View allAll Photos Tagged Level
Flowers or insects go into our other level 1 groups called Flowers or insects please click on link below to take you there
Welcome to LEVEL 1 ~ ❖ Secret Forest ❖ - home to lovers of the magic of nature and macro photography!
Here you can post macros of the very tiny landscapes found in garden and forest:- we accept mosses, lichens, liverworts, moulds, fungi,
leaves, seeds, berries and droplet macros
plus VERY tiny creatures .eg. snails, centipedes, tree frogs And small Lizards.
Also our sister LEVEL 1 group:
♦ Post macros of flowers & buds, insects and cute/cuddly spiders
♦ Add macros with 10+ basic Secret Forest Awards to our 10+ Gallery
to receive an INVITATION to our LEVEL 2 'Macro Elite' group:♥ ❖ MACRO ELITE ❖ ♥ (level 2) Flowers or Insects, Secret Forest
This series of photos was made for the Level magazine of Paraguay. For the winter edition 2007.
By gihamandelik photographic studio
The Nikkormat FT was an all-metal, mechanically (springs, gears, levers) controlled, manual focus SLR with match-needle exposure control, manufactured in Japan from 1965 to 1967. It was available in two colors: black with chrome trim and all black. The unmetered version was designated "Nikkormat FS."
Can't go any lower...
Everytime I upload pictures to Flickr, I come to work where I have a way better monitor and I see imperfections in the scan that annoy the hell out of me. Being a perfectionist is torture.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, IAEA Director General, together with other UN and international representatives participated at the UN-Energy meeting at Principal Level during an open (virtual) discussion on UN-Energy’s way forward, including the proposed UN-Energy plan of action towards 2025.
The Director General is joined by his senior staff, Wei Huang, IAEA Director, Division of Planning, Information and Knowledge Management, Department of Nuclear Energy, Toshio Kaneko, Special Assistant to the Director General for Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Applications and Technical Cooperation and Diego Candano Laris, Senior Advisor to the Director General. IAEA Vienna, Austria. 11 January 2022.
Welcome Remarks:
Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator of UNDP and UN-Energy Co-Chair
Ms. Damilola Ogunbiyi, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and UN-Energy Co-Chair
Mr. Liu Zhenmin, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
H.E. Mr. Yerzhan Ashikbayev, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, addresses the Conference on Disarmament's High-Level Segment 2019, Palais des Nations, 25 February 2019. UN Photo by Antoine Tardy.
GBRf Class 66 no. 66740 (still in the remnants of FL green livery) on 6L28 04.42 Kingmoor - Whitemoor departmental (7 empty YKAs).
2nd August 2012
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence LE - PlayStation 2 (Factory Sealed)
Metal Gear Saga Vol. 1 - DVD (Factory Sealed)
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops -- PSP (Factory Sealed)
Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus -- PSP (Factory Sealed)
Metal Gear Ac!d – PSP(Factory Sealed)
Metal Gear Ac!d 2 – PSP(Factory Sealed)
Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel – PSP(Factory Sealed)
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker -- PSP (Factory Sealed)
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker LE -- PSP (Factory Sealed)
A level crossing house is the only thing left at this crossing.
This road was for access only to Ashgrove.
Looking up a stope to level three and the metal plate that's the walkway; we got stopped up there by that plate just when it looked like a good deep walk.
Enclosed places, especially those with springs discharging H2S-laden waters, can have high concentrations of H2S. We checked gas levels before entering each enclosed passageway.
The 06.17 London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly Virgin Pendolino express heads away from Tamworth at speed on the newly four tracked TV Main Line. Tilt enabled trains are now permitted to travel at 125mph on all four lines from this point northwards.
13th August 2009
The 18x (504mm) telephoto lens exaggerates the severity of the curve.
Was I really up this early?
Rafael Mariano Grossi, IAEA Director General, together with other UN and international representatives participated at the UN-Energy meeting at Principal Level during an open (virtual) discussion on UN-Energy’s way forward, including the proposed UN-Energy plan of action towards 2025.
The Director General is joined by his senior staff, Wei Huang, IAEA Director, Division of Planning, Information and Knowledge Management, Department of Nuclear Energy, Toshio Kaneko, Special Assistant to the Director General for Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Applications and Technical Cooperation and Diego Candano Laris, Senior Advisor to the Director General. IAEA Vienna, Austria. 11 January 2022.
Welcome Remarks:
Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator of UNDP and UN-Energy Co-Chair
Ms. Damilola Ogunbiyi, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and UN-Energy Co-Chair
Mr. Liu Zhenmin, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
The taxi driver gave me an odd look when I asked him to drop me off on this street corner. I even enjoyed a bowl of Pho with the locals.
