Chamindu Amarsinghe rewarded with $81,597 in New Zealand 
 May 9, 2014 
Chamindu Amarsinghe said on Thursday he was speechless to hear he will get $81,597 of the cash he found at Channel 9's Docklands headquarters, after no one came forward to claim it.
 
The other $19,500 will go to the state, a magistrate ruled this week.
Mr Amarsinghe was tidying the ground floor toilets back in August 2011 when he found a sanitary bin flush with $510 and $100 notes.
 
"There was too much to count - I thought someone was playing a prank on me," he said.
"But when I touched the notes - all yellow and green - I realised it was real money."
The stunned worker immediately called his supervisor, and before long police and a plumber pulled more than $100,000 from that Bourke St bathroom - $1200 of it plucked from the pipes.
The suspicious stash sent investigators scrambling.
 
But police were never able to establish the origin of the cash, and no one ever came forward to claim it.
And so this week, the cleaner-turned-fast food worker, who's now studying IT in New Zealand, received a phone call to say the haul was his.

"I was speechless," Mr Amarsinghe said.
 
On Tuesday, in ordering the bulk of the cash should go to Mr Amarsinghe, magistrate Michael Smith said: "There's no reason why such honesty should go unrewarded."
Detective Senior Constable Daniel Thorne, who investigated the case, agreed.
 
"All the guys in the office felt the same. He's a struggling student who straight-up didn't even think of pocketing it," Sen-Constable Thorne told the Herald Sun.
The Melbourne Magistrates' Court heard that Sydney man Emerald Nguyen was charged with dealing with the proceeds of crime over the mystery cash haul.
 
But following a doctor's report, in which Mr Nguyen claimed he had been involuntarily drug affected and had no knowledge of the money coming into or leaving his possession, baffled investigators dropped the charges.
Mr Nguyen also signed a notice of abandonment, declaring he had no stake in the mystery haul.
His windfall was the second piece of wonderful news for Mr Amarsinghe this week: he also learned that he had been granted permanent residency in Australia.
 
"I just want to spend my life in a normal way, find a job in IT and carry out that dream," he said.
The money, he said, was a blessing. While he didn't know how he would spend it all, some would go to helping disabled people and some to a Buddhist temple in Berwick.
"I'm really, really lucky. I'm not going to waste it," he said.

VIDEO: Hospital director surrenders over hit-and-run death of pregnant woman

 

May 9, 2014
The motorist who is suspected of knocking down a pregnant woman in Pettah last month and fleeing the country has surrendered to police this morning. 

A pregnant woman was killed on April 27 following a hit-and-run accident in Gunasinghepura, Pettah. 

Lilan Piyaratne, the driver of the vehicle involved in the accident, had reportedly fled to the U.S. through Singapore following the incident.   

However, he had returned to Sri Lanka yesterday (08) and surrendered to the Pettah Police Station this morning. 

The suspect, a director of a private hospital in Colombo, is to be produced before the Aluthkade Court today, police said.

The Police Spokesman’s Office said that a request seeking Interpol red notice for the arrest of the suspect will be cancelled. 

Crimes against humanity by both sides in South Sudan conflict: UN

1 of 1Full Size

By Michelle Nichols-Fri May 9, 2014

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations accused both government and rebel forces in South Sudan on Thursday of committing crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and other sexual violence, during almost five months of fighting that has left thousands of people dead.

"The consequences for the civilian population have been devastating. There have been attacks on hospitals, churches, mosques, and United Nations bases," the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said in a human rights report.

The 62-page report called for further investigations after finding reasonable grounds to believe both parties in the conflict had violated international human rights and humanitarian law.

Violence erupted in the world's newest nation in December, between troops backing President Salva Kiir and soldiers loyal to his sacked deputy, Riek Machar.

The fighting has exacerbated ethnic tensions between Kiir's Dinka tribe and Machar's Nuer tribe, and the United Nations has warned that it risks spiraling into genocide.

