CID to coordinate with Foreign Ministry and other institutes to extradite the former Central Bank Governor
By Skandha Gunasekara-Saturday, 21 April 2018
Interpol has issued a red notice for former Central Bank Governor Arjun Mahendran who is wanted in connection with the investigation into the Treasury bond case.
Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekera told the Daily FT that the process of extraditing the former Central Bank Governor has now begun.
“The Criminal Investigations Division will be coordinating with other institutions, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in extraditing Arjun Mahendran,” SP Gunasekera said.
The former Central Bank Governor, who holds a Singaporean citizenship, fled Sri Lanka for Singapore as soon after the irregularities in the Central Bank Treasury bond transactions came to light.
Following an investigation by a Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed to probe the Treasury bond transactions, it was found that the former Governor of the Central Bank had given an undue advantage to Perpetual Treasuries Ltd., a company owned by his son-in-law Arjun Aloysius, through insider trading.
It was estimated that a loss of Rs. 11.5 billion had incurred due to the insider trading.
Currently, both Arjun Aloysius and Perpetual Treasuries CEO Kasun Palisena are remanded in custody.
A female employed as an Accountant at a bank in the Gampaha area who is accused of financial fraud amounting to Rs 20 million has been arrested in Kegalle by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
The CID had launched investigations into a complaint received that the woman in question had defrauded a sum of Rs 22,941,000 from the bank.
The Gampaha Magistrate’s Court had also reportedly issued an order preventing her from leaving the country.
However, the accused had returned to the country on April 18 from Dubai and was arrested by officers of the Immigration and Emigration Department, but had managed to escape custody, according to the Police Spokesman’s Office said.
The CID through investigations carried out based on telephone records had uncovered that the suspect was in the Kegalle area and arrested her.
The 36-year-old woman, a resident of Gampaha, is to be produced at the Gampaha Magistrate’s Court today (20).
The Criminal Investigations Department has also launched an investigation regarding the suspect’s escape from the custody of immigration officers.
I recently contributed a comment on Toni Morrison’s The Origin of Others.Subsequently, the above-mentioned work by Professor Sen came to mind: what follows are a few points from his book. Page reference is to the Penguin Books edition, 2006. To save clumsy and repeated attribution, unless otherwise made clear, the ‘argument’ is that made by Amartya Sen. A Nobel-Prize winner, Sen was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and is a Professor at Harvard University. Among the many aspects of his identity that Sen lists are Asian, Bengali, an American and British resident, an economist, a believer in secularism and democracy, a feminist, a heterosexual, a defender of gay and lesbian rights, a non-believer in an after-life, as in an earlier life or lives. Once when entering the UK, the immigration officer having examined Amartya Sen’s Indian passport thoroughly, and noting that his address was given as the “Master’s Lodge, Trinity College”, asked him whether the Master was a close friend to extend such hospitality. It did not remotely occur to that white official that the brown man standing before him was the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Like that immigration-officer, many of us presume that people can be categorised according to some singular and overriding criterion. Our shared humanity gets savaged when our differences are narrowed into “one devised system of uniquely powerful categorization” (Sen, pp. 16-17). A cultivated sense of identity with one group can be made into “a powerful weapon to brutalize another”. Many of “the conflicts and barbarities” in the world are sustained through the illusion of a unique identity. The short story by Flannery O’Connor I referred to in that earlier contribution, ‘The Artificial Nigger’, is apposite here: the ‘innocent’ boy sees a human being; more narrowly, a man. Then when he’s challenged and pressed, Nelson offers: an old man; a fat man. But his ‘racist’ grandfather sees only that the man is black: skin-colour and only skin-colour is what matters to him.
Often, one affiliation dominates and cancels out all other affiliations. In turn, this leads to conflicts which are then seen as “natural” and, therefore, inevitable and justified. For example, conflict between Sinhalese and Tamils is interpreted in “lofty historical terms, seeing in them something that is much grander than the shabbiness of contemporary politics” (Sen, p. 43). Creating hatred takes the form of invoking some allegedly predominant identity that drowns all other affiliations and overpowers any human sympathy and kindness.
