“Before you study the economics, study the economists!”
e-Con e-News 5-11 December 2021
An ‘international drug mafia’ and ‘fraudulent business operations’ were identified as ‘major challenges’ in Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa’s 2022 budget speech. This mafia, if you believe the capitalist media, is led by people with Sinhala village names – Makandure Madush, et. al. And this mafia is led by those who wear white national couture, according to their cartoonists’ caricature of politicians. Politicians who they claim are more corrupt than even their media owners.
But the real mafia are not media villains at all. They wear suits & ties and the occasional hipster sari! They flaunt media-glittered labels and brands. And if you believe their PR-agency-fabricated business headlines, they win (or give themselves) awards every day – ‘carbon-conscious, gender inclusive, socially responsible’, ‘best workplace’, etc.. And constantly making token charitable donations of foreign equipment and goods, the parts of which will have to be imported
They sport names like Citibank, Standard Chartered, HSBC, Chevron, P&G, Unilever, ICI-CIC, Ceylon Tobacco, et al. These multinational corporations (MNCs) provide the street and field mafias with their vast multinational banking, industrial, communication, distribution and disciplinary (gangster) networks, grounded here in the mercantile agency houses of old (see Random Notes).
Their main aim is to prevent our modern industrialization. Modern (machine-making) industrialization would deprive them of the human and natural ‘resources’, they now exploit in the raw. Welcome to the multinational mafia, and their local agents (including economists) always demanding overpriced imports and underpriced exports.
• The need for a political, economic and military strategy to overcome the present multinational sabotage and disinformation is evident in a memo this week from a former Sri Lankan envoy, now somehow living ‘happily ever after’ in England:
‘The level of corruption among state employees at all levels
from peons to Secretaries of Ministries is astounding.
From 2000-15 I saw it all as Director General
and Chairman of the National Institute of Fisheries & Nautical Engineering
to Chairman of the Sagara Viswa Vidyalaya, and Ambassador to Vietnam for nearly 6 years.
They don’t like you if you do not allow them the corruption that prevails
as circles within circles in the state sector.
Ministers are mere hostages to them.
I was poisoned 3 times, my family threatened, and worse.
One day a ring leader walked into my office and put on my table a wad of notes
rolled with an elastic band and said ‘Sir, you are too honest.
Please take this money and go home to England
and think whether you would want to return. If you do we will welcome you
if you work with us and not against us.’ I asked him to leave my office
with his money, and a few months later resigned.
Then in Vietnam I realized how well interwoven
the Foreign Ministry staff are in playing the system.
My attaché bought a Mercedes 475 Sports and put up a diplomatic number plate on it.
One day my driver told me this attaché had rented out the Merc
to a Vietnamese drug & prostitution mafia…’ (cont’d in Random Notes).
• Who manufactured this ‘corruption’ of state workers? What is the link between these drug networks and MNCs with the East India Companies of old? Between foreign-funded ‘civil society’ and their handlers, present day John D’Oylys, the former EIC ‘writer’ who inveigled feudals, poets and priests?’ (Random Notes, Origins of Drug Mafias)
• ‘We’ll sack 10,000s of workers (or export, or mass murder, them when needed), and sell off more national corporations and resources to keep reproducing this wasteful import-export plantation system inherited from colonialism’ – this is the oligarchy’s wet dream. Their media cannot come clean and state this is what their masters and politicians aim to do. They use euphemisms like ‘labor flexibility’, which they couch beneath wailing about ‘debt, default, foreign reserves, foreign investment, balance of payments’, etc. Refusing to admit that modern industrialization could resolve these issues easily.
Yet undermining the growth of a skilled working class, who would demand modern industrial policies to enable innovative skills for themselves and their children (which will eventually render capitalists obsolete), has always been and is still their greatest nightmare. ee again recalls, the mass dismissals of workers in July 1980 were a dress rehearsal for July ’83, escalating terrorism.
• ee Focus this week notes: ‘Panic makers are out in numbers glibly predicting Armageddon with crop failure, food shortages, and famine in the near future in this country.’ ee also reproduces how nano technology developed by Sri Lanka was given away to India, who is now selling it back to us! Investing in the rural home market as the basis for modern industrialization, rather than allowing Unilever and other MNCs to rob the surplus to London & New York, is the key.
It is no coincidence that one of England’s largest multinationals – ICI-CIC, producer of major carcinogenic chemicals – is coordinating the attack on Sri Lanka’s nascent organic policy, through a local Peradeniya University professor on the board of Imperial Chemical Industries – ICI subsidiary CIC. ICI is also the owner of Astra-Zeneca. ICI-CIC and Unilever are closely linked. It is they who lead the attack to prevent Sri Lanka from producing the chemicals and machines to make vaccines. Preventing us from taking control of our (especially, rural) economy and home market. Overcoming them is not a tea party.
• Celebrity economist Thomas Piketty’s thinktank this week released their latest World Inequality 2022 Report. And yes, the news is bad. But what is to be done? Picketty’s Capital ‘invokes the ‘neoclassical’ growth model of Robert Solow, the votary of ‘labor market flexibility’.’ This means in effect ‘smashing trade unions through ‘free hire and fire’. Smashing trade unions on the plea that this would raise employment is currently on the agenda of corporate capital everywhere in the world including India. It’s a pity that Piketty, despite his concern with wealth inequality, adopts a theory that provides sustenance to this corporate agenda. (Prabhat Patnaik, ‘Capitalism, Inequality & Globalization: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century’)
• Beyond the Boundary – Barbados became the latest republic on planet Earth last week, nominally kicking out the Queen of England as their head of state. The English media are accusing Barbados of fleeing into China’s embrace, and claim other neighboring English colonies will follow suit.
They doth protest too much. Like the kalusuddhas (Black whites) of Sri Lanka, those lands also host a unique postcolonial species called Afro Saxons, who cannot see beyond the fleshpots of white servitude.
Barbados and the Caribbean, divided by the Europeans into ‘West Indies’ islands and ‘ethnicities’, needs to first rewire its colonial cage: That of sugar plantation, tourist paradise for whites, drug entrepots and offshore tax hideouts.
25 years after they invaded Sri Lanka, Portugal invaded that Caribbean land of the Amerindian people in the 1520s In the 1620s, the English first imposed the ‘American plantation system’ based on chattel slavery, onto Barbados. Scottish and Irish being indistinguishable from masters, the English resorted to enslaving Africans. “To barbados’ was once an English verb meaning, ‘to kidnap’.
SBD de Silva’s classic, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, details how the plantation economy and its slavish practices were implanted here directly from the Caribbean.
SB’s book bowled a sharp yorker at one of the Caribbean’s Nobel-Prize-winning economists, “Sir” Arthur Lewis, who claimed that the plantation system was a modern institution and imparted ‘growth impulses’ to the more ‘backward’ peasant sector. SB was well versed in Caribbean history, from Colombus to Castro. SB quotes Jamaican Professor Norman Girvan in his book, who asked, “If the object of imperial capital is to extract a surplus from the country as such, and assuming that other possible investment opportunities exist… why is the surplus not invested in these other sectors after having made a killing in the mineral [or plantation-cum-mining] sector?”
England’s Prince Charles was invited to “toast” the “transition.” Transition to what? Indeed, Barbados and Sri Lanka will prevail as independent countries only if we invest our accumulated blood, sweat and tears and other juices in our own modern industrial systems to uplift the rural worker. Otherwise this independence business, amounts to mere English chatter. Cheers!
Contents:
A1. Reader Comments –
• Sri Lanka Drowning in Anglomania • Blood Sacrifices on Tap • Dictionary Engineer • National Crime Scenes & Kantale • Woke Trauma & Deindustrialization • Postcolonials & Country Trade • Stock Exchange Fever & Inflation
A2. Quotes of the Week
• Editor Denzil’s Death & India • Scotland Yard’s Crimes • Fiddling ISB Stats • Bangladesh Bridge for India & China • France Controls 16 African Airports • Norway Carbon Fraud
A3. Random Notes –
• Workers Sweat for Deficit • Verité Facts Unchecked • MNCs & SOEs • Underdevelopment & Riots • Foreign Service & Mafia • Asia’s Drug Networks • New East India Co’s & New D’Oylys • JR Robber Barons & State Corruption • Industrialization Key to BOP Snafu • Fake Export Industrialization • Recapturing Country Trade • No National, No Nation Policy • Social Media Campaigns to Destabilize • UN Geneva Ignoring UN General Assembly • What’s so Wrong with Zimbabwe • Nano Tech Stolen • NDB Fraud • Virus Wars on China: Old Script
B. ee Focus
B1. Putting the Enterprise Back in State Ownership – Shiran Illanperuma
B2. Grow More Food –Sugath Kulatunga
B3. Why Buy Nano Fertilizer from India? – Tissa Vitarana
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
• ‘I read ee with interest. I was shocked to realize I had not noticed: How the Black-whites in Sri Lanka get triggered by seeing a sign in Chinese, when the country is drowning in English.’
• ‘I keep getting the feeling that SL is on track to be destabilized. I fear blood spilling and sacrifices are being requested by the gods of the ruling classes. Shall I dig a secret bunker? Reserve a flight ticket? Pretend everything is fine? Sue ee for causing anxiety and unrest? Join the other side? What next?’
• ‘The dictionary defines ‘engineer’ as ‘a person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or structures’. Our engineers are either not allowed to fulfil the first verbs of this definition, or are too lily-white to dirty their hands in such machine-building activity.’
• ‘Kantale Sugar & Vallachennai Paper, let alone Oruwala Steel, Thulhiriya Textile (now a MAS domain), etc., should be declared national crime scenes. Nation-building institutions, from which conscious workers were chased out, and gangsters rushed in to prevent any success.
There are 2 ways to kill a sapling: deprive it of water, or flood it. National corporations were rendered ineffective by purposely underfunding and overstaffing.’ (see Random Notes)
• Our ‘woke’ social media clicktivists have no idea that when a nation’s industries (the real creativity, the highway to real independence & modernity) are destroyed, all manner of traumas ensue. They and their education and civil society are funded by the same folk (World Bank, IMF) who committed these crimes. This is further grim humor. Ha! Ha!
• ‘Postcolonial’ academics & NATO-funded ‘civil society’ are blithely ignoring the wars in our neighborhood that continue the colonial capture of the ‘country trade’ – preventing cooperation between regional economies. They keep playing India versus Sri Lanka, Myanmar, China, etc.’ (see ee Quotes, Bangladesh)
• ‘Global credit is getting really tight with inflation, the China property-sector crash, and Omicron (delaying recovery). Also, most QE goes to casino-like stock exchanges not to real economy because the real economy ROR (rate of return) is low compared to stock exchange ROR. Because the real economy carries so many friction factors (market volatility, etc.).’
