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Common candidate still a mystery, but it all points to Ranil
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At least officially, no one still knows who would be Mahinda Rajapaksa’s main rival at the presidential polls. That it would have to come from the United National Party (UNP), or backed by it, is no secret. Yet who that person remains cloaked in secrecy. At the so-called “G 20″ meeting last Wednesday, members asked UNP national leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who the candidate would be. “Even I don’t know,” he replied smilingly. The group is made up of UNP parliamentarians with the only exception being Daya Gamage, the National Organiser and financier.
The UNP now plans to officially announce the candidate only before the nominations. That is much after a presidential proclamation for the conduct of polls is issued on November 19.
Yet, there are clues that give an insight into who may be the opposition’s candidate. Firstly, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has now made clear she would not vie.
Secondly, the ‘Common Front,’ a less than formidable array of mostly lesser known political parties, has been formed. The majority of them, if not all, want Wickremesinghe to contest the presidential poll. Of course, there are also sections in the party who favour former Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya.
Wickremesinghe fears that nominating Jayasuriya would divide the party. More so when Sajith Premadasa, now Deputy Leader, has declared that if Wickremesinghe does not contest, it would have to be himself. For that, he has also demanded that he (Premadasa) be made the deputy leader. That makes Jayasuriya’s entree a remote possibility. Thus, the dark horse appears to be Wickremesinghe.
Lankan sociopath jailed for duping elderly investors in California
Sri Lanka born Deepal Wannakuwatte, the former owner of a now defunct Sacramento Capitals professional tennis team, was sentenced to 20 years in Prison on Thursday for perpetrating one of the costliest Ponzi schemes in California’s history. Prosecutors say Mr. Wannakuwatte conned his victims into investing in a West Sacramento medical supply company whose revenue was just a fraction of what he claimed.
Here is an account of his activities as reported by the US newspaper, Sacramento Bee:
“The judge called him a liar and his victims labelled him a cheater and a sociopath. The defendant offered up an apology, read aloud by his lawyer, and accepted his prison sentence in silence.
“The sentence wasn’t a surprise; it matched the terms of a plea agreement Wannakuwatte made with prosecutors in May. But the hour long hearing in U.S. District Court didn’t lack for drama. Nine of his victims made statements to the court, either in person or by letters read out loud by the prosecutor. They all painted a picture of a man who preyed on mostly elderly investors and duped many of them out of their retirement savings.
“One spoke about having to delay retirement and sell his house to make ends meet. Another submitted a poem that called Wannakuwatte a “miserable soul.”
“The most striking moment came when Ron Ashley of San Rafael, who lost $22 million in the decade-long scheme, turned away from U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley to look directly at Wannakuwatte.
“Deepal, you are a sociopath,” he said. “You are a liar, a serial liar. A thief, a serial thief.”"Wannakuwatte, dressed in his orange Sacramento County jailhouse uniform, sat at the defence table and stared at the floor as Ashley berated him.
“Michael Hooper, a Carmichael man who lost more than $200,000, recalled how Wannakuwatte ingratiated himself with his victims. When Hooper’s mother died four years ago, Wannakuwatte attended the funeral. “He shows up at a funeral populated by people he was stealing from,” Hooper said. ”Nunley was unsparing as well, calling Wannakuwatte a liar and adding: “You’re an evil person, there’s no way you can get around that.”
“Later, Wannakuwatte stood silently as defence attorney Philip Cozens read a letter from his client in which Wannakuwatte apologised to his victims and said he had shamed his family and his Sri Lankan roots. ”I ask forgiveness,” said Wannakuwatte, who will be eligible for parole in 17 years.
“Wannakuwatte, who turns 64 next week, has been in jail since February on charges of defrauding banks and individual investors to the tune of more than $100 million. Prosecutors said he persuaded his victims to invest in his West Sacramento medical supply company, International Manufacturing Group, by telling them he had contracts worth $100 million to sell latex gloves to veterans hospitals.
