Qatar and SL sign nine MoUs; Boost for multi-sectoral cooperation:
Sri Lanka and the State of Qatar signed nine Memoranda of Understanding yesterday following the visit of the Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani.
The Emir arrived in Sri Lanka yesterday on a two-day state visit on an invitation by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. President Rajapaksa warmly welcomed the Emir of Qatar and his delegation at the Presidential Secretariat. Subsequently, bilateral discussions were held between the leaders.
Foreign Minister Professor G L Peiris signed an MoU on behalf of Sri Lanka to establish a high level joint committee. Foreign Minister of the State of Qatar Khaled bin Mohamed Al-Attiyah signed the MoU for the State of Qatar.
Minister Khaled bin Mohamed Al-Attiyah signed another MoU with Ministers Bandula Gunawardena and S B Dissanayake regarding research and development in the education and higher education sectors.
Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen and Economic and Finance Minister of State of Qatar Yousef Hussain signed an MoU for Economic, Commerce and Technological Co-operation.
Culture and the Arts Minister T B Ekanayake together with State of Qatar Foreign Minister Khaled Bin Mohamed Al-Attiyah signed an MoU for development and co-operation in the field of culture and arts.
Five other MoUs were signed between the two countries to promote co-operation between the countries in investment, economic co-operation, tourism, aviation and law.
Courtesy: Daily News
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Qatar also takes many Sri Lankan housemaids, industrial sewing machine operators, hospital and hotel service staff. An MoU on treating these women with respect and acknowledging their self-dignity and their right not to be raped, physically violated or assaulted must be asserted to the family that rules that undemocratic emirate. Our women deserve all respect and gratitude for bringing the most in hard currencies to enable payments for our imports.
Unfortunately, some of these Arab nations do not respect the rights of women. They treat women as slaves and animals with no rights. It is for our SL govt to take these matters up with the relevant Arab nations and ensure these rights are safeguarded and included in their contracts, when the leaders sign MoUs.
The majority of the workers in Arab states work in household. MOU’s cannot control behaviours within the four walls of residences. We have to turn the torch inwards do discover what leads to our mothers, sisters and daughters seeking employment in such extenuating environments.
The “development” in Sri Lanka is based on creating grandiose white elephants that offer little opportunity to masses. Our intellectuals are eternally condemning western superpowers and jewish mafia etc. They are worried about superpower domination. They simply have forgotten the common men and women of our land.
Our leaders cannot ensure effective utilisation of meagre resources to the benefit of all. They are living in cuckooland.
It is such neglect that gives rise to revolt. JAM is knocking on the door. Is it time to buy another fleet of killer jets from the Israeli’s whom we hate in peacetimes?
ND
Yours is a pathetic reply to the genuine concerns raised by Lasantha. Do you mean to say that MR can take into consideration these concerns during the NEXT round of signing the MU’s and to let go the current situation as is. If you are a true patriot as you proclaim in your writings, you ought to intervene NOW, seek an appointment with MR to raise the issues as the next round of MU’s could be 5 – 10 years away! Probably it will be either with Namal or Gota by then or even RW who knows!
I am sure both Lasantha and Olit would agree with me totally.
I am suspicious about this Olit guy as it is a very unusual first name and suggest ND investigates it further as I am lost breaking my head. We have to be careful about these imposters from the LTT Rump.
By the way I am truly concerned about the wellbeing of AUJ after the bastadry imposter attack on him which he seems to have taken to heart! Bless his soul.
Olit,
You seem to be having an unusual first name. Please clarify so as to eliminate imposters from this site.
While I agree with you in your comments you have not explained what you mean by JAM! Not the jam from MD I suppose. Please explain.
JAM stands for the “Jana Aragala Movement” headed by Kumar Gunaratnam.
Dear Uduarawana,
Thank you very much for your concerns about me and your prayers.In fact my dear friend your prayers seem to have good effects on me, as you feared ,my heart was badly hurt on those sadistic bashes from the imposter. I was in bed whole of y’day with high fever.Like in MR.Jigg’s cartoon column I also suffer from a gout from an operated leg.It gets infected at its own fancy and the family doctor takes about two to three days to put me back again but y’day it was a day’s job for him. Right now I am convalecing .I hope to bonce back with more vigour in the coming days.
ND
It appears you want to avoid me by responding to my genuine querry in blog 4 above! Fine by me.
It is now all yours ‘siyya’! Enjoy in your twilight years praising the goons. That is how intelligent you are as aptly described by departing NA, bird brains. I would say pea brains. Enjoy while you geriatrics last. You are accumulating your bad karma. Keep on patting one another ‘true patriots’ not prepared to accept a difference of opinion.
As a final favour, I suggest you follow http://www.transcurrents.com to debate amongst more intelligent and witty people than you and learn from them to be balanced in your opinions.
Dear AUJ,
Sorry to hear you are unwell. I hope and pray you will recover soon!
Olit Nibera, funny name, not Sri Lankan at all, he/she has deftly avoided explaining his/her name, when the question was posed to him/her by Udu in blog 5. I wouldn’t be surprised if he/she is a Tamil diaspora also. I wouldn’t bother to decode his/her name. But I am concerned he/she appears to be unpatriotic and ungrateful for all the excellent work the GOSL has achieved so far, under the Mahinda Chintanya and the MC Idiri Dekma.
In reply to ON, I like to remind him/her that not only Sri Lankans but also many hundreds of thousands of Indians and Filipinos are employed in Arab countries in many fields. Developing countries permit their citizens to seek employment in Arab countries so as to reduce unemployment in their own countries and also to generate an inflow of US dollars to these countries. I don’t see anything wrong in this. As we export goods, what is wrong in exporting our labour? In Arab countries there are workmen from developed Western countries also. Arab countries import this labour from other nations because of vacancies in their own labour markets. There are not enough skilled or unskilled Arabs to fill these vacancies in the Arab labour market. So, ON is wrong in finding fault with Hon MR for this and slinging mud at him. My view is that we should continue to export our skilled and unskilled excess labour to whichever country seek to employ them. It is a way of generating income for SL and also improving the quality of life of those people who find work abroad.
I agree with Lasantha that better contracts are reached with these employers in Arab countries to safeguard the human rights of these employees. At GOSL level, it should ensure there are adequate laws in place in these countries to protect employees’ rights in keeping with international standards and UN requirements.