Sri Lanka Still Dancing in Lipton’s Circus

‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’

e-Con e-News 31 October – 6 November 2021

Sri Lanka’s President, speaking at the COP26 enviro-farce in Glasgow, from where Thomas Lipton and his tea business was unleashed on the world, could’ve pointed to that Scottish city’s landmarks: built up from the English plunder of Sri Lanka: They imposed an unfree alien workforce and plantations on a people invaded and betrayed, devastating our highlands and committing genocide – creating ongoing ecological disaster and implanting a demographic time bomb.

Glasgow’s Lipton was taken over in 1943 by Unilever, whose massive propaganda apparatus branded Lanka, ‘Lipton’s Tea Garden’. The President indeed missed another great opportunity to tell the world, and teach the obdurate English some real English history. Though he may figure it is a waste of time (see Random Notes, Lipton).

It was left to Bolivia, invaded by Iberian conquistadors 19 years after Sri Lanka, to point out that corporate-hijacked COP26 represents another imperialist tactic – Carbon Colonialism (ee Agriculture, Bolivia).

The UN and environmental lobby is so captured by the multinational agenda, they have sustained abject radio silence while the government has been attacked in its feeble attempt to protect cultivators and consumers. Yet the whites love animals and trees. Elephants now spark more media electrons than the ongoing process of impoverishing the peasant and poisoning and stealing their lands, where plantations set the benchmark for treating workers overall. Yet it’s the English that killed elephants in vast numbers, driving them out too to set up plantations.

Not a day goes by without some media-amplified complaint from plantation owners about how badly they are treated: By the government. By workers, etc. In fact, the government has failed to protect the country from their underdevelopment of the country. This ee continues to expose the fraud of the ‘Tea Auction’, dominated by Unilever, with an import-export plantation oligarchy that still robs the country, refusing to invest in mechanization (ee Focus).

• Multinational corporations (MNC) met the Finance Minister at their ‘annual closed-door… pre-budget forum’. Why closed-door for those constantly demanding ‘transparency’? Only the sponsor, Wijeya Group’s Financial Times, briefly mentioned the session. Unilever and Ceylon Tobacco Co, who launched ‘The League of Multinational Corporations’, were notably missing from the attendees listed? Yet there was Swiss Baur’s, England’s Standard Chartered Bank, the USA’s AIA and Dole, and Japan’s Itochu, etc.

These MNCs are demanding a ‘master plan’ for using fertilizer, ‘faster approval’ of land for growing export crops, enhanced ‘local market access’ for MNC products, reduced government intervention on pricing, and a ‘faster approval process’ by SL Standards Institutions, etc. It is not coincidental that these are the main themes corrupted economists love to harp on.

• Workers have not received wage increases for 2 years, while banks, corporations and the Colombo Stock Exchange are posting high profits and gains – making exaggerated fictitious claims (see ee Finance). Much of this comes from laundering drug and other illegal profits, with only low-level criminals headlined. They’re investing in real-estate and tourist hotels (& in other countries too!), making cities to expensive for workers to live in. With no direction from the Central Bank and state banks, they’re refusing to invest in essential goods and the real economy – modern industry.

Meanwhile, the JVP and FSP are demanding that prices be ‘reduced’ and workers be given a Rs10,000 salary increase, which is half of the basic wages for most workers. These too are fictitious demands, made for publicity purposes. They make no demands about the pressing need for modern industrialization. What kind of ‘Marxist’ parties are these, who do not know the role that machine-building plays in modern economies?

The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, ironically, was the first to be registered as a trade union, as No. 1 under the 1935 Act. That law, to take the steam out of the newly formed socialist party, covered both employers and workers. Yet employers now refuse to allow collective bargaining, thereby blocking any sectoral wage policy. After all, wage increments are made at the company level, which is the ideal way to increase wages.

If capitalists are forced to grant such wage increases, their economists will then cry ‘inflation’, and demand immediate increases in prices, as they’re doing now, despite no wage increases. They could easily reduce prices of food and goods by investing in rural industries and agriculture. This they will not do unless the state forces them to do so.

• Banks are robbing the country through the import-export plantation game. This is why they have steadily opposed the establishment of an export-import bank, let alone a development bank. The state must establish cooperative rice mills and use modern (big) data to bulk import essentials. This is exactly what the English did during their WW2! But we are not allowed to do so? What slaves we still are, while MNCs are ruling the roost. Meanwhile monopolists Prima Ceylon and Serendib Flour Mills claim lack of dollars to import wheat flour! (ee Agriculture)

• Banks Know No Democracy – The Central Bank of the USA, the Federal Reserve, has been called that country’s ‘51^st State’ and the most powerful state! It is ‘beyond the reach of democratically elected politicians, ensuring that only those with direct access to reserve bank personnel have an effective voice…’

It’s no wonder that local media economists continually demand that the Central Bank here be made ‘independent’ of public oversight (see ee Focus).

• Europe and the USA are frequently venerated as the world’s most ‘open and democratic’ societies. This ee exposes the absolute lack of democracy in their main institutions: government, the cabinet, the judiciary, the police & security forces, the military, the central bank, let alone the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, the BIS, the ECB, etc. Behind all this is the total lack of democracy in the banks and corporations, many of whom have budgets huger than most countries in the world.

• Sri Lanka is a US Colony – It’s no anomaly therefore that the ongoing sellout of energy security, to a shady US front corporation, which can only be challenged in England’s courts, has bypassed both the tender process and the cabinet. Having signed the ACSA military pact to allow US boots on Sri Lanka soil, and now handing over energy policy to the US, the capture of the country is almost complete. All this while the media harangues about a so-called ‘Chinese takeover’. The job of the public capitalist media is to misname and misdirect us from clearly seeing we have long been a US Colony since 1948. Their Country, Their Law, indeed! (see ee Focus)

Contents:

A1. Reader Comments –

• Unilever & Ceylon Tobacco are the real Pandora’s Box • Coconut Civil Servants • Slave Trade & today’s Minority Merchants • Fake Testing of Fertilizer • What is a Small Business?

A2. Quotes of the Week

• 14 Tax Holidays for Businessmen so Far • 21st Century’s Gun Boat Diplomacy on SL • IMF Whitemails Pakistan • China Light Years Ahead • False Eco Blame Game • US Election Farce • Banking on Carbon

A3. Random Notes –

• The USA’s Asshole Industry • Bulk Trading for Whites Only • Carbon Colonialism • Anglo-Scottish & Lipton’s Circus • Halloween & Genocide • Fake News First • Ethnic Laws & Industrial Policy • Colombo’s Stock Suckers

B. ee Focus

B1. Are tea auctions and the brokerage system broken? – Jeevan Kelum

B2. Capitalist Democracy Does Not Work for the Majority – Harry Glasbeek

C. News Index

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A1. Reader Comments

ee thanks Readers who send articles of interest. Please excerpt or summarize what is important about any news sent, or your comments, and place any e-link at the end. Email: econenews@gmail.com

• ‘Exposing Unilever and Ceylon Tobacco Company’s hijacking of the government would be opening the real Pandora’s Box…’

• ‘re: Whiter-than-white civil service: Coconut Civil servants? Brown outside and white inside’

• ‘re: Arab & Indian Merchants in Indian Ocean Slave Trade – Yes, the story doesn’t explicitly connects these regional families of merchant minorities shaped by English colonialism who dominate Sri Lanka’s economy.’

• ‘The Chinese organic fertilizer has been rejected due to the presence of some bacteria. Well and good. But the disinformation about this fertilizer has been cheap and dirty. To call that China is sending us nightsoil is the imagination of sick minds. The public is not aware of the background of the company and the description of the product. The government has not shared whatever information they have.’

• ‘I would really like to know what a ‘small business’ is? Where does it get its supplies, who does it sell to, where do their customers get their income from, and where does such small business invest its money in? Does it depend on ‘big business’ and does that ‘big business’ depend on ‘big government’, for protection, etc?, etc. Please give an example. This gospel of small business and MSMEs is constantly promoted by the World Bank, etc., and big media. So do tell?’

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A2. Quotes of the Week_

• ‘While there was a severe economic crisis in the country, the government provided tax concessions to businessmen 14 times so far. The defaulters didn’t furnish the correct details to the tax authorities and the government revealed details about what would be included in the budget before it was prepared, to businessmen.’ – DEW Gunasekera, ee Politics

• ‘In recent weeks, we witnessed Indian diplomats and military top brass storming through offices of the president, PM, and some ministers. Why this sudden spurt in developing Indo-Lanka relations? Outdo China? Last week, Japanese, US and Indian warships docked into Sri Lankan ports on ‘friendly visits’. Some observers of this form of friendship call it the 21st Century’s Gun Boat Diplomacy. They didn’t fire deafening cannon across the harbour like what the Portuguese did when they arrived in Colombo harbour in 1505, but their powerful destroyers and submarines discharged smiling friendly military officials who conveyed the silent message: ‘Buddy we are also here’. How many such trusted friendly neighbours or friends in the region came to our assistance during our 3-decades-old War? Only one. And we don’t have to name it.’

• ‘The IMF is withholding the release of a US$1billion tranche under an Extended Fund Facility to Pakistan until the government closes commercial bank accounts held by the armed forces and other state entities and remits $17billion worth of public funds into a single treasury account. The IMF is also demanding more central bank autonomy to release the facility.’ – ee Security, IMF

• ‘There’s a lot to learn from China and its ability to develop the way it has, predicated on the fact it’s not a democracy… it can make the decisions and it has to be state led. They are becoming light years ahead on a lot of things. We are also studying their industrial cities, not just big industry but downstream industries, technology, and looking at how they built them so successfully.’ – ee Sovereignty, More of China

• ‘Those in power blame ‘general human activity’ for climate chaos, overlooking the intimate links between fossil fuel extraction, corporate agribusiness and the military industrial complex, not to mention global power imbalances and historical responsibilities of countries that have enriched themselves through colonial plunder. Instead of a truthful and transformative way forward, we are sold false solutions that never fail to prioritize corporate elites – ‘net zero’, ‘nature-based solutions’, ‘geo-engineering’, and the ‘digitalization of agriculture’, just to name a few. This has to stop, now!’ – ee Agriculture, COP26

• ‘The story of every US Democratic Party election win is they promise Lefty stuff, fail to deliver, then they lose subsequent elections and then tell themselves that doing all the Lefty stuff they didn’t do was the cause. They lose power, eventually go back to running on Lefty stuff, win, and then again fail to deliver.’ – Atrios, ee Politics, Biden

• ‘My office worked with the 6 largest banks in the USA – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, State Street, Bank of America, and JPMorgan… and they announced, over the next 10 years, they will invest $4.1 trillion.’ – US climate envoy John Kerry (see ee Agriculture)

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A3. Random Notes (‘Seeing Number in Chaos’)_

• US President Biden’s nominee to head the US Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which supervises US banks – Cornell Law Prof Saule Omarova – is under fire, for calling US banks: ‘The Quintessential Asshole Industry’. Of course this accusation against her might be typical media hype. For she definitely will not be allowed to control capitalists. Only workers would be able to. (see ee Finance, Biden).

Certainly, Sri Lanka’s banking business (we cannot call it an ‘industry’) is responsible for the – if not one of the – greatest crimes in the country. They vehemently refuse to invest in modern (machine-making) industry. They rather invest in the import-export game, hence the voracious media hype against curtailing imports. They simply will not even discuss what investing in real modern industry means.

To call Sri Lanka’s bankers, ‘arseholes’, would be to insult the human body’s essential organs. Yet these bankers insult the bodies and minds and all parts of the country’s 22 million people.

It’s not just politicians (who are at least elected) who are corrupt. From bankers to multinationals, to their local merchants, artists & media, and public officials, are much worse & unelected too

• SBD de Silva (to whom this blog is dedicated) took his sabbatical from the Central Bank to obtain his MA in Australia, where he wrote his thesis on Long-term Contracts & Bulk Trading in 1954.

His thesis is still vital to recall: The English during their WWII, and for almost 10 years after, conducted the trade of our major export commodities on the basis of long-term bulk contracts with London, and retained centralized state trading on a government-to-government basis rather than through private trade channels. It enabled stable prices for both their producers & consumers; and was a means to control imports, guarantee supplies thru efficient storage & transport, and ensure food rations.

His support for Sri Lanka enacting such rational policies, and attempts to rein in the foreign-exchange frauds of private companies, would lead to SB’s banishment from a bank dedicated to the colonial status quo. (for more on bulk trading, see ee 22 June 2019, 18 April 2020, 13 June 2020)

• ‘Carbon Colonialism’ is what’s (Bolivia) leaders call the white corporate environmental lobby. Others called it an ‘Elite farce’: This is how some analysts described COP26. Why the SL President went to that COP26 cop-out in Glasgow, we do not know. He may have thought they’d celebrate his challenge to the global chemical multinationals who have been poisoning our food and land and bodies. No such luck. The toxic fertilizer industry, linked to the petroleum industry, is as powerful as the related weapons industry. So-called ecological issues are being weaponized. The environmental game offers ample proof that NGOs were created to provide camouflage for corporations so as to make governments look good

• Lipton’s Circus – The Scottish credit their 73^rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot for the English capture of the Dutch settlements in Ceylon in 1795-6. In 1867 Scotsman James Taylor set up a plantation with unfree Indian labor in Lanka, and a tea factory. In 1873 teas were sold at the London auction in Mincing Lane, centre of England’s tea trading, with Ceylon tea sent to London and Melbourne, with an auction market in Colombo in 1883. In 1889, Glasgow grocer Thomas Lipton imported his first 20,000 tea chests to Glasgow. Lipton organized a parade of 200 Scottish men in Blackface to act as ‘Cingalese’ natives, marching through Glasgow carrying sandwich boards with slogan: ‘Direct from the tea gardens to the tea pot.’ By 1890 Lipton owned 300 stores. In 1893 one million packets of Ceylon tea were sold at the Chicago World’s Fair. The Colombo Tea Dealers Association was set up in 1894. In 1929 Unilever was formed by a merger of Dutch Margarine Unie and English soapmaker Lever Brothers. In 1943 Unilever bought TJ Lipton…and now we also have Lipton’s Circus!

• Halloween & Thanksgiving – their significance – are not lost on our merchants, who seek easy profits by any means except by long-term investment in industry. They seduce their customers into thinking they’re partaking in fun modern white rituals. October-November is the month that celebrates – yes, celebrates – the genocides by the white-settler colonial territories led by the USA and Canada.

These are the autumnal months in the North Atlantic when trees are stripped to jagged skeletons, and workers have to have a job or freeze, and dealers in mass destruction disembark around the world to sell their weapons, hoping to replicate their continuing success as genocidaires in the upcoming new Gregorian year.

Despite all claims about the ‘decline of the West’ etc., whites still play every tribal division they’re well equipped to fabricate and play. Their most recent settler success story is the imposition of Israel on Palestine, and the ongoing genocide in Yemen, to choke Asia’s links to Africa & Europe, and attacking Myanmar to choke links to China.

The IMF is withholding release of a loan to Pakistan until that government closes bank accounts held by the armed forces (see ee Quotes, Pakistan)

The US has set November 15 for a confrontation with Cuba (ee Sovereignty)

• Fake news proliferates against Sri Lanka, Myanmar, China, Iran, East Africa, and Russia, excavating new lows each hour and a day. The latest attack on Myanmar involves an appeal to Buddhist countries to help NATO isolate that country. Then there was this story from the Capital Maharaja group’s News1^st served hot from the political attaché of the US embassy, or to draw their favor. What kind of headline is this? ‘China considered setting up military base in Sri Lanka – Pentagon’, written by former ‘creative writer’ Amani Nilar, who muddles past and future tenses:

‘The Pentagon says China has likely considered setting up a military base in SL. This was revealed when the Pentagon released a report [which] said China is seeking to sustain military power at greater distances, and added that China may have have [sic!] considered establishing military bases… The Pentagon said China may establish these facilities to increase the strength of its… ‘forces. – newsfirst.lk/2021/11/04/china-considered-setting-up-military-base-in-sri-lanka-pentagon/

Then, we have the Washington Post as well as Politico again ‘engaging in warmongering disinformation. Both claimed Russian troops are amassing at the Ukrainian border… Even the Ukrainian defense ministry says that it has seen nothing it is concerned about…’

• The screeching and bellowing against the appointment of a Committee to deal with anomalies in the country’s legal system, shows if anything, how eager the media is to regularly divert from longstanding and increasingly dire economic questions.

