It was the loquacious non-Cabinet rank Minister of Power, Mervyn Silva, who let the cat out of the bag. During a private visit to Bangkok last week, he told Sri Lankans resident there that he planned to quit Parliament. That was to make way for Basil Rajapaksa, Senior Advisor to President Mahinda Rajapaksa to be sworn in as a member on the National List.| ISSN: 1391 - 0531 | Sunday,
March 25, 2007 |
Vol.
41 - No 43 |
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Reports of a group of Tiger guerrillas, said to be around 50, hovering in an area south of the Madhu Church and just ahead of their defended localities astride Mannar caused serious concerns for the security establishment.
Were they on a mission to attack troop positions? Air raids on the group set a poser.
Exports have grown and imports have grown faster. This is not a new storyline. It has been happening for almost 30 years. What’s surprising is that the official announcements once again display a sense of satisfaction in the trade performance and perhaps complacency in the growth of exports in January this year.
As US President George W. Bush and his neocon warmongers this week blew the four candles on the poison cake placed on the mass grave that was Iraq, there was little mention in the mainstream Western media about how it all began-about the Bush administration's claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and it had links with the terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.
There are no stand-up comedy shows in Sri Lanka but any visitor to Parliament last week would have got the chance to experience one courtesy the men and women they elected as their representatives to the highest decision-making body in the country. 
NEW YORK -After three weeks of intense closed-door negotiations, the UN's five big powers — the US, Britain, France, China and Russia — along with Germany, produced a draft resolution to penalise Iran for its nuclear enrichment programme. The resolution, which is expected to be adopted sometime next week, is not as strong and punishing as the Western powers hoped for.