Southern Expressway journey begins today
All arrangements have been finalised for the grand opening of the Southern Expressway – the ‘Gateway to Wonder’ by President Mahinda Rajapaksa today, heralding a fast-track development drive in Sri Lanka.
The Rs.77 billion mega project is the first expressway in Sri Lanka.
“All arrangements are now in place for the grand opening of the Expressway this morning,” Road Development Authority (RDA) Chairman R.W.R. Pemasiri told the Sunday Observer.
With the official opening of the expressway by President Rajapaksa who is also the Highways Minister, Sri Lanka’s first user fee expressway will be open to the public from 6 pm today, Pemasiri said.
President Rajapaksa will open the access road to the Expressway from the Pinnaduwa interchange which links the Southern Expressway to the port city of Galle after buying the first ticket from the RDA toll collector.
He will mark the opening of the country’s first Expressway by unveiling the commemorative plaque at Welipenna, one of the eight interchanges on the toll road.
A public rally to mark the opening of the Expressway will also be held at the Karandeniya public grounds under the patronage of President Rajapaksa.
A representative of the Government of Japan on Peace Building, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in Sri Lanka Yasushi Akashi is also scheduled to participate in the opening of the Southern Expressway as a special guest. Japan provided 36.3 Japanese Yen (Rs. 47 billion) for the first 66 Km section from Kottawa to Kurundugahahetapma.
The Asian Development Bank and the Government of Sri Lanka also financed the massive project.
“We are opening the road for the public at 6 pm on Sunday after President Rajapaksa exits the expressway from Kottawa. We expect motorists to use the expressway from tomorrow,” he said. The toll for the complete journey for a car will be Rs. 400.
The four-lane expressway which is to be opened up to Pinnaduwa will enable motorists to reach the port city of Galle within one hour at a maximum speed of 100 Km per hour.
The minimum speed will be 80 Km/h. However, the maximum speed at exits and entrances will be 60 Km/h.
The expressway will also make the Colombo Galle A-2 road congestion free for motorists who use it for daily travel.
All types of vehicles barred from using the expressway, including bicycles, motorcycles, tractors, earthmoving vehicles, bullock carts and three wheelers should use the A2 road.
“We have also made arrangements to ensure smooth traffic on High Level road which is the key road that links the expressway to Colombo city by making it a four lane road from Kottawa to Nugegoda.
Our teams are now busy finalising the widening of High Level Road,” the RDA chairman said. The RDA is also widening the Battaramulla-Pannipitiya road, another access road to the expressway. The RDA has deployed over 500 staff for the 24-hour expressway operations. It will also have a fleet of Nissan Patrol and other emergency vehicles to respond rapidly to calls on the emergency line 1969.
Meanwhile, the Police Department which is also playing a key role to make the Southern Expressway operational on a 24 hour basis (the road is well lit at night with luminous signposts in all three languages) has 500 police personnel exclusively for expressway traffic control, security, fire and rescue operations through its newly established Southern Expressway Police Division.
Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police, Western Province, Field Force Headquarters, Traffic Administration and Road Safety, Asoka Wijetilleka told the Sunday Observer that they are also ready with their staff to make the expressway operational from today.
He said police officers of the Southern Expressway Police Division will function independently under a Superintendent of Police. They have been trained for the purpose.
On the instructions of the Inspector General of Police N.K Illangakoon they have taken steps to have additional Traffic police personnel to the Kottawa and Homagama police stations to control inbound and outbound traffic of the Southern Expressway on High Level Road.
“With the heavy volume of traffic expected due to the opening of the expressway from Kottawa to Nugegoda and to the other side to Homagama, we will also deploy some extra traffic policemen to the Homagama and Kottawa police stations who will be deployed for traffic control on High Level Road”, he
Govt will discuss modalities to implement LLRC Report
The Government said it would discuss the modalities for implementing the LLRC report with the international community in keeping with its ‘firm resolve’ to continually engage with them and gain from their ‘collective insight’.
External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L.Peiris said, “We want to be engaged by the ‘collective insight’ of the international community.
As soon as it is published we will talk about the modalities of implementation. We are ready for such an exchange of views.”
He was addressing the inaugural national conference on reconciliation at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Centre on Thursday.
He said the international community must not receive this report with scepticism.
Instead, it should be dealt with an open mind.
“The report of the LLRC will be in the public domain shortly once it is tabled in Parliament. Please evaluate it, assess it, discuss it.”
