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Last Monday morning around 10, the Nelun Pokuna Mahinda Rajapaksa Theatre was a hive of activity and the buzz was when Britain’s ‘Prince Charles’ arrived at the venue. It was in the form of M.R.K. Lenagala, the External Affairs Ministry’s UN Division DG. The fashionably head shaven young diplomat ironically had just last year been [...]
UNP crisis: Sajith’s bid to oust Ranil backfires
Campaign by dissident group ends where it began; Premadasa’s handlers fail to achieve agendas Party leader gives 19 powers to new Leadership Council; Mangala wants focus on national issues A six-week long campaign by so-called reformists of the country’s main opposition United National Party (UNP) to oust their leader Ranil Wickremesinghe appears to have ended [...]
Karu’s conundrum
My Dear Karu, I thought I must write to you when I heard that you have been appointed to head what is called a ‘Leadership Council’ for the Greens. I know that they haven’t been doing awfully well under one leader, so now they have more leaders-but don’t you think that too many cooks will [...]
Economists: Mounting debt could constrain growth
The rising debt burden would be a serious constraint to sustained economic growth. The government should therefore be more prudent in borrowing foreign funds; they should be on more favourable terms and should be put to productive use to generate tradable goods and services. These conclusions of the technical sessions of the Sri Lanka Economic [...]
Channel 4 and the ‘Kuleshov Effect’
With the release of a video clip from Channel 4 television’s ‘No Fire Zone’ documentary, showing footage of what the British channel said was the arrest by Sri Lankan soldiers of Isaipriya, an LTTE television newsreader, India’s ‘Newshour’ TV programme last weekend featured a debate titled ‘Can this footage be ignored?’ A point made by [...]
Gloves off slam to C’wealth sham
Even as Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa rises from his seat this Friday to address the Commonwealth Heads of Government and looks at the carefully prepared speech couched in faultless diplomatic waffle designed to conceal truths with the glossy sheen of falsities, to varnish the sham with saccharine smarmed flourish, he must indeed wish he had [...]