Editorial
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The case of the Sri Lankan maid in Saudi Arabia seeking clemency from a death by stoning sentence has grabbed the attention of the public, the media, human rights activists and politicians alike. The Government has claimed a Pyrrhic victory so far by having the case re-opened by way of appeal. While one could pray [...]
Donor in Business Class, Recipient First Class
If Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake can recognize his own Budget proposals when it comes to the final vote on December 19, he could consider himself lucky. Such are the pressures on him from various quarters to cut and chop, and amend, his original suggestions, notwithstanding the fact that the Government received a two third majority [...]
Paris: Preserve or Perish
“Hot air”. That’s what many pessimists expect from the Paris Climate Summit next week which over 130 world leaders, including our own President Maithripala Sirisena, will attend. It has been long hyped as the ‘last chance salon’ for Planet Earth before it self-destructs. With the world getting hotter, freak weather patterns causing droughts, floods and [...]
Friday the 13th doublespeak
Pope Francis felt the World War Three had started. Maybe not quite, but the indiscriminate attack on those enjoying a typical Friday night out in gay Paree last week brought the world to the brink of it. World War I began a century ago with a single shot fired in Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia. [...]
Beyond the Marapana issue
And so, Tilak Marapana, the Law and Order Minister became the sacrificial lamb to safeguard the good name of the Yahapalana Government when he quit this week. One of the few professionals in the Cabinet, Mr. Marapana was a ‘soft target’ in what is increasingly becoming a power game within the National Government. What wrong [...]
Corruption; the same difference
Hardly had the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs waxed eloquent at the United Nations Convention on Corruption in faraway St. Petersburg on the new Government’s crusade against corruption, did Sri Jayawardhanapura, Kotte reverberate with a thundering speech in Parliament by the leader of the JVP. His, the only party still not tainted by the highly [...]