It's Coot bashing season as they fight each other over territory on mates. It's Coot bashing season as they fight each other over territory and mates. Always great fun and there are some seriously fierce fights.
San Francisco Venue Madrone Studios AV
Media JB
Address: 969 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415) 757-0720
Mr. M.H.M.N. Bandara is a Member of the Sri Lanka Foreign Service (2000 batch)
(The following article published on Sunday Nation on 30 September 2007,{www.nation.lk/2007/09/30/special2.htm} and Sunday Observer on 7th October 2007 {www.sundayobserver.lk/2007/10/07/fea01.asp}
Foreign Service Invest further for a fruitful harvest
(The 58th anniversary of the Sri Lanka Foreign Service falls on October 1)
By M.H.M.N. Bandara
The Sri Lanka Foreign Service (SLFS) will commemorate its 58th anniversary on October 1. The SLFS, which commenced its activities independently on October 1, 1949 with five members – Dr. V.L.B. Mendis, H.O. Wijegoonawardena, A. Basnayake, I. B. Fonseka and Y. Yogasunderam – has since grown substantially, having undergone changes, challenges, disputes, etc., and now has a strength of 153 career personnel serving as ambassadors, high commissioners, additional secretaries, directors general and directors.
It is my view that the SLFS has not received its due share of ‘praise’ from both the media and the general public. This is mainly due to the fact that the general public is not appropriately apprised of the onerous duties performed by the members of the SLFS for the benefit of the country as a whole.
One allegation levelled against the SLFS is that SLFS officers are not closely linked with Sri Lankans living abroad. They are at times targetted by the media in a critical manner for not taking action to ‘safeguard’ the Sri Lankan migrant workers who are found guilty of violating the rule of law applicable to the respective countries. Nevertheless, it will have to be conceded that there may be very few instances where SLFS officers have observed the rules in the breach, perhaps unwittingly.
Criticism
Another criticism levelled against SLFS officers is that they are keener on ‘looking after the welfare of their children’s, education,’ rather than the wellbeing of the country. This allegation is baseless and is unfounded.
Of the 419 home based officers serving in Sri Lankan foreign missions abroad, only 97 officials, a mere 23%, are from the SLFS. The remaining 322 personnel, or 77%, comprise officers from various government services and also those who have political patronage.
Of the 153 officers now serving the SLFS, 61% comprise of unmarried officers and officers with one child per officer or none. Most of the children of these officers are not receiving the ‘education allowance.’ Hence, it is not fair by these officers to level such criticism against them.
The SLFS is a specialised service. It runs parallel to the Sri Lanka Administrative service and other combined services in the country. However, its role is different from other services. Broadly, the SLFS officials are tasked with the responsibility of coordinating bilateral and multilateral relations with foreign countries and also with the responsibility of protecting and safeguarding the image of the country.
The SLFS officers have measured up to their counterparts in other countries in discharging their assigned duties with diligence and bringing ‘name and fame’ to our motherland.
When we gained independence in 1948 after a period of foreign domination of almost 150 years, the most sought after and the prestigious service in the country was the then Ceylon Civil Service (CCS). Therefore, every young man with the requisite qualifications aspired to be a ‘civil servant’ and the failures at the Civil Service had the opportunity to join the then Overseas Service, which was then new to the country. However, they had to answer an extra question paper on world affairs.
First Overseas Service Minute
In terms of the first Overseas Service Minute – operative from 1949 to 1959 – nearly 32 officials were recruited to the then Ceylon Overseas Service as probationers and they were designated as ‘Grade IV Officers of the Ceylon Overseas Service.’
The Overseas Service Minute of 1949 was superseded by the Overseas Service Minute of 1959, which had the effect of a revision of the examination to recruit officers to the Overseas Service. From 1949 to 1973, a total of 73 officers had been recruited to the SLFS.
From January 4, 1974 onwards, the scheme of recruitment to the SLFS was revised so as to allow the opportunity to those graduates who had qualified themselves in Sinhala and Tamil media also to sit the examination in Sinhala and Tamil media in addition to the examination in the English medium.
Thereby, many graduates from Sinhala and Tamil speaking rural areas who received their education in the Sinhala and Tamil media and who were the products of ‘central colleges’ established in keeping with the ‘C.W.W. Kannangara vision’ were benefited and the numbers from such rural areas exceeded the numbers from the urban areas.
Until the time of late President Ranasinghe Premadasa, the post of Foreign Affairs Ministry secretary was held by non-SLFS officers. It was during Premadasa’s time that an SLFS officer was appointed to this post for the first time and that honour went to Bernard Tilakaratna.
Subsequently T.H.W. Woutersz (1965 batch), R.C. Vendargart (1967 batch), G. Wijesiri (1970 batch), D.E.N. Rodrigo (1965 batch), B.A.B. Goonetilleke (1970 batch) and H.M.G.S. Palihakkara (1979 batch) held that coveted post.
