Inside Jeffrey Epstein's £6.2m 'paedophile island' as chilling photos capture real story

Chilling photos have captured the inside of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's 'paedophile island'.

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Key details revealed in recently released Epstein court documents

Recently disclosed court documents stemming from Virginia Giuffre's civil lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell include interviews under oath with Maxwell, Giuffre, and Johanna Sjoberg.

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Epstein's alleged remarks on Clinton and Trump's preferences for young women

Unsealed documents suggest Epstein made suggestive comments about the preferences of both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump for young women.

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Stop game of chicken

Thursday 4th January, 2024

The government and the power sector trade unions are engaged in a game of chicken over the proposed restructuring of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB); they are all out to push each other to back down but without success. Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera has, true to form, read the warring unions the riot act. Having cancelled the CEB workers’ leave, he has threatened to suspend all those who may cause disruptions to the national power supply. His bellicosity reminds us of the unspeakably oppressive methods that the J. R. Jayewardene government adopted to crush the 1980 general strike. The protesting CEB workers have refused to give in. They say they will do everything in their power to abort the government’s bid to restructure the CEB. They launched a protest campaign yesterday.

The blame for having made the CEB a loss-incurring state-owned enterprise thereby leaving the country with no alternative but to meet the IMF conditions in respect of the power sector should be apportioned to successive governments and the CEB workers and their trade unions. If politicians and the CEB decision-makers had collectively reduced the cost of power generation, eliminated corruption and curtailed waste, the CEB would not have been in debt, and electricity tariffs could have been lowered. Instead, they enriched themselves at the expense of the wellbeing of the CEB and the country.

The current regime has not learnt from the political fallout of its blunders and malpractices that led to last year’s popular uprising. It has recently struck a corrupt deal with a foreign company over a solar power project, according to the Opposition. A few months before the eruption of countryside anti-government protests in 2022, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government hurriedly cut a questionable deal with a US company called New Fortress to transfer the shares of the Yugadanavi (Kerawalapitiya) power plant.

The CEB trade unions are girding up their loins for a long-haul protest against the proposed power sector reforms. The government is equally determined to crush their struggle and bulldoze its way through. Chances are that the police personnel currently pursuing drug dealers and other underworld characters will be ordered to turn on their heels and set upon the CEB protesters.

The CEB has to be transformed into a modern institution with capable men and women of integrity at the helm to supply power at affordable rates, help bring down the cost of living and spur economic growth. But the government is accused of trying to privatise the CEB on the pretext of introducing reforms. The SLPP-UNP leaders claim that the restructuring of the CEB will be beneficial to the public. But nobody with an iota of intelligence will buy into their claim. They said the same thing when they allowed more foreign companies to enter the fuel retail market; Minister Wijesekera said there would be competition among fuel retailers and the public would gain therefrom. But today the CPC (Ceylon Petroleum Corporation), Indian Oil Company and Sinopec are operating in tandem. Sinopec sells fuel at marginally lower prices, but there is no guarantee that it will continue to do so. On Tuesday, we quoted a petroleum sector trade union leader, Ananda Palitha, as having said that a fifty-rupee special levy the government imposed on a litre of petrol/diesel purportedly to recover the CPC’s losses had been boon for the IOC and Sinopec; the two foreign companies have suffered no losses but rake in billions of rupees thanks to the special levy.

Let the government be urged to abandon its belligerent approach, get the representatives of the protesting CEB unions around the table and try to arrive at a negotiated settlement. After all, that was the modus operandi Ranil Wickremesinghe adopted, as the Prime Minister (2001-2004), in trying to resolve the armed conflict at the time; he did not allow the military to retaliate despite provocations by the LTTE. It will be a mistake for the government to try to frighten the protesting workers into silence. Similarly, the trade unions have to soften their stand and have talks with the government.

Meanwhile, the much-delayed GCE A/L examination commences today. More than 300,000 students are sitting this crucial examination. The government and the CEB workers must ensure that their battle will not lead to power outages affecting these children.

