Construction of memorial for Nagar Koyil school children killed by SL Airforce commences in Jaffna

06 June 2015 Tamil National Alliance MPs took part in a ceremony commencing the construction of a memorial shrine commemorating 21 school children that where killed in a Sri Lankan Air Force attack on a school in Jaffna 20 years ago. TNA MPs including Mavai Senathirajah and M A Sumanthiran were present at the ceremony and took party in laying the foundation stone for the shrine on Tuesday. The Nagar Koyil School was bombed on 21 September 1995 hours after the Sri Lankan government enforced censorship on press reports on the military conflict between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Sri Lankan government, denying that the attack was on a school, instead alleged that it was a LTTE base. The British Refugee Council, in a statement made after the bombings, said, "Hours after the Sri Lanka government imposed military censorship on press reporting of its bitter and unpredictable war... on 21 September, aircraft bombed a Jaffna school yard crammed with 750 children on their lunch break, killing 34 and seriously injuring over 150 others." Two surgeons from the international medical relief agency, Medicine Sans Frontiers, worked through the night in Jaffna hospitals treating severely injured children from the attack.  See more here.  INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA Sri Lanka's Genocidal War - '95 to '01 Nagerkoil School bombed under cover of press censorship - 22 September 1995 On 22 September Nagerkoil Central School in the Jaffna peninsula was bombed. The intensified aerial bombing and shelling by Sri Lankan government forces came about within hours of the government's imposition of Press Censorship midnight September 21.

INDICTMENT AGAINST SRI LANKA Sri Lanka's Genocidal War - '95 to '01.odt by Thavam Ratna

MS seeks UNP, SLFP consensus on 20A

...Ven Sobitha told no dissolution until passage of electoral reforms

By Shamindra Ferdinando-June 5, 2015, 12:00 pm 

President Maithripala Sirisena is expected to call a special Cabinet meeting next Monday (June 8) to push for a consensus on the 20 Amendment to the Constitution between the UNP and his own party, the SLFP.

The Opposition expected President Maithripala Sirisena to finalise agreement on electoral reforms ahead of next parliamentary sittings on June 9, Opposition Leader Nimal Siripala de Silva told The Island yesterday.

"We are confident that the President can secure an agreement on the 20 Amendment," MP De Silva said. The consent of the Cabinet would have to be followed by the Supreme Court determination, he said, adding that the Opposition was preparing to contest the next election under the new system.

The SLFPer insisted that President Maithripala Sirisena himself on behalf of the government had assured the passage of the 20 Amendment before the next parliamentary election. That assurance involves the introduction of a mixed system comprising the First-Past-the-Post election of a member for each electorate and the Proportional Representation, where election of members would be based on the proportion of votes obtained by each political party in a particular district, had been a key pledge in Maithripala Sirisena’s polls manifesto endorsed by the UNP. Therefore, the UNP should give up its ridiculous effort to sabotage the 20 Amendment, MP De Silva said.

The Opposition Leader emphasised that the next general election should be conducted in accordance with the new electoral system. Responding to a query, the MP pointed out that Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha thera, too, had thrown his weight behind the proposed electoral reforms. "At a recent felicitation ceremony held at the BMICH under the patronage of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in honour of Ven. Sobitha, the gathering was told of the pivotal importance of having the 20 Amendment before the next general election. Ven. Sobitha, during his address, urged the President and the Prime to take required measures to bring in electoral reforms.

MP De Silva alleged that the UNP had been reluctant to endorse the 20 Amendment as it feared the proposed system would be unfavourable to the ruling party. The Opposition Leader said that a spate of recent statements attributed to Prime Minister and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, UNP Secretary General Kabir Hashim, MP and Leader of the House Lakshman Kirieilla, MP reflected the crisis within the minority government. According to him, controversial UNP strategy meant to thwart the 20 Amendment had, in fact, isolated the party, with UNP ally the JHU backing the 20 Amendment.
Meanwhile, a group of civil society representatives led by Ven. Sobitha on Thursday met President Maithripala Sirisena to press for the 20 Amendment passage. Sources said that the meeting resolved to take up electoral proposals at a special cabinet meeting before placing them before parliament. The dissolution of parliament by President Maithripala Sirisena would be subject to the passage of the 20 Amendment, sources said.

