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Ranatunga looks to revamp Sri Lanka cricket
COLOMBO, Feb 8, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s legendary former cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga, who recently took over the running of the island’s troubled governing body in the sport, Friday announced a major revamp of the administration. The outspoken Ranatunga, who won the World Cup in 1996, had been critical of those who had run […]
Sri Lanka rebel lawmaker dies in car crash
Feb 09, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan rebel lawmaker Sripathi Sooriyaarachchi who broke away from the ruling party of President Mahinda Rajapakse last year, died in a car crash Saturday, police said. Police spokesman DIG NK Illangakoon said the car had crashed near the north-central town of Galgamuwa. His two police guards were also killed, […]
Sri Lanka combatants claim high casualties
Feb 9, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lankan government troops and Tamil Tiger guerrillas claimed on Saturday to have inflicted heavy casualties against each other in fierce fighting in the country’s north. The defence ministry said 25 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in heavy fighting on Friday, while the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) […]
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 […]