It was thought best, following that meeting, to have a smaller consultation as to particular issues, and we were helped immensely by the presence of those in the Attorney General’s Department who had been dealing with torture problems for a long period, extending back to well before I became Secretary to the Ministry of Human Rights and began to study the problem, following the extremely helpful visit of Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.Unfortunately the former Attorney General, Mohan Pieris, could not attend the latter consultation. This was a pity because he had been full of good ideas at the meeting chaired by the Inspector General of Police, and agreement had been reached in a number of areas which he agreed to pursue to ensure quick action.

Allegations of torture

Amongst his innovative ideas was the concept of Duty Attorneys to be available at all Police stations to which anyone was brought for questioning. At present there are State Counsel assigned to I believe every High Court area, but their duties are not clear. At the latter discussion however attention was drawn to certain problems that might arise if State Counsel also operated as Duty Attorneys, and it was realized that we had to be very clear about the different obligations the state should fulfil, and make sure there was no conflict. The first obligation was to make sure that there was provision for observation with regard to anyone the Police took in, but it was clear this should not be a task for attorneys who might subsequently appear for or against any such individual.

This would lead to a conflict of interests, and to ask State Attorneys to protect those they might later have to prosecute made no sense. Similarly, it made no sense, given that lawyers taking on clients might feel obliged to use all sorts of tactics in their interests, to expect them to be objective.The Action Plan indeed had considered this, for what it recommended was that the mandate of the Human Rights Commission be extended to ensure that its officials were kept informed when any arrest took place. Currently this is mandatory only with regard to Detention Orders, but in fact allegations of torture are more common with regard to simple arrests for simple crimes. Nowak seemed to be of the view that there was no policy that encouraged torture, but the actions of individual Police officers needed to be checked if the practice were to be prevented.

Prescribed limits

It is for this reason, I believe, that the Action Plan also suggests that Duty Attorneys be kept informed of all arrests. Though they should not be expected to take any steps in this regard, the fact that two different organs of the state are aware of any situation that could lead to abuse is in itself a safeguard, where knowledge being confined simply to the Police station concerned could be a limiting factor.

Meanwhile the Human Rights Commission, with its independent mandate, would also be informed, and could exercise its right to enter any station, which unfortunately capacity limitations do not now permit to the required extent. I should note that, a few years back, there were proposals to strengthen the Regional Offices of the Commission, and the refusal of the UN official concerned to take these forward, was one reason why I continue to worry about his further involvement in Human Rights protection activity here unless properly supervised.

The refusal to make use of the money the Swiss had offered for this purpose, while claiming that aid was not available, is typical of the sleight of hand that was used to try to kill off the Commission when Justice Ananda Coomaraswamy was chairman.

This task of observation, to ensure that those arrested would face only interrogation and nothing less innocuous, had been confused I realized with another obligation of the state, to facilitate consultation of lawyers by those arrested. Amendments to the relevant regulations have now been proposed to ensure ready access to lawyers. However what has not been provided for in those amendments already prepared is provision for those who do not have lawyers or the wherewithal to hire them to have representation.

This could be covered by the scheme of Duty Attorneys, but whether such a responsibility should be undertaken by the state is a matter of argument.

The alternative would be to provide such services from the private bar, but the expenses of such a programme nationwide might be excessive. What has been proposed, to pilot this in some areas, might lead to allegations of unfairness. I am not sure what the answer is, but the Action Plan certainly provides for setting up a Duty Attorney scheme. We need therefore to work out ways of providing at least that all those arrested are made aware of their rights and the procedures that should be followed by the Police in interactions, and I believe from the Police point of view too, ensuring the ready availability of information in this regard will help them to work within prescribed limits.

She has angrily attacked Police for dragging her friends and family into the scandal which shocked the United Kingdom that led to the closure of the 167 year old newspaper, News of the World.

At the time of the closure it was the most popular tabloid in the UK with a readership of eight million.

