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Longing for Home

Nihal D Amerasekera **

“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

 Be it ever so humble,

there’s no place like home!”

by John Howard Payne (1823)

Deep within each of us is a longing for home. Soon after I arrived in the UK in the early 1970’s I experienced the gnawing pain of homesickness. After several months the grief, sadness and distress of homesickness gradually waned and disappeared. I was left with an occasional yearning to return to my roots either physically or mentally.  The latter being just a daydream or a nocturnal dream in my sleep. Longing for home, or homesickness, is a universal and wistful yearning for a familiar place we belong. Homesickness is defined as a feeling of longing for one’s home during a period of absence from it. If there is no anxiety or unhappiness it is not a sickness. It is just a longing for home which is a normal phenomenon. Perhaps it is a feeling common to all emigres living in exile. They all have the freedom to return home if they so wish.

 

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Sitting Ducks in the Malacca Trap

Desert Wanderer, … who has an alternative title as well:  The Malacca Chokepoint: The Hegseth-Sjamsoeddin Pact and the Blueprint for A Global War Against China” ….. Note that the highlights are interventions by The Editor, Thuppahi

The United States are moving toward a global maritime strategy designed to sever China’s trade lifelines and force international commerce into a US-aligned network. By using “Freedom of Navigation” as a cover, the US aims to turn international waters into zones where it decides which ships are allowed to pass. With the Strait of Hormuz already under immense pressure, the Strait of Malacca has emerged as the next critical battleground. This waterway is the primary artery for 40% of global trade and is vital to Chinese energy security, as roughly 80% of China’s oil imports pass through this chokepoint from West Asia. 

  Hegseth greets Indonesian Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin at the Pentagon (13 April). The photo captures them as brothers-in-arms, yet Hegseth’s hand-over-shoulder placement—a “strategic hug”—signals dominance and control over Sjamsoeddin. While appearing warm, body language experts view this over-the-shoulder reach as a power move designed to project an “upper hand” to observers.

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Dr. S. A. Wickramasinghe: Pioneer Marxist Thinker & Leader

Shiran Illanperuma, whose essay marks Dr. S. A. Wickramasinghe’s 125 birth anniversary and is entitled “The doctor who felt the people’s pulse”

April 13 marked the 125 birth anniversary of S.A. Wickramasinghe, a national freedom fighter and founder of the Communist Movement in Sri Lanka. Wickramasinghe remains a pivotal, if somewhat underrated, figure in the pantheon of the first generation of Sri Lankan national and leftist leaders.

Stories of Wickramasinghe’s politicisation often begin with his experiences of 1915 riots at the young age of 14. Wickramasinghe was appalled by the brutality with which the colonial administration treated the Sinhalese. But at the same time, he organised fellow students at his school Mahinda College to protect Muslim students from reprisals by the Sinhalese.

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Manifest Double Standards: Sri Lanka, West Asia, and the ICG’s Selective Moral Outrage

Lankan Reefcomber, confronting a TPS Item from the International Crisis Group:  https://thuppahis.com/2026/04/21/sri-lankas-political-situation-today/#more-98556

Michael,  re the ICG article you posted…. It is questionable why the International Crisis Group (ICG) prioritises war crimes within the narrow context of Sri Lanka while remaining silent on the unprecedented war crimes and genocide currently taking place in West Asia, which are broadcast live around the clock. This discrepancy reveals a double standard: the ICG focuses heavily on non-Western nations like Sri Lanka, but remains conspicuously less critical of Western military actions or those of their close allies. Viewing the world through a liberal-Western lens, the ICG frequently neglects the geopolitical realities and sovereignty of non-Western states.

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The Iran War at the Crossroads

News Item received From Firazath Hussain of Galle & Colombo in Sri Lanka, 22 April 2026,…. with the full title being Diplomacy or Escalation? The Iran War at a Crossroads” …. the highlighting here being that of The Editor, Thuppahi

The Iranian analyst Hassan Ahmadian speaks with Jeremy Scahill about Iran’s strategy, a potential deal, and how decisions are being made in Tehran.
The war against Iran launched by the U.S. and Israel on February 28 has not gone according to plan. What was initially portrayed as a quick regime change action that would destroy the Islamic Republic and spark a domestic uprising soon morphed into a war of attrition in which Iran stunned the U.S., Israel, and international observers. Six weeks after the opening strikes that assassinated much of Iran’s leadership, it is President Donald Trump who appears desperate to find an exit. The Iran war is now at a definitive crossroads and the coming days will prove decisive.

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The Iranian Filmmaker Whose Truth Surpasses the Narrative

Observer in A Black Sea Town

One thing that must be said about Iranians, they sure know how to make great videos.   Yes, it is propaganda, but these videos are so intertwined with truth,  that the truth of the videos surpasses its potential propaganda value.

Here are a few more clips…
RT tracked down the Iranian making these videos and interviewed him here https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/Hemmat-April-13-2026:8
Mahdi Hemmat is his name – a bright young creative Iranian living in the US.  In his videos,  Hemmat shows “verifiable events”.  His videos are so popular the world over, there is talk he may win an Oscar….

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Bhikkhu Pannakara’s World Walk for PEACE reaches Sri Lanka

SEE YOU TUBE VIDEO TALE ;  “Sri Lanka Welcomes Bhikkhu Pannakara — The Global Peace Walk Begins” on YouTube …. https://youtu.be/r4c9u-dGFfk?si=WQHgVaDxfevrmonw

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Sri Lanka’s Political Situation TODAY ……

International Crisis Group: An Assessment …. https://www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/asia-pacific/sri-lanka/356-sri-lankas-bumpy-road-political-reset

What’s new? Almost eighteen months into its term in office, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) government has kept Sri Lanka’s economic recovery on track and made notable efforts to fight corruption. But it faces growing questions about its ability and commitment to achieve its bold promises of “system change”.

  Why does it matter? Dissanayake’s election in September 2024 and the NPP’s subsequent parliamentary majority created a rare opening to address the country’s most important and intractable governance problems. Failure to achieve a substantial portion of their ambitious agenda threatens to open the way to a return to ethnic tensions and political authoritarianism.

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Conjectures re Today’s World Power-plays

Retd Brigadier Ranjan De Silva …in USA …. pubd somewhere but received by TPS via Email **
 Is Trump’s conduct demented, as portrayed?

Neither demented nor portrayed. Trump is trying to remove once and for all the existential threat to the rest of the world from the ideological designs of the Ayatollahs.

Or, are the Republicans, and the Democrats playing out a charade to hoodwink the world and the American people by working towards a ‘One-World’ Dictatorship’ of the Oligarchs as was planned at Bretton Woods in 1944?

Pure conjecture of the author.

 

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China’s Relative Advantage in the World’s Oil Stakes

 and in article in Reuters.com entitled  “How China can survive without the Strait of Hormuz,” 

UNCOOPERATIVE MAP …Map showing current, under construction and proposed pipelines supplying China…. Note: The Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline has yet to be agreed upon, and its route is subject to change……..  Source: Global Energy Monitor project; China National Petroleum Corporation

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