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The recent criticisms against the Sri Lanka Army by Former Army Commander Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka has gone down well with the current Army Commander Mahesh Senanayake. Releasing a statement today the Sri Lanka Army Headquarters noting that recently retired Army officers keep commenting on the Army’s war preparedness said they cannot comment on the strength of the force while being outside the Army. “They have no moral right to do so” the release issued by SLA HQ said.

“We condemn such comments being made against the government, Ministry of Defence and the Army to gain personal and political mileage” it further added. The Army, therefore, has also requested the public to not believe in such false propaganda. 

However, the release also claimed the Army is prepared to discuss with former Commanders and Officers in a bid to exchange ideas so that the Army can be strengthened further.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Sri Lanka as a Rubella-free-country.

WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh awarded the certificate declaring Sri Lanka as a Rubella-free-country to Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne at the WHO South-East Asia Regional Conference in New Delhi, India recently.

WHO had declared Sri Lanka as Malaria-free country in 2015, Filaria-free country in 2016 and Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) -free country in 2017.

The WHO Regional Director pointed out that every year Sri Lanka eliminates a disease and Sri Lanka's leadership in health services is a big support for the achievements.

Maharagama Urban Council workers are continuing their strike against the alleged attack on four fellow workers by Maharagama Urban Council Chairman Tiraj Lakruwan.

Out of the four, two workers of the Maharagama Urban Council were admitted to the Homagama Hospital after being allegedly attacked by the Chairman.

Opposition member of the Maharagama Urban Council Ruwan Jayasinghe said the Chairman had allegedly assaulted these two workers after taking them to a room, accusing them of being drunk at the time. Condemning the alleged attack on public servants, the UC member said that the Chairman has no right to attack UC workers and he should have taken disciplinary action against them, if they were found to have consumed alcohol while on duty.

While the strike will continue, the Health section of the UC will report to work tomorrow due to Garbage piling up in the UC area. Others will however continue till the issue is resolved UC sources said.

The family of a student who was accused of planning to assassinate senior Australian politicians insist he is innocent.

Mohamed Nizamdeen, 25, who was studying and working at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), allegedly planned to kill former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his deputy Julie Bishop, according to police.

A notebook detailing the alleged plan was found by his university colleague and was reported to police.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr Mizamdeen has been working as a Business Systems Analyst at UNSW since 2016.

After the arrest on Thursday, his uncle Faiszer Musthapha, who is Sri Lankan Sports and Local Government Minister, said his nephew was innocent.

He was arrested and charged for the planning of a terrorist offence last Thursday. 

'We love him - when anyone has done something wrong they should deal with them - but as a family we believe he's innocent,' Mr Musthapha told Hack.

'As a family we believe he hasn't done anything wrong, we're very confident of that but until the judicial system makes a finding we'll have to wait and see.

'I don't want to pre-judge things... all that we can say is that we have love, affection, and praise for him.'

According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr Mizamdeen has been working as a Business Systems Analyst at UNSW since 2016. 

'He's just like any other boy, he plays, he dances, he sings, he parties - he's not different to any other kid in Australia or Sri Lanka,' Mr Musthapha said. 

When he was arrested, NSW Police allegedly found documents 'containing plans to facilitate terrorism attacks' and a notebook that named a number of locations and individuals as 'potential targets'.

His alleged plans involved former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (left) and former deputy leader Julie Bishop (right).

'From the documentation, we believe he would affiliate with ISIS,' Detecting Superintendent Mick Sheehy said last week. 

Mr Nizamdeen has no criminal history in Australia, according to police. 

The Sri Lankan national was on a student visa and in the process of applying for another one when he was arrested.     

Last week, Mr Nizamdeen was refused bail and his case was adjourned. He is due to appear at Central Local Court on October 24.

'Everybody in the family is shattered and broken but the fact that this happened in Australia, we know that you have a good judicial system and justice will prevail,' Mr. Musthapha said.

Faiszer Musthapha: 'Everybody in the family is shattered and broken but the fact that this happened in Australia, we know that you have a good judicial system and justice will prevail.

Source: Daily Mail

The People's Liberation Front (JVP) in Sri Lanka moved a motion in Parliament to abolish the Executive Presidency and replace it with a new one in which the Prime Minister is the head. 

