lapse in forward planning. Little wonder the delay is disappointment for the political leadership awaiting a "major success" or a "breakthrough." |
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Thoughts from London |
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Don't blame the world alone |
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By Neville de Silva |
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 When the government says that the soaring costs at home of our staple foods like rice and wheat are caused by rising world prices, it is right. But that is not the whole story. The trouble with politicians, unless they are honest ones who would plead mea culpa when they are wrong or proved to be so, is that they are incapable of admitting to mistakes. Sceptics might even say that the honest politician is a gross contradiction. |
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The
Economic Analysis |
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Will we have a Suba Aluth Avurudhak? |
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By the Economist |
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 Everyone has been wishing each other Suba Aluth Avurudhak last week. We live in the hope that this wish would be realised. The word Suba denotes a holistic concept far broader than mere materialistic prosperity. It denotes a state of happiness far higher than material welfare: a state of happiness and contentment that material prosperity alone cannot possibly achieve. Yet as Amartya Sen the Nobel laureate in economics has pointed out in several of his writings..... |
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Inside the Glass House |
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Child-soldiers: Prabha, Karuna may escape ...... |
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By Thalif Deen at the united nations |
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 What are the chances of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and the head of his breakaway faction Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, alias Col Karuna, being hauled up before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague on charges of "war crimes" for recruiting child soldiers? "Extremely unlikely," says Julia Freedson, Director of the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a human rights organisation which released a 60-page report last week, on child soldiers in Sri Lanka. |
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Focus on Rights |
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Tempting distractions and the rule of law |
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By Kishali Pinto
Jayawardena |
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Sri Lanka's criminal justice process is peculiar for its tortuous recourse to ordinary penal provisions relating to enforced disappearances in the absence of a specific 'crime' of disappearances. Our criminal law is a first offender of the international law principle that the act of enforced disappearance must be criminally defined in such a way that is clearly distinguishable from related offences such as abduction and kidnapping. |
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