Some economists insist the whites control countries financially more than militarily. But more specifically, colonial policy is a highly engineered product of industrial policy. Beneath the so-called ‘ethnic conflict’ lies a deeper national conflict very much related to holding Sri Lanka down as an underdeveloping merchant and moneylender-dominated polity, providing raw materials (including workers) in exchange for higher-priced machined goods. (ee Economists, Superimperialism)

• ‘A fool is born every second’ headlines a Sunday Times article on the young people predominantly being suckered by the CSE (Colombo Stock Exchange). Older punters call the stock market, a wild casino, with no oversight by the Securities Exchange Commission or by the media, both bribed by the major players to promote or demote their holdings. So-called financial analysts, who supposedly research fundamentals, are part of the game. The trick for the small punter is to get in and get out as fast as possible with the most amount of loot possible, and hope someone else takes the hit.

This week’s media headlines who is at the top of the stock market: LOLC’s CLC or Japanese-owned Expolanka. LOLC’s origins are also in Japan’s Orix Corp and the World Bank’s IFC, backed by numerous Western ‘development’ banks, to entrap and fleece the rural home market. Why are so many foreign banks behind these local banks and finance companies? The answer: to sell their goods and machines, and entrap the country and its people in further debt bondage.

The Financial Times calls CLC: ‘The illiquid and, of late, highly speculative Commercial Leasing and Finance…’ Sarvodaya-linked Capital Media’s EconomyNext, says: ‘There was no fundamental reason for the gain of Commercial Leasing and Finance.’ All of this is media doublespeak for ‘insider trading’.

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B. Special Focus_

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B1. Are tea auctions and the brokerage system broken? – Jeevan Kelum

Ceylon Tea is a globally recognized brand, and Sri Lanka’s tea sector remains an important source of employment and foreign exchange. The sector has survived for 200 years since its establishment under colonial rule. However, it appears to be on the decline in recent years, eclipsed by more dynamic players around the world.

According to the Tea Board, the tea industry comprises 719 manufacturers, 340 exporters, and 8 brokers. On average, the annual earnings of the tea industry are about $1.2billion. According to the Tea Board and Ceylon Tea Brokers, 64% of export revenue goes to direct producers (planters, manufactures, warehouse providers), while 35% goes to exporters. The remaining 0.7% is shared between 8 competing brokerage firms.

Tea brokers or financial intermediaries? Given the low amount of revenue absorbed by 8 brokerage firms – essentially middlemen in the auction system – it is worthwhile interrogating their role in the tea industry and what value they add as a whole. As we have argued previously (themorning.lk/is-ceylon-tea-auctioning-away-sri-lankas-development/), the auctions are a colonial system that ensures a steady supply of cheap raw tea to firms in foreign countries which process and sell finished products at a higher profit margin.

Three out of the 8 tea brokerage firms are listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), and therefore have publicly available financial reports. For the purpose of this study, we have combined the data of 2 of these brokerage firms which together represent 25% of the volume of tea sold in the Colombo Tea Auction.

According to the aggregate data of these 2 brokerage firms, commissions on auction sales are the main source of revenue. However, the second largest source of income is from interest, averaging about 40% of total revenue 2011-20. This relatively high reliance on interest earnings indicates that tea brokerage firms are deviating from their core business and slowly transforming into financial intermediaries.

Based on the total outstanding loans and advances from the 2 brokerage firms under study, we estimate the total loans and advances by all brokerage firms may be around Rs4-5billion as at 31 March 2021. The 2 tea brokerage firms under study have a high debt ratio of more than 74%. These 2 companies have somehow borrowed more than 3 times the value of their total non-current.

How these brokerage firms manage to borrow so much money, while many SMEs (small & medium-scale enterprises) struggle to acquire credit for production, should be investigated.

Squeezing manufacturers through interest arbitrage – In terms of production, more than 70% of tea volumes come from smallholders, with the remaining 30% produced by the regional plantation companies (RPCs). However, in terms of land utilisation, smallholders cultivate about 60% of tea lands, while RPCs cultivate 40%. This demonstrates a significant gap in yield between smallholders and RPCs, with the former being significantly more efficient.

Raw tea from RPCs and smallholders is processed by manufacturers. These manufacturers rely on brokers for working capital due to the relative reluctance of commercial banks to provide financing to SMEs. Manufacturers securitise their stocks of tea to acquire loans from brokers. In turn, brokers securitise these same stocks pledged to them, in order to acquire loans from commercial banks. This process is called ‘back-to-back securitisation’.

In effect, brokerage firms are leveraging based on the stocks of producers, which enables them to extract intermediary financial gain by borrowing from banks at low interest rates and lending to manufacturers at higher interest rates. Data from 2012-20 shows that the 2 brokerage firms under study had an average effective interest income of 20%, and an average effective interest cost of 15%.

Clearly, such a business model does not add value to the tea industry, and is in fact parasitic, as it is based on extracting intermediary rents through interest rate arbitrage. The end result most severely affects the manufacturers and the smallholders they buy from, who bear some of the highest costs in the value chain.

The cost of working capital for manufacturers can be significantly reduced if the parasitic financial intermediary role played by brokerage firms is replaced by dedicated development banks. Lower financing costs will enable manufacturers to make and retain higher profits, allowing more breathing room to invest in technical improvements.

Multinational monopsonies behind ‘competitive’ auctions – The tea auctions are generally portrayed as a textbook example of how supply and demand interact to produce prices. Firstly, this theory of how price is determined is flawed as it ignores the role of technological innovation and marketing gimmicks which can manipulate supply and demand. Moreover, it ignores the determining role of cost of production in price setting.

Secondly, a handful of MNCs like Unilever (Lipton), James Finlay, TATA (Tetley), Twinings, and McLeod Russel, control around 85% of tea trade, according to research by Sanne van der Wal. These companies strive to keep their costs down, and some auction buyers supply multiple MNCs. This is a form of monopsony which undermines the theoretical role of demand and supply in determining price.

For example, Sanne van der Wal notes that Unilever bought 70% of the tea auctioned at the Jakarta auction and 12% of the world’s black tea in 2008. Sanne’s research concludes that Sri Lanka earns a mere 30 cents for every dollar that consumers spend on Sri Lankan tea.

In 2005 the Kenyan National Chamber of Commerce took steps to eliminate the auction system after revelations of alleged collusion by big buyers, sharing out lots among themselves instead of bidding against each other competitively. India’s Ministry of Commerce has detected similar problems, with ‘proxy buyers’ buying tea on behalf of numerous MNCs, thereby stifling competition.

Therefore, the idea that auctions allow for efficient price setting via competition is inconsistent with the actually existing reality of monopsony in the purchase of raw tea. Based on the above data regarding the role of brokers as financial intermediaries and the hidden monopsonies in auction, we question the need for having an auction system at all, as it has not helped the country develop from a raw materials supplier to a value-added manufacturer.

A Blue Ocean for Ceylon Tea – Tea smallholder firms are exposed to significant business risks. For example, annual tea production has declined 18% from 337 million kg in 2013 to 276mn kg in 2020, despite continuous use of fertiliser. While the current chemical fertiliser ban is a challenge, it should be contextualised in the long-term decline in yield caused by soil acidity from excess use of fertilisers, lack of replanting, and climate change.

Few tea producers have taken serious steps to address these problems prior to the ban on chemical fertilisers. This long-term decline in production volumes will seriously impact the commission and interest income of brokering firms, while smallholder tea firms will be adversely impacted unless bulk tea fetches significantly higher prices. This currently seems very remote, looking at the historic average prices. Therefore, smallholder tea firms will eventually need to consolidate and change their outdated business model.

Sri Lanka’s old colonial model of exporting raw bulk black tea via auctions to developed countries is increasingly unsustainable and also serves as an impediment for the tea industry’s takeoff. The tea sector is also plagued with environmental issues such as climate change and soil acidity caused by excess use of fertiliser, which is dropping yields. Therefore, the industry needs a fresh outlook to respond to these new challenges and how best to capture a larger global market share from its current narrow focus.

In all likelihood, there are numerous master plans and strategies prepared by industry veterans, which are locked away in the file cabinets of various departments and ministries. What is needed at this crucial juncture is action and implementation to finally break away from the mindset of colonial raw material production model and put Sri Lanka on a path of tea value-added industrialisation.

Tea companies must be made to produce innovative products for the new global consumers and thirst-oriented global market, rather than competing for domestic market share with low-quality black tea. There remains a ‘blue ocean of opportunity’ for Ceylon Tea in a diverse range of industries including hot and cold beverages, fizz tea, tea confectioneries, tea cosmetics, and nutraceuticals.

– themorning.lk/are-tea-auctions-and-the-brokerage-system-broken/

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B2. Capitalist Democracy Does Not Work for the Majority – Harry Glasbeek

In capitalist democracies, it is not the voting that counts but the counting – Lenin

Most countries have one-party capitalist states in reality. Even if they have opposition parties, these parties do not really provide an alternative. Capitalist parties rule. All these parties accept contemporary capitalist relations of production. They may differ on the speed of the unfettered capitalist drive to maximize profits and the need to restrain them from time to time because it may destroy capitalism itself. Yet all the parties accept the sacrosanct nature of private property. Owners of property (which includes most national assets) are deemed to have the right to deploy them as they like and to exclude others from their use.

Second, they all agree that the best way for a government to provide overall welfare is to allow the owners of the means of production to pursue their drive to accumulate more wealth, to achieve higher profits. The private sphere is seen as the primary engine when it comes to the creation of wealth, hoping that as profits are pursued, somehow all will benefit.

Third, all the parties agree that to make this kind of political economy work, it is necessary to pursue economic growth, as measured in monetary terms, and that this growth is to be led by the private sector. Each of the parties points to their unique program to improve the GDP while pursuing this goal, thereby suggesting that they have fundamentally distinct platforms.

But, fourth, it remains true that private property owners are encouraged to determine how they can best pursue their maximization of profits by each of the parties. Much of what the owners of the means of production do may add to growth in monetary terms without meeting any of the essential needs of society. The parties do differ on how best to fill some of the resulting gaps, but they all agree they should be filling in gaps, while not negating the role the private owners of the means of production are to play in the generation of overall wealth.

Even if other parties can get more votes, the party that wins may only have elected more members of Parliament.

An increasingly large number of non-voters believe it does not matter who wins, for it won’t make any real difference to their lives or, more worryingly, believe it will make their lives worse anyway. Those who do not vote may just think that electoral democracy does not work for them. There are good reasons why that might be the case because there are many anti-democratic sites of power that impact on their lives in major ways. Vital decisions affecting all people are made by powerful people and public and private institutions securely immune to democratic oversight:

Democracy Free Zones – First among the decision-making institutions where democracy is lacking is the elected government. The government has an inner circle, its Cabinet, which acts as an executive body. This executive counts on party discipline to implement its decisions. Its adherents in the legislature are expected to abide by its decisions. In effect, the executive wields the power held by the government. It imposes duties of confidentiality on its members. Secrecy and opaqueness shroud its deliberations. The citizens only have the most attenuated input into any central decision-making that will generate legislation, regulation, and overall policy. They can petition and lobby, but that is it. Their most important participation is to be allowed to cast a vote for one candidate in one electorate. At the time of voting, voters are forced to hope that, in a general way, one candidate and/or their party will best reflect the voter’s views on a huge number of issues and that the government will, therefore, approximate the government they would like to have.

Furthermore, voters may hold their noses because of that candidate’s/party’s views on some issues and still vote for them on the basis of a specific promise made on one or two issues or because, on issues significant to those voters, they are better than other candidates/parties, even though on many matters they may stand for things the voters do not want. In any one electoral district or riding, the reasons individuals have for voting for the same candidate/party will vary vastly. This gives the executive a lot of room to manoeuvre and manipulate, as it enjoys plenary, voter-unimpeded powers for extended periods.

The second institution in which vital decisions are made and in which democracy is, at best, an afterthought, is the judiciary. Courts are to ensure that elected governments do not exceed their constitutional powers. As well, as noted already, they are charged with striking down laws and regulations passed by governments if they interfere unnecessarily with the rights of specified minorities or individuals. The freedom to think, speak, assemble, associate, to be secure from police intimidation, to be free from discrimination, and the like are to be safeguarded by the judiciary. In short, they are to protect us from abusive elected governments. Having said that, questions arise.

Who voted for these judges? Who appointed them? Are the appointees likely to come from the ranks of those who question the status quo? Why is an unelected institution that, historically, never supported any liberal political values, except those embedded in private property and private contract to the detriment of the working class, to be entrusted with the freedoms won by working-class struggles?

The third point to make is that even elected governments do not have any direct power over many of the decisions that affect the public. This raises the question: what is all that election stuff really about? Consider:

• The police and security forces of our lands are beyond any meaningful public scrutiny. We are asked to trust machinery controlled by people who are closer to the police and its objectives than to us. The police and secret services frequently ask for, and get, powers to survey, detain, and bring charges in secret. Courts may be required to hold oversight hearings in private. We are to accept these distortions of the rule of liberal law because we will be allowed to protest about them at the next election, be allowed to vote without any likelihood that we will have had access to the information needed to do so.

• This is even more true when it comes to the military, where our lack of information and ability to participate is truly shocking. Wryly, Colin Leys, the English political economist, has noted that the defenders of neoliberalism, ie, the clergy of the private market, their one and only true religion, never castigate the military, the police, or the judiciary as being too inefficient, as costing too much or as dangerous to people’s freedoms (as, to them, the State is). The anti-democratic nature of these institutions makes them appealing to capitalism’s cheerleaders. Their potential to control the pesky citizenry is much appreciated. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the internal organization of the police, the secret service, the military and the judiciary is hierarchical, profoundly anti-democratic.

• The mature capitalist political economies have put their Reserve Banks [Central Banks] that is their money/currency controlling institutions, beyond the reach of democratically elected politicians, ensuring that only those with direct access to the reserve bank personnel have an effective voice. Needless to say, these people are culled from the ranks of the banks and other financial institutions, from the 1%, or more accurately, the 0.01%. Decisions that affect interest rates, purchasing and selling of housing, building and renovating houses, the capacity to import/export, and so on, are beyond the purview of direct democracy. Edgar Snowden refers to the US Federal Reserve as the US’s 51st and most powerful State.

• What is true of the central banks is true in spades of the acronyms who rule the world; the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, the BIS, the ECB, etc. Their private, secret decision-making, with only the rich and powerful at the decision-making table, does not even deign to nod at the principles of democracy. Their decisions impact on billions of people’s welfare without a hint of democracy. Even when elected politicians purport to be meeting as democratic representatives to deliberate on economic policies, as they do at the G8 and the G20 meetings, they are surrounded by veritable armies of representatives of the 0.01%. It is those people’s views that count, and only those people’s views, not those of the public at large. This explains the palpable anger in the streets of any city these leaders occupy when they meet behind police and army barriers.

• And, to top it all, everyone in the world is affected by the undemocratic decision-making inside huge corporations whose revenues & assets dwarf the Gross Domestic Products of most nation states. The decisions whether to invest, where to invest, how much to invest, what goods and services are to be produced have enormous impacts on what governments do, want to do, and can do. They limit a government’s real world (as opposed to its constitutional) jurisdiction. The decisions corporations make have immediate impacts on those people who need work, food, shelter, and goods & services. The corporate sector makes all those decisions without a smidgen of democracy adulterating its profit-seeking mind. Inside the corporation, there is a form of democracy – it is shareholder democracy, the obverse of real democracy. One$/one vote is the preferred decision-making model; the wealthiest should rule, is the motto. The workers who do all the work and take the risk of being injured, diseased, or killed and suffer the economic and environmental losses that corporate decisions may wreak, get no vote. Money counts; people do not.