SLFP sources said that Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya, after having studied a range of electoral proposals submitted to the Election Secretariat by various parties, made his position clear as regards the hybrid system to all political parties represented in parliament. Sources said that therefore it would be the responsibility of political parties represented in parliament to approve the 20 Amendment without further delay. While making observations on the entire range of proposals, Deshapriya has stressed that the electoral proposals now under deliberations hadn’t been formulated by his Secretariat but a collective effort of all stakeholders, including him.

Elections & 20th Amendment Profit Electoral Swindlers

By ZL Mohamed –June 6, 2015

In Sri Lankas’s 2015 Presidential Election, 15,044,490 voters were on the electoral rolls but the number of citizens who were of legal voting age was only 14,449,000 going by the Census data. This amounts to an unaccounted excess of 4.3% in the electoral rolls. This is alarming since the last Presidential election was decided by a margin of 3.7% and previous elections were decided by half as much. This phenomenon of “ghost-voters” was pointed out soon after the 2015 Elections by Dr. Laksiri Fernando (Colombo Telegraph, 15 January 2015) who has been studying elections in Sri Lanka in depth since 1970. He claimed that there were at least 782,460 names on the Sri Lankan electoral rolls than there were citizens of legal voting age. In the four months since Dr. Fernando put forward his claim, no one has disputed it.

As we shall see below, these ghost-voters are so numerous that they can tip the results of 15- 30 parliamentary seats in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Under the 20th amendment proposals, electoral reform is to increase representation in regions with increases in population. But such a reallocation of seats on the basis of the electoral rolls shall reward the regions with the most ghost-voters by 20-40 seats for decades.

Impact of delay in Voter Registration                          Read More

Sri Lanka recalls envoy, a friend of India

Saturday, June 6, 2015

New Delhi:   Sri Lanka has recalled its envoy to India Sudharshan Seneviratne, within a year of his appointment and just when bilateral ties were looking up between the two neighbours.

Acknowledging that he has been asked to return, Seneviratne, a highly respected academic who has many friends in India, believes that both countries need to understand each other and take care of each other.

Seneviratne, who has studied in Hindu College in Delhi University and done his doctorate at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said he has been working on a “multi-track” diplomatic engagement that would be a “win-win” situation for both, helping to bring the two neighbors closer.

“There is a lot of good faith that has to come out. There is a natural inhibition about India's largeness, it has larger capital, and to work on that one has to look at a win-win situation; we have to think in terms of working together,” Seneviratne said in an interview.

“Both countries have to take care of each other. Sri Lanka needs India and India needs Sri Lanka, especially because of its strategic location, as this is their opening to their backyard. If Sri Lanka is not kept secure India is not safe. And this message should be understood even in Tamil Nadu,” he said.

“It should be a win-win situation, not imposing and patronising. We need to understand the problems of each other on an equal basis. On that basis I feel we are doing good if we work out our bilateral issues, work out our new partnerships in areas we can share, like heritage, health and tourism.”

Seneviratne, who was head of the Department of Archaeology for nearly 10 years at the University of Peradeniya and holds the only Chair in Archaeology within the University system of Sri Lanka, says for India and Sri Lanka to come together both have to understand their historical realities “which is something we are forgetting”.

“Sri Lanka has to understand how to image India; India is not a single entity, India is a multiple personality. We have to understand the historical roots of the country, not as a monolithic state. We have to strategise our own working norms and rhythm to India's personality,” he said.

He says India and Sri Lanka have “taken each other for granted”.

India too needs to understand Sri Lanka. “It is an island, but with a very cosmopolitan society. Its people have different cultures, religions, technology and its own personality. This, I don't think has been understood. This is the point I am trying to drive through - that both need to understand each other,” he said.

As part of his vision of multi-track diplomacy, which includes heritage, tourism, leisure, religious synergy health and business, Seneviratne says he has identified different points in India to build connections with Sri Lanka.

