But, then, see ……………. https://thuppahis.com/2021/04/29/a-chinese-handshake-for-little-sri-lanka/#more-51213
Shamindra Ferdinando in The Island, Thursday 29 April 2021 where the title is “China, Lanka in upbeat mood”
China and Sri Lanka yesterday (28) reiterated their commitment to building stronger relations between the two nations, during separate talks the visiting Chinese State Councillor and Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe had with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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Dr B. J. C. Perera, in Island, 29 April 2021, with this title “Covid-19: Perhaps final warning for Sri Lankans”
Be warned, our dear countrymen and women. The die is cast…, well and truly. In addition to all our woes in this resplendent isle, as far as COVID-19 goes, things are getting totally out of control. We will have to pay for our sins. Whom do we blame now? Here are some facts and some well-considered thoughts.
Tom Tugendhat and Neil O’Brien: “About the China Research Group”
The China Research Group [has been] set up by a group of Conservative MPs in the UK to promote debate and fresh thinking about how Britain should respond to the rise of China. The group’s work looks beyond the immediate Coronavirus crisis or issues relating to Huawei, with the aim of considering the longer term challenges and opportunities associated with the rise of China and its industrial and diplomatic policies.
Amanda Hodge in The Australian, 28 April 2021, where the titleruns thus: “India Covid crisis: Aussie family’s last-gasp sanctuary”
With a second wave of COVID-19 ravaging India and all escape routes to Australia closed for his Hyderabad-based family of four, Melbourne-born school principal Andrew Nicholson says he feels lucky his wife’s birth country of Sri Lanka at least will take them in.
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HEADLINES Everywhere
Steve Waterton, in The AUSTRALIAN, Special Magazine Edition, 31 March 2021
Stella Bowen, one of the few Australian women to be appointed an official war artist, began her preliminary pencil sketches for the painting on this magazine’s cover on April 27, 1944. Her subjects were the crew of a Lancaster bomber of 460 Squadron, six Australians and their English flight engineer. That night their raid took them over Friedrichshafen, an important German industrial centre; the next morning they were reported missing, presumed dead.
Gideon Haigh, in The Weekend Australian, 23/24 April 2021, where the title runs: “Forget About India’s Covid Chaos, There’s Cricket to be Played”
In the Indian city of Nashik on Wednesday, 22 COVID patients in a hospital ward perished when the oxygen tanker on which their ventilators depended sprung a leak. Perhaps you saw the footage — scores of workers running ineffectually in all directions through swirling clouds of vapour, representative of the chaos and futility enveloping India as its second, steepling pandemic wave bears down.
Tony Donaldson, with underlining emphasis inserted bt The Editor, Thuppahi
On 1 October 1949, the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed by Mao Zedong. Two months later, on 6 January 1950 the Ceylon government recognised Red China– one of the first countries to do so. Seven years later, in early 1957, the Premier of China, Zhou Enlai, made an historic five-day visit to the island, which paved the way for the establishing of diplomatic relations between Ceylon and China. Before exploring Zhou’s visit to Ceylon, it is worth diverting for a moment to briefly sketch the key events that led to his historic visit.
Zhou Enlai in China relaxing at the Huairou Reservoir, Beijing, in August 1960 … Photo by Du Xiu Xian Continue reading
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Michael Roberts
An ABSTRACT of an article that appeared in print in Ethnos, 1989, vol 54: 1 & 2, pp. 69-82…. available online for payment to Taylor & Francis.
This essay decodes a sixteenth century folktale which records the Sinhalese reaction to the arrival of the first Portuguese. Where the historiography has interpreted this tale as benign wonderment in the face of exotica, a piecemeal deconstruction of the allegorical clues in the ‘story is utilised to reveal how the Sinhalese linked the Portuguese with demons and with Vasavarti Mārayā, the arch enemy of the Buddha. In this fashion the Portuguese and the Christian sacrament of communion were represented as dangerous, disordering forces.
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