Creating history
Manel Abeysekera created history in the SLFS by being the first female career diplomat and the first female chief of protocol of the Foreign Ministry. Mary Luxhmi Naganathan was the second female career diplomat and the first from the Tamil community to reach that level.
Sarala Fernando (1975 batch) was the first female permanent representative of the United Nations. Of an approved cadre of 179, the SLFS now has 153 officers in its service in the categories Grade I, II, and III, (and at the additional secretary level too).
The ethnic, religious and gender balance in the SLFS is healthy. Of the 153 serving officers, 52 are females and four of them are serving as heads of missions in Paris (C. Wagiswara), The Hague (Pamela J. Deen), London (Kshenuka Senewiratne) and Vienna (Aruni Wijewardane).
In addition to the aforesaid female heads of missions, SLFS officers head the following missions: New Delhi (C. R. Jayasinghe), New York (Prasad Kariyawasam), Berlin (Jayantha Palipana), Warsaw (C. F. Chinniah), Beijing (Karunathilaka Amunugama Stockholm (Ranjith Jayasuriya – designate) , Tel Aviv (W.M. Senevirathna – designate), Tokyo (Ranjith Uyangoda), Muscat (M. Maharoof), Cairo (I Ansar –designate), Oslo (Esala Weerakoon), Katmandu (Sumith Nakandala), Pretoria (R.K.M.A. Rajakaruna), Hanoi (A. L. Rathnapala), Dhaka (V. Krishnamoorthy), Frankfurt (T. Raveenthiran) and Chennai (P.M. Amza).
Two officers of the ‘ambassador rank’ are serving as an Additional Secretary (Sarala Fernando) and a Director General (Grace Asirwatham) respectively at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Of the aforesaid 153 SLFS officers, 57 officers, including the 10 officers recruited in April 2007, are attached to the office of the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Colombo. The remaining 91 SLFS officers are attached to Sri Lankan missions abroad (four officers are on study leave and one of senior officers has been working in the international organisation).
Recruitment
The majority of the SLFS officers had been recruited through competitive examinations and some through the ‘merit system,’ which was an opportunity extended to clerical grade officers serving the Foreign Ministry and the other category through a ‘limited examination’ conducted by the Examinations Department for the benefit of certain grades of public servants with a certain number of years of service to their credit in government departments.
Recruitments to the SLFS under the merit and limited systems were abolished by the new minutes introduced in 2001. Anyone who wishes now to join the SLFS has to sit an Open Competitive Examination conducted by the Examinations Department. The examination comprises six written papers and a viva voice.
When we look back at the performance of some of our SLFS officers during the last ‘half-a-century,’ we can be really proud of our service. Many of them have excelled in their respective fields. I take this opportunity to name a few of them:
Deshamanya Dr. V. L. B. Mendis was in one of the very first batches of officers selected to the overseas service of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). His contribution to our foreign service is priceless. He was highly respected wherever he served. To his credit, there are several publications authored by him which are a sine qua non to SLFS officers.
The 1976 Non-aligned Summit was the most successful international conference ever held in this country. Dr. Mendis was its secretary general and it was he and the SLFS officials who meticulously planned and programmed the proceedings of the summit. The whole world acclaimed that it was a complete success.
The diplomatically famed Dr. Jayantha Danapala has brought fame not only to the Foreign Service, but also to our motherland as a whole. He is a product of the SLFS and has displayed his ‘diplomatic skills’ internationally by serving the United Nations at different levels. His name was also proposed for the post of secretary general of the United Nations in the year 2006.
Achievements
Dr. John Gunaratne, who joined the Foreign Service in 1967, has several publications to his credit, one of which is A Decade of Confrontations: Sri Lanka and India in the 1980s. His recent publication launched in July 2007 is Negotiating with the Tigers.
S.B. Atugoda joined the Foreign Service in 1975 and he has several publications to his credit – fiction in both Sinhala and English.
Ranjith Gunaratana of the 1992 batch has published several fictions both Sinhala and English.
In 2006 he translated into Sinhala and published the biography of the former Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew.
Niluka Kadurugamuwa, who joined the Foreign Service in the 2003, was a journalist at the Lakbima Newspaper. He has translated into Sinhala and published two publications, In Evil Hour authored by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Maya authored by Manel Abeyratne under the titles Vikal Horawa and Maya, respectively.
Bandu de Silva and Kalyananda Godage of the 1956 and 1973 batches respectively are two prolific writers. They subscribe to the local press periodically on matters not only pertaining to the Foreign Service but also of national interest. Their publications have boosted the image of the Foreign Service.
