Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
අලිමංකඩ /The Road From elephant pass තෙ'මා ගීතය
Cast-Ashan Dias,Suranga Ranawaka
Lyrics,Vocals-Ajith kumarasiri
Directde By-Chandran rathnam
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
US to quiz Gen. Fonseka ?
Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka, now on a private visit to the United States, has been told to face a “voluntary meeting” with the Department of Homeland Security, prompting fears in Colombo that Washington is asserting its legal authority over the “war crimes” report released last week.
Reports reaching the highest levels of the Government say US Department of Homeland Security officials want to interview him on Wednesday (November 4) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Gen. Fonseka, who is a US Green Card holder, has a residence in Oklahoma. His visit is in connection with renewing his Green Card which affords him residency in the US. This is a prelude to US citizenship.
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| Gen. Fonseka |
He had already sought legal advice from Fred Fielding, a former White House Counsel to late Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and former President George W. Bush. His lawyer had advised that the CDS should face the meeting and answer all questions truthfully.
Thereafter, according to highly-placed Government sources in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador who learnt of the US move, mobilized lawyers from Patton Boggs, the law firm hired by the mission for lobbying and promotional work, to fly to Tulsa. Gen. Fonseka has agreed to drop lawyer Fielding from representing him and to retain the services of Patton Boggs.
It is not immediately clear whether Patton Boggs lawyers would advise Gen. Fonseka to claim diplomatic immunity and turn down the interview request or ask him to respond to questions from officials of the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, the involvement of the firm itself has become a knotty legal issue after it has been pointed out that it also represents the Government of Sri Lanka. Since Gen. Fonseka is a Green Card holder, and thus a prospective US citizen, there were concerns whether representation by Patton Boggs would also become another issue.
Sri Lankas Ambassador in the US, Jaliya Wickremasuriya has written to Robert Blake, Assistant Secretary in the State Department about this matter, seeking his assistance to resolve any issues involved. Heightening concerns is the possible US response if Gen. Fonseka claims diplomatic immunity and is refused. That is on the grounds that a prospective US citizen, a Green Card holder, is not covered by diplomatic immunity.
In such an event, questions are being raised whether the Department of Homeland Security would resort to Court action in the US to hold him for investigation for alleged human rights violations. Both US citizens and those aspiring to be citizens are governed by US laws and reported violations make them answerable to law enforcement agencies in that country.
The 68-page report from the US Department of State to the Congress on October 22 contains details of alleged “atrocities” by both the military and Tiger guerrillas during the final stages of the separatist war in May, this year. The report contains a reference to Gen. Fonseka. It says, “A media outlet reported on July 18 that at a celebrity event in Ambalangoda, Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka stated that the military had to overlook the traditional rules of war and even kill LTTE rebels who came to surrender carrying white flags during the war against the LTTE.”
General Fonseka and his wife Anoma left for US on October 23. Their visit was originally expected to be part official and part holiday. However, the official part of the visit which included an invitation to the US Pacific Command in Hawaii for farewell ceremonies to its commander Admiral Timothy J. Keating was later withdrawn. This was in the light of the release of the State Department report to the Congress. US authorities said it would not be tenable for Gen. Fonseka to be officially hosted at any event in the light of the report.
Last Monday, Gen. Fonseka and his wife took part in religious ceremonies at the Washington Buddhist Viharaya. A meeting that day with Robert Blake did not materialize reportedly on the grounds that the Assistant Secretary was ill. Later, Gen. Fonseka and his entourage flew to Oklahoma.
source-sunday times. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/091101/News/nws_01.html
source-sunday times. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/091101/News/nws_01.html
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Sri Lanka born Raj Rajaratnam indicted by FBI for alleged insider trading in New York
Raj Rajaratnam the billionaire founder of the hedge fund firm Galleon Group, and ex-directors at a Bear Stearns Cos. hedge fund was arrested by the FBI and accused of conspiring with others to trade based on insider information about several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.
If convicted he will face maximum jail sentence of 20 years.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, putting total profits in the scheme at $20.6 million, told a news conference it was the largest hedge fund case ever prosecuted and marked the first use of court-authorized wiretaps to capture conversations by suspects in an insider trading case.
According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Rajaratnam obtained insider information and then caused the Galleon Technology Funds to execute trades that earned a profit of more than $12.7 million between January 2006 and July 2007. Other schemes garnered millions more, authorities said.
