Features
The Year of Darkness

BY SUMI MOONESINGHE
narrated to Savitri Rodrigo
July 1983 was one of the darkest months this country has ever experienced. It was then that I saw my countrymen turn on each other and where barbarism outweighed every Buddhist precept upon which the country had built its foundations. Black July is what it came to be known as – or Kalu Juliya –the anti-Tamil pogrom that was triggered by a deadly ambush in Jaffna by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which resulted in the deaths of 13 army soldiers. Believed to have been orchestrated by some members of the UNP, by July 24, anti-Tamil rioting had spread across the city of Colombo and quickly to other parts of the country.
The day the riots began, Susil and I had been on holiday in Nuwara Eliya and were driving back. Going past the junction of Kanatte, the main cemetery in Colombo, we noticed a large crowd gathered but didn’t take too much notice of it. When we got home, we heard that the bodies of the 13 soldiers killed by the LTTE had been brought to Colombo for interment. The Government made a colossal mistake with that decision.
The LTTE had been founded way back in 1976 with the aim of securing an independent Tamil Eelam, or separate in north-eastern Sri Lanka as a response to what was was widely considered successive governments being discriminatory towards the minority Tamils. There had been anti-Tamil pogroms in 1956 and 1958, carried out by the majority Sinhalese, and oppressive action which caused the eventual genesis of the LTTE leading to yet another anti-Tamil pogrom in 1977. The subsequent burning of the Jaffna Public Library in 1981 added to the woes and was widely believed to be sanctioned by the incumbent government.
But it was with the deaths of these 13 soldiers and the anti-Tamil pogrom carried out by Sinhalese mobs in July 1983 that fuelled a full-scale escalation of violence that would ruin the country for nearly three decades.
When Susil heard about the mass funeral being held in Kanatte, he predicted problems for the country. There were rumbles of impending riots and on hearing these, we phoned some of our friends and told them to be vigilant as trouble may be brewing. In fact, I remember Susil asking them not to stay in their homes but to move to safe places.
We were too worried to go to sleep and for good reason. Because by 4 am, the whole of Colombo seemed to be burning. My bosses, Maha and Killi were Tamil, and I knew they were at risk. By 12 noon, the mobs had already attacked and burned most of the Maharaja properties starting with Berec, our battery factory, our Group Head Office, Maha’s home at Coniston Place and every factory the Maharajas owned.
Before the attackers had made it to Maha’s home however, we quickly transported Maha and Ruki as well as our friends Thanchi and Vasanta Coomaraswamy into our home.
Transporting Tamils to safe places also became hazardous. The mobs were uncontrollable and were fanned out across all the main roads. They had lists bearing the addresses of the Tamils and were strategically searching for those homes, to loot, bum and kill. I remember the beautiful house belonging to K. Gunaratnam down Bullers Road where mobs pulled down massive crystal chandeliers from their sockets, brought these onto the road and dashed them into smithereens. Vasanta’s mother’s house was also burned. I remember walking into the smouldering house looking for his niece who was pregnant.
She was nowhere to be found and I prayed nothing had happened to her. I was near to tears by this time because I was imagining the worst and was quite relieved to hear that she had jumped over the wall and managed to save herself. My astrologer Mr. Arulpragasam’s house was set on fire and Susil and I brought him to our home and kept him with us.
Until his immigration papers to Australia were approved, we rented out an annexe for him to stay. We also brought the Food Commissioner Mr Pullendian and his wife to stay with us. Their home in Wellawatte had also been razed to the ground.
Then there was Potato Shanmugam, named thus because he was the biggest potato importer in Pettah, in addition to being the biggest sugar buyer from Jones Overseas. Over the years, I had forged a strong bond of friendship with him and his Finance Director Mr. Sangarasivam. This bond was so strong that each morning, Mr. Sangarasivam would come to our home after going to the kovil and place a vibhuti on three-year-old Aushi’s forehead before he made his way to work in the Pettah. Such was their closeness to us.
When the riots began I remembered Potato Shanmugam having taken out a number of bank loans to finance a huge stock of sugar in his go-downs. Susil anticipated problems for the man, and pulled some strings to place a quick board at Shanmugam’s stores stating ‘Property of the Food Department’. This was to ensure the mobs won’t attack the property assuming it was government property.
