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Sportswear workers face gruelling conditions, long hours: report
BRUSSELS, April 21, 2008 (AFP) – Sportswear workers’ rights are being trampled asunder with unpaid overtime and gruelling conditions rife as the industry gears up for the Olympic Games in Beijing, according to a report. Researchers for the Play Fair 2008 campaign found that the conditions for sportswear equipment makers had hardly improved since the […]
‘s police to guard torch: official
SYDNEY, April 21, 2008 (AFP) – More than half the police force in Australia’s capital Canberra will guard the Olympic torch when the troubled relay arrives in the city this week, officials said Monday.Security has been beefed up for Thursday’s run, which is expected to attract hundreds of pro-Tibet demonstrators angry at China’s treatment of […]
Tigers accuse Sri Lanka of killing priest
April 20, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan forces Sunday killed a Roman Catholic priest inside rebel-held territory, Tiger guerrillas said as the defence ministry reported 16 more deaths in fresh violence.The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said Father M.X. Karunaratnam, who was also a top human rights campaigner, was killed in a roadside bomb […]
Sri Lanka agriculture, construction workers earn less, services do better
April 21, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan agriculture and construction workers saw their earnings eroded by high inflation in 2007 for the second year running while public sector workers and the service sector saw real increases, the central bank said. ” . . . as experienced in the previous year, both the agriculture and construction […]
” of rice
April 21, 2008 (LBO) – An examination of futures prices show that there is no ‘shortage’ of rice, but government meddling in rice production and marketing is causing other negative fallouts, a top economist has said. Steve Hanke, from the Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore in the United States, says the term structure of Thai […]
Sri Lanka jets bomb Tiger flotillas: military
April 20, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan war planes bombed a flotilla of fast boats operated by Tamil Tiger rebels off the island’s north-eastern waters, the defence ministry said Sunday.. Aircraft carried out the bombing raid in the seas off Mullaitivu on Saturday evening after spy planes spotted the rebel boat formation, the ministry said […]
Sri Lanka Janashakthi, Kayjay in home security insurance deal
April 20, 2008 (LBO) – Insurers have been collaborating with banks to sell their services for years, but a tie up with a security firm looking after daytime-unoccupied homes is gaining a lot of interest.. People are getting busier and there is more work pressure and more females are also working so most of the […]
Oil multinationals of old admit powerless to influence prices
ROME, April 20, 2008 (AFP) – Oil-consuming countries and international oil producers acknowledged Sunday they can no longer influence oil prices, as a global gathering of the energy elite got underway in Rome.“In the 1970s, international oil companies (IOCs) controlled nearly 75 percent of global oil reserves and 80 percent of oil production,” said Paolo […]
Iran criticized for money printing amid 18-pct inflation
TEHRAN, April 19, 2008 (AFP) – Three of Iran’s top clerics have criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his handling of the economy, which is currently battling 18 percent inflation, the press reported Saturday. “We shift problems and faults onto others and in order to say we are innocent we blame others,” Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavikani, […]
” against torch protesters on Everest
KATHMANDU, April 20, 2008 (AFP) – Authorities in Nepal said Sunday they had deployed security forces on their side of Mount Everest and could use gunfire against pro-Tibet protesters when China takes the Olympic torch to the summit.Nepal has been under pressure from Beijing to seal off the world’s highest peak for next month’s stages […]