• A trip to London
• My food
• My hobby
• Mountains
• Peace
• My parents
• A look at women's rights - Stamps News
• The extraterrestrial connection
• Barbie Doll party at the Deli Market

A trip to London

On Friday the 28 of August at 10.30 p.m. we came home. At 12 midnight we went to the airport. Our flight was at 2.40 a.m. At 9.15 a.m.

we arrived at London's Heathrow Airport. My uncle came to take us to his home. This was my second trip to England. We were very much to watch the match between Sri Lanka and England. I was very happy that we won that match.

First, we went to see the Tower of London. The Tower was built as a fortress. It later became a prison and place for executions.

The Tower Bridge was built on June 30 1894. It opens when big ships sail on the river Thames. It is 104 years old. Only a few ships sail on the Thames now.

We got photos. When we were on the bridge we saw an old ship. It was H.M.S. Belfast. This is the largest cruiser ever built for the Royal Navy. It is now used as a Royal Navy Museum.

After that we went to see theMonument for the 'Fire of London' of 1666. In this fire which started on Pudding Lane 13,000 houses perished. It spread to 432 acres and burned for three days. This monument is 202ft tall. There is a spiral staircase in it and when you climb the staircase you can see the city. This monument was built in 1667 and finished in 1671. It was very beautiful.

We next went see London Bridge. It is very long and full of cars and people. People come to see this bridge and take pictures.

Next we went to St. Paul's Cathedral. This was built to replace old St. Paul's, which was burnt down in the great fire in 1666. We saw the Whispering Gallery too.

Big Ben was our next stop. It was very large, tall and beautiful. It is the world's largest clock. The face of this clock is as tall as two men. Big Ben is next to the Parliament.

Next we went to the Parliament. The Houses of Parliament consist of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Members meet here to discuss and pass laws. We visited the Westminster Abbey. Since 1066, all kings and queens have been crowned here. We also saw the tombs of most of them and of many other famous people buried here. Princess Diana's funeral service was held in this church.

We visited Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park. At the end of our journey we had a snack and returned to my uncles home.

Minuri Fernando
Methodist College
Colombo 3

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My food

Breakfast, lunch and dinner, give me strength to be a winner
Yummy chocolates and sweets may be
They spoil our teeth if taken more
But a part of it could turn to be,
Fat – the fat we need to grow.
Food we eat of every kind,
Could fool our tongue and be unkind.
Formula food we eat a lot
Could give us stomach aches as much as good,
Oranges, apples, grapes and pear,
are fruits that give some vitamins fresh but remember to wash them well with care,
for the dust and germs must vanish'n crush
Open tables full of food,
are as good a spot for the flies to rest.
They rest on muck and dirt.
And present us diseases, simply the worst,
Do take this advice therefore my friend,
Showy food may tickle your taste buds,
but remember this if you mind '
Icing alone is not the food!'

Romanthi Fernando
Ave Maria Convent
Negombo

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My hobby

Every man should have at least one hobby to keep himself happy. I have many to keep myself occupied. They are collecting stamps and stickers, reading books, watching television and drawing.

But my favourite hobby is collecting stamps. It's a very interesting hobby.

It was my mother who introduced it to me. I have a large stamp album with 638 stamps.

My other stamp collecting friends, my neighbours, my cousins, my grandparents have helped me to get this great collection. I exchange some of my stamps with my friends too.

Stamp collecting helps us to gain knowledge. We learn about other countries, different places, animals, birds, festivals etc, through stamps.

I feel proud of my stamp collection.

Himashi Alwis
Holy Family Convent
Bambalapitiya

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Mountains

Mountains are found in most parts of the world, for example Maunakea in Hawaii. The highest mountain in the world is Mount Everest. It is 8,848m high.

The first person to climb this was Edmund Hillary. He was a New Zealander. If we measure from the sea base Mount Maunakea is taller than Mount Everest. The height of that mountain is 10,203m.

N. Nirmalan
K. C. I., Wellawatte

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Peace

Pain is there all over the world
Caused by the war that never ends.

Everything destroyed, people too,
Homeless children, on the street.

Sadness flowing through everyone's heart,
I think it is a never ending one.

Caring is lost, no more to be heard
The world with its war and sadness.
Everything but one thing, peace,
Is it there or is it not?
For everything is lost.

Will there be peace in our motherland?
or will it not be here?

Lives are taken, to the far off land,
Families are being torn apart.

Soldiers who die, in the war,
Give their lives unto the country's nations.
When can we solve the problem?
And when will peace flow through the world?

A.F. Nazra Nizar
Sailan International School
Negombo

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My parents

My father's name is Rohith Jayarathne and my mother's name is Roma Jayarathne. My father works at Royal Palms Beach Hotel Kalutara. He's the Food and Beverage Manager there. My mother is a house wife.

I love my parents very much. They are very kind to me. They buy me everything I need. My mother drops me at school and makes food for me. I thank God for giving me such wonderful parents.

Rienesh Jayarathne
St. Sebastian College
Morotuwa

Stamp News 44

A look at women's rights

By Uncle D. C. R

Are women better or worse off than they were a few decades ago? The picture is mixed. A greater proportion of women are literate and more of them are visible in high political levels. At the same time many women are poorer than ever before and women's human rights are being violated on an unprecedented scale.

This picture emerged when the United Nations decided to convene the Fourth World Conference on Women. Thousands of women and men from around the world gathered in Beijing, China in September 1995. 'Action for Equality, Development and Peace' was the theme of the Conference. Participants assessed how women's lives have changed over the past decade and discussed issues which are of concern to women.

