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Post-tsunami boat building not up to par: FAO
ROME, Mar. 28 (AFP) – Thousands of replacement fishing vessels constructed since the Asian tsunami of December 26, 2004 are unsafe and flat-out dangerous, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization warned Tuesday.Tsunami-affected countries must “redouble their efforts to ensure that fishing boats built to replace those destroyed during the 2004 disaster meet minimum safety standards,” […]
Sri Lanka mediator to meet rebel negotiator
OSLO, Mar. 28 (AFP) – The top mediator in Sri Lanka’s peace process, Erik Solheim of Norway, will meet with the rebels’ leading negotiator in London on Wednesday to discuss peace progress on the war-torn island, the Norwegian government said.Solheim and Tamil rebel negotiator Anton Balasingham will prepare the groundwork for a meeting between the […]
Damage Control
Mar. 27 (LBO) – Sri Lanka may impose a cess of up to 10 percent on imports to plug a loss in tax revenues, when import tariffs are lowered in April under the Indo-Lanka free trade deal.“Cesses will be used in the future to mitigate the negative impact of the increased preference for imports from […]
Sri Lanka bans fishing after gunboat sinking
Mar. 27 (AFP) – Sri Lanka banned deep-sea fishing off its troubled northern coast from Monday, two days after Tiger rebels blew up a navy gunboat and killed eight sailors, a defence official said.The ban would apply to all fishing trawlers and vessels would need written permission from navy chief Wasantha Karannagoda to enter the […]
Audit Protest
Mar.26 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s government auditors are threatening industrial action against chronic inaction by authorities and the parliament to crackdown on corruption and other shortcomings highlighted by them.The angry tones follows a statement attributed to the treasury secretary, which appeared in a Sunday weekly, criticising the audit report for having brought disrepute the public […]
Monitors say gunboat sinking could push Sri Lanka back to war
Mar. 26 (AFP) – Scandinavian truce monitors have said that an alleged Tamil Tiger suicide attack which sank a navy gunboat and killed eight sailors could push Sri Lanka back towards war.The Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said they could not accept a denial by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of […]
Sri Lankan begins probe in to suicide sinking of gunboat
Mar.26 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s navy Sunday began a probe into a Tamil rebel attack on a gunboat that left eight sailors missing, presumed dead, military officials said. The defence ministry said the gunboat was blown out of the water as it approached a suspected Tamil Tiger trawler off the island’s northwestern coast on Saturday. […]
Eight Sri Lankan sailors presumed dead in Tamil Tiger Suicide blast
Mar. 25 (AFP) – Eight sailors from the Sri Lankan navy were presumed killed Saturday when a group of suspected Tiger rebels blew themselves up and sank a navy gunboat that approached their trawler, the military said.Six suspected rebels were killed in the blast. The defence ministry said the sinking of the navy craft was […]
Sri Lanka taps international markets to change debt profile
Mar. 24 (LBO) — Sri Lanka is working on changing its debt profile, replacing old concessional loans with overseas borrowings and re-allocating low yielding foreign loans to other projects, the treasury secretary said Thursday. Treasury Secretary P B Jayasundara said the island was floating an international bond this year to raise between US$500 million to […]
Sri Lanka on path to cut interest rates later this year
Mar. 24 (LBO) — Sri Lanka is likely to cut interest rates later this year, in a backdrop of declining inflation, a top bureaucrat who plays a key role in the country’s fiscal and monetary policies said Thursday. “There has been a consecutive drop in inflation over the past few months, which leaves room for […]