Category Archives: unusual people

Jehan Perera on Channel Four’s Slant on the Easter Sunday Attacks of 2019

Jehan Perera in The Island, 19 September 2019

The Channel 4 documentary that claims to give the story behind the Easter bombing has restarted the debate, within the country, about who was behind the foul deed, and why. The answer is not proving to be simple. It has become the subject of anger, threat and controversy. The identities of the suicide bombers and their victims are known. Eight suicide bombers died. 269 innocent people also died. All of the bombers were Muslim. Some of them were highly educated and came from prosperous families. They would not have wished to sacrifice their lives except for a cause they believed in as being of the utmost importance.

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Neil Para’s Marathon Walk to Secure PR in Australia

Item in the DAILY NEWS, 12 September 2023… where the title reads  SL asylum seeker granted PR after 1,000km walk to Sydney”

As he neared the end of his 1,000-kilometre walk to Sydney to raise awareness for thousands of families living in limbo as they seek permanent residency, asylum seeker Neil Para and his family have been granted theirs.

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Rita Mannella’s Insights on Her Experiences in Sri Lanka

Sanjiva Wijesinha, in Sunday Times & his own website where the title runs  “Twilight Reflections 8 – You Only Cry Twice”

I recently noticed that the outgoing Italian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Her Excellency Ms. Rita Giuliano Mannella, had made the following intriguing observation.  “When I return to Sri Lanka’ she said, “I cry twice – once when I arrive and the other time when I leave.“

At first I did not quite understand what she meant (Cosa stai dicendo, Signora?) but when I carefully thought over what she said, I realized that her observation made perfect sense.

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Articles on the Easter Sunday Attacks in 2019 presented within TPS in May 2019

Michael Roberts

I have recently presented the list of items placed in this site during April 2019 immediately after the shocking events and now commence  to  present the itmes that appeared in May 2019. I can hardly claim to have provided a comprehensive coverage, but readers will find a wide variety of  personnel from different ethnic groups within this list.  That it should evoke such wide interest is not surprising: it was a kind of 9/11 in Sri Lankan and Indian Ocean history.

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USA’s “Global War on Terror” Following 9/11

Compiled by Gp Capt Kumar Kirinde, SLAF [retd]: “A global counter-terrorism military campaign initiated by the U.S. in 2001”  ……….. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror, https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/exhibit/on-the-front-lines-cia-in-afghanistan/, ChatGPT, and Google Images … [with only some photographs 

Introduction:  ……  The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism”” (GWOT), is a global counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks and is also the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. The main targets of the campaign were militant Islamist and Salafi jihadist armed organisations such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their international affiliates, which were waging military insurgencies to overthrow governments of various Muslim-majority countries. Other major targets included the Ba’athist regime in Iraq, which was deposed during an invasion in 2003, and various militant factions that fought during the ensuing insurgency

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“Jamaican Farewell” in Sinhala ….. Not Sad to Say ….

A Welcome Rendering by a Sri Lankan Lass 

 …………….. who has now earned the sobriquet

………………………..”Mrs Harrybella Fonseka”

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Serious Shortcomings in Channel Four’s Reading of the 2019 Easter Sunday Bombings in Sri Lanka

Ranga Jayasuriya, in The Daily Mirror, 13 September 2023, where the title reads  Real victims and real danger of Channel 4’s fact-less documentary” …. with highlighting imposed by Th Editor, Thuppahi

Channel 4’s latest documentary on the Easter Sunday attack is way too depressing for any Sri Lankan, more so for the survivors and relatives who live with the memories of the slaughter of innocents.  But, after a 47-minute-long documentary, all that emerges is a ghastly piece of clickbait journalism that tries to repackage a hackneyed conspiracy theory, relying on the testimony of a single dubious asylum seeker, and generously mixing the harrowing tales of survivors, who live with the pain, as if the emotive appeal would provide credibility to the unfounded claims.

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Articles on the Easter Sunday Attacks in Sri Lanka, 2019: THOSE in April 2019

VARIED…. IMMEDIATE – APRIL 2019

Nirupama Subramaniam 2019 “Nirupama’s Incisive Appraisal identifies Islamic Jihadist Patterns in Easter Sunday Terror,” 22 April 2019, ….. https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/nirupamas-incisive-appraisal-identifies-islamic-jihadist-patterns-in-palm-sunday-terror/

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The 9/11 Aftermath in Pictures: The WTC and Its Surrounds

Captain Kumar Kirinde, SLAF Retd, whose facored title runs as THE DESTROYED TOWERS OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTRE OF NEW YORK: THE AFTEMATH OF 9/11 REMEMBERED IN PICTURES” .….     Sources: http://www.quora.com (posts by Ann Longmore-Etheridge),  ……………………………………………………………………………….. https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/world-trade-center-slurry- wall.htm and Google Images

Constructing the World Trade Center (1970)

Pic: https://www.ba-bamail.com/baba-recommends/history-in-pictures-25-      amazing-images-of-the-past/ ….

 

 

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When the Ceylon Schoolboys Beat the Indian Schoolboys on Their Home Turfs in 1969

Ranjan Anandappa, in Sunday Observer, 23 September 2007, with this title “1969 Schools Cricket Team – Best produced by Sri Lanka”

 CRICKET: Emphasis has been laid so much on qualified coaches and physios these days, but few knew that one of the most successful under 19 cricket teams ever to leave the shores of Sri Lanka which was undoubtedly the 1969 Sri Lanka Schools cricket team, then Ceylon, which toured India. The team was captained by former Ananda College cricketer Mithra Wettimuny [and] did not possess either a coach or a physio.

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