Erich Fromm wrote,‘Opinions formed by the powerless onlooker do not express his or her conviction, but are a game, analogous to expressing a preference for one brand of cigarette over another. For these reasons the opinions expressed in polls and in elections constitute the worst, rather than the best level of human judgment… Without information, deliberation, and the power to make one’s decision effective, democratically expressed opinion is hardly more than the applause at a sports event.’

Summation –1) …The contention here is that even if electoral democratic practices are improved markedly, if we get rid of primitive first-past-the-post voting and/or have more proportional and/or preferential representation, and add compulsory voting, people will be only infinitesimally closer to the ultimate aim: to be in charge of their lives, to be in a position to determine how they are to realize their potential as human beings. The results in non-first-past-the-post jurisdictions like New Zealand and Australia provide sad and ample evidence. Centres of decision-making pivotal to people’s welfare will remain untouched. Those non-electoral loci of decision-making are staffed by those connected to the rich or by the rich themselves. A better voting scheme will still leave the 99% out of the most significant decision-making loops.

2) On the Left, vigorous discussions take place on how to bring about the downfall of capitalism. One strain of the discussion is that there must be a way to control the State so that it can set out to occupy the commanding heights of industry and finance and begin the redistribution of wealth. The argument here has been that, to make headway, it will not be sufficient to win electorally. The processes are too tenuously connected, too limited in their ambitions and powers to curb the many centres of power focused on serving capitalism at the expense of everyone’s and the planet’s interests. They must be the focus of democratization.

3) …Many people are ready for more democracy, for real democracy, not just for better electoral democratic practices. All political action, no matter how specific or local, should be coupled with demands for more direct decision-making power by the very people to be affected by a decision or practice. Economic democracy, democratization of public and private institutions, should be the focus of invigorated struggles. Only then will gains made in the electoral sphere bring meaningful results to those who want a better world.

– socialistproject.ca/2021/11/canadas-eviscerated-democracy/

Contents:

A1. Reader Comments –

A2. Quotes of the Week

A3. Random Notes –

B. ee Focus

B1. Are tea auctions and the brokerage system broken? – Jeevan Kelum

B2. Capitalist Democracy does not Work for the Majority – Harry Glasbeek

C. News Index

__________________________________________________________

A1. Reader Comments

• ee thanks Readers who send articles of interest. Please excerpt or summarize what is important about any news sent, or your comments, and place any e-link at the end. Email: econenews@gmail.com,

• ‘Exposing Unilever and Ceylon Tobacco Company’s hijacking of the government would be opening the real Pandora’s Box….–

• Re: Whiter-than-white civil service: Coconut Civil servants? Brown outside and white inside

• re: Arab & Indian Merchants in Indian Ocean slave Trade – Yes, the story doesn’t explicitly connects these regional families of merchant minorities shaped by English colonialism who dominate Sri Lanka’s economy.

• ‘The Chinese organic fertilizer has been rejected due to the presence of some bacteria. Well and good. But the disinformation about this fertilizer has been cheap and dirty. To call that China is sending us night soil is the imagination of sick minds. The public is not aware of the background of the company and the description of the product. The govt. has not shared whatever information they have’

• I would really like to know what a “small business” is? Where does it get its supplies, who does it sell to, where do their customers get their income from, and where does this small business invest its money in? Does it depend on “big business” and does that “big business” depend on “big government”, for protection, etc?, etc. Please give an example. This gospel of small business and MSMEs is constantly promoted by the World Bank, etc., and big media. so do tell?

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A2. Quotes of the Week_____________________________________

• ‘In recent weeks, we witnessed Indian diplomats and military top brass storming through offices of the president, prime minister and some ministers. Why this sudden spurt in developing Indo-Lanka relations? Outdo China? Last week, Russian, Japanese, American and Indian warships docked into Sri Lankan ports on ‘friendly visits’. Some observers of this form of friendship call it the 21st Century’s Gun Boat Diplomacy. They didn’t fire deafening cannon across the harbour like what the Portuguese did when they arrived in Colombo harbour in 1505 but their powerful destroyers and submarines discharged smiling friendly military officials who conveyed the silent message: ‘Buddy we are also here’. How many such trusted friendly neighbours or friends in the region came to our assistance during our three decades old War? Only one. And we don’t have to name it.’

• ‘The MNCs [meeting the finance Minister] recommended consistency in policy, the need for a scientific and holistic policy and master plan on the use and minimisation of fertiliser whilst the Government was encouraging the shift towards organic agriculture, faster approval of land for growing export crops, steps to enhance both global and local market access (by harnessing bilateral agreements) for products made in SL by MNCs, reducing Government intervention on pricing, more transparent, pragmatic and faster approval process by the SL Standards Institutions, promoting floating photovoltaic (FPV) – the latest trend in solar power generation, supporting and positioning Sri Lanka as a regional hub for low-carbon data centres and sites, additional support policies to attract sustainable financing and further enhance SL as a global delivery services hub and enhancing skills development.’ – ee Economy, MNCs

• The IMF is withholding the release of a US$1 billion tranche under an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to Pakistan until the government closes commercial bank accounts held by the armed forces and other state entities and remits $17 billion worth of public funds into a single treasury account. The IMF is also demanding more central bank autonomy to release the facility. – ee Security, IMF

• “There’s a lot to learn from China and its ability to develop the way it has is predicated on the fact it’s not a democracy . . . it can make the decisions and it has to be state led,” says the Saudi official. “They are becoming light years ahead on a lot of things. We are also studying their industrial cities, not just big industry but downstream industries, technology, and looking at how they built them so successfully.” – ee Sovereignty, More of China

• ‘Those in power blame ‘general human activity’ for climate chaos, overlooking the intimate links between fossil fuel extraction, corporate agribusiness and the military industrial complex, not to mention global power imbalances and historic responsibilities of countries that have enriched themselves through colonial plunder. Instead of a truthful and transformative way forward, we are sold false solutions that never fail to prioritize corporate elites – ‘net zero’, ‘nature-based solutions’, ‘geo-engineering’, and the ‘digitalization of agriculture’, just to name a few. This has to stop, now!’ – ee Agriculture, COP26

• “My office worked with the six largest banks in the USA – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, State Street, Bank of America and JPMorgan…and they announced that they will, over the next 10 years, they will invest $4.1 trillion.” – US climate envoy John Kerry, see ee Agriculture

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A3. Random Notes (‘Seeing Number in Chaos’)_________________

• Carbon Colonialism is what’s (Bolivia) leaders call the white corporate environmental lobby. Others called it an “Elite farce”: This is how some analysts described COP26. Why the SL President went to that COP26 cop-out in Glasgow, we do not know. He may have thought they would celebrate his challenge to the global chmical multinationals who have been poisoning our food and land and bodies. No such luck. The toxic fertilizer industry linked to the petroleum industry is as powerful as the related weapons industry. So-called ecological issues are being weaponized. The environmental game offers ample proof that NGOs were created to provide camouflage for corporations so as to make governments look good

• The Scottish credit their 73rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot for the English capture of the Dutch settlements in Ceylon in 1795-6. In 1867, Scotsman James Taylor set up a plantation with unfree Indian labor in Lanka, and a tea factory. In 1873, teas were sold at the London auction in Mincing Lane, centre of England’s tea trading, with Ceylon tea sent to London and Melbourne, with an auction market in Colombo in 1883. In 1889, Glasgow grocer Thomas Lipton imported his first 20,000 tea chests to Glasgow. Lipton organised a parade of 200 Scottish men in Blackface to act as ‘Cingalese’ natives marching through Glasgow carrying sandwich boards with slogan: “Direct from the tea gardens to the tea pot.” By 1890, Lipton owned 300 stores. In 1893 one million packets of Ceylon tea were sold at the Chicago World’s Fair. The Colombo Tea Dealers Association was set up in 1894. In 1929, Unilever was formed by a merger of Dutch Margarine Unie and English soapmaker Lever Brothers. In 1943, Unilever bought T. J. Lipton….

• Halloween & Thanksgiving – their significance – are not lost on our merchants, who seek easy profits by any means except by long term investment in industry. They seduce their customers into thinking they’re partaking in fun modern white rituals. October-November is the month that celebrates – yes, celebrates – the genocides by the white settler colonial territories led by the USA and Canada.

Despite all claims about the ‘decline of the West’ etc., whites still play every tribal division they are well equipped to fabricate and play. Their most recent settler success story is the imposition of Israel on Palestine, and the ongoing genocide in Yemen, to choke Asia’s links to Africa, Europe, and attacking Myanmar to choke links to China.

The IMF is withholding release of a loan to Pakistan until that government closes bank accounts held by the armed forces (see ee Quotes, Paksitan)

The US has set November 15 for a confrontation with Cuba (see ee Sovereignty)

• Fake news proliferates against Sri Lanka, Myanmar, China, Iran, East Africa and Russia excavating new lows each hour and a day. Take this story from the Capital Maharaja group’s News 1^st served hot from the political attaché of the US embassy, or to draw their favour. What kind of headline is this? “China considered setting up military base in Sri Lanka – Pentagon” written by former “creative writer’ Amani Nilar, who muddles past and future tenses:

“The Pentagon says China has likely considered setting up a military base in Sri Lanka. This was revealed when the Pentagon released a report…The report said China is seeking to sustain military power at greater distances, and added that China may have have [sic!] considered establishing military bases….The Pentagon said China may establish these facilities to increase the strength of its…forces. – newsfirst.lk/2021/11/04/china-considered-setting-up-military-base-in-sri-lanka-pentagon/

Then, we have the Washington Post as well as Politico again “engaging in warmongering disinformation. Both claimed that Russian troops are amassing at the Ukrainian border…Even the Ukrainian defense ministry says that it has seen nothing it is concerned about…”

• The screeching and bellowing against the appointment of a Committee to deal with anomalies in the country’s legal system, shows if anything how eager the media is to regularly divert from long standing and increasingly dire economic questions.

Some economists insist the whites control countries financially more than militarily. But more specifically, colonial policy is a highly engineered product of industrial policy. Beneath the so-called ‘ethnic conflict’ lies a deeper national conflict very much related to holding Sri Lanka down as an underdeveloping merchant and moneylender dominated polity, providing raw materials (including workers) in exchange for higher priced machined goods (see ee Economists, Superimperialism)

SBD de Silva (to whom this blog is dedicated) took his sabbatical from the Central Bank to obtain his MA in Australia, where he wrote his thesis on Long-term Contracts & Bulk Trading in 1954.

His support for Sri Lanka enacting such rational policies and attempts to rein in the foreign-exchange frauds of private companies, would lead to SB’s banishment from a bank dedicated to the colonial status quo. (for more on bulk trading, see, ee 22 June 2019, 18 April 2020, 13 June 2020)

• “A fool is born every second” headlines a Sunday Times article on the young people predominantly being suckered by the CSE (Colombo Stock Exchange). Older punters call the stock market, a wild casino, with no oversight by the Securities Exchange Commission or by the media, both of which are bribed by the major players to promote or demote their holdings. So-called financial analysts, who supposedly research fundamentals, are part of the game. The trick for the small punter is to get in and get out as fast as possible with the most amount of loot possible, and hope someone else takes the hit.

This week’s media headlines who is at the top of the stock market: LOLC’s CLC or Japanese-owned Expolanka. LOLC’s origins are also in Japan’s Orix Corp. and the World Bank’s IFC, backed by numerous Western ‘development’ banks, to entrap and fleece the rural home market. Why are so many foreign banks behind these local baks and finance companies. The answer: to sell their goods and machines, and entrap the country and its people in further debt bondage.

The Financial Times calls CLC: “The illiquid and, of late, highly speculative Commercial Leasing and Finance…” Sarvodaya-linked Capital Media’s EconomyNext, says: ““There was no fundamental reason for the gain of Commercial Leasing and Finance.” All of this is media double speak for ‘insider trading”.

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B. Special Focus____________________________________________

____________________________________________

B1. Are tea auctions and the brokerage system broken? – Jeevan Kelum

Ceylon Tea is a globally recognised brand, and Sri Lanka’s tea sector remains an important source of employment and foreign exchange. The sector has survived for 200 years since its establishment under colonial rule. However, it appears to be on the decline in recent years, eclipsed by more dynamic players around the world.

According to the Sri Lanka Tea Board, the tea industry comprises 719 manufacturers, 340 exporters, and eight brokers. On average, the annual earnings of the tea industry are about $1.2 billion. According to the Tea Board and Ceylon Tea Brokers, 64% of export revenue goes to direct producers (planters, manufactures, warehouse providers), while 35% goes to exporters. The remaining 0.7% is shared between 8 competing brokerage firms.

Tea brokers or financial intermediaries? Given the low amount of revenue absorbed by eight brokerage firms – essentially middlemen in the auction system – it is worthwhile interrogating their role in the tea industry and what value they add as a whole. As we have argued previously (themorning.lk/is-ceylon-tea-auctioning-away-sri-lankas-development/), the auctions are a colonial system that ensures a steady supply of cheap raw tea to firms in foreign countries which process and sell finished products at a higher profit margin.

Three out of the eight tea brokerage firms are listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), and therefore have publicly available financial reports. For the purpose of this study, we have combined the data of two of these brokerage firms which together represent 25% of the volume of tea sold in the Colombo Tea Auction.

According to the aggregate data of these two brokerage firms, commissions on auction sales are the main source of revenue. However, the second largest source of income is from interest, averaging about 40% of total revenue from 2011 to 2020. This relatively high reliance on interest earnings indicates that tea brokerage firms are deviating from their core business and slowly transforming into financial intermediaries.

Based on the total outstanding loans and advances from the two brokerage firms under study, we estimate that the total loans and advances by all brokerage firms may be around Rs. 4-5 billion as at 31 March 2021. The two tea brokerage firms under study have a high debt ratio of more than 74%. These two companies have somehow borrowed more than three times the value of their total non-current.

How these brokerage firms manage to borrow so much money while many SMEs (small and medium-scale enterprises) struggle to acquire credit for production should be investigated.

In effect, brokerage firms are leveraging based on the stocks of producers, which enables them to extract intermediary financial gain by borrowing from banks at low interest rates and lending to manufacturers at higher interest rates. Data from 2012 to 2020 shows that the two brokerage firms under study had an average effective interest income of 20%, and an average effective interest cost of 15%.

Clearly, such a business model does not add value to the tea industry, and is in fact parasitic as it is based on extracting intermediary rents through interest rate arbitrage. The end result most severely affects the manufacturers and the smallholders they buy from, who bear some of the highest costs in the value chain.

Secondly, a handful of multinational companies like Unilever (Lipton), James Finlay, TATA (Tetley), Twinings, and McLeod Russel control around 85% of tea trade, according to research by Sanne van der Wal. These companies strive to keep their costs down, and some auction buyers supply multiple multinational companies. This is a form of monopsony which undermines the theoretical role of demand and supply in determining price.

For example, Sanne van der Wal notes that Unilever bought 70% of the tea auctioned at the Jakarta auction and 12% of the world’s black tea in 2008. Sanne’s research concludes that Sri Lanka earns a mere 30 cents for every dollar that consumers spend on Sri Lankan tea.

In 2005, the Kenyan National Chamber of Commerce took steps to eliminate the auction system after revelations of alleged collusion by big buyers sharing out lots among themselves instead of bidding against each other competitively. India’s Ministry of Commerce has detected similar problems, with “proxy buyers” buying tea on behalf of numerous multinational companies, thereby stifling competition.

A Blue Ocean for Ceylon Tea – Tea smallholder firms are exposed to significant business risks. For example, annual tea production has declined 18% from 337 million kg in 2013 to 276 million kg in 2020, despite continuous use of fertiliser. While the current chemical fertiliser ban is a challenge, it should be contextualised in the long-term decline in yield caused by soil acidity from excess use of fertilisers, lack of replanting, and climate change.

