Uditha Devapriya

Just saw how the newly built toilets in Colombo bus station has been loitered and not flushed after using. Even though our education is in a high level, we are far behind in a civic level. System change should start from there. 🥹

BREAKING: Trump says a 'whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will'.

Before Sunrise is unwatchable because it's so good. It's such a beautiful encapsulation of young iPhoneless love, shot on analog film, a nineties time machine of a mysterious Europe that no longer exists, you feel like you are dying as you watch it.

Am I stoned right now? I must be stoned.

For over a decade, we Iranians watched Western countries, Arab regimes, and their Israeli enablers stand by as our economy was deliberately crushed under the weight of America’s illegal sanctions and maximum pressure campaign. We watched them eagerly comply with policies designed to destroy our nation, shatter our lives, crush our dreams, bankrupt our businesses, rot our infrastructure, devalue our currency, and cut us off from normal trade and economic relations with the world. We watched European leaders pathetically nod in satisfaction and offer pathetic lip service as Trump declared the JCPOA a “bad deal,” using it as cover for the most brutal campaign against our people—fully aware that scrapping the deal was nothing more than his sick, twisted obsession with erasing his predecessor’s legacy. We watched U.S. officials and their Israel lobby handlers proudly parade before Congress, armed with figures and statistics, boasting how their vicious policies had tanked our currency, spiked unemployment, sent inflation soaring, and inflicted trillions of dollars in damage on our already strained economy. We watched them cheer these results and laugh at the shattered lives of millions of human beings. We watched them dutifully support the first Trump administration’s sadistic policies—even during the COVID pandemic—when his criminal Secretary of State moved heaven and earth to block Iran from securing even a meager $5 billion IMF loan, while their own governments freely spent hundreds of billions to protect their populations from the same virus. We watched them shamelessly endorse Israel’s attacks on our territory under the obscene slogan “Israel has the right to defend itself,” while branding Iran’s legitimate self-defense as “recklessness” and demanding that our government refrain from “escalation.” We watched them applaud the assassination of our war veterans and heroes, our scientists, and our brightest minds - all in the name of “non-proliferation” - while they kept their mouths tightly shut about Israel’s nuclear arsenal and expansionist agenda. We watched them, openly or in private, urging more pressure, more destruction, more assassinations, and more war. All of it justified by the ludicrous and baseless claim that Iran seeks nuclear weapons—a lie they knew was false. They were fully aware that the enrichment levels and constraints Iran had accepted under the JCPOA, and during subsequent negotiations for a new deal, made militarization impossible. They invented excuse after excuse to engineer our destruction, and they laughed while ensuring the pain was ours alone. But things have changed. Iran will no longer stand by and watch its own destruction while others nod, cheer and laugh. They will not be laughing anymore. This time, we will not be the only ones who feel pain. We will no longer tolerate unilateral sanctions and destruction. We may die standing—but this time, we will all be in same boat.

Israel is explicitly warning Christian and Druze residents in southern Lebanon not to hide Muslim residents among them as their forces advance. Not a peep from Sheryl Sandberg.

I'm convinced that the only reason this country even exists is that nature has been relatively kind to us. Sri Lankans are catastrophically bad at forward planning for resource management.