It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
Unfazed by his surprise defeat in the last presidential polls, Sri Lanka’s Mahinda Rajapaksa appears to be back with a bang on the nation’s political centre stage with the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) coalition nominating him to contest the August 17parliamentary election. as a candidate. Six months ago, when Rajapaksa went into a sulk after his defeat, nobody would have imagined that he would bounce back so soon and so strongly with the support of UPFA.
His nomination ended weeks of suspense, as his bête noire President Maithripala Sirisena, chief of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), tried to persuade the party, the UPFA coalition and even Mahinda to prevent the latter’s comeback. But Rajapaksa seems to have made up his mind, well before political manoevures began, to contest the election with or without SLFP support as the anti-corruption bodies were making life miserable for him and his siblings. But no one, probably not even Mahinda, was certain of the UPFA nominating him. Continue reading
Filed under accountability, communal relations, democratic measures, governance, historical interpretation, island economy, life stories, modernity & modernization, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society
Brendon Nicholson, in The Australian, 13 July 2015, where the title is “Era of US dominance in region ‘coming to close’: report”
China’s growing naval power and long-range missiles threaten to bring Canberra within range of the People’s Liberation Army as Australia’s geographical isolation no longer protects it. The dramatic warning is contained in a joint analysis of the state of the ANZUS alliance by US and Australian defence specialists with high-level access to key policymakers in Washington and Canberra. The report says there are increasing concerns about China’s behaviour in maritime disputes in the South China Sea and about the possibility of Australia becoming involved if China takes more risks to consolidate its control over large areas of ocean, including the Indian Ocean. It says current strategic movements, and the rise of China, indicate that the era of regional stability backed by uncontested US maritime superiority “seems to be coming to a close”.
A V-22 Osprey landing — Picture: Michael Franchi Source: News Corp Australia Continue reading
Murali at cricket with David Cameron in Lanka –just before Murali pilloried Channel Four
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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
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 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
Alex Kuhendrarajah of Merak notoriety –courtesy of Australian courtesy of aus.com.au Continue reading
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
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>
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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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.
thuppahi