He said the Government faced a ‘bizarre’ situation in Geneva in September this year when attempts were made to put down on the agenda of the Human Rights Council of March 2012, a document which did not exist at all. The LLRC report was at the time non existent.
“Almost every country that we spoke to, agreed that this was a total travesty of justice. The attempt was to malign the document before it was out. It was a demonstration of total prejudice.”
The move did not receive support and at the end of the day the resolution against Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council was not presented.
“The LLRC in essence is a local mechanism. I think there has to be respect for the local mechanism and procedures.
This is an established practice in the international system. There are specific resolutions in the UN General Assembly, where countries are encouraged to evolve their own solutions on delicately sensitive problems. This is necessary to reach sustainability. He invited the international community to visit Sri Lanka and ‘not to be guided by what is being told’ either by the [Tamil diaspora] propagandists or the Sri Lankan Government.
“We welcome them and we want to see for themselves the enormous progress made with regard to all sectors of public policy within the brief period that lapsed since the eradication of terrorism in May 2009.”
Parliamentary delegations from Germany and Japan concluded a recent visit here and within the next few days Parliamentary delegations from the EU and Australia are due to visit Sri Lanka.
The Minister said that the Government has a clear resolve to work with the diaspora. “There is no intention to isolate them or demonise them.”
He said there are sections of the diaspora that are contributing to improve the quality of people’s lives in the Northern peninsula to be better, richer and beautiful. At the same time, there is a segment of the diaspora that does not recognise the irreversibility of the military defeat of the LTTE.
He called upon Western countries where the pro-LTTE diaspora presence is high to adopt a certain approach to ‘actively discourage’ the kinds of activity which are detrimental to Sri Lanka as well as them, stressing that the use or display of emblems, symbols and insignia of a banned organisation is a criminal offence. Thus there should be no impunity for such offenders, he said.
Rajaratnam Must Surrender by Dec. 5, Appeals Court Says
Raj Rajaratnam, the former Galleon Group LLC hedge fund manager convicted of directing the biggest insider-trading ring in a generation, can’t remain free on bail while he challenges the government’s use of wiretaps in his trial, an appeals court ruled.
Today’s ruling clears the way for Rajaratnam, 54, to report to federal prison in Massachusetts to begin serving an 11-year sentence. He has been ordered to surrender Dec. 5.
“The defendant shall surrender at such time and place as shall be instructed by the district court,” said a panel of U.S. appeals court judges in New York.
In a 20-minute hearing yesterday before the appeals court in Manhattan, a defense lawyer said improper wiretapping of Rajaratnam’s phone conversations will lead to reversal of his May conviction and that he should remain free in the meantime.
Patricia Millett, a lawyer for Rajaratnam, said the appeal presents a “substantial question of law” and that Rajaratnam is unlikely to flee to his native Sri Lanka before the appeal is decided.
“His passport was surrendered ages ago. All his family are here,” Millett told the three-judge appeals panel. “He has nothing to go to in Sri Lanka.”
Request for Bail
U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell, who presided over the case and sentenced Rajaratnam in October, had rejected a request for bail pending the appeal. Rajaratnam claims a March 7, 2008, wiretap application by the Federal Bureau of Investigation contained “glaring omissions” that would probably lead the appeals court to reverse his conviction, justifying his release on bail.
“There is no substantial question of law likely to result in a new trial,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Streeter told the court.
Streeter told the panel that no defendants have ever been returned to the U.S. under its 22-year-old extradition treaty with Sri Lanka. The home detention and electronic monitoring ordered by Holwell is no guarantee that Rajaratnam won’t run, the prosecutor said.
‘Successfully Flee’
“People successfully flee all the time,” he said.
Prosecutors said Rajaratnam made more than $72 million by using illegal tips to trade in stocks of companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Intel Corp., Google Inc., ATI Technologies Inc. and Clearwire Corp.
In November 2010, Holwell ruled the government had complied with federal wiretapping laws in its investigation. Prosecutors said it was the first insider-trading case in which the government made extensive use of wiretaps to prove its case.
Prosecutors, who introduced 45 wiretap recordings into evidence during the trial, opposed Rajaratnam’s request for release while his appeal is in progress.
Prosecutors said the fund manager still has “significant net worth” even after U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, who is presiding over a lawsuit against Rajaratnam by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, directed him to pay a record $92.8 million penalty. Holwell ordered him to pay a $10 million fine and forfeit $53.8 million.
The case is U.S. v. Rajaratnam, 11-4416, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan). The lower-court case is U.S. v. Rajaratnam, 09-01184, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
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