Oprah Winfrey

Nelson. Articles about Sri Lanka`s current defence status. The Gospel according to Oprah by Marcia Z. Statistics on Civilians Affected by War in Northeast 1974-2004 A Full Report in 11 pages. Oprah has many books written about her such as. A cease-fire was declared in 2002, but renewed violence in late 2005 led to fears of a renewed civil war. Many staffers have said off the record that she can be egotistical and difficult to work with. It is estimated that the war has left 65,000 people dead since 1983 and caused great harm to the population and economy of the country.

For instance, Harpo Productions makes employees sign contracts prohibiting them from disclosing anything about their time employed with her. Since 1983, there has been on-and-off civil war, mostly between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or the LTTE, who want to create an independent Tamil Eelam state in the northeast of the island. Winfrey is also charged with being too self-focused and also very insecure. The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is an ongoing conflict between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils on the island-nation of Sri Lanka. Some have said that this trivializes and degrades the various causes they help by turning them into vessels for marketing and have even suggested that it verges on exploitation, especially when children are involved. See Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. It has also been noted that the occasions on which various guest celebrities on her show "reach out" and perform charitable acts (such as performing for sick children) seem to nearly always coincide with a release of a project in which they have a prominent role (such as starring in a movie or releasing a music album). While Islam and Christianity (including 6% Catholics and 1% Protestants) represent 8% and 7% of the population respectively.

Winfrey removed the references to Frey's work on the main page of her webpage but left references in the Oprah's Book Club section earlier in the week. Buddhism (69%) and Hinduism (15.5%) are the dominant religions. She also expressed dismay with the publisher for not telling her about the embellishments. Smaller minorities include (mostly Sunni) Muslims (7%), mostly of mixed Arab, Persian, Tamil and Sinhalese origins and Malay descent, Burghers of mixed European descent (1%) and the Wanniyala-Aetto or Veddahs, the few remaining descendants of earlier cultures. While Winfrey initially supported Frey, she reversed only ten days later, confronting him on her show with barely concealed outrage. All three languages are used in education and administration. In a more recent controversy, Winfrey's selection of the drug rehab book A Million Little Pieces is under scrutiny, with the online publication The Smoking Gun arguing that its author James Frey is guilty of subterfuge and deceit in composing his allegedly autobiographical memoir. English, the link language in the present constitution, is spoken competently by about 10% of the population, and is widely understood.

." he said in a www.Powells.com interview. Both Sinhala and Tamil are official languages. "She's picked some good books, but she's picked enough schmaltzy, one dimensional ones that I cringe. Tamils comprise two communities: Native Tamils and more recent immigrants from India called as Indian Origin Tamils. Most notably, one of its attempted selectees, Jonathan Franzen objected to his book The Corrections being chosen, believing that its selection as an Oprah's Book Club book would demean his literary reputation. Tamils constitute 18%, are predominantly Hindu, and live mostly in the north, east and central provinces. Oprah's Book Club has occasionally chosen books which have proven to be modestly controversial. About 74% of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese, most of them Buddhist, mostly following the Theravada tradition.

Some critics say Winfrey makes inadequate reference to women who cheat or may only make cursory comments. Assimilation and intermixing has produced a group of people who are marginaly different from each other irrespective of current racial claims. Those about infidelity, for example, often focus either on cheating men or on cheated-on wives. Racial identities in Sri Lanka do not represent the genetic heritage. Some believe there to be a gender bias in some of Winfrey's shows. In December 2005, Sri Lanka received its first international credit rating with Fitch Ratings assigning it a BB- (a rating held by Brazil and Indonesia among others). After the trial, she received a postcard from Rosie O'Donnell reading, "Congratulations, you beat the meat!". A September 2005 IMF report called for an end to 'fiscal domination' of monetary policy and more independence for the Central Bank so that inflation could be contained.

