Cassandra Fernando Secures Spot in Australian Parliament

WIKIPEDIA … Cassandra Fernando (born 18 September 1987) is a Sri Lankan-born Australian politician and trade unionist who has been serving as the member of parliament (MP) for the Victorian division of Holt since 2022. She is a member of the Labor Party (ALP).

 

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Trump’s Volcanic Threats to Democracy in USA

Seevali Abeysekera, in   …  ….  20 April 2025, where the chosen title reads: “AMERICA – the end of democracy and into the abyss?”

In November 2020, just before the American presidential election, I published an article entitled  “America – the end is nigh” whose last sentences were – ”A civil war and the disintegration of America is thus a real possibility. History has shown us that great empires eventually collapse due to their own delusions of grandeur based on their perceived omnipotence. We have potentially reached that point where American hegemony will dissipate due to their arrogance and ineptitude.”

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Julian Assange Highlights Albanese’s Sturdy Support in Assange’s Darkest Days

EMAIL Note from Gabriel Shipton to Asoka Kuruppu in Queensland, 2 May 2025

Hello Asoka, I just spoke to Julian who is in Rome after attending the Popes funeral last week. He wanted me to share this important message with you ahead of tomorrow’s Australian federal election.

 “With the federal election fast approaching, many Australians have asked me: What role did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese truly play in bringing you home to Australia? Haven’t Albo supporters overstated his involvement? And does Albo really have the backbone to stand up for Australians on other tough issues?

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Ä New Strain of Bronzeback Snake in Sri Lanka

Item in The ISLAND newspaper, April 2025, with this title  “A New Species of Bronzeback Snake discovered in Sri Lanka”

In a rare and a prestigious honour in the world of biological sciences, a newly discovered species of bronzeback snake has been named after one of Sri Lanka’s foremost herpetologists, Dr. A. A. Thasun Amarasinghe. The new species, scientifically named Dendrelaphis thasuni, was found in Eastern Sri Lanka and belongs to the genus Dendrelaphis— a group of slender, tree-dwelling snakes known for their agility and distinctive colouration.

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Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History

https://uclpress.co.uk/book/sri-lanka-at-the-crossroads-of-history/

» Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History, Pub. date: 7 June 2017 Zoltán Biedermann & Alan Strathern (Edspages: 354, illustrations 34 …. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781911307822

zZOTAN BEIDERMANN PHOTO – Google Search

The peoples of Sri Lanka have participated in far-flung trading networks, religious formations, and Asian and European empires for millennia. This interdisciplinary volume sets out to draw Sri Lanka into the field of Asian and Global History by showing how the latest wave of scholarship has explored the island as a ‘crossroads’, a place defined by its openness to movement across the Indian Ocean.

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Vanni Hope: Its Wide-ranging Charitable Work in Sri Lanka

Editor Thuppahi’s Admiring NOTE, April 2025

As with the Foundation of Goodness based in Hikkaduwa down south, VANNI HOPE continues to serve a number of villages and many people in the northern eastern and central parts of the island. Is is worthy of support from Sri Lankans at home and abroad; and from wellwishers around the world ………………………………………………………….. https://www.linkedin.com/company/vanni-hope/?originalSubdomain=au

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In Memory of Nalin De Silva: Indomitable Marxist Scholar

Malinda Seneviratne

More than twenty years ago, when I worked for the Sunday edition of ‘The Island,’ I would step into the editorial office of our sister paper, ‘Divaina,’ just to chit-chat with fellow journalists. I enjoyed conversations with almost all the journalists working there, young and old. On one such occasion, I noticed Dr Nalin De Silva standing near a table, looking a bit out of place.

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Naren Chitty: A Wide Spectrum of Achievements Worldwide

From An Article entitled “Professor Emeritus Naren Chitty: A Career winds up” … with underlining emphasis imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Professor Emeritus Naren Chitty’s responsibilities at Macquarie University came to an end on May 30, 2025, after thirty-six years. He had continued for six years, post-retirement, to direct the Soft Power Analysis and Resource Centre (SPARC) that he founded in 2010… 

Naren with Castro …. and with Ronald Reagan Continue reading

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A Lankan Feast at an Iconic Bungalow: “Brief”

Sophie Brew in ???? where the title runs thus: “A Sri Lankan Feast on a Tropical Modernist Estate” …. NB: several striking pix of the food could not be uploaded

The chef Cynthia Shanmugalingam cooked a meal that celebrated the country’s heirloom produce and homegrown creative culture.

Guests of the chef Cynthia Shanmugalingam gathered on the red terrace of the Lunuganga Estate, the former country residence of the architect Geoffrey Bawa in Bentota, Sri Lanka.CreditCredit…Video by Pietro Lo Casto

 

 

 

 

 

 

In March 2021, a year into the pandemic, the British Sri Lankan chef Cynthia Shanmugalingam, now 42, was quarantining at a hotel in Ahangama, a town on Sri Lanka’s southern coast. She’d traveled from her home in London and was self-isolating ahead of a six-month-long stay with her parents in Nelliady, at the island’s northern tip, where she was planning to write her first cookbook. Eventually, she completed a draft of “Rambutan,” as she titled it (and as she would later call her restaurant in London’s Borough Market that opened in 2023). But a less expected outcome of those weeks alone was that she met her future partner, the 46-year-old entrepreneur Joe Lenora; he was based nearby and they started talking online. Last January, they returned to Sri Lanka to get married.

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Trump Versus Canada: Chris Black’s Appraisal

A Recent Thuppahi Request, April 2025

HAI FRIENDS,  As a total outsider with limited info I have a question: DID TRUMP’s recent remarks about Canada becoming USA’s 51st state have a bearing on the Canadian elections? IF your answer is in the affirmative, then speculate as to whether THAT was the Trump goal… a kind of Machiavellian one?

A RESPONSE From Chris Black in  Canada**

Yes, of course, it did. Canadians are very angry about the American
insults and threats to attack us. The Troy party here, who they supported, is a right wing party close in ideology to the US parties (both right wing from our perspective) and was seen as agents of the US. Trump made it clear he supported Poilievre, the Tory leader. Poilievre hobnobbed with Trump — gave the impression he supports Trump. He is regarded by most here as a mini-Trump.

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