Rebecca said she is ‘baffled’ to face charges and the allegations that she and her husband and four others plotted to hide evidence were "an expensive sideshow and a waster of public money".

Rebecca who reaches her 44th birthday on the 27th of this month was born in Warrington in Lancashire. She once stated that she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. But she did not claim to have a degree and did not later answer questions about this.

It reminds me of a similar story of a leading politician who was in the limelight in Sri Lanka sometime ago.

In 2010, Brooks was awarded an honourary Fellowship from the University of Arts, London, for her contribution to journalism. Tim Minogue, one of her first co-editors, recalled her as ‘likeable, skinny, hollow-eyed girl who was very ambitious’.

Youngest editor

After school, she worked for a French magazine in Paris, before returning to Britain to work. She gained experience in various newspapers and magazines before she joined News of the World as a Secretary in 1989. She became a feature writer and the deputy editor of the newspaper.

In 1994, she arranged for the News of the World‘s an interview with James Hewitt, a paramour of Princess Diana, by reserving a hotel suite and hiring a team to ‘kit it out with secret tape devices in various flowerpots and cupboards’. It was ‘the story’ at the time.

She became the editor of the ‘News of the World‘ in 2000, to be the youngest editor of a national paper in the United Kingdom. She pioneered the campaign of ‘naming and shaming’ individuals suspected to be convicted child sex offenders – a campaign launched in the wake of the murder of Sarah Payne.

The paper’s decision led to angry mobs terrorising those they suspected of being child sex offenders, which included several cases of mistaken identity and one instance where a paediatrician had her house vandalised, apparently by people who thought her occupation meant she was a paedophile.

The campaign was described as ‘grossly irresponsible’ journalism by the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, Tony Butler, but Brooks defended the paper’s actions on the BBC’s Breakfast with Frost, claiming that it was ‘only right that the public have controlled access’ to information on sex offenders.

The paper’s already strong sales held up well under her leadership, while those of rival Sunday newspapers The People and the Sunday Mirror fell more sharply. Meantime the former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott praised Brooks’s handling of the story of his wife, Pauline, giving up one of her children for adoption as ‘very reasonable and professional’ in style.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that Brooks, one of the most high-profile figures in the newspaper industry, has been charged with three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Brooks is accused in one charge of conspiring with her PA, Cheryl Carter, to "remove seven boxes of material from the archives of News International".

In a separate charge she is accused of conspiring with her husband, Hanna, her chauffeur and a security consultant to conceal ‘documents and computers’ from the investigating detectives. All the offences are alleged to have taken place in July last year.

The six people are the first to be charged as a result of the new Scotland Yard investigation into phone hacking. The inquiry is one of three linked investigations for which the Yard has budgeted Sterling Pounds 40 m until 2015.

In a defiant statement delivered outside her solicitor’s London office, she added: "Although I understand the need for a thorough investigation, I am baffled by the decision to charge me. However, I cannot express my anger enough that those close to me have unfairly been dragged into this."

She said: "Whilst I have always respected the criminal justice system, I have to question today whether this decision was made on a proper impartial assessment of the evidence".

Lack of evidence

Her husband said, "I feel today is an attempt to use me and others as scapegoats, the effect of which is to ratchet up the pressure on my wife, who I believe is the subject of a witch-hunt.

There are 172 Police officers, about the equivalent of eight murder squads, working on this; so it doesn’t surprise me that the pressure is on to prosecute, no matter how weak the cases will be".

"I have no doubt that the lack of evidence against me will be borne out in court but I have grave doubts that my wife can ever get a fair trial, given the huge volume of biased commentary which she has been subjected to. We will fight this in court."

They have been released on Police bail until August, said Scotland Yard.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of life, although the average term served in prison is 10 months.

When I returned in 2011, the civil war had ended with surprising finality, and I took an extra day to see the country, including the huge territory that had been behind the lines of the Tamil rebels.