In the week of the riots with anti-Tamil sentiments fully fueled into unimaginable proportions, Mr. Sangarasivam had bravely visited the banks to assure them that their collateral was safe_ He called me from there saying, “Madam, don’t worry. We are fine. The stock will not fall into the hands of the mobs nor will we get burnt because you put up that board. Nobody touched the place.”
I spoke to the Bank Manager as well, assuring them that the stock and as a result their money was safe.
That was the last time I spoke with Mr. Sangarasivam. He was driving back from the bank that morning when he was stopped by the mobs at the Pettah Clock Tower, pulled out of his car, shoved into the boot, the car doused with petrol and set on fire.
The insane killing of Mr. Sangarasivam was the turning point for me. I completely collapsed. This was the man who came to our house every morning and would bless my child before he left for work. How are human beings capable of such brutality? I was truly shattered.
When I heard of Mr. Sangarasivan’s death, I just bent over and cried. It seemed a never-ending nightmare and I was hoping against hope that I would wake up from this bad dream. I had come to that point when I wanted to pack up everything and leave. But how could 1, when our friends were feeling the deadly brunt of a racial riot that our country had never experienced before? I couldn’t possibly abandon them now!
Susil and I spent an inordinate amount of time on the road trying our best to get whomever we knew to safety. The country was seething and tempers were rife. I even took a policeman in the car with me to 4th Cross Street to bring the cash in the safe belonging to Potato Shanmugam. I couldn’t bear to open my eyes when I got to the Pettah. The whole area was burning.
The moment the news hit the international news wires, our foreign partners began calling me to find out how we were doing. I really didn’t know what to say. I was so ashamed of my countrymen, the majority Sinhalese who were now known all over the world as murderers. The images spread around the world showed the Sinhalese as brutal, cruel people carrying out barbaric actions that had never been seen in the civilised world in modern history.
By this time, our home was filled with Tamil friends taking refuge. There were so many cars parked outside that even the neighbours figured it was not a good sign and refused to let us park. Hema Premadasa, the wife of the Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa, dropped in to see Maha; and I think word got around that we were sheltering Tamil people in our house, which also spelled danger for us.
My Tamil staff including my Finance Director had been taken to an Internally Displaced Camp came because they had lost everything they owned. I wanted to do whatever I could to make their pain go away. We visited the camps, took food and other necessities for them, but this -just didn’t seem sufficient for the pain and indignity they suffered.
The riots began. on a Monday early morning and went on unabated until Friday. As Susil and I watched helplessly, one aspect became very clear. Our good friend J R had all the power in the world to stop the riots and reinstate sanity in the country, but he never did. In that week, Susil and I made multiple trips see J R, pleading with him to stop the massacre that was now totally out of hand.
I still remember Satyendra, Maha’s brother-in-law, calling J R during one of those visits, asking him to do something. Not once did J R come out publicly and ask the mobs to stop the attacks or express sympathy for those killed and displaced.
The riots however did simmer to an uneasy halt on the Friday of that week which was named ‘Kotiya Day’ – the day of the Tigers. And it was not the Government’s apathy that did it. The rumour mills had begun churning out unsubstantiated statements which fortunately, for once, worked as an advantage. The rumour that the Tigers were in Colombo and murdering people indiscriminately began spreading like wildfire and the rioting petered out.
But in those five days of the Government’s procrastination and indecisiveness, over 4,000 Tamils and some Muslims who were mistaken for Tamils had been killed, with even those injured and those in hospitals killed. Over 300,000 were displaced, homes, vehicles and over 2,500 businesses destroyed. Such was the blanket of hate that had descended on this country.
An uneasy calm descended over the city and gradually, those who yet had places to go to, moved out of our home. Maha moved to Guildford Crescent as did the other families at home. But we were still on tenterhooks. We were so attuned to unusual noises due to the fear that had enveloped us that one night when Susil heard what he thought was a strange noise, he said, “We can’t bring up our family this way. The children are living in fear and are traumatized. We have to leave.”
Susil called the Manager of Swiss Air whom we had met in Singapore and taken out to dinner on one of our trips, and requested four tickets to London. Apologizing profusely, the manager said there were only three seats left on the next flight and if we could keep Aushi on our laps, which was against IATA rules but since these were unusual circumstances, we could go. We left for London that night.
