IUSF protest 2016-03-15 Protest march organised by Inter-University Students Federation (IUSF) was held at the Colombo, Fort this evening against the ‘privatization of free education’. Pix by Lal S. Kumara
An oxymoron is a situation where seemingly contradictory elements are brought together. In the present case the contradictory elements are innovation and public universities. I have been hearing so much about our public universities as leaders of innovation that I feel we need to keep harping about the quality of our universities and why they need to innovate before they help others.
The impetus for this column is an initiative by GIZ to build university-industry partnerships under the broader theme of developing the SME sector in Sri Lanka. Two seminars have been held to date. I attended both. The content was educational about innovation in SMEs, but I confess I was sceptical about the role of public universities.
The second seminar was more useful because there was participation by CINEC, a private higher education institution and Brandix, a major export-oriented company. While university representatives talked about government interventions to build functioning eco-systems and so on, the private sector came up with more practical approaches.
The Brandix representative noted how a program co-organised with MIT, USA, could not be carried out as planned because our universities did not have a synchronised academic calendar which would give extended period of off-days or vacation time for our students at a designated time of the year.
Captain Ajit Pieris of CINEC pointed out that the priority of our universities is to turn out innovative graduate and leave it to the graduates to bring innovation to the SME sector. Comments from the audience was to the effect that our universities should be innovators themselves.
Yes, public universities need to innovate first
Universities are conservative institutions. European and US universities have survived over five centuries by adapting while preserving their structures more or less. Roger L. Geiger identifies 10 stages of adaptation demonstrated by universities over the five centuries. We will look at the more recent history where the trendsetter has been the USA.
The 1900 to 1945 period was the ‘Growth Period’ fuelled by increasing admission of war veterans to the universities. The 1945 to 1970 is called the ‘Academic Revolution’ with universities being major players in the technological pursuits of the Cold War.
Sunday’s power outage has left the government groping in the dark once again. It occurred even before the high-powered committees recently appointed to probe the previous power failure in February had submitted their reports.
The latest power outage has come at a time the government is making a much-advertised effort to provide every household with electricity before the traditional New Year next month. Every family needs electricity and the government’s concern is to be appreciated. But, while pursuing its ambitious goal, it ought to ensure a reliable power supply throughout the country. Power cuts, blackouts and brownouts are common in most areas, especially in Colombo suburbs.
The Chinese-built Norochcholai coal-fired power plant is like a Sri Lankan university; it shuts down at the first sign of trouble and takes a long time to return to normal. The government has warned that more power failures are likely to occur within the next few days. All signs are that we will have to live with blackouts indefinitely.
Persistent power outages point to the need for enabling people to tap solar power and feed the national grid with excess electricity they generate. That is the best way the country can overcome its dependency on expensive thermal power generation without polluting the environment. As for power outages, the clichéd silver lining is that the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is driving the people to generate their own power. It is high time the government gave serious thought to introducing a soft loan scheme and drastic tax cuts to encourage the public to opt for solar power without depending on the national grid.
It may not be fair to lay the blame for the sorry state of affairs in the power sector at the doorstep of the present administration. Successive governments have played politics with power generation. However, the onus is on the present dispensation to explain how it is going to meet the huge increase in the demand for power its Megapolis project will bring about. The CEB has demonstrated its inability to maintain a reliable power supply even without having to supply power to mega projects like the Colombo Port City. How bad the situation will be in case of the implementation of such grandiose projects is not difficult to imagine.
CEB Engineers’ Union chief Athula Wanniarchchi insists that the transformer which exploded at Biyagama, causing Sunday’s power outage was 30 years old. He does not subscribe to the view that the explosion was an act of sabotage. But, the government has decided to deploy the army to guard power facilities. One is intrigued. Are the government worthies tilting at CEB sub-stations in quixotic style?
