All Blogs
Sri Lanka under pressure to de-politicize price index
Feb 09, 2008 (LBO) – Pressure is mounting to de-politicize Sri Lanka’s new price index, which the authorities are already using as a guide for monetary policy and are pushing trade unions to accept for indexing wages. The new Colombo Consumer Price Index or CCPI (N) has come under fire for excluding alcohol in an […]
Mufti Plan
Feb 8, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is setting up public vigilance committees and deploying thousands of policemen in plain clothes to strengthen security after a series of terrorist bombings, a government spokesman said. The aim is to improve surveillance and intelligence through better public co-operation with the authorities, minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage told a news […]
Mobile Finance
Feb 08, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Dialog Telekom, a unit of Telekom Malaysia, said it had raised 30 million US dollars from two banks to buy telecommunications equipment from Sweden. The package was arranged by Standard Chartered Bank in Colombo, Dialog said in a stock exchange filing. It was backed by EKN, Sweden’s export […]
Tobacco could kill more than one billion this century: report
NEW YORK, Feb 7, 2008 (AFP) – Tobacco use could kill more than one billion people around the world this century unless governments and civil society act to reverse the epidemic, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report released Thursday.“One hundred million deaths were caused by tobacco in the 20th century,” said the report […]
Discord looms as finance chiefs meet on subprime crisis
TOKYO, Feb 8, 2008 (AFP) – World finance chiefs will try to bolster confidence in the faltering global economy when they meet Saturday amid signs of trans-Atlantic friction over how to respond to recent market mayhem. Washington’s calls for other major economies to boost domestic demand seem set to fall on deaf ears as Japan […]
Last Sri Lankans freed as Australia dismantles Pacific detention centres
SYDNEY, Feb 8, 2008 (AFP) – Australia’s widely criticised “Pacific Solution” policy of holding asylum seekers on remote islands ended Friday when the last detainees flew out of Nauru, the government said.The 21 Sri Lankans who had been held on the tiny island in the South Pacific for nearly a year would be resettled in […]
Sri Lanka says 39 Tamil Tigers killed in fresh fighting
Feb 8, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan troops smashed bunkers of Tamil Tiger rebels in the island’s embattled north and kept up attacks elsewhere leaving 39 guerrillas dead, the island’s defence ministry said Friday. In the clashes along the front lines in Vavuniya district, security forces killed 22 guerrillas while destroying three of their bunkers […]
Slow Going
Feb 08, 2008 (LBO) – A multi-million dollar project to build a new container port in Colombo is on track despite lengthy delays, a Sri Lankan government minister has assured the island’s shipping community. The government plans to build a new deep-water port next to Colombo, called the Colombo South Port, as well as build […]
Sri Lankan shares end up, more interest in Dockyard
Feb 07, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan stocks edged up on thin trading Thursday with a big parcel of Distilleries propping up turnover but investors remained worried about the profitability of companies given high interest rates and inflation. The All Share Price Index went up 17.44 points to 2,454.89 while the liquid Milanka index closed […]
Electronic Cash
Feb 07, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Commercial Bank of Ceylon has tied up with financial giant JP Morgan Chase, to offer a foreign exchange card that can replace travellers cheques for people traveling abroad, the bank said. Foreign travellers could store the equivalent of between 500 to 10,000 dollars and use it as to […]