All Blogs
Toll of aid workers killed in Sri Lanka rises to 17
TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Police have recovered the bodies of 17 aid workers employed by the Paris-based Charity Action Against Hunger (ACF) and autopsies were underway Tuesday, officials said.The aid agency and authorities had initially thought that 15 ACF staff were shot dead at work in the nearby coastal town of […]
Grief-stricken Sri Lankan refugees haunted by conflict
TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Grief-stricken men, women and children trudge to a refugee camp after fleeing deadly fighting through ghost towns and past decomposing bodies, haunted by what they have seen.They are escaping from Sri Lanka’s troubled northeast and many do not talk, instead simply gesturing for food and water. Stunned […]
Sri Lanka sells 3-year bonds at 11.05%
August 7, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Central Bank sold three-year treasury bonds at yields of 11.05 percent on Monday, after rejecting all bids at a similar auction last week.The bank offered a billion rupees worth of bonds to the market but accepted only 850 million rupees worth of bids. Current Auction Maturity June 2009 […]
Friendship Bridge
August 7, 2006 (LBO) – The United States government Monday kicked off a project to build a 10.6 million dollar high-tech bridge at Arugam Bay, to replace the original one that was damaged during the tsunami. Dispensed through the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID, the bridge is the single largest infrastructure project in […]
Good Money
August 7, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has picked up 12 million rupees to date from taxing foreign movies, dramas and sitcoms aired on local television stations, President Mahinda Rajapakse said. Rajapakse, who is also the island’s finance minister, introduced the tax late July, to raise funds to boost the ailing local film industry. “We […]
‘ heel of computer security: hackers, pros
LAS VEGAS, Aug 7, 2006 (AFP) – The most vexing weakness in computer security is not in the hardware or the software, it is in the people who use the machines, according to top hackers and cyber safety specialists.“It really is more of a human problem than a technical problem,” Dan Kaminisky of Dox Para […]
‘s play at major US computer hackers conference
LAS VEGAS, Aug 7, 2006 (AFP) – Locks commonly used at homes and businesses worldwide were so easy to pick that children could do it, computer hackers practicing the skill were shown on Sunday.In a Las Vegas casino meeting room devoted to the art of lock picking for the course of a three-day DefCon hackers […]
” taxes
WASHINGTON, Aug 7, 2006 (AFP) – If you had a billion dollars in the bank and lived a jet-set lifestyle out of a string of luxury homes filled with valuable artworks, your taxes would be pretty hefty, right?Well not entirely, according to a Senate probe that has examined hundreds of documents and issued 74 subpoenas […]
Choices: Brand or generic?
August 7, 2006 (LBO) – Generic is cheap and utilitarian. Brand is expensive and status conferring. That’s the common wisdom. But those in the new, hot field of country/place branding say that “every country is a brand, either by default or design.” What is implied is that there are good brands as well as bad. […]
French group finds slain workers in Sri Lanka
Aug 7, 2006 (AFP) – The bodies of 16 slain aid workers were found in Sri Lanka on Monday as new fighting between security forces and Tamil Tiger rebels dashed hope of an immediate end to the violence in the troubled nation.The Tigers said meanwhile that at least 15 more civilians were killed in new […]