He feels that northeast India, especially Assam, offers a lot in terms of investment in areas like plantations. “We would like Sri Lankans to come and invest. My theory is we have to think big.”

“If we work out the CEPA (India-Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) properly, it should be successful. Mr (Narendra) Modi gave a very strong message saying that I'll put my house in order and get the CEPA to work. We were very happy with the statement,” he said.

He feels the cultural links cannot be confined to Buddhism alone. “We have to include Hinduism, how many South Indians migrated to Sri Lanka, the Islamic people who came to Sri Lanka from India, the Christian groups who came from Kerala; Guru Nanak came to Sri Lanka.”

“When you put this background on the table, then you get a picture of which part of India can be worked with,” he said.

The Kerala government has evinced interest in connecting with Sri Lanka in the field of business, heritage, arts and tourism, said Seneviratne, adding that things are set to move forward soon. Himachal Pradesh and Punjab have also shown interest, but with his sudden recall he is not sure if the programmes will move forward now.

Seneviratne, who has worked extensively at Sri Lankan and Indian archaeological sites and contributed towards cross regional studies, had been actively working toward holding three road shows in India as part of forging closer bilateral ties.

Modi visited Sri Lanka in March, in the first visit by an Indian prime minister to the island neighbor in 28 years. 

A new drama unfolds in SL’s media culture

(Lanka-e-News -03.June.2015, 11.45PM) The ‘Randiva’ newspaper that was run by  Ravi Wijeratne  a casino mudalali and  a disgraceful  stooge of Mahinda Rajapakse  was closed down with effect from last Sunday (31) , based on reports. Miinister Mangala Samaraweera ‘s former secretary Ruwan Ferdinands was appointed as the Director of its  editorial board prior to its closure.

Under Ruwan Gunawardena as the director of the editorial board , Deepthi Kumara  Gunaratne was appointed as the chief editor of the newspaper. Gunaratne was the leader of the Peratugami party which commenced under the name of ‘X ‘team, and  Saman Jayakody who was the editor of the news paper was subsequently marginalized. The other leaders of the Peratugami party who protested against Gunaratne for taking over the chief editor post of a newspaper of a casino Mudalalali finally chased him out from the Peratugami party.

Under the new administration of ‘Randiva’ , it was Claude gurubewila who became the chief executive officer (CEO). Claude gurubewila is one who became notorious under the Rajapakse regime because of his monumental financial frauds . By functioning as the CEO of the VFM broadcasting channel he became infamously famous  under the Rajapakse regime which promoted illicit ethanol import business with ex minister Johnston Fernando heading the illegal operations.

Claude the fraud is now facing charges in the huge Sathosa cash embezzlement for his direct involvements.

As always with the crooked Rajapakse administration,  the Rajapakse crooked cronies and stooges  were allowed to indulge in any racket to the detriment of the country provided they propped  and promoted  the Rajapakses in their sinister and evil programs. Claude  the notorious fraud too made hay while the sun shone with Rajapakse backing  while using the VFM sordid media channel to attack and castigate bitterly the politicos and persons who were antagonistic to the Rajapakses via various programs.

The Randiva’ newspaper service was closed on the 31 st of May , and about  37 employees were not paid the May salary when terminating their services, let alone the three months compensation that should be paid to an employee in such circumstances under the  labor rules and regulations , thereby flagrantly violating the laws.

Meanwhile, the newspaper  was closed down because Ravi Wijeratne the casino Mudalali wanted that to happen. Nevertheless ,  under the government of good governance of president Maithripala , sordid and low grade media establishments are currently facing grave threats. Ravi Wijeratne on the other hand characterized by perfidious and low breed traits has decided to meet this  challenge. Already , under ex minister Dallas Alahaperuma various methodologies are being resorted to in order to combat these threats.

Ruwan Ferdinands and ‘Claude the fraud’ are now taking steps to put out another newspaper under the name of ‘Nijabima’ .Prabath Weeraratne who calls himself as a chief of the new administration revealed to Lanka e news. 