After a trial spanning over two months in an Amarillo, Texas court in the thick of cattle country, the jury found on February 26 that Winfrey was not guilty, did not act with malice, and was not liable for damages. The tsunami helped stabilize the deterioration of macro-economic fundamentals as foreign debt relief and assistance from the International Monetary Fund strengthened both the external sector and fiscal operations. During a show about mad cow disease with Howard Lyman (aired on April 16, 1996), Winfrey exclaimed, "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger!" Texas cattlemen sued her and Lyman in early 1998 for "false defamation of perishable food" and "business disparagement," claiming that Winfrey's remarks subsequently sent cattle prices tumbling, costing beef producers some USD$12 million. But GDP growth, which had climbed to 6.4% by the first quarter of 2004 had fallen to 4.8% by the first quarter of 2005. Either way, there seems to be no slowing down for Oprah whose followers seem to support her no matter what. The December 26th Tsunami brought aidflows, and support from the IMF helped improve sentiment in the foreign exchange market. Some feel as if Oprahs influence is irresponsible. By December 2004, the country was heading for a balance of payments crisis, as the currency depreciated and reserves dwindled.

Such heavy influence upon both America and the world has led many to become conscious of her effect on culture. The expansionary fiscal policy, coupled with loose monetary policy eventually drove inflation up to 18% by January 2005, as measured by the Sri Lanka Consumer Price Index. Many of her guests have become instant celebrities. To finance the expanded budget deficit arising from a range of subsidies and a public sector recruitment drive, the government eventually had to print Rs 65 bn (US$ 650 mn) or around 3% of GDP. Oprah's show often contributes to the fabric of American pop culture. In 2004 alone Sri Lanka spent approximately US$ 180 mn on a fuel subsidy, as fixing fuel prices was an election promise. Being recognized by Oprah often means a million additional book sales for an author. But this policy of subsidizing imported commodities like fuel, fertilizer and wheat, soon unravelled the fiscal sector.

The book club became such a powerful force that whenever Winfrey introduced a new book as her book-club selection, it instantly became a best-seller (known as the Oprah Effect); for example, when she selected the classic John Steinbeck novel East of Eden, it soared to the top of the book charts. Its main theme to support the rural and suburban SMEs and protect the domestic economy from external influences, such as oil prices, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The segment focused on new books and classics, and often brought obscure novels to popular attention. The new government stopped the privatization of state enterprises, reforms of state utilities such as power and petroleum and embarked on an unprecedented subsidy program called the Rata Perata economic program. In the late 1990s, Winfrey introduced a new segment on her television show: Oprah's Book Club. In April 2004, there was a sharp reversal in economic policy after the government headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe from the United National Party was defeated by a coalition made up of Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the left-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna called the United People's Freedom Alliance. Winfrey's prominence as a media personality has led her to be highly influential, both intentionally and unwittingly. The Colombo stock exchange reported the highest growth in Asia for 2003, and today Sri Lanka has the highest per capita income in South Asia.

Reportedly, she has recently purchased several properties on Maui, Hawaii. Signs of recovery appeared after the government and the LTTE signed the 2002 ceasefire. Oprah's show is based in Chicago, Illinois, so she spends time there but otherwise resides in California. 2001 saw the first economic contraction in the country's history, due to a combination of power shortages, budgetary problems, the global slowdown, and continuing civil strife. The Angel Network. The economy rebounded in 1997-2000, with average growth of 5.3%. Oprah personally covers all administrative costs associated with the charity, so 100% of all funds raised go to charity programs. The GDP grew at an average annual rate of 5.5% during the early 1990s, until a drought and a deteriorating security situation lowered growth to 3.8% in 1996.

To date, Oprah's Angel Network has raised more than (US)$27,000,000. By 1996, plantation crops made up only 20% of exports (compared with 93% in 1970), while textiles and garments 63%. Accordingly, Oprah's Angel Network supports charitable projects and provides grants to nonprofit organizations around the world that share this vision. While tea and rubber are still important, the most dynamic sectors are now food processing, textiles and apparel, food and beverages, telecommunications, insurance, and banking. In 1998, Oprah began Oprah's Angel Network, a charity aimed at encouraging people around the world to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged others. From independence, till 1977, it was a strongly socialist economy but since then it has been increasingly pursuing privatization, market-oriented policies and export-oriented trade. "I want you to know, it's really over, whatever you thought was happening," said Winfrey. Sri Lanka is historically famous for its cinnamon and tea (introduced by the British in the 19th century).