Few tea producers have taken serious steps to address these problems prior to the ban on chemical fertilisers. This long-term decline in production volumes will seriously impact the commission and interest income of brokering firms while smallholder tea firms will be adversely impacted unless bulk tea fetches significantly higher prices. This currently seems very remote, looking at the historic average prices. Therefore, smallholder tea firms will eventually need to consolidate and change their outdated business model.

Sri Lanka’s old colonial model of exporting raw bulk black tea via auctions to developed countries is increasingly unsustainable and also serves as an impediment for the tea industry’s take off. The tea sector is also plagued with environmental issues such as climate change and soil acidity caused by excess use of fertiliser, which is dropping yields. Therefore, the industry needs a fresh outlook to respond to these new challenges and how best to capture a larger global market share from its current narrow focus.

In all likelihood, there are numerous master plans and strategies prepared by industry veterans, which are locked away in the file cabinets of various departments and ministries. What is needed at this crucial juncture is action and implementation to finally break away from the mindset of colonial raw material production model and put Sri Lanka on a path of tea value-added industrialisation.

Tea companies must be made to produce innovative products for the new global consumers and thirst-oriented global market, rather than competing for domestic market share with low-quality black tea. There remains a “blue ocean of opportunity” for Ceylon Tea in a diverse range of industries including hot and cold beverages, fizz tea, tea confectioneries, tea cosmetics, and nutraceuticals.

– themorning.lk/are-tea-auctions-and-the-brokerage-system-broken/

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B2. Capitalist Democracy does not Work for the Majority – Harry Glasbeek

In capitalist democracies, it is not the voting that counts but the counting – Lenin

Third, all the parties agree that to make this kind of political economy work, it is necessary to pursue economic growth, as measured in monetary terms, and that this growth is to be led by the private sector. Each of the parties points to its unique plan to improve the GDP while pursuing this goal, thereby suggesting that they have fundamentally distinct platforms.

But, fourth, it remains true that private property owners are encouraged to determine how they can best pursue their maximization of profits by each of the parties. Much of what the owners of the means of production do may add to growth in monetary terms without meeting any of the essential needs of society. The parties do differ on how best to fill some of the resulting gaps, but they all agree that they should be filling in gaps, while not negating the role the private owners of the means of production are to play in the generation of overall wealth.

Even if other parties can get more votes, the party that wins may only have elected more members of Parliament.

An increasingly large number of non-voters believe it does not matter who wins, for it won’t make any real difference to their lives or, more worryingly, believe it will make their lives worse anyway. Those who do not vote may just think that electoral democracy does not work for them. There are good reasons why that might be the case because there are many anti-democratic sites of power that impact on their lives in major ways. Vital decisions affecting all people are made by powerful people and public and private institutions securely immune to democratic oversight:

• This is even more true when it comes to the military, where our lack of information and ability to participate is truly shocking. Wryly, Colin Leys, the English political economist, has noted that the defenders of neoliberalism, i.e., the clergy of the private market, their one and only true religion, never castigate the military, the police, or the judiciary as being too inefficient, as costing too much or as dangerous to people’s freedoms (as, to them, the State is). The anti-democratic nature of these institutions makes them appealing to capitalism’s cheerleaders. Their potential to control the pesky citizenry is much appreciated. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the internal organization of the police, the secret service, the military, and the judiciary is hierarchical, profoundly anti-democratic.

• The mature capitalist political economies have put their Reserve Banks, [Central Banks] that is, their money/currency controlling institutions, beyond the reach of democratically elected politicians, ensuring that only those with direct access to the reserve bank personnel have an effective voice. Needless to say, these people are culled from the ranks of the banks and other financial institutions, from the 1%, or more accurately, the 0.01%. Decisions that affect interest rates, purchasing and selling of housing, building and renovating houses, the capacity to import/export, and so on, are beyond the purview of direct democracy. Edgar Snowden refers to the US Federal Reserve as the United States’ 51st and most powerful State.

• And, to top it all, everyone in the world is affected by the undemocratic decision-making inside huge corporations whose revenues and assets dwarf the Gross Domestic Products of most nation states. The decisions whether to invest, where to invest, how much to invest, what goods and services are to be produced have enormous impacts on what governments do, want to do, and can do. They limit a government’s real world (as opposed to its constitutional) jurisdiction. The decisions corporations make have immediate impacts on those people who need work, food, shelter, and goods and services. The corporate sector makes all those decisions without a smidgen of democracy adulterating its profit-seeking mind. Inside the corporation, there is a form of democracy – it is shareholder democracy, the obverse of real democracy. One dollar/one vote is the preferred decision-making model; the wealthiest should rule, is the motto. The workers who do all the work and take the risk of being injured, diseased, or killed and suffer the economic and environmental losses that corporate decisions may wreak, get no vote. Money counts; people do not.

Erich Fromm wrote that “[o]pinions formed by the powerless onlooker do not express his or her conviction, but are a game, analogous to expressing a preference for one brand of cigarette over another. For these reasons the opinions expressed in polls and in elections constitute the worst, rather than the best level of human judgment…Without information, deliberation, and the power to make one’s decision effective, democratically expressed opinion is hardly more than the applause at a sports event.”

Summation –1. …. The contention here is that even if electoral democratic practices are improved markedly, if we get rid of primitive first-past- the-post voting and/or have more proportional and/or preferential representation, and add compulsory voting, people will be only infinitesimally closer to the ultimate aim: to be in charge of their lives, to be in a position to determine how they are to realize their potential as human beings. The results in non-first-past-the-post jurisdictions like New Zealand and Australia provide sad and ample evidence. Centres of decision-making pivotal to people’s welfare will remain untouched. Those non-electoral loci of decision-making are staffed by those connected to the rich or by the rich themselves. A better voting scheme will still leave the 99% out of the most significant decision-making loops.

2. On the Left, vigorous discussions take place on how to bring about the downfall of capitalism. One strain of the discussion is that there must be a way to control the State so that it can set out to occupy the commanding heights of industry and finance and begin the redistribution of wealth. The argument here has been that, to make headway, it will not be sufficient to win electorally. The processes are too tenuously connected, too limited in their ambitions and powers to curb the many centres of power focussed on serving capitalism at the expense of everyone’s and the planet’s interests. They must be the focus of democratization.

3. … Many people are ready for more democracy, for real democracy, not just for better electoral democratic practices. All political action, no matter how specific or local, should be coupled with demands for more direct decision-making power by the very people to be affected by a decision or practice. Economic democracy, democratization of public and private institutions, should be the focus of invigorated struggles. Only then will gains made in the electoral sphere bring meaningful results to those who want a better world. – socialistproject.ca/2021/11/canadas-eviscerated-democracy

__________________________________________________________

C. News Index______________________________________________

• ee News Index provides headlines and links to gain a sense of the weekly focus of published English ‘business news’ mainly to expose the backwardness of a multinational-controlled ‘local media’:

C1. Sovereignty

(ee is pro-politics, pro-politician, pro-nation-state, anti-corporatist, anti-expert, anti-NGO)

ee Sovereignty news emphasizes sovereignty as economic sovereignty – a strong nation is built on modern industrialization fueled by a producer culture.

• Supreme Court to hear petitions challenging Yugadanavi deal on 12 Nov.

– island.lk/sc-fixes-for-support-on-12-nov-petitions-challenging-yugadanavi-deal

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/03/sjbs-fr-petition-against-yugadanavi-deal-fixed-for-consideration/

• Erasing the Eelam Victory Pt 19 G&H

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/01/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-19-g/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/01/erasing-the-eelam-victory-pt-19-h/

• President meets Modi during COP26 in Glasgow

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/02/president-meets-modi-during-cop26-in-glasgow/

• Parties in the TNA pushing to unite all Tamil parties under the 13A banner.

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/columns/gone-are-those-days-of-getting-high-while-flying-high-460374.html

• Fishing in troubled waters: war-hit fishermen frustrated over Indian bottom trawling

– economynext.com/fishing-in-troubled-waters-sri-lankas-war-hit-fishermen-frustrated-over-indian-bottom-trawling-87564/

• Lanka takes new measures to stop bottom-trawling by Indian fishermen

‘Northern fishermen launching their October 17 protest sail from Mullaitivu to Point Pedro’

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/lanka-takes-new-measures-to-stop-bottom-trawling-by-indian-fishermen-460310.html

• Select envoys in SL get barrage of postcards asking to boycott Indian seafood

‘the postcard to the US Ambassador stated: “You are the largest single importer of Indian seafood and you are not telling India to stop’

– ft.lk/business/Select-envoys-in-SL-get-barrage-of-postcards-asking-to-boycott-Indian-seafood/34-725216

• 45th Anniversary of Non-Aligned Summit (1976) held at BMICH

– island.lk/45th-anniversary-of-non-aligned-summit-1976-held-at-bmich/

• AUKUS threat to countries like Sri Lanka, says China’s Ambassador

– island.lk/aukus-threat-to-countries-like-sri-lanka-says-chinas-ambassador/

• U.S.A. Acknowledges The Tri-polar World

‘Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley proclaims that we are entering a trilateral world where the U.S. Russia and China are somewhat equal great powers.’

– moonofalabama.org/2021/11/us-acknowledges-a-tri-polar-world-.html

• Shouldn’t closer and stronger friendship with Myanmar be considered

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/sunday-times-2/a-sri-lanka-front-for-liberation-of-myanmar-460198.html

• A Golden Chance For Pakistan – Bangladesh

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/01/a-golden-chance-for-pakistan/

• English Spies incited mass murder of Indonesia’s communists

‘In 1965 specialist propagandists from the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD) were sent to Singapore to produce white propaganda to undermine Sukarno’s regime.’

– theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/17/revealed-how-uk-spies-incited-mass-of-indonesias-communists

• China says its new land border law will not affect existing border treaties

– island.lk/china-says-its-new-land-border-law-will-not-affect-existing-border-treaties/

• Chinese Ambassador concerned over Australian nuclear deal

– newsfirst.lk/2021/10/31/chinese-ambassador-concerned-over-australian-nuclear-deal/

• ‘More of China, less of America’: how superpower fight is squeezing the Gulf

– ft.com/content/4f82b560-4744-4c53-bf4b-7a37d3afeb13

• A tale of two Quads

‘The West Asian Quad (Quad-2), comprising the US, Israel, the UAE and India, which the Biden Administration unveiled two weeks ago, also follows the same format — the US networking with regional partners…. Both are anchored on the control of the chokepoints in sea lanes — the Malacca Straits and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait respectively. The Malacca Straits provide sea passage to the Indian Ocean from the South China Sea; the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connects the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.’

– indianpunchline.com/a-tale-of-two-quads/

• Blinken’s ‘Indo-Abrahamic Accords’ unravels

– indianpunchline.com/blinkens-indo-abrahamic-accords-unravels/

• Iran says it blocks U.S. attempt to confiscate oil in Sea of Oman

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/iran-says-it-blocks-u-s-attempt-to-confiscate-oil-in-sea-of-oman/

• Biden Rejects Claims That He Wants To Return To The Nuclear Deal With Iran

– moonofalabama.org/2021/10/biden-rejects-claims-that-he-wants-to-return-to-the-nuclear-deal-with-iran.html

• Massive explosions rock base housing U.S. occupation troops in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/275625-massive-explosions-rock-base-housing-us-occupation-troops-in-syrias-dayr-al-zawr

• India plays Russian card

– indianpunchline.com/reflections-on-events-in-afghanistan-31/

• Washington Post & Politico again engaging in anti-Russian warmongering disinformation

– moonofalabama.org/2021/11/when-russian-troops-training-in-russia-are-raising-concerns-its-likely-propaganda.html

• Russiagate’s Steele Dossier – Paid For By Clinton – Had Clinton Operative As Key Source

– moonofalabama.org/2021/11/russiagates-steele-dossier-paid-for-by-clinton-used-a-clinton-operative-as-a-key-source.html

• Sudanese March Yet Again, Demanding Full-Fledged Civilian Rule

– blackagendareport.com/sudanese-march-yet-again-demanding-full-fledged-civilian-rule

• U.S. Ethiopian Policy

‘under the leadership of the TPLF, Ethiopia invaded neighbors Somalia and Kenya, and helped perpetuate Ethiopian conflict with Eritrea, which was really a conflict between the TPLF and Eritrea.’

– blackagendareport.com/ajamu-baraka-us-ethiopian-policy

– blackagendareport.com/ethiopia-ive-lost-faith-everything-american

• The United States is Organizing a Color Revolution in Cuba for November 15

– blackagendareport.com/united-states-organizing-color-revolution-cuba-november-15

– en.granma.cu/mundo/2021-11-04/the-united-states-government-is-the-real-organizer-of-november-provocation

• USAID gives $6,669,000 in grants for projects aimed at “regime change” in Cuba

– socialistproject.ca/2021/11/the-us-has-an-unhealthy-obsession-with-cuba/

• Cuban foreign minister thanks CARICOM for steadfast support against U.S. blockade

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/nacionales/276046-cuban-foreign-minister-thanks-caricom-for-steadfast-support-against-us-blockade

• Ecuador’s Neoliberal Government Announces State Emergency to Impose Austerity

– newsclick.in/Ecuador-Neoliberal-Government-Announces-State-Emergency-Impose-Austerity

• U.S. intelligence meddled in Venezuelan elections via social media

‘“creating a database of voters to identify soft [socialist party] supporters and swing voters,” who were then organized “into specific categories for targeted messaging.” This allowed the coalition to “[customize] its outreach to swing voters of all leanings with a high degree of specificity.”

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/275766-newly-released-documents-expose-how-us-intelligence-meddled-in-venezuelan-elections-via-social-media

• Why Black Revolutionaries Must Stand with the People of Nicaragua

– blackagendareport.com/why-black-revolutionaries-must-stand-people-nicaragua

• Don’t Ignore the 2021 Tribunal on Genocide

– blackagendareport.com/dont-ignore-2021-tribunal-genocide

• Decolonising Dunkirk – Genocidal White Supremacists at War with Each Other

– blackagendareport.com/decolonising-dunkirk-genocidal-white-supremacists-war-each-other

• The Manufacture of Decline

‘The USA suffers the same disabilities as the Europeans of 1919: They cannot think. They cannot speak plainly among themselves.’

– strategic-culture.org/news/2021/11/03/the-manufacture-of-decline/

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C2. Security (the state beyond ‘a pair of handcuffs’, monopolies of legitimate violence)

ee Security section focuses on the state (a pair of handcuffs, which sposedly has the monopoly of legitimate violence), and how the ‘national security’ doctrine is undermined by private interests, with no interest in divulging or fighting the real enemy, whose chief aim is to prevent an industrial renaissance as the basis of a truly independent nation.

• Devananda says Prez wants him to handle missing persons’ issue

– island.lk/devananda-says-prez-wants-him-to-handle-missing-persons-issue/

• Sirisena as President claimed India’s Research and Analysis Wing was conspiring to kill him

– island.lk/conspiracies-redux/

• Former US Navy Officer arrested in Sri Lanka with ammo & weapons

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/04/former-us-navy-officer-arrested-in-sri-lanka-with-ammo-weapons/

• Sri Lanka has highest annual road crash deaths per capita in South Asia: World Bank

‘38,000 crashes annually in Sri Lanka, resulting in around 3,000 deaths and 8,000 serious injuries….Sri Lanka will need additional US $ 2bn to reduce road fatalities by half’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Sri-Lanka-will-need-additional-US-2bn-to-reduce-road-fatalities-by-half-WB/273-224195

• US dangles IMF aid for military rights in Pakistan

– asiatimes.com/2021/11/us-dangles-imf-aid-for-military-rights-in-pakistan/

• China considered setting up military base in Sri Lanka – US Pentagon

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/04/china-considered-setting-up-military-base-in-sri-lanka-pentagon

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/05/china-hits-back-at-pentagon-claim-on-military-bases/

• Cloud over ‘Horizon’ as Pandora Papers reveal Paski’s trust deals

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/460407-460407.html

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/04/pandora-papers-bribery-commission-to-record-statement-from-ranjan-interim-report-to-president/

• SLT Chairman did not intentionally destroy NMRA data for ulterior motives

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/SLT-sues-Manusha-Nanayakkara/273-223909

• Rs. 124 m afresh from Japan to support humanitarian demining activities in north

‘Ambassador of Japan Sugiyama Akira and Halo Trust Head of Region Belinda Vause’

– ft.lk/news/Rs-124-m-afresh-from-Japan-to-support-humanitarian-demining-activities-in-north/56-725151

• Senior military officers from over 90 countries meet to discuss ICRC’s laws of war

– ft.lk/news/Senior-military-officers-from-over-90-countries-meet-to-discuss-laws-of-war/56-725150

• Zeroing in on the ‘Mahamolakaru’

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Zeroing-in-on-the-Mahamolakaru/172-224002

• Tamil, Muslim, Kandyan personal laws on the block

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/columns/bodu-bala-boss-set-to-overlord-nations-one-law-for-all-concept-460178.html

• Justice Ministry’s Office for National Unity and Reconciliation holds first conference

‘Professor of International Relations Prof. Richard Caplan. Guest Speakers are Australian National University, Canberra – Australia Distinguish Professor Prof. John Braithwaite; Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab – India Vice Chancellor Professor (Dr.) G.S. Bajpal; University of Buffalo, NY – United States College of Art and Science Dept. of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies Professor Barbara Wejnert.’

