Odds and Ends

Visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher held a press conference before his departure from Sri Lanka. At the end of the briefing, a US Embassy official invited the journalists to tea. Your free meals are outside,’ he said. There is nothing called a ‘free meal’, is there?’

The blundering at the press conference given by Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama was even better. Ahead of his briefing last week, a paper was circulated which contained comments by the Minister at the ‘diplomatic’ briefing. It said the SLFP’s proposals were now before the APRC even though the SLFP is yet to present it.

The paper also referred to Father Jim Brown who has been missing since 2006 as late Fr. Brown. When a scribe queried if the Government had killed the priest, the Minister was quick to say ‘no’ and requested the prefix ‘late’ be deleted from the paper.
Quite an undiplomatic mix-up at a ‘diplomatic’ briefing.

Sweet news for Tigers

LTTE military spokesman Illanthiriyan had been crowing in recent days on Tamils about to get some ‘sweet news’. It might very well be the deep split that has now shattered the Karuna Group. It certainly must be sweet news to Tigers as the Karuna Group was definitely on the ascendancy in the East.

Karuna Amman had become so confident in recent months his people have been asking authorities to hold a Provincial Council election for the newly de-merged Eastern Province by the end of the year.

Sharp eye at airport for wild one

Remember the wild one we talked about last week. To anyone who listens he tells how hard he worked always being the first to come to office and the last to leave, day in day out, and how he even managed to obtain his PhD, while slaving in this fashion.

Even we thought for a while that just one slip along the way had done him in. Now it appears he is no angel. Along the way he had got away with many things by always playing ball with some corrupt political bosses. Earlier he would ‘discipline’ anyone who dared to complain or give evidence against him.

So all previous probes had died a natural death as there was no one to give evidence, but this time it is a damning audit report that has come up as hard evidence. Even this time he almost made a clean getaway for good to Uncle Sam land, but someone had tipped off the authorities.

Poor World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz. He is being hounded by the media across the world for helping a girlfriend working in the Bank to get a new post with much better perks at the State Department using his connections in the US Government.This was done to prevent a conflict of interest at the Bank, but did you know that one of our ministers took his latest girlfriend with him to his new Ministry.In this paradise anything goes. We’ll give only one hint - she is a Director General now.

Marshal fails to marshal heavens

What has the soothsayer Marshal to say now, having failed last month to marshal heavenly forces to re-crown a faded queen? At least the heavens have decided it is better to punish her in retirement, by a timely judgment that took away much of what she managed, with a pliant Cabinet, to grab for herself in her last days in office. It was not ‘jaya mangalan’, but virtually just the opposite for those who fell for the prediction. Even greens made announcements about forming a government after April.

They would have probably pulled it off had JVP comrades joined in, but they have a greater axe to grind with the green boss. The joke doing the rounds these days is that Marshal was not referring to April 2007