The episode was hailed by some as the "television event of the decade" and helped Letterman attract his largest audience in more than 11 years: 13.45 million viewers.[7] Although a much-rumored feud was said to have been the cause of the rift, both Winfrey and Letterman balked at such talk. See Endemic Birds of the Indian Subcontinent for more information. On December 1, 2005, Oprah appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote the new Broadway musical The Color Purple, of which she was a producer, joining the host for the first time in sixteen years. Sri Lanka is a centre of bird endemism. In a later show, Winfrey changed her report of the event and no longer claimed she was denied entrance on account of her race. The island has three biosphere reserves, Hurulu (established 1977), Sinharaja (established 1978), and Kanneliya-Dediyagala-Nakiyadeniya (KDN) (established 2004). Winfrey felt she could enter the store after closing time, but when told that they were indeed closed, she claimed she was mistaken for a poor black woman and denied entrance because the store had been "having problems with North Africans lately." In September 2005, Hermès USA CEO Robert Chavez was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show and sincerely apologized for not catering to "O" on behalf of the store. Several preserves have been established to protect some of Sri Lanka's remaining natural areas.

Winfrey arrived fifteen minutes after the store's closing time, and the doors were locked while the last of the shoppers were being attended to. These forests have been largely cleared for agriculture, timber or grazing, and many of the dry evergreen forests have been degraded to thorn scrub, savanna, or thickets. In June 2005, Winfrey was allegedly denied access to the Hermès company's flagship store in Paris, France. The Sri Lanka dry-zone dry evergreen forests are a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion, which, like the neighboring East Deccan dry evergreen forests of India's Coromandel Coast, is characterized by evergreen trees, rather than the dry-season deciduous trees that predominate in most other tropical dry broadleaf forests. The jury voted to convict the man of murder.[5] [6]. The north and east are considerably drier, lying in the rain shadow of the central highlands. The trial was held in Chicago, Illinois, and involved a man accused of murder after an argument over a counterfeit fifty-dollar bill. Both these tropical moist forest ecoregions are very similar to those of India's Western Ghats.

Her celebrity status notwithstanding, the billionaire Winfrey served on the jury of a murder trial jury in 2004. At higher elevations they transition to the Sri Lanka montane rain forests. While most people are convinced the relationship is genuine, some speculate that it is more likely a matter of public relations, and, in fact, Graham is the co-founder and owner of his own public relations firm. The southwest, where the influence of the moisture-bearing southwest monsoon is strongest, is home to the Sri Lanka lowland rain forests. The relationship of Oprah and Stedman has been documented through the years with numerous romantic tabloid articles often accompanied by color spreads of the couple at home and on lavish vacations. Its forests are among the most floristically rich in Asia and for some faunal groups, it has the world's highest density of species diversity. Winfrey has never married but it is widely assumed that she has lived with her partner Stedman Graham for almost twenty years. Sri Lanka is one of the world's bio-diversity hot-spots.

Winfrey also owns a house in Lavalette, New Jersey. Other major cities include Jaffna, Galle, and Kandy. Rumors state that Winfrey was at a party the previous owners were throwing and so fell in love with the estate that she was reported to have purchased it by writing a personal check for $50,000,000 USD, although it was not for sale. The commercial capital is Colombo, but the administrative and legislative capital is at nearby Sri Jayewardanapura (Kotte). She currently lives on "The Promised Land", her 42 acre (170,000 m²) ocean view estate in Montecito, California, outside of Santa Barbara. The lowest gravitational field on Earth lies just off the coast of Sri Lanka. Oprah Winfrey is believed to own a net worth over $1.3 billion USD according to the 2005 Forbes Magazine Issue. The climate is tropical, characterized by monsoons: the northeast monsoon lasts from December to March, the southwest June to October.

This has fueled a rumour that Winfrey and Cooper are planning to make a movie together. Amongst these are Sri Pada and the highest point Pidurutalagala (also known as Mt Pedro), at 2,524 m. Recently, Winfrey has been interviewed several times by Anderson Cooper, with whom she has completed several side projects. The pear-shaped island consists mostly of flat-to-rolling coastal plains, with mountains rising only in the south-central part. Winfrey's latest television project will be developing and producing a new talk show for popular Food Network celebrity chef, Rachael Ray, which will begin airing sometime in 2006. According to temple records, this natural causeway was formerly complete, but was breached by a violent storm (probably a cyclone) in 1480. The book club has since grown to over 800,000 members. Often referred to as Adam's Bridge, it is now mostly submerged, with only a chain of limestone shoals remaining above sea level.

