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Morning Spice by Ginger Received a letter from reader M. P. Abeysekera of Panadura.while appreciating the adulatory tone of his letter. I would advishe him to direct this letter, to the Health Ministry who should respond to it. As for the private hospitals, most of those who have scanners have bought them on massive bank loans and will come to a sticky end if they were to heed such a plea due to their repayment problems. I reproduce his letter for it is worth. "Since of late, I read several articles in the Island, where several private hospitals have installed the latest state of the Art Digital Scanners, MRI Scanners and other equipment, where any disease in the human body could be diagnosed and seen. With the installation of such equipment, of course, it is only the rich that can afford this facility. The ordinary masses are helpless. Why cannot these hospitals levy a small fee depending on the income of a person. If this could be done, it would help the poor which would be a great merit to the owners of such hospitals, further this Hi-Tech equipment has to be manned by fully trained technicians abroad. Also back up electronic technicians, who has had full training abroad to this equipment, should be able to attend to any repairs should they go out of order every now and then. As they are highly trained in all procedures, the accuracy of their reports depend on the life of the patient. They need be paid high salaries. I was wondering whether these hospitals have sent technicians fully qualified, to the factory where this Hi-Tech equipment had been assembled. I am of the opinion, that without adequate back up service, this equipment would go out of order after constant use. Expect an early reply." Sweet and sour dishes This may be because bread is so much more convenient but there is a slight difference in the bread that the Asians like to eat. They like their bread sweet. The hi-tech is that the yeast from the west does not help to make bread sweet because it does not tolerate sugar, so they are developing a sugar tolerant yeast using micro-fermentation technology. British farmers Sales agents from Canada have been arriving in numbers to sell farms to British farmers who might want to migrate from Britain. One of the main attractions is that found in Canada is much cheaper than in Britain. An acre of land in Britain costs about 7,000 dollars while you could buy an acre for anything between 300 to 500 Canadian dollars in that country. Promote non-conventional energy sources The energy field poses a challenge to be tackled by us Sri Lankans effectively. In this endeavour all patriotic Sri Lankans will agree that the economy of our country cannot be allowed to be controlled by foreign interests. Coal and oil will give us easy access to electric power generation but the price we pay per unit will be beyond our control. Therefore, non-conventional energy sources must be popularised. Sri Lanka is not a poor country from the point of view of "energy" as such. The actual problem is the lack of awareness of what sourse of energy is most profitably available in a given locality. In this respect our universities too, could make a great contribution for the betterment of our national life. In fact, one can justifiably figure out that our nation may lead the world in the development of energy sources, if we obey the dicum, "If there is a will there is a way". To begin with, we can encourage the use of solar panels with rechargeable batteries, particularly, in dry-zone villages, which measure itself would curtail the use of grid - electricity by about 75 per cent. In addition village level generation of power by bio-gas can be successful even from our present technological capability. If both these sources are tapped, house-holds in the dry zone will not use grid-electricity. A documentation of year round wind velocities in suitable areas, too, can be helpful in putting up wind-power plants. Initially, this may appear to be cumbersome, but if we actually start a journey along this track, victory will not be far away. At any rate, houses close to the sea or in certain hill-top areas can be aided to have a cheap power source if the necessary social apparatus is duly set up. Miniature hydro-electric power generators in hill country would complete the picture of a country self-sufficient in energy. This is not something impossible to achieve as l have shown above. Dr. C. J. Senasinghe Stray dog menace in Kandy town At a recent meeting of the Kandy Municipal Council - one Councillor had asked the Mayor what steps are being taken to prevent the increase of the stray dog population in the Kandy Town. At the moment the Municipal dog catchers and the van are not available. The Mayor said that they are considering giving the dog pound over to an association where the dogs are made SAFE and free of the Rabies infection, without brutally kelling them as is done at present. The society he referred to is our association "KACPAW" - "Kandy association of community protection through animal welfare". Here we have clinics where dogs are sterilized free of charge - both male and female. They are also given anti-rabies vaccines and carry a tag showing that they are SAFE (i.e. free of infecting Rabies). As they are sterilized no more breeding takes place. It has been shown in certain parts of India where these programmes are carried out, that these dogs are territorial so if they are removed from the territory they were in, others will move into their territory-so we put these dogs who are now pronounced "SAFE" back to the same territory, as there is no more breeding and they will die off at the end of there life-span. We are hoping the Mayor and the Council will give us a trial as the GRUESOME way that they are killed carried out over 50 years has not shown any results. As for the incidents of Human Rabies or reducing stray dogs, no improvement has been seen. Statistics show the biggest incidents of Human Rabies for 1998 has been ten in the Central Province. Also a colossal sum of money was spent in giving Anti-Rabies vaccines. A leading hospital shows Rs. 600,000 being spent for one month giving anti-Rabies injections. Consider the amount for one year for all hospitals in Sri Lanka. Most of this money would be saved, if the Government adop our method. If the "KACPAW" is given a chance to carry out a trial project in the Kandy Municipal area - and if it proves successful - it could be carried out in the rest of the Island, eliminating Human Rabies in Sri Lanka. As the majority of Sri Lankans do not like killing of dogs, especially as it is against the Buddhist principal of "Ahimsa’ - I think the public should wholeheartedly support this project. Dr. C. Godamunne Beware of bogus foreign stock brokers Several middle-class families lost millions of rupees a few months ago through the fraudulent activities of a foreign-based company in