---------------------------
by     (2015-06-03 22:15:22)

SRI LANKA: Deterioration Of The Legal Intellect (9): The Rape Victim Who Got Hell Of A Justice

by Basil Fernando-June 5, 2015

Rita, a rape victim visited the Magistrates Court 24 times between 2001 and 2004. Then, the case was referred to the Attorney General for the filing of indictment. The visits she made to the High Court thereafter, and reasons for postponements, are catalogued as follows:

Case No: HC 57/2007
High Court - Kandy

Case Dates:

23rd October 2006: Indictment filed by the Attorney General

SRI LANKA Deterioration of the Legal Intellect (9) the Rape Victim Who Got Hell of a Justice by Thavam Ratna

Vadamarachchi: Was JRJ a traitor? – III

by Izeth Hussain-June 5, 2015

Why did President JR refuse to extend the Vadamarachchi operation and go all out for a military victory over the LTTE? I believe that the explanation is that he had already been engaged in a tripartite conspiracy with India and the US – a benign conspiracy with the best of intentions behind it – to solve the ethnic problem. The Peace Accords of 1987 and the coming of the IPKF troops were the consequences of that conspiracy. The dispatch of the flotilla and the air drop were parts of an elaborate charade meant to serve the purposes of that conspiracy.

My evidence pointing to that conspiracy has of course to be of a circumstantial order because it is hardly the kind of thing on which documentary evidence will be available. I begin with what happened some weeks before the air drop when things were hotting up to a potentially dangerous extent. Until then relations with India over the ethnic problem had been handled by – I believe – Ministers Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake. Suddenly, on a Saturday morning, I was called to the Foreign Office by the then Foreign Minister, A C S Hameed. I helped in the drafting of some documents, and from that point onwards and until sometime after the Peace Accords were signed the Foreign Ministry played a central role in the external dimension of the ethnic problem. Why did that shift of functions take place? I believe that the reason was that Minister Athulathmudali was a "hardliner" who would have wanted to extend the Vadamarachchi victory. He would therefore have been deeply antipathetic to a programme that led to the Peace Accords. Minister Hameed, on the other hand, would have obeyed every command of President JR without demur.

The next significant occurrence took place on the morning after the Indian flotilla was turned back. US Ambassador Jim Spain sought a very early meeting with Foreign Minister Hameed to convey a message from his Government. The first part of the message was that by turning back the flotilla our Government had missed an excellent opportunity of defusing a dangerous situation. The second part of the message was that the Indians would on that day do something that we would find extremely displeasing. The US Government strongly advised that we should not over-react. That was a reference to the air drop that would take place that afternoon. I think we can safely assume that the US Ambassador was not merely passing on information gathered by the CIA. The message was rather a carefully considered policy statement of the US Government. The first part of the message was clearly sympathetic to the Indian side, and so was the second part of it, but equally clearly the message was not meant to be hostile to Sri Lanka: rather it was meant to ameliorate Indo-Sri Lankan relations that had become highly problematic. The crux of the message, however, was that Sri Lanka should not do anything foolhardy such as shooting down one of the planes engaged in the air drop. On that point I feel certain that the US was acting on the request of the Indian Government.

The most significant occurrence pointing to a tripartite conspiracy took place just after the signing of the Peace Accords. For some time before that the then Foreign Secretary W.T.Jayasinghe and I had been receiving hints from the Ambassadors in Colombo that some sort of Indo-Sri Lankan agreement was in the offing. I told WTJ that so abrupt a volte-face from hostility to agreement seemed to me most unlikely unless there was some third force, a powerful third force, in operation to bring the two sides together. He told me on the morning after the signing ceremony that my surmise was shown to be correct when just after the signing ceremony was over the US Ambassador walked up to President JR and handed him a letter. That clearly amounted to a deliberate ostentatious public display of US support for the Peace Accords. It was clear also that for the US to express that support in written form meant that it was already aware of every detail in the Peace Accords. It seems reasonable to think that the signing ceremony was the maturation of tripartite action that had been going on for weeks.