When the government dismantled checkpoints, reopened roads and started releasing terror suspects we thought threats to national security were over. It looks as if the government were trying to deflect public criticism through such tactics. Investigations into the previous power failures did not reveal anything sinister. So, it is puzzling why the army has been tasked with protecting CEB facilities. Does the government think the police are not equal to the task? (It is the police who are protecting President Maithripala Sirisena!)
Unless a reliable power supply can be ensured, the government might as well forget about attracting foreign direct investment. Investors cannot be expected to bring their generators, can they?
CEB Chairman Anura Wijayapala offered to resign over Sunday’s power outage. Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya has refused to accept his resignation letter, we are told. His resignation would not have helped solve the problem which is systemic in nature. Everything is rotten about the CEB and resignations, piecemeal remedies and gimmicks such as the deployment of the army to project CEB facilities won’t do. The need for a national strategy to modernise the power sector which is an ailing dinosaur cannot be overemphasized. That is as important as constitution making.
‘Ravaya’, in its latest issue, has published an article titled ‘Newspapers in money laundering’. According to sources at the newspaper, the article is targeting ‘Sathhanda’ newspaper.
The ‘Ravaya’ article says,
‘No one knows who is funding the newspaper. But, on payday, someone comes and hands over money to the management to pay the salaries.’ That is how one of our colleagues in the newspaper described how they get paid.
That is true. In some newspapers in Sri Lanka, the journalists do not know who the owners are. They do not go to find out either.
At one time, newspapers were owned by casino businessmen. At other time, the owners were politicians. Another time, as our colleague said, ‘nobody knows’ the owner.
What is surprising is that the revolutionaries in these media institutions, who criticize everyone in the outside, big or small, for money laundering and massive rackets, do not find out the sources from which they get paid, or even if they do not, look the other way and talk about what is wrong elsewhere in the country.
A recent survey showed that Sri Lanka had only two profit-earning newspaper companies. One is Wijaya Newspapers, the publisher of ‘Lankadeepa.’ The other is Express Newspapers that publishes ‘Virakesari.’
The other newspaper institutions are running at losses. To run at a loss, money will have to be pumped from some source. Where does that money come from?
Some newspaper institutions have their own diversified businesses. The profits thus earned could be invested on the newspapers. However, there are institutions that do not belong to that category and run only newspapers, and from where do they get funds?
2016-03-15 Saman Jayalath, found guilty of the charge of murdering five-year-old Seya Sadewmi of Kotadeniyawa, was sentenced to death by the Negombo High Court today. He was also sentenced to 60 years in jail on the three counts of Sixty years imprisonment was abducting, abusing and raping the little girl. Seya Sadewmi disappeared from her home on September 11 last year and her body was discovered two days later. The murder investigation was surrounded by controversy with several suspects including a schoolboy being arrested and later released based on DNA tests.(Tony Karunaratne)
Some days ago, a boy was denied access to an education on the suspicion that he had HIV/AIDS. It seemed the entire Sri Lankan rose up in protest over his plight – and over the retarded comments of the Education Minister, who tried to make a case for separating the child from his mother.
And what did we do? Nothing, of course.
Three people, however, carried on the fight. Kamani Jinadasa, Senany Dayaratne and Thishya Weragoda continued pushing the Supreme Court to make sure that this would never happen again. And yesterday, K Srivpana, 44th Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, ruled in the Supreme Court that every citizen over the age of five years has a right to education at any government school in the country, HIV or no HIV.
Not only does this make it illegal for such idiocy as we witnessed not too long ago: it also sets a precedent for other HIV/Aids victories. After all, we live in a country where the discussion of sex is taboo, an STD worse than an exorcism, and an entire village and a Minister ostracize a child over the mere suspicion of him being infected.