This should have been easy enough: the Tamil capital at Trincomalee is just 160 miles from Colombo – but the new highways were still being built, and the helicopter on offer was a single-engine job of the kind that routinely crashes in India. My accommodating hosts arranged for the Air Force to take me up in a twin-engined helicopter.

I’ve taken helicopters in many emerging markets when the road network is inefficient, normally a bad sign for the economy. But the aerial views of the multiple expressways under construction, the lush green plantations of the interior, and the new resorts facing the turquoise waters that drape the island helped convince me that Sri Lanka is no longer a land in waiting.

Industries and services

In the 1960s, Sri Lanka was billed as the next Asian growth miracle, only to be stymied by a tryst with socialism that played a direct role in igniting the civil war.

During the war, Sri Lanka grew half as fast as South Korea and Taiwan and became another country in the long line of emerging-market disappointments.

Today, it seems that Sri Lanka’s time has come. The civil war is over, the process of healing is underway, and there is every chance that Sri Lanka will become a breakout nation. Despite slowing sharply during the war years, the economy continued to grow at an average pace of nearly 5 percent even though it was running on one engine: the prosperous Western Province where Colombo is located, and where the well-educated young population was producing strong growth in industries and services.

The North and East Provinces, which account for 30 percent of Sri Lanka’s land and 15 percent of its population, were largely war zones. With the nation whole again, achieving 7 percent growth over the next decade should be well within reach.

Rajapaksa’s regime is working to trim the fat left over from the socialist experiments of the 1970s, including high taxes and government debts that still equal 80 percent of GDP. It is also bringing the vast swaths of formerly rebel-held territory back into play; the government has established vocational training centres and low-interest loan programmes, distributed boats and livestock, and begun building roads and bridges in the former war zone.

Banks are returning, big retail chains are setting up shop, and domestic airlines are flying to Jaffna and Trincomalee again. The flood of state spending drove growth in North and East Provinces up to 14 percent in 2009 and 2010, and they are expected to grow at above 13 percent for several more years, making them the fastest-growing areas of the country.

Foreign investors

The effects reverberate nationwide. On my helicopter trip, I visited some of the newly-renovated resorts, from the retro-chic Chaaya Blu in Trincomalee to the Cinnamon Lodge in Habarana, which lies in the ‘Cultural Triangle’ formed by Sri Lanka’s three ancient cities.

It wasn’t hard to imagine tourists, seduced by the country’s raw appeal, coming in droves. While prices are not as dirt cheap as they were at the height of the war, they are still very low – $150 for a high-end hotel room – which means the Sri Lankan currency is still very competitive and attractive to foreign investors.

Indian tourists

War-zone insurance rates that had made it too expensive to dock in Sri Lanka have disappeared, leading to a large increase in cargo traffic at the main port in Colombo. The government is pouring money into new terminals there, as well as new ports and harbours in formerly rebel-held regions.

The reintegration of the marginalised Tamils – with their high levels of educational achievement and English fluency – could provide a huge boost to a nation that multiple consulting firms already rank highly as a potential destination for multinationals looking to outsource customer service, IT and other back-office operations. I was surprised to see Tamils in Trincomalee working to attract Indian tourists to the ‘Ravana trail’.

While to Indians Ravana was the devil incarnate, in Sri Lankan legend, he was one of the most powerful and inspired of ancient kings. The difference of interpretation is of no small magnitude in Sri Lanka, which has long feared domination by its much-larger neighbour.

But in Trincomalee locals say that as long as the ‘Ravana trail’ is drawing tourists, subjective spins on the myth don’t matter.

It’s only natural for nations to trade most heavily with their neighbours and, indeed, the success of East Asia has been driven in no small measure by the willingness of China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to leave old wars in the past, at least when they are cutting business deals.

In contrast, there is no region in the world with weaker trade among immediate neighbours than South Asia where trade within the region has stagnated at 5 percent of total trade with the world.

