November 15, 2016 · 4:02 am

President Sirisena in Q and A with The Hindu: … Resolving Tamil Issue Central Today

Daily News, 11 November 2016, where the title is “‘Solving the problems of Tamils is my obligation” ….. Emphasis via highlighting is the work of The Editor,Thuppahi

Emphasising his commitment to resolving Sri Lanka’s Tamil question, President Maithripala Sirisena has said he has an obligation to address the concerns of the island’s Tamils, most of whom had voted for him.  About 90 percent of the people in Sri Lanka’s Tamil-dominated north voted for him in the January 2015 elections, he said: “They have confidence in me that I will solve their problems. So it is not only my responsibility, but also my obligation to solve their problems,” he told The Hindu in an exclusive interview on Wednesday at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo.

Amid growing concern over the apparently slow-paced reconciliation efforts, President Sirisena said: “Reconciliation is not something that can be done in a few days.” The government’s endeavour must be acceptable to the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and other communities. “That is not an easy task,” he observed.

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November 14, 2016 · 6:43 am

A ‘Parachute History’ of the Sri Lankan War and the Island’s Circumstances Today

Robert Draper, courtesy of the National Geographic, November Issue, where the title runs thus: “Can Sri Lanka Hold On to Its Fragile Peace?” …with photographs by Ami Vitale … …. …. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/11/sri-lanka-tamil-peace-civil-war/… with the title here being the Editor’s imposition – see Note below.

The photograph the young woman holds is barely the size of a postage stamp. But it is the only one of her husband she could find here in her parents’ house. They had not approved of her marriage, given that he was just a fisherman from the coastal town of Mannar, while her family has lived in Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, for generations. But as the photo attests, her husband, a Tamil like herself—is broad-faced and confident. Staring at the tiny image of the man who went missing a decade ago, her mahogany eyes brighten as she loses herself in memories.

draper-11 A military color guard lowers the national flag on Galle Face Green, a popular park in Colombo. The country’s largest city shows few signs of the strife that divided the Sinhalese and Tamils for 26 years.

They’d fallen in love at a refugee camp in southern India in 1999, when she was 17. Both had escaped Sri Lanka’s wantonly vicious civil war, pitting the army, controlled by the majority Sinhalese, against Tamil rebels. She had fled Jaffna with her family, leaping over the corpses of neighbors as the military’s bombs plummeted from the sky. He had escaped Mannar after he saw an army officer shoot his youngest sister to death in their home. They had married under the withering glare of her mother. Continue reading →

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November 14, 2016 · 4:06 am

What Trump may bring to the US Table on Sri Lanka in contrast with Clinton’s ”Humanitarian Imperialist Cloak”

Daya Gamage, courtesy of Asian Tribune, where the title reads “Trump – Tamil Diaspora Eelam Activists & Sri Lanka Trajectory”

When asked about the implications of the ongoing purge – immediately following the abortive military coup in Turkey – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump echoed: What right do we in the United States have to criticize the condition of human rights elsewhere? Here’s Trump: “I think right now when it comes to civil liberties, our country has a lot of problems, and I think it’s very hard for us to get involved in other countries when we don’t know what we are doing and we can’t see straight in our own country. We have tremendous problems when you have policemen being shot in the streets, when you have riots, when you have Ferguson. When you have Baltimore. When you have all of the things that are happening in this country — we have other problems, and I think we have to focus on those problems. When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger.” donald-trump_3 hillary-11-business-indider

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November 13, 2016 · 7:08 am

Meet Asra Nomani, a Muslim American who supported Trump

Asra Q. Nomani, in The Washington Post, 10 November 2016, where the title is “I’m a Muslim, a woman and an immigrant. I voted for Trump”

Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and a co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement. She can be found on Twitter at @AsraNomani.

A lot is being said now about the “silent secret Trump supporters.” This is my confession — and explanation: I — a 51-year-old, a Muslim, an immigrant woman “of color” — am one of those silent voters for Donald Trump. And I’m not a “bigot,” “racist,” “chauvinist” or “white supremacist,” as Trump voters are being called, nor part of some “whitelash.”

asra-q-nomani-twitter from Twitter

In the winter of 2008, as a lifelong liberal and proud daughter of West Virginia, a state born on the correct side of history on slavery, I moved to historically conservative Virginia only because the state had helped elect Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States. But, then, for much of this past year, I have kept my electoral preference secret: I was leaning toward Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Tuesday evening, just minutes before the polls closed at Forestville Elementary School in mostly Democratic Fairfax County, I slipped between the cardboard partitions in the polling booth, a pen balanced carefully between my fingers, to mark my ballot for president, coloring in the circle beside the names of Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence. Continue reading →

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November 13, 2016 · 4:04 am

Hillary Clinton: Contrasting Views and Information

ONE: Rajan Philips — “It was unthinkable that faced with choosing between the most qualified candidate and the most unqualified candidate in their history, the American voters would elect the unqualified candidate as their new president for the next four years. It was unthinkable too that having come so close to making history by electing its first female president, America would go off track to make a different history by electing a male charlatan and a political clown as president for the first time….” in the Sunday Island, 13 November 2016,  http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=155418

