Category: Other
Sri Lanka rains delay tea quality season
Feb 05, 2010 (LBO) – Heavy rains in some of Sri Lanka™s tea growing regions have delayed the onset of the quality season when plantations companies get high prices for their teas, brokers said. Prices fell at this week™s auction as larger volumes went on sale but sale quantities are expected to decline as dry […]
Sri Lanka state says ready to buy paddy output
Feb 05, 2010 (LBO) – A Sri Lanka state agency is to be given money to buy 140,000 metric tonnes of paddy produced in the upcoming main cultivation season to maintain farm-gate prices, a government minister said. Sri Lanka has high rice prices and from late December the government brought down high import tariffs to […]
Sparks fly as Bollywood, cricket and politics collide
MUMBAI, February 4, 2010 (AFP) – India’s twin obsessions of cricket and Bollywood are at the heart of a bitter row that has broken out between the country’s top film star and a radical right-wing party in the movie capital Mumbai. The dispute, which has seen the ultra Hindu-nationalist Shiv Sena party threatening to scupper […]
Sri Lanka re-opens two wildlife parks
Feb 03, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has re-opened two wildlife parks in the country’s south and east which are famed for migratory birds and elephants, after an internal conflict which had kept them closed had ended, a top official said. Since the parks opened last week a few visitors had trickled in, but officials […]
False Himalaya glacier scare hurt global warming claims
LONDON, February 3, 2010 (AFP) – The embattled chief of the UN climate change panel admitted Wednesday that a mistake in a landmark 2007 report had damaged the body’s credibility, in an interview with a British newspaper. But Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), refused to apologise in the interview […]
Sri Lanka Hayleys to increase exports to food chains
Feb 03, 2010 (LBO) –Sri Lanka™s Hayleys conglomerate is building a factory in the former war zone in the east to increase exports of pickled gherkins to food companies such as McDonald™s and Burger King. The partnership will open up new markets for farmers in the east, increase their incomes and expand the economic base […]
Sri Lanka Horana Plantations Dec net up on high tea prices
Feb 02, 2010 (LBO) – High tea prices helped Sri Lanka’s Horana Plantations to make a profit of 75 million rupees in the December, according to accounts filed with the stock exchange. Horana Plantations said the wage deal was effective from April 2009 and that wage arrears amounting to 68.05 million rupees has been recognised […]
Sri Lanka CIC profits up on government receipts
Feb 01, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Chemical Industries (Colombo) has returned to profit in the December 2009 quarter helped by a 250 million rupee past due payment from the government. In its annual report last year the firm said Chemcel (Pvt) Ltd, would make a speciality chemical with a US partner and was held […]
Maldives in privatization drive to up efficiency, fix finances: IMF
Jan 31, 2010 (LBO) – The Indian Ocean archipelago of Maldives will privatize its airport but could also sell down other state enterprises and bring private capital to a domestic bank, the International Monetary Fund has said. “A central plank will be the privatization of the airport, but stakes in the telecommunications company have already […]
Maldives pledges deepest carbon emission cut by 2020
Jan 31, 2010 (LBO) – Maldives has voluntarily pledged to slash carbon emissions 100 percent by 2020, which is the deepest cut promised by any country so far under an international accord, the Indian Ocean archipelago said. “Climate change threatens us all,” Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed said in a statement. “If we don’t act now, […]
Media Muzzle
January 30, 2010 (AFP) – Police in Sri Lanka shut down the offices of an opposition newspaper on Saturday, the weekly said, as international rights groups accused the authorities of a vendetta against critical media. Police went to the offices of the Lanka weekly and sealed the premises, a day after taking its editor into […]
Lawmaker bids to make Nepal gay tourism destination
KATHMANDU, January 24, 2010 (AFP) – Nepal will this year play host to a royal wedding with a difference when an openly gay Indian prince marries his partner at a Hindu temple in Kathmandu. The ceremony is the start of what Nepalese lawmaker Sunil Babu Pant hopes will become a lucrative business for his country, […]