July 2, 2015 · 9:16 am

Tony Abbott & Loong Lee consolidate Australian-Singaporean Strategic Bonds

Joint Press Conference with Prime Minister Lee, Singapore ….from http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-06-29/joint-press-conference-prime-minister-lee-singapore

29 June 2015, Singapore

Prime Minister

Subjects: Visit to Singapore; Singapore-Australia relationship; Singapore Free Trade Agreement; Daesh death cult; South China Sea; Indonesia; counter-terrorism.

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PRIME MINISTER LEE: Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Ministers, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

I give a very warm welcome to Prime Minister Abbott and his delegation to Singapore. Your visit comes at a significant moment because this is not just our 50th year of independence, but also 50 years of bilateral relations with Australia – and the relations are worth celebrating because of how close our two countries have grown over the years. Continue reading →

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July 1, 2015 · 2:45 pm

Islam central to radicalisation and ISIS

Anooshe Mushtaq, courtesy of The Australian, June 2015, …. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/believe-it-or-not-islam-central-to-radicalisation-and-isis/story-e6frg6zo-1227416984300

I am a Muslim female who was born in an Islamic country and lived most of my life in Australia. While Eastern culture and Islam are embedded in me, I also have embraced Western culture. Growing up in Pakistan, I experienced a cocktail of culture and ­religion that often created confusion, not just in me but for many people in Pakistan. My view is that this confusion can be deliberate and often is wielded as a means of controlling the masses in Muslim society. These mechanisms of control flow from the heads of religion, the imams, to the people and are constantly leveraged by parents to scare the children into obedience and compliance.

Midday Prayer  Midday Prayer is held at Lakemba Mosque Open Day in Sydney as part of the National Mosque Open Day. Picture: Richard Dobson. Source: News Corp Australia

When these people migrate to Australia, some of them use the same controls to shield themselves, their children and wider families from integrating into the mainstream Australian culture because it deviates so vastly from Muslim cultural values. Some migrants in the Muslim community become prisoners in their own homes, creating a sealed ecosystem for the sake of cultural and ­religious preservation. Continue reading →

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Open Ports! The Boat People Australia wants

nude BOAT PEOPLE

A Flourishing Bibliographical Tree: Tamil Migration, Asylum-Seekers and Australia

ALEX on TVAlex Kuhendrarajah of Merak notoriety –courtesy of Australian  courtesy of aus.com.au Continue reading →

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July 1, 2015 · 10:02 am
June 29, 2015 · 3:34 am

Coffee Mills Tokens in British Ceylon in the 19th Century

Srilal Fernando

Shunned by numismatists for many years, collection of coffee mills tokens has received a boost in the last decade. Collection of items used as currency when actual money was not easily available even has a label of its own, Exomania.

To understand the use of coffee mills tokens, it is useful to trace briefly the development of the coffee industry in Ceylon. Though coffee had been grown in Ceylon for many years, it did not become a major export till the latter half of the 1830’s. During the period of the Dutch occupation, coffee grown in the interior was brought to Colombo by traders and exported in very small quantities. In early British times, the import duty in England favoured coffee grown in the West Indies. The abolition of slavery in the West Indies and the refusal of the freed labourers to work on the estates saw a reduction of production there. As a result, coffee prices in London rose. The duty on coffee was reduced and favourable tariffs for West Indian coffee were revoked. Duty was set at six pence per pound. These factors provided the impetus for coffee plantation to open up in Ceylon. With the opening up of the roads to the interior, transport difficulties were overcome. Crown land was sold at five shillings an acre. Officials of the Government took this opportunity to both open up areas for cultivation and engage in land speculation. Continue reading →

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June 29, 2015 · 2:52 am

Dhanapala clarifies 19A and Present Presidential Programmes for the Diplomatic Corps

Jayantha Dhanapala, courtesy Sunday Island, 21 June 2015, –conveying TEXT of Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala’s keynote address at “19 A: Landmark of Democratic Revival” a panel discussion and Q & A for the diplomatic community of Sri Lanka on the 19th Amendment on June 16, 2015, at Jaic Hilton –with the  Speech transcript being provided by the President’s Media Division. Dhanapala was accompanied by Savithri Goonesekera and Mohan Munasinghe. he is presently probono adviser to President Maithripala Sirisena. For his credentials and career see www.jayanthadhanapala.com>

Jayantha Dhanapala. - Meera Srinivasan

Distinguished members of the Diplomatic Corps, Ladies & Gentlemen,

On behalf of His Excellency Maitripala Sirisena and my colleagues in the Presidential Secretariat, I have great pleasure in warmly welcoming you to this afternoon’s briefing on the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka. It is just over a month since this important Constitutional amendment was formally certified by the Speaker of our Parliament although it was passed on 28 April. In a 225-member legislature this revolutionary piece of reform was adopted with 212 voting in favor, one against, one abstaining and 10 being absent. We undertake this task out of a conviction that the significance of the amendment should be conveyed to you in the context of the revitalization of democracy in Sri Lanka since the Presidential Election of January 8th this year.