Colombo that sold "time-sharing" in exotic holiday resorts in Australia, Indonesia, India and many other enchanting destinations. This enterprise hired several innocent Sri Lankan youths as their sales-persons. When the writer called this place in response to one of their telephone calls announcing his being the lucky winner of a draw (for which he was not a participant at all) he found some of the youth were from good back-grounds. He discreetly warned them of the suspect credentials of their employers. One of these young men who took umbrage at that time came around later and apologised to the writer after many of the employees discovered the true colours of their "foreign bosses." By the time these employees went to the Police these foreign bosses have taken wings to other destinations in search of the gullible - no doubt laughing all the way to the airport and beyond. There is still another massive fraud going around where many Sri Lankan businessmen have fallen prey. The Modus operandi is as follows. This is a racket aimed at clients on the e-mail. A Company claiming to have Head Office in Prague and active branch offices in Djakarta (Indonesia) Mauritius send daily reports on the e-mail of selected American Stock Exchanges. (These are actually derived without authority from the reports of respected agencies like Nasdaq, Dow Jones, Bloomberg etc). After several days of this free service, the e-mail owner gets a call from a supposed to be Senior Financial Analyst from this Company, who usually claims he has several hundreds of clients in his "Portfolio" and wishes to include the new party also. In the process he refers to many new clients in Sri Lanka (for professional etiquette he says he will not name them) to whom he had recommended blue chip US stocks at US $ 6 a few months ago which are trading at $12 now. He adds that he had advised the Colombo client not to sell the stocks, which in three months he expects will reach $2O. References to several other stocks he had got other clients in other countries to make money will be mentioned. This call will be followed by another in a few days time from a higher authority in the Company, who will add to the sunshine story. Meanwhile, via Courier will arrive various documents including attractive B Business Cards of these officials. This will be followed by an urgent call from one of them who will say he has a US manufacturer-client who has Defence contracts with the US government. It will be claimed this company has developed a particular sophisticated mini-camera which, when placed in the human body, will enlarge into a screen to many times its actual size various parts of the human body. The story goes on to say that the Camera has just been patented and rights bought by the client... It will be said stocks will open at $10 per share and within two weeks will trade at $20. The Colombo party will be told that he should not sell this at this level because by the time the end of the year comes it will reach $100 because the US Defence (or some other US Govt. body) authorities will give them a two year contract. The client here will be told that he is being offered this to get his custom and before stocks go into the Stock Exchange formally. He will be told of the million shares the broker has been authorised to sell, he suggest a "small parcel" of 10,000 shares to begin the Broker Client relationship. After some haggling the potential client agrees to buy at 1,000 to 3,000 shares just to try out this oncoming bonanza. Within three days from the telephone call he gets via Courier invoices requesting payment. This is usually made promptly. Since the client also has a business background and some familiarity "browsing" for Stocks on the internet, he checks through this and other friends in the stock market in Europe and the USA. Confirmation comes that the stock is in fact trading around $10. In a few weeks time, he gets another call from another impressive sounding stock broker from the same outfit welcoming him as a client and confirming his stocks are now trading at several dollars higher than what he bought and so on. No effort at a further sale is made in this conversation. After sometime, a further call comes and offer to sell another potentially good stock. However, our man here is keen to know how his first " stock" performs. In a few months he discovers his stock has come down to $2. He now is approached by another party from another Western Capital - this time claiming to be Auditors for 1st class investor-clients in the US who tells him this confidential stock deal is in fact not genuine. This "Auditor" says he has clients who, for Tax reasons, will buy poorly-performing stocks and the Colombo party is offered a price slightly higher than his purchase price. He naturally agrees and the "Auditor" says he will call back. He does after a few days and confirms his client is prepared to buy the stock. But the deal is where this stock has to be traded for another blue-chip Stock (the stock is named and is invariably trading attractively. e.g. around $30 for a $10 share). This is offered at a price where with the original 1,000 share value the Colombo party has to remit a further amount to possess the latter blue chip stock. Usually, the Colombo party by then realises this is another scam to squeeze him out of further money and saves himself from further trouble. This sophisticated racket has rendered poor several well informed and educated prominent Colombo businessmen, who, it is understood, have fallen prey to this scan inspite of their knowledge of international financial matters and business acumen. Praguel Czechoslovakia comes into play because, well informed businessmen are generally aware of the stupendous success of the Hungaraian born Billionaire George Soros. Hungary and Czechoslovakia are neighbouring lands and there is a psychological connection in the minds of potential investors that both are the same. The same outfit is reported to have defrauded thousands of innocent businessmen in Indonesia, Phillipines and Thailand. This type of crooked business conducted mostly by the Leeson type of financial Brokers - the bad eggs in the industry - is likely to plague many developing countries and should be resisted by responsible sections of society such as the press. Pro bono publico In 1997, 75 out of 100 people who really deserve housing assistance from the government were left out due to political reasons. I am given to understand that they were thus penalised for some, among them were accused by a prominent SLMC member of working against his party. I would like to bring to your kind notice that we have been long standing members of the SLMC prepared to make any sacrifice for its cause. Therefore, please be kind enough to intervene in this matter and assure that justice is done. We really deserve assistance from the government. A. Lebbei Thambi |
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