Major container ship firm sees good prospects for Sri Lanka as a maritime hub

Courtesy of the Daily News & bunkersportsnews… ALSO SEE http://www.slpa.lk/port_hambantota.asp?chk=4

 Sri Lanka can be coverted into a regional maritime hub as an alternative to Singapore, said Rob Grool, President, Fleet Seaspan Ship Management Ltd, Canada, which owns over 60 large container ships.  In an exclusive interview with Daily News Business at the Seaspan Ship Management (Vancouver) Offers Forum concluded in Colombo last Saturday held in collaboration with their manning agents in Sri Lanka, Ceyline Shipping Ltd, Grool said that Colombo, Hambantota and Galle could play a major role towards achieving this target.
“Both these harbours lie on a global maritime route and should be promoted towards reaching this target,” he added. He said that bunkering, crew exchange, supplying of commodities, repairs and spares are the key areas that these three harbours should pay attention to,” he said.

Julie Bishop pulverizes ABC’s prejudiced misinformation

SEE http://www.juliebishop.com.au/transcripts/1277-abc-24-the-world-with-jane-hutcheon.html : “ABC 24 The World with Jane Hutcheon” .. with the Sri Lankan segment placed first in this re-presentation

JANE HUTCHEON    To discuss Syria and the state of the world the Deputy Opposition Leader and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop joins us in the studio. Julie Bishop welcome to ‘The World’, many thanks for coming in.
 JULIE BISHOP    Good evening.

          SEGMENT TWO : ……….. 
 JANE HUTCHEON    Let’s go to Sri Lanka now , and I wonder, do you support the return of Sri Lankan asylum seekers to their country of origin? 
 JULIE BISHOP    Yes, I do. Based on what I saw and have learned from a visit to Sri Lanka in January of this year, I’m convinced that the Sinhalese in particular have no reason to fear persecution in Sri Lanka. 
 JANE HUTCHEON    What about the Tamils? 
 JULIE BISHOP    Indeed the Tamils likewise are receiving much better treatment under the Sri Lankan government and if they were to fear persecution in any form, then paying a people smuggler and getting on a rickety boat and travelling thousands of kilometres across the sea is not the right thing to do. 
 If they do want to claim asylum, if they do claim a fear of persecution, which I would dispute, then they can go 30km into India, where they would be welcome and provided with health and medical support. 

Introducing “Numbers Game” – A Detailed Study of the Last Stages of Eelam War IV

Michael Roberts …. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/132499266/The-Numbers-Game-Politics-of-Retributive-Justice  OR http://www.margasrilanka.org/ [right panel at top—then click]

   Pic from Tamilnet, 1 May 2009  from Tamilnet, 5 May 2009, in Third NFZ  in the extreme south of the final pocket of LTTEresistance

I. PREAMBLE

Presented here is an “Introduction” and pointer to a significant visual and textual study entitled “Numbers Game: The Politics of Retributive Justice,” which scrutinizes both the data and other studies of what happened during the last five months of Eelam War IV. This was the period when a large body of people, almost exclusively Tamil in lineage, was corralled into an increasingly shrinking area by virtue of a strategic/tactical decision by the LTTE leadership. The Tamil Tigers who were now facing imminent defeat, were hoping to use the human mass to engineer a humanitarian catastrophe, thus forcing the international community to act by halting the conflict. This comprehensive survey has been assembled by a collective, the “Independent Diaspora Analysis Group.” The key hand is a person who wishes to remain anonymous and can be called “Citizen Silva.” Born to Sinhalese parents, raised and educated in the West, he has spent the entirety of his life outside the island. This foreign setting has enabled him to build close personal links with the island’s other ethnic diaspora groups, thus shielding him from the communalistic shadows that overwhelm many of his compatriots back home. As the analysis of the satellite imagery reveals, his engineering background allows him to bring to the examination a range of technical skills not usually associated with the average empirical scientist.

An Australian Editor’s Advice: “Keep Sri Lanka in the Fold”

Editorial in The Australian, 29 April 2013

FORMER prime minister Malcolm Fraser and Greens senator Lee Rhiannon are singing from the same song sheet as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but they are misguided in calling for a boycott of the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka in November. Making that nation an international pariah is no answer to the human rights issues that have arisen since the Colombo government’s 2009 victory over the ethnic insurgency led by the barbarous Tamil Tigers, described by the American FBI as “the world’s deadliest terrorist group, worse (even) than Hamas”.

