Category: Other
Arrested
COLOMBO, September 7, 2013 (AFP) – Sri Lankan police have arrested a navy officer suspected of involvement in smuggling people in fishing boats to Australia, officials said Saturday. Australia announced tough new measures in mid-July to discourage illegal boatpeople. Since then, local police have apprehended three boats and detained 300 Sri Lankans, including 56 women […]
Sri Lanka offered hi-tec dairy farm by Dutch firm
Sept 06, 2013 (LBO) – A Netherlands based company has offered to set up a hi-tec dairy farm with processing facilities with high yield milch cows, provided suitable land with fresh water is made available, officials said. Velema Holdings, a Netherland based investment firm, is offering to put together a turnkey dairy facility if about […]
” violence
MALE, September 5, 2013 (AFP) – The Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives goes to the polls this weekend for a presidential election that will test its young democracy 18 months after a violent change in leadership. Its more than 1,000 islands sit aside the world’s most important east-west shipping channel and its strategic location […]
‘s plans
MUMBAI, September 5, 2013 (AFP) – India’s rupee strengthened and stocks jumped Thursday after new central bank governor Raghuram Rajan outlined a reform plan aimed at boosting investor confidence and stabilising the ailing currency.The rupee climbed to 65.75 against the dollar, gaining nearly two percent from its previous close, on investor hopes the worst could […]
”s love of gold
KATHMANDU, September 4, 2013 (AFP) – After a long drive from across the border in China, the white truck arrived in Nepal’s capital at dawn with a seemingly innocuous cargo of Chinese-made clothes. But hidden in a cylinder inside the vehicle’s front bumper was the latest haul of gold smuggled from Tibet — bars weighing […]
‘s central bank amid storm
MUMBAI, September 4, 2013 (AFP) – Top economist Raghuram Rajan, renowned for predicting the 2008 global financial crisis, took over as India’s central bank chief on Wednesday as the country faces its worst financial storm in years. Rajan, a former IMF chief economist, replaced Duvvuri Subbarao as governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), […]
Bollywood cuts costs as rupee crisis bites: study
MUMBAI, September 2, 2013 (AFP) – Bollywood producers have long been fond of filming in exotic foreign locations, but the spiralling Indian currency has seen spending on movie sets abroad drop by one third, according to a study released Monday.The Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) says that the amount spent on […]
‘s rupee falls sharply, shares slump almost 3.5-pct
MUMBAI, September 3, 2013 (AFP) – India’s currency fell sharply Tuesday and stocks tumbled nearly 3.5 percent in another major sell-off caused by uncertainty in the Middle East and a new gloomy economic forecast by Goldman Sachs. On Monday, an HSBC survey showed that India’s manufacturing shrank in August for the first time in over […]
India may shut petrol pumps at night to save rupee
NEW DELHI, September 2, 2013 (AFP) – India is considering closing fuel pumps at night as one of a number of “austerity measures” aimed at cutting its ballooning oil import bills, the oil minister said.The government has partially deregulated petrol and hiked diesel prices in an effort to contain the ballooning debt caused in part […]
Migration
SYDNEY, September 2, 2013 (AFP) – New policies targeting asylum-seekers taking boats to Australia had “broken the back” of the people-smuggling trade, Immigration Minister Tony Burke said Monday, claiming victory on the sensitive election issue. Burke said the ruling Labor party’s plan to send all asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Papua New Guinea and Nauru […]
Forestry Case
Aug 02, 2013 (LBO) – A provincial High Court in Sri Lanka is to hear a petition to wind up Touchwood Investments, a Colombo-based forestry firm, according to a newspaper notice placed by lawyers. A notice in Sri Lanka’s Daily News, newspaper said, a resident of Rajagiriya, a suburb of Colombo has petitioned the High […]
Indian Oil Corp. raises petrol, diesel prices
NEW DELHI, September 1, 2013 (AFP) – India’s biggest refiner, Indian Oil Corporation, increased petrol prices by more than 3.5 percent from Sunday, blaming the falling rupee for the hike. The company also raised diesel prices by just over one percent, it said in a statement issued late on Saturday, after a week which saw […]