Kamani Jinadasa, Thishya Weragoda and Senany Dayaratne
In this nation, these three have made history: together with Counsel Senani Dayaratne, they fought on behalf of a petition put forward by the mother of said child, seeking a legal declaration that the child would be allowed an unobstructed education in a government school within two miles of her residence. Cited in the petition (I’m assuming as Imbeciles-In-Chief) were Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, J. G. N. Thilakaratna, the Provincial Director of Education, A. S. K. Jayalath Zonal Director of Education, the Principals of three schools, the Education Ministry Secretary, IGP and the Attorney General as infringing on the rights of her child to equal treatment and non-discrimination under the law of the country.
Gota, dynasties and retribution Wednesday, 16 March 2016 Speaking to the media recently, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the former Defence Secretary, sought to explain the ongoing inquiries into serious “mishandling” of public funds by the Rajapaksa family and their associates, by reiterating the common defence of a political vendetta.
Taking up the pose of a person wronged, he claimed that this is the usual reward in our history for those who have done “service” to the country. The historical process will also visit those behind the present persecutions, and he warns; “in a manner hundred times worse”. Rajapaksa does not say whether this increase of “hundred times” in the scale of the historical retribution is warranted because the unnamed perpetrators are doing hundred times more “service” to the country. Proportionality, reasoning and even humility are not the strongest mental aspects of those who think in terms of dynasties and their entitlements. As a family they are special, gifted with sharp insight and awesome skills, taking to public life only because of their infinite love for the poor.
Fall of long-entrenched dynasties
During the so-called Arab Spring (2010/11) we saw several long-entrenched dynasties fall rapidly in country after country in the Middle-East. In Egypt, the all-powerful Mubarak, after ruling for 30 years, in Libya, the Gadaffi family in control for more than 40 years, in Tunisia, Zine Ben Ali family, 25 years of absolute power, were all swept away in one angry wave of public opprobrium. And a few years prior to that, in Iraq, the cruel regime of Saddam Hussein family was ended after much bloodshed and turmoil, that unfortunate legacy continuing even today. Before the deluge, these families were the defenders of the faith, protectors of the clan and the best hope against the wiles of the West!
Until oil was discovered in their lands, the Middle-Eastern countries were economically weak and of little significance in a global sense. Invariably, their leadership seemed corruptible; cunning, narrow minded men, ruling their semi feudal societies with iron fists. Petro dollars changed the image of the landscape from an arid inhospitable desert to a gushing money spring, drawing millions to the Arabian sands in search of fortunes.
15 March 2016 The body of a 19 year old boy who went missing last week, was found on Monday in Trincomalee said the local police.
The youth, identified as Murugathas Harithas, from Varothaya town, was last seen by his father on Friday morning when he left to cut Palmyrah tree branches.
Murugathas did not return home that night, prompting his father to file a complaint with Uppuveli police.
His body was found in the hill region by by the Varothaya Amman temple.
By Mahinda Therasinghe and Rupasena Pattuwa -2016-03-16
The body of 29-year-old Sumith Prasanna Jayawardene, who was killed in a clash involving Police personnel in Embilipitiya, was exhumed last morning for another post-mortem JMO probe before the Embilipitiya Additional Magistrate Prasanna Fernando. The Court issued the order to exhume his body on 10 March in order to conduct a second post-mortem examination in response to a request made by the Attorney General's Department.
State Counsel appearing for the Attorney General's Department requested Court to grant permission for a new postmortem examination to be carried-out by a panel of Judicial Medical Officers. The AG's Counsel informed Court that the report submitted by the Ratnapura Hospital JMO was contradictory to the evidence, and need further elucidation.
World population is heading for a disaster due to excessive use of antibiotics. Unless preventive measures – though difficult – steps are taken immediately to contain the worldwide man made epidemic world is facing the danger of reaching a post antibiotic era soon . 50% of the antibiotics manufactured globally is mainly used in agritcultire, and human food chain entering the human body in some way via food giants in the food chain threatening to develop resistance for antibiotics even for a minor ailment as in the case of HIV. There is a possibility this proportion is likely to reach 75% in the year 2050.Antibiotics are substances used to kill microorganisms or to stop them from growing most which are necessary for the natural growth of agritcultire l products.
