Murder, not grammar (S.L. & Thailand)

To digress very briefly, I note the following

(1) The man known as Prince Anouvong Sethathirat IV was just
assasinated in Nong Khai, Thailand, along with his wife.  This is not
the sort of thing that gets reported in the Western Press, but it is
(and will be) significant for the history of the region.  The shooting
took place at Sala Kaew-kaw, i.e., a famous garden of modern
(concrete) Hindu and Buddhist sculptures, doubtless a familiar site
for several members of this list, and a popular tourist attraction.
The authors of the assasination are unknown, but, I would expect,
conspiracy theorists will not take long to jump to their conclusions.

(2) In case you think I'm just a tourist...
I picked up a copy of _An X- ray of the Sri Lankan policing system &
torture of the poor_ --I believe this was published less than six
months ago.  I very much "enjoyed" its brutal, factual descriptions of
manifold (recent) acts of torture, abduction, and murder carried out
by the Sinhalese police and army.  The tacit thesis of the book (a
collection of essays with various explicit theses) is that press
coverage has tended to frame this brutality in terms of racial
divisions, and the legacy of the British empire, but the facts suggest
that the primary division is between rich and poor (i.e., the
Sinhalese authorities do indeed brutalize Sinhalese pesants, perhaps
more than Tamils) and that this systemic brutality seems to have
developed in the post-British period (i.e., the Sinhalese system has
replaced, not perpetuated, a former colonial system --each being
brutal after its own fashion).
   There's a book review, here:
   http://www.ahrchk.net/pr/mainfile.php/2005mr/266/

E.M.