Zoom-Boom: US Cyber Warfare vs China via Allegations re Zoom

VISIT this You Tube video on ZOOM entitled “Is China Spying? on Us?. Shocking Details in This Video.” …. c602c1a3-8f92-4b61-b4ea-f63b8c01315a

Because the speaker’s voice is that of an (Asian) Indian albeit one with traces of an American background, my suspicions were immediately aroused: was this not cunning US media warfare? So I sent it on toe an Aussie who speaks Chinese and Malaysian for critical readings (below). This does not mean that China does not indulge in subterranean political games, but that US agencies are masters at war games and covert games; while the US Pacific Fleet has ringed east Asia with an array of armed bases ever since 1945; and that in the present world order India is on its side because of recent spats with China.

Note map and details in …… Jenny Awford: “US readies for war with China with 400 bases of ships and nukes to create ‘perfect noose’ around superpower rival,” 5 Dec 2016, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2331190/us-readies-for-war-with-china-with-400-bases-of-ships-and-nukes-to-create-perfect-noose-around-superpower-rival/

Ubiquitous Beings in Sri Lanka

Bouncing into the Unknown Seas …. and Cliffs … to meet Lord Shiva

Michael Roberts

About 500 yards north of the hotel Trinco Blu at Nilaveli is a small rock promontory where a river inlet streams into the ocean. The inlet connects with the Tamil village of Thalli which is adjacent to the renowned temple of Thalli abutting the rock promontory on its northern side.

When I wandered down that way one morning with camera in hand, I was greeted warmly by an imposing 6ft/4 gentleman who introduced himself as Naguleswaran. He ushered me into the small lagoon crowded with shallow-bottom motorized fishing boats and showed me his boat.

Achtung! Whiffs of Tiger Militarism and Tamil Federalism in Recent Talk and Action

ONE: Camelia Nathaniel, in Daily News, 9 July 2020, which carries this title “Resurrection of LTTE’s Agenda of Violence”

The LTTE network overseas has been planning a series of attacks in Sri Lanka since the war ended in May 2009. The latest attempt to disrupt peace and stability in Sri Lanka was on July 4, 2020. A former member of the Tamil Tigers Thangarajah Thevathashan was preparing to conduct a bombing to mark the Black Tigers Day. The foreign handlers knew Thangarajah Thevathashan by his LTTE name Gangai Athman alias Kavinjan. He was serving in the LTTE Intelligence wing, notorious for the assassinations of several leaders including the former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The Threads of Intolerance within Contemporary Liberal/Radical Fervour

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate …. Harpers’ Magazine, July 7, 2020 ……………..
……… The letter below  will be appearing in the Letters section of the magazine’s October issue. We welcome responses at letters@harpers.org

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The Rhodes Statue and Battle Lines in Oxford University: Aristocratic Brits face Black Extremists

Anonymous Oriel College Collective …….The letter (below) is a response from [one part of] Oxford University to black students attending as Rhodes Scholars who demand the university removes the statue of Oxford Benefactor, Cecil Rhodes.

Interestingly, Chris Patten (Lord Patten of Barnes), The Chancellor of Oxford University, was on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 on precisely the same topic. The Daily Telegraph headline yesterday was “Oxford will not rewrite history”.  Lord Patten commented: “Education is not indoctrination. Our history is not  a blank page on which we can write our own version of what it should  have been according to our contemporary views and prejudice.”

A Statue Obliterated in Bristol: Radicals for Floyd in Righteousness against the Slave Trade

Gurminder K. Bhambra, in New York Times, 12 June 2020, with this title “A statue was toppled. Can we talk about the British Empire? “

The statue of the slave trader Edward Colston falling into the water on Sunday after protesters in Bristol, England, pulled it down.Credit…Keir Gravil, via Reuters

BRIGHTON, England — Tens of thousands of people protested in British cities in solidarity with those rising up against police brutality against black Americans in the past week. They highlighted similar injustices in Britain. Protesters in the city of Bristol drew connections between a white police officer’s killing of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, and the histories of colonialism and the slave trade. On Sunday, they toppled the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader, trampled over it and rolled it into Bristol Harbor.

A Summary Overview of Sri Lanka’s Struggle to contain Covid

Lasanda Kurukulasuriya, in Island, 11 June 2020, with this title “Covid19 in Sri Lanka: From lockdown to ‘new normal’.”

Sri Lanka’s handling of the Covid19 outbreak has, comparatively speaking, produced commendable results. Tracing the trajectory of the response, it may be seen that early moves to prepare for what lay ahead served well to mitigate the outcome. A Task Force drawing on expertise of all relevant sectors was appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on January 27^th, the day the first Covid19 case was reported – that of a Chinese woman tourist.

A Chilling and Terrifying Word-Picture of USA Today

David Kilcullen, in The Inquirer, 30 May 2020 and the Australian, 4 June 2020, with this title “Home of the hateful, fearful, heavily armed” …..

Coronavirus is threatening to ignite a tinderbox of grievances in the US. The growing parallels with Iraq, Lebanon and Somalia are real and disturbing.

The rise of militias and armed protesters across the US is sometimes seen as a fringe right-wing issue, but it is much broader. Armed groups have formed across the political spectrum, worsening divisions the coronavirus has exposed in American society.

Exposed: Glaring Double Standards in USA