|
|
|
| Sunday, 19 March 2006 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Politics unpacked Kohona rhymes with Kangaroo?
Kohona is G. L. Peris like, they implied, if that beer commercial analogy is to be considered. Most said Kohona is but an understudy of Peiris, the implication being that his choice for peacemaking is ill-considered, uninformed. Well, this Kohona is the same man who will be addressing the Australian parliament this week - on disarmament. That's his speciality in the United Nations. Which lightweight - or which man referred to as small beer - got to address the Australian parliament? at least this would disarm the Kohona bashing media, but then again, with these guys, who can tell? Dhanapala and the China connection
He learnt his mandarin in London, we hear China is the emerging power, the putative global superpower of the new millennium - and its millennium's challenge to get China's backing in the race for the top civil service job on the globe. Dhanapala was upto it. Clocks and stocks
But now the sci-fi if guru seems to say that there is an investment consideration that has to be factored into the equation. He told a newspaper that setting the clock back might be bad for business. In colder countries the time changes at the drop of a hat - daylight saving being the consideration. Is that a hindrance to investment? Those stock markets - to they wobble each time 'allowance' is made for daylight saving in the developed world? Was Clarke overreaching or out of his depth, talking business and investment? Granted, there is room for debate over whether the time change should go through or not - and granted that there are arguments for keeping the clock where it is. But Clarke as stock analyst, now isn't that a bit too 'new age'? Being relatively diplomatic
The incumbent ambassador with her kinder gentler manner has been able to take these missiles. Mafiosi has scoffed at her, but basically she has dismissed these offensives with some style and poetry. The rat pack of the hyper-activated press keeps training their weapons at her however, and this was the talk among some of India's friends recently. But, it was agreed Rao can be happy about one thing; the attacks on her are of a relatively milder scale than those on her predecessor, Mr. Sen. We are all firm believers in relative merits. Who doesn't want Ranil?
We asked somebody, and according to this party animal the UNP waits and waits for the opportune moment to come by, before that leadership transition can be accomplished? When may that be - we continued diffidently in the face of these sombrely delivered pronouncements. Election time is not the time, we were told. This is not the British conservative party, a party that changes its leadership to save itself from defeat. We asked whether the opportune time for change then, is when Ranil Wickremesinghe has lost many more elections for the UNP? The answer went on the lines of "well, something like that anyway". Things get fabulously curiouser and curioser. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
Not so long ago that that these columns carried the news of Palitha
Kohona being painted as some kind of acolyte of former peace negotiator G.
L. Peiris. This was in the anything-against-the-Rajapakse-peace-effort
press. 
Jayantha Dhanapala's candidature for the UN secretary-general post is
being backed by the Chinese government, which is extending extraordinary
support for his effort. Why not? Dhanapala is a fluent mandarin speaker, and
relates to the Chinese by more than the way of Chinese food. 
Arthur Clark's (Sir Arthur Clarke's) campaign to get the Sri Lanka clock
to go back by half an hour is to be expected - it was his idea in the first
place to have the clocks ticking a half hour ahead. He had his rationale for
it, and there seems to be a vigorous debate in the press on the pros and the
cons of keeping the time advanced. 
In a certain area of the Sri Lankan press, nothing is a sacrosanct and we
all know that the Indian embassy, plus anything Indian from Indian reporters
to Indian onion came in for attack once upon a recent time. 
The clamour for a leadership change in the United National Party has not
subsided; but we hear from a party faithful that there is a method in the
UNP's madness in sticking by its losing leader. Is that complicated, and
theorem like - this method? 
