The location of Sri Lanka has a strategic significance and this has been proven by the historical trading activities between Sri Lanka and ancient China, Egypt, and the Roman Empire. There is ample evidence to show that Sri Lanka was a main trading hub in Asia. The reasons for occupation of Sri Lanka by the ...

Xinhua: Sri Lanka’s topmost Tamil minority minister in the northern town of Jaffna on is  confident that the government will be able to finalise a political solution for the Tamils. The minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development, Douglas Devananda, told Xinhua in an interview that the solution should be based on 13 Amendment ...

A number of articles which appeared in print media in the recent past signify the volatility in the economy. High volatility leads to vulnerability. Volatility and vulnerability are reflections of the haphazard nature of the economic policies and poor economic governance in a country. What is volatility? Volatility is the severity and the frequency with ...

Reuters: Maria Sharapova pushed the envelope on ‘winning ugly’ as she squeaked past British qualifier Heather Watson 6-7 6-3 6-4 to reach the last 16 of the Pan Pacific Open on Tuesday. The French Open champion’s performance bordered on the farcical at times, carelessly frittering away three set points to surrender the initiative before pulling ...

The first Prime Minister of independent India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote 75 years ago: “It would be absurd to say that the profit motive does not appeal to the average Indian, but it is nevertheless true that there is no such admiration for it in India as there is in the west. The possessor of ...

2012 unlikely to match up to 2011 tea revenue; stakeholders’ voice uncertaintya By Cheranka Mendis The tea industry which brought in revenue of approximately US$ 675 million within the first six months of this year – US$ 50 million below the revenue collected in the same period in 2011 – is likely to fall short ...

Reuters: Asia-Pacific nations including China, the United States and Russia will promise measures to boost growth on Sunday and reject limits on food exports to try to revive the flagging global economy. Countries on the Pacific Rim were expected to end a two-day summit on an island off the Russian

Reuters: President Barack Obama asked Americans on Thursday for patience in rebuilding the weak economy as he appealed for a new term in office and defiantly rejected Republican Mitt Romney’s proposals for growth as heartless. Accepting the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention, Obama gave a more down-to-earth follow-up to his 2008 “hope and ...

NAIROBI (Reuters): Kenya’s horticulture export earnings are expected to grow by 10%this year thanks to above-normal rainfall, but the eurozone’s financial woes were expected to dampen demand for flowers, a senior industry official said on Monday. Horticulture is one of the east African country’s leading sources of foreign exchange alongside tea exports and tourism. The ...

Last week I had the opportunity of meeting Hermawan Kartajaya, one of the top 50 gurus who has shaped the world of marketing. His perspective to the changing landscape of marketing and what business must do sure opened my mind set to a new way of thinking business and Sri Lanka’s policy decision making. Hermawan ...

Disruption to food production, due to adverse weather conditions in USA, China, Russia and India could contribute to a spike in world food prices. Due to its direct exposure to global supply disruptions, Sri Lanka could be adversely affected, warns Sri Lankaandrsquo;s economic think tank andndash

The worst drought in the US in at least five decades has resulted in the loss of one-sixth of the expected corn crop. The UD Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated that corn farmers have been compelled to abandon fields greater in area than Belgium and Luxembourg combined, following the hottest July ever recorded in ...

PARIS/LONDON (Reuters): Leading members of the Group of 20 nations are prepared to trigger an emergency meeting to address soaring grain prices caused by the worst US drought in more than half a century and poor crops from the Black Sea bread basket. France, the United States and G20 president Mexico will hold a conference ...

Reuters: Usain Bolt and Jamaica’s speedsters smashed the 4×100 metres world record, Britain’s Mo Farah brought London to its feet with another golden distance win and Mexico broke Brazilian soccer hearts in a thrilling penultimate day of Olympic action. But Saturday’s sporting highs were tempered by news that a Syrian runner was expelled from the ...

Tea is our pride, for which we can be proud of for the reason that it is the best tea on the globe. It is the duty of every Sri Lankan, especially the diplomatic missions worldwide, to defend and promote our silver inherited as much as the beauty of Sri Lanka which is matchless. Sri ...

Playing off India against China and vice versa‘The Great Game’ was the name given to a diplomatic and military tussle between the British and Russian empires during the time of the British Raj in India for influence over what constitutes today’s central Asian states. Commonly known as the ‘Stan states,’ they were located along the ...

A farewell dinner was organised by the Sri Lanka-Russia Business Council of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce for Vladimir Mikhaylov and Madam Mikhaylov in recognition of the yeomen services rendered by Mikhaylov during his tenure as the Patron of the Council. The event was held on 6 July 2012

Reuters: A visibly shaken Kofi Annan admitted defeat in his attempts to bring peace to Syria on Thursday, but – perhaps keen to protect his legacy from the taint of another genocide – laid the blame for the failure on the big powers that claim to back him. Syria was the best chance for Annan, ...

Reuters: The International Monetary Fund on Thursday called for a “policy game changer” in the euro zone to arrest the spread of the debt crisis it now says is clearly engulfing the entire currency bloc and its smaller neighbors. An IMF spillover report that looks at how the economic policies of the so-called systemic five ...

SINGAPORE (Reuters): The sanctions reducing Iran’s oil exports have played in the favour of major producers such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela which now export about 21 percent more crude to Asia’s biggest buyers compared to a year ago. Iran’s exports to China, Japan

Reuters: Russia has made no agreement to grant Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asylum and is “not even thinking about” doing so, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday. The remarks fell short of a statement that Russia would not consider taking in Assad but were among Moscow

Five teenage schoolchildren from Sri Lanka who had lost a family member to an act of terrorism attended this year’s ‘Project Common Bond’, a weeklong peace building and conflict resolution program held in the US. The program was organised by Tuesday’s Children, a New York based non-profit organisation serving the needs of those affected by ...

The Tourism Authority of Thailand has unveiled a series of strategies designed to maintain, enhance and promote Thailand’s brand image, marketing profile and visitor arrivals. TAT has set a 2013 target of 22.22 million international visitor arrivals, generating estimated foreign exchange revenues of 966 billion Baht (US$ 30.62 billion, based on the exchange rate of ...

UNCTAD released its World Investment Report 2012 recently. The report indicated that for the first time since 2007, global FDI inflows increased by 16% despite the continuing effects of the global and financial economic crisis. However, UNCTAD predicts the FDI growth rates to decline in 2012 due to economic uncertainty and the possibility of lower ...

By Shamil Samsul Mueen 1. Introduction The global financial crisis has raised imperative issues concerning the stability and reliability of existing financial systems. This has driven an extensive global re-examination on the competence of the existing financial architecture and the search for a more enduring solution. As a result an increasing interest in Islamic finance ...

Four examples; two bad and two goodThe website of the London Economist newspaper has a reference to an official of a certain country referring to a journalist in words similar to what follows – I have substituted words which would be appropriate to an officer and a gentleman addressing a lady, for what was actually ...