February 3, 2020 · 2:20 pm

Mattala Route for Mercy Flight from Wuhan for Lankan Students

News Item in Colombo Gazette, 1 February 2020 …. https://colombogazette.com/2020/02/01/flight-with-sri-lankan-students-from-wuhan-lands-at-mattala-airport/

The flight with Sri Lankan students repatriated from Wuhan landed at the Mattala Airport this morning and the students were transported to the Diyatalawa Army camp in a special bus, under tight security.

Following the direction of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Ministry of Foreign Relations in coordination with the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Beijing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka, facilitated the return of the 33 Sri Lankan students and their family members to Sri Lanka from Wuhan.

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February 3, 2020 · 1:55 pm

The Asia Society Policy Institute in Melbourne Talks the Walk

The Asia Society Policy Institute opens its first international presence in Melbourne with the appointment of Richard Maude as a resident Senior Fellow. He will also serve as Executive Director, Policy for Asia Society Australia.

For more than 60 years, the Asia Society has sought to explain the diversity of Asia to the United States and the complexity of the United States to Asia, and to be a bridge in problem-solving within the region and between Asia and the wider world. With a solution-oriented mandate, the Asia Society Policy Institute builds on this mission by tackling major policy challenges confronting the Asia-Pacific in security, prosperity, sustainability, and the development of common norms and values for the region.

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February 3, 2020 · 1:23 pm

Lush Travel Destinations: Some of CNN’s Top Twenty for 2020

Katia Hetter and the CNN Travel Team, CNN • Updated 7th January 2020

CNN Travel’s 20 best places to visit in 2020 = https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/places-to-visit-2020/index.html

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February 3, 2020 · 9:20 am

When Vengeance drives Human Rights Recrimination on the World Stage: The Ban Ki-moon Story

Michael Roberts

As the annual witch-hunt directed at Sri Lanka from the UNHRC at Geneva looms, we can benefit from recalling the role of the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, in this pantomime. Ban Ki-moon is a South Korean who has been identified as “a lackey” of USA in the same category as Kofi Annan by the Canadian activist Chris Black in an email communication on 20th January 2020. Ban Ki-moon and the UN Rehabilitation Commissioner, Navy Pillai were behind the selection of Marzuki, Sooka and Ratner to man the UN Panel of Investigation whose report has served as the foundation for the campaign mounted by the UNHCR offices in Geneva to hound Sri Lanka for human rights abuses.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (r) is greeted by IDPs (Internaly Displaced Percons) as he visits Manik Farm in Sri Lanka on May 23, 2009.
AFP PHOTO/JOE KLAMAR (/AFP/Getty Images)       

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February 3, 2020 · 4:05 am

Yamuna Sangarasivam: Teaching Dance and Her Dance with Michael Jackson

Julia Smith: “Michael Jackson and the Anthropology of Dance,” …… https://www2.naz.edu/dept/sociology-anthropology/faculty-and-staff/yamuna-sangarasivam/

 Yamuna on right with a student

How did Yamuna Sangarasivam get a chance to dance with Michael Jackson in his iconic “Black or White” video — which premiered in 27 countries to an audience of 500 million?

Although she was a huge fan of the King of Pop, she never imagined that she would meet him, let alone dance a duet with him in one of his music videos! She heard of Jackson’s call for ethnic and modern dancers and auditioned — along with more than 3,000 others — because the amazing opportunity blended her passions for the anthropology of music and the anthropology of dance with her expertise in Odissi dance (classical dance tradition of Orissa, India).

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February 3, 2020 · 3:14 am

Stanley Jayaweera as Sturdy Administrator & Diplomat – A Vale from a Son

Rajeewa Jayaweera, in Sunday Island, 2 February 2020, where the title runs – “A bygone era diplomat of perspicacity. A third-year remembrance of my father”

‘If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch’ – Rudyard Kipling

My father, Stanley Robert Jayaweera (SJ), passed away on February 4, 2017, four months short of his 90th birthday. Over the last couple of years, I have penned several articles of his work, besides one in May 2017, of the different phases in our father-son relationship. This article would be the last. As memories begin to fade, they too need to be reposed.

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January 28, 2020 · 10:49 am

Jehan Perera evaluates New President’s Cautious Approach

Jehan Perera, in Island, 28 January 2020, where the title is “Adopt a problem solving approach for the north”

Contrary to expectations the government is treading a cautious path with regard to past commitments on controversial matters made by the previous government. This may be disappointing to its more nationalist supporters. They might have expected an immediate change of approach and rescinding of agreements they see as unfair or not in the national interest. In the run up to the presidential election campaign, the present government’s front line campaigners claimed that the MCC grant of USD 450 million by the US government that had just received cabinet approval would endanger the country’s national security. Members of the government and their nationalist supporters were emphatic in saying that the former government had betrayed the country. This effectively sank any prospect of election victory that the former government’s presidential candidate may have had.

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January 27, 2020 · 1:51 pm

Today’s Bureaucratic Subservience in Sri Lanka: The Tale of Its Emergence and Entrenchment

H. L. Seneviratne reviewing Your Obedient Servant: The Fate of the Bureaucrat in Sri Lanka by Suren Sumithraarachchi, Sarasavi Publishers 2019 …. Courtesy of Colombo Telegraph = https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/book-review-politics-the-bureaucracy/

This book deals with the higher bureaucracy in Sri Lanka, and its focus is bureaucratic behavior. It is about local bureaucrats, not those of British origin — bureaucrats who historically inhabited the bureaucratic terrain with decreasing density as colonial rule waned. It considers loyalty to a set of rules, rather than to a person, the marker of ideal bureaucratic behavior, one that the vocabulary of sociology calls “rational-legal”.

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January 27, 2020 · 6:14 am

Gota’s Assets placed in the Present Political Context

H. L. D. Mahindapala, in Colombo Telegraph, January 2020, where the title is

Any critical assessment of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa must take into consideration the salient characteristics that make him stand out from the run-of-the-mill politicians who had occupied the peaks of power.

The first notable characteristic is that he is the first head of state to come from the Sri Lankan diaspora. Initially it was a disadvantage tangled in legalities of citizenship. Later it smoothened out and has been an invaluable asset to him. His existential experiences as an expat in America had widened his horizons and opened up new vistas in his thinking and strategizing. He has acted so far as a leader who had seen the future and is bent on taking the nation in that direction. It has all the signs of being influenced by the American efficiency in delivering goods and services. The new breed of intellectuals he had recruited to run his state indicates clearly that he is in a hurry to modernise the sluggish nation and usher it into the 21st century. His first-hand knowledge of an advanced nation would hasten him to mix tradition with modernity without deracinating the nation – a critical issue in modernising Afro-Asian countries.

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January 26, 2020 · 2:24 pm

Sri Lanka enters CNN List of Best Travel Destinations for 2020

VISIT https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/places-to-visit-2020/index.html

The South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka is as ancient as it is beautiful; as complex a civilization now as at any time in its 2,000-year history. Despite recent tumult (the horrific terror attacks last Easter), Sri Lanka remains an essential destination, an epicenter of history, with relics and ruins, temples and palaces, wildlife running free.

The ancient city of Polonnaruwa, which was Sri Lanka's capital in the 12th century is a UNESCO Heritage site.

The ancient city of Polonnaruwa, which was Sri Lanka’s capital in the 12th century is a UNESCO Heritage site…. Jorge Fernández/LightRocket/Getty Images

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