Even though I agreed to leave Sri Lanka on Susil’s incisive reasoning, I regret leaving Sri Lanka that day. It was the worst decision I made. I had so much confidence in Susil and would never question anything he did or said. But I left Killi and Maha, when they needed me the most. I was a Director of Jones Overseas, one of the biggest companies in The Maharaja Group, and it was my responsibility to stay and weather the storm with them. The factories had been burned to the ground and our people were in camps. While I mulled over this conundrum in my head and had many a misgiving, I knew in my heart that neither Killi nor Maha ever held my decision to leave against me.
We returned to Colombo after a month. There still remained that uneasy calm but on the surface, it seemed like it was ‘back to business’ in Colombo.’ While we adults have the ability to delete unsavoury details from our minds and carry on, the horrific scenes we had left behind had been ingrained in little Aushi’s mind. On the way back from the airport, Aushi, in all her innocence asked me, “Are those things still burning?” That was her last memory of Sri Lanka because when we left that fateful night, all she saw was fire everywhere. Anarkali however, was old enough to understand and didn’t quite express herself with that kind of innocence.
(Excerpted from Sumi Moonesinghe’s recently published Memoirs)
Features
Easter truth can be the beginning

There has long been speculation that the Easter bombing of April 2019 had a relationship to Sri Lankan politics. The near simultaneous bombings of three Christian churches and three luxury hotels, with a death toll of 270 and over 500 injured, by Muslim suicide bombers made no sense in Sri Lanka where there has been no history of conflict between the two religions. But a political motivation was suspected on the basis of who would be the beneficiary of an otherwise senseless crime. The bombing immediately discredited the government in power at that time, saw the nomination of the opposition presidential candidate soon after, and paved the way for the crushing defeat of the government at the national elections that followed in a few months.
In Parliament last week, Leader of the House Bimal Ratnayake revealed a political strategy to create the conditions for the change of government that took place. His remarks corresponded to suspicions that the attack was not just a failure of intelligence, but the result of deliberate manipulation by those in the political sphere. What is new is that these suspicions are now being stated clearly and officially at the highest level of government. Minister Ratnayake said, “They started this in 2013 by creating and maintaining Sinhala and Muslim extremist groups through intelligence agencies. The culmination of this was similar to the Cambridge Analytica incident.”
The Cambridge Analytica scandal involved the unauthorised harvesting of personal data from millions of Facebook users to build psychological profiles and micro-target voters for political purposes. The data harvested by Cambridge Analytica was used primarily to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favour of Donald Trump and the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK. The company also allegedly worked on elections in Kenya, Nigeria, India, Trinidad and Tobago, and several other countries, using psychographic profiling and targeted digital ads to manipulate voter behaviour.
Cardinal’s Consistency
If the allegations about the Easter attacks prove true, they would constitute one of the most unprincipled examples of violence being used for political purposes in Sri Lanka’s post-war period. To use fear, death, and destruction to pave the way for a political return is totally unacceptable and without conscience. What makes the current moment different from earlier efforts to deal with such unacceptable actions is that there now appears to be political will. There is a sense that the present government is committed to follow through with investigations, even if the implications reach to the highest levels of power.
It is significant that the government has taken the controversial step of reappointing retired officers Shani Abeysekera and Ravi Seneviratne, both of whom were known to be top class police investigators who were removed from the investigation process by previous governments, to once again lead the investigations. They are both controversial in that they briefly joined the government side’s political stage during the last presidential election campaign. Minister Ratnayake justified their reappointment on the grounds that Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith made the request. It is in this context that the current government’s willingness to act gains it credibility with the Catholic community, which bore the brunt of the attacks.
The role of the Catholic Church and Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith in consistently pushing for accountability in the Easter Sunday case is commendable. From the outset, the Cardinal was a vocal advocate for justice for the victims of the bombing. His calls for transparency, a credible investigation, and the identification of those truly responsible have been persistent and unwavering. Over the years, previous government leaders made promises to find the culprits and masterminds in response to this pressure which the Cardinal publicly welcomed. But those assurances, like many others before them, did not materialise in the form of tangible outcomes.
Ending Impunity
Progress in the investigation of the Easter bombings comes at a time when the government has already made forward movement in pursuing economic accountability. High-profile arrests and legal actions against formerly powerful politicians for corruption are being carried out in a way never witnessed before. For many decades, impunity has been the practice in government at the highest levels. Economic crimes and political violence in which the protagonists were suspected to be of government-origin were pursued only half-heartedly in the past. Charges were often framed, suspects were taken into custody, but invariably the process broke down mid-way and the suspects were released. This time around those who have been charged have had their cases taken to court where they have been given exemplary sentences.
