Author: lbostgadmin
Maldives gets ready for August polls
May 7, 2008 ( LBO) – The Indian Ocean Island of Maldives is in the final stages of wrapping up its new constitution, which will pave the way for the nation’s first multi-party elections this year, officials said Tuesday.Political parties have only been legal on the 1,192 coral islands since 2005 when President Maumoon Abdul […]
UAE urged to limit foreigner visas to six years
DUBAI, May 7, 2008 (AFP) – The United Arab Emirates, whose booming economy functions thanks to millions of foreign workers, has been urged to put a six-year cap on their residency, a local newspaper reported on Wednesday.The internal affairs and defence committee of the consultative Federal National Council (FNC), said the workers should leave the […]
‘s Bharti joins 700-million-dollar cable project linking Britain
BANGALORE, India, May 7, 2008 (AFP) – Bharti Airtel, India’s top mobile-phone operator, said Wednesday it had joined a consortium to build a 700-million-dollar submarine cable system. Bharti signed a construction and maintenance agreement in London for the Europe India Gateway (EIG), the first high-bandwidth, optical-fibre cable system from India to Britain, the company said. […]
Brand Value
May 07, 2008 (LBO) – Dialog Telekom, Sri Lanka’s top celco has been named the most valuable brand in Sri Lanka in a ranking by Brand Finance, the company said Wednesday. The Dialog brand has been valued at 12.4 billion Sri Lanka rupees, retaining its place from last year. The ranking uses publicly available data […]
Netting Victims
May 07, 2008 (LBO) – Hundreds of Indian victims of the Goldquest scheme are flocking to police to lodge complaints after courts ordered authorities to re-open investigations in to the scheme, media reports said. By Tuesday, more than 600 victims who lost their money in the Goldquest’s multi-level scheme had filed complaints, Times of India […]
Sri Lanka tea exports to Iran face high duties, packet ban
May 07, 2008 (LBO) – High import duty rates and a ban on packet tea imports by Iran is preventing Sri Lankan tea exporters from better penetrating a potentially lucrative market, industry officials said. Instead, a lot of the Sri Lankan tea that reaches Iran is smuggled over its borders, with Dubai as the region’s […]
Profit Growth
May 07, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Nations Trust Bank (NTB) group profits grew 41 percent to 144.2 million rupees in the March quarter with total revenue growing by half, interim results filed with the stock exchange showed. Group revenue was up 50 percent to 2,991 million rupees and interest expense grew 58 percent to […]
Sri Lanka warned off short-term debt as T-bills opened to foreigners
May 07, 2008 (LBO) – Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has warned of the narrowing maturity of Sri Lanka’s commercial debt just as the country opened its Treasury bill market to foreign investors. “The rising share of external debt, estimated at about 49 percent of total, and within that, the proportion of more expensive and shorter-maturity […]
Sri Lanka highways authority funds drained by overstaffing: official
May 06, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s road development bureaucracy is hugely overstaffed and a drain on public funds and unable to effectively maintain the island’s road network, a senior government official says. Sirisena Amarasekera, secretary, ministry of highways and road development, says there are around 10,000 people, including maintenance workers, in highway and road […]
Sri Lanka plans medical help to Myanmar
May 06, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is planning to send a team of medical doctors and nurses to Myanmar, the foreign ministry said. Media reports said around 22,000 people are believed to have been killed by a cyclone that raged through the country last week. The government was also making a donation of 25,000 […]
Yahoo still open to a takeover offer from Microsoft: report
LONDON, May 6, 2008 (AFP) – Yahoo’s Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang defended his handling of failed takeover negotiations with Microsoft and said he remains open to an offer from the US software giant, in an interview published Tuesday in the Financial Times. Yang told the paper he was willing to negotiate but Microsoft pulled […]
Myanmar rulers under fire over cyclone
YANGON, May 6, 2008 (AFP) – Myanmar’s military rulers were under fire Tuesday after revealing more than 10,000 people died in the cyclone that battered the secretive and impoverished nation, with thousands more missing. As relief agencies scrambled to get food, clean water and supplies into a country that normally scorns foreign aid, US First […]