Your Sunday Times highlights for this week

Read this week's Sunday Times for your interesting articles

Among tomorrow's articles are:

- War spills over to jobs in Gulf states 

- Overseas mail rerouted from this week 

- Lankans in UAE adapt to sirens and falling debris

- World oil prices soar; CPC readies emergency plans 

- Emergency coal purchase closing date extended; ‘genuine bidders’ stay out 

- Judge named to hear Energy Minister’s corruption case 

- Mayday, mayday: How US-Iran conflict unfolded in Sr Lanka’s economic zone 

- Enter third independent accredited lab to test coal samples from the Trident Chemphar shipments 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 5th Column's full text is as follows; 

My dear Anura sahodaraya,

You must be very busy these days after suddenly becoming a leader on the world stage overnight and rather unexpectedly but I thought I must still write to you. You ought to thank Donald for that, if not publicly at least privately. He is the reason why many are asking ‘Anura who?’ and ‘Sri where?’

This is because Donald decided to attack an Iranian ship off our coast and destroy it. You decided to help the survivors. Although it was obviously the right thing to do, it was a brave decision because hell hath no fury like a Donald scorned. Still, you went ahead. We admire your courage to do that.

It was a big call to make, especially when some people had said you knew nothing about international relations. Had you got it wrong, they would have all turned on you and said, ‘we told you so’. Instead, you- and our country- earned praise from many quarters. Donald has said nothing against us, so far. 

You know you have done the right thing when your opponents say ‘well done’. Even people like Namal and Champika- who only recently said that the maalimaawa regime is so inefficient that it can only undertake small tasks such as building a culvert- have welcomed the decision you took.

Harsha put it best when he said that ‘we did what we had to do’. While that gentleman talks sense, you wonder whether the rest of his telephone party have lost their marbles, the way they are behaving. That is one of the reasons why I said that you owe a special ‘thank you’ to Donald. Let me explain.

Muji is leading protests on the streets claiming you waited for eleven hours to make a decision. Sajith is querying the environmental impact of sinking that ship, using the biggest words he knows. Ajith does it best, first saying there were 300 children on board and then saying he was referring to cadets!

This is why you must thank Donald, Anura sahodaraya. He has allowed the telephone party to display how lost they are. Of course, it is not only those in the telephone party who are behaving like this. The ‘usual suspects’ are up to their usual tricks, floating conspiracy theories just so they can criticise you.

There is Wimal who has suddenly turned defence expert, claiming that Donald has threatened air strikes if we assisted the second Iranian ship and that you have buckled under that pressure. Now that you have evacuated that vessel, I hope Wimal is hiding in a bunker somewhere fearing for his life.

Then there are the robed types in Mihintale. He said recently that a student known to him studied with Donald’s son and it was he who got tariffs lowered for us. Now he says Donald will fire a missile and reduce us to ashes because of what you did- and points to a map saying Galle is where Colombo is!

We also heard from the irrepressible Tissakutti who said this is too dangerous a matter for you to handle by yourself and you should convene all former Presidents to get advice. I’m glad you didn’t do that. Just imagining how conversations at such a meeting would turn out makes me laugh.

This is why, Anura sahodaraya, you must thank Donald not only for the chance to get recognition on the world stage but also for getting many of our opposition politicians to display their comedic talents even while you attract one disaster after another: first Cyclone Ditwah, now someone else’s war.

The other reason why you must thank Donald is for shifting attention away from some matters of national importance that you would have had to deal with, had the Iranian ship not turned up on our shores. That saved you the trouble of answering some delicate questions that you were being asked.

Firstly, there was hullabaloo about Sallay. Conspiracy theories abound. Some say he will provide answers as to who the mastermind of the Easter attacks is. Others claim his arrest was just because the anniversary of the attacks was coming up. Thanks to Donald, Sallay is not the main issue anymore.

Then there was your gaffe about Paradise being a ‘hunduwa’. We know we are a dot on the world map and not of much global consequence. Still, that is not for you as President to point out, is it? Now, that is forgotten, thanks to Donald. Or else you could have been called ‘Hunarable Anura’ by some!

You did have to do all the work by yourself though, addressing Parliament and then briefing the media. It is as if there is no one else in the maalimaawa camp capable of doing any of this. Still, that is better than entrusting the task to say, Sunil or Lakmali although Vijitha was rushed to New Delhi.

I hope you told Vijitha to ask Modi why he left it to us to clean up his mess, after inviting the Iranian ships to one of his naval exercises. Despite the points that you scored from this, Anura sahodaraya, it is not fair that you have to go through this, while he is happily watching the T20 World Cup finals!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS- It was said this week- but not noticed much after news of the Iranian ships-that you were talking to the ICC to clean up our cricket mess. Don’t have high hopes Anura sahodaraya, you can deal with Donald and Iran, save lives and make peace but cleaning our cricket is a bigger challenge than that!