Oprah.com averages more than 100 million page views and more than three million users per month. According to Hindu mythology, a land bridge to the Indian mainland, known as Rama's Bridge, was constructed during the time of Rama. Since then, Winfrey has also used Oprah.com to continue her crusade to help those in need and against pedophiles by raising over 3 million dollars for Katrina victims and helping to capture 3 convicted child predators. It is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. That same year, Oprah.com also launched Live Your Best Life, an interactive multimedia workshop based on her sold-out national speaking tour that features Oprah's personal life stories and life lessons along with a workbook of thought-provoking exercises. The island of Sri Lanka lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal. In 2003, Winfrey relaunched Oprah's Book Club with an online component and it quickly became the largest book club in the world, attracting more than 670,000 members.
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In addition, the website has unique original content, including Oprah's Book Club, which offers free in-depth reading guides for each book selection, online discussion groups and Q&A sessions with literary experts. Sri Lanka consists of 8 provinces:. It provides comprehensive resources related to The Oprah Winfrey Show and exclusive interactive content based on O, The Oprah Magazine. See also: Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 2004. Oprah.com is a premiere women's lifestyle website, offering advice on everything from the mind, body and spirit to food, home and relationships. At the close of 2005, deep political unease and suspicion remained between the two factions. She is also a prolific author. But these hopes were dashed by almost immediate accusations of bias and favouritism on the part of international aid agencies from both sides.

Winfrey publishes her own magazines, O, The Oprah Magazine and O at Home. There were high hopes that the devastating Tsunami of December 2004 would force the government and Tamil rebels into a new, lasting dialogue to address the serious effects of the disaster on Sri Lanka as a whole. From that show alone, viewers around the world donated over (US)$7,000,000. The LTTE boycotted the election, thereby preventing thousands of Tamils from voting, and so Wickremasinghe from taking power, whose election promises included a Federal state to the North and East. Throughout the show, Oprah appealed to viewers to donate money to Oprah's Angel Network for poverty-stricken and AIDS-affected children in Africa, and she personally would oversee where that money is spent. His narrow victory was engineered by the the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who want Tamil Eelam to be an independent country. In addition, each child was given a backpack full of school supplies and received two sets of school uniforms for their sex, two sets of socks, two sets of underwear, and a pair of shoes. Rajapaksa offers less autonomy than Wickremasinghe to the northeast, home to most of Sri Lanka's 3.2 million ethnic Tamils.

During the 21-day whirlwind trip, Oprah and her crew visited schools and oprhanages in poverty-stricken areas, and at different set-up points in the areas they visited distributed christmas presents to 50,000 children, with dolls for the girls and soccer balls for the boys. He was previously Prime Minister in 2000. In 2004, Oprah and her team filmed and episode of her show entitled Oprah's Christmas Kindness, in which Oprah, her best friend Gail, Stedman, and some crew members travelled to South Africa to bring attention to the plight of young children affected by poverty and AIDS. Ratnasiri Wickremanayake was appointed the 22nd Prime Minister on November 21, 2005, to fill the post vacated by Rajapaksa. Winfrey was the recipient of the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 2002 Emmy Awards for services to television and film. Rajapaksa took oath as President on November 19, 2005. The made-for-television film Their Eyes Were Watching God was based upon a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks, and starred Halle Berry in the lead female role. The Election was held on November 17, 2005, and Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected the fifth Executive President of Sri Lanka with a 50.29% of valid votes, compared to Ranil Wickremesinghe's 48.43%.

In 2005, Harpo Productions released another film adaptation of a famous American novel, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Mahinda Rajapaksa was nominated the SLFP candidate and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe UNP candidate. However, despite major advertising, including two episodes of her talk show dedicated solely to the film, it opened to sour critical reviews and poor box-office results, losing approximately $30 million. In August 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that Presidential Elections would be held in November 2005, resolving a long-running dispute on the length of President Kumaratunga's term. In the run-up to filming, and in an attempt to break the only field she hadn't conquered -- film stardom -- Oprah lost a great deal of weight and underwent rejuvenative plastic surgery, becoming the Oprah that the public is now accustomed to seeing. Elections were held on April 02 and the new Parliament convened on April 23 and elected Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister. Critics said this would not even come close to the experience. Parliament was dissolved on February 07, 2004 by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.

