U.S. presidential election all about the economy First bin Laden, now Iraq Obama shows he can answer the “3 a.m. call” WASHINGTON  (Reuters): President Barack Obama delivered on another foreign policy promise on Friday with plans to pull the last U.S. troops from Iraq. But in a re-election campaign all about the weak U.S. economy, ...

Reuters: Pakistan, Morocco, Togo and Guatemala were elected on Friday to the 15-nation UN Security Council for 2012 and 2013, and Islamabad’s envoy said he looked forward to working with fellow council member India. In the most competitive council elections for years, only Guatemala ran unopposed within its region. Pakistan scraped through in the first ...

GENEVA (Reuters): Global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is slowing sharply in the second half of 2011, with M&A and greenfield projects both declining after a relatively optimistic start to the year, according to a UN report published on Tuesday. “The sudden worsening of the debt crisis in Europe and the United States in the second ...

Reuters: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin laid out his case for a return to Russia’s top office in a televised interview on Monday, casting himself as the best guarantor of a bright future in a country haunted by upheaval in the recent past. Putin also offered hints of the foreign policy

Reuters: Arab foreign ministers stopped short of suspending Syria from their regional organisation on Sunday over its military crackdown on dissent, instead urging the government and opposition to negotiate an end to the violence. “We will call all of the parties of the opposition and government to hold a dialogue within 15 days,” the League’s ...

to resolve its own troubles without support from Russia and fellow BRICs countries. As ...

In business the most difficult part is finding, servicing and retaining markets and market share. In exports, this is even more challenging. The ultimate in value addition is brand marketing. The optimum return in global business is achieved by the growth and development of brands. The national economy where the brand is owned has a ...

In the latest figures available, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) last week reported that the preliminary figures for international visitor arrivals into Asia/Pacific destinations1 for July 2011 show a year-on-year increase of 7%. Director of the PATA Strategic Intelligence Centre John Koldowski PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Centre notes that the growth rate has become more ...

In the previous two ‘My Views,’ the following five popular fallacies of appreciating the exchange rate were discussed: Fallacy One: A Government can fix the exchange rate at any level it wishes. Fallacy Two: An appreciated exchange rate is a symbol of a country’s strength and prestige. Fallacy Three: The appreciation of the exchange rate ...

LONDON(Reuters): World stock markets will recover next year from a nightmarish 2011 that has wiped trillions of dollars off share prices, according to a Reuters poll that showed almost all major stock indexes ending 2011 in the red. Darkening economic prospects and fears the euro zone debt crisis will unravel into financial catastrophe sent global ...

Mismanagement in sports administrationThe role of oligarchs in sports administration, national, regional and international, is not solely a South Asian phenomenon, it is a worldwide cancer. Anyone who has worked in the sports sector in South Asia would have come up against this debilitating factor. It is all pervasive and endemic. Once at a South ...

Time.com: Aboard the Man Gyong Bong, fresh coffee is served, along with dried fish and local beer. Karaoke parties pep the night life. That said, turn on a faucet and there’s usually no water – and cabins are more like dormitories. Welcome to North Korea’s first cruise ship. If all goes according to the plans ...

The just concluded 21st FACETS Sri Lanka 2011 international gem and jewellery exhibition saw strong sales to foreign buyers ‘easily exceeding US $ 10 Million’ but the overall totals could be far higher. More than 7300 visitors attended the show of which more than 1300 were foreign visitors. The topmost preference for foreign buyers was ...

Developing countries, having recovered pre-crisis growth trends, could now be affected by recession in developed economiesEconomic recovery may come to an end in developed economies because private domestic demand remains weak and supportive macroeconomic policies are being replaced by austerity measures as governments try to regain the confidence of the financial markets. By contrast, developing ...

The gem mining sub-sector grew by 7.9% in 2010. The gem and jewellery exports too reported 1.56% positive growth in 2010. Even in the first-half of 2011, increased earnings from mineral exports were led by higher exports of gems which increased by 35.5% in the first half of 2011, according to the Central Bank. The ...

This is a headline article of Khaleej Times – one of the most prominent and leading newspapers in the United Arab Emirates.  According to the news item 350milion population in the Arab World is in need of 160,000 doctors.  In the UAE out of the population 80% are expatriates mainly from South Asia.   The ...

SRI Lanka’s medical sphere is about to get sick again. The current standoff between the government and doctors over the Malabe Medical College has reached serious proportions. On Wednesday the strike action led to the doctors demanding that the gazette notification empowering the medical college to award degrees be withdrawn by the Health Ministry unless ...

Despite crises in most world markets, the Government yesterday remained upbeat on prospects for Sri Lanka’s exports which have grown by 35% so far to reach $ 5 billion giving optimism that end 2011 figure would top $ 10 billion. “On the back of 21% growth in exports in 2010, current year’s exports have grown ...

Reuters: England piled more misery on India with a thrilling six-wicket victory in a one-off Twenty20 match at Old Trafford on Wednesday. After losing the test series 4-0, India started brightly in the shortest version of the game and racked up 165 all out, only to see England reach their target with three balls to ...

Now Sri Lanka is enjoying the dividends of peace. The growth of the tourism sector can be witnessed. This is more important for economic growth since the country always depends on garments as well as traditional exports like tea. Especially for products like garments, we have to import the materials from overseas. So the net ...

It’s strange how the innovations of the world tend to wrap around our daily life. One of them is the brand Facebook. I have been trying to locate a friend of mine for the last 12 years and failed, until I used a modern IT application like FB and today I realise the power of ...

Eshana De Silva, the Chairman of the Esna Group of Companies and Shermans Logistics has been officially appointed as the Honorary Consul to Kazakhstan. De Silva is also a Director of Pan Asia Bank, Mc Marine and functions as a board member of the Board of Investment (BOI) and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA). ...

Sri Lanka fails to find funding; project cost now at $2 bln Talks with Russia, S.Korea to double refinery capacity COLOMBO  (Reuters): Sri Lanka is eyeing at least $2 billion in foreign investment to double the capacity of its sole decades-old oil refinery, after the island nation was unable

Italian oil company Eni led the charge back into Libya on Monday as rebels hailing the end of Muammar Gadaffi’s rule warned Russian and Chinese firms that they may lose out on lucrative oil contracts for failing to support the rebellion. Gadaffi’s fall will reopen the doors to Africa’s largest oil reserves and give new ...

A son of Muammar Gaddafi, previously reported captured, made a surprise appearance with jubilant supporters in Tripoli overnight, urging loyalists to fight off rebels who say they control most of the Libyan capital. Saif al-Islam, seen as his father’s chosen successor, visited the Tripoli hotel where foreign journalists are staying to declare that the government ...

Reuters: A hotel in orbit, lunar sightseeing flights and luxury rides into the cosmos – all are part of Russia’s vision to ensure it is not left behind in the growing space tourism industry. Russian firms unveiled their plans at the country’s premiere air show this week

LONDON (Reuters) – Gold demand fell in the second quarter but is still expected to rise in the full year as Asian buyers add to holdings and interest in the metal as a haven is stoked by worries over U.S. and euro zone debt, the World Gold Council said on Thursday. In its quarterly Gold ...

A queue of a different type Last Sunday when the sun was shining hot and bright in the western sky, thousands of youth — almost all were boys — had assembled themselves with backpacks still hanging on their backs, along the wrought iron fence of a park in Colombo ready for an overnight stay there. ...