I told WTJ that it seemed worthwhile to establish who prepared the documents. Sometime later the Foreign Report of the London weekly the Economist reported that the documents had been prepared in a Western capital - if I remember rightly London. I mention this detail particularly because there was such a high degree of the clandestine in the lead up to the Peace Accords that my use of the term "conspiracy" seems quite appropriate. I must mention also that President JR is supposed to have asked for the IPKF troop to be sent here only when he met Rajiv Gandhi in Colombo. The lightening celerity with which scores of thousands of Indian troops came here is difficult to explain – pointing in fact to preparations of several days or weeks. There must be many other significant details known to others who have chosen so far to be reticent.

I will now conclude this article by making a few observations on the question, Was President JR a traitor? I must emphasize to the reader that in my title I was raising a question, not stating a conclusion, and here I am addressing the question briefly without providing anything by way of a definitive answer. My reason for doing this is that it seems to me extremely important in political analysis to raise questions even when in the present state of knowledge no definitive answer is possible. The answers can come later. I must add at this point that in JR’s case it is not sufficient to explain practically everything he did on the basis that he was an old fox.

I have grounded my argument in this article on the material provided in the first few paragraphs in K.M. de Silva’s book. It does seem very plausible that if the Vadamarachchi military operation had been extended the LTTE would have been defeated long before 2009. Certainly, it was not simply a matter of extending the military thrust into Jaffna because by 1987 the LTTE was well enough equipped to continue fighting a guerilla war. After the Rajiv Gandhi assassination the LTTE would have lost its Tamil Nadu hinterland, an essential requisite for waging successful guerilla warfare. My common sense tells me that ultimately what would have counted against the LTTE was the small extent of Sri Lankan territory, which would have enabled the Government troops to hunt out and confront the guerillas in positional warfare without too much difficulty. We must bear in mind that in 1987 the LTTE was nothing like the very redoubtable fighting force that it became in later years.

The case for extending the Vadamarachchi operation was very strong, indeed irrefutable. But President JR chose an alternative path on the ground that there was a threat from India and the international community had abandoned Sri Lanka. I have already exposed all that as absolute nonsense. At this point I will pose just a few questions. There were certainly food shortages in Jaffna but nothing like famine conditions, and even if there were would it not have been possible, quite easily, to take corrective action by sending food supplies? Where was the need for an Indian invasion to prevent famine? Certainly there would have been atrocities committed during the Vadamarachchi operation, the kind of atrocities known as the "horrors of war" which have been a staple of warfare right down the ages. Was the IPKF fighting against the LTTE expected to be free of atrocities? I find it impossible to believe that India would have invaded Sri Lanka if President JR had stood his ground.

But instead of continuing the Vadamarachchi operation he chose an alternative path that led to disaster for Sri Lanka. It should be useful to bear in mind a distinction that Marxists make between one’s subjective intentions and what one’s actions amount to objectively. Whatever may have been JR’s subjective intentions, his choice of that alternative path was objectively that of a traitor. It should also be useful to bear in mind the following quotation from E.H. Carr’s What is History?: "Everyone knows today that human beings do not always, or perhaps even habitually, act from motives of which they are fully conscious or which they are willing to avow; and to exclude insight into unconscious or unavowed motives is surely a way of going about one’s work with one eye willfully shut".

izethhussain@gmail.com

The Chickens Come Home

By Rajan Hoole –June 6, 2015 

Dr. Rajan Hoole

Law Enforcement and the Security Services: Politicisation and Demoralisation – 16

A contemporary general had no doubt that the North was by far the priority. At the same time he felt that there should have been a clearly thought out strategy to block access to the East and prevent the LTTE from escaping from the North and regrouping in the East. This would have also entailed mustering adequate naval cover. He said that there was no such strategy in place.

We also mention here contemporary arguments in favour of ‘East First’. One was the political one that if the government forces firmly controlled the East, the LTTE would be denied any possibility of its separate state of Eelam and would be forced to negotiate. The other was that Eastern Tamils could then be weaned away from the LTTE, to bring about demoralisation among the LTTE’s Eastern cadre and deny the LTTE recruitment from the East. It is true that recruitment from the East fell during this period. The LTTE was forced to compensate by intensifying brainwashing and virtual press- ganging techniques to get school children from Jaffna into the fighting ranks (see the last chapter of our Report No.13 of 1994 and also Special Report No.6).

