Unsolicited SMS Message Of The Presiden. Sri Lanka purges military amid coup fears - ABC News (Australian. South Asia correspondent Sally Sara for AM Updated Tue 2 Feb 2010, 10:18am AEDT Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse has sacked a dozen senior military officers as part of a crackdown after last week's presidential election. The senior commanders who have been forced into compulsory retirement are accused of breaching military discipline and siding with opposition candidate and former army chief General Sarath Fonseka. The move is one of the biggest shake-ups of Sri Lanka's top brass in decades. The government says General Fonseka and his former military comrades were plotting to assassinate Mr Rajapakse and stage a coup. Some of the men who are accused of involvement were arrested after a stand-off at a hotel in the capital Colombo last week. General Fonseka, however, has accused the government of hounding his supporters, and opposition activists are threatening to stage a mass rally.
The debate over the standoff at the hotel is still headline news in Sri Lanka. "They are scared of me. Sri Lankan president calls for reconciliation - The Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has marked his country's independence day by speaking of the need for national reconciliation. He was speaking on the first independence anniversary since the end of the war against Tamil Tiger rebels. The president said that Sri Lankans had faced not only an internal threat but also external ones.
The 62nd anniversary of independence from Britain was marked with lavish military and cultural ceremonies. They took place in the hill city of Kandy, once the seat of a Sinhalese kingdom. President Rajapaksa said in his speech that the international community should "understand us" and not apply pressure. In a separate message he appeared to criticise, without naming them, countries such as the United States, Britain and France, which called for a ceasefire just before the armed forces' final crushing of the Tamil Tigers last year.
Mr Rajapaksa won a convincing victory in last week's presidential election. I miss something on this Independence day. « Prove that real but. Happy Independence day everyone! I’m the worst guy to write this post. At least according to super patriots we find in bunches these days. I’m totally screwed up with foreign ideas that don’t match the culture the patriots trying to frame my mind in. I won’t find it interesting to read long history books. I don’t posses a deep knowledge about our history than any other kid who went through local education process. But still I love my country (More precisely “I love majority of things about my country”). I love the “Fat Free” history of my country (while many others love it with lots of fat and exaggeration). So back in those old days, when it comes to the independence day The TV, radio channels and news papers used to do one thing. Back to the fact, why I don’t get to see, hear those stories now?
I don’t know about you but I miss those programs and articles because it’s probably the only time I get to think about the history of our freedom for a one long year. Like this: Like Loading... Rajapaksa to announce dissolution of Par. Following the extension of emergency laws by another month on Friday, the Sri Lankan Parliament is all set to be dissolved in the next few days and the general election is scheduled to be held in the first half of April. “A formal announcement on dissolution of Parliament constituted in 2004 would be made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa next week after his return from his first official trip on his re-election to Russia beginning today [Saturday],” Minister of Constitutional Affairs and National Integration, D.E.W.
Gunasekara told The Hindu. Asked about the fate of the emergency laws, Mr. Gunasekara said, “The President has the discretion to extend them through an executive order which needs to be ratified within a month by the new Parliament. Under the Constitution, emergency laws could be passed only by Parliament and they are valid only for one month. The 225-member Parliament, as it emerged after the 2004 election and as it stands today, bears no resemblance.
Sri Lanka ruling party ahead in polls. The governing coalition in Sri Lanka has won a majority in parliamentary elections, according to preliminary figures released by election officials. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's United People's Freedom Alliance has so far won 117 of the assembly's 225 seats. The main opposition party has won 46 seats, making it unlikely the alliance will win the two-thirds majority needed to make constitutional changes. It is the first parliamentary poll since the civil war ended last year.
Veteran cricket all-rounder Sanath Jayasuriya has created what his supporters say is a world record by being elected to the parliament while still playing cricket. He contested the polls for President Rajapaksa's party in Matara district in the south. Another cricketer, World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga, told the BBC Sinhala service that he had secured victory in Kalutara district for the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) party led by detained opposition leader Sarath Foneka. Free and fair?