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A2. Quotes of the Week_
• ‘Denzil Peries had suddenly died at a restaurant meal. Denzil was the Editor of South, a journal that had recently unearthed with photographic evidence that Indira Gandhi, the PM of India had established training camps for LTTE cadre’ – ee Sovereignty, Douglas Wickremaratne
• Athulathmudali Assassination – ‘A Scotland Yard team had been invited by [President] Premadasa to assist the Police. Its review written by Detective Superintendent Alec Edwards, which received press publicity in mid-July, gave rise to further incredulity. It said Ragunathan was the killer. But its arguments left something to be desired. As though to exonerate the Police for not providing security for the meeting, it said, ‘the crime was as audacious as it was innate and no matter how closely policed the rally may have been, the outcome was likely to be the same’
Tassie Seneviratne commented on the Review (‘Police Problems’, Sunday Times 2000 Jan 30): ‘The Scotland Yard report clearly speaks of a backlash on the government and the police alike. There can be no ‘backlash’ unless they were in fact involved. Also strangely, Scotland Yard officers took briefings from the very officers accused of the cover-up. The head of the NIB, Mr Z Wijesuriya, had by this time cultivated a close rapport with an MI5 officer, Brian Watters, who was attached to the UK High Commission in Colombo in the capacity of secretary, when the government was faced with the ‘ensuing problem’. The ‘decisive act’ to get down the Scotland Yard officers was suggested to President Premadasa by Z Wijesuriya and through Brian Watters’ intervention the team was got down ‘quickly’ and tasked with clearing the government and the police of the blame. When the Scotland Yard officers arrived here, they were housed in Hotel Ramada, which was in fact Brian Watters’ rendezvous. In the evenings Scotland Yard officers, Watters and DIG/CID MDA Rajapakse, long retired from the police but serving on a contract given by President Premadasa, met frequently at the ‘Library’ at the Hotel Ramada where the Scotland Yard officers were entertained. It is reliably learnt that MDA Rajapakse and Watters had a hand in the preparation of the Scotland Yard report.’ The report was so obviously a cover-up, that it further enhanced suspicion of the Government’s involvement.’ – colombotelegraph.com/index.php/the-athulathmudali-assassination/
• ‘Two statistical errors relate to computation of the external debt burden of the country: One is the recording of value of the outstanding International Sovereign Bonds at the market price, which has plummeted significantly, instead of recording at face value and treating ISBs held by local entities as domestic debt and not external debt. This is smart statistical cooking carried out by the Central Bank in 2020. This wrong interpretation has helped the CB to record the outstanding value of the external debt below its actual liability obligation. The other is the presentation of the external debt as % of GDP which is predominantly made up of non-tradable services in recent years. Hence, the more appropriate presentation… should be the expression of the external debt as a % of the value of exports.’ – ee Economists, Ostrich
• ‘Bangladesh’s potential to be a ‘bridge’ to the world’s most dynamic market is yet to surge on the Indian consciousness, and may have to wait until India’s autarchic mindset itself transforms in a paradigm shift. Like it or not, the world’s future is tied to China and India – not China or India.’ – ee Sovereignty, Bangladesh
• China is Not Colonizing Africa – ‘It is a French billionaire, Vincent Bolloré, who controls 16 West African ports through bribery and influence peddling. France also controls the CFA currency of its former colonies. Canadian companies control gold mining in Burkina Faso, Mali and Democratic Republic of Congo. Decades after the struggle for independence, English soldiers are still stationed in Kenya.’ – ee Sovereignty, China
• ‘The last word on hypocrisy is Norway’s. At a time when it is expanding its own oil and gas production, Norway, along with 7 other Nordic and Baltic countries, has been lobbying the World Bank ‘to stop all financing of natural gas projects in Africa and elsewhere as soon as 2025’… While Norway may have been the most blatant, 20 countries moved similar resolutions at COP26 to end ‘financing for fossil-fuel development overseas’.’ – ee Agriculture, Greenwashed Imperialism
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A3. Random Notes (‘Seeing Number in Chaos’)_
‘Workers’ remittances have covered around 80% of the annual trade deficit over the past 2 decades,’ confessed the Central Bank governor this week. To pay for a deficit accumulated by importing useless luxuries, paying for them with hard-earned dollars robbed from these workers.
The CBSL is trying to entice workers to send their dollars through established channels. Yet what better way to entice such money than assuring workers their hard-earned money will be invested in modern (machine-making) industry, that will benefit their children as swell!
• Budget 2022 ‘fails in critical outcomes’, cries US-funded thinktank Verité Research (see ee Economists). And what exactly are these critical outcomes? Well, ‘to build confidence for global markets and rating agencies’. Confidence indeed! Global markets? 80% of the global market is controlled by multinationals! MNCs like Unilever etc are very confident in Sri Lanka, controlling the media through their many ad agencies. Ah Verite, thou art veritably yo master’s voice! Bow wow!
• Former Envoy: ‘My driver took me to a hotel compound one evening and showed me how high-class prostitutes were using that Merc with DPL plates and a Sri Lankan flag. Then I was told the same attaché had got multiple entry visas to Thailand, Laos, China.
The Vietnamese Police told me that Thailand-Laos-Vietnam-China is the well-known drug route and our attaché was probably using his DPL passport and his vehicle as a drug courier. When I informed the Director General in the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry, he simply said ‘Excellency, don’t upset them; they probably will put your life at risk’. That is just one instance of what is going on in the name of our Foreign Service. That is why in 2019, I told the powers-that-be that I do not wish to take up any high post in or for Sri Lanka. I am very happy back with my wife and family in England…’
• 1815 continues. Any government striving to be independent, has to now resist and overcome the combined forces of the Portuguese, Dutch and English East India Companies of today, now operating principally from New York, London, Bonn, Geneva, Delhi, Tokyo, with their modern John D’Oylys, buying off politician, general, priest, and poet. These foreign agents were also mentioned but not named in Basil’s budget speech
The ‘corruption’, that the former envoy laments, is an inevitable progression from the 1948 Soulbury game, which downgraded local people’s salaries and emoluments in government service. Subsequently with JR’s fake ‘open economy’, the process of downgrading and ‘privatization’ (‘private’ practice for doctors and teachers, etc) was accelerated to welcome robber barons, etc?
• The ‘Thailand-Laos-Vietnam-China’ drug network, the former SL envoy refers to, is but a direct descendant of England’s and US famed commerce and opium wars of the 19th century from Bombay & Smyrna to Hong Kong, and their post-1949 Kuomintang ‘Green Gangs’ and ‘Golden Triangle’ and NATO heroin-terror sects in Afghanistan. Their dollarized mercenaries are waging war on West to Southeast to East Asia, from Teheran to Kabul to Myanmar to Taiwan, from Tokyo to Seoul.
• Multinationals, marshalling global experience over the years, have seduced and undermined newly and at least nominally independent governments that were/are supposed to serve the people by building modern industrial societies to ensure sovereignty.
Experts at creative accounting (transfer pricing, tax evasion, etc.), at bribing and thugging officials, these multinationals, who monopolize media through their advertising agencies and budgets, proclaim themselves as models of efficiency, against so-called corrupt and overstaffed ‘state’ enterprises.
Yet history recalls how MNC-linked gangs chased out conscious workers in state corporations who would otherwise counter such activity, undermining national institutions using a myriad tactics. The MNCs and related economists smell blood again. They demand selling off state corporations, which in other countries have been and are at the cutting edge of an economic renaissance (ee Focus). Though their real target is attacking working class power.
• The MinFin didn’t (or cannot) confess that this MNC mafia and fraud are very much everyday and mundane even if they are vibrantly virulent departments of ye olde import-export colonial plantation economy, that still rule the country, albeit under US dictat.
These multinationals remain the ‘magicians’ of today, conjuring tricks, old and new, out of multiple barrels bottomless: to daily promulgate underdevelopment, prevent modern industry at any cost, resorting to mass murder every decade or so (from outright bribery and machination 1948, assassination 1959, to overthrow 1962, insurrection 1971, sabotage 1975, economic vandalism and political terrorism, from 1977 onwards).
Who or what can overcome these malign mafias? Even as dollarized democrats daily denounce militarization and despotism, with dollops of purple and lurid prose.
Everyday provides mounting evidence that any plan for industrial transformation requires a political, economic and military strategy.
• Economists dare not mention that ‘I’ word. That I-word is ‘Industrialization’. Our ‘gloom&doom economists’ would rather whine about ‘balance of payments’, debt and default, foreign investment, etc, without mentioning the I-word. So imagine our surprise that the Economics Conference this week had at least one ‘token’ contributor stating: ‘All developing countries that have thrived without industrialization have gone into Balance of Payment crisis… Vietnam went aggressively for industrialization in 2010 and they never had a BOP problem thereafter’ (see ee Industry).
Even the Asian Development Bank rep nodded assent. If so, the ADB must now state why they have not and keep refusing to invest in SL industrialization. The ADB rep had to of course make their call for eliminating labor laws by calling for ‘labor flexibility’.
When the media have no choice but discuss industrialization, they claim it is difficult (see ee Industry, Pharma) or distort it by denouncing import controls and import substitution, and instead cry for ‘export’-led industrialization. The history of industrialization in SL was thus mangled this week by a ‘former Secretary to the Ministry of Industrial Policy, Investment Promotion, & Entrepreneurship Development, and former Director/CEO of the National Development Bank of SL’.
He will not divulge how the NDB was hijacked. He baldly claims instead: ‘Export-oriented trade liberalization policies in the post-1977 period had a significant beneficial effect, inter alia, on the growth of the industrial sector’, while under import substitution policies, ‘Sri Lanka encountered a range of economic setbacks, inflation, unemployment and Poverty were rising’.
This is just not true: Capitalist economists always emphasize: ‘production for export as against the domestic market, whereas the converse, an inward-looking economy, does not exclude the development of export production. Moreover, the openness or extrovert nature of the outward-looking economies is only in respect of the centre. In relation to each other they are inward-looking and closed. While competing with each other, they enter into a division of labor with the centre, producing what the centre wants to buy and buying what the centre wants to sell. The strategy of export promotion reflects the incapacity of the bourgeoisie and the state to mediate the land question, so as to realize the potentialities of the domestic market and develop a new base for surplus accumulation.’ (SBD de Silva, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment)
• The English media is extremely hysterical and biased. So always examine headline against source (in web links) in the mostly English economic news reproduced here. ee News is meant as a compendium and archive to record the sheer mindlessness and gaudy diversions of this merchant/moneylender-ridden media.
• Banks, corporations, media, government and opposition cannot be called ‘national’ as such. They have no idea that it’s modern (machine-making) industry that engineers the modern national state.
The SJB threatened to set up its own parliament. This threat recalls the fiasco of the US CIA playbook in Venezuela, with the US declaring an unelected puppet as the President, and the Bank of England withholding Venezuela’s gold reserves on behalf of this impostor. A message to those who ferret their loot and future with the whites.
This coup leader was invited to the US Summit on Democracy. Washington and its poodles England and the EU now reserve the right to evaluate and decide the outcome of elections in other countries. In 1948 there were seats reserved for whites, who protected their economic privileges post-independence.
• Sri Lankans may recognize the current US-funded ‘social media’ campaign to overthrow the President of Peru. He says they’re deploying a flood of ‘audios, videos and many edited ones’ to ‘silence’ and ‘bend the efforts’ of the government. Unilever’s many ad agencies need to be investigated for their role in social-media campaigns.
German militarism is dispatching a Baltic warship to ensure ‘free and open shipping lanes’ in the Indian Ocean. While, Iran which in the Indian Ocean is warding off ‘dangerous acts of piracy’ by the US, targeting its oil shipments.
Israel is ignoring another UN General Assembly demand for full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Syrian Golan. Snow White UN Geneva does not know what UN Manhattan is ordering. Former and current diplomats from the US, EU and England met with representatives of the separatist Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The US/NATO axis have given them the ‘green light to overthrow the Ethiopian government’.
• Nanotechnology & venture capital – Prof Tissa Vitarana as Minister of Science & Technology initiated the Nano Technology Institute way back in 2005 (ee Focus). Incorporated in 2008 as a public-private partnership,, SLINTEC has undertaken research in many fields successfully and obtained national and international patents. One such patent was Nano urea. Yet the SLINTEC patent was sold to an Indian firm for US$3million in 2013 and now the Sri Lanka cabinet approved purchase from India nano urea for $52mn for this Maha season only. Our loss is a huge gain for India.
Sri Lanka failed to take advantage of the nano urea patent, with the local product far superior to the imported product as it has a 38-40% loading of nitrogen. This shows a serious lacuna in technology development policy and process in the country. It is accepted that the commercialization of successful research (a patent) is a costly process. In most countries, this is undertaken by venture capital firms. It would have been a logical step to have set up a venture capital facility along with SLINTEC.
• ‘In the 1980s the Export Development Board applied the venture capital concept in a limited way by investing up to 49% of the shares in pioneering export-oriented projects. EDB finance and marketing support resulted in the success of investments in the processing of diamonds, solid rubber tires, prawn culture, cultivation of gherkins, and a few others. A suggestion to establish a venture capital fund within the EDB was frowned upon by the Ministry of Finance. Instead, the EDB encouraged the creation of a subsidiary agency in a State Bank to meet this need and with the participation of shares of the EDB, Bank of Ceylon and Peoples Bank a new Company was launched under the National Development Bank. The EDB was very disappointed that the new Company was averse to risks and operated very much like any other commercial bank. Finally, EDB sold its shares at a very high price to finance its new building on Nawam Mw. With a change of government and EDB Board, even the special (Project) Division with trained personal for evaluation of projects was scrapped.’
