From booruwa to billiards: Those were the days!
When I entered Law College, my class mates at Royal College, who had entered Medical College, as their parents had dreamt, said, at our batch get-together, that they were happy that the most notorious thug that Royal College had produced had entered Law College, as the Law College was deemed to be the refuge of [...]
CKD: El Salvador follows Lanka
On opposite ends of the world, governments are cracking down on pesticides as a potential cause of a mysterious form of kidney disease killing agricultural workers. In El Salvador, the congress approved a ban earlier this month on 53 agrochemicals. If the law is signed by Salvadorean president Mauricio Funes, the country will join Sri Lanka [...]
Old and new on show at Mercedes Benz pageant 2013
It was a gathering of the old and the new, all beauties in their owners’ and car aficionados’ eyes when the Mercedes Benz pageant 2013 was held last Sunday at the Nelum Pokuna car park. The event was organised by DIMO, exclusively for Mercedes Benz owners and their families and later in the day opened [...]
United by young leaders
First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa was the chief guest when the Unity Mission Trust (UMT) held their Ray of Hope event at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute on September 13. The Unity Mission Trust, a non-profit voluntary organisation started back in 2009, is the brainchild of Bertral Pinto-Jayawardena whose aim was to build a group of [...]
St. Michael’s and All Angel’s Polwatte celebrates patronal festival
September 29 is the Festival of St Michael and All Angels and churches all over the world dedicated to St Michael, celebrate their patronal festival at this time. The Church at Polwatte, Colombo 3 dedicated to St Michael and all Angels keeps its 126th Anniversary this year. St. Michael and All Angel’s Polwatte, Colombo 3 [...]
Leo Burnett wins Sri Lanka’s first gold at Spikes
Chani Perera and Induwarani Munasinghe of Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. (LBSI) the Sri Lankan office of the internationally acclaimed advertising agency network Leo Burnett Worldwide created history by winning Sri Lanka’s first ever Gold metal at Spikes Asia 2013. The Spikes Asia Awards, the region’s oldest and most prestigious awards for creative advertising took place [...]
SAARC Cultural Centre launches annual anthologies
The morning of September 16 proved to be just like any other this week at the BMICH where the Colombo International Book Fair was in full swing. The chatter of shoppers and the rustle of shopping bags carrying the lingering scent of new books seemed overpowering but away from the bustle of the crowd in [...]
Even a cat can unlock the new iPhone 5S
It’s been hailed as the safest smartphone on the market with its fingerprint recognition technology. And now the iPhone 5S has proved just how secure its new password service is, by registering a cat’s paw print as a key to unlock the gadget. Technology site, TechCrunch, wanted to test the new Touch ID feature which allows [...]
Access for all in built environment
Differences, especially concerning varying levels of ability — mobility in particular — are inherent amongst all people. Every one of us, inevitably, undergoes unnoticed a process of decay and also often meets at some time in life a natural or man-made disaster or numerous debilitating conditions which rob and restrict our ability to attend to [...]
Chinese torturers in Hong Kong inflicted 45 wounds on helper
A domestic helper who is the mother of a four-year old daughter suffered unprecedented brutality in Hong Kong at the hands of a “vicious” young Chinese family who inflicted 45 injuries on her by assaulting the helpless young woman with a bicycle chain, clothes hangers, and shoes over a two-year period. She was also tortured [...]
German election foes could make up and govern
BERLIN, Sept 21 (AFP) -Many countries would only do it when facing war or major disaster, but for Germany it’s a very real scenario after tomorrow’s election: a grand coalition government of the two big parties. After months of waging battle on the campaign trail, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) [...]
Pakistan releases Taliban commander: Official
ISLAMABAD, Sept 21 (AFP) -Pakistan released its most senior Afghan Taliban detainee Abdul Ghani Baradar today, a senior official told AFP, a move welcomed by Kabul which hopes it will encourage peace talks with the insurgents. Baradar, a one-time military chief often described as the militants’ former second-in-command, was the most high profile Taliban commander detained [...]
Bangladesh garment workers demand $100 minimum wage
DHAKA, Sept 21 (AFP) -Thousands of Bangladesh garment workers blocked roads and attacked factories outside the capital Dhaka today demanding a $100 minimum monthly wage. The workers, many carrying sticks, walked off the job in dozens of garment factories, which make apparel for the world’s top retailers such as Walmart, and protested for hours on highways [...]
Australian PM abolishes climate watchdog
SYDNEY (AFP) -Australia’s new conservative government abolished an independent climate change commission set up by the previous Labor administration, as part of its plans to streamline bureaucracy. The Climate Commission was set up to provide apolitical and reliable information to the public about the science of climate change, emissions targets and international action being taken. But [...]
Chanel as collateral: Hong Kong firm gives handbag-backed loans
HONG KONG (Reuters) – In designer-obsessed Hong Kong, keeping up appearances can be hard on the pocketbook. One company has an answer: cash-strapped shoppers can get money quickly by pawning their Gucci, Chanel, Hermès or Louis Vuitton luxury handbags. Yes Lady Finance, a mortgage brokerage, offers loans within half an hour of up to 50 [...]
Pope says Church must end obsession with gays, contraception, abortion
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis said the Catholic Church must shake off an obsession with teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality and become more merciful or risk the collapse of its entire moral edifice “like a house of cards”. In a dramatically blunt interview with an Italian Jesuit journal, Francis said the Church had [...]