"The number of civilian casualties is high, likely in the thousands, although to date no one has been able to establish an exact figure. A dismal pattern of violence and destruction has emerged as the two parties to the conflict gain and lose control of towns and surrounding areas," the report said.

These violations included extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, rape and other sexual violence, arbitrary arrests and detention, targeted attacks against civilians not taking part in the fighting, violence aimed at spreading terror among civilians, and attacks on hospitals and U.N. peacekeepers.

"In light of the widespread and systematic nature of many of the attacks, and information suggesting coordination and planning, there are also reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder, rape and other acts of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and imprisonment have occurred," found the report.

Several Security Council members on Friday called for the situation in South Sudan to be referred to the International Criminal Court after receiving a briefing on the conflict.

HATRED 'EXTREMELY DEEP'

The United States this week imposed sanctions on two people - one from each warring party - and is pushing the U.N. Security Council to also "authorize targeted sanctions against those who continue to undermine South Sudan's stability," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said on Tuesday.

Machar arrived in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa earlier on Thursday to meet Kiir, a rebel source said, as both sides faced strong international pressure to negotiate to end the conflict. [ID:nL6N0NU4LY]

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous is due to brief the council on the situation in South Sudan later on Thursday.

Hilde Johnson, head of the U.N. mission in South Sudan, told Reuters in Juba on Thursday that the violence had "put the country back decades" and if the fighting did not stop soon, the damage to the country could be "irreversible."

"The hatred is already actually extremely deep and it's going to be a very significant challenge to bridge those differences, to overcome them and to build a nation," she said.

The Security Council needs to renew the mandate for the U.N. mission by July. In December, it approved almost doubling the number of peacekeepers to 12,500 troops as violence worsened but so far, less than half of the 5,500 reinforcements have arrived.

The UNMISS report recommended: "Efforts to protect civilians must be enhanced. UNMISS' capacity should be strengthened, notably the additional troops authorized by the Security Council must be urgently deployed."

U.N. peacekeepers are protecting nearly 80,000 civilians at bases around the country in "the first instance of any United Nations mission providing protection to civilians facing imminent threat of physical violence on this scale or for this length of time," according to the report.

However, it warned that the U.N. mission continued to receive reports that when civilians leave the U.N. bases, they "have been subjected to ill-treatment, sexually assaulted, arbitrarily detained, or even killed."

(Additional reporting by Drazen Jorgic in Juba; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

What Baby Boomers’ Retirement Means For the U.S. Economy

FiveThirtyEight

By BEN CASSELMAN

For decades, the retirement of the baby boom generation has been a looming economic threat. Now, it’s no longer looming — it’s here. Every month, more than a quarter-million Americans turn 65. That’s a trend with profound economic consequences. Simply put, retirees don’t contribute as 

much to the economy as workers do. They don’t produce anything, at least directly. They don’t spend as much on average. And they’re much more likely to depend on others — the government or their own children, most often — than to support themselves.

What Baby Boomers’ Retirement Means for the U.S. Economy by Thavam Ratna

Journalist spotlight: Mike Williams on the Pulitzer Prize winning series

08 MAY 2014Thomson Reuters

Last month, Reuters was awarded its first-ever Pulitzer Prize for text reporting for the series, “The War on the Rohingya.” The Pulitzer committee recognized Reuters reporters Jason Szep, Andrew R.C. Marshall and team in the International Reporting category for “their courageous reports on the violent persecution of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in Myanmar that, in efforts to flee the country, often falls victim to predatory human-trafficking networks.” For two years, the team tirelessly investigated terrible human-rights abuses, bringing the international dimensions of the oppressed Rohingya to global attention. As a result of their work, more than 900 people were freed from brutal trafficking rings. In a Reuters Best: Journalist Spotlight Q&A, Mike Williams, Reuters global enterprise editor, offers an inside look at the reporting behind the award-winning series.

Journalist Spotlight Mike Williams on the Pulitzer Prize Winning Series by Thavam Ratna

Why did Burma deport a journalist reporting on press freedom?

Angus Watson was deported after covering a press freedom protest. Pic from Angus Watson's Facebook page.