• The Unparalleled Invasion – science fiction written by US author Jack London, was first published in July 1910. Under the influence of Japan, China modernizes and undergoes its own version of the Meiji Reforms in the 1910s. . Over the next half century, China’s population steadily grows, and eventually migration overwhelms European colonies in Asia. The US and other Western powers launch a biowarfare campaign against China, resulting in the total destruction of its population, the few survivors of the plague being ‘killed out of hand’ by European and US troops, and China then being colonized by the Western powers. This opens the way to a joyous epoch of ‘splendid mechanical, intellectual, and art output’. In the 1980s war clouds once more gather between Germany and France, and the story ends with the nations of the world solemnly pledging not to use the same techniques that they had used against China. The premise, themes, and even some passages, were borrowed directly from London’s 1904 ‘Yellow Peril’ essay, where London warns ‘the menace to the Western World lies, not in the [Japanese] little brown man, but in the 400 millions of [Chinese] yellow men’.
– en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unparalleled_Invasion
• One indicator of the absolute idiocy of our ruling oligarchy is their comparing the state of underdevelopment in Sri Lanka with certain countries in the world. These insults are cued from the white devils’ playbook. In the end, they shame Lankans, and more specifically Sinhala Buddhists.
Sri Lanka is termed worse than Zimbabwe, Somalia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Soviet Union, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. Do they know about great Zimbabwe’s wealth? Really? Zimbabwe only become a synonym for ‘basket case’ after that state demanded the return of land stolen by white settlers, as promised in the 1979 ‘Lancaster’ pact to stop the wars of independence? Do they know of the history of Bengal, divided continuously, and genocided since 1757? Both Bangladesh and Myanmar are indispensable to the inevitable alliance between India and China that history and geography demands. The last thing that the US and EU wish is a United States of Asia, or an Asian Union!
Most ignorant of all is the claim that Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism-Maoism has failed, when in fact only their experiences offer us valuable examples when devising our own paths to freedom.
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B. Special Focus_
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B1. Putting the Enterprise Back in State Ownership – Shiran Illanperuma
Neoclassical economists have at best a skeptical, and at worst a hostile, attitude towards state-owned enterprises (SOEs), often derided as politicized, inefficient, rent-seeking, and a burden on the taxpayer.
There are 2 main arguments levelled against SOEs. The first is the ‘principal-agent’ argument, which says SOEs are run by managers not owners, and therefore lack the incentives to improve commercial performance. The second argument is the ‘soft-budget constraint’, which means that state-owned firms do not manage expenditures according to expected cash flows due to the high likelihood of being bailed out by the state through subsidies, a ‘soft’ approach in tax and debt collection, and interventions in pricing.
The first argument entails that SOEs have no incentive to succeed, while the latter argues that they have no disincentive to fail. But time and history have shown that these arguments can be just as true of many large private sector firms that enjoy official or unofficial political patronage.
In modern capitalism, shareholders in large private companies are rarely directly involved in management, which is delegated to professionals, making the ‘principal-agent’ argument relevant here, too. Meanwhile, being ‘too big to fail’ is perhaps the private sector version of ‘soft-budget constraint’, evident in how the US bailed out large banks in the 2008 financial crisis, despite these banks failing to manage their own risks.
SOEs are here to stay – Regardless of what economists think about them, SOEs are here to stay. According to the IMF, SOE assets were worth $45 trillion – about half of global GDP – in 2020. Between 2005 and 2014, the percentage of SOEs in the Fortune 500 more than doubled, from 9% to 23%. This was driven largely by the growth of Chinese SOEs, which accounted for 82 of Fortune 500 companies in 2020.
But it’s not all China. In free-trade-loving Singapore, SOEs contribute 22% of GDP. Temasek Holdings is an AAA-rated investment and asset management firm fully owned by the Singaporean Government, whose subsidiaries include SOEs in sectors such as transport, banking, engineering, telecommunications, mass media.
‘Liberal’ Europe is also home to a vast number of SOEs, with industrial powerhouses such as Germany & Sweden having many SOEs owned by municipalities, rather than the central or federal government. In Norway, 9.6% of all non-agricultural employment is in SOEs, though this figure rises to over 12% when including companies where the state has a minority share.
South Korea’s POSCO is a steel-making company which was the 4th largest steelmaker in 2015. Yet, its origins are as an SOE set up by the Korean Government in the 1960s, with a former Army General placed in charge. Despite not having its own iron ore reserves, South Korea’s steel production helped improve the competitiveness of local construction and manufacturing of electronics and automobiles.
From natural monopoly to developmentalism – SOEs have their origins in classical economic theories about ‘natural monopolies’ – areas of economic activity where pure competition & profit maximisation cannot function without gross externalities such as transport, healthcare, education, and communications.
A 2017 survey on the sectoral distribution of value in OECD countries, which excludes China, found that 26% of SOEs were in finance, 21% in electricity and gas, and 18% in transport – closely mirroring the classical economic argument of natural monopolies (Figure 2).
The concern over ‘natural monopolies’ is somewhat a moral argument, and developed in response to the rapacious nature of capitalism in the 19th century. Other arguments are that SOEs are needed to mitigate market failures and invest in socially necessary infrastructure which is not immediately profitable for the private sector.
These are, however, arguments put forward at a time when Europe had already achieved a certain level of industrialisation in the early 19th century and the domestic market was fully developed. The rationale for SOEs in developing countries is more complex and linked to the need to stabilise costs of production, expand market frontiers, and introduce new technology through state entrepreneurialism.
SOEs as macroeconomic stabilisers in China – Prof Zheng Yongian, an influential expert on international relations and political science in mainland China, recently said, despite US opposition, China will not abandon SOEs as the government sees them as important for ‘macroeconomic stability’. He argued it was indeed the state sector that allowed China to rebound from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
The notion that SOEs can be a tool for macroeconomic stability might just induce aneurysms in neoclassical economists, who view SOEs as distorting the utopia of ‘free markets and private property’. To them, macroeconomic stability is the narrow domain of fiscal and monetary policy wonks. States can stabilise markets by directly participating in them (through production of upstream goods, bulk trading, and price hedging), but this is rarely offered as a policy tool in neoclassical textbooks, despite many historic precedents.
Prof Yongian frames SOEs as part of the history of China’s economic governance. Since at least the Han Dynasty, China has maintained state monopolies in strategic sectors such as iron and salt production, while also engaging in the trade of agricultural produce in order to stabilise prices of grains. During the Chinese revolution, SOEs set up by the Communist Party of China performed a similar role, effectively out-speculating middlemen and ending hyperinflation.
China began a process of restructuring SOEs in the 1990s. At the time, it was seen in the West as a victory for laissez-faire proponents of private property. In retrospect, China never committed to wholesale privatisation as an end in itself. Instead, the government adopted the slogan ‘Grasp the large, let go of the small’, whereby SOEs were restructured and consolidated into larger, more productive entities, many of them focusing on heavy industries such as mining, refining, transport, and manufacturing of automobiles & aircraft.
China’s impressive road and rail infrastructure is almost solely thanks to SOEs. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has provided Chinese SOEs with an outlet to build many of the most modern highways, railways, ports and airports in underdeveloping countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Ironically, while our countries are told by economists to privatise our SOEs, these same countries rely on Chinese SOEs to modernise their own infrastructure.
State entrepreneurialism in Sri Lanka – Here, SOEs are a source of bitter political and intellectual contention due to various historical reasons. Many SOEs are dysfunctional and burdened with debt, surplus labour, and outdated technology, while lacking professional management and long-term vision.
However, these arguments tend to sidestep the fact that SOEs were needed because investment in heavy industry, new technology and production of intermediate goods was anathema to the private sector during the relatively laissez-faire 1948-56 period. It was the state that played an entrepreneurial role by importing new technologies & kick-starting economic activity that the private sector was too risk-averse to undertake.
In 1978, 65% of Sri Lanka’s manufacturing output came from SOEs, with heavy industries like the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and the State Rubber Corporation (SRC) being highly capital-intensive and therefore boasting the highest rates of labour productivity (output divided by number of employees) in the country. 53% of export sales came from chemicals, petroleum, rubber, and plastic goods – a sector almost entirely built up by the state.
The criticism that SOEs were geared towards the domestic market and not for export fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of heavy industry, which is to provide stable input prices for downstream firms. China, for example, dominates market share in the refinement of nearly every major industrial metal & mineral, allowing it to provide price-competitive inputs to lighter industries which are export-oriented.
Combining lessons from developed and underdeveloping countries, we see that SOEs are a fact of actually existing modern production economies. Their purpose is to: 1. Eliminate private rent-seekers by operating natural monopolies for the public good, 2. stabilise prices and therefore costs of production, and perhaps most importantly, 3. invest in new technologies and activities that are too risky for the private sector.
To quote John Maynard Keynes: ‘The important thing for government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all.’ (for figures and tables: themorning.lk/putting-the-enterprise-back-in-state-ownership)
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B2. Grow More Food – Sugath Kulatunga
‘Panic makers are out in numbers glibly predicting Armageddon with crop failure, food shortages and famine in the near future in this country. Some credence is given to this predicted apocalypse due to the Covid pandemic, with the unpredictable crisis expected with the omicron variant outbreak. It is unfortunate that not much is heard of possible solutions. The obvious solution is to grow more food and ensure the produce is made available to the consumer at affordable prices.
In the past, there were a few serious attempts to increase food production. The first one I remember was the Grow More Food campaign launched by Dudley Senanayake, with an emphasis on the production of rice. The campaign was personally led by Dudley, who had a genuine love for agriculture and was following in the footsteps of the Father of the Nation, DS. Regrettably, there was credible evidence that the statistics of production were inflated. This permitted the Attha newspaper, edited by that intrepid journalist BA Sira to stick a sobriquet of ‘pachabahu’ on poor Dudley. The campaign faded out thereafter.
The next prominent campaign was launched as a cultivation war (vagasangramaya) by Mrs Bandaranayake. At that time there was a grave shortage of food – mainly rice – so much so, people were requested to skip a rice meal one day of the week and were encouraged to eat manioc and pulses. The UNP went to town against the consumption of manioc. They invented reports of manioc poisoning and people dying of eating manioc. Today manioc consumption is recommended even to control cancer.
It is unfortunate that our Agriculture authorities have not done much research on foods other than rice (in which they’ve excelled): e.g., manioc has been overlooked whereas it’s the staple food of around 800 million people in the world. We have also disregarded the importance of yam, a staple food of several countries in West Africa. There was a successful campaign by a single individual to popularize jak fruit (kos). But other food-bearing trees like breadfruit are not even talked about. Tree crops are for the long term, but manioc and yams are short term. Manioc is also an industrial product. Thailand earns around US$3billion annually with the export of processed manioc products.
In this country, even a temporary shortage of food items is used as a platform to denounce the ruling government. There is never a national approach to rectify the perennial problem.
To make an immediate impact in vegetables we can adopt greenhouse technology which has been implemented successfully by the EDB for vegetable cultivation from a few years back, with cooperation of leading exporters of vegetables. EDB missed out on an opportunity to introduce the technology a good 5 years earlier with UNDP assistance. A proposal for the implementation of a pilot project with components of greenhouse production, foliage and coconut fiber was rejected by the EDB Board of Management, on an objection raised by a Board member representing the private sector, allegedly on the ground it’s a regional project where our production ‘secrets’ will be shared with other countries in the region. The greenhouse module was for a nucleus farm/out-grower module. UNDP Colombo was amused and shocked. Empty spaces in urban areas can be used for greenhouses, thus saving on transport and reducing post-harvest waste.
A strategy that has tremendous potential to increase the production of vegetables and fruits is home gardening – promoted with fits and starts but not on a continuous and comprehensive scale. One does not need a vast space of land to grow a few papaya trees or chili and brinjal plants which can be grown in pots. Of course, it is not dramatic as exhibiting the exorbitant price of a single chili in public. There’s no efficient system for the supply of seeds and providing instructions. The present government had a program for the distribution of quality seeds, but it fizzled out. In other countries, there are financial awards at the District level to reward the best gardens and farmers. In Thailand, there is a special farmers’ radio service. There are at least 15 field officers attached to each Divisional Secretariat. These personnel and Samurdi officers should be now mobilized along with Agricultural staff, to launch a comprehensive Food Production Drive, if we are to avoid their predicted ‘apocalypse’.
