Remembering the age-long bonds between Japan and Sri Lanka
September 17, 2001 marked the 70th anniversary of the San Francisco Peace Conference where Sri Lanka’s represnetative J.R. Jayewardene made a historic speech in which he, quoting the Buddha, urged the world community to be magnanimous towards Japan. The speech later laid the foundation for a solid Sri Lanka-Japan friendship. To mark the 70th anniversary [...]
A lesson in transformational leadership – by an officer par excellence
“First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” So said Mahatma Gandhi; the architect of India’s freedom struggle, looking back on the journey to freedom. An extraordinary tale of transformational leadership in recent history. Examples of transformational leadership are few. The reason being contemporary leaders focus more [...]
Global food demand by 2050: Meeting the challenges
The global food demand is projected to increase by 58 to 98 percent by 2050 given the global population increase from the present 7.5 billion to 9.7 billion. The impacts on natural resources, land, water and energy demand would be tremendous. The energy demand is predicted to increase by 80 percent, with the global economy [...]
UN session, with over 110 world leaders, may be a ‘super spreader’ covid event, warns US
UNITED NATIONS, (IDN) — The United Nations, perhaps never in its 76-year history, has held a General Assembly session characterised by risks that could trigger the spread of a deadly disease in a city where Covid-19 Delta variant infections are on the rise. In a letter to the 192 UN missions, the United States has [...]
The Manchuria Crisis revisited
OXFORD – Ninety years ago, on September 18, 1931, a junior Japanese military officer detonated an explosive that had been carefully laid by a Japanese-owned railroad near the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang (then known in the West as Mukden). The blast did little damage, but that wasn’t the point. The Japanese blamed Chinese soldiers [...]