News Item in Island, 4 August 2020, with this title “Lanka only second to Canada in World Schools Debating Championship 2020”
Sri Lanka National Debating Team became the first runner-up in the online World Schools Debating Championship 2020, while Canada beat Sri Lanka to win the Championship, in the final held on Sunday. Sri Lanka was also named the best ESL (English as a second language) team. Sri Lanka team’s Shalem Sumanthiran won the seventh place in the best ESL Speakers’ category.
PK Balachandran
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Camelia Nathaniel in Ceylon Daily News, 4 August 2020, where the title reads “Forces thwart attempts to revive LTTE terror”
Since the LTTE’s defeat in 2009, there have been several attempts over the years to revamp the terror outfit. From 2012 there have been 12 such attempts that are on record. All of these incidents have had some form of foreign hand in them. Intelligence units are investigating these incidents and the international connections.
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The Population of Galle Fort in 2018
Muslims 561
Sinhalas 432
Tamils 14
Malays 02
Burghers 02
Foreigners 60 …… Total 1071
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The text is Chapter 7 in Juliet Coombe and Daisy Perry’s absorbing Around the Galle Fort in 80 Lives alas presented here without Coombe’s imposing camera work … so that readers have to make do with one family snap and my amateur ‘flourishes’
Behind the unassuming door of Number 15, Parawa Street lies a unique collection of family antiques that have been passed down through five generation of the Goonewardena family. The door opens and the visitor feels an immediate allure as their eyes are met by dozens of quirky, individual treasures. The most striking feature is the collection of animal horns that are mounted on the walls around the entrance room – the antlers of a stag, the giant, thick, curving horns of wild buffalo and the small tusks of wild buffalo and the small tusks of a wild boar. Both the Sri Lankan jungle and the country’s colonial past seem to be emblemized in these trophies that Mr, Goonewardena’s gran father was given as a gift when he was working in a public works department in Batticaloa. In the 1950s Queen Elizabeth awarded him a medal for his public service but unfortunately he died before he could receive it.
Moninna, Dilum, Piyum and Ranjit at their very best
Kamanthi Wickramasinghe, in Daily Mirror, 1 August 2020, where the title is;“Communal harmony will commence from Vanni District -Rathnapriya Bandu”
Colonel Rathnapriya Bandu who served as the Commander of the Civil Defence Force in Vishwamadu made headlines when he was transferred to the Sinha Regiment in Ambepussa. He received a warm farewell from the Tamil community, including rehabilitated ex-LTTE cadres proving that he was embraced by all communities alike. Upon his retirement, Col. Bandu made his entry to politics and will be contesting under the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) ticket from the Vanni District. Although it was once a hotbed of communal violence, he assures that communal harmony will soon commence from the Vanni District and spread to all parts of the country.
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Kalani Kumarasinghe, in Daily Mirror, 9 July 2020, where the title is “Change? Let’s start from the Cabinet”
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Yesterday (29/07/20) in the House of Lords, Lord Naseby spoke in the debate on Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020: “My Lords, I have no problem at all with the financial aspects of this SI. I think there is a big challenge with individuals and human rights; I remember Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Assad, all of whose communities we interfered in at huge human cost to those communities. I want to focus, though, sadly, on the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers—LTTE—which we proscribed in 2001. It was succeeded by the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam—TGTE—itself proscribed in Sri Lanka. It is staffed and organised by former LTTE people and yesterday it started a legal action in the courts here in the UK to lift the proscription on the Tamil Tigers.
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thuppahi