Nihal Rodrigo is not only a diplomat (1965 batch) but is also a painter of no mean repute. Rodrigo, when he once met Cuban Leader Fidel Castro, on the spur of the moment sketched the Cuban Leader’s face on a piece of paper. The Cuban Leader was so happy with the ‘sketch’ that he autographed it. It is now a souvenir with Rodrigo. Rodrigo served as the SAARC Secretary General from January 1, 1999 to January 10, 2002.
T.Z.A. Samsudeen of the 1981 Foreign Service batch served as the executive director of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IORARC) in Mauritius. Rodney Perera of the 1988 batch and a former ambassador to Italy received one of the highest honours awarded by the Italian government.
Media personnel
Our Foreign Service also possesses experienced media personnel. Ravintha Abeysinghe of the 1988 batch was an announcer as well as a presenter at Sri Lanka Rupavahani Corporation. As a presenter of SLRC, he had also conducted several interviews with visiting VIP leaders of many countries. He is presently the director general of public communications at the Foreign Ministry.
Madhrika Joseph and George Cooke of the 1998 and 2007 batches sharpened their skills as announcers at SLRC and TNL respectively. Several SLFS officers are well versed in UN languages and other international languages.
B. Kandeepan joined the Foreign Service in the year 1996. His hobby is playing the tabla and he is a skilled tabla player. He has displayed his tabla-playing skills even at musical shows conducted by Maestro Visaradha Amaradeva.
Chanaka H. Talpahewa (year 2000 batch) has excelled in the sport of rowing in the country. He became the first rowing captain of Sri Lanka when he led the Sri Lanka rowing team to the Asian Games in South Korea in 2002. He also won a silver medal at the SAF Games in Pakistan (2004) and a bronze medal at the South Asian Games in Colombo (2006). He is the holder of two Sri Lanka records. He is also an accomplished rowing coach and the secretary of the National Rowing Association.
The SLFS had to face an uphill task to redeem the lost prestige of the country. Human rights violations were the main allegation levelled against Sri Lanka. Our officers working in foreign missions, especially New York, Geneva, Brussels and some European countries and India, had to burn the midnight oil to keep the Sri Lankan flag flying with prestige.
Our officers, with the guidance of that great and inimitable statesman, the late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, were not only able to turn the tide against the terrorists and redeem the lost prestige of our motherland but also to persuade several countries, including those who initially supported terrorist activities, to proscribe the anti Sri Lanka movements in their countries. It was a great achievement and the unsung heroes were the Foreign Affairs Ministry officials and the Minister.
Significant role
Foreign Ministry officials played a significant role at the peace talks/negotiations with the LTTE commencing from Thimpu to Geneva. The first Peace Secretariat Secretary General was B.A.B. Goonetilleke, a product of the SLFS 1970 batch. Dr. Jayantha Danapala and Dr. John Gooneratne too had worked at the Peace Secretariat. Presently C. H. Poologasingham of the SLFS 1975 batch is working at the Peace Secretariat. The two SAARC summits held in Sri Lanka were excellently handled by SLFS officers.
The tsunami of December 2004 was the biggest disaster the country ever suffered. The administrative machinery too was affected and several public servants could not even reach their work places. The international community reacted to the situation immediately and the influx of foreign aid was instantaneous. Over 300 foreign delegates arrived in the country.
The SLFS officers were ever ready to meet any situation and the coordination of the visits of the foreign delegates was handled by the SLFS officers to the satisfaction of everyone.
Officers of the Sri Lankan missions abroad collected more than Rs. 500 million as donations as well as officers’ personal contributions. The Sri Lankan Mission in China alone collected approximately Rs. 200 million. With those funds, the Foreign Ministry completed five housing projects comprising 856 housing units for tsunami victims – 152 units at Trincomalee, 300 units at Ampara, 116 units at Galle (two projects) and 288 units at Kalutara.
The recent reception held at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Japan to commemorate ‘Sri Lanka Day’ was attended by more than 100,000 guests and the spouse of the Japanese Prime Minister graced the occasion as the Chief Guest. It was a great publicity event organised by the SLFS officers of the mission.
Yeoman service
SLFS officers have done a yeoman service to the country. They have protected and safeguarded the image of the country. They have kept the Sri Lankan flag flying with dignity. Their services are indeed praiseworthy.
The next batch to the SLFS is scheduled to be recruited in the near future. As a member of the SLFS, I invite talented young graduates who passed out recently to join the SLFS and serve our motherland.
In conclusion, I mention with gratitude the encouragement given to me by that veteran administrator, Lionel Fernando, a one time Foreign Affairs Ministry secretary and member of the former Civil Service, to make an in-depth study of the SLFS. I thank him from the bottom of my heart.
(The writer is the First Secretary of the Embassy of Sri Lanka, The Hague, The Netherlands. E.mail. menikb@hotmail.com