Sri Lanka could be the country to move the region toward a new trade regime. The government is proposing a grand deal that could unlock trade with India and provide a huge boost to the economy. The opposition comes from Sri Lankan businessmen fearful of Indian competition. But India welcomes the deal, in part as an opportunity to balance China’s growing interest in Sri Lanka as a linchpin on its supply routes through the Indian Ocean.

Open economy

Sri Lanka is only too happy to exploit its felicitous location in return for even a small share of China’s gargantuan outbound investment; China is investing heavily in the Sri Lankan port at Hambantota, the home base of the Rajapaksa family.

There is some risk that the peace dividend could prove fleeting: a 2009 study by the US Agency for International Development found that 40 percent of nations that end a civil war will revert to violence within a decade. However, Sri Lanka’s peace could well hold because of the decisive end to the war.

There is also a fundamental national consensus that the future should be decided based on what works, not on the ideological debates that retarded Sri Lanka’s development for so long. By the late 1990s, even the main Left-leaning party, the SLFP, was moving toward a more modern development model built on an open economy and trade liberalisation.

Over the course of its war, Sri Lanka grew its economy slowly but positively, by a total of 206 percent. The country now has economic and administrative momentum. The government can build prosperity without interruption by suicide bombers.

(The author is head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. This article has been adapted from his new book, Breakout Nations)

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com  

Their son was already home, chilling out as he liked. He had all the comforts with both parents attached to private firms earning their handsome bread. But they had a little time to be home to look after – or rather watch out – their only son. Their only correspondence was over the phone.

Servants come and go. But the responsibility of maintaining a huge mansion they built together was so heavy. Housekeeping was getting out of hand, Amarapala’s wife noticed. But she was helpless. She had been sharing the servant-dilemma with her fellow executives over lunch a countless number of times. But it hardly brought any results.

That night Amarapala’s wife had an added burden: planning dinner. She was envious of her husband and son. For them, it’s simply sitting for dinner. But she had to think of it, work on it, and finally clean it all too. All this she had to do, despite being employed like her husband. She was a project officer at an NGO on gender equality. But she had doubts if she enjoyed it in her own nest.

Stuck in her own web of thoughts, Amarapala’s wife decided to have bread for dinner. She bought sliced bread on the way, thinking of having it for breakfast. But now she was too exhausted to cook dinner. Just toast some slices, and that will be enough for today. Put the breakfast on the back burner.

At first, Amarapala thought it’s a different taste. It took a while to realize that the bread is over-heated. That he could not hide from his wife and son. They noticed the sour expression on his face.

He knew his father’s nature. He could easily be annoyed. But his silence sent signals unfathomable.

“Something wrong with the bread?” Mother asked, her voice breaking. Tears almost ran down her cheeks, “I over-heated them.” But then it was their turn to be surprised.

“It tastes great. Hmmm… Yummy.”

Mother looked at father. Was it really him? She didn’t seem to know how to acknowledge father’s compliment. She seemed nervous, son noticed.

Amarapala’s wife was a bit guilty, recalling how she toasted the bread. She put them on the large frying pan, and went upstairs to put on a light dress. She took some time to locate a light dress among the laundered clothes. Only when she came downstairs, did she remember the slices. But then it was too late. She wished she put one slice at a time. She made sure to watch out for the next round. But then again she didn’t feel like throwing them away. She put them on the platter so she could have them by herself.

She never thought her husband would make a grab for two over-toasted ones.

She noticed him going for that. It sent some creeps. He is tired, and he would get offended. He easily loses his temper, like nothing at times. But for some strange reason, he enjoyed having the over-toasted bread.

Is it that he really liked the over-toasted bread, or is he just pretending?

Later towards evening, father summoned son.

“Do you know why I said that?”

“No. I was simply surprised when you said it tastes great.”

“Mother comes home so tired, just like me. I know that, and I really appreciate what she does to us. When I admired over-toasted bread, I admired her effort. Her effort to make us happy.”

Amarapala’s son was silent for a while. He was sure impressed.