– ft.lk/news/Office-for-National-Unity-and-Reconciliation-to-hold-first-conference-today/56-725149

• BASL & Union Assurance partnership renewed

‘Union Assurance is a part of the John Keells Group’

– island.lk/basl-union-assurance-partnership-renewed-group-medical-cover-added-to-portfolio/

• Sri Lanka a republic and not a monarchy – Minister of Justice

‘2019 there was a backlog of 800,000 cases in Sri Lanka and only 335 judges to hear them’

– island.lk/sri-lanka-a-republic-and-not-a-monarchy-minister-of-justice/

• Police Intelligence for crime control

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/sunday-times-2/police-intelligence-for-crime-control-460194.html

• Governor issues warning to criminal gangs operating in North, urges politicians to sever links

– island.lk/governor-issues-tough-warning-to-criminal-gangs-operating-in-the-north-urges-politicians-to-sever-links

• Ten underage students arrested over sword attack in Jaffna

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Ten-underage-students-arrested-over-sword-attack-in-Jaffna/2-113582

• Why insecure men & immature and irresponsible women want MMDA marriage guardianship

– island.lk/why-insecure-men-and-immature-and-irresponsible-women-want-marriage-guardianship/

• 37 Western Province police officers addicted to narcotics

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/37-western-province-police-officers-addicted-to-narcotics-460438.html

• The Killing of a Prime Minister Part 3

– island.lk/beyond-reasonable-doubt-2/

• Pegasus Probe: Why a Transparent Mechanism is Imperative

– newsclick.in/Pegasus-Probe-Why-Transparent-Mechanism-Imperative

• South Asia’s security worries set to intensify

– island.lk/south-asias-security-worries-set-to-intensify/

• West Asia still leads as one of the world’s most prolific arms markets

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/sunday-times-2/the-middle-east-still-leads-as-one-of-the-worlds-most-prolific-arms-markets-460186.html

• UN Security Council extends peacekeeping mandate in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/275873-un-security-council-extends-peacekeeping-mandate-in-moroccan-occupied-western-sahara

• State security agent exposes “peaceful” November 15 march in Cuba

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/nacionales/275794-state-security-agent-reiterates-intentions-behind-peaceful-march-in-cuba

• Cuba denounces U.S. unilateral lists at UN hindering cooperation in the fight against terrorism

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/nacionales/276164-cuba-denounces-us-unilateral-lists-at-the-united-nations

_____________________________________________________________

C3. Economists (Study the Economists before you study the Economics)

ee Economists shows how paid capitalist/academic ‘professionals’ confuse (misdefinitions, etc) and divert (with false indices, etc) from the steps needed to achieve an industrial country.

• Afghanistan devastated by armed invasions & Lanka devastated by following the IMF Advice

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/02/afghanistan-a-country-devastated-by-armed-invasions-sri-lanka-devastated-by-following-the-imf-advice/

• Sri Lanka Economic Summit “Charting a Path towards a Technology Hub”

‘Madu Ratnayake, Virtusa and Sandra De Zoysa, SLASSCOM. Oshada Senanayake, TRC, Srimathi Shivashankar, New Vistas, HCL, Harsha Purasinghe, MiHCM and Dinesh Saparamadu, Applova, hSenid Business Solutions. Moderated by Mano Sekaram, 99X Technology and Director, ICTA.’

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sri-lanka-economic-summit-charting-a-path-towards-a-technology-hub/

• Business sentiment continues upward trajectory despite prevailing economic uncertainty: IPS

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/business-sentiment-continues-its-upward-trajectory-despite-the-prevailing-economic-uncertainty/

• Sri Lanka heading for serious crisis! – Laksiri Fernando

– island.lk/sri-lanka-heading-for-serious-crisis/

• Data-driven decision making for economic prosperity and good governance – Part I & 2

– island.lk/data-driven-decision-making-for-economic-prosperity-and-good-governance-part-i/

– island.lk/data-driven-decision-making-for-economic-prosperity-and-good-governance-ii/

• A child’s guide to cryptos, crypto mining and blockchain – Part II: Wijewardena

– ft.lk/columns/A-child-s-guide-to-cryptos-crypto-mining-and-blockchain-Part-II/4-725191

• Removal of price controls

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/removal-of-price-controls-459949.html

• Continuation of GSP+ vital to maintain export momentum: Chamber of Commerce

– ft.lk/opinion/Continuation-of-GSP-vital-to-maintain-export-momentum/14-725259

• A framework for economic recovery: Advocata

– ft.lk/columns/A-framework-for-economic-recovery/4-725254

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/a-framework-for-economic-recovery/

• How Marx’s Capital Is About AI – Samarajiva

– indica.medium.com/how-marxs-capital-is-about-ai-b3f4b5bb2e2f

• Sri Lanka Commits to Boosting Investments in People – World Bank

– moderndiplomacy.eu/2021/11/04/sri-lanka-commits-to-boosting-investments-in-people/

• Different Models of Developmental State by Prof. Ha Joon Chang

‘“To put it bluntly, there isn’t one economic theory that can single-handedly explain Singapore’s success; its economy combines extreme features of capitalism and socialism. All theories are partial; reality is complex”’

– biznomicsmagazine.com/different-models-of-developmental-state-2/

• Dire Poverty in pandemic – at least 3bn are ‘economically vulnerable’ or worse – Roberts

– thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2021/11/04/poverty-in-the-pandemic/

• Japan general election: the ‘new capitalism’ – Roberts

‘Kishido aims to reduce inequality, help small businesses over the large and ‘level up’ society. This would break with Abe’s emphasis on ‘structural reform’ ie reducing pensions, welfare spending and deregulating the economy.’

– thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/japan-general-election-the-new-capitalism/

• Financing the climate – Roberts

– thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2021/11/05/financing-the-climate/

• The Neoliberal Exploitation Under a Super-Imperialism Lens – Hudson

– michael-hudson.com/2021/11/the-neoliberal-exploitation-under-a-super-imperialism-lense/

• South Korea’s Squid Game: A capitalist nightmare of all against all – Ahmed D Dardir

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/sunday-times-2/squid-game-a-capitalist-nightmare-of-all-against-all-460183.html

• The inflation catch-up game – Mohamed A. El-Erian

‘Quit rates among US workers are at record highs as employees feel more comfortable leaving jobs to seek better-paying positions or strike a better work-life balance. There is more talk of labour strikes’

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/the-inflation-catch-up-game-459920.html

• The U.S. Supply Chain Crisis Will Get Worse – As Will Inflation

– moonofalabama.org/2021/11/the-us-supply-chain-crisis-will-get-worse-as-will-inflation.html

• Greta, and good intentions

‘Contrary to what neoclassical economics would have us believe, the modern economy does not operate as a series of impersonal markets driven purely by the aspirations of individual actors’

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/sunday-times-2/glasgow-greta-and-good-intentions-460171.html

____________________________________________

C4. Economy (Usually reported in monetary terms)

ee Economy section shows how the economy is usually measured by false indices like GDP, etc, and in monetary terms, confusing money and capital, while calling for privatization and deregulation, their constant moaning about debt and balance of payments without stating the need for industrial production to overcome such issues, etc.

• Basil boosts confidence of MNCs

‘A. Baur and Company CEO Rolf Blaser, AIA Insurance CEO Nikhil Advani, CEAT Lanka Managing Director Ravi Dadlani, Dole Lanka Managing Director Carlos Antunez, E&Y Global Delivery Service H. Karthik, Huawei Director–Public Affairs and Communication Department Chris Lee, INSEE Cement EVP Jan Kurnigk, Itochu General Manager Akira Matsui, Standard Chartered Bank CEO Bingumal Thewarathanthri, Fiscal Policy Department Director General Kapila Senanayake, Colombo Uni. MBAA President Boshan Dayaratne’

– ft.lk/top-story/Basil-boosts-confidence-of-MNCs/26-725323

• Net Foreign Assets of the Central Bank turns negative at a multi-decade low in August 2021

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/net-foreign-assets-of-the-central-bank-turns-negative-at-a-multi-decade-low-in-august-2021/

• Sri Lanka aims to cut deficit, have non-traditional budget in 2022

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-aims-to-cut-deficit-have-non-traditional-budget-in-2022-87568/

• Food shortages soaring prices and lack of fertilisers threaten livelihoods – Sunday Times

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/columns/food-shortages-soaring-prices-and-lack-of-fertilisers-threaten-livelihoods-460166.html

• Colombo inflation jumps to 7.6% in Oct. from 5.7% in Sept.

– ft.lk/front-page/Colombo-inflation-jumps-to-7-6-in-Oct-from-5-7-in-Sept/44-725294

• Impossible to fix one price for a decade or more – Lasantha

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/06/impossible-to-fix-one-price-for-a-decade-or-more-lasantha/

• Inland Revenue Department warns of more revenue loss; urgent tax reforms not done

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/ird-warns-of-more-revenue-loss-urgent-tax-reforms-not-done-460435.html

• Excise department awaits budget proposals to mitigate losses

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Excise-department-awaits-budget-proposals-to-mitigate-losses/2-1135811

• Sri Lanka CB says working to reverse trend of getting deeper into dollar debt

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-cb-says-working-to-reverse-trend-of-getting-deeper-into-dollar-debt-87458/

• Exporters fume at CB’s latest mandatory conversion rule as “over regulation”

– ft.lk/front-page/Exporters-fume-at-CB-s-latest-mandatory-conversion-rule-as-over-regulation/44-725199

• Sri Lanka sells Rs66bn in Treasuries, 3-month down 25bp

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-sells-rs66bn-in-treasuries-3-month-down-25bp-87558/

• Harsha faults Govt. for maligning Moody’s; warns hardships piling on people

– ft.lk/front-page/Harsha-faults-Govt-for-maligning-Moody-s-warns-hardships-piling-on-people/44-725200

• OECD’s global tax pact: Lanka seeks more time, wary of repercussions

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/oecds-global-tax-pact-lanka-seeks-more-time-wary-of-repercussions-460442.html

• China urges families to store basic supplies in case of emergency

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/China-urges-families-to-store-basic-supplies-in-case-of-emergency/108-223942

_________________________________________________________________________

C5. Workers (Inadequate Stats, Wasteful Transport, Unmodern Plantations, Services)

ee Workers attempts to correct the massive gaps and disinformation about workers, urban and rural and their representatives (trade unions, etc), and to highlight the need for organized worker power

• Sri Lanka bans strikes over opposition to US power deal

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/10/30/sri-lanka-bans-strikes-over-opposition-to-us-power-deal/

• Protests against NFE deal spread across country

– island.lk/protests-against-nfe-deal-spreadacross-country/

• Electricity, Ports and Petroleum services launch protests against LNG deal.

– ft.lk/ft_tv/Electricity-Ports-and-Petroleum-services-launch-protests-against-LNG-deal/10520-725413

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Electricity-petroleum-port-unions-launch-protests/2-1135794

• President declares wide range of public services as essential

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/president-declares-wide-range-of-public-services-as-essential-460447.html

• CEB trade unions threaten blackout unless govt. suspends New Fortress deal

– island.lk/ceb-trade-unions-threaten-blackout-unless-govt-suspends-new-fortress-deal

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/columns/govt-seems-shaky-and-on-code-amber-faces-revolt-within-460335.html

– island.lk/expect-blackouts-if-govt-goes-ahead-with-questionable-deal/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-trade-unions-protest-controversial-energy-deal-87511/

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Govt-s-responsibility-to-prevent-country-facing-blackout-JVP/108-223954

• Some CEB engineers opt out of TU action

– island.lk/some-ceb-engineers-opt-out-of-tu-action/

• Johnston urges CEB unions not to strike

– island.lk/johnston-urges-ceb-unions-not-to-strike/

• No strike tomorrow, but date will be fixed: CEB United Trade Union Alliance

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/No-strike-tomorrow-but-date-will-be-fixed-CEB-United-Trade-Union-Alliance/342-223858

• CEB engineers write to US Embassy over New Fortress LNG deal

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/CEB-engineers-write-to-US-Embassy-over-New-Fortress-LNG-deal/273-223843

• Interruptions to water supply if CEB doesn’t restore power breakdowns during strike: Water Supply Trade Union

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Interruptions-to-water-supply-if-CEB-doesnt-restore-power-breakdowns-during-strike-Water-Supply-Trade-Union/342-223948

– island.lk/power-failure-could-disrupt-water-supply/

• Delay in fuel distribution inevitable during protest: JSS

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Delay-in-fuel-distribution-inevitable-during-protest-Ananda-Palitha/342-223947

– island.lk/cpc-protest-could-impact-fuel-distribution-jss

• Despite circular, CEB Trade Union Alliance to reach Colombo for protests

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Despite-circular-CEB-Trade-Union-Alliance-to-reach-Colombo-for-protests/108-223867

• Thousands of CEB, CPC workers to fall sick today against deal with US energy firm

– island.lk/thousands-of-ceb-cpc-workers-to-fall-sick-today-against-deal-with-us-energy-firm/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/03/ceb-port-petroleum-workers-to-stage-massive-island-wide-protests-today-3/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/03/trade-unions-and-ceb-at-loggerheads-as-calls-grow-for-lng-deal-to-be-withdrawn/

• CEB Chairman warns of dire action as TUs ponder industrial action

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/02/ceb-chairman-warns-of-dire-action-as-tus-ponder-industrial-action/

• Sri Lanka LPG supplies wait for dollars to unload amid money printing

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-lpg-supplies-wait-for-dollars-to-unload-amid-money-printing-87561/

• NSB employees protest to expedite the signing of the collective agreement

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/NSB-employees-protest/273-223992

• Youth who supported us now queued up to obtain passports to go abroad: PM

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Youth-who-supported-us-now-queued-up-to-obtain-passports-to-go-abroad-PM/108-223879

– island.lk/pm-praises-slpp-constituents-pledges-to-eliminate-factors-that-drive-youth-away/

• Unemployed graduates demand jobs

‘Unemployed graduates carried out a protest campaign in front of the Fort Railway Station today (1) demanding that the Government find them jobs.’

