Category: Other
Sri Lanka tightens corn imports
March 19, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has tightened rules on corn imports to arrest falling domestic farm gate prices with a record area under cultivation this year, a government minister said.For the 2008/2009 cultivation season 65,850 hectares of corn are expected to be put under the crop and 60,582 has already been planted. The […]
Indian government faces elections as economy dives
NEW DELHI, March 18, 2009 (AFP) – Nineteen-year-old Souraj Thapa has never heard of the global financial crisis, but he’s finding that his job chances are drying up. “I’ve been to three companies but they’re not hiring,” said Thapa, a delivery courier in the Indian capital whose previous company went out of business and who […]
Auditing Blues
Mar 17, 2009 (LBO) – A new Sri Lankan national audit bill expected to be presented for legislative approval shortly will grant the government’s chief audit officer and his department greater autonomy, officials said. It will increase the powers of the Auditor General’s (AG) Department to clean up government departments with weak internal controls that […]
Sri Lanka rupee overvaluation seen hurting tea exports
March 16, 2009 (LBO) – An artificially strong rupee could further hurt exports of Sri Lankan tea to key markets whose currencies have been devalued in recent months, a brokerage has warned.Asia Siyaka Commodities said Colombo auction tea prices would remain firm in the first quarter, with a probable dip in the second, and pick […]
Maldives leader vows to make country carbon neutral
LONDON, March 14, 2009 (AFP) – The Maldives will become the world’s first carbon neutral country by fully switching to the use of renewable energy within a decade, President Mohamed Nasheed said in an article to be published Sunday.“People often tell me caring for the environment is too difficult, too expensive or too much bother.I […]
Sri Lanka tea prices up as crop plunges
March 13, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan tea prices rose again at this week’s Colombo auction mainly because volumes had fallen sharply owing to drought but crops are expected to revive with the onset of some rains. Forbes and Walker Tea Brokers said Sri Lanka’s tea production in January 2009 was the lowest in 15 […]
Cricket Impresario
WASHINGTON, March 11, 2009 (AFP) – Cricket mogul and financier Allen Stanford is refusing to cooperate with authorities investigating his role in an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud, court documents showed Wednesday. The Texas magnate who faces civil charges linked to luring investors into 9.2 billion dollars in securities under fraudulent pretenses, is using his constitutional guarantee […]
India in major embassy security review: report
NEW DELHI, March 11, 2009 (AFP) – India is to conduct a massive security review of key missions in South Asia following threats against its nationals in Afghanistan, a report said Wednesday. The Indian Express newspaper reported that officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs, spy agency the Intelligence Bureau and the elite counter-terrorism National […]
No Bail
March 11, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Ceylinco group chairman Lalith Kotelawala remained in remand over fraud charges at an unlisted subsidiary that has collapsed with a court Wednesday also ordering a halt to any sale of the firm’s assets.The Ceylinco group has put on sale several of its subsidiaries and properties to raise funds […]
Sri Lanka aims to be South Asian shopper paradise
Mar 10, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s biggest state bank has proposed a bold project to make the island a Dubai-style duty free shopping mecca for the billion-plus consumers on the Indian sub-continent. Gamini Wickramasinghe, chairman of Bank of Ceylon (BOC), said much revenue can be generated by enticing visitors from the region, exploiting the […]
No Kidding
Mar 09, 2009 (LBO) – One day a wealthy Englishman travels to Italy on business.While there he decides to buy a hand-crafted cupboard to furnish his new summer home in Spain.He visits an exclusive store in Rome, which sells furniture sourced from a small carpentry workshop in Morocco.This furniture is fabricated from wood imported from […]
” in cricket attack
SLAMABAD, March 7, 2009 (AFP) – Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan believes a “foreign element” could be involved in this week’s attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, according to an interview published Saturday. “It could be India, Afghanistan, the Tamil Tigers,” Khan was quoted as saying in an interview published online by The Times […]