Also accused were Rajiv Goel, who worked at Intel Capital as a director in strategic investments, Anil Kumar, who worked as a director at McKinsey & Co., and IBM Corp. executive Robert Moffat. The former officials at Bear Stearns Asset Management are Danielle Chiesi and Mark Kurland, who were affiliated with the firm’s New Castle Partners, which managed about $1 billion.
Raj Rajaratnam, was also a major contributor to the Hillary Clinton campaign and also the single largest known U.S. contributor to a charity, Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) allegedly linked to the Tamil Tiger terror group in Sri Lanka. The TRO was proscribed by the U.S.Treasury Department two years ago. The Treasury Department proscribing the TRO declared that it was a front organization of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger outfit the United States designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization FTO) in 1997 and that the charitable donation the TRO received were diverted to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka to wage war against the Sri Lanka state.
The Tamil Tigers or LTTE was totally defeated in Sri Lanka along with the killings of its entire leadership in May this year.
Raj Rajaratnam recently (September 2009) pledged to donate a million US dollars to help with the rehabilitation of former LTTE combatants. The Sri Lankan Tamil self-made billionaire hedge fund manager is now the 236th richest American according to the 2009 Forbes Magazine. He was listed as 262nd richest American in the 2008 Forbes magazine. As of early 2009, he is the richest Sri Lankan born person in the world.
Galleon Group's Titan Fund has returned 20% so far this year (2009), outperforming the Nasdaq by 33%. Rajaratnam started his career as an analyst at the investment banking boutique Needham & Co where his focus was on electronics. He was promoted to president 1991 and launched Galleon six years later.
According to Bloomberg News Galleon, which started as a hedge fund firm focusing on technology and health-care stocks, grew to more than $5 billion in 2001 from its start in January 1997. Rajaratnam founded Galleon with three other colleagues from Needham & Co. an investment bank that focused on technology and health-care companies. None of the other co-founders are still at the firm, according to a Galleon marketing document.
Galleon Management, the company’s advisory business, oversaw more than $2.6 billion at the end of March, mostly on behalf of hedge funds, according to regulatory filings it submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission at the time. Rajaratnam held a 50 percent to 75 percent controlling stake in the advisory, the documents show.
Rajaratnam used “devices, schemes and artifices to defraud,” one of two complaints in Manhattan federal court says. Prosecutors said they used wiretaps on the billionaire’s phone. “A number of the calls intercepted over the wiretap consist of Rajaratnam either providing, receiving, or seeking material nonpublic information about various publicly traded companies,” a complaint says.
The case represents the first time wiretaps were used to target insider trading, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said at a press conference. Tips came from insiders and others at hedge funds, investor relations firms, and companies including Intel, IBM, McKinsey, and companies whose shares were traded in the scheme, Bharara said.
Prosecutors said they’ve been investigating the case since at least November 2007, when a person they don’t name in the complaint began meeting with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The person, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with authorities, had used inside information to trade securities and tipped Rajaratnam since 2006, prosecutors say in one of two complaints filed in Manhattan federal court.
The famous interior designer and millionaire Martha Stewart spend many years in jail after being convicted of insider trading.
copyright-Asiantribune
If convicted he will face maximum jail sentence of 20 years.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, putting total profits in the scheme at $20.6 million, told a news conference it was the largest hedge fund case ever prosecuted and marked the first use of court-authorized wiretaps to capture conversations by suspects in an insider trading case.
According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Rajaratnam obtained insider information and then caused the Galleon Technology Funds to execute trades that earned a profit of more than $12.7 million between January 2006 and July 2007. Other schemes garnered millions more, authorities said.
Also accused were Rajiv Goel, who worked at Intel Capital as a director in strategic investments, Anil Kumar, who worked as a director at McKinsey & Co., and IBM Corp. executive Robert Moffat. The former officials at Bear Stearns Asset Management are Danielle Chiesi and Mark Kurland, who were affiliated with the firm’s New Castle Partners, which managed about $1 billion.
Raj Rajaratnam, was also a major contributor to the Hillary Clinton campaign and also the single largest known U.S. contributor to a charity, Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) allegedly linked to the Tamil Tiger terror group in Sri Lanka. The TRO was proscribed by the U.S.Treasury Department two years ago. The Treasury Department proscribing the TRO declared that it was a front organization of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger outfit the United States designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization FTO) in 1997 and that the charitable donation the TRO received were diverted to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka to wage war against the Sri Lanka state.