– timesonline.lk/news-online/In-pictures-Unemployed-graduates-demand-jobs/2-1135758

• Pradeshiya Sabha chief assaults protester provoking teachers

– island.lk/ps-chief-assaults-protester-provoking-teachers/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/03/proper-solution-to-teachers-principals-issues-needed-before-budget-starlin/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/05/confrontation-between-protesting-teachers-cops-in-colombo/

• Communist Party & Teachers Strike

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/columns/govt-seems-shaky-and-on-code-amber-faces-revolt-within-460335.html

• Teachers’ struggle – Sarath Weerasekera, Public Security Minister

– island.lk/teachers-struggle/

• No statutory requirement to conduct domestic inquiry before terminating worker, rules Supreme Court

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/No-statutory-requirement-to-conduct-domestic-inquiry-before-terminating-workman-rules-Supreme-Court/273-224082

• CB establishes dedicated department to facilitate and streamline workers’ remittances

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/CB-establishes-dedicated-department-to-facilitate-and-streamline-workers-remittances/273-223990

• Sri Lanka commits to boost investments in people, joins World Bank’s Human Capital Project

– ft.lk/front-page/Sri-Lanka-commits-to-boost-investments-in-people-joins-World-Bank-s-Human-Capital-Project/44-725545

• Sri Lanka’s post-pandemic education

– ft.lk/columns/Sri-Lanka-s-post-pandemic-education/4-725256

• Life insurance agents agitate to obtain EPF, ETF benefits hitherto denied to them

– island.lk/life-insurance-agents-agitate-to-obtain-epf-etf-benefits-hitherto-denied-to-them/

• Colombo Uni. Students’ Union opposes Ven. Murutthettuwe appointment as new Chancellor

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Colombo-Uni-Students-Union-opposes-Ven-Murutthettuwe-Anandas-appointment-as-new-Chancellor/342-223950

• Muruthettuwe Thera, Colombo University & Royal College

– kalaya.org/2021/11/blog-post_4.html#more

• Government policies have distanced peasantry, the working class, and the middle-class

– island.lk/battling-the-blues/

• Follow The Youth Self Employment Program of Bangladesh – Karunaratne

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/10/30/to-remind-our-leaders-what-we-need-today-youth-employment-follow-the-youth-self-employment-program-of-bangladesh-1982-till-today/

• Navigating the Corporate Jungle in a Skirt

– biznomicsmagazine.com/navigating-the-corporate-jungle-in-a-skirt/

• Sri Lanka to host World Human Resources Congress 2021 from Dec. 6-8

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/sri-lanka-to-host-world-hr-congress-2021-from-dec-6-8-459924.html

• Standard Chartered globally recognised for gender equality by World Bank

– island.lk/standard-chartered-sri-lanka-globally-recognised-for-gender-equality-with-edge-certification/

• Ratmalana Private Fliers’ Champion was Paulis Appuhamy, Bus Mudalali from Attanagalle

‘In his Palayakat sarong, with his hair tied in a ‘konde’, he flew barefooted and obtained a Private Pilot’s license (PPL)’

– island.lk/fun-fliers-is-a-must-when-we-talk-of-aviation/

• Newly-graduated Toronto grandma from Lanka has words of advice for young people in school

– blogto.com/city/2021/11/newly-graduated-toronto-grandma-words-advice-young-people-school/

• Nanotechnology – a new hazard: Victorian Trades Council Occupational Health & Safety Unit

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/10/30/nanotechnology-a-new-hazard/

• 88% of People in Asia-Pacific Believe Robots Can Support Their Career Better Than Humans

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/88-of-people-in-asia-pacific-believe-robots-can-support-their-career-better-than-humans/

• Beijing says discrimination against Chinese has become chronic disease in the United States

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/275748-beijing-says-discrimination-against-chinese-has-become-chronic-disease-in-the-united-states

• US John Deere union workers reject contract offer and extend strike

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/275996-john-deere-union-workers-reject-contract-offer-and-extend-strike

• Ties to Jeffrey Epstein at JPMorgan Chase Just Cost Him His CEO Job at Barclays

– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/11/jes-staleys-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein-at-jpmorgan-chase-just-cost-him-his-ceo-job-at-barclays/

_________________________________________________________________________

C6. Agriculture (Robbery of rural home market; Machines, if used, mainly imported)

ee Agriculture emphasizes the failure to industrialize on an agriculture that keeps the cultivator impoverished under moneylender and merchant, and the need to protect the rural home market. Also, importation of agricultural machinery, lack of rural monetization and commercialization, etc.

• COP26: Wall Street rolls out climate finance

– indianpunchline.com/cop26-wall-street-rolls-out-climate-finance/

• Are tea auctions and the brokerage system broken?

– themorning.lk/are-tea-auctions-and-the-brokerage-system-broken/

• ‘Why spend Rs 800 mn on Consumer Affairs Authority if it has nothing to do’

‘the government has chosen to do away with price control’

– island.lk/why-spend-rs-800-mn-on-caa-if-it-has-nothing-to-do/

• Food industry fears looming crisis amidst supply-demand imbalances

– ft.lk/top-story/Food-industry-fears-looming-crisis-amidst-supply-demand-imbalances/26-725548

• Special Commodity Levy for imported rice, reduced

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/04/special-commodity-levy-for-imported-rice-reduced/

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Special-Commodity-Levy-on-imported-rice-reduced-to-25-cents/108-224028

• 15,000 MT rice ordered from India

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/05/15000-mt-rice-ordered-from-india/

• Emergency laws on essential items lapse; Office of CGES no more

– island.lk/emergency-laws-on-essential-items-lapse-office-of-cges-no-more/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-shortage-agency-lifts-price-controls-on-sugar-dhall-87631/

• Sri Lanka lifts ‘rice mafia’ tax for State Trading Corporation imports

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-lifts-rice-mafia-tax-for-state-trading-corporation-imports-87498/

• Control price on sugar removed

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/02/control-price-on-sugar-removed/

• MONLAR sees ulterior motive in government’s organic policy

‘government banned agrochemicals to break the existing cartel that controlled fertiliser imports and help its business associates’

– island.lk/monlar-sees-ulterior-motive-in-governments-organic-policy

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/01/the-sri-lanka-organic-experiment/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-state-docs-take-step-back-as-pliny-sows-fertilizer-crisis-down-millennia-87515/

• CIC Chairman made Peradeniya Professor an Advisor in 2009

– island.lk/marambe-in-presidents-delegation-at-un-climate-change-conference-despite-sacking

– economynext.com/sacked-sri-lanka-scientist-rejects-ad-hominem-attack-as-fertilizer-warning-materialize-87485/

• Government & Modernisation of Agriculture Programme present Agricultural Policy

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/government-of-sri-lanka-along-with-the-technical-assistance-to-modernisation-of-agriculture-programme-presents-the-overarching-agricultural-policy/

• An Old Tale about Fertilizer

– kalaya.org/2021/10/blog-post_31.html#more

• Yohani & Kidneys

– kalaya.org/2021/11/blog-post_5.html

• Sri Lanka’s agricultural fields are oversaturated with chemicals

– island.lk/flexibility-the-key/

• Three Ministry Secretaries assigned to approve agro chemical imports

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/three-ministry-secretaries-assigned-to-approve-agro-chemical-imports-459986.html

• Distribution of imported fertilizer begins

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/distribution-of-imported-fertilizer-begins-459989.html

• Fertiliser fix digs deeper

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/fertiliser-fix-digs-deeper-459936.html

• Media Barrage Against Government Policy on Organic

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/03/rajapaksas-experiment-with-organic-farming-in-sri-lanka-a-warning-to-developing-countries/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/03/we-must-learn-from-sri-lankas-man-made-organic-agriculture-disaster/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/03/100-organic-agriculture-a-costly-experiment-leading-to-national-disaster-part-1/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/03/sri-lanka-100-organic-agriculture-a-costly-experiment-leading-to-national-disaster-part-2/

– island.lk/agriculture-sector-in-mess/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-gamble-on-fertilizer-leads-to-crisis-emerging-controversy-over-monk-87649/

• Monopolists Prima Ceylon and Serendib Flour Mills claim lack of dollars to import wheat flour

‘Wheat flour shortage pushes confectioners, bakers to cut production’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Wheat-flour-shortage-pushes-confectioners-bakers-to-cut-production/108-223994

• Bairaha Farms Sept. sales down on soaring chicken prices

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Bairaha-Farms-Sept-sales-down-on-soaring-chicken-prices/273-224080

• Thousand kilos of cabbage dumped at the beach

– timesonline.lk/news-online/In-pictures-Thousand-kilos-of-cabbage-dumped-at-the-beach/2-1135797

• Fertilizer ban: Is food crisis on the offing?

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Fertilizer-ban-Is-food-crisis-on-the-offing/172-223819

• US$ 165mn Eppawala–Giribawa water supply contract awarded to Israeli- Swiss JV

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/US-165mn-water-supply-contract-awarded-to-Israeli-Swiss-JV/273-223907

• Canal Project: Gunaruwan Committee members contest Irrigation Ministry Secretary’s claim

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/canal-project-gunaruwan-committee-members-contest-irrigation-ministry-secretarys-claim-460430.html

• Construction of ADB US$966mn Mahaweli Water Security programme to be expedited

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Construction-work-of-US-966mn-Mahaweli-Water-Security-Development-programme-to-be-expedited/273-224190

• Mini floods hit Nuwara Eliya for 4^th time in a month cause by unauthorised constructions

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/mini-floods-hit-nuwara-eliya-for-fourth-time-in-a-month-460355.html

• Deduru Oya, Upper Kotmale sluice gates opened

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Deduru-Oya-Upper-Kotmale-sluice-gates-opened/342-223951

• Many villages in Mannar District hit by severe flooding

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Many-villages-in-Mannar-District-hit-by-severe-flooding/2-1135789

• Agriculture Minister ready to purchase organic paddy at Rs 100 (Video)

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/03/agriculture-minister-ready-to-purchase-organic-paddy-at-rs-100-video

• ‘Agricultural revolution that does not harm nature, is required’ – President

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/01/agricultural-revolution-that-does-not-harm-nature-is-required-president/

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/president-in-glasgow-for-crucial-climate-summit-460455.html

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/editorial/climate-summit-ambitious-targets-and-ambiguities-460328.html

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/President-highlights-overuse-of-chemical-fertilisers-in-Sri-Lanka-at-COP26/273-223850

– island.lk/we-need-a-new-agricultural-revolution-that-is-not-against-nature/

– ft.lk/front-page/President-rallies-world-for-agri-revolution-in-line-with-nature/44-725293

• Court issues summons on Palmyrah Development Board Chairman

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Court-issues-summons-on-Palmyrah-Development-Board-Chairman/273-223989

• China and FAO funds USD 1.1 mn project to strengthen fruit value-chains

– island.lk/china-funds-usd-1-1-mn-project-to-strengthen-fruit-value-chains

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/fao-and-china-provide-technical-assistance-to-strengthen-fruit-value-chains-in-sri-lanka/

• HJS Condiments expands out-grower network

‘The out-grower units are USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and EU Organic and Global GAP certified under the supervision of accredited certification bodies of Sri Lanka.’

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/hjs-condiments-expands-out-grower-network-459930.html

• SLINTEC’s nano-fertiliser technology to uplift Sri Lanka’s agriculture sector

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/SLINTECs-nano-fertiliser-technology-to-uplift-Sri-Lankas-agriculture-sector/273-224079

• Listed plantation companies to benefit from supply constraints in India

‘India, the fourth largest rubber producer is facing a sharp drop in production due to heavy rains in Kerala, disturbing the peak rubber tapping season which extends from September to January. ‘

– ft.lk/front-page/Listed-plantation-companies-to-benefit-from-supply-constraints-in-India/44-725498

• India comes to Lanka’s rescue as farmers’ protests intensify

– island.lk/india-comes-to-lankas-rescue-as-farmers-protests-intensify/

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Indian-Air-Force-to-transport-liquid-Nano-Nitrogen-fertiliser-from-India/108-223782

– ft.lk/ft_tv/Another-shipment-of-Nano-Nitrogen-liquid-fertilizer-arrived/10520-725432

• Nano Fertilizer released for distribution amongst concerns on efficacy

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/04/nano-fertilizer-released-for-distribution-amongst-concerns-on-efficacy/

• People’s Bank must abide by the law: General Manager

– newsfirst.lk/2021/10/31/peoples-bank-must-abide-by-the-law-general-manager/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/03/sri-lanka-brought-to-its-knees-by-china-over-rejected-fertilizer-says-nalin-hewage/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/05/court-extends-order-preventing-payment-to-chinese-fertilizer-company/

• Chinese embassy plays hardball over payments for contaminated fertilizer

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/chinese-embassy-plays-hardball-over-payments-for-contaminated-fertilizer-459972.html

– dailymirror.lk/news-features/Chinese-controversial-fertiliser-shipment-Where-is-Hippo-Spirit/131-223825

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/02/hippo-spirit-vessel-with-rejected-chinese-fertilizer-located-off-the-coast-of-weligama/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/04/plant-quarantine-service-commences-re-testing-chinese-fertilizer-samples/

• CEA Research finds palm oil cultivation is an eco-disaster

– island.lk/research-finds-palm-oil-cultivation-is-an-eco-disaster/

• Plantation industries face uncertain future

‘Webinar organised by the National Institute of Plantation Management, moderated by Peradeniya University Senior Prof. Buddhi Marambe’

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/plantation-industries-face-uncertain-future-459927.html

• London-registered Malaysian-owned Hobbify China to export durians from Nawalapitiya

– ft.lk/front-page/340-m-euro-investment-into-organic-durian-export-venture-in-Nawalapitiya/44-725420

• Grey areas, lack of resources delaying assessment of environment damage from X Press Pearl

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/grey-areas-lack-of-resources-delaying-assessment-of-environment-damage-from-x-press-pearl-expert-460362.html

• COP26 regional ambassador and multinationals at the Colombo Development Dialogues

– island.lk/cop26-regional-ambassador-at-the-colombo-development-dialogues/

• Exotic Pines and Eucalypts: From demonised trees to partners in forest restoration?

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/plus/exotic-pines-and-eucalypts-from-demonised-trees-to-partners-in-forest-restoration-460028.html

• Natural Reserve over 40 years ago

– island.lk/natural-reserve-over-40-years-ago/

• “Will they mourn us on the front line?”

‘Mia Mottley, PM of Barbados, speech at the Opening of the World Leaders Summit of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26)’

– blackagendareport.com/transcript-will-they-mourn-us-front-line-mia-mottley-pm-barbados-speech-opening-world-leaders

• Bolivian President Warns ‘Carbon Colonialism’ Won’t Solve Climate Crisis

– blackagendareport.com/bolivian-president-warns-carbon-colonialism-wont-solve-climate-crisis

• Food Sovereignty for Climate Justice Now: Declaration Toward UN Climate COP26

– socialistproject.ca/2021/11/food-sovereignty-climate-justice-now/

• Crew members evacuated from burning container ship off coast of Canada

‘40 containers that fell overboard the ship’

– nypost.com/2021/10/25/crew-evacuated-from-burning-container-ship-near-canada/amp/

• As The Planet Wants to go Green, France Has a Nuclear Habit it Just Cannot Kick

– newsclick.in/As-The-Planet-Wants-Green-France-Nuclear-Habit-Just-Cannot-Kick

• Fake British Council report – ‘Young People on Climate Change: A Perception Survey’

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/the-british-council-launches-compelling-report-young-people-on-climate-change-a-perception-survey/

• Deconstructing (Cruise) Boats on the Eve of Glasgow COP26

– socialistproject.ca/2021/11/deconstructing-boats-eve-of-glasgow-cop26/

_____________________________________________________________________

C7. Industry (False definitions, anti-industrial sermons, rentier/entrepreneur, etc)

ee Industry notes the ignorance about industrialization (versus handicraft and manufacture), the dependence on importing foreign machinery, the need to make machines that make machines, build a producer culture. False definitions of industry, entrepreneur, etc, abound, and the need for a holistic political, economic and military strategy to overcome the domination by merchants and moneylenders.