Professor Sen admits that a sense of group-identity can strengthen and warm our relations within the collective – even as it leads to exclusion which, in turn, can result in mal-treatment of the ‘Other’. Indeed, this sense of belonging can be so strong that the group seems to be an extension of one’s own self: p. 33. (Perhaps, one could here turn to Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, also known as Fear of Freedom, and his observations on inner freedom.) Individual behaviour can be excused on the grounds of group-norms. For example, in as much as a person is judged by the laws of her or his country within which she or he acted, so must it be when it comes to social (or anti-social) behaviour, morality and ethics. The individual, absorbed and strengthened by merging with the group, surrenders individual judgement. I cite an extract from what I wrote about Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society: Niebuhr suggests that when we are in a group, ‘other-than-self’ attributes are vitiated, if not entirely destroyed. There is then little of reason to guide our conduct, less check on our impulses, less capacity for transcending our individual self. Accepting generalisations (and myths) which, though an oversimplification, are very potent, our behaviour as a group is often a shame to our morality as individuals. In other words, as members of a group, we are ready to act in ways in which we, as individuals, would not. The tragedy of human history is that we have been unable to match our collective (group) behaviour to the ideals we cherish as individuals. Though we are individuals, we are also members of a society, a nation, a state. Inescapably, we exist within a group, and our group behaviour leaves much to be deplored and regretted. Indeed, our group-behaviour can encompass the unjust, the cruel, the horrific (Sarvan, Public Writings, Volume 1). Of course, some might doubt that the individual human being, generally, is morally superior to the group. One also wonders: To what extent is the individual a creation of her or his group?
Palestinian mourners carry the body of boy at his funeral in Gaza City, whom medics said was killed in an Israeli air strike on 25 August 2014, during Israel’s 51-day assault that killed one in every 1,000 Gaza residents.Ezz al-ZanounAPA images
The European Union’s financial support for Israel’s war industry is a well-established fact. But it may not be visible to the average citizen – unless they go digging through the databases documenting the millions channeled to companies making weapons that rain death on Palestinians.
But as Israel marks what it calls its “independence,” several European states are openly celebrating their military alliances with an entity founded through the ethnic cleansing and destruction of Palestine and which only continues to exist through the brutal occupation and dispossession of millions of Palestinians.
European and NATO countries, including Austria’s neo-Nazi government, sent their air forces to take part in a show over Tel Aviv on Thursday, Israel’s official “independence” holiday according to the Jewish calendar.
That’s just a few miles up the coast from Gaza, where the buzz of drones and the roar of jet engines from Israeli warplanes has for years been used to deliberately inflict terror on Palestinians – that is when the planes are not dropping bombs, as during Israel’s 2014 assault that killed one in every 1,000 of the two million people confined in the besieged territory.
Other countries dispatching their warplanes included Greece, Poland, Canada, Italy and the United Kingdom.
The Austrian Air Force will be participating in Israel's Independence Day Flyby, operating C-130 aircraft. In preparation for their arrival, Maj. Gen. Karl Gruber, Commander of the Austrian Air Force, has a special message pic.twitter.com/JHKYKZM3x4
The Austrian Air Force will be participating in Israel's Independence Day Flyby, operating C-130 aircraft. In preparation for their arrival, Maj. Gen. Karl Gruber, Commander of the Austrian Air Force, has a special message
Canada is proud to fly alongside the Israeli Air Force on April 19th in celebration of Israel ’s #70th birthday with our Royal #Canadian Air Force CC-177 Globemaster III!
Come on down to the beach on Thursday to see it! #Canada#Israel#YomHaatzmaut#Israelindependenceday
Israel's culture minister said actor Natalie Portman had fallen “into the hands of the BDS supporters” after the Jerusalem-born actress cancelled her trip to Israel, where she was meant to receive the “Jewish Nobel” prize.
The Oscar-award winning actor was due to be the recipient of the Genesis Prize, dubbed the “Jewish Nobel”, but withdrew from the ceremony citing extreme distress at “recent events in Israel”.
“She [Portman] does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel... she cannot in good conscience move forward with the ceremony,” said the actor's representative.
The Genesis Prize Foundation said it was “very saddened” by the decision. It later announced that it would be cancelling the ceremony altogether.
Miri Regev, Israel’s culture minister, criticised the decision, saying: “I was sorry to hear that Natalie Portman fell into the hands of the BDS supporters."
“Portman, a Jewish actress born in Israel, joins those who describe the successful, wondrous founding of the state of Israel as ‘a tale of darkness and darkness'.”
Oren Hazan, an Israeli politican and legislator, has stated that the actress should be stripped of her Israeli citizenship for her decision and described the incident as "complete craziness."
Portman's directorial debut was the film A Tale of Love and Darkness, adapted from a memoir by an Israeli novelist, depicting the birth of Israel.
