August 1, 2022 · 6:37 pm

The Force of Migrants in Australia Today: Figures & Insights

Bernard Salt in THE AUSTRALIAN,  30/31 July 2022  where the title reads “Celebrating Our Migration Nation”

It is a single demographic metric that encapsulates modern Australia. It is often the subject of heated debate. It rises and falls over time, but generally over the longer term it has kept an upward trajectory. It is the proportion of the locally based population born overseas. It includes immigrants but it also includes foreign students, backpackers and so-called guest workers based here for 12 months or more.

Asian migrant children tuck into vegemite sandwiches.

Australian Sudanese Peter Bol of Team Australia competes in the Men’s 800m Final on day nine of the World Athletics Championships in Oregon this month. Picture: Hannah Peters/Getty Images for World Athletic

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Australian culture, communal relations, cultural transmission, demography, economic processes, ethnicity, evolution of languages(s), governance, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, language policies, life stories, modernity & modernization, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, refugees, self-reflexivity, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

August 1, 2022 · 2:14 am

Under Fire in Playing with Snow

With a curtsey to Keith Bennett (in Melbourne I think?) for presenting this TALE:

It’s been snowing all night.  So  8:00 I made a snowman.
8:10 A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn’t make a snow woman.


 Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, landscape wondrous, life stories

August 1, 2022 · 1:47 am

Power Cuts in Cuba indicate Spreading Economic Crisis

Marc Frank in Reuters, 30 July 2022, with this title “Havana announces blackouts, cancels carnival as crisis deepens”

The Cuban capital of Havana will begin electricity blackouts in August, has cancelled carnival and is taking other measures as the country’s energy crisis worsens, state media reported on Saturday.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, economic processes, energy resources, governance, life stories, self-reflexivity, transport and communications, trauma, working class conditions, world events & processes

July 31, 2022 · 8:31 pm

Extending and Protecting Sri Lanka’s Ocean Assets

Ivan Amarasinghe, presenting “A Proposal for Non-Traditional Resources Exploitation  within the UN Allocated EEZ and the Ocean University of Sri Lanka”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Map-of-the-Sri-Lankan-Exclusive-Economic-Zone-EEZ-Source-Maritime-Boundaries_fig1_313525677

Executive Summary of the Proposal

The Indian Ocean around Sri Lanka contains vast, precious minerals which have so far not been explored or exploited by Sri Lanka. A review of recent scientific literature indicates that powerful States and Corporate sectors are active within the area. The support of the United Nations [UN] is sought to legally delineate the national Extended Economic Zone [EEZ] in keeping with the UN Convention on Law of the Sea [UNCLOS]. Sri Lanka must urgently guard its ocean resources before they are exploited to exhaustion by others. Sri Lanka must ensure forex earnings through a new policy on sustainable exploitation of ou ocean resources.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, biotechnology, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, education, foreign policy, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, modernity & modernization, nature's wonders, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, transport and communications, world events & processes

July 31, 2022 · 4:42 pm

Jonathan Manz’s Revelations re US Machinations in Sri Lanka: Two Essays

Jonathan Manz, in LankaWeb

ONE: “Pivot-to-Asia: America executes a Ligthening Coup to take control ofa strategic Island in the Indian Ocean” …. in LankaWeb, 13  June 2022 …. note DATE

Bewildered, reeling and confused, Sri Lankans are just beginning to pick up the pieces of the jigsaw to decipher the events of Black-Monday, 09 May 22, when America, with its all-too-familiar ‘false-flag’ operations, executed a lightning Coup, to take control of the strategic Island in the Indian Ocean.

