Information that Monitoring MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena was holding a news conference at 7.53 a.m. on Thursday. The briefing was to take place in one hour and 30 minutes. As last-minute advisories went, this one took the cake.
But the media were raring to go. By now, it was widely known that Gunawardena had assaulted Chris Nonis, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Britain, after an argument in New York. News that the chief protagonist would now address journalists was hailed with unbridled enthusiasm.
Another advisory came by 8.30 a.m. instructing editors and news editors to give the Ministry names of media personnel attending the media conference. A third came at 9.01 a.m., confirming the news conference. The Sajin Vass Scandal Will They Say Nonis Slapped Himself by Thavam
Despite the drama staged by Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella last week when questioned about Chris Nonis’ assault and subsequent resignation, he had been well aware of the saga all along as his daughterChamithri Rambukwella had been present at the scene.
Keheliya and Chamitri
According to the Sunday Times political column, following are the officials who had attended the social gathering at the New Jersey residence of Dilan Ariyawansa(representative of Sri Lankan Airlines in New York) where Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to the UK – Chris Nonis was assaulted by External Affairs Monitoring MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena.
- Monitoring MP for the Ministry of External Affairs (EAM), Sajin de Vass
- Thanuja Geethendra Usliyanage, Minister (Political) – Sri Lanka Embassy in Washington DC
- Chamithri Rambukwella
Nonis had been verbally abused and had been assaulted that night by Vass. Due to hearing difficulties that Nonis experienced after the assault, he had proceeded to a New York hospital to get himself examined.
However, Vass has rejected these claims and has maintained that he never assaulted Nonis.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that an infuriated President Rajapaksa instructed External Affairs Minister GL Peiris, toaccept the resignation letter of Nonis on Friday while they were on tour to the Vatican for an audience with the Pope. Rajapaksa had been irritated with Nonis about him raising the slapping incident with Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, which led to Vass being prevented from meeting the Pope.
Colombo Telegraph was the first to report on Nonis being assaulted. President Rajapaksa attempted his level best to prevent the slapping incident form being reported in media. Upon his return to Colombo from New York, he took immediate steps to speak to all media institutions to ensure the incident was not reported. Despite his best efforts however, the story broke out in several websites but all of them have refrained from naming the assaulter as Vass. Read More
October 5, 2014 The University of Sabaragamuwa has been closed until further notice, following a tense situation which had prevailed within the university premises today, the Ministry of Higher Education said.
It has been reported that the decision was taken after a group of female university students had forcefully entered a boys’ hostel at the university.
Earlier today, police officers had intervened and dispersed a group of students who were obstructing the opening of a new hostel for girls at the Sabaragamuwa University by the Minister of Higher Education, S.B. Dissanayake.
The students had engaged in a protest against the opening of the hostel building this morning by blocking the road at Pabahinna as the minister arrived for the opening ceremony, claiming that the building was substandard.
Police had resorted to using water cannons in order to disperse the protesting students.
However, the building was eventually declared open by Minister S.B. Dissanayake, Ada Derana reporter said.
The stories about Indian Prime Minister Modi’s roving success, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha’s legal troubles, and the disgraceful slapping feat of a Sri Lankan presidential pipsqueak – are as much about personal character as they are about political circumstances. Modi is a quintessential political being, but he did not get where he is now on a sudden flight but along a long road of political training, toil and trial. That is also the root of Modi’s still remarkable performance and success as India’s Prime Minister. For Jayalalitha, political office fell on her lap as a result of her acting partnership with MG Ramachandran (MGR) in the Tamil film world. It was easy come just as in a movie, and now it seems it could be a tough go just as in real life when luck runs out and one has to account for one’s actions. As for the New York slapper, the less said of his career climb, the better. While characters respectively account for the success, the pathos and the slapping disgrace, the political implications could be quite far reaching; more so, given the inextricable triangulation involving Delhi, Chennai and Colombo.
