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Now four star general
Former Army Commander, Lionel Balagalle, who retired on June 30 has been promoted to the rank of a four star General.
A gazette notification elevating him to this top most position has been signed by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Minister of Defence and Commander in Chief of the armed forces.

Dengue gets Prabha
Intelligence circles in Colombo speak of reports that the Tiger guerrilla leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is down with dengue.
They say he is receiving medical attention from a team of doctors.

Seeking him everywhere
Varathan alias Banu Avaliyan the one time spokesman and translator of the LTTE's renegade eastern wing leader, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna has fled the country.

Insiders say he boarded a flight to Singapore two weeks ago. His departure had led to speculation that Karuna himself boarded a flight to Singapore - reports that kept the Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DII) operatives at the Bandaranaike International Airport working overtime.

As one irate operative remarked, "if Karuna went past us, he was either in a saree or was invisible."

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