Taking control of the Island-Nation was critical to the Americans to implement their re-chartered game-plan for the Indian-Ocean region; this plan, they were compelled to develop following the unexpected defeat of their proxy mercenaries in Sri Lanka.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, debt restructuring, disparagement, economic processes, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, IMF, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, world events & processes

July 31, 2022 · 3:23 pm

Do or Die for the Tory Leadership in UK

Padraig Colman, in The Island, 31 July 2022, where the title reads “The Tory Leadership Battle”

British voters have been watching with growing irritation/apathy the contenders for the leadership of the Conservative Party fighting with each other on TV. The session on July 26 ended abruptly when presenter Kate McCann literally became unconscious. Many viewers had already lost the will to live.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, heritage, life stories, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom, self-reflexivity, unusual people, world events & processes

July 30, 2022 · 9:17 pm

Jayati Ghosh exposes the IMF Role in the Crisis in Sri Lanka and Elsewhere

Video Presentation in DEMOCRACY NOW …. with this title “Economist Jayati Ghosh: Global Debt Crisis Is Perfect Storm of Unrest, Economic Disaster, Starvation”

THE looming PERFECT STORM = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPMed4KOHuI

We look at the looming possibility of a global recession amid rising inflation, the pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine. World financial institutions and wealthier countries should take stronger actions such as writing off debts that are crippling developing nations, says Jayati Ghosh, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “This is just completely lack of political will. It’s not because we don’t know what to do.” Her piece in The Guardian is headlined “There is a global debt crisis coming — and it won’t stop at Sri Lanka,” and she also discusses other countries on the brink of an economic collapse, including Pakistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Panama and Argentina. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at https://democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Support independent media: https://democracynow.org/donate Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under accountability, american imperialism, centre-periphery relations, debt restructuring, demography, disparagement, economic processes, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, IMF as monster, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes

July 29, 2022 · 8:24 pm

From Banda to Gota

Laleen Jayamanne, in The Island, 20 & 27 July 2022 where the title runs thus: “Teargas cinema and Rukmani Devi”

“I have never found anything to excite the people in quite the way this language issue does”–– Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike to a journalist.

If true, this observation attributed to Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike, is quite chilling in its cynicism. ‘Excitement’ is a political emotion here and SWRD appears to take a distance from it, observing somewhat clinically, how ‘this language issue’ stirs up ‘the people’. Politicians are especially crafty, cunning, when they know how to excite people with ideas that they themselves may or may not truly believe in.

A protester covering the eyes of the Bandaranaike statue at Galle Face

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under accountability, anti-racism, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, communal relations, cultural transmission, democratic measures, economic processes, education policy, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, historical interpretation, insurrections, island economy, landscape wondrous, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, press freedom, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, trauma, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, world events & processes

July 29, 2022 · 2:06 pm

Covid’s Gift to Sri Lankan Cricket: Prabath Jayasuriya

Rex Clementine in The Island, with this title “Prabath Jayasuriya; COVID’s gift to Sri Lanka”

We all agree that COIVD has caused havoc all over the world. The country has lost some of its finest statesmen, musicians and entrepreneurs to the virus. Some of us have lost our loved ones while some of us have lost our livelihood. It’s been a tough couple of years. But COVID also has done a good thing or two, like gifting Prabath Jayasuriya to Test cricket.

World cricket would have never heard of the left-arm spinner if the Sri Lankan camp had not been struck by the virus on the eve of the second Test against Australia.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under accountability, cricket for amity, cricket selections, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, heritage, life stories, patriotism, performance, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, unusual people

July 29, 2022 · 1:53 am

The US Ambassador’s Enthusiasm for the Aragalaya

Malinda Seneviratne … whose title runs thus “Ambassador Chung and Xeroxable Change” …. with highlighting emphasis being impositions by The Editor Thuppahi

Aragalaya. Translatable as revolt, uprising, protest, agitation, struggle or even insurrection. Aragalaya is singular, but considering statements and actions it was certainly not marked by concert, ideological agreement, unity of purpose etc.

Julie CHUNG, US Ambassador in Colombo

Eclecticism was the signature of the rumbling. There was mumbling, nothing more, about system-change, but a revolution it certainly was not. So, aragalaya: singular; aragala: plural. The latter is the better descriptive. And perhaps it is exactly this eclectic and disjointed character that forced the agitators to dilute whatever revolutionary fervour there may have been to a project that targeted an individual and once that ouster was obtained shift focus to another individual.
Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under accountability, american imperialism, atrocities, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, citizen journalism, disparagement, economic processes, governance, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, performance, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, violence of language, world events & processes