Thuppahi's Blog

Desert Wanderer, … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

I wonder why Yakovleff fails to mention Israel’s role in this war. Trump would not have started this conflict if not for Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister drew Trump in by convincing him that decapitating the Iranian leadership via a forty-eight-hour ‘shock-and-awe’ campaign would cause the regime to collapse. Netanyahu’s goal was to destroy Iran, turn it into a failed state, and divide it into warring factions. But the plan failed. Trump has no strategy and no clue what he is doing; he is trapped in a war he cannot exit, so he simply escalates. Netanyahu remains in the driving seat. Yakovleff’s failure to explain this suggests he doesn’t understand the situation and is merely parroting a pro-NATO line—one asserting that NATO must always be in command.

SEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DACmMtd3pGQ

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Kamanthi Wickramasinghe  in The Daily Mirror,   March  2026 … where the headline is different.

Unlike sky rise buildings that dominate the skyline in Colombo, it is electric fences of various shapes and sizes that dominate much of the landscape in Galgamuwa today. With frequently occurring encounters between humans and elephants, the former is taking all precautions to protect their lives and those of their loved ones, sometimes at the cost of jumbo lives.

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HAPPY WORKERS in the Resplendent Isle of LANKA !!

Sunil Bastian

Right at the beginning of his book, ‘The Killing Fields of Inequality’ Göran Therborn says ‘Inequality is a violation of human dignity; it is a denial of the possibility for everybody’s human capabilities to develop. It takes many forms, and it has many effects: premature death, ill-health, humiliation, subjection, discrimination, exclusion from knowledge or from mainstream social life, poverty, powerlessness, stress, insecurity, anxiety, lack of self-confidence and of pride in oneself, and exclusion from opportunities and life -chances.’ These are concerns that motivated me to write this short piece on economic inequality in Sri Lanka.

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Cameleer

SEE https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/17/us-national-counterterrorism-center-director-joe-kent-resigns-over-iran-war

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A NOTE From LUCY McCANN of the BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD UNIVERSITY, 17 February  2026

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/discovery/search?query=creator,exact,Roberts,%20Michael,%201938-,AND&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInstitution&sortby=date_d&vid=44OXF_INST:SOLO&lang=en&mode=advanced&offset=0

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AN ITEM SENT TO Thuppahi by Joe Paiva of Adelaide…………. Watch “How Sri Lanka Became a Diplomatic Sensation in the Iran Crisis #LNW” on YouTube

George Cooke interviewed by Nisthar Cassim …. 

              END NOTES

A = Haaretz is an Israeli daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew and English in the Berliner format, and is also available online.

Owner(s)  Schocken family (75%); Leonid Nevzlin (25%)

Publisher Amos Schocken

Circulation 72,000; (weekends: 100,000)

First issue date 1918

Founded 1919; 107 years ago

Editor Aluf Benn

Headquarters Global HQ: Tel Aviv, Israel; North American HQ: New York City

B  = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aluf Benn
אלוף בן
Born	1965 (age 60–61) Ramat HaSharon, Israel
Education	Tel Aviv University, Northwestern University
Occupation	Journalist

Aluf Benn (Hebrew: אלוף בן; born 1965) is an Israeli journalist, author and editor-in-chief of the liberal Israeli national daily Haaretz.^[1]

Biography: Aluf Bomstein (later Benn) was born in Ramat HaSharon, son of Atida and 2010 Israel Prize poet laureate Aryeh Bomstein (who publishes under Aryeh Sivan). He was named for his uncle, Aluf Horowitz, who was killed in action in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli retribution operations of 1955.^[2][3] Benn holds an MBA degree from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a degree from Tel Aviv University.^[1]

Media career:  He began working for the paper Ha’ir in 1986, and Hebraicized his surname Bomstein to Benn. In 1989, he moved to the newspaper Haaretz, where he served in various roles, including night editor, investigative reporter, head of the news division and wrote on security matters. His articles have been published in a variety of international newspapers, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs and Newsweek.^{[citation needed]} On August 1, 2011, he was appointed editor-in-chief of Haaretz.^[4]

References

1.  Aluf Benn author page at Haaretz
2.  הורביץ, אלוף (“לופי”) [Horowitz, Aluf (“Lupi”)] (in Hebrew). IDF.
3.  interview on eye7 (Hebrew)
4.  “Aluf Benn named new editor-in-chief of Haaretz”. Haaretz. Retrieved August 1, 2011.

External links

• Column archive at Business Insider
• Column archive at Foreign Affairs
• Column archive at The Guardian
• Column archive at Haaretz
• Column archive at The National Interest
• Column archive at Salon.com
• Aluf Benn on Charlie Rose
• Aluf Benn at IMDb
• Aluf Benn at Journalisted
• Aluf Benn (July 27, 2009). “Why Won’t Obama Talk to Israel?”. The New York Times.
  • Jeffrey Goldberg (July 28, 2009). “The White House Reacts to Aluf Benn’s Arguments”.
• The Politics of Benjamin Netanyahu: An interview with Aluf Benn – Fathom Journal
  
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Indranee Kandiah & Thiru Kandiah, whose review article** analyses A Tapestry of Verse,  by Premini Amerasinghe {Nugegoda: Sarasavi Publishers. 2019. pp. 103]

Premini Amerasinghe’s  A Tapestry of Verse, which was released last year, is a collection largely of her recent poems, but includes too a reprint of an earlier collection that, it might not be irrelevant to note, had been shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize as long ago as 1998.  The present collection is a far cry from the ‘welcome diversion (into) creative writing by a medical specialist’ as the blurb on the back cover of this slim publication over-modestly proclaims.  True, there may perhaps be some who would be inclined to think that a renowned Consultant Radiologist who had worked for several years as Head of her Department at the General Hospital, Kandy, might not quite have what it takes, imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, mastery of language, whatever, to extend and enrich our literature. But a glance at the poems will straightaway dispel this stereotypical misconception and demonstrate beyond a doubt that she has not just the skills but also the inborn talent, as well as certain other important credentials, to do so.  In fact, we suspect that her own specialised academic and professional training might even have helped release her to seek her way to her own distinctive creative voice with all that more spontaneity and integrity than a purely literary training might have done.

Premini Amerasinghe

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Desert Wanderer

Donald Trump is a desperate man. His attempt to construct a winning narrative in the escalating conflict with Iran is delusional. Despite his frequent, ranting speeches claiming that the United States and Israel have already secured victory, the reality on the ground tells a different story. The war continues unabated, with Iranian missiles raining down in increasing numbers across West Asia, targeting major Israeli cities and key U.S. military installations. Notably, the headquarters of Mossad was recently struck, and the whereabouts of Netanyahu and other senior leaders of the Israeli Government remain unclear.

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