Authorities should also take a look at the Thai model of integrated farming where crops, livestock and fish culture are combined in the same land, mutually benefiting. Notably, poultry production can give very rapid results, now concentrated in large-scale farms. There was a time when many households had a few birds under the deep litter system, which could be revived. When we were children, we had about 10 hens under deep liter and a stall-fed cow meeting all our egg and milk needs. Even in a limited garden space in Ratmalana we had a goat giving us at least a litre of milk.
It’s been estimated, the post-harvest loss in fruits and vegetables is over 40%, due mainly to faulty packaging. Some time back the government made an attempt to encourage farmers and middlemen to use nestable crates, but that was abandoned due to lack of interest. One problem in this system is the cost of transporting the empties back to the production areas. This can be eased if the railway system is used as a collection, packing and warehousing facility. They have the land and cheap transport. The empties can be transported back in open wagons to collection centers.
There is copious lip service given to food security, and self-sufficiency in rice. Our self-sufficiency in food is dependent on increasing import of wheat flour. The ‘free’ supply of wheat flour/grain under PL480 has changed our food habits and made us addicted to wheat flour products. The problem got aggravated with the entry of the Prima project, where we provide them with US ‘donated’ grain, which is milled by Prima and resold to us minus the wheat germ. Prima investment was perhaps the best investment by Singapore on a buy-operate-transfer/BOT basis for 20 years. It was to be transferred back to Sri Lanka during the time of CBK. But Sri Lanka sold it back to Singapore for a paltry sum, making Prima a dominant duopoly in the supply of our wheat flour. Food security in Sri Lanka of staple cereals is based not only on rice but also on wheat flour which contributes over 40% of the requirement. That is now in the hands of Prima. (For the US version of the PL480 ‘food’ program, see pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNAAJ623.pdf)
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B3. Why Buy Nano Fertlizer from India? – Tissa Vitarana
The determination of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to introduce Organic Fertilizer as soon as possible into Sri Lanka, to replace imported chemical fertilizer, has led him to opt for using Nano fertilizer bought from India, to make up for the lack of nitrogen (only 1.0%) in locally produced organic fertilizer. This Nano fertilizer has a still low concentration of only 4% nitrogen, and is to be applied to the leaves. The leaves are not a normal route for absorbing fertilizer into plants. They are specialized to carry out photosynthesis. The role of absorbing the fertilizer is done by the roots, as their specialized function.
One can only hope that Indian researchers have established that the Nano fertilizer is indeed absorbed through the leaves. If it does occur it is far better to use the Nano fertilizer by applying it to the soil when the absorption would be very much greater. I am happy to inform the Government that Dr Nilwala Kottegoda, working at the Nano Technology Centre that I established as Minister of Science & Technology (SLINTEC), has produced Nano particles with 40% nitrogen. She and her team have already used this in Sri Lanka for rice and tea with very good results. I give below the report that she sent to me regarding her results in Sri Lanka:
A 4% nitrogen-containing medium, even at 100% theoretical efficiency, is able to give only 4g of Nitrogen per 100ml. The function of Nano particles is to do a targeted delivery with minimum wastage. It is to be noted that 50kg of Nitrogen is the theoretical target.
• A Nano fertilizer based on urea-hydroxyapatite Nano particles was developed in 2010. SLINTEC innovation was the global first, according to the patent search report from WIPO.
• This turned out to be a slow and sustained release fertilizer with a loading of 40% nitrogen, which is closer to that of urea (4%), and more importantly it was a soil application formulation where plants absorb nutrients through the root system.
• The major objective was to minimize wastage of fertilizer and increase the plant availability.
• This was a platform technology which led to 4 US patents assigned to SLINTEC.
• The process was scaled up by SLINTEC, with capacity to produce 175 kg a day. Therefore the lab concept was proved at pilot scale.
• The product was tested at farmer field level for rice and tea.
• Best performances were observed in depleted soil, suggesting its efficacy.
• Up to 25-40% saving of urea together with 5-15% yield improvement was observed for rice, while up to 25-50% saving with higher yield was observed for tea. Meanwhile, nutrient improvement was observed.
The process was further modified together with the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, and now we have a greener process with higher energy and water saving, and minimum waste generation.
• Furthermore, the cell compatibility test was carried out in order to ensure the biocompatibility of the Nano particles. We can further introduce other nutrients into the same base formulation.
• However we could not commercialize the innovation locally.
• As a result the technology was transferred to Nagarjuna Fertilizer Ltd in 2013. The agreement was $3mn, while SLINTEC received half of the agreed amount.
• SLINTEC still has legal rights to produce and commercialize this technology in SL.
• I believe it is the high time to look for commercial investors.
• We can not only produce it for local consumption but also for the export market.
• However, the economics become more practical if we can propose the project together with a green urea plant.
• I am sure we can certainly support the current green agriculture shift which has been initiated by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and the GoSL through this project. Please protect your own babies at this critical situation.
• If you need any further information, please do contact me. It’s the dream of our team to make this a reality.
• By the way SLINTEC has a new CEO who relocated with my invitation. He has more than 40 years of experience in managing facilities of this nature in the US and Europe.
• SLINTEC and the University of Sri Jayewardenepura have other green agriculture innovations, too….– dailynews.lk/2021/10/29/features/263128/why-buy-nano-fertilizer-india
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C. News Index______________________________________________
• ee News Index provides headlines & links to make sense of the weekly focus of published English ‘business news’ to expose the backwardness of multinational, corporate 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 (machine-making) industrialization fueled by a producer culture.
• New Fortress deal: Three Cabinet Ministers back petitions against govt., make history
– island.lk/new-fortress-deal-three-cabinet-ministers-back-petitions-against-govt-make-history/
• US energy deal would deliver knockout blow to SL efforts to tap gas in the Mannar Seas
– island.lk/collective-cabinet-responsibility-wont-be-at-countrys-expense/
– island.lk/dinesh-alluding-to-cfa-reminds-ranil-of-how-he-behaved-when-he-was-in-power/
• Selling Out
– kalaya.org/?p=4784
• Lanka IOC up on oil tank deal talks
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-shares-up-on-export-manufacturing-shares-lanka-ioc-up-on-oil-tank-deal-talks-88632/
• US bars two Sri Lanka military officers for human rights abuses
– economynext.com/us-bars-two-sri-lanka-military-officers-for-human-rights-abuses-88759/
• Forcing Sri Lankan Government To Accept Accord Was A Mistake: Says Former IPKF Chief
– stratnewsglobal.com/neighbours/sri-lanka/forcing-sri-lankan-government-to-accept-the-accord-was-a-mistake-says-former-ipkf-chief/
• Ontario’s Bill 104: ‘Tamil Genocide Education or Miseducation Week?’
– island.lk/ontarios-bill-104-tamil-genocide-education-or-miseducation-week/
• Douglas Wickremaratne is no more
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/05/douglas-wickremaratne-is-no-more
– kalaya.org/2021/12/blog-post_3.html
– kalaya.org/2021/12/blog-post_4.html
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/06/douglas-wickremeratne-an-outstanding-hero/
• Adani involvement in northern wind & solar project – alleges Champika Ranawaka
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/07/adani-involvement-in-northern-wind-solar-project-alleges-champika-ranawaka/
• EU, Germany-funded Rs. 8 mn 2-year reconciliation project spurns Lord Naseby’s disclosure
‘students from Eastern, Jaffna, Ruhuna and Sabaragamuwa Universities…’Strengthening Reconciliation Process’ funded by the European Union and the German Federal Foreign Office and implemented by Deutsche Gesellsschaft Fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and British Council’
– island.lk/two-year-reconciliation-project-spurns-lord-nasebys-disclosure/
• ‘Agents of foreign powers disguised as social activists are exerting considerable pressure’
– island.lk/further-on-budget-speech-cost-of-living-public-debt-and-collective-responsibility/
• US Human Rights Watch urges US to ratchet up pressure on SL
‘Government has turned to China for various reasons, including providing diplomatic cover for abusive laws and policies, but SL’s most important economic relationships are with the US, EU, and India’
– island.lk/hrw-urges-us-to-ratchet-up-pressure-on-sl/
• USAID-converted Career Bus returns home to Vocational Training Authority
‘2,600 youth from 21 villages in six districts to provide them with professional career testing and guidance in SL’s most rural districts, from Dondra at the southern tip to Point Pedro in the north’
– island.lk/usaid-converted-career-bus-returns-home-to-vta/
• Significance of EU court ruling on banning LTTE
‘set up a special unit within the security establishment to collaborate with Interpol to implement the full scope of Resolution 1373 if the influence and activities of the Tamil diaspora are to be neutralized’
– island.lk/significance-of-eu-court-ruling-on-banning-ltte/
– island.lk/correction/
• TNA should turn to “People” to come out of political wilderness
‘For TNA/ITAK leadership to switch completely to a suspect USA and an ineffective UNHRC instead to “People” in North-East proves they have more faith in “outsiders” than on their own People.’
– dailymirror.lk/opinion/TNA-should-turn-to-People-to-come-out-of-political-wilderness/172-226307
• Sri Lanka makes progress on credit lines, swap from India during Finance Minister visit
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-makes-progress-on-credit-lines-swap-from-india-during-finance-minister-visit-88468/
• The US has no right to hold a ‘Summit for Democracy’: SL-China Friendship Association
– themorning.lk/the-us-has-no-right-to-hold-a-summit-for-democracy-sl-china-friendship-association/
– island.lk/o-democracy/
• New English War Advisor for Sri Lanka Colonel Paul Clayton calls on Air Force Chief
‘with outgoing War Advisor at the English High Commission in Colombo, Colonel David Ashman’
– dailymirror.lk/caption_story/Air-Force-Chief-calls-on-Italian-Defence-Attach%C3%A9/110-226520
• Australia grants additional AUD1 Mn for landmine clearance in Lanka
– island.lk/australia-grants-additional-aud1-mn-for-landmine-clearance-in-lanka/
• Swedish Ambassador calls on Foreign Minister
– island.lk/swedish-ambassador-calls-on-foreign-minister/
• Italian Defence Attaché Captain Fabrizio Falzi calls on Air Force Chief
– dailymirror.lk/caption_story/Air-Force-Chief-calls-on-Italian-Defence-Attach%C3%A9/110-226520
• Korea provides USD 4 mn to enhance National Traffic Database and capacity building
– island.lk/korea-provides-usd-4-mn-to-enhance-national-traffic-database-and-capacity-building/
• Not looking for a separate state but a Quebec/Tamil Nadu style of administration – TNA
– island.lk/solving-tamil-problem-is-the-way-out-of-economic-crisis-rasamanickam/
• Taiwan, SL are ‘unsinkable aircraft carriers’ in Sino-US rivalry: Prof. Patrick Mendis
‘The US-led defence agreement would also allow a greater degree of military interoperability beyond the trilateral AUKUS partnership to include the French, German, and Japanese naval and air forces operating in the Indo-Pacific waters.’
– ft.lk/opinion/Taiwan-SL-are-unsinkable-aircraft-carriers-in-Sino-US-rivalry-Prof-Patrick-Mendis/14-726816
• India-Bangladesh ties at inflection point
‘Bangladesh has no qualms about partnering in China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative in South Asia. China has also occupied the seat of the top investor in Bangladesh.’
– indianpunchline.com/india-bangladesh-ties-at-inflection-point/
• Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord
• China is Not Colonizing Africa
– blackagendareport.com/china-not-colonizing-africa
• Potential Legislation on China Amounts to a New Cold War
‘The $250 billion “Innovation and Competition Act” leverages industrial policy to ratchet up militarization and potentially instigate global conflict with China.’
