All Blogs
Tokyo bourse buys stake in Singapore exchange
June 15, 2007 (AFP) – The Tokyo Stock Exchange said Friday that it had acquired a stake of almost five percent in the Singapore stock exchange operator as part of its efforts to forge links with overseas bourses.The Singapore group welcomed the move and said it was ready to explore prospects for further collaboration with […]
Outrage as Chinese slave scandal deepens
BEIJING, June 15, 2007 (AFP) – More than 450 people, including young children, have been freed from slavery in Chinese brick factories and mines but hundreds of others are believed to still be trapped, police said Friday. “It is outrageous that transient rural labourers were forced to work 20 hours a day and one was […]
New coach say Sri Lanka can win World Cup
June 15, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s new coach Trevor Bayliss Friday said he was hopeful that the island could win the next World Cup.Bayliss, 44, was picked Thursday night to replace another Australian, Tom Moody, who quit last month to work with Western Australia after having guided Sri Lanka to the World Cup final. […]
Sri Lankan President says own steps under way to probe killings
GENEVA, June 15, 2007 (AFP) – President Mahinda Rajapakse of Sri Lanka and senior Sri Lankan officials said Friday that they were taking their own steps to find the truth behind recent killings of humanitarian workers and alleged rights violations.However, Rajapakse stopped short of responding directly to an appeal Amnesty International made to him Thursday, […]
Sri Lanka urged to invite UN monitors to probe rights abuses
GENEVA, June 15, 2007 (AFP) – Amnesty International urged Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to invite UN monitors to verify claims of human rights violations by both sides in the country’s bitter ethnic civil war.After meeting the president here Thursday, the watchdog group’s Secretary General Irene Khan said an escalation of rights abuses over the […]
Off-Grid
June 15, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will be able to light up 60,000 rural homes and also connect new private-sector renewable energy to the urban power grid with a new World Bank credit, the multilateral lender said. Only three-fourths of households in Sri Lanka have grid-connected power and it is too expensive for the […]
Sri Lanka tea strike prunes profits at Maskeliya Plantations
June 14, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Maskeliya Plantations, which produces some of the island’s best high grown teas, has reported a sharp fall in profits following a strike last year. Profit after tax fell 91 percent to 11.3 million rupees in the financial year ended March 31, 2007 from 138 million rupees the year […]
Blocked Call
June 14, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s highest court halted the sale of shares of the country’s largest fixed access operator to a Malaysian firm Thursday, after a lawmaker filed suit against the deal. Sri Lanka Telecom slid 1.50 to close at 37.00 on Thursday. Japan’s NTT which holds a 35.2 percent stake in Sri […]
Big Response
June 14, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s biggest mobile phone company, Dialog Telekom, said Thursday its 15.5 billion rupee cash call had been fully subscribed. . Corrected: Dialog’s parent Telekom Malaysia had bought in full its entitlement under the rights issue, spending 13 billion rupees, a company statement said. The inward foreign currency remittances for […]
” wakes up to new world order
DZIALDOWO, Poland, June 14, 2007 (AFP) – It is the stuff of fairytales and happy endings, the story of a Polish railway worker who woke up to a new world of plenty after falling into a “coma” 19 years ago when Poland was still communist. “The only problem now is having the money to pay […]