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Flying Blind
February 10 (LBO) – SriLankan Airlines’ strategic decision-making has been hit by uncertainty over a management deal between its two main shareholders, a top official said. SriLankan is majority owned by the government of Sri Lanka, but its management was given to Emirates when the Dubai based airline bought a 40 percent stake in 1998. […]
G7 calls for vigilance on hedge funds
ESSEN, Germany, Feb 10, 2007 (AFP) – Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers and central bank chiefs called Saturday for “vigilance” on hedge funds, a trillion-dollar industry that has grown strongly and rapidly in recent years. “Given the strong growth of the hedge fund industry and the instruments they trade, we need to be vigilant,” […]
Sri Lanka president strips security from three sacked ministers
COLOMBO, Feb 10, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse on Saturday withdrew the security detail from three ministers sacked a day earlier, following dissension within the newly appointed jumbo cabinet.Samaraweera was a key ally of Rajapakse during the 2005 presidential election campaign but fell out of favour after he criticised the president for […]
Pension Hit
February, 9 (LBO) – A one-off pension charge hit Commercial Bank of Ceylon’s earnings in the last quarter, dragging down annual profits despite capital gains from equity sales, draft accounts released Friday said. The bank lost 276 million rupees in the December quarter as a 1,738 million rupee charge to a restructured pension scheme took […]
Political Storm
February 9 (LBO) – Three ministers in President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government has been removed from their posts, officials and state television said.Anura Bandaranaike lost the tourism ministry in last month’s cabinet re-shuffle and has been publicly expressing his displeasure. Bandaranaike is former President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s brother. Sri Lanka Freedom Party strongman Mangala Samaraweera who held […]
Feed Line
February 09 (LBO) – A ship carrying essential foodstuff from India is due to reach the Jaffna peninsular next week, an official said. The first ship had brought of 3,200 tonnes of essential foods and this ship would have 1,000 tonnes of rice, 500 tonnes of sugar among its cargo, Nalin Fernando, chairman of the […]
Health Cover
Feb 03 (LBO) – Large numbers of refugees in Sri Lanka are at increased risk of insect borne diseases and failing health, with officials looking for new and novel ways to fight off infection. The number of Sri Lanka™s internally displaced people (IDP) has gone up by 2.8 percent between April 2006 and the end […]
Hello Hello
February 09 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Telecom’s profits surged in the last quarter by 160 percent driven by strong revenue growth taking annual profits up by 76 percent, results released Friday showed. SLT’s group revenue with mobile services rose 25 percent to 40 billion rupees in the year to December, while profits after-tax grew to […]
More Bangladesh politicians arrested for graft
DHAKA, Feb 9, 2007 (AFP) – Two more Bangladeshi politicians including a former minister have been detained as part of the interim government’s anti-corruption drive, officials said Friday.The arrests bring the number detained to 25, ten of whom are former ministers. The detainees have links to both the main political parties. Outgoing junior energy minister […]
China catching up with India in call centre services
BEIJING, Feb 9, 2007 (AFP) – China is catching up with India in providing call centre services, one of the fastest-growing areas of global outsourcing, Chinese state media and a research firm said Friday. The number of employees at call centres in China is likely to rise 22 percent in 2007 to 158,000, while in […]