However, other figures online have commended the decision citing Israeli use of force against Palestinian protesters in Gaza that have left dozens dead and thousands injured.
Both the United Nations and European Union have recently called for investigations into the Israeli army’s use of live ammunition on Palestinians during the “Great March of Return” protests that have been taking place in Gaza since 30 March.
Thirty-six Palestinians have been killed and 4,279 wounded by Israeli forces since the protests started four weeks ago.
Israeli politican Rachel Azaria said Portman's decision was a reflection of changing attitudes towards Israel among US Jews.
“Natalie Portman’s cancellation should be a warning sign,” she tweeted.
“She’s totally one of us, identifies with her Jewishness and Israeliness. She’s expressing the voices of many in US Jewry, and particularly those of the younger generation. This is a community that was always a significant anchor for the State of Israel and the price of losing it is likely to be too high.”
In a statement, the Genesis Prize Foundation said its organisers “fear that Ms Portman’s decision will cause our philanthropic initiative to be politicised, something we have worked hard for the past five years to avoid”.
The prize was launched in 2013 with the purpose of recognising Jewish achievement and contributions to humanity.
When it was announced that Portman would be the 2018 recipient, the actor stated she was proud of her “Israeli roots and Jewish heritage”.
A source at the foundation told Haaretz that Portman did not intend to return the $1m cash prize that comes with the award. Nor was she looking to return the additional grant promised by an Israeli philanthropist.
It is reportedly typical for the recipient to announce which charities they are donating the prize money to six months after the ceremony.
The ceremony was meant to take place on 28 June.
The actor had planned to donate the money to international and Israeli organisations dedicated to women’s causes and had already notified the foundation of this decision.
In 2009, the actor joined others in protesting calls to boycott the Toronto International Film Festival for its staging of a Tel Aviv-themed event.
Following the re-election of Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015, Portman stated that she was “very, very upset and disappointed”.
Citing caution in her criticism, the actor added: “I feel like there are some people who become prominent, and then it’s out in the foreign press. You know, shit on Israel. I do not. I don’t want to do that.”
Populists in both countries are deepening a rare military crisis between NATO allies.
Greek Prime minister Alexis Tsipras and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Athens, on Dec. 7, 2017. (LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images)
BYYIANNIS BABOULIAS-
The relationship between Greece and Turkey has never been easy. The neighboring countries have been at war with each other several times in the 20th century and were close to military conflict over the Greek islet Imia in 1996, before the United States stepped in to avert disaster.
The NATO allies are now at the brink again, goaded by populists on both sides — and this time, Washington is nowhere to be found.
On Monday, a Greek-Turkish confrontation rekindled old memories. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, during an event in Ankara, claimed that the Turkish coast guard had removed a Greek flag from an islet near the island of Fournoi, after it was placed there earlier by three Greeks. The Hellenic National Defense General Staff responded that no Turkish boat had been seen in the area in the last 48 hours; the mayor of Fournoi then visited the islet and reported that the Greek flag was still there.
But Greece was obliged to respond to Yildirim’s claims with the utmost seriousness. Monday’s incident follows a tragic accident last week in which a Greek pilot was killed after his plane crashed while returning to base from a mission to intercept Turkish fighters about 10 miles north of Skyros island. This wasn’t an isolated incident, either: Turkish jets have violated Greek airspace more than 30 times in April alone. While Yildirim and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made swift diplomatic moves to send condolences to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Greek public opinion blames the death of the 34-year-old pilot squarely on Turkey. The arrest of two Greek army officers last month and their imprisonment in Turkey, where they might face charges of espionage, further feeds the anger among Greeks.
Meanwhile, the islet involved in this week’s dispute — called Anthropofagos (Greek for “cannibal”) — is part of what Turkey claims are “grey zones,” areas that are of disputed jurisdiction, in the Aegean Sea. Greece, on the other hand, recognizes no such “grey zones,” in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne and international law. Turkey’s position was reiterated by Erdogan during his visit to Athens last year. He claimed that the Treaty of Lausanne needs to be reconsidered, evoking the Turkish-speaking minority of Thrace, a region of northern Greece, as justification. As if to underscore Erdogan’s intentions, Turkish warships recently stopped an Italian research boat from reaching its destination in Greek Cypriot waters.
Even amid this dangerous climate, both sides are indulging in reckless rhetoric. In Turkey, Erdogan and his party are embarking on ever more aggressive rhetoric toward Greece, and the largest opposition party is now headed by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a man who claimsTurkey needs to reclaim 18 Turkish islands currently occupied by Greece.
