Tag: lankabusinessonline

The President has asked Premier Ranil to come alone to her chambers for a Tuesday morning rendezvous.The Premier was due to meet the President with other party leaders to find recourse for the current power struggle.rn rnHowever, the President has said she is prepared to meet the PM at 10.30 am on Tuesday on condition […]

Top business leaders and civil society organizations were staying quiet despite political moves that have jeopardized the peace process and the economic recovery.Analysts criticized business community and other civil society organizations for standing by while political and economic uncertainty mounted in the country.rn rnCritics say businesses were trying to protect their narrow agendas as the […]

The Norwegians took their foot off the LTTE and the peace process on Friday, following a week of political uncertainty. The international donor community and the investor fraternity have been closely monitoring developments on the peace front, as over US$ 4 bn in foreign aid is tied up pending an end to the political impasse.rn […]

Talks between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe ended in an impasse with both parties expected to continue discussions next week.Locked in a bitter power battle, both parties met behind closed-doors for just under three hours on Wednesday and sources said neither side showed signs of backing down.rn rnHowever, a joint statement is […]

In the heat of the moment, when passions raged and reached a climax over the Presidents swift move, PA parliamentarian Dr. Sarath Amunugama says her actions were driven by lquote sex and the lquote Sinhalese culture.Amunugama told journalists on Wednesday that UNF stalwarts were planning a late night adult entertainment belt or a separate lquote […]

Moves of a Nov. 19 budget re-surfaced, as President Chandrika Kumaratunga met with representatives from multilateral donor agencies on Wednesday, to assure her full support for ongoing economic reforms.Representatives were assured that Parliament would re-open and the budget presented on time, to ensure donor commitments are met, Presidents Senior Advisor, Mano Tittawella told Lanka Business […]

Sri Lankas ruling party MPs have been offered up to four million dollars in cash and foreign scholarships to defect to the presidents party, a government minister said TuesdaySeven MPs from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghes United National Party (UNP) had been approached by President Chandrika Kumaratungas loyalists with the cash offer to cross the floor […]

Most of the US$ 4.5 bn pledged in aid as well as a second US$ 80 mn tranche from the IMF is due in December, tied to conditions in the proposed budget.rn rnPlans to present the budget in Parliament on November 12 were scuttled when the President suspended parliament last week.rn rnldblquote Representatives of the […]

The Sri Lankan presidents plan to oust her archrival prime minister through a constitutional maneuver may have backfired and caused new rifts within her ranks, politicians and analysts say. A member of Kumaratungas coalition Peoples Alliance (PA) said she had failed to muster defections from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghes party to ldblquote push through a […]

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told his cabinet Monday that he was ready to face a snap election to end a bitter stand-off with a hostile president, a government spokesman said.The government was prepared for an election, four years ahead of schedule, to get over the political impasse after President Chandrika Kumaratunga sacked three […]

Peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels have been postponed until the political crisis in Sri Lanka is resolved, the governments chief peace negotiator G.L. Peiris said Monday.“Given everything that has happened in the past few days, it is logical to assume that we have to resolve the threshold issue before […]

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has put the peace process on the board as the latest move in a game of political-chess that started last week with President Kumaratunga taking over three ministries.After meeting the ambassadors of Norway and United States, the two co-chairs of the Tokyo donor conference on Sunday, government spokesman G L Pieris […]