Death attributed to antibiotic resistance by 2050 is shown by researchers are alarmingly high as follows. (Asia 4,730000 Europe, 390000 North America, 317000 Latin America, 392000 Africa 4150000 and Oceanid 22000.) World Consumer Federation has chosen this topic as the theme of the year 2016, considering the impending danger of the process to avoid a post antibiotic era for the modern world. Due to the greed and the selfishness of the human being, the situation appears to be worsening with no signs of checks and balances. Destruction of the environment, preparation of adulterated food, manufacture of drugs of inferred quality, sheer disregard of the side effects of inferior drugs in the world -especially in the developing world market, spread of drug menace worldwide, use of poisonous fertilizer and contamination of water sale of junk food in large scale are some of the main factors catalysing the destruction process of the human race. Sri Lanka is an easy pray for the rough wave of the menace reaching us at a terrific speed. Drug is a mafia which is considered the most lucrative business in the globe. It is difficult to seek justice from a mafia until and unless the states and organizations work together against these powerful groups. It is time for a UN convention on this arena.
Story and pix by Nayanajeewa Bandara-Sunday, March 13, 2016
Located in the salubrious climes of the Ella Divisional Secretariat, the village of Udawadiya is steeped in history; with the village itself being the site of some famous battles against the Portugese when they attempted to ravage their country.
Unfortunately even today, residents of this small village snuggled in a corner of the Badulla district are still forced to use ox-drawn carts and cattle as their means of transport as there are no roads which could facilitate vehicular traffic.
Though the village is blessed with natural resources, a plentiful supply of water from the Menik Ganga and is agriculturally productive, many of the families have begun to leave the area due to a lack of basic facilities as well as the fact that they are completely isolated from the rest of society. School children are forced to walk around seven to nine km to reach the nearest school!
All 142 families in the village share a common surname –Ranbanda Devalage- indicating they hail from one or few of the families who originally inhabited the area.
The people of Udawadiya hope, that with so many development projects planned around the country, the authorities will notice their plight and help develop their village too.
Cattle remain the only form of transport of goods and services
ices
There are no macadamized roads… children are forced to walk 7 – 9 km to get to school These terraced paddy fields were the site of many a famous battles against imperial armies attempting to invade the hill country Even in case of illness families have to walk long distances to get medical aid Time seems to have stood still at Udawadiya… wattle and daub huts are still the norm in the village
A steam locomotive operated by Palestine Railways, photographed in the Marj Ibn Amer plain in southern Galilee in 1946.
Abdelmajeed al-Mubayed still remembers when the train used to pass by his house.
The 80-year-old, whom everyone knows as Haj Abu Muhammad, likes to entertain his grandsons with tales of running after the Cairo-bound train as it billowed smoke. Picking up a head of steam for the long journey ahead, the train made its way through his neighborhood of Shujaiya in Gaza City.
“I can still hear the sound of the train,” he told The Electronic Intifada. “I remember the room where they used to sell tickets and deliver parcels.”
Those days are long gone. But there have been a number of suggestions in recent years that a Palestinian railroad should be brought back. In December 2015, the Palestinian Authority’s transport ministry announcedplans to link the West Bank and Gaza by a rail network, which could then be extended to neighboring countries.
Much of this would demand a political settlement with Israel as well as agreement with a country like Egypt. In the current climate, such breakthroughs appear to be a long way off.
Nevertheless, the news set tongues wagging and memories stirring.
Forged in war
Hamid Ahmad remembers frequent journeys on the train. A dentist, Ahmad, 75, studied and received his qualifications in Cairo between 1959 and 1965. In those days, Ahmad said, the journey was easy and pleasant.
“Travel was a joy. Before we entered Egypt, we would have our papers checked, but the procedures were simple. Egypt used to welcome us at any time,” he said.