The dark charisma of Adolf Hitler

SEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG4YMNg_viw

 Pic from the Library of C0ngress

Adolf Hitler seemed an unlikely leader – fuelled by anger, incapable of forming normal human relationships and unwilling to debate political issues. Such was the depth of his hatred that he would become a war criminal arguably without precedent in history. Yet this strange character was once loved by millions. How was this possible, and what role did Hitler’s alleged ‘charisma’ play in his success?

“Cool War” is just a click away!

Toby Harnden, in The Australian, 26 April 2013, courtesy of The Sunday Times

IT is nearly a quarter of a century since the Berlin Wall fell, bringing the Cold War to a close. The triumph of liberal democracy briefly seemed to herald “the end of history” before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, triggered what the Pentagon called the global war on terrorism and a clash between the West and militant Islam.  Just over a decade later, this conflict is drawing to a close. Much of al-Qa’ida has been dismantled; US President Barack Obama has declared “the tide of war is receding” and it is time to conduct nation-building at home. America’s imperial ambitions are over, for the foreseeable future at least. The world is no longer uni-polar.

Bodu Bala Sena and the global context of Islamophobia

Chandre Dharmawardana

The Bodu-Bala Sena (BBS) is a political movement crystallizing mainly around Sinhala-Buddhist advocates of strong anti-Islamism. The knee-jerk reaction of opportunist political observers is to regard this as an example of a majoritarian populace behaving brutally, after having `caused Sinhala-Tamil terror’ by allegedly provoking the Tamils with ‘Sinhala-only’ discrimination. The BBS has also provided fodder for anti-government critics as well as the usual `I told you so’ liberals who believe that mass movements can be corrected by a little bit of sermonizing by `good monks’ holding vigils around the Lipton circus.

ABC can foul. See Niromi! Hear Niromi! Without a Knox …. No Demidenko

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Groundviews where a different title was used, namely, “ABC, Gordon Weiss and authoress Niromi de Soyza”

Like many people I used to think that such agencies as the BBC and ABC provided balanced reviews and were relatively unbiased. No more. Further confirmation: a recent panel presentation by ABC in March 2013 that was anchored by Jane Hutcheon,** exposed in blatant nudity the lop-sided perspectives within Aunty ABC. The presentation was timed to coincide with the UNHCR sessions in Geneva where the USA was sponsoring a resolution censuring Sri Lanka. No problem with that. But this was a serious ABC review dependent on two questionable “experts,” namely, Gordon Weiss and authoress Niromi de Soyza aka Subhodini Mariatta Anandarajah – known as Subha among her pals. When Australia has a bevy of possible commentators, from Ameer Ali to Rohan Bastin, Serge de Silva-Ranasinghe, Shanaka Jayasekera, Laksiri Jayasuirya, Noel Nadesan and Suri Ratnapala to choose from, their selections on this occasion indicated partisanship.

Lone Cell Assaults: From Boston to Westmead-in-Sydney to the Unabomber. Inspirations and Enabling Conditions in Comparative Perspective **

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph where the title is slightly different: http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/lone-wolf-assaults-from-boston-to-westmead-home-invasion-to-the-unabomber/

The recent bomb outrage in Boston has sent tidal ripples along the media networks around the world.  It appears that the bombs were hidden in pressure cookers packed with nails/ball bearings and put in backpacks which were placed on the pavement among onlookers. “Similar easy-to-make roadside bombs are used in Iraq and Afghanistan” (Stewart 2013). But such bomb-making techniques are also clarified on internet sites. Among the first readings one headline in The Australian said: “Stamp of lone wolf more than al-Qa’ida” (Maley 2013). The contention here was that “in recent years, so-called “lone wolf” attackers — people who acquire radical ideology and weapons skills online — have become the greatest concern for counter-terrorism officials, who have virtually no way of detecting the activities of these people” (Stewart 2013).The absence of “chatter” on internet among jihadi circles after the event is one reason for this suspicion.  suspected bomb pack

Migrant Remittances drive “Asylum-Seeker” Out-Migration from Sri Lanka

Dinoo Kelleghan in The Weekend-Australian, 13 April 2013 where the title is Tamils flee for cash, not from harm … Dinoo Kelleghan is a former foreign editor of The Australian and was a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal from 1997-2004.

IN contrast to the weary boatloads of Sri Lankans making the dangerous asylum-shopping trip to Australia, millions of different shoppers are out in force here as the island prepares for Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations this weekend. This year, economists noted a change in the spending patterns – lower-income people are spending more freely than the better-paid shoppers in the capital, Colombo. The reason? The gushing torrents of remittances home from Sri Lankans who have gone abroad for employment, often making empty claims of persecution to leapfrog others who stand patiently in long queues outside Western embassies in Colombo to get a work visa.