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Teenage birthday party ends in bloody massacre after gunman opens fire leaving eight dead

The main target of the attack was a leader of a criminal group who had active arrest warrants, police say.

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Sri Lankans struggling to buy food, says WFP report

Nearly a half of Sri Lanka’s households are adopting livelihood-based coping strategies to buy food, says a recent report published by the World Food Programme.

The WFP’s ‘Sri Lanka – Household Food Security Survey: Preliminary Findings, December 2023’ says that 43 percent of households were adopting livelihood-based coping strategies to cope with the lack of adequate food. Borrowing money to buy food and purchasing food on credit were the most commonly adopted strategies, by 27 and 26 percent of households, respectively, says the report, adding that households remain vulnerable to future shocks and stresses.

“According to the survey, a high proportion of estate households (80 percent) adopted livelihood-based coping strategies, followed by 50 percent of urban households. In the rural sector, 41 percent of households are resorting to coping strategies. In terms of household characteristics, 43 percent of male-headed households and 42 percent of female-headed households are turning to livelihood-based coping strategies. While this is not a significant difference, a larger proportion of female-headed households are adopting more severe coping strategies compared to male-headed households such as selling assets and spending savings,” it said.

The report has identified six livelihood-based coping strategies such as borrowing money, purchasing food on credit, spending savings or skipping debt payment, selling jewellery to buy food, reducing the spending on education and health and selling household assets. It has been observed that 27 percent of households relied on borrowing money while 26 percent opted for purchasing food on credit. Five percent of the household sample of the survey resorted to selling household assets and 16 percent chose to sell jewellery to buy food. It has been observed that 19 percent of the sample relied on the strategy of spending savings or skipping debt payment while 14 percent reduced spending on education and health.

According to the survey, households relying on social protection schemes, such as Samurdhi, as their main source of income have the highest levels of food insecurity (57 percent), followed by households dependent on humanitarian assistance (49 percent), and unskilled agricultural labour (37 percent). The lowest percentage of food insecure households are among those who have regular and stable income sources.

When comparing the survey results with March 2023, agricultural producers reported a significant deterioration in their food security status. For instance, a larger proportion of households relying on the production and sale of vegetables and fruits, and staple crops such as rice are food insecure during the current reporting period compared to March which was Maha harvest season.

The report said: “WFP and FAO jointly conducted a second CFSAM in March 2023, where a significant improvement in food security was noted, with 17 percent of the population estimated to be food insecure. This 11-percentage point decrease is attributed to better food consumption due to reduced prices and improved income during the harvesting period.

“Between August and October 2023, WFP conducted a panel survey of 8,741 households that were interviewed in March through a face-to-face data collection approach to produce representative estimates at national and regional levels. The survey employed a 2-stage stratified cluster sampling methodology in which a fixed number of primary sampling units (PSUs) were randomly selected at the first stage and within each PSU, 10 households were selected for interview.

“This preliminary report provides an update on the overall food security situation since March 2023, and it comes as part of WFP’s efforts to expand its evidence generation initiatives to inform the response among government and humanitarian/development partners in Sri Lanka.”

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Maithripala loses MP to SJB

Out of 14 SLFPers in Parliament, nine back RW

By Shamindra Ferdinando

SJB MP Tissa Attanayake yesterday (01) said that Galle District SLPP MP Shan Vijayalal de Silva had joined the SJB.

De Silva contested the last election in Aug 2020 on the SLPP ticket.

MP de Silva met SJB and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa at the latter’s Office yesterday morning.

The Galle District MP joined the SJB amidst speculation that former SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera would switch his allegiance to the SJB. Kurunegala District MP Jayasekera has denied media reports that he was planning to join the SJB.

Political sources said that MP de Silva was one of the four SLFP MPs (elected from the SLPP) who voted against the Appropriation Bill for 2024.

Along with de Silva, SLFP leader Maithripala Sirisena, Acting General Secretary of the SLFP Sarathi Dushmantha and Dayasiri Jayasekera voted against President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Budget at the Third Reading on 13 Dec.

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