Dateline Colombo by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
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Crisis and Foresight Analysis
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 20 Jun, 2017 · 5302
The dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings with the promise of further human advancement. . And yet, while humanity should be aspiring for a better life, disturbing events like the terrorist attacks in Manchester, London, and the ...
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Steering Co-operation Across Oceans
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 15 May, 2017 · 5284
“We should not develop a habit of retreating to the harbour whenever we encounter a storm, for this will never get us to the other side of the ocean.”
& ...
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Sri Lanka: National Interests in a Globalised World
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 20 Apr, 2017 · 5274
The first 100 days of the US President Donald Trump's administration revealed the complexity of a head of state’s task. One of his predecessors, former US President John F Kennedy during his first 100 days had learned a costly l ...
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Re-building Sri Lanka: An Island at a Crossroads
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 21 Mar, 2017 · 5250
In 1908, MK Gandhi said, the “English have not taken India, we have given it to them.” This expression is applicable to Sri Lanka as well when one observes how some elites handed the island nation over to Britain in the optimi ...
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Sri Lankan Foreign Policy: Diaspora and Lobbying
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 26 Dec, 2016 · 5209
“No foreign policy - no matter how ingenious - has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.”
Henry A Kissinger
7 December this year marks the 75th anniversary of the Pe ...
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Securing Sri Lanka's National Interests
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 10 Nov, 2016 · 5173
One set of rules for Mosul and another for Aleppo; there are double standards when it comes to Syria. The international community justifies one bombing while condemning the other. Russia’s operation in Aleppo against extremist group ...
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Understanding our “Blindspot†to Make Peacebuilding Comprehensive
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 13 Oct, 2016 · 5152
“The sailor cannot see the North —but knows the needle can.”
– Emily Dickinson, in a letter to a mentor, TW Higginson, seeking an honest evaluation of her talent (1862)
The young soldiers and ...
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Oceans of (Dis)trust
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 14 Sep, 2016 · 5126
“No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people”
Albert Camus
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon delivered a lecture at the Kadirgamar Institute, Colombo, on ‘Sustainable Peace and Achieving Sustain ...
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Death and Democracy
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 09 Aug, 2016 · 5097
In 1991, even when half a million American troops were a few hundred kilometers away from Baghdad, President Bush restrained from invading Iraq. This was a wise move on his part - to control Saddam Hussein’s aggression, by stopping ...
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The Island and the Mainland: Impact of Fisheries on Indo-Lanka Relations
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera · 11 Jul, 2016 · 5076
At the southern tip of India, in a narrow stretch of water where the seascape begins, is one of the region’s geopolitical hot spots.
The waters between India and Sri Lanka are rich in history and mythology. According to Valmik ...