“In truth, the government contracts were worth only $25,000. Court records show that the company’s revenue last year totalled less than $5 million. He pleaded guilty to a count of wire fraud in May. Among his victims were banks, an Indian tribe in Washington state, as well as roughly 150 individuals. ”Wannakuwatte has filed for bankruptcy protection. Although the government has initiated proceedings to seize his home in South Land Park, vacation properties in Hawaii and on the Oregon coast, and other assets, it’s considered unlikely that victims will receive more than pennies on the dollar.
“There’s no way I can make the victims whole,” Nunley said. Prosecutors have said the net loss to investors came to $109 million. Wannakuwatte filed court papers this week saying the loss was really somewhere between $50 million and $80 million. A hearing has been set for Jan. 15 to sort out the discrepancy. Wannakuwatte was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Georgia to play tennis in college. After college, he moved to Sacramento, started his company and became a fixture on the area’s tennis scene. After the previous owner of the Capitals went bankrupt in 2011 and the team was in jeopardy, Wannakuwatte stepped in and kept the team alive.
His partner in the Capitals, a Fair Oaks man named Ramey Osborne, wound up loaning Wannakuwatte about $456,000, according to bankruptcy court records. The loss has devastated him, according to a letter from his wife, Jayna. The letter was read aloud by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Khasigian. ”Deepal took full advantage of him in any way he could,” she wrote. “He is a shadow of the man. … The fraud has aged him and I pray daily he will survive.”
“Shortly before Wannakuwatte was arrested, the team announced it was moving to Las Vegas. After the arrest, the franchise was disbanded by World Team Tennis.
“Wannakuwatte was supposed to be sentenced on August 7. But he walked into court that day and announced that he’d fired his original lawyer, Donald Heller, claiming that Heller had coerced him into pleading guilty. Heller denied that. ”Experts said it would have been difficult for Wannakuwatte to withdraw his guilty plea, and his new lawyer, Cozens, announced to the court in September that his client was ready to be sentenced.”
President’s armed guards play havoc at Montessori
Parents who came to drop their children at a Montessori close to a leading school near the Kandy Municipal Council were in for a rude shock on Thursday. They were told by a unit providing security to the President to take their vehicles away immediately as the President was due to pass that way.
One of the parents said he needed to park his vehicle briefly as he would have to drop his child as there was no alternative, other than parking his car there. He was threatened that if his vehicle was not taken away it would be rammed with one of their buses.
The parent, who holds a senior position in the private sector shot back that if they resorted to that action he would take it up with “higher authorities”.
He was in for more surprise when he saw the security personnel with their firearms entering the Montessori where the children were already in to carry out security checks. “There is no harm in searching the place for the sake of the security of the President, but they need not carry weapons into a Montessori,” a parent remarked.
Registered snail
Here is a poser for the Minister of Posts and the Post Master General.
How many days does it take for a registered letter, posted in Colombo Fort to reach Nugegoda?
The answer, a recipient discovered , was four days. Which means the letter travelled only two kilometers a day during a near eight kilometer journey. With the telegram service now abandoned, one would not be surprised that the delivery of letters too would face the same fate in the Wonder of Asia.
That is service from the Postal Department.
Fonseka warns of dangers facing common candidate
It was a long five years after he was granted permission by Courts to travel abroad.
This time, for former General Sarath Fonseka, it was to travel to Singapore for a medical check-up. He had recovered after a suicide bomb attack inside Army headquarters only after treatment at a Singapore Hospital.
Fonseka was a happy man last week. Doctors who carried out a thorough check declared he had fully recovered and there were no more causes for him to worry.
With the newly won confidence, Fonseka waxed eloquent at a meeting in a Reception Hall in Kotte where the pro-UNP “Common Front” was formed.
Fonseka recalled the events when he was the ‘common candidate’ during the presidential elections in 2010. He declared “presenting yourself as a common candidate is a matter between life and death. You can lose everything. Though there are people around you, when you lose there is no one around. When you go to jail, you go in alone.”