By Francis Wade May 08, 2014

An Australian journalist with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) news group wasdeported from Burma today after being arrested whilst covering a media freedom protest. The charge given was two-fold: that Angus Watson, who joined the organization recently, had been working in the country on a business visa, and that he’d been taking part in the protest. It’s the second major blow for DVB in the space of a month, following the one-year jail termhanded to reporter Zaw Pe in April for “disturbing a civil servant” during an assignment in 2012.

There’s a bitter irony in the government’s decision to deport someone who at the time of arrest was covering a protest for greater press freedom – indeed the decision emphasizes exactly why that protest needed to happen. DVB has said explicitly that Watson was merely reporting, and not involved in the demonstration on May 7 – the video footage taken by his colleagues testifies to this. The two actions taken against DVB, a leading Burmese-run media group that is regularly critical of the government, and that until recently operated in exile, are among a number of recent signs that what appeared to be a promising media opening is now being constricted (several jailings of journalists have occurred recently).

It’s also no coincidence that the issues both Zaw Pe and Watson were covering happened in Magwe division. Journalists can operate relatively freely in Yangon, which is something of a showpiece for the reforms – rising tourist numbers, a burst of new construction, incoming western brands – but away from there things get more complicated. One of the major accusations leveled at this reform process is that while an economic transformation is underway, the same cannot be said for political freedoms (perhaps even that the former is distracting from the shortcomings of the latter). Moreover, that the progressive rhetoric of the government is simply not being realized on the ground, especially in more remote areas where local authorities continue to crack down on protests, confiscate farmland, and so on.

What the actions taken against Zaw Pe and Watson also signal is that reporting cannot be done where it is most needed – in the parts of Burma that have long been off the international radar, and where the reforms are yet to reach. For huge chunks of the country, particularly in the border regions, foreigners require prior permission before visiting, as thismap shows. The upshot is that when, for example, reporters from the New York Times visiteda town in northern Arakan state in March to report on allegations of a massacre by Burmese soldiers, they were promptly ordered out of town, leaving the scale of the incident shrouded in uncertainty, and conveniently so for Naypyidaw.

The government will respond that they did things by the book – Watson did not have the visa they stipulate he needed to  work as a journalist in Burma. But there are still major obstacles to attaining a journalist visa, given many journalists work freelance, while others are attached to organisations that the government hasn’t given full legal status to. The point is that journalism shouldn’t stop because a government is fearful of open reporting – paradoxically, that’s exactly why journalists need to think of alternative ways of going about their job and circumventing restrictions that a true democratic transition should be working to lift. In Burma’s case, those restrictions appear to be tightening again.

MPs: Snowden files are 'embarrassing indictment' of British spying oversight

All-party committee demands reforms to make security and intelligence services accountable in wake of disclosures

The report says the current system of oversight of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, pictured, is 'designed to scrutinise the work of George Smiley, not the 21st-century reality'. Photograph: Reuters

Alan Travis, home affairs editor

Friday 9 May 2014

Edward Snowden's disclosures of the scale of mass surveillance are "an embarrassing indictment" of the weak nature of the oversight and legal accountability of Britain's security and intelligence agencies, MPs have concluded.

MPs Snowden Files Are 'Embarrassing Indictment' of British Spying Oversight by Thavam Ratna

Nigeria: mass-burials seen after Boko Haram attack

FRIDAY 09 MAY 2014
A local trader who survived Monday's Boko Haram attack on a remote town in Nigeria says he saw mass burials taking place straight after the gunfire.

A 12-hour-long attack on Gamborou Ngala town in Borno state in the north east of Nigeria left at least 300 dead on Monday after gunmen suspected of being Boko Haram terrorists opened fire in a market before attacking local homes. The militants were said to have sprayed gunfire into the crowds at a busy market. They were then said to have moved into the town itself where they set shops and homes ablaze and gunned down residents as they tried to escape the flames.