The JVP yesterday presented to Parliament a bill titled 20th Amendment to the Constitution to abolish the executive presidency. The bill was presented to the House by JVP MP Vijtiha Herath. The bill will seek to amend Article 4 of the constitution, which has vested the executive power in the President, elected by the people

Security around the Parliament was beefed up, after intelligence reported that the joint opposition was likely to converge. 

"This was an unkept promise over a long period of time. There were many pledges to abolish the executive presidency but it was never implemented," Vijitha Herath said in Parliament. 

According to Herath, the new motion aims at preventing too much power being conferred on a single individual. 

"This (the existing system) has made an individual too powerful," he said. 

The current president headed system was introduced in 1978 after Sri Lanka was under a Westminster model parliamentary system since 1948. The system has been blamed for most of the political ills in the island country, including the long standing dispute with the Tamil minority for their demand for power sharing. 

Since it was introduced, all parties have pledged to abolish it. Every president, since 1994, have elected to honour the pledge to abolish the presidency. However, the pledge was never kept. 

In the event the motion gets approved, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa may stand to gain as he would then be free from the term bar in the current Constitution. The 73 year old Rajapaksa was twice elected to the post, but is constitutionally barred from running for Presidency again.

The Agriculture Ministry plans to conduct a survey to identify the extent of land used for paddy cultivation with the assistance of Sri Lanka Air Force, Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amaraweera said. 

“It is clear that the extent of paddy cultivated lands has reduced due to the filling up of paddy lands or using paddy lands for purposes other than cultivation,” Amaraweera said.

The Minister further noted that the government needs to collect accurate data on the country’s paddy lands to forecast rice production and fertilizer requirement. Minister Amaraweera also said that he had instructed officials to prepare a database on paddy cultivated lands by analyzing data on aerial maps collected with the assistance of Sri Lanka Air Force.

According to the data collected several years ago, the total land allocated for paddy is estimated to be about 800,000 hectares at present.

A large number of urbanised paddy lands were used for other purposes legally or illegally. Most paddy landowners initially sought a license to allow them to use the land for commercial purposes. However, in most cases, they had divided it into small blocks and sold to build houses.

The Agrarian Services Department had received about 3,000 applications from the Western Province seeking permission to fill paddy lands during the past few months.

The Office on Missing Persons (OMP) in Sri Lanka established to address the many cases of missing and disappeared has recommended the government to provide urgent and immediate relief to the families of involuntarily disappeared as their current socio-economic situation is dire.
 
The OMP, which prepared an interim report on their work during the past six months, handed over the report to the President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe Wednesday and released it to the public online today.
 
The interim report, which also recommends interim measures to provide relief and reparation to the affected families by the disappearances of their loved ones, said the current socio-economic situation of many families of the missing and the disappeared is dire and cannot wait until a final reparations scheme is devised and a key set of measures is required In the interim to provide urgent and immediate relief to the families.
 
The report also noted that In addition, there is an overwhelming demand and need for investigation and prosecution of enforced disappearances.
 
"These are not merely crimes of the past but are of a continuing nature until the fate of the missing or their whereabouts are clarified," it said.
 
Therefore, it is urgent for the State to ensure an adequate legal framework and empower relevant state actors to discharge their functions to ensure prompt and effective investigations and prosecutions. ,
 
The OMP has recommended the government to implement a financial aid program to provide a monthly living allowance of Rs. 6,000 to the immediate family of the missing or disappeared person, who has no permanent income.
 
The OMP has also recommended implementing separate programs for families of the missing or Disappeared on debt relief, housing development, educational support, and vocational training and livelihood development.
 
It has also recommended Introduction of an employment quota of 1% within the state sector in order to facilitate family members of the missing and disappeared who have requisite skills, when vacancies in the public and semi-governmental sectors are being filled.
 
In recognition of the urgent need for justice and accountability, the OMP recommended enforcing and amending the Disappearances Act to recognize the continuing nature of enforced disappearances and allowing the OMP to along with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka and law enforcement authorities to have access to places where persons are being detained among several other measures.
 
The OMP recommended the government to expedite and give highest priority to prosecutions and other ongoing cases involving enforced disappearances and investigate all incidents of arbitrary arrest, torture and deaths in custody.
In recognition of the long-term pain and suffering of families of the missing and the disappeared, as well as the need for the people of Sri Lanka to recognize that many thousands of people belonging to all communities were disappeared over several decades, the OMP recommends the government to designate a National Day for the Disappeared. (Colombopage) 
 
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Sri Lankan farmers should look into shifting to higher value agriculture in order to improve output per farmer thereby increasing the income per farmer, Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera said on Sunday speaking at the CEOs Forum 2018.