Premadasa too may have been happy not to bother the North unless the North bothered him. It was consistent with the deal he entered into with the LTTE in 1989, whom he very likely continued to have back-door contact with even after hostilities commenced (see Sect. 19.4). Thus, quite often, major operations in the North were viewed indifferently or even undermined. It is a fact that the political establishment allowed defence officials to fight each other for the good part of 1992 and ’93 without intervening decisively. One intervention was Premadasa’s removal of JOC (i.e. Wanasinghe’s) control over operations about April 1992, which was restored by him after 5 months. But Wanasinghe’s initiatives for operations in the North did not get far.

Read More

Registrar is a sister of judge: conflict of interests in ‘Yaha Paalana’ Supreme Court

Saturday, 06 June 2015 

Registrar of the ‘Yaha Paalana’ Supreme Court in Sri Lanka Maheshi Jayasekara is a sister of SC judge Priyantha Jayawardena. In any other country, this is clearly deemed a case of conflict of interests, but chief justice of the ‘Yaha Paalana’ government Kanagasabapathi Sri Pavan does not appear to care about it. 

That is just one malady that has been contracted by Sri Lanka’s SC.

Tissa Ekanayake, the husband of Chandra Ekanayake, who was the acting CJ on several occasions, was a manager of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s 2010 presidential election campaign. At that time, he had his office at Temple Trees. All appointments to the superior courts in Sri Lanka that had been made during the past under the 18th amendment to the constitution, irrespective of whether the appointees were qualified or not, could be treated as political appointments.

Therefore, just because president Maithripala Sirisena says that the judiciary does not receive telephone calls from the President’s House, that does not mean that the judiciary appointed by Mahinda Rajapaksa has all of a sudden become independent.

That is nothing but the truth, which is demonstrated by Eva Wanasundara, who has publicly admitted that Mahinda Rajapaksa is a closest friend of hers, when she took up the fundamental rights petition filed by Gotabhaya Rajapaska.

Why does CJ Sri Pavan, a contemporary of Mahinda Rajapaksa at Law College, permitted a two-member panel to hear Gotabhaya’s petition, after justice Buwaneka Aluvihare withdrew from the case.

Although Sri Pavan was the most senior judge, president Sirisena appointed him as the CJ as per the provisions in the notorious 18th amendment which Rajapaksa got passed within two weeks by bribing the MPs.

It is not a secret that not just the former Rajapaksa regime, certain MPs and ministers in Yaha Paalanaya’ too, do not want to see a truly independent judiciary.

Health minister Rajitha Senaratne, a closest friend of the president, was a ‘judge’ in the notorious no-confidence motion against CJ Shirani Bandaranayake.

Since both Senaratne and justice minister Wijedasa Rajapaksa did not want to see Bandaranayake becoming the CJ again, she was forced to retire within one day of resuming her position.

In this situation, it has become a need of the times to establish a truly independent judiciary by rescuing the judiciary from the shadows of the Rajapaksa regime as well as certain sections of the present administration.

It is due to this situation that Ravaya editor K.W. Janaranjana and other activists for democracy are requesting all judges in the superior courts to resign to pave the way for the constitutional council to make fresh appointments following the passage of the 19th amendment.

It is time to make that request again and again.

எரிந்த நிலையில் சடலம் மீட்பு

06 ஜுன் 2015, சனி

மட்டுவில் பகுதியில் எரிந்த நிலையில் ஆண் ஒருவரின் சடலம் எரிந்தநிலையில் மீட்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. 

 

மட்டுவில் பகுதியில் உள்ள குளம் ஒன்றுக்கு அருகிலுள்ள பற்றைக்குள் எரிந்த நிலையில் கிடந்த சடலத்தை கண்ட பொதுமக்கள் சாவகச்சேரி பொலிஸாரிடம் தெரிவியப்படுத்தினர்.

