Michael Roberts
As an ardent cricket-spectator as well as a Galilean it was a tremendous pleasure to follow the coverage of the Test Matches at Galle over the last two weeks. The roaming aerial views provided by the drones enhanced my pleasure and generated a nostalgia that cannot be captured by words. HERE, however, I wish to highlight a remarkable photographic highlight on the final day.
Malinda Seneviratne, at …. https://malindawords.blogspot.com/2022/07/when-centre-cannot-hold.html …. with this title “When the centre cannot hold…”
I write (it is 12.09 pm, on Wednesday) at a time when there’s a remarkable and unprecedented lack of political clarity in the country. As I write, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has left the country. As per the Constitution, if indeed Rajapaksa did resign, or, as reported, Rajapaksa citing Article 37.1 of the constitution , Ranil Wickremesinghe has assumed the presidency in an acting capacity. There’s ‘fighting’ within parliament with parties and politicians unable to decide on Rajapaksa’s successor and of course who the next premier should be. There’s fighting among ‘aragalists’ over representational legitimacy, ideological and political thrust, and preferred endgames.
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“China ready to work with relevant countries, intl financial institutions to help Sri Lanka tackle current difficulties: FM”
The remarks came after foreign media claimed that Sri Lanka, mired in economic and debt crises and suffering political instability, is in discussions with Japan, and possibly with China in the future, on “bridge financing.”
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Errol Fernando in Melbourne **
The events of the past four days in Sri Lanka have been earth-shattering, Michael, and reporters and journalists would not have had a moment’s rest. Even the cricket was pretty riveting although it paled in comparison with the resignations of the high and mighty and the occupation of the presidential palace.
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Benjamin Norton, in Multipolarista, July 12 July 2022 where the title reads thus “Real debt trap: Sri Lanka owes vast majority to West, not China” ... with highlighting emphasis in colours imposde by the Editor, Thuppahi
Sri Lanka owes 81% of its external debt to US and European financial institutions and Western allies Japan and India. China owns just 10%. But Washington blames imaginary “Chinese debt traps” for the nation’s crisis, as it considers a 17th IMF structural adjustment program.
A protest in Sri Lanka in April 2022
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Andrew McGlashan
Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo, 9/10 July 2022, with this title “When Sri Lanka came to the cricket to fight for the country’s future”
Thousands gathered in Galle to protest the government which has led them into economic chaos. …. [SCENE OUTSIDE the northern entrance to the cricket grounds …. Pix from AFP]
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Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, in IDN, July 2022, where the title reads “Sri Lanka Needs a Balanced Economic and Foreign Policy”
A shortage of exorbitantly privileged American Dollars, the global reserve fiat currency, which is not backed by gold, silver, oil or drugs, is the purported reason for Sri Lanka’s compounding crisis and the international media narrative of ‘famine’ in the country.
The upturned vehicle could be siaid to highlight the situaiton of Sri Lanka today ,,,, and yesterday … PIX ‘stolen’ from Al Jazeera Continue reading
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Hugh Karunanayake The four generational link that the Northways had with the plantation enterprise in Ceylon ended with the death of the last of the Northways in Sri Lanka, that of Michael Northway in 1995. The progenitor of the family in Ceylon was Samuel Northway who together with the Winters, Bowmans, Hawkes, and Gotteliers, and others were induced to come over to Ceylon to establish the sugar industry in which these families were successfully associated with, in the Mauritius where they lived previously. All, or most of these families, including the Northways, were of French extraction.
Charles Northway & his wife on Deviturai Estate on their motorbikes; she witha douglas and He on a Bat, … circa 1910
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Trevor Wilson Eulogies, 24 June 2022
Jenny Wilson [00:00:24] Emeritus Professor Trevor Gordon Wilson, AM. Known as Trevor to Mum and his colleagues, as Gordon to his daughters and granddaughters, as ‘Trevors’ to his grandson Ben, was born on Christmas Eve in 1928 in Auckland, New Zealand. Sara and my existence depended on a crowded train from Oxford to Manchester and a custard tart. A story that will be told shortly. But Dad’s existence depended on the war that became his great area of research, writing and teaching. The First World War. Trevor’s dad, Andrew Gordon Kingsley Wilson, was fighting as an ANZAC in the trenches in France.
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