BRUSSELS (Reuters): Euro zone economic sentiment defied expectations of stabilisation and again fell sharply in September, underlining the economic gloom brought on by the sovereign debt crisis as the euro zone sinks into a recession. The European Commission’s monthly economic sentiment

The place isn’t a paradise for minorities but the economy is recovering By Sam Baker Asuasentinel.com: The Government of Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka has probably botched its dealings with the United States, the European Union and the United Nations. Still, the disenchantment with Colombo may be overblown three years after the end of the ...

By Shanuka Tissera Amendments to the Petroleum Products (Special Provisions) Act have been finalised and approved by the Attorney General. It is expected that both bills will be presented to Parliament shortly for enactment. Pending the enactment of new legislations, the Cabinet of Ministers has appointed the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) as ...

Reuters: China’s top state newspaper warned the visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday not to seek advantage from tensions in the South China Sea, ahead of talks likely to focus territorial disputes and other sources of discord. Beijing and Washington have both stressed hopes for steady ties, especially as they confront domestic ...

The Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) together with the Bucks University featured the 2012 award winners from Singapore of global business associations and chief marketing officers under the theme ‘Is The Party Over?’ at Galadari Hotel, where a select audience of 200 business and marketers attended the event. Some of the key points discussed ...

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: Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram sought on Monday to allay investor worries about an economy growing at its weakest pace in almost a decade by pledging to address their concerns over taxes, public finances and interest rates. In his first comments since becoming finance minister on July 31, Chidambaram said it was important to ...

by Sarath De Alwis The crisis is not in our system of higher education. The crisis is in not knowing what higher education is. Arrogance of presumed superior knowledge of the policy makers and dogmatism of the teachers has precipitated a debate that reflects a pedantry of crisis proportions. We do not seem to have ...

LONDON (Reuters): Britain’s economy shrank far more than expected in the second quarter, battered by everything from an extra public holiday to government spending cuts and the neighbouring euro zone crisis. Finance minister George Osborne said figures released on Wednesday showed Britain

Global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows rose 16 per cent in 2011, surpassing the 2005-2007 pre-crisis level for the first time, despite the continuing effects of the global financial and economic crisis and the current debt crisis in Europe, UNCTAD’s annual survey of investment trends

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

Boeing, Airbus report $35 b total firm orders Production issues in focus at quiet air show FARNBOROUGH, England (Reuters): The world’s dominant aircraft makers, Airbus and Boeing, left a rain-swept Farnborough Airshow without the order deluge some had predicted, but each claiming victories as they prepare to focus on delivering a huge jet backlog from ...

Like Sri Lanka, India is also facing a fuel crisis. However, some Indian economic experts had analysed the situation and expressed an opinion, which is applicable to Sri Lanka as well. In 1970 America insisted that all petroleum (crude oil) dealings should be in US dollars. Several countries

LONDON WASHINGTON, (Reuters): The global economy is showing signs of deteriorating after manufacturing in the United States contracted in June for the first time in three years, European factories took another hefty blow and China and Japan were hit hard by crumbling orders from abroad. Business surveys released on Monday, covering thousands of factories across ...

BANGKOK (IPS): The just-ended United Nations sustainable development summit in Rio de Janeiro has exposed the discomfort that many developing Asian countries have over buzz words like ‘green economy’ and ‘green growth’ in development diplomacy. With the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the U.N. regional development arm, endorsing these concep...

Case study Middle East   Sri Lanka is one of the most sought-after tourist destinations in the world. It is surrounded by the Indian Ocean strategically located between West Asia and South East Asia and has been an important stop on the silk route or the Silk Road. It has all requirements to be one ...

Rio+20 has come and gone. For some, with June gone, the task may be looking at the flavour of the month for July to prop up different hoardings. The conference was concluded successfully and most of the final photos and comments indicated it was well attended and well run and perhaps well concluded. For sure, ...

The Standard and Poor’s (S&P) Rating Services assigned a score of 8 (very high risk) to the Sri Lankan economy and banking industry last week. The role of ratings agencies in the lead-up to the global financial crisis (2008) was certainly highly questionable. There are also issues related

MUMBAI (Reuters): India’s natural rubber imports are likely to drop by 27% to 150,000 tons in the current year to end-March 2013 as local output rises and international prices make imports less attractive, a senior government official said. The world’s fourth-biggest producer of natural rubber imported 205,433 tons of the tyre-making raw material last year, ...

A solution for loss-making SOEs? In the USA, a new corporate entity referred to as a Benefit Corporation (B-Corp) has been brought into being. The states of Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, California and Vermont have legislation which permits companies to combine the profit motive with the purpose of making a positive impact on society and ...

By Marianne David MP and consultant economist Dr. Harsha De Silva yesterday alleged that THE UNP’s criticism over the mismanagement of the economy and the Central Bank as well as the EPF’s investments in banking stocks have been emphatically validated by global rating agency Standard and Poor’s.“Standard and Poor’s reiterated what we have been saying ...

Reuters: Brent crude steadied around $96 a barrel on Tuesday, staying close to 16-month lows hit in the prior session, as Spain’s rising borrowing cost showed Europe is nowhere near resolving its debt crisis that has hurt the outlook for fuel demand. Oil, along with other commodities, fell

Peter Kropotkin is a Russian revolutionist who has commented in his book ‘The Conquest of Bread’ what he considers to be the weaknesses of the economic systems of capitalism and how poverty and scarcity thrives on. However, Kropotkin did not believe in the theory of state and is known as an anarchist. The issue of ...