In the case of the Easter bombing, the testimony of survivors and the documentation of intelligence failures are now being brought back into the spotlight. Investigations into key actors, including the alleged role of former paramilitaries turned politicians like Pillayan show that this is no longer a nominal exercise. The challenge for the government is to ensure that this momentum does not wane. The legal and institutional frameworks need to be allowed to function without interference. No matter how politically sensitive, the Sri Lankan people need answers, and more importantly, justice.
Sri Lanka has suffered for decades from a culture of impunity that has bred cynicism and mistrust. The present government has taken early steps to reverse that trend. It is too early to say whether this will lead to full justice. There are indications that the government is sequencing its priorities: first, economic crimes and now political crimes like the Easter attacks; later, possibly, war crimes. The wounds of the war years are deep and divisive. Pursuing accountability for wartime abuses may demand more political capital than the government currently possesses or wishes to expend, and it is likely that such steps will be undertaken more cautiously—and later.
In the case of the Chemmani mass graves the government seems to be allowing the judicial investigations to proceed independently, unlike in the case of the Mannar and Matale mass graves by previous governments. Permitting the Chemmani probe to proceed signals that the era of blanket impunity might finally be drawing to a close and the integrity of Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions is being secured. If a crime like the Easter bombing, which has defied a satisfactory conclusion for over six years is successfully investigated and prosecuted, it may open the space for deeper scrutiny of the past, including the war years. It is up to the independent institutions, judiciary and civil society to push this process forward.
by Jehan Perera
Features
Reflections on Cuba, BRICS and geopolitics

I returned to the US, from Cuba, just a few hours before Donald Trump signed a memorandum on 30 June, 2025, tightening the long-standing US economic blockade against Cuba. The memorandum includes a statutory ban on US tourism to the neighbouring island.
Despite a long fascination for the island nation, I did not volunteer for the Venceremos Brigade to Cuba during my college years. Finally, my wish to see the legendary island of anti-imperialist revolution—the so-called ‘last bastion of socialism in the western hemisphere’—came true.
I enjoyed Cuba’s resplendent land and waters, the vibrancy of its music and dance, and the warm hospitality of its racially integrated people. I visited the impressive places and monuments of its colonial and modern history, receiving a wealth of interesting and intriguing information from my wonderful Cuban guides and other sources.
The history of Cuba is one of struggle and transformation. The original Taino people were extinct due to the Spanish conquest. The Revolution of 1898 brought liberation under scholar-poet Jose Marti, only to be followed by US neocolonial rule from 1902 to 1959. During the latter part of this period, the Batista dictatorship and his American business and Mafia connections dominated the island.
The armed struggle, culminating in the 1959 Revolution, led by Fidel Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, Che Guevara and others, transformed the nation. The Cuban Communist Party, under Fidel Castro’s rule (1959-2008), implemented widespread confiscation and wealth redistribution. Throughout this period and up to date, the US has maintained occupation of Guantanamo Bay (the first US overseas military base) under a 1903 perpetual lease agreement, following the Spanish-American War.
Cuba’s Present Crisis
Unfortunately, what I encountered in my homestays and travel around the island was far from the thriving socialist society I had hoped to see. The once magnificent buildings in Havana and other cities are dilapidated and the streets strewn with litter. Lacking reliable public transportation, people stand on streets around the island patiently waiting to catch rides from any vehicle that will stop—among them, the still widely used pre-Revolution American cars and horse-drawn carriages.
The island is currently facing its worst economic crisis, since the 1959 revolution. Long and daily power cuts, scarce internet connection, food and medicine shortages, and high prices, are the realities of present-day Cuba. Some staple items like beans are nowhere to be found; rice production has declined and much is now imported. Sugar, too, has become an import in Cuba, which, until recently, was the leading sugar exporter in the world.
People cannot make ends meet with their meager incomes—a doctor’s monthly salary is approximately US$50. Even by conservative World Bank estimates, 72% of all Cubans live below the poverty line. Beggars seem to be everywhere, with the African community descendant from slavery being the most economically victimised.
