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Hurting Sri Lankans happy to be back in action
April 16, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lankan cricketers will be wary, changed men when they line-up at the IPL, their first foreign assignment since they were caught up in the bloodbath of Lahore. On March 3, gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan team bus en route for the third day of the second Test against Pakistan […]
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LONDON, April 15, 2009 (AFP) – The British and French foreign ministers said Wednesday that Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka are using civilians as human shields, which was preventing them from leaving the conflict zone. Miliband and Kouchner urged both sides to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law and to do everything […]
Sri Lanka central bank makes Rs22bn forex loss
Apr 16, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank, which has a monopoly on money issue in the island, has made a 5.04 billion rupee loss in 2008, badly hit by a 22.8 billion rupee forex loss, despite running a dollar peg which has to be backed by US assets. The process reversed thereafter, as […]
Sri Lanka treasuries yields flat
April 15, 2009 (LBO) – Six and 12-month yields at Sri Lanka’s weekly treasuries auction steadies after steeps falls over several weeks, the government’s debt office said. The government sold 5,290 million rupees worth bills at this week’s auction. In bond markets, a 3-year bond maturing on 15.01.12 dropped to 17.00/10 percent levels from 17.15/25 […]
Sri Lankan stocks up in thin volume trade
Apr 15, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan shares gained marginally on Wednesday in razor thin trade in selected blue chip shares with most investors still to return after traditional new year holidays earlier in the week, brokers said. The Sri Lanka rupee traded around 115.80/90 against the US dollar in wafer thin trading volumes in […]
‘ Burden
April 15, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s over-staffed and inefficient state-owned bus and railway services made heavy losses in 2008 despite higher revenues after fare increases, the central bank said. Still, despite the average railway fare increase of 42 percent in 2008, it was not enough to generate a profit. “However, the fare revision in […]
Higher Costs
April 15, 2009 (LBO) – A Chinese contractor building a part of an expressway to Sri Lanka’s south has more than doubled the original contract value following cost escalations and a decision to widen the road.The cost of building the section of road from Kottawa in the suburbs of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo to Dodangoda, […]
Bank Bid
April 15, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Sampath Bank said it has submitted an Expression of Interest to the Central Bank to buy a stake in Seylan Bank, part of the troubled Ceylinco group. The Sampath Bank announcement was in a stock exchange filing that gave no other details. The bank was responding to an […]
Indians line up for election marathon
NEW DELHI, April 15, 2009 (AFP) – India braced Wednesday for marathon elections expected to throw up an unstable coalition government at a time when the country needs strong leadership to pull through an economic downturn. Neither of the two main national parties — the incumbent Congress and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) […]
‘s PM
NEW DELHI, April 15, 2009 (AFP) – With a combined age of 157, the two men vying for the post of India’s prime minister are having a high old time lobbing ageist stones at each other from their respective glasshouses. Incumbent Manmohan Singh, 76, of the ruling Congress Party and 81-year-old L.K. Advani of the […]