ASP Premalal Ranagala inspecting the suicide jacket packed with explosives found dumped at Wolfendhal Street, Colombo 12 yesterday afternoon. Police believe that a LTTE cadre would have abandoned it to avoid detection following beefed up security
in the city.
(Pic by Kamal Bogoda)

• Arming supporters not the way to go says JVP
  While welcoming the decision to issue weapons to people living in villages vulnerable to LTTE attacks, the JVP has urged the government to be cautious in arming people. Moneragala District MP Padma Udaya Shantha Gunasekera felt that the arming of villagers on the basis of loyalty to ruling party politicians could cause serious problems. He warned that security measures that were being implemented to meet the LTTE challenge could further aggravate the problem.
   

• Rupavahini staffer in Mervyn case suffers cut injuries
  A Rupavahini employee who had received several phoned death threats over the Mervyn Silva affray had been attacked on Friday night and had suffered cut injuries requiring surgical attention at the National Hospital, Colombo, Rupavahini staff and police said.Two persons who had come on a motor cycle had blocked the van of Lal Hemantha Mawalage in the Aturugiriya police area and attacked him. He was on his way home when goons targeted him, Rupavahini sources said.

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• 1987 Revisited
  The All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) unveiled their proposals last week thus marking another milestone in what seems to a futile quest for a solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. The question that we have to ask ourselves is why every solution that comes up seems to revolve around the 13th amendment to the constitution? The present writer was at a seminar some months ago, where Professor Johann Galtung, one of the world’s foremost peaceniks, said that in his view the ideal solution would be the 13th amendment plus-plus and ISGA minus-minus.
   

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• Unfinished business after the CFA
  ... and re-orientating ourselves..
  With the CFA behind us, there remains the task of mopping up its detritus, rethinking some of the knee-jerk solutions being re-advocated, and correcting fundamental flaws in our search for a solution. This is necessary in order to avoid kicking the ball into our own goal.
  Proscribing the LTTE
  The LTTE was proscribed in 1998 after their attack on the Dalada Maligawa.
   
• The Way of the Mirage
  The regime has great expectations: a short, sharp war; a decisive victory; administrative decentralisation in devolutionary garb as a political solution to the ethnic problem; economic maladies abating with the reduction in defence expenditure. And all of this to happen before the year is out! It is natural for the Rajapakses to be infatuated with such a beguiling scenario. But their notion of a ‘fast food war’ cannot be taken seriously without suspending one’s critical faculties and succumbing to false and unrealistic optimism (as the dominant segments of American polity and society did at the onset of the Iraqi invasion).
   
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• One out of ten cheques in Lanka bounce, banks helpless
  One in ten cheques issued in Sri Lanka bounces and account holders are writing dud cheques with impunity despite it being a criminal offense, a top central banker said.Central Bank deputy governor Ranee Jayamaha says nine percent of the 250,000 cheques, especially in the Colombo area sent for clearing are returned each day.
   

• Interest income helps JKH to pay shareholders special dividend
  John Keells Holdings, the blue chip conglomerate which raised nearly Rs. 13 billion last year in a pricey rights issue sweetened by a bonus last week announced a special dividend of Rs. 2 per share whereby a total of Rs. 1.3 billion, approximately 10% of the rights issue cash raised, will be paid to its shareholders.JKH Chairman Susantha Ratnayake said that this dividend was being paid on the basis of projections that the profit after tax for the year ended March 31, 2008, ....
   

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• Sensational reality of Sri Lankan English unearthed in Galle
  SLT promotes writer’s art deep in the hinterland
  It was sensational. Quite apart from presence of literary giants Gore Vidal, Vikram Seth, Indran Amirthanayagam; then there were young people, authors, already carving their niche in literary circles, Tracy Holsinger, Shyam Selvadorai, the Galle Literary Festival 2008, took on atmosphere of festival. Well not quite the air of pre- Lenten ‘Festivaal’, of Brazil, but emerging excitement of the world of books, and their writers, and their intellect, and their works, and more, were poised to impact on the literary scene as never before.
   

• Responsible Tourism partnership holds the Sustainable Tourism Forum on Climate Change
  Tourism industry to deal with green guilt
  According to the Responsible Tourism Partnership, there has been such a lot of noise with contradictory messages giving conflicting views on global warming and climate change. However confusing the messages are, now it has become a reality that climate change is a conclusive fact, and that something has to be done to reduce its impact.
   

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• Gilchrist announces retirement
  ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) - Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist will retire from test cricket at the conclusion of the current fourth test against India and from limited-overs internationals at the end of the domestic season.Gilchrist, 36, on Friday became the world record holder for most test dismissals by a wicketkeeper when he picked up his 414th career dismissal at the Adelaide Oval to move past South Africa’s Mark Boucher.
   

• India accuse Aussies of playing "scared"
  ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) - India fired its best shots after stumps Saturday, accusing Australia of batting "scared" on the third day of the fourth cricket test when the hosts ground out an unspectacular innings that dented the visitors’ victory ambitions.Australia reached 322-3 by stumps in reply to India’s 526, adding a cautious 260 runs for the loss of three wickets in the day. A draw would be enough for Australia to win the series, and India is running out of time to bowl them out twice and square the series 2-2.
   

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