By Chandani Kirinde
The emphasis of the United Front (UF) government of Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike, which took office in May 1970, was to forge a new foreign policy that would move away from the pro-West policies of the UNP government, replacing them with a policy of non-alignment.
While, theoretically, the focus was on non-alignment, in…
Read this article in Tamil: vidiyal.lk/post/--2816
By Vinod Moonesinghe
Sri Lanka has, for 75 years, faced many internal and external threats, ranging from civil unrest, through insurgencies and military coup attempts, to overt acts of war or more subtle economic sabotage or sanctions by foreign powers. It has met them with varying degrees of…
Read this article in Tamil: vidiyal.lk/post/--2821
By Rathindra Kuruwita
On February 1, 2023, former editor of Billings Gazette Chase Doak and Billings Gazette photographer Larry Mayer snapped a large flying object over Billings, Montana.
Doak had initially thought it was a UFO. The photographs were published in the Gazette, and were soon picked up…
Read this article in Tamil: vidiyal.lk/post/--2812
By P. K. Balachandran
India-Sri Lanka relations are undoubtedly at their best now, thanks to India’s timely and generous assistance to its financially-beleaguered southern neighbor. But in the past 75 years or more, bilateral relations have been overwhelmingly troubled. Therefore, the million-dollar question now is: Will India’s help…
Read this article in Tamil: vidiyal.lk/post/--2805
By Uditha Devapriya
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland is on a tour in South Asia this week. From January 28 to February 3, she will be travelling to Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka, before flying to Qatar. Each of these visits will center…
By Vinod Moonesinghe
A 2002 poll carried out by the BBC, accompanying its TV series “Great Britons”, found that most viewers fancied wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill as the “Greatest Briton”. His sole claim to fame lay in making stirring speeches when the British Empire stood on the threshold of defeat.
Yet his pro-US policies…
By Dr Ranga Kalansooriya
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tweeted his predictions for 2023 last month. He noted that “all the largest stock markets and financial activity will leave the US and Europe and move to Asia.”
At the outset, such claims may seem overstretched. In fact, however, this was hardly a new prediction.…
By Chandani Kirinde
What prompted the US government to put in place a “Buddhist policy” in Southeast Asia during the Cold War and how successful were these clandestine efforts at using a predominant religion of the region to counter the spread of communism? And did Sri Lanka play a role in shaping the US policy of co-opting Buddhists…
By Kasun Thilina Kariyawasam
A total of USD 1,737.2 billion has been invested in the sovereign debt of emerging markets over the last 12 years. As a result of the high interest rates, emerging markets (EMs) paid 63% of the total interest on the bonds. Since 2020, Argentina, Zambia, and Sri Lanka have defaulted on…
By P. K. Balachandran
In a sharp turn towards authoritarianism and archaic religiosity, Indonesia’s parliament is expected to pass, later in December, a new Criminal Code that will extend the ambit of blasphemy, ban criticism of State Institutions and criminalize cohabitation and sexual relations outside wedlock.
The proposed code, which smacks of Wahhabi Islam, is…
By Shiran Illanperuma
Recent geopolitical and economic developments disrupting the US-led unipolar world order have renewed debate on the concept of imperialism.
In the post-war period, the term was politically deployed by National Liberation movements around the world, and worker states in the Communist bloc, to describe the policies and actions of the West (namely…
By Vinod Moonesinghe
The history of Palestine is fraught with controversy, obscured by religion. Emigration and conversion to Christianity and Islam reduced the Jewish population: by the 1516 Ottoman Conquest, they comprised 2% of the population, with Muslims 85% and Christians 11%. Ottoman Palestine thrived, exporting soap, olive oil, sugar, barley, cotton and, from the…