To prepare for her role as Sethe, the protagonist and former slave, Oprah experienced a 24-hour simulation of the experience of slavery, which included being tied up and blindfolded and left alone in the woods. Since its independence in 1948, Sri Lanka has remained a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. In October 1998, Oprah produced and starred in the film Beloved, based upon Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. Parliament reserves the power to make all laws. The Color Purple has now been made into a Broadway musical and opened late 2005, with Oprah credited as a producer. The president may summon, suspend, or end a legislative session and dissolve parliament any time after it has served for one year. Many believe this was due in part to the Academy's "anti-Spielberg" bias, thinking the film would have been better directed by an African-American. The primary modification is that the party that receives the largest number of valid votes in each constituency gains a unique "bonus seat" (see Hickman, 1999).

The following year Winfrey was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to Anjelica Huston. Members are elected by universal (adult) suffrage based on a modified proportional representation system by district to a six-year term. She earned immediate acclaim as Sofia, the distraught housewife. The Sri Lankan Parliament is a unicameral 225-member legislature. In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's epic adaptation of Alice Walker's award-winning novel The Color Purple. The President's deputy is the Prime Minister, who leads the ruling party in Parliament. She is also the president of Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backwards). The President appoints and heads a Cabinet of Ministers responsible to Parliament.

As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network Oxygen. The incumbent may be removed from office by a two-thirds vote of Parliament, with the agreement by the Supreme Court. An unofficial Oprah fanclub, also organized a petition drive [4] in 2005, to nominate Oprah for the Nobel Peace Prize. The President is responsible to Parliament for the exercise of duties in accordance with the Constitution and laws. 23, 2004 by E!. The President of the Republic is directly elected for a six-year term and serves as Head of State, Head of Government and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The concert was broadcasted in the United States on Dec. It was rumored that the LTTE themselves did the killing.

There were musical performances by Patti Labelle, Andrea Bocelli, Joss Stone, Chris Botti, Diana Krall, Tony Bennett and others. In December 2005, following a brutal gang rape and murder of a Tamil woman (Ilayathambi Tharsini)(such incidents have happened before, including Krishanti Kumaraswamy), restive civilian groups likely encouraged and controlled by the LTTE carried out a series of attacks against Government forces in the North and East, and some unknown forces assassinated a pro-LTTE Tamil politician on Christmas eve in a Catholic church. The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Concert was hosted by Oprah and Tom Cruise. It has been alleged that only 17% of the relief aid has been spent on what it was intended for. [3]. Several Sinhala nationalist groups in the South challenged this pact and the Supreme Court declared that some articles of the pact were unconstitutional. She plans to host 140 episodes per season, until her final season, when it will return to its current number, 130. On June 24, 2005, the Government signed the Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS), a legal instrument for the Government to share aid with the LTTE.

Winfrey recently made a deal to extend her show until the 2010 – 2011 season, by which time it will have been on the air for twenty-five years. Over 40,000 people died on the island and many more are still missing. During the show each member of the audience received a new Pontiac G6 Sedan; the 276 cars were donated by Pontiac as part of a publicity stunt. On December 26, 2004, an earthquake off the western coast of Sumatra created tsunamis that washed over the Eastern and Southern coasts of Sri Lanka. Perhaps Oprah's most famous recent show was the first episode of the nineteenth season of The Oprah Winfrey Show in the fall of 2004. In April 2004, the Government of Ranil Wickramasinghe was ousted from Parliament and a coalition including several Sinhala nationalist groups opposed to negotiations with LTTE came to power. Phil, in 2004, which is produced by Winfrey's production company, Harpo Productions. No significant progress has been made to date.

McGraw appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for several years before launching his own show, Dr. LTTE negotiators proposed an Interim Self Governing Authority, but the Government's response did not satisfy LTTE, and the peace process paused in late 2003. He accepted the invitation and was a resounding success. 6 rounds of direct talks were held in several locations around the world, but no substantial steps were taken towards a political settlement to the conflict. Phil made such an impression on Winfrey that she invited him to appear on her show. In early 2002 both the LTTE and the Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding and entered into a joint ceasefire. Dr. At the end of 2001 a new Parliament was elected and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe declared a ceasefire, responding to the LTTE which had declared a ceasefire in December 2001.