Saturday, November 17, 2007

President sent us a letter, but we need only action - JVP

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had sent us a letter inviting us to discuss four conditions laid down by our party to support the budget. But we do not want negotiations. We need only action.

The President still has time to change his mind and agree for our conditions, JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said addressing a packed media conference in Colombo.

Extracted from,
http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/11/17/news/13.asp

LTTE suicide squads targeting President in Colombo: MP

A 20-member suicide squad of the Tamil Tigers has intruded into the capital and are planning to kill President Mahinda Rajapaksa and ten union ministers, an MP warned on Thursday.

"A 20 member LTTE suicide cadre is in Colombo targeting President Mahinda Rajapakse, his three brothers (holding important posts in the government) and ten ministers and steps needed to be taken to enhance security in the capital," United National Party MP Mahinda Ratnatillake who defected to the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) said.

Read more,
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200711152123.htm

LTTE collects $ 30 million a month, says Lanka

The Sri Lankan government said on Friday that the LTTE had been collecting up to $30 million a month from Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates across the globe.

Praising the US Treasury for freezing the assets of the LTTE front – Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told parliament that Sri Lanka could now expect a "significant decline" in the collections of the LTTE world wide which ranged from $ 20 million to $30 million per month.

The US government had become the "first foreign government to take tangible action against an LTTE front organization," Bogollagama said.

Could assume new guises

But the minister warned that eternal vigilance was necessary because the LTTE had become an expert in circumventing curbs and bans.

Read more,
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=

Nokia’s fight against fakes: a first in Sri Lanka

SMS verifications used to protect IPR

Softlogic, Sri Lanka’s sole agent for mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has created history in the country by being the first to introduce a system to protect Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) via SMS technology whereby constomers can differentiate genuine phones from fakes.

Explaining this revolutionary system to the Daily Financial Times, Softlogic’s Assistant Marketing Manager Nirasha Croos Moraes said, “It’s a very simple solution.

We have got a sticker with a coded number pasted on our products. The customer has to just scratch it and SMS the number to 4656 to verify if their phone is a fake or a genuine one. A reply will be then sent confirming the genuineness of the server.”

She however noted that they were disappointed with the response received so far, as this facility is currently available to only Dialog customers.

“We have not got the expected results so far. The response has been slow with only 0.2% of the people verifying the genuineness.

Read more,
http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/11/16/ft/14.asp