It is a stark contrast to the situation today when Gaza is cut off from the rest of the world, and Palestinians face draconian measures to pass through — on the very few occasions they are allowed to even try — either the Erez checkpoint into present-day Israel or the Rafah crossing into Egypt.
It is not hard to see why those who remember it, remember the railroad as a golden time in Gaza.
But it is sometimes overlooked that Palestine’s rail network was forged in war.
During the First World War, gaining control of the railways was a key objective for the rival powers. One method used by the British to gain control of Palestine was to build their own railways and destroy those of theOttoman Empire.
Following the war, Palestine became well served for both domestic and international travel.
The rail connections that Palestinians used to enjoy started to deteriorate when the State of Israel was founded in 1948. Traveling between Egypt and Gaza has become increasingly difficult because of restrictions on movement imposed since 1967. The territories invaded and occupied by Israel that year included Gaza and the neighboring Egyptian Sinai.
Distant dreams
Today, talk of railways and connections with neighbors has slipped down the list of priorities for the political elite. When announcing a ““lasting truce” in Gaza after Israel’s 2014 assault, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, mentioned no plans for a rail link between the West Bank and Gaza or any similar national infrastructure projects to promote the economic rehabilitation of the battered strip of land.
And with relations between Egypt and Hamas strained and a concerted Egyptian effort to cut off Gaza from access to the outside world, thoughts of a direct train to Cairo seem like pipe dreams.
Some have kept dreaming, all the same. Among them, evidently, are Samih Tubeileh, the PA’s transport minister. His plans to link West Bank cities with railroads, and find land routes between Palestine, Egypt and Israel were widely covered.
In a phone interview with The Electronic Intifada, Tubeileh said his ministry is working on an inclusive traffic plan for Palestine in which five foreign and Palestinian companies are involved. The plan is multi-phased, according to the minister: it starts by connecting the cities and towns of the West Bank, moves on to connecting the West Bank with Gaza, before connecting to other countries.
Pressure
“We talked to the EU, especially France, about politically and financially supporting the project. We asked them for a detailed study, and to provide the required support to establish the project and assist in obtaining licenses from the Israeli side,” said Tubeileh.
Ultimately, any such project would require Israeli approval, unlikely to be given absent a broader political agreement. Still, Tubeileh said, the PA was pushing for French and EU pressure on Israel.
Al-Mubayed does not know if the trains will ever come back to Gaza. And if they did, theirs would not be the steam engine noise of his memory.
Nevertheless, what little remains of the railway can still be seen in his neighborhood. There is little doubt al-Mubayed would like the chance to once again see a train take people from Gaza to Egypt and from there the outside world, needing just their travel documents.
Reviving the “glories of the railway,” al-Mubayed said as his grandsons gathered round him at dusk, would be very significant. It should be one of the most “important demands” for Palestinians. It would make life “much easier for the people of Gaza,” he said, and ensure a “better future for our grandsons.”
15 March 2016 One suspect has been shot dead, officials say, and as many as two others are said to be on the run after a counter-terrorism raid in Brussels.
The suspects were believed to have been barricaded in a flat after earlier firing shots at the police.
Four police officers were wounded in the south Brussels suburb of Forest.
French police also took part in Tuesday's operation.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said a French policewoman was one of the officers wounded in the raid on the flat.
Schools in lockdown
Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor, had earlier confirmed that "police were fired at" during the operation, and confirmed it was "linked to the Paris attacks investigation".
A major police operation was launched, with helicopters flying overhead and roads blocked in an area of Forest close to railway lines used by high-speed trains to London and Paris. Two local schools and two kindergartens were in lockdown.
"Two individuals apparently barricaded themselves inside a home,'' Forest mayor Marc-Jean Ghyssels then told reporters.
Local media also reported that police had surrounded a flat before further shots were fired.
"One body has been found during a search of the house in the Rue du Dries. His identity isn't yet known but in any case it's not that of Salah Abdeslam," said the prosecutor's spokesman.