“That’s simply great, father. I never thought you will make it happen.” Father gave an indifferent look. He didn’t take the compliment seriously. sachitra@gmail.com

“This is accepted by the government, and relevant rules and regulations should be imposed through a new Education Act. It will help maintain the quality and standard of education,” the minister added.

Here are excerpts:

Q: What are your plans for your ministry in 2012 to push forward Mahinda Chinthanaya – Vision for the Future?

A: We expect Sri Lanka to be the knowledge hub of Asia and the Wonder of Asia. Knowledge-based development is required to achieve this. It is expected to equip the child as a universal asset and one loves his/her motherland and the entire world. But at the moment, we have an exam-oriented education system. Therefore, during 2012 and 2016 under Mahinda Chinthanaya – Vision for the Future, we expect to carry out changes in the education sector. A Parliamentary Consultative Committee needs to be appointed for this to identify problems in the education sector. The committee headed by me met over 25 times.

During the meetings we identified issues that need solutions. There are less problems in the primary eduction sector than secondary education. Only 22 percent of students obtain advanced level education in the science stream and 25 percent in the commerce stream. A total of 53 percent obtain education from the arts stream. Due to this situation there are no jobs to offer for so many students who stop their education after completing the advanced level examination. This education system does not produce persons fit for jobs. We expect to solve this problem by issuing a certificate of competence after developing their skills at ordinary and advanced levels.

The problems encountered with Grade One admission and closing down of small schools will be solved by developing 5,000 primary schools and 1,000 secondary schools. These schools will be revived and projects are already ongoing. Under this programme all resources available in any popular and developed school will be provided to these 1,000 schools. Every Divisional Secretariat division will get at least three of such schools. These schools will be equipped with IT, language, mathematics, commerce and science laboratories. This will be done during 2012 to 2016. During the next few months 1,000 IT graduates, 1,000 science and maths graduates and 1,000 English graduates will be recruited as teachers. Interviews are now being conducted for recruitment. Appointments will be granted only if they agree to teach in the specific Divisional Secretariat division. This will distribute resources equally among all areas in the country and equalize student – teacher ratio.

Currently, 17 schoolchildren have one teacher. But there is a teacher shortage in schools located in difficult areas and a teachers’ surplus in urban popular schools. There are 341 national schools. Cabinet approval has already been granted to transfer all teachers in national schools who had served their current school for over eight years. They can be transferred either to another national school or provincial school. This will be put into action from next year. Earlier teacher transfers in national schools were not implemented properly.

We have paid special attention towards main subjects. They are IT, English (especially spoken English), maths, science, sports and aesthetic studies. We recruited 3,184 teachers to teach aesthetic studies. We will hold discussions with the Youth Affairs and Skills Development Ministry and Sports Ministry to make arrangements to add an additional value to the education certificate.

Q: What is your assessment of the past two years of the second term of the UPFA government?

A: The biggest victory of the UPFA government was ending the war which dragged on for over 30 years, and ensuring that not a single bomb goes off in the city. No other country achieved such a victory. The UPFA wiped out a very large well trained suicide squad deployed by the LTTE. The UPFA government achieved this amidst various conspiracies of the Tamil Diaspora, world super powers and anti-Sri Lankan elements. The UPFA government established law and order in the country and commenced the development drive, especially in the North and East. For the first time in history, Sri Lanka recorded a growth rate of over eight percent.

The unemployment ratio, interest rates etc were maintained at a single digit value. Both local and foreign government investments increased significantly upgrading the living standard of the people. The number of mobile phones in Sri Lanka is much higher than the total population. Three-wheelers, motorbicycles, homes without cadjan roofs have increased. It is an index which shows the quality of life. Maternal and infant mortality rates are very low when comparing to other countries. Sri Lanka have already achieved many Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and many of them are in the health sector.

Q: Explain the impact of neo-colonialism on Sri Lanka (Geneva issue etc) and possible future operations of local and foreign anti-Sri Lankan elements.