Turkey’s behavior has provided perhaps the only point of agreement between the Greek government and the opposition, with Tsipras, of the far-left Syriza party, implying Erdogan is behaving like “a sultan,” and the center-right New Democracy’s Giorgos Koumoutsakos, shadow minister of international affairs, saying that Turkey is “a country of authoritarian rule that produces instability and tension in the region.”
Tsipras’s problem in dealing with Turkey centers, rather, on his own government — specifically, on his junior coalition partner, the Independent Greeks, whose leader, Panos Kammenos, is also minister of national defense.
The partnership between Syriza and the Independent Greeks has always been odd, but it’s now coming into especially sharp relief. The only thing the two parties ever had in common was their opposition to austerity. Where Syriza has its roots in the radical left, Kammenos was a minister from the nationalistic and populist wing of New Democracy before breaking off and forming his own party in 2012. Kammenosis is now alleged to have ties to both U.S. President Donald Trump via his former advisor George Papadopoulos, and to Russian President Vladimir Putin through Greek-Russian bussinesman and former Russian MP Ivan Savvidis. While he has helped Tsipras with his connections with and knowledge of the functions of the Greek state (and especially parts of what we would call the “deep state”), he has been a consistent headache in foreign policy.
Kammenos and his party have repeatedly put Tsipras in an awkward position by making belligerent and even aggressive statements toward Turkey, or simply by simply being confused about the government’s own policy. Kammenos, as defense minister, has repeatedly taunted the Turks, making statements along the lines of “let them come and get it.” Kammenos’s deputy in the Ministry of National Defense, the leftist Fotis Kouvelis, said on Monday night that Greece finds itself in “undeclared war in the Aegean.” And the deputy speaker of the Greek Parliament, an Independent Greeks member, managed to contradict himself within 10 days by saying both that Greece is being “too harsh on Erdogan” and that “we won’t let them go unchallenged.”
Such problems aren’t limited to Turkey; Kammenos has also been a problem for Tsipras in the negotiations over the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where he sided with Greek protesters, and against his own coalition partner, by demanding that the name of the neighboring country not include the term “Macedonia,” despite the fact it’s long been in use. Ultimately, Kammenos was forced to backpedal and “agree to disagree” with Tsipras.
Still, for all Kammenos’s excesses, the real problem in the Aegean is Turkey’s strategy of provocation — a strategy that preceded Erdogan and will most likely continue after he’s gone. Erdogan has simply amplified this strategy in recent months, having seemingly decided that he has leverage over the European Union after agreeing to take responsibility for stemming the Syrian refugee crisis.
In the Greek public opinion, there is a very real fear that the country is sleepwalking toward a conflict it doesn’t want. The mood is reflected in the front pages of the daily press, and insinuating remarks by politicians across the spectrum. NATO seems unwilling to get involved in the war of words, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s statement that this is “not an issue for NATO” is indicative.
But it would be extremely careless to think that Turkey’s behavior in the Aegean will change. It hasn’t in the past, and it certainly won’t now that Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman dreams are in full gear. It will take very careful handling of the situation by all parties to prevent escalation. But we should also come to terms with the possibility that, eventually, confrontation might be inevitable.
President Assad’s government has been accused of launching a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian town of Douma on 7 April, 2018.
Barrel bombs containing toxic substances were allegedly dropped from helicopters, killing “up to 75 people”, with as many as 500 further casualties.
The British prime minister, Theresa May, has said the chemical “appears” to have been chlorine.
Díaz-Canel will face pressure to reinvigorate the Cuban economy by pushing ahead with the controversial economic reform program launched by Raúl Castro early in his tenure, which loosened restrictions on private enterprise and enabled foreign investment in Cuba.
by William M. LeoGrande- ( April 19, 2018, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) Cuba has a new president – and for the first time in six decades, his last name is not Castro.
Cuba’s National Assembly has elected Cuba’s First Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel to replace 87-year-old Raúl Castro, who took over as Cuba’s leader in 2006 after his brother Fidel Castro fell ill.
Raúl Castro stepped down in observance of the two-term limit for senior government and party officials that he himself mandated in 2011. In so doing, he opened the door not just for a new president but for a generational transition in Cuba.
This is one of the most important moments I’ve seen in 40 years of studying and writing on Cuba.