Abdeslam is one of two suspects still on the run after the 13 November attacks in Paris. French police sources had said earlier that he was not the target of Tuesday's raid.
With the operation at that apartment over, police told the BBC they were widening their search of the area - possibly involving a second location.
The BBC's Anna Holligan at the scene says a huge police presence remains, with heavily armed officers on the streets and helicopters hovering overhead.
She says it is still unclear how many, if any, suspects remain at large.
Most of the suspects either died during the attacks or were killed in subsequent police raids.
In addition, 11 people have been arrested and charged in Belgium in connection with the killings. Another eight are still in detention.
Parts of Brussels were sealed off for days after the Paris massacre amid fears of a major incident. A number of suspected attackers lived in the Belgian capital.
Police have also carried out a series of raids in the city.
March 15, 2016Police inspect the Volkswagen in the Bismarckstrasse area of Berlin. German police said on Twitter that they think an explosive device detonated while the car was being driven.Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
BERLIN — A blast from an explosive device tore apart a moving car in a Berlin neighborhood Tuesday, killing the driver in an incident authorities believe was possibly linked to criminal gangs.
Investigators said the blast in the Charlottenburg neighborhood of western Berlin did not appear to have terrorism ties, and the driver had been previously under scrutiny for alleged connections to drug networks.
“We are investigating in the direction of organized crime, and it doesn’t look at all like a terrorist attack at this point,” said Berlin police spokesman Michael Merkle.
Images showed a gray, 4-door Volkswagen Passat, its hood crumpled and its doors bent. The vehicle was apparently in motion, traveling down the city’s Bismarck Street, when it exploded, according to Merkle.
Merkle confirmed that the driver was a 43-year-old male of “a migrant background,” but gave no further details. He said the man, according to Spiegel online, had been investigated before for alleged drug dealing.
One person is killed after a car explodes while moving along a road in central Berlin, police say. (Reuters)
It remained unclear, however, whether an explosion device in the car was set off on purpose or accidentally tripped.
“Our specialists are now looking into how this occurred in an extensive investigation,” Berlin police said in a tweet.
European nations including Germany have been high alert after several foiled terror plots following the November siege in Paris by Islamist extremists.
Souad Mekhennet in Tunis and Stephanie Kircher in Berlin contributed to this report.
Saudi-led coalition blamed for carnage as bombs hit Yemen market Two reported air strikes hit busy market in Mastaba, in Houthi-held Hajja province, killing at least 41 people and littering streets with bodies Local witnesses held Saudi coalition jets responsible for the attack (AFP)
Tuesday 15 March 2016
The Saudi Arabian-led coaltion in Yemen has been blamed for the deaths of scores of people in an attack on a market in the Houthi-controlled province of Hajja.
The attack on Tuesday killed at least 41 and wounded 75 others in the city of Mastaba, according to the Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA.
Local news site Sahafah, which is known to support the Houthis, reported that the death toll had risen as high as 107, though these figures could not be independently verified.
The political high command of the Houthi movement said it held the Saudi-led responsible for the attack. The Saudi government has not commented.
The AP news agency reported witnesses as saying the attack was an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition opposed to the Houthis, although Middle East Eye cannot verify the report.
The scene was terrifying," Showei Hamoud told AP. "Blood and body parts everywhere. People collected the torn limbs in bags and blankets."
Witnesses said that at least two bombs hit the market and there were no military targets in the area. Photos on Twitter showed horrific scenes of the dead and dying in the aftermath.
A Houthi-run TV network showed footage of the aftermath of the attacks in which dead children and charred bodies were visible.
A spokeswoman for the NGO Doctors Without Borders told the AP news agency that at least 40 of those wounded were transferred to a hospital nearby.
The political high command of the Houthi bloc on Tuesday evening held the Saudi-led coalition responsible for the bombing, saying in a statement that the attack "does not in any way help us achieve peace.