A: Instead of dominating countries directly, now the same colonial international elements try to use countries such as Sri Lanka to achieve their political goals indirectly. But the vast majority of the public stand by the country and the government. It is proved through this year’s May Day celebration. No international element can destabilize Sri Lanka if all those who love their motherland stay together and be united. Sri Lanka’s neighbour India does the same. India faces all challenges unitedly.

Q: Do you have any plans to standardize International Schools mushrooming all over the country?

A: At present international schools decide the future of many schoolchildren. Therefore, all International Schools should operate according to international standards. All telecommunication service providers have to obey rules and regulations imposed by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL). Likewise, International Schools should have a regulatory body. This is accepted by the government, and relevant rules and regulations should be imposed through a new Education Act. It will help maintain the quality and standard of education.

Q: Grade One admissions have become a major issue. Do you have a solution?

A: The myth of popular schools will end when 5,000 primary schools and 1,000 secondary schools are developed. With that, the rat race, corruption and malpractice involved in Grade One admission will end. A child can receive a high standard of education from any of the schools in their areas. The best example is the Grade Five examination results. The best results are from outstation schools and not from Colombo schools.

Q: There is a significant decline in discipline in schools (ragging, bulling etc in schools) compared to the past. Teachers complain about having too much paper work. Comment.

A: The Education Ministry has received complaints on the decline of discipline in schools with the use of drugs, violence etc. The ministry will directly be involved in establishing and strengthening discipline in school. We have already issued a circulation to develop a good attitude among schoolchildren on religion and morals. Under this circular, schoolchildren should observe sil on the last Friday prior to the Full Moon Poya Day. All other religious programmes should be conducted on the last Friday prior to the special religious ceremony of each religion. Aesthetic studies will be promoted among schoolchildren.

Q: There are regular media reports on various problems in schools, such as, child abuse allegations against teachers, discriminating against talented students, mentally abusing students, etc. What are the measures taken to resolve these issues?

A: Certain media institutes act irresponsibly when it comes to reporting incidents connected to lives of schoolchildren and teachers. Such media institutes act according to various personal agendas and attack schoolchildren, teachers and school authorities. Some media attack schools because children who have connections to those media institutes do not get admission to the relevant school as they do not qualify. Some media attack innocent voiceless people making them commit suicide. Because of this situation some parents have restricted certain media channels to their children. Parents cannot sit together with their children and watch certain items telecast on some channels. Countries such as Singapore do not telecast violence etc. All Sri Lankan media institutions have access to such high standard international media but they do not take examples. The content of the front pages of our newspapers and foreign newspapers are totally different. We are far behind in reporting some issues.

Q: Do you think the Z-score is a justifiable system to select students for university education?

A: Z-score is recognized by the University Grants Commission and scholars committed to maintaining equal treatment for all students who sit for the Advanced Level examination. Therefore, nobody can take an individual decision on it. It should be changed only according to a collective agreement.

Q: What is your opinion of the Malambe private university and the privatization of education?

A: If there are state, private, semi-government and other varieties of schools existing, what is wrong with letting private universities operate? There are private universities all over the world including SAARC countries and especially in China and Russia. If private universities cannot exist in Sri Lanka there cannot be private hospitals, factories, coconut estates, tea estates, etc existing in Sri Lanka. What happens now is a brain drain. Intellectuals now study, get employed, marry and settle down abroad. We lose intellectuals. We lose our nation. The children of rich parents receive foreign education and become non-Sri Lankans.

Q: Do you have any message for the Sri Lankan public, especially parents and schoolchildren?

A: We have to get rid of the ‘frog in the well’ mentality to march forward as one nation to become the Wonder of Asia. We have to look beyond our parameters. We have to promote positive thinking among the public. We have received a golden opportunity to march forward and achieve development. We, Sri Lankans need a new vision and a positive change of attitudes.

Prof Peiris first met with Representatives Chris Van Hollen (Democrat – Maryland) and Robert Aderholt (Republican – Alabama), to discuss recommendations made in late 2011 by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which examined Sri Lanka’s conflict against terrorism, which was successfully concluded three years ago.