At this stage, Prime Minister Modi looks stronger and more successful than what anyone could have imagined before the Lok Sabha election. And there is no indication that Modi’s honeymoon with India’s voters is going to end abruptly, or in the near future. This is not to say that there are no domestic issues or challenges, but on the external front Modi has so far been a singular success. I do not think any Indian Prime Minister has had the same reception in the US like Modi, since Jawaharlal Nehru visited America during the Eisenhower era. For someone who was denied US visa in 2005, Narendra Modi has done well to co-author an op-ed piece with President Obama for the Washington Post. Not just the US, Modi has had successful engagements so far with China, Japan and the fellow members of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) club of emerging economic powers.
Although he has been cleared by courts and judicial inquiries, Modi cannot shrug off the shame of the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. At the least, he should be criticized for his indifference, as Chief Minister, during the riots, even if he cannot be prosecuted for any alleged involvement in them. Modi appears to have developed his own method to deal with the accusation over Gujarat that follows him everywhere. There were protesters outside New York’s Madison Square Gardens while Modi was inside mesmerizing a full house of fawning Indian Americans. First, Modi seems to have broken away from the standard BJP playbook of disowning every aspect of Nehruvian and even Gandhian legacy that is part of India’s post-independence make-up. On the contrary, he has signaled that regardless of changes in government India must and will abide by its constitutional foundation, the federalist superstructure and the spirit of secularism. Second, Modi has vowed not only to digitize India and end its image as a land of "snake charmers and semi-naked fakirs", but also to clean up India’s filth by providing toilets to the vast majority who do not have any and putting an end to open defecation. In his Independence Day speech, breaking with the tradition of hypocritical solemnity, Modi said, "People may criticize me for talking about toilets from the Red Fort. But I am from a poor family and I have seen poverty first hand. For the poor to get dignity, it has to start from here."
Prosecuting corrupt politicos
Modi seems prepared to be swayed by the objective circumstances of his country and his office in spite of his subjective make-up stemming from his long apprenticeship under institutional RSS and association with the Hindutva ideology. Although his secular-elitist detractors remain unconvinced, Modi could ultimately prove them wrong by building a clean and egalitarian India that would make secularism more meaningful than being a lofty abstraction atop a mountain of filth. Another aspect of his personal character that is germane to the theme of this article is the ascetic in him, his sartorial fancy notwithstanding. There has hardly been an over-indulgent Indian Prime Minister, and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself was an exemplary ascetic. But unlike his see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil predecessor, Modi seems to mean business when it comes to insisting on honesty, probity, and the eschewing of nepotism in public life. Whether Modi can make a significant dent on the behemoth of Indian corruption is an open question, but his asceticism would certainly give him both a moral and practical advantage in making and enforcing political as well as diplomatic decisions.
By that standard, Chief Minister Jayalalitha in her current legal predicament should have ended up cremating all her political capital. On the contrary, and in clear illustration of the paradoxes of Indian and Tamil Nadu politics, Jaylalitha’s legal troubles are simply boosting and solidifying her popularity among her supporters. People have sacrificed their lives to protest against her incarceration. Suicide, always a worrisome phenomenon and never the expression of a rational state of mind, is indicative of the social circumstances that provide low tipping points to vulnerable individuals. Insofar as Tamil Nadu is known to have a higher proportion of social triggers and individual vulnerability than other states in India, the suicides over Jayalalitha’s imprisonment should be seen as a worrisome social phenomenon than a vindication of her actions.
Nonetheless, despite her legal difficulties and the possibility that she could never return to her office as Chief Minister, Jayalalitha appears to be stronger politically than she has ever been in Tamil Nadu. Her Party could still win the next state election due in 2016, and with a puppet Chief Minister, the remote control of the Tamil Nadu government could still be in her hands. But it will turn out to be pyrrhic power as the Tamil Nadu government potentially under remote control from a prison cell will have no credibility in federal-state transactions, not to mention the upshot of administrative chaos and governmental paralysis within Tamil Nadu. There is no easy out either for Jayalalitha or for the Tamil Nadu government who are caught between an assertive judiciary holding court in a different state, on the one hand, and loyal political supporters who do not seem to be ready to give up on their leader in a hurry.
