Features

Trump drives USA perilously close to recession

Published

1 year ago

2025/05/4

First 100-days of the administration

With President Trump now engaged in renaming various parts of the world after the name of the land he rules with an iron Sharpie, it may be interesting to consider what else he has achieved in the first 100-days of his second term.

Trump had a wonderful first 100-days in his first term in 2017, when he inherited from President Obama 75 consecutive weeks of a booming economy and the lowest unemployment rates in decades. An economy that even he did not have the experience to ruin. Experience which he has now gained sufficiently to bring an economy he inherited from President Biden, which was the strongest in the world in October 2024, to the cusp of recession in a mere 100 days.

Trump has unilaterally already instructed the cartographers in the United States to rename the oceanic basin and marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, bounded on the northeast by the gulf coast of the United States, on the south by Mexico and the southeast by Cuba, which has been known in all maps of the world for the past four centuries as the Gulf of Mexico, as the Gulf of America.

The Gulf of Mexico is now called the Gulf of America for Google Maps users in the United States, in keeping with the terms of President Trump’s controversial Executive Order. In fact, President Trump recently banned an Associated Press reporter from White House briefings for continuing to name the Gulf of America by its original name, though that body of water remains the Gulf of Mexico in all other maps of the world.

Trump is also proposing to rename Canada as the 51st State of the Union, Greenland as red white and blue land, the Gaza Strip as the United States Riviera and the Panama Canal as the Panamerica Canal. It is surprising that he has not renamed the Great States of New Mexico and Indiana as the Great States of Old America and Americana, respectively.

Actually, Canadian liberals must thank Trump for his proposal to call Canada the 51st State. Pro-Trump Canadian conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, were leading the liberals by 25 points when Trump made the 51st State announcement after his inauguration in January, 2025. This angered all Canadians and united them, liberals and conservatives, so as to elect Mark Carney, the leader of the Liberal Party, as the Prime Minister of Canada last week. Thus arresting the swing towards the right that Canada was leaning after over a decade of liberal rule.

It is likely that Trump will similarly unite all Americans against the Republicans, except, of course, the MAGA (Make America Great Again) cult, if his first 100-day performance is anything to go by.

The performance of a president in his first 100 days was always measured by that of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was inaugurated in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression, when America was reeling under unemployment and poverty. Since then, the first 100 days of every president’s term has been taken as a benchmark to gauge the early success of a president.

In Roosevelt’s first inauguration speech in January 1933, he made his famous statement, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”. He spent his first week dealing with bank closures which were ruining the finances of families nationwide. He began a series of his renowned “fireside chats”, when he spoke to a radio audience of more than 60 million people, explaining to them what steps he was taking to alleviate the crisis.

He restored the confidence of the people with the reopening of the banks with the enactment of the Emergency Banking Act. He created the beginnings of a social safety net with his New Deal, which aimed at the goals of increasing employment and to address the immediate needs for a support system for the poor. He spent millions of dollars on soup kitchens, employment schemes and nursery schools.

Roosevelt’s first 100 days saved America not only from the depression, but created the beginnings of an equitable “woke” society, despised by today’s American conservatives, in the richest nation in the world. A system which brings out all the creative features of capitalism with the compassion of democratic socialism, an ideology followed by every one of the advanced, wealthy nations of the world, bar the richest and the most advanced.

It would be remiss if I did not list Trump’s most important act on the first day of his inauguration, which had nothing to do with the economy. He pardoned every one of the 600 plus criminals who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, threatening to kill Vice-President Mike Pence and to violently impede the peaceful transfer of presidential power, as incited by him.

Trump’s first 100 days have taken the United States of America from an economy, which according to The Economist of October 2024, was “The Envy of the World”, to one on the cusp of recession. The announcements of his increased tariffs have already increased prices and promises certain rises in inflation, as their effects begin to take effect in the immediate future.

The biggest retailers in the country, like Walmart and Target, have already warned that increased tariffs will result in empty shelves within weeks, and small businesses, especially those trading in toys and other Christmas items, are already consulting with bankruptcy lawyers.

Given the Republican’s razor-thin majority in the House, Trump has so far ruled the nation by Executive Order. His record of 140 Executive Orders in his first 100-days eclipses Roosevelt’s 99 in his first 100-days.

Of course, FDR’s Executive Orders were aimed primarily at saving the nation from the Great Depression. Trump’s 140 were mainly aimed at “the greatest deportation program in the history of the world” – which he has been carrying out by illegally deporting immigrants, some citizens and Green Card holders, without due process – but still at a lower rate than that achieved during the Biden administration.

Trump has also, through the illegal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, terminated federal and other employees arbitrarily; often with no reference to merit and concentrating on eliminating DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) hires. A program designed to ensure that the interests of minorities are protected in hiring procedures. But a concept completely at odds with the Trump/Musk belief that only a white man is capable of doing any important job. A concept that Trump has conclusively proved in his hiring of the most important jobs in his cabinet, the most notable being the appointment of Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, a Fox Newscaster with a police record of lewd and drunken behavior.

One of the first cuts by DOGE was the defunding of US AID (United States Agency for International Development), the premier US Agency for international aid to poverty-stricken communities worldwide, the greatest and most admired instrument of the USA for soft power. The closure of all US AID offices worldwide and immediate stoppage of shipping of food and medicines to poor nations have already cost thousands of lives.

Trump has taken over as the Chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It’s a matter of time that its Board of Directors, including his Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles and the Second Lady of the USA, Usha Vance, clamor for its renaming to

as the Trump Center. While JFK will be doing somersaults in his grave, the name is strangely appropriate. Who better at the Performing Arts than the Donald, whose performances in American courtrooms, election rallies and indeed during his time at the Oval Office, have captivated a nation.

Trump has also threatened to stop the federal funding to Harvard University on false grounds of anti-Semiticism and DEI hires, and to force the university to submit to the government’s control over its academic programs. Harvard’s lawyers are fighting Trump, arguing, correctly that these orders violate the university’s constitutional rights.

Trump has already taken measures to close the Department of Education, and educational curricula will be left to the individual states. The history of the genocide of 10 million native Americans, slavery, Reconstruction, the Apartheid of Jim Crow, will be hidden from future generations of American kids.

Fareed Zakhariya of CNN had an interesting take on Trump’s assault on American universities. He stated that the federal funding of the greatest universities in the world, like Harvard, has enabled research resulting in major breakthroughs in science and medicine, which has made the USA produce the greatest number of Nobel Prize winners since World War II. That is what will be lost through Trump’s idiocy. Fortunately, Trump will never win this particular battle.

Of course, Trump blames the negative GDP numbers on the Biden administration. Although he did say, after he was elected, that the numbers will go up from the first day of his administration. Just as he said, during the first months of his first term, when he was claiming the credit for the booming economy he inherited from President Obama.

Trump’s polling numbers are all under water. He only has the support of his MAGA cult, and the Republican politicians who fear they will lose their jobs at the next midterms by being “primaried” by Elon Musk. Of course, that depends on how long that unholy Trump/Musk alliance will last; it’s already showing signs of a split.

Trump’s translation of the famous FDR words that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” seems to be “the only thing we can rule by is fear itself”.

The consensus of all media outlets, including Fox News, is that Trump’s first 100 days of his second term are the worst in 70 years. They are opening the eyes of Americans, as evinced by nationwide protests against tariffs, rising prices and illegal deportations. Americans seem to be regaining their courage, and courage is contagious.

by Kumar de Silva

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

18 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

18 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

18 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.