Minister Peiris explained that the government has developed a mechanism for implementation of recommendations accepted by the government, which will be directed out of the office of Sri Lanka’s presidential secretariat.

During the talks, Minister Peiris also noted that President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe met on Monday to discuss matters related to multi-party participation in a Parliamentary Select Committee.

The committee will consider constitutional amendments, Minister Peiris said, and it was important to the government that minority parties in Parliament take part in that process which should be all inclusive.

Both Van Hollen and Aderholt are co-chairs of the Sri Lanka caucus in the House of Representatives. Van Hollen’s father once served as US ambassador to Sri Lanka.

Prof Peiris also briefed the two congressmen on Sri Lanka’s trilingual language initiative – a programme to urge Sri Lankans to learn Sinhala, Tamil and English – to foster better understanding among all Sri Lankans. The government, he said, has also established a national database to aid people whose relatives had gone missing during the conflict.

Additionally, the minister held a meeting with Representatives Heath Shuler (Democrat – North Carolina), Ben Chandler (Democrat – Kentucky) and Jack Kingston (Republican – Georgia).

In yet another Capitol Hill meeting, Prof. Peiris briefed members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, including the committee’s Democratic Party ranking member, Rep. Howard Berman (Democrat – California), Steve Chabot (Republican – Ohio), chairman of the committee’s Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee, and Rep. Ed Royce (Republican – California), chairman of the committee’s Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee.

There was an in-depth discussion of current issues, in which the American legislators showed keen interest.

Committee members commended Sri Lanka on its reconciliation and development progress since the May 19, 2009 conclusion of the conflict against the terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). They also expressed enthusiasm for continued cooperation between the United States and Sri Lanka, and inquired about Sri Lanka’s plans to implement the LLRC’s recommendations.

Rep Royce stated that he was specifically concerned about post-conflict international money laundering as “vexing and problematic for future.” Solving that problem, he said, was “important for long term stability.

Addressing the weekly Cabinet press briefing at the Government Information Department Auditorium yesterday, he said another 24 websites got registration later. “The registration included a code of ethics developed by journalists themselves. Nothing has been imposed by the Media Ministry on journalists or websites. The Supreme Court judgment made it clear that freedom of the wild ass cannot exist for websites.”

‘Registration is being done in order to protect the democratic rights of citizens.

According to Acting Minister Yapa Abeywardena, if any website is unable to provide its contact details, it is obvious that something fishy is going on with that specific website and it has something to hide from the public.

‘Right to reply’ is the democratic right of public which should be assured by the Sri Lankan government.

‘Mass media, such as, CNN, BBC etc have contact details and any person can contact those media institutions and present his/her version if those radio/television channels broadcast/telecast anything in connection with him/her.

‘Here in Sri Lanka all newspapers, magazines, television/radio stations etc have contact details.

‘The public can make complaints to the Sri Lanka Press Council which has not taken legal action against any institution so far.

‘Likewise websites should have contact details. It is simply the name and address of the editor/owner/operator of the website, the Acting Minister added.

The Triforces, Police, Special Task Force and Civil Defence Force will join in the parade. Disabled soldiers of the war will also take part in the parade. The parade would be colourful with various cultural items. It would also exhibit the military ware and vehicles used in the humanitarian operation.

Attractive displays will be conducted by the Triforces personnel on air, land and sea. Facilities have been provided for the public to view the event. A gate near the old Parliament would be open to the public to enter the premises.

Entry is free of charge and no invitation card is required.

The Victory Day Parade Organisation Committee requests those who wish to view this event to be in their seats before 8am.

The fresh dates will be announced subsequently.

Best teams of the cricket playing schools in the island have been invited and sixteen teams will be selected for the tournament on first come first serve basis.

The winners of the 1st round matches will be competing in the Champion Trophy and the losers will compete in the Plate Trophy.

For further details Tel. No. 071-6848296

D.S. Abeygunasekera,

Prefect-of-Games