A set of six attractive and colourful stamps (seen in the first day cover) was issued to commemorate the event. The stamps were designed by Ting Shao Kuang from China who had developed a unique artistic style combining ancient art customs, masterful brush strokes and calligraphic lines with vibrant colours and Western modernism, as seen in the stamps.

Since 1975 when the United Nations declared it the International Women's Year and held the first world conference on women in Mexico, there has been increasing awareness that what happens to women and their children has a profound impact on the wellbeing of nations. With the declaration of the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985) indisputable progress was made in some areas. The second conference, held in Copenhagen in 1980 adopted a programme of action for the second half of the UN Decade for Women. The third, on the theme Equality, Development and Peace was held in Nairobi in 1985.

Health is one of the key areas receiving the attention of the UN. It has been found that women's health has improved substantially in some areas and worsened in others. Statistics show that women constitute 40% of HIV-infected adults and the WHO is projecting that by Year 2000, more than 13 million women will be infected with the virus and about 4 million of them will die.

Poverty is one area where women's situation has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Women are living longer but have less support from families, husbands and fathers. The number of rural women living in poverty nearly doubled over the past 20 years and it is estimated that today women constitute at least 60% of the world's one billion rural poor.

An encouraging feature is that the 'Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women', which commits nations to achieve equal rights for women in all fields political, economic, social, cultural and civil adopted in 1979 has been accepted by over 140 countries.

Equally encouraging is the fact that today, women are perceived less as passive beneficiaries of economic growth and social and political development and more as key players in their own right, contributors of knowledge, skills and energy. They are active, and activists - in the family, their communities and their nations determined to ensure a better world for the next generation.

The extraterrestrial connection

Millions of people have seen objects in the sky that they cannot identify and many thousands have taken the time and trouble to submit written reports about them.

The vast majority of these sightings could well be of such things as meteors, planets, stars, weather balloons, swamp gas and atmospheric disturbances. There remains, however, a significant body of experiences that are truly inexplicable.

There is no doubt that disk-shaped objects have been seen by a great many honest and sober men and women. The objects have been tracked by ground based and airborne radar and have been photographed by still and movie camera in black and white and colour. The craft have been observed to hover, move straight up or down, and accelerate and manoeuvre at speeds far beyond the capability of any known airplane.

The idea that earth is being visited or has been visited by intelligent beings from outer space is regarded with skepticism by the scientific community. Such visitations are highly improbable; according to some astronomers, although they also say it is likely that advanced civilizations exist mong the billions of galaxies in the universe.

In our own galaxy, the Milky Way there are perhaps 200 billion stars – a small fraction of which probably have planets on which life is feasible. On some of these it is not unlikely that intelligent beings have evolved and developed civilizations with technologies far superior to ours. In his book 'The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective,' astronomer Carl Sagan makes an "optimistic estimate" that within the Milky Way there might be a million such instances.

Why, then, apart from the lack of concrete evidence, do scientists find it hard to believe that interstellar spaceships have visited earth?

For one thing, we have only just announced our existence by radio, in the last 50 years or so years - to the rest of the universe. We live on the edge of our galaxy, and our closest neighbours may be hundreds or thousands of light-years away. It is going to be some time before the good news reaches them. Probably they would respond by radio, but they may have technology, for travel close to the speed of light, (186000 miles per second) and decide to drop by for a look at us. Even so, it would take another several hundred or thousand years in planetary time for their spaceships to reach us return home.

One of the main reasons why science is so sceptical about extraterrestrial visitations is that, in Sagan's words the accounts of spaceships and their occupants are "stodgy in their unimaginativeness." Our reports of close encounters ascribe to these visitors our own technology whereas, Sagan points out, theirs would be "so far beyond our present capabilities as to be indistinguishable from magic."

Also UFOnauts themselves are too much like earthlings, even though life forms elsewhere in the universe are probably composed of atoms and molecules as we are, given the random factors operating in the evolutionary process. Sagan say it could be assumed that extraterrestrial beings would be totally different from us. Even the least imaginative of the Science-Fiction writers would not suggest a humanoid so uninteresting as the reported saucerians, but according to what UFOlogists have gathered, these extraterrestrial beings might be similar to humans.

In 1994 some students of Seevali College, Polonnaruwa, witnessed one evening a large, disk-shaped UFO landing on their playground. Recently Bandarawela, Diyatalawa and surrounding areas have been subjected to visitations. The Sri Lanka UFO Research Association (SLUFORA) has received many reports from allover the country about UFOs landing and creatures emerging from UFOs.

Either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Perhaps either alternative is equally profound and terrifying.

I believe that the evidence tells us that intelligent life exists out there and that an alien hand is reaching out to us across the void of space. Whether the hand is reaching out in friendship or for some sinsiter reason, we cannot yet tell.

When Ronald Reagan was speaking about the 'Star Wars' project, he was talking about a different threat. When Winston Churchill was speaking to the people of Fulton Missouri, in March 1946, he too was talking about a different threat, a different enemy, but his words ring hauntingly down the years to us. "The dark ages may return on the gleaming wings of Science. Beware, I say. Time may be short."

One thing is certain, if there is anybody out there and if they do make full contact with us, it would be the most significant event in the history of human race.

Akila Weerasekera
(Slufora)

Barbie Doll party at the Deli Market

The Deli Market at the World Trade Center will hold a Barbie Doll party today Dec 6 from 4.00-6.00 p.m. All kids are invited to bring their Barbie Dolls and are also invited to dress up as a Barbie Doll.

There'll be competitions for the Barbie Doll look-a-like for the kids and for the dolls there'll be the best costume, the most exotic and the best sports and casual wear costume prizes which will include a Barbie Doll as one of the prizes.

Of course Rudy the Bear will be there and a special kids meal snack pack is available for all the hungry little ones with lots of fun for all to enjoy with games and movies.

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