Teddy Ng, South China Morning Post, 24 February 2021: “China and Singapore start joint naval drills
Singapore naval servicemen wave to a departing Chinese frigate after a previous joint exercise. Photo: XinhuaJevans Nyabiage, in South China Morning Post, 21 February 2021, with this title ‘Debt-trap diplomacy’ a myth: no evidence China pushes poor nations to seize their assets, says academic
There is no evidence China aims to deliberately push poor countries into debt as a way of seizing their assets or gaining a greater say in their internal affairs, researchers and analysts said – countering Washington’s narrative that China was engaging in “debt-trap diplomacy”. Deborah Brautigam, a professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University and founding director of the China Africa Research Initiative (Cari), considers the “debt-trap” narrative a myth.
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Mathias Keitle, a German scholar from Statalendorf ++
Sri Lanka eliminated a dreaded terrorist group, with intricate global links, but receives little credit for it! Unlike elsewhere in the world, Sri Lanka has succeeded in resettling 300,000 IDPs (Internal Displaced Persons). There are no starving children for the NGOs to feed but this gets ignored!
Sri Lanka has avoided mass misery, epidemics and starvation, but the West takes no notice of this. Sri Lanka has attained enviable socio-economic standards for a developing country while eliminating terrorism but gets no
acknowledgement.
Filed under accountability, american imperialism, asylum-seekers, atrocities, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, devolution, economic processes, Eelam, ethnicity, foreign policy, governance, historical interpretation, human rights, IDP camps, Indian Ocean politics, insurrections, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, Tamil Tiger fighters, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, UN reports, unusual people, war crimes, war reportage, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
Writing in the Daily News in March 2019 and deploying the affirmation of a South African diplomat, Jeevan Thiagarajah has lamented the alleged fact that the VOC Black African used slave labour to build the imposing Fort of Galle – even asserting that “an estimated 15,000 Africans brought from Portuguese and Dutch colonies” worked on this project.[1] Thiagarajah is a political scientist and not a historian. His essay is clearly riding on the back of the movement “Black Lives Matter.” But in this populist move to earn kudos (as I speculate), he displays abysmal historical background and has failed to consult the many personnel next door to him in Colombo who would have served up solid data on the topic – notably Ashley De Vos (who has subsequently, albeit briefly, questioned Jeevan’s claim).
The Fort of Galle in the late 19th century
Storming of Galle fort in 1640
Filed under ancient civilisations, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, caste issues, centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, discrimination, disparagement, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Kandyan kingdom, landscape wondrous, life stories, military strategy, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, working class conditions, world events & processes
Sri Lanka – UNHRC-Ref A/HRC/46/20- 12 January 2021 = Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Sri Lanka’
Assessment by the Rt. Hon. the Lord Naseby PC- Hon President All Party British-Sri Lanka Parliamentary Group. **++**
I have just finished a careful read of this extraordinary document which glosses over the full extent of the War when a group of vindictive terrorists tried to create a Tamil quasi neo-socialist revolutionary state by first murdering all the moderate Tamil leaders, then murdering President Premadasa and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as well as countless ministers, parliamentarians, civil society leaders and finally using extreme violence to wage war against the armed forces of the democratically elected Government of Sri Lanka. All in the name of Eelam.
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Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya of the University of London has been researching the Portuguese in the East for over twenty years and has generated a significant number of studies on Portuguese Creole peoples, their life-style ad languages in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Her output of work has been as varied as commendable and I begin with a summary of one article dealing with “a nineteenth-century manuscript in Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole” because i am presently fashioning an article that refers to the work of Hugh Nevill on the Kāberi Hatana in order to ‘educate’ those who have touched on African slave labour at Galle without possessing any background information on the topic. This essay is in process and will appear soon….. Michael Roberts
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Sanjeewa Jayaweera, whose preferred title is “How Did MPs jump the Vaccine Queue?” …. Note that highlighting is the work of the naughty Thuppahi Editor
mey Raja Kavudha?
It was so typical! None were too surprised when it was announced in the media that the 225 Members of Parliament (MP’s) were to be vaccinated against Covid19 ahead of many others whose exposure to the virus was significantly higher. A photograph of a government minister vaccinated at the Army Hospital was published in the media before this announcement. A few erstwhile cabinet colleagues justified this by saying the Minister had twice served quarantine time due to some of his close contacts being infected with Covid19. The presumption is that the Minister was unable to carry out his duties whilst being in quarantine?
posted on 21 February 2021 …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEJpRasqJKA&feature=youtu.be
with this NOTE: “This video is made from photos I have shot at these locations in Sri Lanka : Kumana, Bundala, Sinharaja, Yala, Uda Walawe, Maskeliya, Horton Plains, Polonnaruwa, Dambulla, Galle and Kandy.” …
And supplemented here by some stills
Leopards in Congress
Filed under landscape wondrous, wild life
thuppahi