TWO: Jeanine Pirro demands Indictment — See “Judge Jeanine Pirro Destroys Hillary Clinton , Private Email Server .Trey Gowdy , James Comey,”.. You Tube Video on Congress Hearing, USA TV, 10 November 2016, … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne57t4IBac0&feature=youtu.be

hillary-11-business-indider Pic fr BusinessInsider hillary-22-slate Pic fr Slate

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November 12, 2016 · 9:37 am

US Presidential Election: A Revealing Memo from An Ordinary American who did not vote

Mark Eisler, in Chiang Mai, Thailand a... in https://www.facebook.com/marc.eisler.1/posts/1267086710091709

I have been witnessing a lot of posts on Facebook about the US Election that are outrageous in their content. I have heard more times than I can count in the last 24 hours that everyone who voted Republican are racists, sexists, bigots, white supremacists, halfwits and hateful, plus a mountain of other insulting phrases. This is not only wrong, but extremely offensive to the 60 million people including 25 million women who voted against the establishment elitists. 
If you honestly cannot understand what happened here, and you truly believe that people who voted Republican and racists devil worshipers, then I suggest you read something beyond facebook news feeds. If you could not see this coming, then maybe it is time to get out, turn off your iphone and stop believing those “highly educated” pollsters. What happened here has very little to do with stupidity, race or sexism. It was just a populist movement against the establishment elitists, corporate greed, banking elite, government bureaucracy, globalism and the corruption of politics through vast amounts of corporate money and lobbyists, 

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November 11, 2016 · 2:50 pm

A Guide to Locating Photographs of Colonial Ceylon — Courtesy of AISLS

AISLS is very pleased to announce the publication of A Guide to Locating Photographs of Colonial Ceylon, compiled by Benita Stambler, Coordinator of Asian Art at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida.  This guide documents over 50 collections held by non-profit institutions, businesses and individuals.  Links are provided to images that are held online.  An appendix gives a detailed account of the collection at Plâté in Colombo…. http://www.aisls.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ceylon-photograph-guide-2014-edition.pdf

aa-0011

Boer prisoners of war (1901), from the Rohan de Soysa Collection

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November 11, 2016 · 10:14 am

John Rogers to speak on National History in a Transnational World

“National History in a Transnational World? Conceptualizing the History of Sri Lanka” = A public lecture by Dr. John D. Rogers, United States Director, American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies….. Organized by the Postgraduate Institute of English and the Department of Social Studies, Open University of Sri Lanka …..

Venue: Seminar Room (3rd Floor) Postgraduate Institute of English, Open University of Sri Lanka, Nawala, Nugegoda

DATE: Thursday 24th November … 2.00 pm

The foundation of history as a modern discipline was connected closely to nation building.  Even today, school curricula in most countries are shaped by the desire to inculcate particular visions of citizenship.  But beginning in the late twentieth century, international scholarship, particularly that produced at elite institutions in the West, has moved away from the nation as a category of analysis.  Disillusionment with the nation, globalization, and the influence of postmodern critiques have all contributed to new genres of scholarship that emphasize transnational connections or which deconstruct national narratives.  On the other hand, as demonstrated by recent political developments in the United States and the United Kingdom, the nation has always retained relevance in public culture.  Moreover, the intellectual attack on the nation as a category of analysis has always been much stronger at elite cosmopolitan universities than in more run of the mill institutions or in policy-oriented think tanks.  In this talk, Dr. Rogers will explain his decision to write a general history of Sri Lanka.  He will also discuss his efforts to develop a conceptual framework that breaks from some of the problematic aspects of the established genre of country history. 

To register please email: smasa@ou.ac.lk before 23rd November 2016 Continue reading →

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November 11, 2016 · 7:21 am

Lankan Lampoons on The President’s Men

BUT … which President or President-to-Be are we referring to? Obama? Hillary? Trump? PM Ranil? or Royal Ranil?

mangala

Profile :-   “My life story is on my face”!! … Has a keen sense of humour – his famous song being ; “Why can’t a woman be like a man”

 

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November 11, 2016 · 7:05 am

Diogenes Versifies the US Presidential Outcome

Diogenes

Is he really the wizard

He fancies himself to be?

No!  Not even his most avid

Supporters would go the length

Of crediting him with such brilliance!

To them he was the ‘Unknown’

Entertainer, with his extravagant

Blandishments  and free mouthings,

Holding out the tantalizingly

Magical promise of Change!

trump-leak-cartoon Bill Leak

Americans, were

All too familiar, with the sly,

Self-serving manoeuverings

Of the ‘known devil’,

And the ‘democratic many’,

Gleefully, Trumped her!

                         DIOGENES Continue reading →

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