It is with profound sorrow that we share with you the passing of Prof. Stanley (Sam) Samarasinghe on Monday, Nov 22, 2021. Our husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, teacher, colleague and friend fought his illness with relentless courage and undiminished fortitude for several years. His enthusiasm to live his life to the full did not abate. Except family and close friends, no one else had even the slightest inkling that he was battling an invasive enemy within.
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ISLAND newspaper News Item, 18 November 2021
In a brand new initiative, under the working title ‘Project 72’, Roar Media and author Sarah Kabir are set to take a deep dive into Sri Lanka’s past since gaining Independence in 1948, entertainingly and educationally covering some of the most defining years in the nation’s history.
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PK Balachandran, in Daily Mirror, 14 September 2021, where the title runs “Its-not-only-Sri-Lanka-which-gets-the-rap-at-UNHRC
Many Sri Lankans grumble that their small and powerless country is singled out for trenchant criticism at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) while bigger and more powerful countries with worse records go scot-free. But the truth is that powerful Western countries also get pulled up.
For example, in the follow-up reports to be presented at the 48th. Session of the UN Human Rights Council, which began on Monday, the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, Fabián Salvioli, has criticized both Sri Lanka and Britain for failing to satisfactorily address accountability issues (https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile? Final Symbol =A%2FH RC%2F48%2 F60%2FAdd.2 &Language=E&DeviceType=Mobile).
David Kilcullen, in The Weekend Australian, 11-12 September 2021
Twenty years after 9/11 the terrorism threat is larger and more widespread, the Western alliance is weaker, and the US is in sharp decline relative to its rivals. Democratic societies are less free, stunted by “safetyism”, less resilient and more divided.
The abandonment of Afghans amid the return of an unreformed triumphant Taliban just in time for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, underlines the failure of the global war on terror and the need for a radical rethink. This is particularly true for Australia, which faces the most threatening geopolitical environment in a century.
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I present several comments from Sri Lankans in New Zealand and Sri Lanka
A NOTE from SM in Colombo, 7 Sept 2021
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Courtesy of communications from Avril Thurgood, Helen Fernando & Moninna Guanwardena ….. stressing the Revd Malcolm Ranjith’s Pragmatic Benevolence in These Hours of Covid-Threat
Palitha Kohona ,in The Sunday Observer, 28 June 2020, with this title “Managing the media on the road to Nandikadal – Part 1″ ….http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2020/06/28/news-features/managing-media-road-nandikadal-part-1
The conflict with the terrorist LTTE dragged on for over two decades causing widespread death and destruction with no obvious end in sight. The Government, after the election of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, recognised, perhaps for the first time, that carefully managing the media, both domestic and international, was an important factor if this endless struggle were to be ended successfully. President Rajapaksa, a consummate politician, accepted the profound value of a non-antagonistic media and carefully orchestrated initiatives to secure this objective. As the world knows, the bloody conflict was eventually ended on the banks of the Nanthikadal Lagoon on May 18, 2009, through the colossal efforts and sacrifices of the security forces.
Tony Birtley of Al Jazeera at the warfront in late 2008 and Ranil Wijayapala in ??
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Rajiva Wijesinha, presenting his new book unders the imprint of Godage & Bros, Colombo
In 2006 the United Kingdom, as now 15 years later, was in the forefront of bringing Sri Lanka before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The resolution was not taken up but kept on the table, and in September 2007 the UK proposed discussing the text with the recently appointed Sri Lankan Representative Dayan Jayatilleka.
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thuppahi