"Rather, it will lead to a continuation of war and an escalation in the situation on the ground," said the statement, quoted by the Houthi-run al-Masirah website.
Hajja fell to the Houthis in September 2014. It has has been targeted several times by the Saudi-led coaltion, including air strikes on a water-bottling plant in August which killed 34 people and injured dozens.
Rights groups have repeatedly urged the coalition to avoid causing civilian casualties.
Last month, Human Rights Watch accused the coalition of using US-supplied cluster bombs.
The coalition has said that an independent inquiry would examine charges of possible abuses against civilians in the conflict.
A panel of UN experts says the coalition has carried out 119 sorties that violated humanitarian law, and called for an international probe.
Saudi Arabia last year formed a coalition to support the Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi in his war with the Houthi movement, which took control of large areas of the country after kicking Hadi out of the capital Sanaa.
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/least-65-killed-after-saudi-led-warplanes-hit-yemeni-market-reports-1496546013#sthash.2K5fsqKh.dpuf
The Halayeb Triangle is a disputed region between Egypt and Sudan
Mar-14-2016
Mar-14-2016
(KHARTOUM, Sudan) - A confidential letter from the Saudi embassy in Sudan to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, was leaked out and provoked controversy in Sudanese media.
The letter purportedly reports a meeting between Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour, Saudi ambassador to Sudan and an European expert on the sidelines of the Twenty-sixth African Union summit in Addis Ababa.
According to the leaked document, Saudi Arabia has expressed its full support for Sudan over the disputed Halayeb Triangle with Egypt, emphasizing on granting Khartoum much-needed economic and political support.
On the other hand, the Sudanese government has vowed to coordinate with KSA to reframing its relations with the Palestinian factions.
Since 1902, the Halayeb Triangle is known as a disputed region between Egypt and Sudan. British colonial rule intervention in demarcation in North Africa has led to never-ending political and military tensions in the region while the both sides insist on their sovereignty on the disputed region.
Observers believe that deep divisions between Riyadh and Cairo thawed the Riyadh- Khartoum relations and changed the Saudi regime’s political stance toward Sudan.
Meanwhile, intelligence sources reported that above-mentioned European expert--that met Sudanese minister in Addis Ababa—was actually a high-level official of the Israeli Mossad.
The report also drew the ire of the Palestinian media as they accused Sudan of betrayal.
2016-03-15
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
An oxymoron is a situation where seemingly contradictory elements are brought together. In the present case the contradictory elements are innovation and public universities. I have been hearing so much about our public universities as leaders of innovation that I feel we need to keep harping about the quality of our universities and why they need to innovate before they help others. 
Sunday’s power outage has left the government groping in the dark once again. It occurred even before the high-powered committees recently appointed to probe the previous power failure in February had submitted their reports.
Mar 15, 2016
Not only does this make it illegal for such idiocy as we witnessed not too long ago: it also sets a precedent for other HIV/Aids victories. After all, we live in a country where the discussion of sex is taboo, an STD worse than an exorcism, and an entire village and a Minister ostracize a child over the mere suspicion of him being infected.
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
Speaking to the media recently, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the former Defence Secretary, sought to explain the ongoing inquiries into serious “mishandling” of public funds by the Rajapaksa family and their associates, by reiterating the common defence of a political vendetta. 
15 March 2016
By Mahinda Therasinghe and Rupasena Pattuwa -2016-03-16
Story and pix by Nayanajeewa Bandara-Sunday, March 13, 2016
The 80-year-old, whom everyone knows as Haj Abu Muhammad, likes to entertain his grandsons with tales of running after the Cairo-bound train as it billowed smoke. Picking up a head of steam for the long journey ahead, the train made its way through his neighborhood of Shujaiya in Gaza City.
15 March 2016
Local witnesses held Saudi coalition jets responsible for the attack (AFP) 
Tuesday 15 March 2016
Mar-14-2016