Subramanian Swamy, who is the original complainant in the judicial trail that finally ended in the guilty verdict against Jayalalitha, has called for the imposition of Presidential rule in Tamil Nadu and the arrest of trouble makers as national security threats. This is over the top advice which, hopefully, will be ignored by the Modi government. The best way out would be for Jayalalitha herself to take time out of politics and let her Party select a new leader to head the Party and run the government, while she looks after her legal battles whether from jail, or out on bail. But that is not likely to happen, and the state that produced the likes of Rajaji, Kamaraj, Bhaktavatsalam and Annadurai as Chief Ministers may find itself in rather dire straits for a while before it could have normalcy restored.
Whether the Sri Lankan government will try to fish in the troubled waters of Tamil Nadu, or choose play it honest and straight with the Modi government in Delhi remains to be seen. As veteran journalist Lucien Rajakarunanayake perceptively noted in yesterday’s Island, the judgment against Jayalalitha may trigger calls for similar prosecutions of corrupt politicians in Sri Lanka. But there is also the risk of corrupt Lankan politicians taking a different cue from Tamil Nadu and whipping up their supporters to pre-empt such prosecutions. And need we compare the state of the judiciary in India with that in Sri Lanka? Left to themselves, corrupt politicians will never change their ways. And corruption comes in many forms; it was home-grown corruption of a certain kind that landed as a slap in distant New York. True to form, there has been no question or reprimand of the perpetrator, but only the reward of a flight to Rome and potentially a Papal audience to boot.
A need has arisen to prevent the BBS – Muslim divide from becoming an inflection point for radicalization of youth, through indoctrination in the future, that could lead to penetration of ISIS in Sri Lanka, warns retired Brigadier of the Indian Army, Rahul Bhonsle.
Brigadier Bhonsle, who is based in New Delhi, is at present, the Director, Security Risks Asia – A Pan Asian security risk management agency and author of Countering Transnational Terrorism and Beyond Bin Laden - Global Terrorism Scenarios.
In an exclusive interview with Ceylon Today, the New Delhi-based retired Brigadier said "In Sri Lanka, the cleavage between the BBS and the Muslim community is an emerging fault line,...
...in case there is further expansion of the same it could provide groups as the Al Qaeda propaganda tools to indoctrinate a few youth. As of now, I do not think that the situation has come, but the under currents need to be carefully monitored."
He also noted that spread of terrorism is slow burning and at present, Sri Lanka is fairly secure but there is a need to prevent the BBS-Muslim divide from becoming an inflection point for radicalization of youth through indoctrination in the future. Also providing a facilitative network for terror agencies such as Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is bound to have an internal backlash which has to be avoided at all costs. He added that in his estimation, there are about 100 Indians and four Maldvians ISIS members being identified and killed in Syria, thus, ISIS is at the 'door step'.
"The Islamic States of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have been able to indoctrinate a number of youth in the Indian Sub Continent. The London based International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) has identified in a December 2013 report some numbers (minimum - maximum) as follows from the region - Pakistan (7-330), China (6-100), Somalia (5-68), and Afghanistan (12-23). None have been identified from other countries but my estimate is for India (4-100) and Maldives (8-15). No input of Sri Lankans has been seen so far," he said.
He further said that the extremist groups exploit religious fault lines to advantage and are always on the lookout for expansion of their network by using dissensions in society.
"We need to remember that terrorism does not require widespread population support unlike militancy. Thus a few radicalized individuals are enough to carry out attacks.
"While as of now no known individual from Sri Lanka are known to have joined the ISIS there are confirmed reports of a few from India and Maldives. Plans by the AQIS and ISIS to indoctrinate some youth using the BBS fault line in the future, need to be monitored," he stressed.
Ayman al Zawahiri declared formation of the al Qaeda in the Indian Sub Continent (AQIS) in the beginning of September.
Oct 4 (Reuters) - Finance and development ministers from around the world next week will warn of considerable downside risks to the global economy, and call for an effort to protect the world's poor, according to the draft of a communique they plan to issue after a meeting on Saturday.