The Tamil Tigers or LTTE was totally defeated in Sri Lanka along with the killings of its entire leadership in May this year.
Raj Rajaratnam, billionaire founder of the Galleon Group, a major hedge fund, is led in handcuffs from FBI headquarters in New York Friday, Oct.16, 2009. Rajaratnam was charged with insider trading in the stock of several companies including Hilton, Clearwire, and Google. (Courtesy-Louis Lanzano/AP)
Galleon Group's Titan Fund has returned 20% so far this year (2009), outperforming the Nasdaq by 33%. Rajaratnam started his career as an analyst at the investment banking boutique Needham & Co where his focus was on electronics. He was promoted to president 1991 and launched Galleon six years later.
According to Bloomberg News Galleon, which started as a hedge fund firm focusing on technology and health-care stocks, grew to more than $5 billion in 2001 from its start in January 1997. Rajaratnam founded Galleon with three other colleagues from Needham & Co. an investment bank that focused on technology and health-care companies. None of the other co-founders are still at the firm, according to a Galleon marketing document.
Galleon Management, the company’s advisory business, oversaw more than $2.6 billion at the end of March, mostly on behalf of hedge funds, according to regulatory filings it submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission at the time. Rajaratnam held a 50 percent to 75 percent controlling stake in the advisory, the documents show.
Rajaratnam used “devices, schemes and artifices to defraud,” one of two complaints in Manhattan federal court says. Prosecutors said they used wiretaps on the billionaire’s phone. “A number of the calls intercepted over the wiretap consist of Rajaratnam either providing, receiving, or seeking material nonpublic information about various publicly traded companies,” a complaint says.
The case represents the first time wiretaps were used to target insider trading, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said at a press conference. Tips came from insiders and others at hedge funds, investor relations firms, and companies including Intel, IBM, McKinsey, and companies whose shares were traded in the scheme, Bharara said.
Prosecutors said they’ve been investigating the case since at least November 2007, when a person they don’t name in the complaint began meeting with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The person, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with authorities, had used inside information to trade securities and tipped Rajaratnam since 2006, prosecutors say in one of two complaints filed in Manhattan federal court.
The famous interior designer and millionaire Martha Stewart spend many years in jail after being convicted of insider trading.
copyright-Asiantribune
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Mahinda rajapaksha ..one of best candidate to own the Nobel Piece Prize 2009........... by Jonathan Kay: National Post canada
I am still trying to figure out why the Nobel Committee gave Barack Obama its annual peace prize. As far as it appears, the award was based on the fact that the U.S. President is a good-natured fellow who people seem to like — and who isn’t George W. Bush.
In fact, committee chairman Thorbjoen Jagland didn’t really try to pretend otherwise. Consider the committee’s stated reasons, along with Mr. Jagland’s comments when reporters pressed him to justify Mr. Obama’s selection:
“He has created a new international climate.”
“One of the first things he did was to go to Cairo to try to reach out to the Muslim world, then to restart the Mideast negotiations, and then he reached out to the rest of the world through international institutions.“
“Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”
“Obama [has] captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”
What seems clear from all this bafflegab is that Mr. Obama is being given his award for mere words — for striking fashionable poses in favour of multilateralism, for making a nice speech in Cairo, for offering “hope.” Months after Americans learned to dismiss Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign slogans as the bromides they were, Scandinavians apparently are still drinking his Kool-aid.
So who should have gotten the Nobel peace prize?
Instead of droning on about “hope” and “a new international climate,” a group of people charged with awarding an annual peace prize might find it useful to focus on a more mundane and obvious inquiry. To wit: What part of the planet was beset by bloody war in 2008, but is now entirely at peace?
The only nation that fits the bill is Sri Lanka. And the reason for that is a ruthless military campaign waged by President Mahinda Rajapaksa against a militarized Tamil death cult known as the Tamil Tigers. This conflict has taken nearly 100,000 lives since it began three decades ago. But Rajapaksa ended it definitively at one stroke, killing or capturing virtually the entire Tiger leadership. It is one of the only times in the history of modern warfare that a guerrilla/terrorist movement has been utterly destroyed in such a fashion. Overnight, war became a stranger to Sri Lanka.
Sounds like a pretty good candidate for a “peace” prize, don’t you think?
But of course, actually making peace is not what this nominal peace prize is about. It’s about going through the motions of pursuing peace in a touchy-feely UN-approved way.
