OMG ! This Obama Is Taller Than Bush Jnr. Ain’t He ?
By Kusal Perera -November 7, 2013
Kusal Perera
This evening in a Colombo Telegraph post, I watched Julian Assange appearing on Skype to address the crowd that had packed the NY City Terminal 5 to grace the opening performance of the rebel UK artiste Maya Arulpragasam born to Sri Lankan Tamil parents and better known as M.I.A. Calling her the most courageous woman working in Western music, locked in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, Assange told New Yorkers he can only appear via Skype because, “Your government sucks.”
This triggered a thought process that took me to Barrack Obama, the second time elect US President still incumbent, first elected in November 2008 and sworn in January 2009. Nine months later he became a Nobel Peace prize laureate, just for his rhetoric and nothing else. Then I thought, isn’t this a shame that a person who wages a cruel war in Afghanistan, one who sanctioned Drone attacks in Afghanistan where innocent civilians are killed and vows to continue waging that war, is made a peace prize laureate ? Iwrote then, “The fact is, no US president could do otherwise, with or without a Nobel Peace prize. Obama as all other US Presidents has to continue SOUTHCOM operations, with a 600 million dollar administrative budget, to service Latin American military assistance, that annually tops over USS $ 120 million. That is not what is more important in Obama being awarded the Peace Prize. It’s the US economy and its heavy dependence on military hardware and armaments. This US economy is an economy that is heavily dependent on waging war, to sustain their heavy armament industry.” Imagine Obama standing next to Mandela ?
During that time I heard him tell the world, “Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.” He had been saying plenty of similar things, that means nothing to the people in the US and outside US. So, Assange tells New Yorkers, “Your government sucks.”
Obvious ! Assange is locked in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, because the US under Obama may want him extradited to the US for engineering the massive leak of sensitive, security and intelligence related secret documents from US safe boxes. All what gave the world a chance to see the true and sordid picture of the US administration, compromising not only Bush Jnr as president, but Obama as well.
Under this Obama regime, the second whistle blower is trying to avoid his extradition to the US, having a temporary stay in Moscow. Edward Snowden cracked open another sinister project by the US National Security Agency that had been eavesdropping into phone conversations of its own friendly heads of States. This president who said he is in a global struggle to stop intimidation, torture and murder of people for exercising the most basic freedoms and wants to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, has two people fighting for their freedom, they seriously fear, will be burnt out by the US under President Obama. Read More
The Energy Trap
By Ranil Senanayake -November 7, 2013
Ranil Senanayake
In Sri Lanka, in December 1979, an official communiqué was issued by the Government and displayed in the nation’s newspapers stating, “No oil means no development, and less oil, less development. It is oil that keeps the wheels of development moving”. This defines with clarity what is to be considered development by the policy makers of that Nation. Here was a fundamental and fateful decision that cast a deadly policy framework for the nation. The energy source that was to drive the national economy would be fossil. Our addiction to fossil fuels (Coal, Oil, Gas ) is clearly seen in the growth of oil and gas imports. Even today, that same policy framework and its adherents continue. The public discussions on the irrationality of clinging to coal, oil and gas for the development of our power needs in the face of the modern technologies, clearly demonstrate serious flaws in the current energy policy.
After the heat energy of biomass used for the hearth and local industry, electrical energy is the fundamental force that drives modern civilization. Human ingenuity has developed technologies that have moved our reliance on fossil fuels as source of energy to generate electricity. Today there is a choice of from a multitude of other sources, hydro, solar, wind, bio, tidal etc. All of them being ultimately driven by the power of the Sun.
With such developments the old arguments that ‘economies need to industrialize in order to reduce poverty, but industrialization leads to emissions’ rings hollow. Industrialization, if so desired, need not lead to emissions, if modern technologies are used and a caring government is in place. A vision of development based on the profligate use of fossil fuel, may never be attainable. However a vision of power for our homes and industry based on ‘renewable’ sources of energy is attainable . Indeed one indicator of ‘development’ could be ‘the per capita consumption of power’ if that consumption of power is non fossil in generation, sustainable development goals could be reached . Read More
