July 16, 2021 · 8:11 pm

SOFA: America’s Trojan Horse in Sri Lanka?

 Lindsay Hughes** on 17 July 2019 where the article is entitled thus  “The United States, Sri Lanka and the SoFA: A Matter of Balancing China?”

Background

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled his proposed visit to Sri Lanka on his tour of the Indo-Pacific region towards the end of June, during which he visited three countries. The US Embassy in Colombo stated that the cancellation was due to “unavoidable scheduling conflicts” and that Secretary Pompeo regretted that he could not visit Colombo at that time. On the face of it that was plausible enough – diplomatic visits across the globe are frequently cancelled or re-scheduled for many reasons – but rumours swirled in Colombo that Secretary Pompeo was showing his annoyance at not being able to formally forge a Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA) with Colombo.

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July 15, 2021 · 9:03 pm

Out Out British Spot: Gladstone Expelled from Sri Lanka

Chandani Kirinde, in Financial Times, 30 June 2021, where the title is “The Gladstone Affair: ‘A Sri Lankan Tempest’,”

Just 18 hours after landing in the country in June 1987, David Gladstone had an audience with President J.R. Jayewardene. All too soon, the President had taken him into his confidence.

Retired diplomats spending their days penning down their memoirs recounting their heyday of holding fort among the rich and powerful in foreign lands is not unusual. But then how many among them have had the dubious honour of being declared ‘persona non grata’ by a host nation and given marching orders after being accused of crossing the line into territory that is out of bounds for diplomats?

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July 15, 2021 · 7:49 pm

A Puny Seed that a Giant Oak Became: The Chinese Communist Party

Kamal Nissanka, in The Island, 11 July 2021, where the title runs as “Hundred Years of the Communist Party of China” …. with highlighting added by The Editor Thuppahi

The Chinese Communist Party was formed on July 1, 1921 at the top floor of a private school for girls in Pubalu Street, Shanghai, the industrial city of China. The building was deserted except for a watchman who was on the ground floor. Students and teachers of the school were on summer holidays. Originally nine men gathered at this place. They were from various Marxist study groups in China who wanted to form a Communist Party. A little later three other Chinese and two foreigners joined the nine.

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July 13, 2021 · 11:40 am

Outback Magic: Indigenous Music Traversing Boundaries

Music Outback Foundation had its beginnings in late 2001 when Founding Director Steve Berry took an opportunity to conduct a week long music workshop at M’bunghara, a small Indigenous community in remote Central Australia.

Steve’s time there left him inspired to return to the Northern Territory and pursue the possibility of providing regular music education opportunities to remote Indigenous schools.   In September 2002 he visited four more schools conducting workshops at each location, and the success of these visits resulted in an invitation to expand the developing program to 12 remote schools in Central Australia.

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July 13, 2021 · 7:22 am

Kohomadha Mey !!! Happy Coincidence in Cricket

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July 11, 2021 · 8:21 pm

Australian Aboriginal Peoples as Sophisticated Hunter-Gatherers?

Christine Judith Nicholls, reviewing the book Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? authored by Peter Sutton & Keryn Walshe …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor Thuppahi

Eminent Australian anthropologist Peter Sutton and respected field archaeologist Keryn Walshe have co-authored a meticulously researched n a meticulously researched new book, Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate. It’s set to become the definitive critique of Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu: Black Seeds — Agriculture or Accident?

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July 9, 2021 · 8:02 pm

Duncan White: Trinitian, Hurdler and Trailblazer for Ceylon

KLF Wijedasa**

During this Olympic year it is pertinent to remember one of our country’s greatest athletes Major Duncan White on his 23rd death anniversary (July 3). On his way to success, he had to glide over 10 barriers and not break them!

14th August 1948: Duncan White of Ceylon fixes his starting blocks to the track at the 1948 London Olympics. Original Publication: Picture Post – 4582 – Fastest Men On Earth – pub. 1948 (Photo by Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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July 9, 2021 · 2:12 pm

The CHINA Bogey in Western Circles

Clive Williams, in The Australian, 9 July 2021, where the title reads “Chinese Military Threat is Overstated”

Despite its technology-poaching history, China is now capable of autonomously designing and producing advanced military items, and much more cheaply than its Western competitors.
Despite its technology-poaching history, China is now capable of autonomously designing and producing advanced military items, and much more cheaply than its Western competitors.

Comments in May by a Beijing newspaper editor suggesting strategic missile strikes on Australian targets under some cir­cumstances should not alarm Australians. They were made in response to comments coming out of Australia about supporting the US in any conflict over Taiwan, and in the context of the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th anniversary celebrations.

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July 9, 2021 · 1:27 pm

Vanni Hope’s Educational Charity Work

VANNI HOPE – It’s Motto: “Be the reason someone smiles today”

 MESSAGE: Dear Friends, Relatives and Wellwishers

Once Again many thanks for helping us to serve indivduals and famlies in the poorest comunties in Sri Lanka. We indicate BELOW some of the enterprises in educational support for students in the face of the current covid pandemic — deploying brief You Tube Presentations.

ONE: HARSHINI – LAW DEGREE – LAPTOP – ONLINE CLASSES …. https://youtu.be/ixXniHBs96E

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July 9, 2021 · 12:45 am

The Conquista: A Book on Sri Lanka’s Portuguese Period

Avishka Mario Senewiratne

Fr SG Perera who translated the work of Queiros

In an island nation which has more than two thousand five hundred years of written history, no book has provided a more detailed account of any period of Sri Lanka’s history than the Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon[1] authored by the Jesuit Father Fernaó de Queyroz.[2] This work covered the 150 years of Portuguese involvement in Ceylon. Ironically, this 17th century Jesuit Priest, had never visited the island of which he was researching and writing in the final two decades of life. This brief essay gives an overview of Queyroz the Historian, his cause and objective, the long and eventful delay of his work in reaching its readers, the controversy around it in the early 20th Century and its splendid translation by Fr. Simon Gregory Perera of the same Society.

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