Category:
Sri Lanka rupee pressured as IMF praises Hong Kong currency board
Dec 15, 2008 (LBO) – The International Monetary Fund has praised the robust ‘hard peg’ (currency board) of Hong Kong with the US dollar even as Sri Lanka rupee’s ‘soft peg’ is under severe pressure from central bank liquidity injections. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has maintained a fixed exchange rate system or currency […]
Sri Lanka prints money to buy tea in Zimbabwe-style move
Dec 14, 2008 (LBO) – State-run Sri Lanka Tea Board has spent over 200 million rupees to buy tea, using printed money from the Central Bank, in a Zimbabwe-style inflationary quasi-fiscal move, the latest information reveals. Tea Board chairman Lalith Hettiarachchi said last week that it had bought almost a million kilograms of tea worth […]
India denies violating Pakistani airspace
NEW DELHI, December 14, 2008 (AFP) – India on Sunday denied any of its aircraft had intruded into Pakistani air space, as tensions ran high between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours over the Mumbai attacks.Pakistan’s air force said Indian jets flew over the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir and the eastern city of Lahore, both places […]
Sri Lanka mounts air strikes as troops move to take Tiger HQ
December 14, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s military carried out an intense aerial bombardment as ground troops were poised to overrun the Tamil Tiger rebels’ political headquarters, the defence ministry said Sunday. Air force planes carried out nine bombing sorties against positions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the district of Kilinochchi […]
Sri Lanka diplomats decry encroachment
Dec 14, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s professional diplomats have slammed a practice by government politicians of appointing friends, relations and cronies to missions abroad, saying it damaged the country’s interests. The letter was aimed at highlighting the habit of successive governments and foreign ministers of rewarding friends, cronies and political supporters with overseas appointments […]
Piracy
NAIROBI, December 13, 2008 (AFP) – Somali pirates have released a Greek chemical tanker seized in October but three crew members are feared dead, a Kenyan maritime official said Saturday. Somali pirates are still holding at least 14 foreign vessels and more than 300 crew members to ransom, including an arms-laden Ukrainian cargo and a […]
Golden Years
Dec 13, 2008 (LBO) – With recessionary fears looming the need to secure one’s financial future has become even more important, though recent double digit inflation is eating almost all the disposable income of most average Sri Lankan, says a top analyst. You will have to go about setting a plan to achieve that objective. […]
Governance Issue
Dec 13, 2008 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka divisional council of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) has been suspended over a governance failure, its parent body in the United Kingdom said. CIMA said its operations and services to members in Sri Lanka would continue as usual and it would take action to build […]
Myanmar to hold five-day gems auction: state media
YANGON, December 13, 2008 (AFP) – Military-run Myanmar announced Saturday it would hold an auction of precious gems in Yangon early next year, despite economic sanctions banning their international trade.Europe also intensified economic sanctions on the regime after a deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters last year, while Washington and human rights groups have urged gem […]
” for a day
Dec 12, 2008 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka rupee traded freely for possibly the first time in 2008, on last trading day of the week dealers said, while inter bank money market liquidity turned positive. Analysts say dealers would be treading warily when the market opens next week to see whether the central bank allow […]
Scientific Research
Dec 12, 2008 (LBO) – A Master Debater has once boasted that he normally employs three ploys to subdue his difficult customers. ˜When I find that my opponent is not easily surmountable, I use mathematics, philosophy and religion to subdue him’, he has confessed. ˜Mathematical equations frighten him, philosophical expressions confuse him and religious sayings […]
Major Sumatran quake, tsunami likely in decades: study
SINGAPORE, December 12, 2008 (AFP) – More than one million people on Indonesia’s Sumatra island are vulnerable to a massive earthquake and tsunami potentially more destructive than one which struck four years ago, scientists who released a study Friday warned. The quake and tsunami are likely within the next few decades, they said. On December […]