• GSMB to lunch Geo-chemical mapping covering entire nation

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/GSMB-to-lunch-Geo-chemical-mapping-covering-entire-nation/342-223771

– ft.lk/business/GSMB-to-prepare-a-geochemical-map-of-all-parts-of-Sri-Lanka/34-725312

• Sri Lanka faces looming crude oil crisis

– dailymirror.lk/expose/Sri-Lanka-faces-looming-crude-oil-crisis/333-223920

• Sri Lanka LPG supplies wait for dollars to unload amid money printing

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-lpg-supplies-wait-for-dollars-to-unload-amid-money-printing-87561/

• Sri Lanka’s IOC unit reports Rs281mn in profits in Sept 2021

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-ioc-unit-reports-rs281mn-in-profits-in-sept-2021-87476

– island.lk/lanka-ioc-registers-positive-performance-in-q2/

• Chevron Lubricants Lanka reports Rs.5.19 billion for 3Q21

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Chevron-Lubricants-Lanka-earnings-up-in-3Q-amid-strong-lube-sales/273-223848

• Agreement with NFE bypassed tender, cannot be disclosed: CEB Chairman

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Agreement-with-NFE-cannot-be-disclosed-due-to-certain-conditions-CEB-Chairman/108-223974

– island.lk/ceb-chairman-says-new-fortress-deal-beneficial

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/03/ceb-chairman-admits-yugadanavi-deal-bypassed-tender-procedure/

• US new Fortress Yugadanavi deal a great investment opportunity

– ft.lk/ft_tv/US-new-Fortress-Yugadanavi-deal-a-great-investment-opportunity/10520-725431

– timesonline.lk/news-online/CEB-officials-claim-Yugadanavi-project-is-a-great-investment-opportunity-for-country/2-1135820

• Ruling party insists on New Fortress Energy deal despite objection by allies

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Ruling-party-insists-on-New-Fortress-Energy-deal-despite-objection-by-allies/108-223833

• Energy Minister, Cabinet, Parliament, Citizens all in the dark!

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/plus/letters-to-the-editor-3-460076.html

– island.lk/govt-erupts-over-us-energy-deal-crisis-threatens-slpps-near-2-3-majority/

• UNP trade union denounces UNP stand on selling national assets

– island.lk/unp-trade-union-denounces-party-stand-on-selling-national-assets/

• A productive way out of the LNG dilemma

– island.lk/a-productive-way-out-of-the-lng-dilemma/

• Petroleum Development Authority of Sri Lanka debuts

‘Industry veteran Saliya Wickramasuriya is the Chairman of PDASL and Surath Ovitigama is the Director-General of PDASL. Other Board Members include W. J. Shavindra Fernando, Dr. N. P. Wijayananda, J. R.U. de Silva, Chaminda Hettarachchi, Damitha Kumarasinghe, and Dharshani Lankapura. Secretary to the Ministry of Finance or his representative will be appointed’

– ft.lk/business/Petroleum-Development-Authority-of-Sri-Lanka-debuts/34-725344

• Wind Power to save forex spent on fuel imports

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/10/30/to-remind-our-leaders-what-we-need-today-wind-power-to-save-forex-spent-on-fuel-imports/

• Oil rises after OPEC+ rebuffs U.S. call to boost output

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Oil-rises-after-OPEC-rebuffs-U-S-call-to-boost-output/273-224193

• Boat Building Technology Improvement Institute (BTI) first ever international Boat Show

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/virtual-boat-show-sri-lanka-2021/

• Sri Lanka president turned Japanese loan into Indian investment in ECT deal: Jayasundera

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-president-turned-japanese-loan-into-indian-investment-in-ect-deal-jayasundera-87582/

• Hambantota Port reaffirms gateway status with first shipment for local manufacturer

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/HIP-reaffirms-gateway-status-with-first-shipment-for-local-manufacturer/273-224075

– island.lk/locally-manufactured-trailers-shipped-from-hambantota

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/hip-reaffirms-gateway-status-with-major-breakthrough-first-shipment-for-local-manufacturer/

• Govt. secures US $ 500mn WB financing to develop rural road network

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Govt-secures-US-500mn-WB-financing-to-develop-rural-road-network/273-223993

– ft.lk/front-page/Govt-WB-sign-500-m-financing-for-climate-resilient-transport-connectivity-agricultural-supply-chains/44-725419

• President and WB representatives inspect Nagalagam Street pumping station

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/President-and-WB-representatives-inspect-Nagalagam-Street-pumping-station/273-224192

• Private Bus Transport Industry in a Dilemma

– ft.lk/ft_tv/Private-Bus-Transport-Industry-in-a-Dilemma/10520-725180

• Four hundred luxury vehicles held up at Port after ban on import

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Four-hundred-luxury-vehicles-held-up-at-Port/2-1135812

• Price fluctuation in construction contracts and impact on cash flow: Institute of Builders

– ft.lk/front-page/Price-fluctuation-in-construction-contracts-and-impact-on-cash-flow-of-contractors/44-725195

• Tokyo Cement Group announces FY22 Q2 Rs. 173 Million profit

– island.lk/tokyo-cement-group-announces-fy22-q2-results/

• Tokyo Cement 2Q suffers on price controls amid escalating costs

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Tokyo-Cement-2Q-suffers-on-price-controls-amid-escalating-costs/273-224081

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-tokyo-cement-profit-down-94-pct-as-cost-rose-price-controls-bite-87626/

• Lanwa Cement, HIPG deal to create more than 300 direct jobs

– island.lk/lanwa-cement-hipg-deal-to-create-more-than-300-direct-jobs/

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sri-lankas-latest-venture-into-cement-manufacturing-connects-with-hambantota-port/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-lanwa-cement-sets-up-covered-conveyor-at-china-run-hambantota-port-87482/

• Sri Lanka cement supplies to be boosted by INSEE with two ships

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-cement-supplies-to-be-boosted-by-insee-with-two-ships-87580/

• GMOA urges expansion of lab facilities to detect coronavirus mutations

– island.lk/gmoa-urges-expansion-of-lab-facilities-to-detect-coronavirus-mutations/

• The only “rapid PCR” center in Sri Lanka is run by Asiri Hospitals

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-main-intl-airport-apologises-for-rapid-pcr-rush-seen-in-viral-video-87573/

• PCR controversy: Now private labs allowed at BIA vehicle park

– island.lk/pcr-controversy-now-private-labs-allowed-at-bia-vehicle-park/

• Douglas & Sons old importer of German auto, tyres, batteries, agricultural equipment & industrial parts

– island.lk/continental-commemorates-150-years-of-helping-customers-see-the-future-in-motion/

• Bolero City Pik-up by Ideal Motors & M&M consists of over 30% locally-sourced components

– island.lk/mahindra-unveils-the-new-bolero-city-pik-up/

• Higher import costs, shipping delays and freight rates hurt BPPL

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Higher-import-costs-shipping-delays-and-freight-rates-hurt-BPPL/273-224083

• Computer Society of SL CEO Conclave on technology trends and impact on business models

– ft.lk/front-page/CSSL-CEO-Conclave-on-Survive-and-Flourish-in-Emerging-Futures-on-8-November/44-725306

• Leap now or lose out, cautions ICTA chief

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Leap-now-or-lose-out-cautions-ICTA-chief/273-224078

• High-density data centre launched in SL

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/OrionStellar-first-carrier-neutral-and-high-density-data-centre-launched-in-SL/273-223987

• National Identity Card tender takes a wrong turn

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/national-identity-card-tender-takes-a-wrong-turn-459965.html

• GPV Electronics to build a new electronics factory

‘for Swiss and German customers, GPV Electronics LK employs around 1,000 people and specialises in high-mix, low-medium volume electronic production of box-build solutions, EMC (Electro-Magnetic Compatibility) and future cable-harness capabilities’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/GPV-Electronics-breaks-ground-for-high-tech-production-facility/273-223841

• Toymakers Struggles for Their Craft

– ft.lk/ft_tv/Toymakers-Struggles-for-Their-Craft/10520-725142

• CB to introduce new strategies to help pandemic-hit MSMEs

‘“Bank lending to MSMEs in Asian and SAARC countries is over 50%. However, in Sri Lanka, it is less than 15% with high interest rates,” Minister Weerawansa claimed.’

– ft.lk/front-page/CB-to-introduce-new-strategies-to-help-pandemic-hit-MSMEs/44-725205

• Sri Lanka’s Hela Clothing to strike global partnerships

‘Tanzania strategic in that it is a country that is the fifth largest organic cotton grower in the world… Egyptian cotton is one of the best quality cottons globally…’

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/sri-lankas-hela-clothing-to-strike-global-partnerships-459983.html

• The world is fascinated by the development of Bangladesh

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/04/the-world-is-fascinated-by-the-development-of-bangladesh

• Thailand and Bangladesh: The Chittagong-Ranong Port Connectivity Potential

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/04/thailand-and-bangladesh-the-chittagong-ranong-port-connectivity-potential/

• Resumption of work of TAPI Gas pipeline project in Afghanistan brings hope for the region

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/05/resumption-of-work-of-tapi-gas-pipeline-project-in-afghanistan-brings-new-hope-for-region/

• A rare quartz is key to Xinjiang’s solar boom, and almost all of it is in the US

– scmp.com/news/china/article/3153656/rare-form-quartz-key-xinjiangs-solar-boom-and-almost-all-it-us

• Bring about a decarbonized economy, rather than manufacturing for private profit.

– socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed-video/climatecodered-oshawa-time-for-just-transition/

• Nuclear energy helped prevent 72 bn tonnes CO2 emissions since 1970

– island.lk/nuclear-energy-helped-prevent-72-bn-tonnes-co2-emissions-since-1970/

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C8. Finance (Making money from money, banks, lack of investment in modernity)

ee Finance tracks the effects of financialization, the curious role of ratings agencies, false indices, etc., and the rule of moneylenders.

• Central Bank fixes maximum interest rates for finance companies

– ft.lk/front-page/Central-Bank-fixes-maximum-interest-rates-for-finance-companies/44-725295

• Finance company deposit rates rise further as T-bill yields climb

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Finance-company-deposit-rates-rise-further-as-T-bill-yields-climb/273-223906

• CB’s Financial Intelligence Unit imposes penalties on a bank and two finance companies

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/cbs-financial-intelligence-unit-imposes-penalties-on-a-bank-and-two-finance-companies

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Three-financial-institutions-fined-for-flouting-customer-due-diligence-protocols/273-223905

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-finance-companies-bank-fined-by-anti-money-laundering-office-87629/

• People’s Bank Chief Legal Officer launches book on legal aspects of banking activities

– ft.lk/news/People-s-Bank-Chief-Legal-Officer-launches-book-on-legal-aspects-of-banking-activities/56-725411

• Driver escaping with over Rs. 67Mn cash of private bank arrested

‘The STF said that the satellite data device attached to the vehicle carrying money was used to monitor the route of the vehicle fleeing.Investigations revealed that the driver was an army deserter.’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Driver-escaping-with-over-Rs-67Mn-cash-of-private-bank-arrested/108-223846

• CSE: A fool born every second

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/cse-a-fool-born-every-second-459933.html

• Rising inflation leaves depressing impact on stocks

– island.lk/rising-inflation-leaves-depressing-impact-on-stocks/

• Sri Lanka stock market looks to Dubai diaspora to reverse outflow in first post-COVID forum

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-stock-market-looks-to-dubai-diaspora-to-reverse-outflow-in-first-post-covid-forum-87532/

• Secondary market rates decrease

– ft.lk/financial-services/Secondary-market-rates-decrease/42-725226

• Pan Asia Bank 3Q income of Rs.2.30 billion

‘Dhammika Perera directly controls a 29.99 percent stake in Pan Asia Bank’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Pan-Asia-Bank-3Q-profit-surges-on-loans-and-higher-margins/273-223847

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/pan-asia-bank-achieves-a-post-tax-profit-of-rs-2-bn-during-first-9-months-amid-challenges-profit-for-the-quarter-soars-by-89/

• Sri Lankas’s DFCC profits up three-fold in Sept21 quarter to 1.14 billion rupees

‘continued to grow its loans while the trading of foreign exchange added a massive gain… The government controls 31.61% in DFCC Bank through Bank of Ceylon, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, the Employees’ Provident Fund and Trust Fund, while Hatton National Bank holds 14.91 % being its single largest shareholder.’

– dailymirror.lk/financial-news/DFCC-3Q-profit-soars-on-higher-loans-and-trading-gains/265-223900

– economynext.com/sri-lankass-dfcc-profits-up-three-fold-in-sept21-quarter-87438/

• Sri Lanka’s Union Bank net Profit down 24-pct in Sept 2021

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-ubc-net-down-24-pct-in-sept-2021-87477/

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/union-bank-reports-a-resilient-performance-despite-challenges-in-3q21/

• Seylan Bank to raise up to Rs.20bn next year to boost capital

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Seylan-Bank-to-raise-up-to-Rs-20bn-next-year-to-boost-capital/273-223844

• ComBank partners Central Bank’s nationwide rollout of LANKAQR

‘Namal Rajapaksa MP, graced the event as Chief Guest’

– island.lk/combank-partners-central-banks-nationwide-rollout-of-lankaqr/

• SC Securities-Daily FT Market Pulse: Key insights from business leader Alex Lovell

– ft.lk/ft_tv/SC-Securities-Daily-FT-Market-Pulse-Key-insights-from-business-leader-Alex-Lovell/10520-725194

• Wall Street Banks Closed in the Red on Friday on Reports of Hedge Fund Losses

– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/11/wall-street-banks-closed-in-the-red-on-friday-on-reports-of-hedge-fund-losses/

• Guide to What to Expect from Probe of the Fed’s Trading Scandal

– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/11/the-inspector-generals-report-on-jpmorgans-london-whale-is-a-guide-to-what-to-expect-from-its-probe-of-the-feds-trading-scandal/

• Biden Nominee Omarova to Supervise “Quintessential A**hole Industry” – US Banks

– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/11/bidens-nominee-omarova-called-the-banks-she-would-supervise-the-quintessential-ahole-industry-in-a-2019-feature-documentary/

• 53% of US Citizens Don’t Trust the Fed

– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/11/prior-to-the-feds-trading-scandal-an-axios-ipsos-poll-found-53-percent-of-americans-didnt-trust-the-fed/

• US Mega Banks Close in a Sea of Red Ink as S&P 500 Hits an Historic Record

– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/11/stock-prices-are-dangerously-diverging-mega-banks-close-in-a-sea-of-red-ink-as-sp-500-hits-an-historic-record/

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C9. Business (Rentierism: money via imports, real-estate, tourism, insurance, fear, privatization)

ee Business aka ee Rentier focuses on diversions of the oligarchy, the domination by a merchant mafia, making money from unproductive land sales, tourism, insurance, advertising, etc. – the charade of press releases disguised as ‘news’

• Over 33,000 traders engaged in cigarette sales: Ceylon Tobacco Opposes price increase

– ft.lk/opinion/Consider-impacts-to-trade-and-domestic-value-chains-before-excessive-price-increase/14-725258

• Over 1,600 local & international Non-Governmental Organisations registered in Sri Lanka

‘Childfund partnership with Pizzahut Sri Lanka to hire 30 young girls with disabilities on lower pay’

– ft.lk/columns/Private-sector-NGO-collaboration-for-rebuilding-SL-post-pandemic/4-725390

• Chartered Corporate Secretaries (ICCSSL) meets Registrar of Companies

‘President Hemali Ellawala, Immediate Past President Helen de Silva, Deputy President S. Sudarshan, VP Ishani Liyanage, Past President Kishan Kuruppu and members of the board Nisha Najumudeen, Dilrukshi Wiratunga, Geredene Suares & Priyadarshana Wetthasinghe represented ICCSSL.’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/ICCSSL-meets-Registrar-of-Companies/273-223903

• Sri Lanka stock index at fresh all time high as earnings beat expectations

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-stock-index-at-fresh-all-time-high-as-earnings-beat-expectations-87648/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/06/commercial-leasing-reports-market-capitalization-of-over-rs-500bn/

• JKH EBITDA Rs. 6.4 billion for three months, helped by property

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/JKH-second-quarter-profits-surge-on-recovery-in-key-businesses/273-223908

– island.lk/john-keells-group-q2-ebitda-records-growth-of-93-to-rs-6-41-billion-significant-turnaround-in-the-groups-leisure-business

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-jkh-profits-up-321-pct-in-sept-2021-helped-by-property-87567/

• BPPL Holdings earnings for the six month period were Rs226 million

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/bppl-holdings-apr21-september21-net-earnings-up-16-yoy/

• Massive Rs. 8 billion demand for Rs. 700 m Ex-pack IPO

– ft.lk/front-page/Massive-Rs-8-b-demand-for-Rs-700-m-Ex-pack-IPO/44-725496

• Overseas Realty earnings Rs.789.8 million in the July-September quarter

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Overseas-Realty-records-robust-3Q-on-apartment-sales/273-223991

• CT Holdings (Group revenue up by 29% to Rs. 29.5 billion) to float real estate subsidiary

– ft.lk/business/CT-Holdings-to-float-real-estate-subsidiary/34-725215

• Thiru Nadesan enters top-20 Cargills shareholder list

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Thiru-Nadesan-enters-top-20-Cargills-shareholder-list/108-223911

• Transparency Int’l requests asset declarations of Nirupama Rajapaksa from President, Speaker & Election Commission

– timesonline.lk/news-online/TISL-requests-asset-declarations-of-Ms-Nirupama-Rajapaksa-from-President-Speaker-and-Election-Comm/2-1135815

– island.lk/nirupama-overseas-yet-to-appear-before-ciaboc/

• Prime Lands Residencies PLC announces appointment of Noel Joseph to Board of Directors

‘He currently serves on the Board of Regnis (Lanka), Singer Industries (Ceylon), and On’Ally Holdings. Prime Lands Directors now comprise of Premalal Brahmanage (Co-Chairman), Sandamini Perera (Co-Chairperson), Manjula Weerakody (MD), Nalinda Heenatigala, Mahinda Perera, Deepal Sooriyaarachchi, Dhammika Kalapuge, Sanjaya Bandara, Shehana Brahmanage and Noel Joseph.’

