An Irate Aussie — As DINKY-DIE as EVER
Absolutely brilliant Aussie Passport Application AUSTRALIAN LETTER – I think the sender mighthave been upset! This is an actual letter sent to the DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) Immigration Minister. The Government tried desperately to censure the author, but got nowhere because every legal person who read it couldn’t stop laughing !
Australian Bushman in an Akubra hat in the wild outback
PK Balachandran, in Daily Mirror, 14 September 2021, where the title runs “Its-not-only-Sri-Lanka-which-gets-the-rap-at-UNHRC
Many Sri Lankans grumble that their small and powerless country is singled out for trenchant criticism at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) while bigger and more powerful countries with worse records go scot-free. But the truth is that powerful Western countries also get pulled up.
For example, in the follow-up reports to be presented at the 48th. Session of the UN Human Rights Council, which began on Monday, the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, Fabián Salvioli, has criticized both Sri Lanka and Britain for failing to satisfactorily address accountability issues (https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile? Final Symbol =A%2FH RC%2F48%2 F60%2FAdd.2 &Language=E&DeviceType=Mobile).
Jolly Somasundaram
“Truth is like the Sun, one can shut it off for sometime, but it will not go away.” …. Elvis Presley
Afghanistan has done it again! A country, where her geography was her destiny, made her push towards repeated trysts with history- Alexander’s Greeks, Mongols, Mughals, the Brits, Russians, Americans. She, redoubtable to foreign invaders, specialised in making her country, micro- Kanattestans for these invading hordes. These done-in foreign forces now out-done, were not small fry but superpowers.
Troops from Britain- the Rotweiller in her time slot of Empire building- were decimated three times, bleaching this arid landscape. Undaunted, Sysyphean Britain ventured on the fourth, though now a metamorphosed American poodle: same wipe-out. Russia, in her own time slot of imperial hope, was similarly sent scurrying home. Smaller European countries- Australia, Germany, France Italy, Canada, wishing to taste Petite Gloire but lacking oomph, hitch hiked on the NATO bandwagon: the same degrading exit.
Filed under accountability, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, american imperialism, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, conspiracies, fundamentalism, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, jihad, landscape wondrous, life stories, Middle Eastern Politics, military strategy, power politics, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, the imaginary and the real, trauma, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry
Map composed by the geographers Percy Silva and Kusuma Gunawardena in consultation with Michael Roberts …. and presented on page 329 of the book People Inbetween. The Burghers and the Middle Class in the Transformatrions witihin Sri Lanka, 1790s-1960s, Ratmalana, Sarvodaya Publishers, 1989, p. 325. The Map depicts migration flows.
copy provided by Dushy Perera
An Insider
Jonathan E. Hillman, 26 August 2021, whose title runs thus: “The Secret History of Hambantota” …. Starts his write up “If Chinese loans were cigarettes, Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port would be the cancerous lung on the warning label. Some observers have pointed to the underperforming port and alleged that China is using “debt trap diplomacy,” This statement reflects Hillman’s intention of using Hambantota port to discredit China. Taking a similar line Fair Dinkum in his “American Schemes of Global Bifurcation behind Hillman’s story on Hambantota Port” is critical of the messenger rather than being responsive to the message.+++
Filed under accountability, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, economic processes, governance, growth pole, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, politIcal discourse, Rajapaksa regime, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes
Robert Moran, in Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 2020, where the title runs thus: “Meet the 13-year-old ‘Koala Whisperer’, Australia’s new conservation superstar”
Ali Bee, a veterinarian on Queensland’s Magnetic Island, and her partner Tim didn’t think they’d ever have children. “That’s basically why we bought the animal clinic, we didn’t think Izzy was going to eventuate,” Bee recalls. “Five months later, I was pregnant with Izzy. “It was a very happy surprise. She has been at the vet clinic her whole life. I had to go back to work just five weeks after she was born, so she has literally been brought up at the clinic.”
Deborah Brautigam & Meg Rithmire, in The Atlantic, 6 February 2021, where the title is “The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth “
The narrative wrongfully portrays both Beijing and the developing countries it deals with. China, we are told, inveigles poorer countries into taking out loan after loan to build expensive infrastructure that they can’t afford and that will yield few benefits, all with the end goal of Beijing eventually taking control of these assets from its struggling borrowers. As states around the world pile on debt to combat the coronavirus pandemic and bolster flagging economies, fears of such possible seizures have only amplified.
Ben Shmulevitch
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, architects & architecture, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, economic processes, export issues, foreign policy, growth pole, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, island economy, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes
This striking photo was proably snapped before Sir John Kotelawela led the UNP to Debacle in the 1956 General Elections. [on 23 November 1953 — as kindly pointed out by Sachi Sri Kantha…. see below]
Lord Soulbury is seated on the extreme left –so this snap has been taken before he left Ceylon. It would be useful if other “personalities’ could be identified. The lady looking pensive in her pensive middle postion betwen Kohn Kotelawela and Richard Nixon is Yvonne Gulam Hussein nee Tousaint — a prominent socialite in Colombo.
Gaston de Rosayro, in Daily News, 13 February 2017 where the title reads “When Radio Ceylon was King of the airwaves!”
World Radio Day was first celebrated in 2012, following its declaration by the UNESCO General Conference. It was subsequently adopted as an International Day by the organisation. The theme for the 2017 edition of the event is ‘Radio is You!’, a call for greater participation of audiences and communities in the policy and planning of radio broadcasting.
thuppahi
