Reuters: A planned referendum in Ireland and a German court ruling cast new uncertainty on Tuesday over efforts to overcome the euro zone’s debt crisis, just when a flood of central bank money appeared to be calming financial markets.  Ireland’s prickly electorate, which has twice voted “No” to European Union treaties before reversing itself, will ...

Sri Lanka’s benchmark stock index, the world’s worst performer this year, may extend its slump as the central bank raises interest rates to curb inflation, according to HSBC Holdings Plc’s private banking unit. HSBC Private Bank, which oversees about $499 billion, will wait for stock valuations to fall to “single digit” multiples before it considers ...

Surveillance videos publicly aired for the first time Thursday show Dominique Strauss-Kahn leisurely checking out of a New York hotel where he was accused of committing sexual assault and show his accuser appearing to act out the alleged attack.It was not immediately clear how France's BFM television acquired the minutes-long segments. The clips were the basis of recent news reports suggesting Str...

By S. V. Kirubaharan - in France Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” — Julius Henry, Groucho Marx, American comedian and film star (1890-1977). When life is smooth and everything goes in the right direction, normal civilians can become President, Prime Minister ...

by Darini Rajasingham Senanayake On 4 February, Sri Lanka celebrated its 63rd birthday. After nearly three decades of armed conflict, it is now one of Southasia’s calmest and fastest-growing countries. Its social indicators, apart from the northeast zone, remain the...

by Rick Westhead Toronto Star, South Asia Bureau TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA—The weathered wooden bench that serves as an open-air confessional booth at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church doesn’t enjoy much down time nowadays. It’s not that more people are...