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/prime-lands-residencies-plc-announces-appointment-of-noel-joseph-to-board-of-directors/

• International Construction Consortium UDA tender for mixed development in Thalapathpitiya

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/ICC-secures-tender-for-middle-rise-mixed-development-project-in-Thalapathpitiya/273-223902

• Sino Lanka Group to build US $ 5.6mn mixed development project in Rajagiriya

‘agreement was signed by Board Members Dr. Harsha Cabral and Sanjaya Kulatunga on behalf of the BOI and Sino Lanka Director Dhiren Kundanmal’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Sino-Lanka-Group-to-build-US-5-6mn-mixed-development-project-in-Rajagiriya/273-223845

• German KfW Development Bank grant to construct maternity hospital in Galle

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Germany-pledges-to-convert-Euro-13-million-Loan-into-grant-for-construction-of-new-maternity-hospital-in-Galle/2-1135795

• Hotels want dollars from November 1

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/business-times/hotels-want-dollars-from-november-1-459980.html

• Sabry Bahaudeen, Director of Classic Travel elected President of Travel Agents Association

– timesonline.lk/business/Sabry-Bahaudeen-GMDirector-of-Classic-Travel-elected-as-President-of-TAASL/10-1135774

• Sri Lanka-Russia Business Council holds 18th AGM

‘Salota International’s Kolitha Wickremasinhge was elected as the President of the Council while Freight Links’ Niral Kadawatharatchie and Uni Traders’ Isuru Samarasinghe were elected as the Vice Presidents. Regency Teas’ Hiran Karunaratne was appointed as the Treasurer and Avian Technologies’ Buddhika Liyanage will serve as the Immediate Past President. The committee elected CBL Natural Foods, Kaushalya Tea Export, MAC Holdings, MOS Lanka Investments, Maltras International, Natures Beauty Creations, Orifini Jewellers, Rahino Roofing Products and Walkers Tours.

– ft.lk/business/Sri-Lanka-Russia-Business-Council-holds-18th-AGM/34-725518

• Canadian High Commissioner applauds SL-Canada Business Council

– ft.lk/business/Canadian-High-Commissioner-applauds-SL-Canada-Business-Council-for-supporting-biz-partnerships/34-725349

• A race for technology and customer supremacy: PickMe

– ft.lk/business/A-race-for-technology-and-customer-supremacy/34-725260

• All member states should revive SAARC as a regional platform

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/05/all-member-states-should-revive-the-saarc-as-a-regional-platform/

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C10. Politics (Anti-parliament discourse, unelected constitution)

ee Politics points to the constant media diversions and the mercantile and financial forces behind the political actors, of policy taken over by private interests minus public oversight.

• DEW slams current regime as the worst in parliamentary history of the country

– island.lk/dew-slams-current-regime-as-the-worst-in-parliamentary-history-of-the-country/

• Call for elections, says Ven. Muruthettuwe Thero

– newsfirst.lk/2021/10/31/call-for-elections-says-ven-muruthettuwe-thero

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/An-aggressive-leader-and-11-angry-parties/172-224005

• People must be patient, as Patience is a virtue : Piyal Nishantha

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/05/people-must-grant-a-grace-period-to-the-govt-piyal-nishantha/

• Politics in Sri Lanka Part 1

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/05/politics-in-sri-lanka-part-1/

• Before 1815 we had only one nation. That was the Sinhala nation.

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/05/ref-taskforce-headed-by-gnanasara-thera-pre-determined-objectives

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/05/sri-lankan-nation/

• Media Terrorism: Vilifying Buddhism & demonizing Buddhist Thero under guise of free speech

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/04/media-terrorism-vilifying-buddhism-demonizing-buddhist-theros-under-guise-of-free-speech/

• JVP claims SLPP allies’ rebellion only a ruse

– island.lk/jvp-claims-slpp-allies-rebellion-only-a-ruse-by-saman-indrajith/

• PM should ask his eldest son

– island.lk/pms-lament

• Cricket Mahinda & the Government

– kalaya.org/

• We were not Defeated by England just Yesterday

– kalaya.org/2021/11/blog-post_2.html#more

• Ethnicity in Sri Lanka Part 2

‘ethnic categories, which are utterly artificial, are accepted as official. This has led to other complications. These artificial ethnic Identities then started to develop a life and history of their own and become fixed. Now they are claiming land rights and sovereignty’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/03/ethnicity-in-sri-lanka-part-2/

• Minority Opportunism: Crossovers & Alliances – Rauf Hakeem

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/01/minority-opportunism-crossovers-alliances-rauf-hakeem

• Postpone elections

– island.lk/shock-therapy-works/

• PM calls SLPP activists to get back to village level politics

– timesonline.lk/news-online/PM-calls-SLPP-activists-to-get-back-to-village-level-politics/2-1135777

• Please don’t forget people who elected you, Mr. President!

– island.lk/please-dont-forget-people-who-elected-you-mr-president

– island.lk/end-monkey-business-now-and-get-serious/

• Madness, sheer madness!

– island.lk/madness-sheer-madness/

• One Country, One Law, One Monk

– kalaya.org/2021/10/blog-post_30.html#more

• Golden opportunity to make issues discussed by BBS a reality: Ven. Gnanasara Thera

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Golden-opportunity-to-make-issues-discussed-by-BBS-a-reality-Ven-Gnanasara-Thera/108-223779

– island.lk/ven-gnanasara-vows-to-complete-job-by-next-feb-to-satisfaction-of-all/

– ft.lk/ft_tv/Task-Force-for-One-Country-One-Law-Ven-Gnanasara-Thera-explains-objectives/10520-725319

– island.lk/pigs-might-fly/

• Ven. Gnanasara’s appointment: Sabry likely to quit justice portfolio

– island.lk/ven-gnanasaras-appointment-sabry-likely-to-quit-justice-portfolio/

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/one-country-one-law-justice-minister-sabry-not-consulted-about-task-force-not-happy-over-move-460440.html

– island.lk/gnanasara-and-one-country-one-law/

– island.lk/its-mandates-stupid/

– island.lk/one-country-one-law-what-is-it-why-now/

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/columns/govt-seems-shaky-and-on-code-amber-faces-revolt-within-460335.html

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/01/minister-ali-sabry-should-resign-from-the-post-of-minister-of-justice-immediately-and-also-cease-to-be-an-mp-any-further

– island.lk/one-country-one-law-one-joke/

• GR & The BBS Boss: Turbo-Trumpism on the Road to Myanmar – Jayatilleka

– island.lk/gr-the-bbs-boss-turbo-trumpism-on-the-road-to-myanmar/

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/columns/how-can-sri-lankas-law-reformers-retain-even-a-semblance-of-sanity-460236.html

• Bodu Bala Sena and violence in Aluthgama and Beruwala – David

– ft.lk/columns/Bodu-Bala-Sena-and-violence-in-Aluthgama-and-Beruwala/4-725331

• The Xinhai Revolution – China towards One Country One Law

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/the-xinhai-revolution-china-towards-one-country-one-law/

• Maithri pledges better future for farmers under his Govt.

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Maithri-pledges-better-future-for-farmers-under-his-Govt/108-223834

• Withdrawing backup vehicles would give us huge relief: Dayasiri

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Withdrawing-backup-vehicles-would-give-us-huge-relief-Dayasiri/342-224105

• Colvin Stories

– island.lk/colvin-stories/

• Nation mourns scholar monk’s death

‘Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya, Chief Judicial Prelate for the two Regions of Colombo and Chilaw, and Chief Incumbent of the Peliyagoda Vidyalankara Pirivena’

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/nation-mourns-scholar-monks-death-460241.html

• SJB Splits

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/columns/govt-seems-shaky-and-on-code-amber-faces-revolt-within-460335.html

• JVP stance on debt traps, fertilizer import bans, ports and PC elections

– island.lk/jvp-stance-on-debt-traps-fertilizer-import-bans-ports-and-pc-elections/

• JVP MP Vijitha Herath complains to CID on fake news

– timesonline.lk/news-online/JVP-MP-Vijitha-Herath-complaints-to-CID-on-fake-news/2-1135763

• Govt. on multiple tracks with priority to fuelling ethno-religious nationalism

– island.lk/govt-on-multiple-tracks-with-priority-to-fuelling-ethno-religious-nationalism/

• Maximum volume barrage of Catholic Masses broadcast from tannoy speakers October 31

– island.lk/a-wrong-catholic-message/

• Minority parties push for PR system in future elections

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/news/minority-parties-push-for-pr-system-in-future-elections-460421.html

• Mother Lanka weeps for you – The Public Service

– island.lk/mother-lanka-weeps-for-you/

• L.M. Abdul Aziz – First Sri Lankan Ahmadi Muslim.

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/01/i-l-m-abdul-aziz-first-sri-lankan-ahmadi-muslim/

• Wang Huning: A Communist Mandarin – David

– island.lk/wang-huning-a-communist-mandarin/

• Govt.’s games, world powers and Sri Lanka’s culture of resistance

– ft.lk/columns/Govt-s-games-world-powers-and-Sri-Lanka-s-culture-of-resistance/4-725389

• ‘Fascist’ Doesn’t Mean What it Used to

– newsclick.in/fascist-doesnt-mean-what-used-to

• Canada’s Eviscerated Democracy: Minority Government & Representative Democracy as Symptoms

– socialistproject.ca/2021/11/canadas-eviscerated-democracy/

• Why the Troubled US Empire Could Quickly Fall Apart

– newsclick.in/why-troubled-US-empire-quickly-fall-apart

• I’ve witnessed a coup attempt before — and history bodes poorly for USA’s future

– island.lk/ive-witnessed-a-coup-attempt-before-and-history-bodes-poorly-for-americas-future/

• Trial of Kyle Rittenhouse for BLM protest killings begins

‘Rittenhouse is white, as were those he shot, but many are watching his trial as the latest referendum on race and the U.S. legal system.’

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/275765-trial-of-kyle-rittenhouse-for-blm-protest-killings-begins

• One Day – Three Biden Failures: Return of Trump, COP26 & Iran Showdown

– indianpunchline.com/glasgow-climate-summit-is-an-elite-farce/

• Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power

– blackagendareport.com/elections-and-illusion-black-political-power

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C11. Media (Mis/Coverage of economics, technology, science and art)

ee Media shows how corporate media monopoly determines what is news, art, culture, etc. The media is part of the public relations (corporate propaganda) industry. The failure to highlight our priorities, the need to read between the lines. To set new perspectives and priorities.

• Enfection is the marketing services arm of Momentro, which includes MarTech services

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/enfection-the-first-ever-sri-lankan-marketing-transformation-company-to-be-nominated-at-the-global-drum-awards/

• Establish Public Commission of Inquiry to investigate and reform National Media

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/04/establish-a-public-commission-of-inquiry-to-investigate-the-state-and-activities-of-the-media-with-a-view-to-reform-of-the-national-media/

• NGOs, Fake Journalists & Foreign Jaunts

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/The-culture-of-serial-workshop-hunters/231-223921

• A24 news agency Q1 collaborates with Sri Lankan media

– ft.lk/news/A24-news-agency-Q1-collaborates-with-Sri-Lankan-media/56-725412

• Fount and repository of knowledge: Royal Asiatic Society

‘there was a tradition of maintaining a library called ‘pot gul’ in every temple’

– island.lk/fount-and-repository-of-knowledge/

• A treasure trove of knowledge turns 100 – the ‘Pera Library’

– sundaytimes.lk/211031/plus/a-treasure-trove-of-knowledge-turns-100-460089.html

• Centre for Equality and Justice (CEJ) Memorialisation for Reconciliation

– dailymirror.lk/business/WOMEN-UNITE-TO-REMEMBER/215-223791

• Hassina Leelarathna, co-founder of the only Sri Lankan newspaper in the U.S., dies at 73

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/11/01/hassina-leelarathna-co-founder-of-the-only-sri-lankan-newspaper-in-the-u-s-dies-at-73/

• M.S. de Silva, Lanka’s first (successful) journalist/entrepreneur

‘I remember him importing a Chinese bike, branded Phoenix, at a time Raleigh was king, which he could price very competitively. He was also among the first to export coconut seedlings to Cuba.’

– island.lk/m-s-de-silva-lankas-first-successful-journalist-entrepreneur/

• People’s Tribunal opens in The Hague to probe Lasantha’s killing

‘Reporters Without Borders, Free Press Unlimited, and the Committee to Protect Journalists have set up the People’s Tribunal’

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/02/peoples-tribunal-opens-in-the-hague-to-probe-lasanthas-killing/

– newsfirst.lk/2021/11/02/sri-lankan-journalists-remember-their-dead-with-no-answers-from-authorities/

• The Velupillai Prabhakaran Movie: Inaccurate

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/The-Velupillai-Prabhakaran-Movie-Inaccurate/172-223823

• Kandyan kingdom: From the fringe to the centre

– island.lk/kandyan-kingdom-from-the-fringe-to-the-centre/

• Ruminations on Sri Lanka’s Ancient Past – Part III

‘a relatively advanced civilisation existed in the island ‘prior’ to the arrival of the Sinhala’

– island.lk/from-oceania-to-east-africa/

• The worm in the apple

‘Condemning “the dictatorship,” pulling out your knife and plunging it to the hilt into Cuba, is a bargaining chip to make one’s way within Miami’s uncertain cultural circles’

– en.granma.cu/cuba/2021-11-04/the-worm-in-the-apple

• USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) central to Disinformation

“provides fast, flexible, short-term assistance targeted at key political transition” – i.e. regime change – was central to these efforts.’

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/275766-newly-released-documents-expose-how-us-intelligence-meddled-in-venezuelan-elections-via-social-media

• “And they lived unhappily ever after…”: A critique of the aesthetic of melancholy

– redsails.org/infelices-para-siempre/

• Blind and Dumb Criticism (1957) – Barthes

– redsails.org/critique-muette-et-aveugle/

• Passive Resistance in an Era of Nihilism

– island.lk/passive-resistance-in-an-era-of-nihilism/

• US & England: Making ‘Freedom of Expression’ commit suicide!

– island.lk/making-freedom-of-expression-commit-suicide/

• Facebook Meta: Rebranding Itself out of Trouble or Building a Dystopian Future?

– newsclick.in/Facebook-Meta-Rebranding-Itself-Trouble-Building-Dystopian-Future

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email: econenews@gmail.com,

blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com

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Sri Lanka Still Dancing in Lipton’s Circus

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