Young professionals, products of the island’s renowned free education and healthcare systems, are emigrating to the US, Europe, and elsewhere, leaving mostly the elderly behind. Cuba reportedly lost some 13% of its 11 million population between 2020 and 2024, due largely to emigration. Financial remittances from emigrants are essential for their families’ survival at home.
In private, people complain bitterly about government mismanagement and corruption, expressing concern about the island’s future and people’s survival. Given state authoritarianism and repression, there is no independent media, visible organised resistance, or public demonstrations.
The Cuban government blames US sanctions and blockade, operative since the early 1960s, for the island’s economic strangulation. In contrast, the US and its Cuban-American supporters blame socialism for Cuba’s failures.
Notwithstanding claims to be a leader of the international Non-Aligned Movement, Cuba withstood the 1961 CIA-backed Cuban-American Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis by aligning itself with the Soviet Union, eventually becoming its client state. The dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1992 and the recent Covid crisis have dealt severe blows to the Cuban economy and society. The decline in tourism, one of the most important sectors of the Cuban economy, will be further impacted by Donald Trump’s recent statutory ban on US tourism.
Is the opening of Cuba to neo-liberal capitalism—including global finance capital, the IMF, international intervention by the US (and its Cuban-American supporters awaiting return of land and business confiscated by the Cuban Revolution)—the solution to Cuba’s current economic crisis?
The Path Forward
Government mismanagement, corruption, repression and authoritarianism, economic collapse, agricultural decline, lack of employment, shortages of fuel and food, rising prices, powerlessness, despair and labour emigration characterise much of the world following neoliberal policies today. These countries also face the threats of international intervention, regime change, sanctions and blockades if they attempt to strike out on independent paths of economic and political development outside western-dominated neoliberalism.
Is BRICS the alternative to both authoritarian socialism and neoliberal capitalism, the path to resolving the crisis in Cuba and much of the world?
The Global South-led BRICS constitutes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as 10 partner countries, including Cuba, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Today, the BRICS countries together are estimated to account for 56% of world population, 44% of global GDP.
The BRICS alliance provides a much-needed platform to explore alternative mechanisms, like the New Development Bank and bilateral trade agreements, to reduce reliance on Western financial institutions, such as the IMF and currencies, specifically the US dollar. While BRICS rejects certain aspects of Western dominated geopolitics and hierarchical North-South relations, it upholds neoliberal economic principles: competition, free trade, open markets, export-led growth and globalisation, unfettered technological expansion.
BRICS aims to advance its members within the existing global capitalist order, rather than create a fundamental alternative to the capitalist paradigm which prioritizes profit-led growth before environmental sustainability and human well-being. As such, corporate hegemony, concentration of wealth by a global elite spanning the North and the South, as well technological and military domination, are not challenged. Neither does BRICS challenge political authoritarianism within its member countries or the possibility of the emergence of forms of authoritarian capitalism. Composed of countries unequal in size, economic and military power, BRICS may also easily reproduce unequal exchange and new forms of colonialism in south-south relations.
False Alternative
Although barely noticeable to a visitor, China is quietly replacing the former Soviet Union as Cuba’s benefactor, expanding its economic activities on the island. Since 2018, Cuba has joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the massive infrastructural project connecting some 150 countries around the world. While the US is tightening its trade blockade, China has become Cuba’s largest trading partner and the primary provider of technology for infrastructure, telecommunications, renewable energy sources, the tourism industry, and other important areas of Cuba’s development.
Some critics of US imperialism tend to see China as a benevolent alternative to US and western domination. There are claims that certain media outlets, promoting such perspectives, may be linked to a funding source, associated with China. Even if it is true, the political and military intentions of Chinese economic expansion can only be known in the future.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China has increased its nuclear arsenal by 20% from an estimated 500 to over 600 warheads in 2025. According to US government sources, China has also established satellite intelligence infrastructure or ‘spy bases’ in Cuba that can target the United States commercial and military operations. Cuba, located only some 90 miles from the Florida coastline, could well be drawn into the geopolitical confrontation between the United States and China as it was during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, the Cuban Missile Crisis being a case in point.
Even though the world is moving towards an inexorable market and technologically controlled reality, the rationality of this trajectory must be questioned. The need for balanced ecological and social frameworks upholding bioregionalism, local control of resources, food self-sufficiency need to be considered. Freedom of expression, right to dissent, and collective organising undermined by both neoliberal capitalism and socialist authoritarianism must be upheld. This requires the awakening of consciousness to create a human society founded on wisdom and generosity over competition and exploitation.