– blackagendareport.com/potential-legislation-china-amounts-new-cold-war
• U.S. Congress allows Saudi Arabia weapons sale to go ahead
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279289-us-congress-allows-saudi-arabia-weapons-sale-to-go-ahead
• UN General Assembly demands full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Syrian Golan
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/278985-un-general-assembly-demands-full-israeli-withdrawal-from-occupied-syrian-golan
• Israel completes iron wall underground Gaza barrier
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279267-israel-completes-iron-wall-underground-gaza-barrier
• Iran warns against dangerous acts of piracy targeting its oil at sea
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279329-iran-warns-against-dangerous-acts-of-piracy-targeting-its-oil-at-sea
• Nuclear Talks – Western Negotiators Fail To Recognize Iran’s Position
– moonofalabama.org/2021/12/nuclear-talks-western-negotiators-fail-to-recognize-irans-position-.html
• Nuclear Talks – Israel Makes Funny Demands
– moonofalabama.org/2021/12/nuclear-talks-israel-makes-funny-demands.html
• Macron’s revenge for AUKUS betrayal
‘A $19 billion contract for 80 French-made Rafale fighter jets, the biggest international order ever made for the warplanes, during a visit to the UAE on December 3.’
– indianpunchline.com/macrons-revenge-for-aukus-betrayal/
• Belarus’ Lukashenko is able to keep NATO at arm’s length.
– island.lk/belarusian-fitness-for-life/
• Belarus says it will retaliate against sanctions, faces “unprecedented pressure”
‘Shares of global potash producers rose after sanctions on Belarus Potash Company, the exporting arm of Belarusian state potash producer Belaruskali and Minsk’s main foreign currency earner’
– reuters.com/markets/commodities/lukashenko-says-belarusian-economy-is-under-unprecedented-external-pressure-2021-12-03/
• Biden-Putin meeting is a cliffhanger
‘US President Biden dismisses Russia’s red lines on Ukraine’
– indianpunchline.com/biden-putin-meeting-is-a-cliffhanger/
• U.S. Intelligence Has Found … Easy To Disprove Claims Of A Russian Attack On Ukraine
– moonofalabama.org/2021/12/us-intelligence-has-found-easy-to-disprove-claims-of-a-russian-attack-on-ukraine.html
• Kremlin forgets US strategy toward Ukraine is about containing Russia
– indianpunchline.com/biden-white-house-spoofs-the-kremlin/
• Africom, the US Africa Command, Tool of U.S. Global Hegemony
– blackagendareport.com/africom-us-africa-command-tool-us-global-hegemony-0
• Restart of the war in Western Sahara between Morocco and the Polisario Front
‘unpopular recognition of Israel by Morocco could topple the monarchy there’
– revueltaglobal.home.blog/2021/11/24/guerra-en-el-sahara-occidental-la-negacion-de-los-enfrentamientos-solo-beneficia-a-marruecos/
• Moroccans Protest Normalization of Ties with Israel
– blackagendareport.com/moroccans-protest-normalization-ties-israel
• Ethiopia: The West’s Diplomats Meet in Secret to Decide How to Help the TPLF
‘It soon turned out that one had worked recently as a limo driver in Toronto while another had apparently been a limo driver in Calgary. The “dream team” — who also apparently needed to have new suits bought for their news conference — quickly became a laughingstock on social media’
– blackagendareport.com/ethiopia-wests-diplomats-meet-secret-decide-how-help-tplf
• WHO Stands with African Nations and Calls for Borders to Remain Open
– blackagendareport.com/who-stands-african-nations-and-calls-borders-remain-open
• Indigenous Peoples’ Land – Stolen Fair and Square
– blackagendareport.com/indigenous-peoples-land-stolen-fair-and-square
• China defines blockade of Cuba as the worst violation of human rights
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/nacionales/278974-china-defines-blockade-of-cuba-as-the-worst-violation-of-human-rights
• Barbados: the Long Road to the Republic
– blackagendareport.com/barbados-long-road-republic
• Nicaraguan leader says OAS is on its way to the grave
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279512-nicaraguan-leader-says-oas-is-on-its-way-to-the-grave
• Nicaraguan government breaks diplomatic relations with Taiwan
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279426-nicaraguan-government-breaks-diplomatic-relations-with-taiwan
• Nicaragua Explains Why It’s Leaving OAS, Responds to US Attacks on Its Elections
– blackagendareport.com/nicaragua-explains-why-its-leaving-oas-responds-us-attacks-its-elections
• Democracy Scores Another Victory Over the U.S. in Honduras
– blackagendareport.com/democracy-scores-another-victory-over-us-honduras
• Argentina to chair UN Human Rights Council
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279112-argentina-to-chair-un-human-rights-council
• Venezuela’s Juan Guaidó speaks at White House Democracy Summit
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279514-venezuelas-juan-guaido-speaks-at-white-house-democracy-summit
• The United States is one of the least democratic nations in the world
– blackagendareport.com/litmus-test-democracy-democratic-deficits-summit-democracy
• Ballplayer Enes Kanter Exposes Connection Between Sinophobia and Anti-Black Racism
– blackagendareport.com/enes-kanter-exposes-connection-between-sinophobia-and-anti-black-racism
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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.
• Conduct of Law College Examinations in Sinhala Stopped
‘Supreme Court judgments were delivered only In English and even the Parliament was deprived of a Sinhala copy in respect of major issues such as the ruling on the Colombo Port Commission Bill’
– island.lk/govt-mp-strikes-discordant-note-slams-parliament-over-national-list-farce/
• Sumanthiran asks Ali Sabry to resign
– island.lk/sumanthiran-asks-ali-sabry-to-resign/
• President chairs Ministerial Consultative Committee on Defence
‘Secretary-General of Parliament Dhammika Dasanayake, Defence Ministry Secretary Gen. Kamal Gunaratne, Chief of Defence Staff and Army Commander, Commanders of the Navy and Air Force, the Inspector General of Police and officials of institutions under the Ministry of Defence’
– timesonline.lk/news-online/President-chairs-Ministerial-Consultative-Committee-on-Defence/2-1136193
• Pakistan Defence Minister must apologize to Sri Lanka – Public Security Minister
– ceylontoday.lk/news/diyawadana-murder-pakistan-defence-minister-lays-blame-elsewhere
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/07/dangerous-justification/
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/07/pakistan-defence-minister-must-apologize-to-sri-lanka-public-security-minister/
• India denies Taliban spokesman’s claims of RAW funding TLP attacks on Pakistan
– indiatvnews.com/news/india-india-denies-taliban-spokesman-s-claims-of-raw-funding-pakistan-attacks-378980
• PM Imran Khan removes extremist group Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan from banned outfits
– thehindu.com/news/international/pm-imran-khan-removes-extremist-group-tehreek-i-labbaik-pakistan-from-banned-outfits/article37363335.ece
• Sri Lanka bond scam: Former finance minister, others cleared of 11 out of 22 charges
‘President’s Counsel Gamini Marapana, who appeared for the accused…’
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-bond-scam-former-finance-minister-others-cleared-of-11-out-of-22-charges-88539/
– ft.lk/front-page/Ravi-K-Mahendran-Aloysius-and-others-acquitted-from-11-charges/44-727121
• TISL launches Apesalli.lk on International Anti-Corruption Day 2021
– ft.lk/news/TISL-launches-Apesalli-lk-on-International-Anti-Corruption-Day-2021/56-727307
• Implications of data protection bill for individuals, businesses and innovation
– ft.lk/columns/Implications-of-data-protection-bill-for-individuals-businesses-and-innovation/4-727069
• SL listed companies, telcos hit by ransomware in 2020: ICTA Chief
‘ransomware has infected over 7 m devices in the country’
– ft.lk/front-page/SL-listed-companies-telcos-hit-by-ransomware-in-2020-ICTA-Chief/44-727132
• Civil society calls for immediate moratorium on use of PTA
‘Signatories: S. Annalaxumy, Bisliya Bhutto, S.C.C. Elankovan, Lawyer & Development Consultant Philip Dissanayake, A.M. Faaiz, Brito Fernando, Nimalka Fernando, Ruki Fernando, Aneesa Firthous, Amarasingham Gajenthiran, T.Gangeswary, K. Ginogini, Ranitha Gnanarajah AAL, B. Gowthaman, S. Hayakirivan, Director, THALAM, V. Inthrani, Noorul Ismiya, Vasuki Jeyshankar, Dr. Sakuntala Kadirgamar, S. Kamalakanthan – Social Activist, Mahaluxmy Kurushanthan, Kandumani Lavakusarasa, Human Rights Activist, Jensila Majeed, Buhary Mohamed, Human Rights Activist, Juwairiya Mohideen, Jaabir Raazi Muhammadh, Chairman, Voices Movement, P. Muthulingam, Thangaraja Prashanthiran, Dorin Rajani, Maithreyi Rajasingham, Executive Director, Viluthu , A.R.A. Ramees, V. Ranjana, Anuratha Rajaretnam, K.S. Ratnvale, Yamini Ravindran, AAL, Kumudini Samuel, Thurainayagam Sanjeevan, Shreen Saroor, Ambika Satkunanathan, Rev Fr S D P Selvan, S. Selvaranie, Vanie Simon, P. N. Singham, Usha Sivakumar, N. Sumanthi, Vani Sutha, Ermiza Tegal, S. Thileepan – Social Activist, P Vasanthagowrey, Rev Fr Yogeswaran, Adayalam Centre for Policy Research, Alliance for Minorities, Centre for Human Rights and Development, Centre for Justice and Change, Eastern Social Development Foundation, Families of the Disappeared, Forum for Plural Democracy, Law and Society Trust, Mannar Women’s Development Federation, Rural Development Foundation, Tamil Civil Society Forum, Viluthu and Women’s Action Network
– island.lk/civil-society-calls-for-immediate-moratorium-on-use-of-pta/
– island.lk/eran-accuses-govt-of-misusing-pta-to-harass-opponents/
• Five inmates hospitalized after clash with Easter Sunday attackers at Badulla Prison
– http://www.adaderana.lk/news/79093/five-inmates-hospitalized-after-clash-at-badulla-prison
• Lankan HC in Delhi steers clear of ex-Miss Universe contestant’s tryst with Indian gangster
– island.lk/lankan-hc-in-delhi-so-far-steers-clear-of-case-involving-our-ex-miss-universe-contestants-tryst-with-indian-gangster/
• LGBTQI activists in Sri Lanka welcome major court decision amid urgent need for reform
– economynext.com/lgbtqi-activists-in-sri-lanka-welcome-major-court-decision-amid-urgent-need-for-reform-88769/
• Action against Ayurvedic Massage Centres – Official
– island.lk/action-against-ayurvedic-massage-centres-official/• India’s top military officer, CDS Gen Bipin Rawat, dies in helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu
– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Indias-top-military-officer-CDS-Gen-Bipin-Rawat-dies-in-helicopter-crash-in-Tamil-Nadu/108-226432
• General Shavendra Silva to attend General Bipin Rawat’s last rites
– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/General-Shavendra-Silva-to-attend-General-Bipin-Rawats-last-rites/108-226522
• Bangladesh sentences 20 University students to death for murder
‘slamming Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for signing a water-sharing deal with India’
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/08/bangladesh-sentences-20-university-students-to-death-for-murder/
• Understanding the history and politics behind Pakistan’s blasphemy laws
• Is a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East an exercise in futility?
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/sunday-times-2/is-a-nuclear-weapons-free-zone-in-the-middle-east-an-exercise-in-futility-464271.html
• World unprepared for future pandemics: Global Health Security Index 2021
– island.lk/world-unprepared-for-future-pandemics-global-health-security-index-2021/
• US Trial of Black Activist Dedan Waciuri as a Violation of Human Rights
– blackagendareport.com/black-alliance-peace-condemns-trial-black-activist-dedan-waciuri-violation-human-rights
• CIA hushed up staff’s child abuse crimes for 14 years
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/278946-cia-hushed-up-staffs-child-abuse-crimes-for-14-years
_____________________________________________________________
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 a modern industrial country.
• Putting the enterprise back in state ownership – Illanperuma
– themorning.lk/putting-the-enterprise-back-in-state-ownership/
• Economic Woes go back to 1977, with neoliberal policies laid down by IMF – Karunaratne
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/04/the-economic-woes-of-today2021-go-back-to-1977-when-we-followed-the-neoliberal-policies-laid-down-by-the-imf/
• Economic benefits of Basil’s India visit – Tennekone
‘Sri Lanka’s Trade Share with India alone is approx.. 2.5 Billion US $ per year. Food items and medical supplies largely account for our imports from India.’