With Europe flirting with deflation, Japan not far from recession and a slowing economy in China, the world's No. 2 economy, there are worries the recovery from the deep 2007-2009 crisis is losing traction.
"The global economy remains on a cautious watch and is subject to considerable downside risks that could dent global growth and confidence," said the draft of a communique prepared for release by the joint IMF-World Bank Development Committee.
"The path to economic growth, job creation and shared prosperity will require a sustained multilateral effort to protect the poorest and most vulnerable."
A copy of the draft, which was obtained by Reuters, praised the World Bank for its response to the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 3,400 people in West Africa and called for quick and coordinated support to mitigate its impact.
The statement said 20 percent of the impoverished countries receiving aid from the World Bank's fund for the poorest have not shown per capita output growth since 2000 and are particularly in danger of being hit hard if the global recovery founders. It urged the bank and the International Monetary Fund to monitor low-income countries' vulnerability to shocks, including the dangers their public debts might pose.
It also called for similar short- and medium-term help from the World Bank and IMF for North Africa and the Middle East, especially countries in conflict. The World Bank also was encouraged to increase private investment opportunities in nations falling into conflict.
On other topics, the communique draft called for the two leading multilateral agencies, who are holding their annual meetings in Washington in the coming week, to expand their emphasis on gender equality and climate change, while helping countries with energy supplies and infrastructure investment.
The Development Committee acts as a steering group on development issues for both the IMF and World Bank. (Writing by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Bill Trott and Andre Grenon)
The former Central Bank Deputy Governor and presently Chairperson of HNB cum Presidential Advisor, Ranee Jayamaha, has shared her decades-long experiences in payment systems and banking stability with readers in Sri Lanka as well as outside. Her book, ‘The Money Pipeline: A Pillar of Financial Stability,’ containing her experiences on the subject has just been released.
The document, typed on perforated sheets, was seized by Iraqi special forces during a raid in March on the home of one of the commanders of ISIS.
By PTI | 5 Oct, 2014
LONDON: The Islamic State (ISIS) terror group plans to seize Iran's nuclear secrets, unleash a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing and Nazi-style eugenics to consolidate and expand its self-declared caliphate, according to a seized policy manifesto of the dreaded outfit.
The group urged its members to plan for war with Iran and has ambitions to seize Tehran's nuclear secrets in a manifesto believed to have been written by Abdullah Ahmed al-Meshedani, a member of the group's highly secretive six-man war cabinet.
The document, typed on perforated sheets, was seized by Iraqi special forces during a raid in March on the home of one of the commanders of ISIS, The Sunday Times reported today.
In the document, which has been examined by western security officials - who believe it to be authentic - Meshedani wrote that ISIS aims to get hold of nuclear weapons with the help of Russia, to whom it would offer access to gas fields it controls in Iraq's Anbar province.
Also, the documents said, Kremlin will have to give up "Iran and its nuclear program and hands over its secrets." Russia would also have to abandon support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and back the Gulf States against Iran.
Believed to be a policy manifesto prepared for senior members of ISIS, the document offers a unique insight into the ambitions of the Islamist commanders who have shocked the world with their fanaticism and brutality, the paper said.
The ISIS militants have captured a swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has declared himself as Caliph of the Islamic State.
The document contains 70 different plans like launching a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing, Nazi-style eugenics and intelligence gathering operations to consolidate and expand the group's self-declared Islamic caliphate, it said.
Meshedani, whose duties include managing suicide bombers, also calls for stripping Shia Iran of "all its power" and destroying the Shia ascendancy in Iraq.
He also incites followers to kill Iraqi military chiefs, Shia officials and Iranian-backed militias fighting for the Iraqi government, the paper said, citing the document.
A security source familiar with the document told the paper: "Nothing shocks western governments these days in relation to ISIS and its fanatical aspirations.
"And we've known and feared for some time that they want to obtain chemical and nuclear weapons."
In an indication of ISIS' brutal ideology, Meshedani writes that its intelligence operatives will "eliminate" its own leaders if they deviate from its "desired goal".
"The leadership of the political wing must know that it is being watched and listened to by the intelligence apparatuses which pass on everything," he warns them.