"By 'protecting' uncompetitive agriculture, we are in effect trapping farmers in low wage economic activity. It is clear that we need to gradually shift into higher value agriculture in order to improve output per farmer, and thus income per farmer", Samaraweera said.

The Minister added that to get there the government needs investment and technology – both FDI and domestic private investment. This same principle applies to all economic sectors; many of which are uncompetitive but have been protected, stifling competition, innovation, and real wage growth, whilst imposing high costs of protection on consumers.

"It is in this context that the government has embarked on a shift in the economic trajectory of Sri Lanka from a protected domestic market driven economy, to a more outward oriented economy", he said.

Samaraweera also said that the government needs to undertake more difficult and challenging reforms in order to drive future economic growth and development.

The Finance Minister pointed out that this entails improving the competitiveness of the economy, so that output per employee is higher, and this would be reflected in higher real wages. 

"In order to drive competitiveness, it is necessary for economic resources to be diverted into activities that optimise output per worker. This requires a shift of economic activity into sectors where Sri Lanka is globally competitive and move out of sectors where we cannot compete", he added.

The ‘Jana Balaya Kolambata’ protest, which was an attempt made by the joint opposition to certifying its next political leader, was a total failure State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene said yesterday.

Addressing a news briefing held at the Government Information Department last evening, the State Minister said the protest only resulted in inconveniencing the people who were in Colombo.

“Because of the protest parents could not send their children to school, people could not get to work. As you know Wednesday is the public day in many ministries and people could not get to meet their ministers because of the protest. It was not the government but the people in the City of Colombo that was affected by this,” he said.

He said due to internal issues taking place within the JO, the party was forced to bring people to Colombo.

“The protest had no impact on the government. Many people are spending the whole night on the roads in Colombo with the hope of forming a new government tomorrow,” he said.

Source: Daily Mirror

Saudi Arabia on Monday pledged USD 300 million worth of assistance to Sri Lanka, which will be disbursed to various areas in the country for various development programmes.

The Saudi Arabian Ambassador in Sri Lanka Abdul Nazar Al Hardi said during the inauguration of the Badulla-Chenkalldai Road Development project in Padiyatalawa yesterday morning that his government would provide assistance to the tune of USD 300 million.

He said the fund would be spent on water supply projects, agriculture sector, education and health facility development.

“We are happy to assist Sri Lanka and look forward to strengthen bilateral ties with Sri Lanka,” he said.

While the vast majority of the protestors left Colombo Fort by 8PM yesterday, a small group remained behind for a Satyagraha on Lotus Road outside the Colombo Hilton.

The rally organisers got Angampora dancers to keep the small crowd entertained during their vigil. There were also skits by men in demon-masks and other activities for the vigil-keepers.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa also arrived briefly on the scene, while former Ministers Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Bandula Gunawardane were seen leading the crowd at 9.30 PM.

JO MP Bandula Gunawardane said that the crowd would remain on the road till about midnight or 1AM. “Today was just the pilot project,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Government alleged that SLPP leaders had booked rooms at several five star hotels in the vicinity including the Hilton Colombo, Taj Colombo and Shangri-La. Deputy Minister Nalin Bandara told a press briefing at the Government Information Department last night that a Suite of the Taj Colombo had been booked, while other sources confirmed that presidential suite had been booked for JO/SLPP MPs.

Namal Rajapaksa was spotted at the Hilton Colombo on Tuesday (4), the night before the janabalaya demonstration, while his brother Yoshitha Rajapaksa was spotted in the Hilton lobby last afternoon, enjoying a beer with businessman Nimal Perera and Gamini Abeyratne, aka, ‘Taxi Abey’ before joining the demonstration.

Source : Daily News

Joint Opposition MP, Former Minister Johnston Fernando was remanded today till September 11 along with two others over the misuse of public funds relating to Sathosa. 

The order was issued by Judge Menaka Wijesundara today who said the suspects should be remanded till the conclusion of the case.

Remanded along with him was his private secretary Mohammed Shakeer and former Sathosa Chairman Nalin Fernando. The case will be heard daily till its conclusion the court ordered as well.