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June 28, 2015 · 2:18 pm

LTTE still active, warns USA

Robert Blake of the US Dept of N. Sathiyamoorthy *courtesy of Eurasia Review and South Asia Monitor where the title is “US Report On LTTE A Caution For India, Too” 

The American acknowledgement and confirmation of the continued existence of LTTE’s global network of sympathisers and finances should be a cause for concern as much for neighbouring India as much for Sri Lanka. In ways, it should also be a source of concern and embarrassment for Western nations, including the US. “The LTTE used its international contacts and the large Tamil diaspora in North America, Europe, and Asia to procure weapons, communications, funding, and other needed supplies,” the 2014 annual report of the US State Department’s Counter-terrorism Bureau said. Whoever rules from Colombo – and administers Jaffna – and whatever the domestic political conditions and electoral compulsions, Sri Lanka cannot be silent after the US has referred to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) procuring weapons.

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June 28, 2015 · 11:10 am

Where Water adds Lustre … and generates Lust

AA--1 Continue reading →

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June 28, 2015 · 8:07 am

Chandrika in Lively Q and A with Lakshman Gunasekara

Lakshman Gunasekara in Sunday Observer, 28 June 2015: “I am now an activist for my country  …[and] I’m ready to take to the streets [if the need arises]” says CBK

Celebrating her 70th birthday, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga reminisces about the past, and looks ahead to the future with a promise she will take to the streets to push through reforms: At 70 years age, she is still chubby-cheeked and grins mischievously or, scowls expressively as she recalls some politico’s annoying action. Press photographers loved her for her animated face that rendered her photogenic, like her equally famous mother.And it was by no means just photographers. Millions loved her while some either were disillusioned or even hated her – often because she did not live up to their expectations or ambitions or desires. After all, who wouldn’t glamorize her for her meteoric rise to political power and fame? ‘Meteoric’ because, after years in exile during the ‘terror’ of the second JVP insurgency and equally ferocious counter-insurgency, with her husband assassinated, she returned to re-build her mother’s party and successively defeat the government at provincial, parliamentary and, presidential levels. chandrika 33 At her husband’s funeral Continue reading →

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June 28, 2015 · 2:07 am

Ferdinando releases a cat among the pigeons and Mangala’s flights of fancy

Shamindra Ferdinando, in The Island, 23 June 2015, with continuation due on 1 July

After having consulted, either the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), or UN headquarters, in New York, or both, the UN mission, in Colombo, in April, last year, said that the issue of confidentiality of sources/eyewitnesses needed to be considered at a later stage. The Colombo mission was responding to a query by The Island whether the UN would review UNSG Ban ki moon’s Panel of Experts (PoE) recommendation, pertaining to confidentiality of sources/eyewitnesses for a 20-year period, with effect from the date of the release of the report. The recommendation was made in PoE’s report, released on March 31, 2011.

mangala +HR --island

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June 28, 2015 · 1:24 am

Izeth Hussain meets the Tamil Extremists and the Resurgent Tigers head-on

Izeth Hussain, from The Island, 27 June 2015, where the title is “LTTE and Tamil lunatic fringe anti-Muslim racism” … readers should also visit Colombo Telegraph for a sense of the commentary that IZETH’s essays have attracted.**

This article is really an addendum to my three-part article on Tamil lunatic fringe anti-Muslim racism in the Island of April 28, May 2 and May 9. I feel impelled to write this article because the political context has changed radically since I wrote the last one. At that time the LTTE was seen by me and practically everyone else as the rump LTTE, just a vestigial presence without much bite and vigour to it. We were mistaken. It has become clear that for quite some time there has been a resurgent LTTE without the limiting epithet of rump, an LTTE with plenty of bite and vigour to it, though it may not be identical with the pre-2009 LTTE. Consequently I now have to reassess Tamil lunatic fringe anti-Muslim racism taking count of the LTTE.

GTF-Suren Continue reading →

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