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Sri Lanka told to clean up human rights record
April 15, 2008 (AFP) – A team of top legal luminaries told Sri Lanka’s government on Tuesday to clean up its human rights record, saying an escalating war against Tamil Tiger rebels had brought with it grave abuses. Updated The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP), comprising experts from several countries, the European Union […]
Singleton
April 15, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will only award one out of three offshore oil blocks in the north west of the island for which international oil companies gave bids, petroleum minister A H M Fowzie said. . “We are only evaluating the block for which we received three bids,” Fowzie told reporters Tuesday. […]
Hedging Profits
April 15, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) said it had earned profits of 7 million US dollars in March reducing losses from retailing petroleum below-cost in that month. . “In March we lost 3,769 million rupees retailing fuel, but a hedging contract with Citibank earned us about 580 million rupees,” […]
Offshore Riches
April 15, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank has called for the setting up of a high-powered decision-making body, possibly headed by the president, to handle oil exploration. A well-structured institutional arrangement should exist for policy formulation, management, regulation, and supervision of oil exploration, development and production, it said in its newly released 2007 […]
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BERLIN, April 14, 2008 (AFP) – Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official said Monday on German radio.. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Using arable […]
‘s day: military
April 14, 2008 (AFP) – Security forces smashed through defences of Tamil separatists in northern Sri Lanka, killing at least five rebels as the country marked the traditional new year, the defence ministry said Monday.Government troops captured eight bunkers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the Jaffna peninsula on Sunday, the day […]
Farm practices must change to counter high food prices: study
PARIS, April 14, 2008 (AFP) – Farming practices must change to confront soaring food prices that threaten to drive millions of poor people around the world into even deeper poverty, said a new study to be released here Tuesday. “Business as usual is no longer an option,” the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology […]
World economic leaders act to counter financial, food price crises
WASHINGTON, April 13, 2008 (AFP) – World economic leaders have taken steps to alleviate the worst financial shock in decades and a food price crisis that is sparking deadly unrest in developing countries. In three days of meetings that ended Sunday, finance ministers and central bankers grappled with the credit squeeze and inflation emergencies against […]
” for poor, hungry
WASHINGTON, April 13, 2008 (AFP) – The World Bank on Sunday launched a “New Deal” to fight hunger and poverty and urged governments to take action against a food crisis that has sparked deadly unrest in developing countries.A doubling of food prices over the past three years could push 100 million people in poorer developing […]
” of commodity bubble; what can Sri Lanka do?
April 14, 2008 (LBO) – Countries pegged to the US dollar have felt the ‘full brunt’ of recent increases in commodity prices, a top IMF official said raising questions about the monetary policy options available for Sri Lanka to counter ‘imported’ inflation. Pressure for commodity prices to rise have been building up amid loose US […]