Mr. Rajapaksa has done some fairly nasty things en route to destroying the Tigers — including imprisoning and perhaps even killing pesky journalists and human-rights activists. More importantly (from a Scandinavian point of view), Mr. Rajapaksa committed an unpardonable foreign-policy sin en route to his victory: flouting “multilateralism.” Which is to say that he ignored the bien pensant voices from abroad urging him to let the Tigers go just as the Sri Lankan military was about to administer the coup de grace. Had he listened, the war would continue to this day.
It’s so much more fashionable to honour a man such as Mr. Obama, whose foreign-policy record hasn’t been sullied by the moral trade-offs that inevitably accompany actually doing something to create peace on the battlefield.
Since the entire body of work for which Mr. Obama is being honoured consists of idealistic pronouncements, the Nobel prize committee was able to pick him without worrying that the choice could stir up controversy among umbraged minority groups, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, or the UN’s various institutional cheerleaders.
With this pick, the Nobel committee has declared itself to be a debating society — and it has given its shiny prize to the nice man who gave the best speech. It’s like those beauty pageants wherein the MC asks contestants what they would do to promote world peace. The best answer earns applause, flowers and a trophy. But no one expects the winner to actually go out in her tiara and ballroom gown and stop people from fighting.
That task is left to head-knockers such as Mahinda Rajapaksa, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan. Their job is difficult and bloody. But every once in a while, as in Sri Lanka this year, they actually defeat the bad guys.
Then they go home, and turn on their televisions, and watch men such as Mr. Obama get showered with praise for their pretty words
Source-National Post Canada
by
Johnathan Kay.
jkay@nationalpost.com
Photo: Barack Obama waves after his speech in front of the Siegessaeule on July 24, 2008 in Berlin, Germany.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Unexpexted Crowd extends the Army exbition till 11th octomber
SRI LANKA ARMY’S 60th Anniversary Mega Exhibition now on for its fourth day has drawn over 200,000 spectators by Tuesday (06) mid noon.
The Commando Regiment stall at the premises has turned out to be the most attractive crowd-puller as the youth took more interest in Commando Regiment’s acrobats, rescue operations and other thrilling feats.
The crowd included many school children, young girls and boys and also a wide section of patriotic civilians.
Meanwhile the organizers has decided to extend the closing day of exhibition till 11 th of October since large number of crowd are yet to be visit to the exhibition
The Commando Regiment stall at the premises has turned out to be the most attractive crowd-puller as the youth took more interest in Commando Regiment’s acrobats, rescue operations and other thrilling feats.
The crowd included many school children, young girls and boys and also a wide section of patriotic civilians.
Meanwhile the organizers has decided to extend the closing day of exhibition till 11 th of October since large number of crowd are yet to be visit to the exhibition
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 Courtesy-WWW.army.lk |
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Hilery's Accuses on Sri lanka troops showing the dual standard against the terorism.......
US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, chairing the United Nations Security Council meeting Wednesday, on the last day of US's turn of the rotating presidency of the 15-member body in September, on violence against women in warfare, dropped a bombshell on Sri Lanka by including Sri Lanka in the company of Congo, Sudan, and Mayanmar, saying Sri Lanka has used rape as a weapon of war ,
the Sri Lankan authorities have immediately respond to the Mrs. Clinton's statement and denied the allegations.because of the pressure applied by sri lankan Government by all kind of diplomatic links later the state department of USA released an statement and said 'that Mrs. Clinton is not mentioned about the incident occur in recent history but some time back...' further they comment that they don't have report any Rape or sexual harassment incident during the 4th Ealam war (2006-2009)
what ever explanation they made later its clear the USA wants to be in Dual standard against the sri lanka , for control sri lanka's internl politicl movements against LTTE terrorism.even after an official request made by Sri lanka from USA to handover V. Rudrakumaran cheif LTTE suspect who handles LTTE international diplomatic network.The USA Authorities is not interest to handover him to sri lanka while USA named LTTE as an suspend terrorist organization since 1996
what ever explanation they made later its clear the USA wants to be in Dual standard against the sri lanka , for control sri lanka's internl politicl movements against LTTE terrorism.even after an official request made by Sri lanka from USA to handover V. Rudrakumaran cheif LTTE suspect who handles LTTE international diplomatic network.The USA Authorities is not interest to handover him to sri lanka while USA named LTTE as an suspend terrorist organization since 1996
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