 

குறித்த இடத்திற்கு சென்ற பொலிஸார் சடலத்தை மீட்டு பிரேத பரிசோதனைக்காக யாழ்ப்பாணம் போதனா வைத்தியசாலைக்கு கொண்டுவரப்பட்டுள்ளது. 

 

இவ்வாறு மீட்கப்பட்டவர் அதேஇடத்தைச் சேர்ந்த சதாசிவம் சபாரட்ணம் (வயது 58 ) என அடையாளம் காணப்பட்டுள்ளார். மேலதிக விசாரணைகளை பொலிஸார் மேற்கொண்டு வருகின்றனர். 

Thajudeen’s death: Analyst’s report and Postmortem report contrary: police

2015-06-05

As the analyst's report and the postmortem report on the death of ruggeritie Wasim Thajudeen who died mysteriously inside a car appeared to be contradictory, there was suspicion regarding these reports, the CID informed Colombo additional Magistrate Nishantha Peiris.

The CID added that it had asked the Attorney General.for instructions on how to proceed.

The additional Magistrate ordered the four JMOs who had visited the scene where Thajudeen's body was found and conducted the postmortem to submit their reports to court.

He also ordered the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission and the mobile service providers to report to court on the calls received and sent on May 17, 2012 on the mobile telephone of the victim. (Manopriya Gunasekera)
- See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/75209/thajudees-s-death-analyst-s-report-and-postmortem-report-contrary-police#sthash.wo602cy2.dpuf

How much money do you need to earn to be in the one per cent around the world?

by Bethan McKernan-04 June 2015

So, how much money really puts you in the top one per cent of a country’s earners?

Turns out it varies a lot depending on where you live - and the figure may not be as much as you think.

Economist Branko Milanovic, a professor at the City University of New York, figured out what salary you need to earn to be in the top percentile depending on taxes and the cost of living for the country you live in.

In the UK, you need to take home £76,971 a year to be among the richest one per cent in the country.

Of course that figure doesn’t include property, interest earned from investments, or selling stocks and bonds - and Five Thirty Eight believes 36 per cent of the super rich’s income comes from that capital, rather than wages.

People who make around £77,000 after tax include pilots, and directors in sectors like marketing and IT. They’re not necessarily the CEOs and bankers on Wall Street the Occupy movement sprang up to challenge.

The richest person in the world is Bill Gates, who is worth £56.6 billion. He earned just under £1 billion last year just from selling some of his Microsoft shares, 13,000 times as much as an airline pilot in the UK. But they’d still sit in the same top one per cent category.

In Russia you ‘only’ need £30,120 a year to be in the same economic set as President Vladimir Putin.

It is the super-wealthy 0.1 per cent that Oxfam says we should be keeping our eye on.

The charity found that the richest 85 people on the planet own as much as the poorest 3.5billion people in the world. This tiny elite would fit comfortable on a double decker bus - not that they have probably ever taken one.

U.S. Airstrikes Whack One Thousand Islamic State Fighters a Month, Air Force General Says

BY PAUL MCLEARY-JUNE 5, 2015

 The top U.S. air commander in the Middle East said Friday that the American-led coalition bombing Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria are “removing over 1,000 enemy fighters a month from the battlefield” — adding yet another voice to the string of military and civilian leaders who have put a body count on a war where body counts aren’t supposed to matter.

“The number is significant, but it’s also only a single indicator,” Lt. Gen. John Hesterman told reporters by phone from his headquarters in Qatar.

The number of dead extremists isn’t as important as reforming Iraqi governance or strangling the finances of the Islamic State, he said, falling more closely in line with the White House. “But we’re taking the enemy off the battlefield at a great rate, and you can count on that,” Hesterman said.

Critics say one of the biggest failures of Washington’s war plan is the refusal to put U.S. forward air controllers on the ground with Iraqi troops to more effectively call in airstrikes on Islamic State positions. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain have made a cottage industry out of calling for the deployment of joint terminal attack controllers — or JTACs — to Iraq, and some retired military officials have also grumbled about the lack of eyes on the ground.

