By Dr. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA Courtesy The Island March 19, 2018, 9:37 pm I have to say that I am very happy indeed about the resounding victory scored by President Putin. If not for him, there would be no multi-polarity in the world; no chance of a global equilibrium; no ally for the rising economic power of […]

REGGIE PONNAMPALAM Courtesy The Island March 18, 2018, 9:51 pm There was much talk, announcements, speculation and predictions on the Ministry of Law & Order, and now we have a Madduma Bandara. Reminds me of an old Sinhala Baila, “Sinhala Ithihasa Pothe Ran Akuren Liyawuna. . .” – written in letters of gold in the annals […]

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and CAROLE CADWALLADRMARCH 17, 2018–NEW YORK TIMES Christopher Wylie, who helped found the data firm Cambridge Analytica and worked there until 2014, has described the company as an “arsenal of weapons” in a culture war.CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times (After this story was published, Facebook came under harsh criticism from lawmakers in […]

COLOMBO, March 19 (Reuters) – Sri Lankan shares fell to their lowest close in nearly seven weeks on Monday, as investors sold diversified and manufacturing stocks on worries over slower economic growth, brokers said. The statistics department withdrew its 2017 full-year and fourth-quarter GDP data on Friday, a day after saying the economy expanded 3.1 […]

Courtesy tobaccoreporter.com The government of Sri Lanka has been urged to withdraw a proposed ban on tobacco cultivation in the country, according to a story in The Colombo Gazette. The All Ceylon Cigarette Tobacco Barn Owners’ Association said that since 2015, the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Drug Prevention had recommended ‘unreasonable restrictions’ on tobacco […]

Editorial The Guardian (UK) The standards by which the internet is controlled need to be open and subject to impartial judiciaries – not left to advertisers The revelations we publish about how Facebook’s data was used by Cambridge Analytica to subvert the openness of democracy are only the latest examples of a global phenomenon. All over the […]

By APRIL GLASER   Courtesy slate.com MARCH 19, 20184:58 PM Cambridge Analytica, the political-data firm hired by the Trump campaign that’s been implicated in a scandal involving the illegitimate harvesting of more than 50 million Facebook user profiles, did not improve its public standing Monday. That’s because Britain’s Channel 4 posted a video showing Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix describing a series of […]

Source: PMD President Maithripala Sirisena says some are working according to their personal agendas to gain political power and they are not interested in strengthening the peace and reconciliation or in solving the issues of the country. The President further said that the people should recognize these people who only consider their political power without […]

Courtesy Sputnik Over the weekend, video footage surfaced showing a 70-year-old man getting kicked off a Binter Canarias flight for yelling racial slurs at a flight attendant on a flight from Tenerife, in Spain’s Canary Islands, to the Spanish island of La Palma. Recorded by a fellow passenger, footage of the Wednesday incident shows the moments after the […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Sinhala Only reforms of 1956 heralded a new phase in the social and economic development of the country.  Until that time, the small minority of English educated people, 2% of the population, had a monopoly over University education, employment opportunities, as well as the business world, which   worked in English, a language […]

Courtesy Off Guardian Thu, 15 Mar 2018 11:12 UTC  We already know UK PM Theresa May misrepresented the Russian law on executing terrorists in foreign lands, in order to bolster her currently evidence-free claims of Russian culpability in the poisoning of ex-MI6 employee Sergey Skripal. Her narrative remains, as of March 15, bald and unconvincing. […]

16 remanded over Teldeniya incidents; 8 released While Persecution of the Innocent Over Rs. 8500 million has been paid as of today, in compensation to 130  Muslim victims of Kandy whose houses and businesses were destroyed by mob violence earlier this month. Secretary to the Minister for Rehabilitation and prison reform Shane Dullewe noted that […]

ප්‍රදීප් ප්‍රසන්න සමරකෝන් සහ චමින්ද සිල්වා උපුටා ගැන්ම දිවයින – මගේ මහත්තයාගේ කාර්යාලයේ තිබිලා පොලිසිය හොයාගත්තේ දහම් පාසල් දරුවන්ට දෙන්න තිබුණු රචනා පොත් වගයකුයි, තව රචනා තරගයකින් ජය ලබපු දරුවන්ට දෙන්න තිබූ පොත්පත් වගයක්‌. මෙන්න මේවාට තමයි පොලිසිය පෙට්‍රල් බෝම්බ හොයා ගත්තා කියලා මහලොකු ප්‍රචාරයක්‌ ඇරියේ දැන් මගේ මහත්තයා රිමාන්ඩ් කළා. මගේ මහත්තයාව බොරුවට අත්අඩංගුවට ගත්තු […]