Monday, October 23, 2006

mou between the slfp and unp

though it is not my habit to post on this blog outside sources and documents without my comments this time i will do so. i have highlighted several things in this mou that imo require particular attention.
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Memorandum of Understanding between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United National Party to Cooperate on Key Issues Vital for the Nation's Well Being

Preamble :

This Memorandum of Understanding between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United National Party represents the inauguration of a new political environment eagerly awaited by the public of this country, which replaces the hitherto existing policies of confrontation with the politics of active cooperation on national issues, in the interests of the nation.

On the 12th of October, 2006, H.E. the President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is the Head of the Government and the Leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and the Hon. Ranil Wickramasinghe, Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament and the Leader of the United National Party, after careful and sustained deliberation have agreed to collaborate in addressing the national issues in regard to peace, good governance and development.

The Parties, recognize that the fundamental challenge that stands in the way of the realization of the goals of peace, good governance and development is that of a just political solution acceptable to all communities.

In pursuance of the objectives referred to above, we, Maithripala Sirisena, General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and Malik Samarawickrama, Chairman of the United National Party hereby declare our agreement to cooperate as set out below:

1. The plenary meeting of the Delegations of two Parties discussed the following papers submitted by the sub-committees for presentation to the two Leaders :

(i) Conflict in the North & East
(ii) Electoral Reforms
(iii) Good Governance
(iv) Social Development
(v) Proposed structure for collaboration

2. The two Parties will cooperate with each other in the areas enumerated in Clause (1) (i) to (iv) above. The issues referred to in Clause 1 (v) above, including the modalities for collaboration, will be implemented at an early date after further direct discussion between the two Leaders and acceptance by the appropriate bodies of each of the two Parties.

3. The United National Party in Parliament will support the Government to implement the policies and programmes in the areas enumerated in Clause 1 (i) to (iv) above.

4. The United National Party reiterates its commitment to extend support to the Government in the pursuit of a negotiated settlement to the on-going conflict while opposing terrorism in all its manifestations and upholding human rights.

5. The United National Party in Parliament shall extend its support to the government to achieve a negotiated settlement to the on-going conflict.

6. The Leader of the United National Party will nominate two Members to the Representative Committee of the All Party Conference.

7. Both Parties agree to expedite the resolution of the present impediments to the effective operation of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution and to finalize the passage into law of the amendments under consideration to the 17th amendment.

8. Both Parties will observe the accepted political and democratic norms applicable to governing good relations.

9. The time frame during which this Agreement will remain operative will be two (02) years from the date of signing hereof.

10. Both Parties agree to the establishment of a High-Level Committee headed by His Excellency the President and the Leader of the Opposition (including an equal number of representatives of each of the two Parties) to oversee the implementation of the above agreements arrived at between the two Parties and to cooperate with each other in regard to the resolution of any disagreement which may arise in the course of implementation of this Agreement and the policies and programmes set out in Clauses 1 to 8 above, and the fulfillment of the agreed national agenda, so as to achieve just and durable peace, good governance and sustainable development in Sri Lanka.

Maithripala Sirisena
General Secretary
Sri Lanka Freedom Party

Malik Samarawickrama
Chairman
United National Party

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

terrorist attack underway in galle

it seems there is some sort of attack on navy camp in galle.

three suicide boat attacks on an 'old ship' (and some navy boats according to military spokesman) and some mortars were fired from rumasella hill according to igp. both say that situation is under control and military trying to capture terrorists. no need for panic. police curfew on in galle.

combined with recent pussy attacks, this shows clearly exactly who do not want peace talks to begin and want to provoke a backlash. i personally expect pussies to step up attacks in a desperate bid to get that backlash and it will certainly include attacks against civilians as well true to form.

fortunately sri lankans are more intelligent than that and will not be provoked, in spite of best efforts of ltte propagandists and its ngo helpers like cpa, inform, and the rest, who try to portray them as ever ready reenact '83 and try to magnify small riots into genocide attempts as with april trinco incident. however ngo peaceniks will remain deliberately blind no doubt.

for more news
mod, nationalsecurity.lk, jasminenews.

update
changed links to updated stories at respective sites. deleted original afp wire story since it was old and wrong. updated ones can easily found by searching.
and there wasn't any mortar fire it seems.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

firefox 2 release candidate 1


firefox 2 rc1 came out last week. above is a screen shot with this blog in it (click to enlarge). they hope to have the final release by end of this month (october).

new features include, spell checking for web forms, website ‘microsummaries’, phishing protection, enhanced tabbed browsing, extension management, and search engine support.

i installed on friday. so far so good. main problem for me was that most of the extensions (i had about 15 installed and use several extensively) and themes are incompatible. i had to tinker with rdf files manually to get them to work. however i think most people do not use extensions, so will not have any problems. besides original extension developers will probably release compatible versions during this month.