Meshedani also suggests buying islands from Yemen and the Comoros, in the Indian Ocean, "to establish a military base on the flank of the Arab lands".
சென்னை : சொத்துக் குவிப்பு வழக்கில் தண்டனை அறிவிக்கப்பட்டு, ஜெயலலிதா கைதாகி சிறையில் அடைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது குறித்து திமுக தலைவர் கருணாநிதி கருத்து தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.
முதல்வர் கருணாநிதி மற்றும் அவரது குடும்பத்தினருக்கு சொந்தமான சொத்துக்கள் என 60-க்கும் மேற்பட்ட, பல ஆயிரம் கோடி மதிப்புள்ள சொத்துக்களின் பட்டியலை வெளியிட்டுள்ளது டெல்லியிலிருந்து வெளியாகும் தி அதர் சைட் பத்திரிகை. இந்தப் பத்திரிகையின் ஆசிரியர் ஜார்ஜ் பெர்ணான்டஸ். கருணாநிதியின் நீண்ட கால நண்பரும் கூட. இந்தப் பத்திரிகையில் வெளியாகியுள்ள விவரங்களைப் பார்த்து பிரதமர் உள்ளிட்ட டெல்லி தலைவர்கள் ஆடிப் போய்விட்டதாக பரபரப்பாக பேசிக் கொள்கிறார்கள்.
An advisor to the head of the Ukrainian Security Services has said the agency is in the process of locating evidence of Russian-backed insurgents’ involvement in crimes against humanity. It has mapped out concentration camps located in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Slavyansk, Donetsk, and Kramatorsk. It also believes that Donetsk is the location for a number of mass graves.
Air strikes against Isis targets in northern Syria have failed to stop the militants from advancing towards the centre of the city of Kobani, Kurds have said, in the latest indication that aerial power alone may not defeat the jihadists.
Fighting between the Islamist militants and Syrian Kurds continued unabated despite another volley of coalition air strikes in and around the Kobani enclave, Idris Nassan, Kobani’s “foreign affairs minister”, told the Guardian.
“There are fierce clashes between Isis and YPG [People’s Defence Corps] fighters, at the moment mainly to the south-east of the city. Isis now stands at two kilometres from the city centre,” Nassan said by phone. “I can hear the bombs and shells here.”
According to Nassan, the situation was “under control for now”, but he underlined that air strikes had not deterred a further Isis advance.
“Air strikes alone are really not enough to defeat Isis in Kobani,” he stressed. “They are besieging the city on three sides, and fighter jets simply cannot hit each and every Isis fighter on the ground.”
He said Isis had adapted their tactics to military strikes from the air. “Each time a jet approaches they leave their open positions, they scatter and hide. What we really need is ground support. We need heavy weapons and ammunition in order to fend them off and defeat them.”
In Washington, the Pentagon listed the latest batch of air strikes unleashed on targets in Syria and Iraq, but made no mention of any attacks in or around Kobani. US firepower was concentrated on fighters near al-Mayadin, hundreds of miles to the south-east, and Raqqa, 70 miles east of Kobani.
In Washington, military hawks continue to argue for an escalation of the war in Syria and Iraq with the deployment of US ground troops – a move that Barack Obama has repeatedly ruled out.
“The strategy of aerial bombardment is not going to work to destroy Isil [Isis],” the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham told CNN. “At the end of the day, you cannot destroy Isil without a ground component.” He argued that training the inexperienced fighters of the Free Syrian Army in Saudi Arabia was “militarily unsound” and “will lead to their slaughter”.
His words were echoed in London by the former chief of the defence staff general Sir David Richards. “Air power alone will not win a campaign like this,” he told the Andrew Marr Show. “It isn’t actually a counter-terrorist operation. This is a conventional enemy in that it has armour, tanks, artillery, it is quite wealthy, it holds ground and it is going fight. So therefore you have to view it as a conventional military campaign.”
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, disagreed. “How you respond is not quite as straightforward as David Richards, much as I respect him, suggests,” he said. “I don’t think it is a question of simply ramping up conventional armed forces again as if we were fighting state to state conflicts.”