The words of the great nineteenth century Cuban patriot, Jose Marti (1853-1895) are still applicable to the transformation needed in both Cuba and the world:
“Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.”(Courtesy IDN in-depth News)
(Dr. Bandarage has served on the faculties of Brandeis, Mount Holyoke and Georgetown and is the author of books, including Colonialism in Sri Lanka; The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka, Sustainability and Well-Being: The Middle Path to Environment, Society and the Economy, Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World and numerous other publications on global political economy and related subjects. www.bandarage.com)
Features
Multi-faceted Sri Lankan celebrity … checking out land of birth

I was sent a video of Noeline Honter doing the song ‘Beauty and the Beast’, with Maxi Rosairo, live on stage.
The clip, I was told, was from The Island Music Awards, held in the late ‘90s … probably 1994.
Believe me, their performance was simply awesome … the vocals, the voices, the passion, the expression, the enthusiasm. Yes, that is what singing is all about. And no lyric-stands, planted in front, for guidance.
Well, the good news I have for you is that Noeline Honter will be in our midst next month (August) and she will be seen in action at three events, in Colombo.
Noeline will be featured at Gatz, Cinnamon Life, on Sunday, 24th August, and again on 20th of September.
Her first date at Gatz will be with the group Terry & The Big Spenders, while her 20th September performance will be with Mirage.
Noeline will also be performing at the BMICH, on the 30th of August, at a concert, ‘Vibes of Yesterday.’
The show, which is in aid of the Apeksha Hospital, Maharagama, will also feature several other artistes. The band in attendance will be the ‘Expressions.’
Noeline indicated to us that she is very much looking forward to her date with Mirage.

Noeline’s first band … her very own Galaxy
“It will be really exciting as I’ve performed with this wonderful outfit several times, as a guest artiste, touring the Middle East and other parts of the world, and also joining them on stage at their regular gigs in Dubai.”
In Sri Lanka, Noeline was not only known for her singing, she was also immensely popular as a TV presenter … winning several awards in both categories – singing and TV presenter.
In addition, she had her own Academy of Training, and she continues with her English training, Down Under, conducting several training programmes online to students, in many countries.
Noeline’s contribution to the field of television news, in Australia, commenced in 2008, in the role of Executive Producer and Presenter of ‘Sri Lanka News weekly,’ a news programme telecast on Channel 31, in Melbourne.
This multi-faceted Sri Lankan celebrity now presents interview programmes on Channel 31, where she features a gamut of mainly Sri Lankan musicians, resident in Sri Lanka and around the world. This is a chat show with musical clips by the featured artistes.
Noeline had her own band in the scene here … Galaxy, comprising Mohan Sabaratnam (drums), Kamal Perera (guitar), Joe Thambimuttu (bass/keyboards/vocals), Kumar Pieris (keyboards), and Ricky Senn (sax/trumpet /brass).

Noeline Honter: Three events in Colombo
Her trip to Sri Lanka, in August, she says, is mainly to be with her family, and to visit some of her favourite places, like Yala, Trincomalee, etc
“When I come over in August, it will be nearly three and a half years since I left the beloved land of my birth.”
Noeline is now based in Australia and says she is absolutely delighted to have the opportunity of sharing time with her son, Ryan, in Adelaide, and her daughter, Jaimee, in Melbourne.
Yes, a name that will never ever be forgotten, especially in the local Western music scene – Noeline Honter.
Go check her out at Gatz, Cinnamon Life, on 24th August and 20th September, 2025.
-
News3 days ago
Dates for A/L and O/L exams announced
-
Latest News5 days ago
Search for survivors after Houthis sink second Red Sea cargo ship in a week
-
Business2 days ago
SLIC Life among Asia’s Best: Finalist in 3 key categories at 10th Trusted Life Awards
-
News5 days ago
Sri Lanka back to its high poverty levels
-
Features2 days ago
Afghanistan:Broken promises, burning nation
-
News3 days ago
Utilize capital allocated by the government effectively to reach targeted economic development goals – President
-
Business6 days ago
Maldives HC expresses deep concern over growing disconnect with Sri Lanka
-
Editorial2 days ago
Navigating tariff shocks