Díaz-Canel faces real challenges. Cuba’s economy is weak, relations with Washington are deteriorating and internet expansion on the Communist island has produced a growing chorus of domestic critics.
Who can fill Castro’s shoes?
The political rise of 57-year-old Díaz-Canel represents the final stage of a transfer of power away from the “historic generation” that waged Cuba’s 1959 revolution. The charisma of Fidel Castro, who died in 2016, was for decades a pillar of Cuba’s regime.
Díaz-Canel – a trained engineer who worked his way up from local party leader to first vice president – will have to earn his authority through performance.
Fidel Castro in 1959. U.S. Library of CongressThose who have followed his career say Díaz-Canel is a seasoned, pragmatic politician. As a Communist official in his home province of Villa Clara in the 1990s, when Cuba suffered a prolonged economic depression, he rode his bicycle to work rather than take a car and driver.
He appears ill at ease with large audiences but relaxed and congenial in small groups – much like his mentor, Raúl Castro.
As president, Díaz-Canel will still benefit from Raúl Castro’s experience and authority. Castro remains first secretary of the Communist Party – Cuba’s only party – until 2021.
This is arguably a post more powerful than the presidency. The party leadership makes all major economic, social and foreign relations policies, which the president is obliged to carry out.
So I don’t expect any drastic changes in direction from Díaz-Canel – at least, not right away.
What’s in store for Cuba
This political transition is still significant, though. For the first time, the leader of the Communist Party and the leader of the government are different people. Both Fidel and Raúl Castro held both positions simultaneously.
Cuba must now sort out the lines of authority between party and state. As Díaz-Canel staffs government ministries with his own team, he will gain ever more control over how policy is interpreted and implemented.
He will immediately face some tough issues. Cuba’s economy is struggling, dragged down by the dual-currency system Fidel Castro adopted in 1994 to attract cash remittances from Cuban expats.
Raúl Castro has declared that currency reunification “cannot be delayed any longer.” But turning two currencies into one is a tricky business with unpredictable economic consequences.
Díaz-Canel will also face pressure to reinvigorate the Cuban economy by pushing ahead with the controversial economic reform program launched by Raúl Castro early in his tenure, which loosened restrictions on private enterprise and enabled foreign investment in Cuba.
The pace of change has since slowed, frustrating Cubans. If Díaz-Canel opens up Cuba’s economy too quickly, he’ll alienate Communist Party conservatives. Going too slowly will anger reformers.
Cuba has opened up to foreign investment in recent years, creating a special economic zone and building a new port in Mariel Bay.AP Photo/Franklin Reyes
Other prominent Cubans pushed back, though, and the campaign ended without any of the targeted web sites being closed down.
Raúl Castro has balanced conflicting factions with a delicate strategy he described as reform “without haste, but without pause.” Díaz-Canel must now demonstrate he, too, can manage these conflicts.
US-Cuba relations in flux
Finally, the new president has to deal with the mercurial U.S. administration. President Donald Trump has largely outsourced Cuba policy to conservative Cuban-Americans in Congress, led by Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida.
Recent Trump appointments do not bode well for the future of U.S.-Cuban relations. The incoming secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was a vocal opponent of Obama’s rapprochement with Havana. National security adviser John Bolton once deemed Cuba part of an “axis of evil,” falsely accusing it of developing biological weapons.
Anticipation and trepidation
In December, I was in Havana, a city where the benefits of Raúl Castro’s economic reforms are most tangible. Cubans I spoke with there seemed ready for younger leadership and excited about the impending power transition.
But 80 percent of Cubans have always had a Castro as their president. So the anticipatory mood is leavened by trepidation: People fear that instability may accompany this major political change. If Díaz-Canel can deliver on the economy – the top priority for most Cubans – he’ll be judged a success. If not, he will face a rising tide of discontent from a population impatient for change.
William M. LeoGrande, Professor of Government, American University School of Public Affairs
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
By Skandha Gunasekara-Saturday, 21 April 2018 
Greek Prime minister Alexis Tsipras and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Athens, on Dec. 7, 2017. (LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Díaz-Canel will face pressure to reinvigorate the Cuban economy by pushing ahead with the controversial economic reform program launched by Raúl Castro early in his tenure, which loosened restrictions on private enterprise and enabled foreign investment in Cuba.
Cuba has opened up to foreign investment in recent years, creating a special economic zone and building a new port in Mariel Bay.AP Photo/Franklin Reyes
If Díaz-Canel can deliver on the economy – 