– island.lk/economic-benefits-of-basils-india-visit/
• Proposals in the budget vague on poverty alleviation and growth
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/getting-tough-463844.html
• Sri Lanka does not need to go on bended knees to outside agency over debt: Cabraal
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-does-not-need-to-go-on-bended-knees-to-outside-agency-over-debt-cabraal-88512
– ft.lk/top-story/Nivard-rallies-private-sector-for-post-pandemic-revival/26-727123
• Economists, biz leaders insights to ‘Sri Lanka’s Opportunity to Reset in New Global Norm’
‘Coomaraswamy explained that the large-scale SOEs such as the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) must be allowed to adopt cost-reflective pricing policy’
– ft.lk/business/Economists-biz-leaders-share-insights-to-Sri-Lanka-s-Opportunity-to-Reset-in-the-New-Global-Norm/34-727107
• Best option is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for external finances – Sanderatne
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/columns/do-we-have-a-solution-to-the-perilous-state-of-our-external-finances-464306.html
• Go to IMF without playing ostrich games: Professor Prema-chandra Athukorala
‘Had the political leaders taken Shenoy’s advice seriously, the bloody insurrection that ended in the loss of thousands of young lives could have been avoided.’
– ft.lk/columns/Go-to-IMF-without-playing-ostrich-games-Professor-Prema-chandra-Athukorala/4-726989
• Sri Lanka needs IMF, debt restructuring: Coomaraswamy
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-needs-imf-debt-restructuring-cb-should-not-subordinate-core-objective-coomaraswamy-88510/
• Why does SL need a national airline when India doesn’t have one?: Advocata Samarajiva
– themorning.lk/why-does-sri-lanka-need-a-national-airline-when-india-doesnt-have-one-prof-rohan-samarajiva/
• No, Mr. Vasudeva, the IMF is not there to ruin us – Ashan Rodriguez
‘encouraging fiscal discipline and structural adjustments is the primary tenet of the IMF program’
– ft.lk/columns/No-Mr-Vasudeva-the-IMF-is-not-there-to-ruin-us/4-727071
• Sri Lanka should draw up own program and negotiate with IMF: de Mel
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-debt-re-structuring-opinion-divided-among-think-tanks-88583
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-should-draw-up-own-program-and-negotiate-with-imf-de-mel-88575/
• Budget 2022 fails to build confidence for global markets and rating agencies: Verité Research
– ft.lk/top-story/Budget-2022-fails-in-critical-outcomes-Verit%C3%A9-Research/26-727197
• Govt. continues to amend governing fiscal law to suit its agenda: Verité Research
‘Fiscal Management (responsibility) Act (FMRA) of 2003 was enacted to ensure that the principles of responsible fiscal management are entrenched within the legislative discipline’
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Govt-continues-to-amend-governing-fiscal-law-to-suit-its-agenda-Verit%C3%A9-Research/273-226557
• Economic downturn due to structural weaknesses, not ‘open economic’ policies – Molligoda
– island.lk/barking-up-the-wrong-tree/
• President stresses need for concerted effort to revive economy
‘economies that are already burdened with external debt obligations are facing hardships and therefore, it would be greatly appreciated if more action could be taken by wealthy nations as well as multilateral organisations to forgive, restructure, or grant moratoria for the debt repayments of poorer countries struggling in the wake of the pandemic.’
– island.lk/president-stresses-need-for-concerted-effort-to-revive-economy/
• Budget Speech: Cost of living, public debt & collective responsibility – Laksiri Fernando
‘Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa is correct in identifying ‘international drug mafia,’ and ‘fraudulent business operations’ as challenges…’
– island.lk/further-on-budget-speech-cost-of-living-public-debt-and-collective-responsibility
– ft.lk/columns/Further-on-Budget-speech-Cost-of-Living-public-debt-and-collective-responsibility/4-727144
• Harsha says SL critically ill, insists only cure is to reach out to IMF
‘by the end of January, loan payments amount to $ 500 million would be due’
– ft.lk/front-page/Harsha-says-SL-critically-ill-insists-only-cure-is-to-reach-out-to-IMF/44-727198
• SL maintained dual exchange rate regime from 1968 until FEECS system removed in 1978
– http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/10/maintaining-dual-exchange-rates-in-sri-lanka/
• Renovating Vietnam’s monetary policy framework in the digital economy context
‘The digital economy has become an increasingly important component of the economy’
– tapchicongsan.org.vn/web/english/economy/detail/-/asset_publisher/mqd1ARxqSObP/content/renovating-vietnam-s-monetary-policy-framework-in-the-digital-economy-context
• A map of Cuban exports
‘to promote the nation’s exportable product lines and local development, open to public access’
– en.granma.cu/cuba/2021-12-06/a-map-of-cuban-exports
• Billionaires wealth skyrocketed in pandemic, as 100 million people pushed into extreme poverty
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279373-billionaires-wealth-skyrocketed-during-pandemic-as-100-million-people-pushed-into-extreme-poverty
• The world has become more unequal in income and wealth in the last 40 years
‘World Inequality Report 2022, produced by the World Inequality Lab, run by Thomas Piketty…’
– thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2021/12/08/world-inequality/
• The US Rate of Profit in 2020 – Roberts
‘Federal Reserve injections of near zero-cost credit to the banks and financial institutions, enabling them to speculate in financial markets and reap net interest income and huge commissions’
– thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2021/12/05/the-us-rate-of-profit-in-2020/
• The Humbug of an Economic Recovery
‘Shorn of the statistical illusion, the latest GDP estimates reveal that the Indian economy remains mired in a deep crisis.’
– newsclick.in/the-humbug-economic-recovery
____________________________________________
C4. Economy (Usually reported in monetary terms)
ee Economy section shows how media usually measures economy by false indices like GDP, etc., in monetary terms, confusing money and capital, constantly calling for privatization, deregulation, moaning about debt & balance of payments, without stating the need for modern industrial production.
• Sri Lanka monetary troubles blamed on lack of industrialization
‘all developing countries that have thrived without industrialisation has gone into Balance of Payment (BoP) crisis.’
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-monetary-troubles-blamed-on-lack-of-industrialization-88518/
– ft.lk/business/CCC-Economic-Summit-focuses-on-Setting-the-macro-foundation-for-growth/34-727105
• No new recruitments to public sector; no new vehicle imports
– dailymirror.lk/business__main/Basil-firm-on-strict-austerity-measures/245-226569
• Sri Lanka vehicle import ban to continue in 2022: Finance Minister
‘Economist BR Shenoy warned SL in 1966 not to engage in import controls but to stop inflationary financing (central bank refinancing or monetization) to stop balance of payments problems’
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-vehicle-import-ban-to-continue-in-2022-finance-minister-88724/
• Sri Lanka needs ‘real depreciation’ to stimulate exports World Bank economist claims
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-needs-real-depreciation-world-bank-economist-claims-88690/
• Economy facing challenges with limited foreign reserves: Basil
– ft.lk/top-story/Economy-facing-challenges-with-limited-foreign-reserves-Basil/26-727288
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-facing-forex-reserve-crisis-but-all-debt-will-be-repaid-finance-minister-88756/
• Sri Lanka central bank foreign debt exceeds reserves by US$1.2bn
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-central-bank-foreign-debt-exceeds-reserves-by-us1-2bn-88494/
• Sri Lanka will be bankrupt by January: Harsha
– themorning.lk/sri-lanka-will-be-bankrupt-by-january-harsha/
• Finance Minister weaving economical fantasies: Anura
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/11/finance-minister-weaving-economical-fantasies-anura/
• Sri Lanka forex swap discounts widen, fears of underworld grabbing kerb market
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-forex-swap-discounts-widen-fears-of-underworld-grabbing-kerb-market-88735/
• No Finance Minister had visited foreign countries during budget debates
– island.lk/ranil-plays-role-of-one-man-opposition-raising-pertinent-questions/
• Laggala Pradeshiya Sabha budget defeated for the second time
– timesonline.lk/news-online/Laggala-Pradeshiya-Sabha-budget-defeated-for-the-second-time/2-1136210
• Colombo hosts Indo-Sri Lanka Economic Co-operation Forum
‘South Canara District Central Cooperative Bank – India Chairman Rajendra Kumar, Global Digital University – USA Vice Chancellor Hari Krishna Maram, Hitachi Rails STS – India Head Manoj Kumarak, Global Specialty Ingredients M SDN BHD – Malaysia Managing Director Robert Basker, Bihari Connect – London, Chairman Udeshwar Singh, Medical Surgeon – Dubai, UAE Azam Badar Khan, and University Grants Commission – Bangladesh Past Chairman Abdul Mannan’
– ft.lk/news/Colombo-hosts-Indo-Sri-Lanka-Economic-Co-operation-Forum/56-727306
• JVP urges Govt. to tell Parliament tax amnesty’s success
– ft.lk/front-page/JVP-urges-Govt-to-tell-Parliament-tax-amnesty-s-success/44-727357
• Price of rice and curry hits two-year-high for average family – Advocata
– island.lk/price-of-rice-and-curry-hits-two-year-high-for-average-family/
– http://bizenglish.adaderana.lk/highest-food-prices-recorded-in-november/
– ft.lk/front-page/November-notches-highest-food-prices/44-727130
– island.lk/price-of-rice-and-curry-hits-two-year-high-for-average-family-2/
• Heavy price tag for scarce home gadgets, stationery, spare parts
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/heavy-price-tag-for-scarce-home-gadgets-stationery-spare-parts-464452.html
• Investors claim inability to make dividend payments as profits to foreign shareholders
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/investors-want-cb-to-untangle-regulations-463859.html
• Biz frustrated over stressors on exchange rate
‘Hemas Holdings PLC Group CEO Kasturi Wilson said the CBSL move was counterproductive too in terms of key priority – boosting exports’
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/biz-frustrated-over-stressors-on-exchange-rate-463856.html
– ft.lk/front-page/CBSL-s-arbitrary-exchange-rate-cap-comes-under-fire/44-727122
– economynext.com/sri-lankas-biz-leaders-bemoan-forex-shortages-amid-money-printing-88566/
• Talks with India for two more swap deals totalling US$ 1.4 bn
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/talks-with-india-for-two-more-swap-deals-totalling-us-1-4-bn-464489.html
• $300 m loan, two new SWAP facilities to boost reserves, Govt. tells P’ment
– ft.lk/front-page/300-m-loan-two-new-SWAP-facilities-to-boost-reserves-Govt-tells-P-ment/44-727294
• Clear indicators of the worsening economic crisis: JVP
‘Serious decrease of funds flowing into the country, including the decline of inflows from migrant workers in 2021 compared to 2020.’
• Desperate measures by Govt to attract $ remittances – But will it work?
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/03/desperate-measures-by-govt-to-attract-remittances-but-will-it-work/
_________________________________________________________________________
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
• Should industrial action by trade unions be banned for the next five years?