Nigeria Mass-burials Seen After Boko Haram Attack by Thavam Ratna

Army says no to Mullivaikal events                    

 War Crimes in Sri Lanka-genocide

By admin on May 7, 2014

The army has said that students will not be allowed to hold commemorative events at the Jaffna university in relation to some incidents alleged to have taken place during the final stages of the war in Mullivaikal.

Jaffna Security Forces Commander Major General Udaya Perera had met the Jaffna university administration and student union representatives at the Thalsevana resort in Jaffna today.

According to the Jaffna based Uthayan newspaper, Perera had said that Mullivaikal remembrance events cannot take place in an organised manner.

He had said that students can, individually, have events in their private homes but not in public places or at the university premises.

Perera said that holding such events in the university could stir emotions and tensions and there is also a fear that some may attempt to glorify LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabakaran at such an event.

Tamils in the north and human rights groups claim that thousands of civilians were killed during the final stages of the war in Mullivaikal.

The Sri Lanka army will be celebrating five years on May 18 since the defeat of the LTTE. (Colombo Gazette)

This Government Cares Too Hoots For ‘Good Governance’

By Vishnuguptha -May 8, 2014

This Government cares too hoots for ‘good governance’

They think it’s their grandmother’s gift…

It is rumored in Colombo circles that Priyantha Jayewardene was once employed by a Sri Lankan business tycoon who was known to be very close to Chandrika Bandaranaike when she was President and when the current holder assumed office, this businessman managed to carve his path to the inner circles of the regime. He is a mega player in financial circles, not only in Sri Lanka but may be even in the entire subcontinent. His personal wealth, thanks mainly to the opening of the economy in 1977 by the United National Party Government, is enormous and some say beyond physical measure. Well, that is beside the point. Nevertheless, this tycoon’s money has virtually assured him of a semi-permanent place in any governing cabal, democratic or autocratic or even in a dictatorship. In a typical regime whose econo-political philosophy is ‘crony-capitalism’, this guy is undoubtedly one of the ‘star cronies’.

Priyantha Jayawardena

Catapulting one of his employees to the highest echelons of the Judiciary is no mean accomplishment, even for our business tycoon, with all his expendable cash and power. With many commercial and financial transaction litigations looming, favorable findings by the Supreme Court of the land could be made possible and even probable with his ‘agent’ garbed in a judicial cloak in court. The sinister planning and plotting, however crude and unsophisticated the whole process would have been, must have consumed a lot of forward thinking on the part of the players, bosses and subordinates alike.

Now it’s a fait accompli.

This Government is no foreigner to corruption; it’s no tyro in the art and science of nepotism; thinking that political power has bestowed on them the entire power one could possibly have in the Universe and they would be totally lost and forlorn the day that power is stripped from them. Consequently they would resort to any and all means to hold on to that power, come what may. Yet, unlike Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)-led coalitions in the past, these fellows seem to have mastered the craft so well. They have certainly studied the theories of Joseph Goebbels who was a German politician and Nazi Reich’s Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945 and other propaganda craftsmen of the Soviet-era. They are certainly not grappling in the dark. In their unholy pursuit of falsehood and deception, they have found the nerve-center of a great majority of Sri Lankans, especially Sinhalese-Buddhists. And that is this sense of false patriotism and phony Sinhalese-Buddhistness.

                                                                     Read More

From Elephant-Thieves To Tractable-Judges: Life In The Hub

| by Tisaranee Gunasekara

“The Bad Lands and the sinister direction?”

Auden (The Crossroads)

( May 8, 2014, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Imagine a Sri Lanka without the 18th Amendment.

There would have been repression and corruption, illegality and impunity, but not too far in excess of the normal Lankan template. The final term of President Rajapaksa would be drawing to a close. Any attempt to perpetuate Familial Rule by nominating Basil, Chamal or Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as the UPFA presidential candidate would have been robustly resisted by the SLFP. Since the 17th Amendment would still exist, the Elections Commissioner, the police and the judiciary might be less subservient, especially with the Rajapaksa years drawing to a close.

From Elephant-Thieves to Tractable-Judges Life in the Hub by Thavam Ratna