Sri Lanka diplomats decry encroachment

Dec 14, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s professional diplomats have slammed a practice by government politicians of appointing friends, relations and cronies to missions abroad, saying it damaged the country’s interests. The letter was aimed at highlighting the habit of successive governments and foreign ministers of rewarding friends, cronies and political supporters with overseas appointments […]

Piracy

NAIROBI, December 13, 2008 (AFP) – Somali pirates have released a Greek chemical tanker seized in October but three crew members are feared dead, a Kenyan maritime official said Saturday. Somali pirates are still holding at least 14 foreign vessels and more than 300 crew members to ransom, including an arms-laden Ukrainian cargo and a […]

Golden Years

Dec 13, 2008 (LBO) – With recessionary fears looming the need to secure one’s financial future has become even more important, though recent double digit inflation is eating almost all the disposable income of most average Sri Lankan, says a top analyst. You will have to go about setting a plan to achieve that objective. […]

Governance Issue

Dec 13, 2008 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka divisional council of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) has been suspended over a governance failure, its parent body in the United Kingdom said. CIMA said its operations and services to members in Sri Lanka would continue as usual and it would take action to build […]

Myanmar to hold five-day gems auction: state media

YANGON, December 13, 2008 (AFP) – Military-run Myanmar announced Saturday it would hold an auction of precious gems in Yangon early next year, despite economic sanctions banning their international trade.Europe also intensified economic sanctions on the regime after a deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters last year, while Washington and human rights groups have urged gem […]

” for a day

Dec 12, 2008 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka rupee traded freely for possibly the first time in 2008, on last trading day of the week dealers said, while inter bank money market liquidity turned positive. Analysts say dealers would be treading warily when the market opens next week to see whether the central bank allow […]

Scientific Research

Dec 12, 2008 (LBO) – A Master Debater has once boasted that he normally employs three ploys to subdue his difficult customers. ˜When I find that my opponent is not easily surmountable, I use mathematics, philosophy and religion to subdue him’, he has confessed. ˜Mathematical equations frighten him, philosophical expressions confuse him and religious sayings […]

Major Sumatran quake, tsunami likely in decades: study

SINGAPORE, December 12, 2008 (AFP) – More than one million people on Indonesia’s Sumatra island are vulnerable to a massive earthquake and tsunami potentially more destructive than one which struck four years ago, scientists who released a study Friday warned. The quake and tsunami are likely within the next few decades, they said. On December […]

India industrial growth crashes into negative terrain

NEW DELHI, December 12, 2008 (AFP) – India’s industrial growth unexpectedly shrank for the first time in 15 years, data showed Friday, hit by the widening global recession that has weakened demand in Asia’s third-largest economy. Industrial production contracted by 0.4 percent in October after expanding by 12.2 percent in the same month a year […]

Sri Lanka takes more Tiger territory

December 12, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s military has captured another key town from Tamil Tiger guerrillas in the north following heavy fighting that left scores dead and wounded on both sides, officials said Friday.Security forces took control of Terumarikandi, about eight kilometres (five miles) south of Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Liberation Tigers […]

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