– island.lk/should-industrial-action-by-trade-unions-be-banned-for-the-next-five-years/
• Ports, electricity, petroleum trade unions took to streets
– timesonline.lk/news-online/Heavy-traffic-in-Colombo-as-protestors-demand-salary-hike/2-1136190
– island.lk/govt-and-private-sector-union-members-on-sick-leave-demanding-rs-10000-salary-hike/
• CEBEU sees sinister move to malign it over genuine fault in the system
– island.lk/cebeu-sees-sinister-move-to-malign-it-over-genuine-fault-in-the-system/
• Charges & countercharges; power outage probe focuses on sabotage; more unions mull strike
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/charges-and-countercharges-as-power-outage-probe-focuses-on-sabotage-more-unions-mull-strike-464445.html
• Countrywide power outages: Similarities, differences and questions
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/countrywide-power-outages-similarities-differences-and-questions-464442.html
• No sign of an end to CEB turmoil with CEBEU and new CEBSEA locking horns
– island.lk/no-sign-of-an-end-to-ceb-turmoil-with-cebeu-and-new-cebsea-locking-horns/
• CEB Engineers’ Union makes revelations on controversial LNG deal
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/10/ceb-engineers-union-makes-revelations-on-controversial-lng-deal/
• Sri Lanka health workers to protest, strike against unmet demands
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-health-workers-to-protest-strike-against-unmet-demands-88631/
• Teachers’ Unions gear up to fight privatization of education
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/11/teachers-unions-gear-up-to-fight-privatization-of-education/
• Dr Padeniya prevented from being GMOA President
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/dr-padeniya-prevented-from-being-gmoa-president-464463.html
• Medical fraternity split over recent awarding of ‘Clinical Professorships’ by SLCOG
–sundaytimes.lk/211205/education/medical-fraternity-split-over-recent-awarding-of-clinical-professorships-by-slcog-464378.html
• Railways Station Masters’ Union to go for large scale trade union action
– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Station-Masters-to-go-for-large-scale-trade-union-action-SLRSMU/108-226509
• Reviving the Debate on Caste: ‘challenging historical questions for Tamil society”
– dailymirror.lk/news-features/Reviving-the-Debate-on-Caste/131-226203
• SL Foreman Killed in Pakistan
– kalaya.org/2021/12/blog-post_5.html
– kalaya.org/?p=4780
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/06/they-lynched-him-burnt-his-body-and-took-selfies-with-his-corpse/
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/06/a-moment-of-reckoning-in-pakistan/
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/07/sialkot-lynching-most-wanted-accused-arrested-by-punjab-police
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/SL-Pak-Trade-and-Investment-Association-condemns-brutal-murder-of-Priyantha/273-226381
• Recall all Lankans from Pakistan unless Pakistan ensures their safety: Anura
– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Recall-all-Lankans-from-Pakistan-unless-Pakistan-ensures-their-safety-Anura/342-226283
• Tragic tale of tea and roti; many estate workers go to sleep hungry
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/tragic-tale-of-tea-and-roti-many-estate-workers-go-to-sleep-hungry-464443.html
• CB uses ‘carrot and stick’ approach to boost forex
‘In the first 11 months, 96,000 people have left for foreign employment and the Central Bank predicts at least another 20,000-25,000 people will go within this month, making a total l of around 120,000 people migrating for the entirety of 2021. “This is half of what we have had in a normal year,” Cabraal said, noting that around 230,000 people migrate for employment annually…Workers’ remittances have covered around 80% of the annual trade deficit over the past two decades’
– ft.lk/top-story/CB-uses-carrot-and-stick-approach-to-boost-forex/26-727048
• Sri Lanka CB raids money changers for offering parallel exchange rates
– ft.lk/front-page/CB-initiates-regulatory-action-against-errant-money-exchangers/44-727295
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-cb-raids-money-changers-for-offering-parallel-exchange-rates-88721/
• Sri Lanka dollar salary earners protest as banks force convert forex
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-dollar-salary-earners-protest-as-banks-force-convert-forex-88668/
• Desperate measures by Govt to attract $ remittances – But will it work?
‘Jafferjee said most banks use computer systems to watch for anomalies and these informal channels would become more sophisticated.’
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/03/desperate-measures-by-govt-to-attract-remittances-but-will-it-work/
• Japan Keen to Attract Skilled Workers from Sri Lanka, New Ambassador Tells Prime Minister
‘there are 75 enterprises with Japanese investments operating in SL. During the past 15 years, they have invested about US$ 382 million, providing more than 12,000 employment opportunities’
• Pension for Politicians for what service they do to the country?
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/05/pension-for-politicians-for-what-service-they-do-to-the-country
• Sri Lanka ranks 116th out of 156 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2021
– ft.lk/columns/Women-s-economic-empowerment-is-key-to-realising-human-rights-and-gender-equality/4-727249
• Nagarro Sri Lanka pledges to accentuate women in tech and uplift gender equality
– island.lk/nagarro-sri-lanka-pledges-to-accentuate-women-in-tech-and-uplift-gender-equality/
• Mallika Nivasa takes mission to the next level
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/a-century-of-caregiving-mallika-nivasa-takes-mission-to-the-next-level-464477.html
• I am an 86-year-old living in an elder’s home
– island.lk/actors-on-world-stage/
• Every year 320,000 students make themselves available for skills training
‘Out of this number a large percentage represents school dropouts’
– dailymirror.lk/opinion/What-can-Sri-Lanka-offer-its-youth-EDITORIAL/172-226526
• Sri Lanka online education goes to 85% of students, despite dissatisfaction: study
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-online-education-goes-to-85-pct-of-stundets-despite-dissatisfaction-study-88708/
• Sri Lanka excessive taxes on telecoms had hit rural connectivity: regulator
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-excessive-taxes-on-telecoms-had-hit-rural-connectivity-regulator-88718/
• Absolutely no reason why universities should only be state-run – President
– timesonline.lk/news-online/Our-tertiary-education-system-needs-urgent-reforms-President/2-1136221
• Aggressive advertising by International Schools & Universities
– island.lk/do-all-parents-want-their-children-to-go-to-university/
• Imperial College of Business Studies conducts Convocation 2020 with over 300 students
‘The University of the West of Scotland (UWS) is the most preferred Public University in Scotland’
• Saturday, Sunday weekend from January 1 in UAE: Four-and-half-day working week
– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Saturday-Sunday-weekend-from-January-1-in-UAE-Four-and-half-day-working-week/108-226358
• The Dangers of Working-Class Women’s Football: 100 Years After the English FA Ban
– socialistproject.ca/2021/12/dangers-of-working-class-womens-football/
• Why Amazon Is Terrified of Its US Workers Unionizing
‘A Reuters study of twenty years of wage data for the retail industry found a clear and growing advantage for unionized workers compared to non-union workers, with the weekly wage gap between the two groups increasing from $20 in 2013 to $50 in 2019.’
– socialistproject.ca/2021/12/why-amazon-is-terrified-workers-unionizing/
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279412-us-lawmaker-blames-big-tech-for-price-hikes-as-amazon-workers-call-attention-to-inhumane-working-conditions
• Kellogg to permanently replace workers as union rejects contract
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/279266-kellogg-to-permanently-replace-workers-as-union-rejects-contract
• A Brief History of US Vigilantism (2018)
– redsails.org/a-brief-history-of-american-vigilantism/
• US Democratic Party Betrayal, Abortion, and the Supreme Court
– blackagendareport.com/democratic-party-betrayal-abortion-and-supreme-court
_________________________________________________________________________
C6. Agriculture (Robbery of rural home market; Machines, if used, mainly imported)
ee Agriculture emphasizes the failure to industrialize an agriculture that keeps the cultivator impoverished under moneylender and merchant, and the need to develop the rural home market, monetization and commercialization, to produce, rather than import, agricultural machinery.
• Government to import rice to control prices of rice
– timesonline.lk/news-online/Government-to-import-rice-to-control-prices-of-rice/2-1136203
• Sri Lanka to lease 1,750 hectares of Mahaweli land for commercial crops
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-lease-1750-hectares-of-mahaweli-land-for-commercial-crops-88591
• President sets up Green Agriculture Operative Centre
– ft.lk/front-page/President-sets-up-Green-Agriculture-Operative-Centre/44-727118
• Planters’ Association commends Government’s decision on agri input imports
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/pa-commends-governments-decision-on-agri-input-imports-463827.html
• Plantation sector still faces obstacles in obtaining fertiliser after import ban removal
– ft.lk/front-page/Plantation-sector-still-faces-obstacles-in-obtaining-fertiliser-after-import-ban-removal/44-727296
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Planters-Association-requests-speedy-solution-on-other-agri-inputs-beyond-fertiliser/273-226663
• French aid to develop Sri Lanka’s tea industry
– timesonline.lk/news-online/French-aid-to-develop-Sri-Lankas-tea-industry/2-1136207
• Govt.’s change of heart leaves farmers in the lurch
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/govt-s-change-of-heart-leaves-farmers-in-the-lurch-463848.html
• Chinese firm sues Sri Lanka in dispute over $49.7m fertilizer deal
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/07/sri-lankan-government-acts-only-for-their-own-interests-qingdao-seawin-biotech-group
– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Chinese-firm-sues-Sri-Lanka-in-dispute-over-49-7m-fertilizer-deal/108-226446
• Qingdao protest rejected samples in Singapore
‘samples from the Hippo Spirit were directed to the laboratory of SGS Switzerland in Singapore.’
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/10/qingdao-protest-rejected-samples-in-singapore/
• BCC gets approval to import desiccated coconut with a tax wavier
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/bcc-gets-approval-to-import-desiccated-coconut-with-a-tax-wavier-463824.html
• Coconut industry products raking in forex to the tune of $7000 [sic!] yearly – State Minister
– island.lk/coconut-industry-products-raking-in-forex-to-the-tune-of-7000-yearly-state-minister/
• Bolstering the rural economy through jobs in poultry production
– island.lk/bolstering-the-rural-economy-through-jobs-in-poultry-production/
• 1,374 waste disposal sites located along Kelani River: Amaraweera
– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/1-374-waste-disposal-sites-located-along-Kelani-River-Amaraweera/108-226521
• Sigiriya: Sri Lanka’s ancient water gardens
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/06/sigiriya-sri-lankas-ancient-water-gardens/
• Wasgamuwa unsettled by treasure hunting, harassment activities
– dailymirror.lk/expose/Wasgamuwa-unsettled-by-treasure-hunting-harassment-activities/333-226308
• When Marine Mammals Come Ashore
– island.lk/when-marine-mammals-come-ashore/
• X-Press Pearl: Shanghai Salvage Company to remove wreck
– newsfirst.lk/2021/12/08/x-press-pearl-shanghai-salvage-company-to-remove-wreck/
• Plastic pandemic: Ecological fallout of COVID-19 and policy options for Sri Lanka
‘SL generates more than five million kilograms of plastic waste per day, where the per capita daily contribution is nearly 0.5 kg… National Environmental Act No 47 of 1980, Section 32 covers manufacture, sale and use of plastic and polythene…Lobbying from local industry & pressures from major exporting countries and availability of alternatives remain challenges in implementing bans’
– dailymirror.lk/features/Plastic-pandemic-Ecological-fallout-of-COVID-19-and-policy-options-for-Sri-Lanka/185-226376
• History of the Conflict-Ridden Mullaperiyar Dam: Tamilnadu Floods Kerala
– newsclick.in/History-of-the-Conflict-Ridden-Mullaperiyar-Dam
• Poorer nations not falling for greenwashed imperialism
‘Rich countries are continuing on path of excess carbon emissions while shifting goalposts for others
– asiatimes.com/2021/12/poorer-nations-not-falling-for-greenwashed-imperialism/
• Totally Different Living: On the Legacies of Displacement and Marronage as Black Ecologies
– blackagendareport.com/totally-different-form-living-legacies-displacement-and-marronage-black-ecologies
_____________________________________________________________________
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 domination by merchants and moneylenders.