JTACs are operating in air command centers spread throughout Iraq, Hesterman said, where they watch live feeds piped back from drones and fighter jets circling enemy positions instead of embedding with Iraqi troops.

Speaking to CNN on Friday, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said while JTACs are most important in urban fights where more precise airstrikes are essential to avoid civilian casualties, persistent aerial surveillance coverage is effective in the more open areas of Iraq and Syria.

Hesterman also downplayed reports of an air strike near the city of Kirkuk on Wednesday that flattened a jihadi car bomb-making factory. He said U.S. aircraft dropped a “fairly small weapon” on the building, located in an industrial area, which triggered a secondary explosion from the bomb-making material stored inside. While that second explosion essentially flattened the entire industrial area — and the boom was heard dozens of miles away — so far there is no evidence of civilian casualties, Hesterman said.

Initial reports said dozens of civilians were killed and injured. And a U.S. Central Command spokesperson on Thursday told FP it had received reports of civilian casualties near the site and was prepared to investigate if they could be confirmed.

The overall bombing campaign shows few signs of letting up anytime soon. After 10 months and $2.6 billion spent by Washington, Islamic State forces continue their ground war against Iraqi troops and Shiite militias in a bloody struggle around the edges of Anbar province, which the jihadis own almost completely.

Hesterman and other U.S. officials insist the daily airstrikes are key to buying the Iraqi Army time to regain footing after a string of humiliating defeats in Mosul, Fallujah, and Ramadi. The strikes also create space for the estimated 3,000 U.S. troops on the ground to retrain demoralized Iraqi Army units they originally trained just a few years ago.

But even a former fighter pilot like Hesterman admitted that “air power doesn’t hold and govern territory — Iraq will have to do that” with troops on the ground.

“Some competent ground forces are going to have to go peel” the jihadis out of the towns and villages in which they’re hiding, he said.

Photo credit: Anadolu Agency

Taiwan coast guard launches new ships as South China Sea tensions rise

Taiwan Coast Guard's new patrol ship, the 3000-ton 'Ilan' (L), is seen during a commissioning ceremony in the port of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, June 6, 2015.

REUTERS/PICHI CHUANG

Sat Jun 6, 2015

Taiwan Coast Guard patrol ships and helicopters from National Airborne Service Corps are seen during a drill held about 4 nautical miles out of the port of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, June 6, 2015.

Taiwan's coast guard on Saturday commissioned its biggest ships for duty in the form of two 3,000-ton patrol vessels, as the island boosts defenses amid concerns about China's growing footprint in the disputed South China Sea.

The new vessels will be able to dock at a new port being constructed on Taiping Island, the largest of the naturally occurring Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, before the end of this year.

Taiwan's coast guard has had direct oversight of the 46-ha (114-acre) island, also known as Itu Aba, since 2000.

"Taiping Island's defense capabilities will not be weak," said Wang Chung-yi, minister of the Coast Guard Administration, referring to recent upgrading done on the 1,200-metre (yards) long airstrip on Taiping and the building of a new port, which he said could be completed as early as October this year.

"As far as Taiping Island is concerned, we still maintain not so much a military as a civil role," Wang told Reuters in an interview in Taipei. Taiwan will not create conflict, but if it is provoked "we will not concede," he said.

Unlike the Philippines and Vietnam, Taiwan has largely avoided becoming ensnared in public disputes with China over the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year.

Beijing claims most of the South China Sea, while the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also have overlapping claims.

Rival claims by Taiwan and China go back to before defeated Nationalists fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war with the Communists in 1949.

Beijing sees self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province to be retaken one day and bans actions that would confer sovereignty, such as negotiating territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou boarded one of the new ships on Saturday, observing rescue drills in waters off the southern Taiwan port city of Kaohsiung.

One of the vessels will be sent to the South China Sea, while the other will be assigned to waters north of Taiwan where it has overlapping claims with Japan.

Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported on Saturday that Group of Seven leaders meeting in Germany on Sunday would express their concern over any unilateral action to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas.

China has been criticized for extensive reclamation work and moves to turn submerged rocks into man-made structures. The United States last week said Beijing had placed mobile artillery systems in contested territory.

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)