Kobani has emerged as the most important flashpoint between Kurds and jihadists in Syria, because of the strategic importance of the city and the sheer numbers of Kurds who sought refuge there in recent months. More than 100,000 have fled to Turkey in the face of the Isis advance, sharply aggravating historic tensions between Turks and Kurds. On Sunday, a stray shell hit a village on the Turkish side of the border, injuring five people.
Several MPs and representatives of Kurdish groups in Turkey arrived at the border to show solidarity with Syrian Kurds and to form a “human chain” stretching along villages bordering Kobani.
Meanwhile, Saleh Muslim, co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD), went to Ankara this weekend to hold meetings with Turkish security officials to discuss possible Turkish assistance in defending Kobani against Isis. Turkey’s government has vowed it will not sit idly by and let Kobani fall.
Turkish media reported that security officials in Ankara urged Muslim to convince the YPG, the armed wing of the PYD that is currently battling Isis in Kobani, to join the ranks of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and to “take an open stance against the Syrian regime” of Bashar al-Assad.
“We are calling on the international community to help us defend Kobani,” said Nassan. “Mr Muslim’s trip to Ankara is part of that call. Since Turkey agreed to join the international coalition to fight Isis, we ask them to help us, too.”
He said the exact outcome of the meetings remained unclear, but hinted that Muslim had asked Ankara to allow for the PYD, the Syrian Kurdish affiliate of the better-known Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), to receive arms from outside of Syria.
“If Isis takes Kobani, they will be right on the border with Turkey. This concerns not only us, but Turkey, too.”
British hostage David Bolam is set free after being held by Libyan militants for six months, after reports that a ransom was paid to secure his release.
David Bolam appeared in a video posted on Youtube in August.
The Foreign Office has confirmed the release of British man David Bolam from Libya, just days afteranother British hostage, aid worker Alan Henning, was killed by militants from the Islamic State group (IS) fighting in Iraq and Syria.
A ransom had been paid to Mr Bolam's captors via local political factions in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, according to the BBC, although the Foreign Office declined to comment on whether a payment was arranged - it does not support the payment of ransoms.
We have been supporting his family since he was takenForeign Office
Mr Bolam worked for the International School in Benghazi and went missing in May before appearing in a video posted online in August, in which he pleaded for his life.
He had been working in Libya for seven years and flew back to the UK on Thursday night.
"We are glad that David Bolam is safe and well after his ordeal, and that he has been reunited with his family," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said. "We have been supporting his family since he was taken."
The kidnapping of the 63-year-old had not been reported at the request of his family and the Foreign Office.
Violence has erupted in Libya as the armed groups that helped to topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 turn their guns on each other in a struggle for the country's vast oil resources and political domination.
British and American hostages
On Friday night a new video was posted online, appearing to show the murder of British aid worker Alan Henning by militants from IS following a threat to kill him last month.
The 47-year-old taxi driver from Salford was kidnapped last December in Syria, while he was delivering aid in the war-torn country.
The brutal murder of Alan Henning by Isil shows just how barbaric these terrorists arePrime Minister David Cameron
In this most recent video, the fourth apparent murder by the IS group, the group threatens an American hostage, identified as Peter Kassig.
Mr Henning was last seen at the end of a video posted online by IS three weeks ago, in which they threatened to kill him after apparently murdering David Haines.
Prime Minister David Cameron said Mr Henning's killers would be "hunted down and face justice"and met with security chiefs on Saturday morning to discuss the apparent murder.
"The brutal murder of Alan Henning by Isil shows just how barbaric these terrorists are," he added. "My thoughts are with his wife and their children."
Information that Monitoring MP Sajin de Vass Gunawardena was holding a news conference at 7.53 a.m. on Thursday. The briefing was to take place in one hour and 30 minutes. As last-minute advisories went, this one took the cake.
But the media were raring to go. By now, it was widely known that Gunawardena had assaulted Chris Nonis, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Britain, after an argument in New York. News that the chief protagonist would now address journalists was hailed with unbridled enthusiasm.