Nigerian wins Muslim beauty pageant rival to Miss World
JAKARTA (AFP) -A Nigerian woman tearfully prayed and recited Koranic verses as she won a beauty pageant exclusively for Muslim women in the Indonesian capital, a riposte to the Miss World contest that has sparked hardline anger. The 20 finalists, who were all required to wear headscarves, put on a glittering show for the final of [...]
A gulp of sea water may ease stomach trouble and decrease the risk of cancer and stomach ulcers
A swig of sea water – taken from depths of 200 metres – may help tackle painful indigestion and reduce the risk of cancer and stomach ulcers. In a new trial, scientists are asking patients to drink deep-sea water with the idea that it will help kill the bacteria Helicobacter pylori. Up to four in ten [...]
Amidst calls for ban, veil stirs debate in Britain
LONDON (AFP) – Britain has been dragged into a debate on Muslim women wearing full-face veils in public, with its biggest selling newspaper backing calls from politicians to join European countries that have banned its use. The topic had stayed below the British political radar until the past week when a judge ruled that a Muslim [...]
Italy’s Casanovas hit where it hurts
One consequence of the economic downturn that has gone largely unreported is the struggle some Italian men now face to woo women with the care and attention – and the lavish expenditure – their predecessors were once renowned for. In the queue at the ice cream parlour the two businessmen jiggled anxiously and salivated like [...]
Berlusconi would not have been tried if gay: Putin
VALDAI, Russia (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin rallied behind his old friend Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday, saying the former Italian prime minister would not have faced trial for having sex with a minor if he were gay. “Berlusconi is being tried because he lives with women. If he were homosexual, no one would lift [...]
Controversial singer M.I.A. fighting $1.5 million fine for swearing
M.I.A.is fighting a $1.5 million fine for swearing during the Super Bowl half time show in 2012. The Bad Girls singer was seen on live TV flipping her middle finger and mouthing ‘I don’t give a s**t’ at a cameraman during her appearance with Madonna and Nicki Minaj singing Give Me All Your Luvin at the [...]
Internet giant backs company seeking the fountain of youth
After conquering search, launching best-selling software, phones and tablets and even financing lab-grown burgers, internet giant Google is now turning its attention towards the quest for eternal life. Founder and Google CEO Larry Page has announced he is teaming up with Apple’s chairman Arthur Levinson for a health and well-being project called Calico. Calico will [...]
Hackers offered cash, booze to crack iPhone fingerprint security
BOSTON (Reuters) – Hackers are gearing up for Friday’s iPhone 5S release with a contest to crack the device’s first-ever fingerprint scanner, a high-tech feature that Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) says makes users’ data more secure. A micro venture capital firm joined a group of security researchers to offer more than $13,000 in [...]
Indian scientists make dengue vaccine
Indian scientists have achieved an important breakthrough in their efforts to develop a vaccine to prevent the deadly dengue. Supported by the Department of Biotechnology under the Ministry of Science & Technology, scientists at International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi have developed a non-infectious dengue vaccine from yeast. Preliminary animal [...]
Bitter truth: Sugar is ‘the most dangerous drug of our time’
Sugary foods and drinks should come with a smoking-style health warning, according to a leading Dutch health expert. Paul van der Velpen, head of Amsterdam’s health service, said that sugar is ‘the most dangerous drug of our time’. The health chief – from a city that has a famously liberal attitude to cannabis – added [...]
Gene sequences of deadly Saudi virus show complex transmission
LONDON (Reuters) – Genetic analysis of samples of the deadly MERS virus that has killed 58 people in the Middle East and Europe shows the disease has jumped from animals to humans several times, scientists said on Friday. At least 132 people have been infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus since it emerged [...]
Village genius rockets to NASA
First there was Kalpana Chawla, the Indian-American astronaut whose roots were in Karnal, Haryana. Now there’s 19-year-old Ashish Yadav from the state’s backwater town of Narnaul, who’s on his way to the National Aeronautic Space Administration (NASA) of the United States. Yadav is among the three students selected from India for a three-year astronaut training [...]
Syria: Is the sun peeking through the war clouds?
Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck is sometimes credited with the proverb, “God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America.” Observing the unfolding of the Syrian crisis, the Iron Chancellor was an insightful man. In August, we were hours away from missile strikes on Syria and involvement in its civil war [...]
‘Sexual jihad’: Tunisian women go to Syria to ‘relieve’ holy warriors, return pregnant
(Russia Today) – Tunisian women have traveled to Syria to wage ‘sexual jihad’, performing intercourse with dozens of Islamist fighters and returning home pregnant, Tunisia’s Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou told MPs. The Tunisian girls “are [sexually] swapped between 20, 30, and 100 rebels and they come back bearing the fruit of sexual contacts in the [...]
Syria’s Balkan tragedy
BERLIN – Pacifist doctrines may say otherwise, but combining diplomacy with the threat of military force is a highly effective tactic, as we have just seen in Syria. It was the credibility of the United States’ threat of military intervention that seems to have led Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to cut a deal brokered by [...]
In an age of ‘realists’ and vigilantes, there is cause for optimism
The most important anniversary of the year has been the 40th anniversary of 11 September 1973 – the crushing of the democratic government of Chile by General Augusto Pinochet and Henry Kissinger, US secretary of state. The National Security Archive in Washington has posted new documents that reveal much about Kissinger’s role in an atrocity [...]
Asia’s Great Game without frontiers
NEW DELHI – Nowadays, many people seem to be more relaxed than ever about nationality, with the Internet enabling them to forge close connections with distant cultures and people. But states remain extremely sensitive about their borders’ inviolability. After all, territory — including land, oceans, air space, rivers, and seabeds — is central to a [...]