• Sri Lanka monetary troubles blamed on lack of industrialization
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-monetary-troubles-blamed-on-lack-of-industrialization-88518/
• Dissecting the proposed National Policy for Industrial Development of Sri Lanka: Parts 1, 2 & 3
‘A draft National Policy for Industrial Development of Sri Lanka (NaPID) prepared by a Task Force (TF) led by the Economist Prof. Sirimal Abeyratne, has been released…The industrial sector is inward looking and faced with the limitations of size and purchasing power of the local market. The strong lobby for protection that is becoming louder by the day is a definite sign of the sector being uncompetitive in the global market, both in terms of price and quality. Most local industries are at a low level of technology and the local value added is also at a low level’
– ft.lk/columns/Dissecting-the-proposed-National-Policy-for-Industrial-Development-of-Sri-Lanka-Part-1/4-727073
– ft.lk/columns/Dissecting-the-proposed-National-Policy-for-Industrial-Development-of-Sri-Lanka-Part-2/4-727145
– ft.lk/columns/Dissecting-the-proposed-National-Policy-for-Industrial-Development-of-Sri-Lanka-Part-3/4-727217
– economynext.com/proposed-sri-lanka-national-policy-for-industrial-development-a-commentary-88493/
• Indian credit to cover fuel import and “early modernisation of Trincomalee Tank Farm”
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/columns/black-friday-blues-govt-hit-by-tsunami-of-crises-464418.html
• JVP exposes agreement between government and NFE Sri Lanka Power Holding
– island.lk/three-cheers-for-jvp/
– island.lk/jvp-leader-makes-explosive-revelation-in-parliament-tables-secret-new-fortress-agreement/
– ft.lk/top-story/JVP-ignites-P-ment-with-Govt-US-New-Fortress-Energy-deal/26-727363
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/10/anura-says-yugadanavi-deal-not-signed-with-new-fortress-energy/
– timesonline.lk/news-online/Controversial-LNG-plant-agreement-for-Kerawalapitiya-tabled-in-Parliament/2-1136224
• Writing on the wall: Yugadanavi name board disappears
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/writing-on-the-wall-yugadanavi-name-board-disappears-464458.html
• CEB and the Government trying to change the Electricity Act and break up the CEB
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/columns/black-friday-blues-govt-hit-by-tsunami-of-crises-464418.html
• Business plan between CPC and LIOC for Trinco oil tanks
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/business-plan-between-cpc-and-lioc-for-trinco-oil-tanks-464476.html
• Sri Lanka CPC laying US$41mn pipeline to halve oil unloading time
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-cpc-laying-us41mn-pipeline-to-halve-oil-unloading-time-88491/
• Gas supply Mafia
– island.lk/gas-explosions/
• Gas for domestic use resumes; Govt. reverses decision
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/news/gas-for-domestic-use-resumes-govt-reverses-decision-464473.html
• Not the regulator but the Regulator
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/editorial/not-the-regulator-but-the-regulator-464412.html
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-gas-explosion-probe-says-blame-lies-largely-with-faulty-accessories-88570/
– island.lk/cylinders-containing-volatile-gas-mix-to-be-sent-to-tile-manufacturers/
– island.lk/petitioner-tells-court-ags-should-protect-public-not-corrupt-politicians/
• CPC cancels Nigerian crude oil contract over non-performance
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/cpc-cancels-nigerian-crude-oil-contract-over-non-performance-463862.html
• Chevron’s Delo proves 30,000 km on a single oil drain in Sri Lanka
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Delo-proves-30-000-km-on-a-single-oil-drain-in-Sri-Lanka/273-226378
• Damith Pallewatte appointed Chairman of Lanka Ventures and LVL Energy Fund
• WindForce declares total dividend pay-out of Rs. 1.76 b
– ft.lk/front-page/WindForce-declares-total-dividend-pay-out-of-Rs-1-76-b/44-727201
• SL had 200 ships monthly, 78 flights & freighter operations moving in & out of country weekly
– island.lk/sri-lankas-optimized-fashion-logistics-may-be-its-most-compelling-post-covid-value-proposition/
• Transhipment traffic shifts from Colombo Port to India
– themorning.lk/transhipment-traffic-shifts-from-colombo-port-to-india/
• ‘Making Sri Lanka a Technology Hub’ – FT and SLIDA
‘Axiata Group Hans Wijayasuriya; University of Greenwhich Mayur K. Patel; University of Buckingham Harin Sellahewa; HCL Srimathi Shivashankar; New Zealand Amazon Web Services Haren Sam; Kiu Global Steve Landman; ICTA Oshada Senanayake; & Huawei Michael McDonald…Moderated by Nisthar Cassim, Dinesh Weerakkody and Jeevan Gnanam’.
– ft.lk/front-page/Ministers-Namal-Rajapaksa-and-Rama-Rao-to-address-Daily-FT-SLID-ICCSL-webinar-today/44-727362
• SL falls behind countries with lower GNI in internet usage: LIRNEasia survey
– ww.dailymirror.lk/business-news/SL-falls-behind-countries-with-lower-GNI-in-internet-usage-LIRNEasia-survey/273-226665
• Lalan Rubber to set up gloves manufacturing plant in Oman
– ft.lk/front-page/Lalan-Rubber-to-set-up-gloves-manufacturing-plant-in-Oman/44-727360
• Tokyo Cement swiftly fulfils cement market shortage at lowest price
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Tokyo-Cement-swiftly-fulfils-cement-market-shortage-at-lowest-price/273-226504
• SLINTEC to drive export revenue for Sri Lanka through graphene-based products
• Sri Lanka increases local production of drugs
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/sri-lanka-increases-local-production-of-drugs-463817.html
• Uphill battle towards pharmaceutical self-sufficiency: Can local industry do more for less?
‘200 new vaccine manufacturers have joined the production pipeline. The USA, Canada, Brazil and Mexico are considered the top vaccine manufacturers while some Latin American countries are among the Top 20 ranked vaccine manufacturers with self-sufficiency up to about 72%.’
– ft.lk/front-page/Uphill-battle-towards-pharmaceutical-self-sufficiency-Can-local-industry-do-more-for-less/44-727227
– island.lk/the-uphill-battle-towards-pharmaceutical-self-sufficiency/
• WTO must ensure protective patent rights are removed.
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/editorial/not-the-regulator-but-the-regulator-464412.html
• MoU signed for Sri Lanka’s first ever smart phone manufacturing plant
– newsfirst.lk/2021/10/30/mou-signed-for-sri-lankas-first-ever-smart-phone-manufacturing-plant/
• Buhardeen ups Sierra Cables stake to 20%
– ft.lk/front-page/Buhardeen-ups-Sierra-Cables-stake-to-20/44-727042
• Kelani Cables PLC becomes the sole-distributor in Sri Lanka for Havelles CAT-6 LAN Cables
• India’s HCL links with Cisco, Airbus, MunichRe, BP, and McLaren Health
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/hcl-technologies-to-attract-talent-in-sri-lanka-463830.html
• BIMSTEC Secretary General calls on President
‘Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation’
– island.lk/bimstec-secretary-general-calls-on-president/
– island.lk/foreign-minister-g-l-peiris-reassures-commitment-of-sri-lanka-to-bimstec/
• SIPRI: Global Arms Industry Flourishing Despite COVID
– newsclick.in/SIPRI-Global-arms-industry-flourishing-despite-COVID
• ‘So Far from God, so Close to the US’: Responding to Biden’s Buy-American Auto Rebates
– socialistproject.ca/2021/12/far-from-god-close-to-united-states/
• Aramco CEO remarks at World Petroleum Council Congress 2021
‘there are still no truly viable alternatives to conventional fuels in aviation, shipping, and even trucking. When it comes to petrochemical feedstock and lubricants, even the most aggressive transition plans still offer few alternatives.’
– aramco.com/en/news-media/speeches/2021/ceo-remarks-at-wpc-houston-2021
• Shell pulls out of Cambo Oil field project in Europe’s North Sea
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/278983-shell-pulls-out-of-cambo-oil-field-project-in-europes-north-sea
______________________________________________________________________
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, preventing investment in modern production.
• Banks make a killing at depositors’ expense
– island.lk/banks-make-a-killing-at-depositors-expense/
• Sri Lanka stocks recover on export-led, speculative shares
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-recover-on-export-led-speculative-shares-88723/
• Stock market produces stellar finish for the week
– ft.lk/front-page/Stock-market-produces-stellar-finish-for-the-week/44-727353
• Money launderers would be brought to justice regardless of social standing – CBSL Governor
– island.lk/money-launderers-would-be-brought-to-justice-regardless-of-social-standing-cbsl-governor/
• Clandestine offshore financial transactions: Finally, Nirupama’s statement recorded
– island.lk/clandestine-offshore-transactions-finally-nirupamas-statement-recorded/
• HNB Assurance Group records impressive Profit After Tax of LKR 465 mn for 3Q21
– island.lk/hnb-assurance-group-records-impressive-results-for-3q21/
• Delegation from EXIM Bank of India visits SL, reviews progress of water supply projects
– themorning.lk/delegation-from-exim-bank-of-india-visits-sl-reviews-progress-of-water-supply-projects/
– ft.lk/front-page/Exim-Bank-of-India-visits-Sri-Lanka/44-727358
• Sri Lanka Port City to allow crypto currency trading, no rupee tokens
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-port-city-to-allow-crypto-currency-trading-no-rupee-tokens-88572/
• Bitcoin Weekend Crash Provides a Hard Look at “Rat Poison Squared”
– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/12/bitcoin-weekend-crash-provides-a-hard-look-at-rat-poison-squared/
• Last Friday, There Were 585 New 52-Week Lows on the Nasdaq Stock Market
– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/12/last-friday-there-were-585-new-52-week-lows-on-the-nasdaq-stock-market-versus-12-new-52-week-highs/
• Saule Omarova Withdraws as Nominee to Head National Bank Regulator
‘Emily Flitter of the New York Times, said it was because Omarova had been “painted as a communist.”’
– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/12/saule-omarova-withdraws-as-bidens-nominee-to-head-national-bank-regulator-puzzling-questions-remain/
• US Fed Pulls a Dark Curtain Around Former Dallas Fed President, Robert Kaplan’s Trading
– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/12/the-fed-pulls-a-dark-curtain-around-former-dallas-fed-president-robert-kaplan-and-his-trading-in-sp-500-futures/
• Wall Street – How Corrupt Is It? It’s Time for the Justice Department to Finally Answer
– wallstreetonparade.com/2021/12/wall-street-how-corrupt-is-it-its-time-for-the-justice-department-to-finally-answer-that-question/
___________________________________________________________________________________
C9. Business (Rentierism: money via imports, real-estate, tourism, insurance, fear, privatization)
ee Business focuses on the rentier diversions of the oligarchy, the domination by a merchant mafia, making money from unproductive land sales, tourism, insurance, advertising, etc. – the charade of corporate press releases disguised as ‘news’
• Fags worth Rs.0.5mn emerge from chocolates inside BIA
– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Fags-worth-Rs-0-5mn-emerge-from-chocolates-inside-BIA/108-226546
• Sri Lanka BOI chief resigns despite President’s request to stay
‘BOI firms accounted for 65 percent of Sri Lanka’s exports and 85 percent of industrial exports’
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/simmering-row-led-to-mass-resignation-of-boi-board-463851.html
– http://bizenglish.adaderana.lk/president-rejects-boi-resignations/
– ft.lk/columns/Learnings-from-BOI-s-Great-Resignation/4-727041
– http://bizenglish.adaderana.lk/boi-enterprises-export-revenues-record-2019-values/
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-approves-us2bn-in-projects-up-to-nov-fdi-us400mn-to-june-boi-88594/
– economynext.com/sri-lanka-boi-chief-resigns-despite-presidents-request-to-stay-88761/
– timesonline.lk/news-online/Sri-Lankas-investment-promotion-chief-steps-down/2-1136228
• New SEC Act designed to attract and protect foreign investment – Viraj Dayaratne P.C.
– island.lk/new-sec-act-designed-to-attract-and-protect-foreign-investment-viraj-dayaratne-p-c/
• Browns Investments invests $ 114 m in Port City
– ft.lk/front-page/BIL-invests-114-m-in-Port-City/44-727047
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Browns-Investments-secures-leasehold-rights-to-develop-marina-and-hotel-in-Port-City/273-226253
• 82.25% of the land in the country is owned by the government
• Lankem gains control of ACME Printing & Packaging in mandatory offer
‘Colombo Fort Land & Building is the holding company of Lankem Ceylon and E.B. Creasy and the parent of Union Commodities…Colvis Company was the single largest shareholder of ACME with 26.86% stake & Capital Trust Holdings Limited was third largest shareholder with over 15% stake.’
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Lankem-gains-control-of-ACME-Printing-Packaging-in-mandatory-offer/273-226250
• Amana Takaful Life introduces three new directors to its Board
– island.lk/amana-takaful-life-introduces-three-new-directors-to-its-board/
• MY Kalizma – first super-yacht to berth at Port City Colombo Marina
– sundaytimes.lk/211205/business-times/my-kalizma-first-super-yacht-to-berth-at-port-city-colombo-marina-463820.html
• US and Singapore firms announce deal to build $ 65 m worth mixed development in Negombo
– ft.lk/front-page/US-and-Singapore-firms-announce-major-deal-to-build-65-m-worth-mixed-development-in-Negombo/44-727355
• JAT launches 146 Residencies with 30% pre-sales
‘Built on 92 perches, with a starting price of Rs.22 million’
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/JAT-launches-146-Residencies-with-30-pre-sales/273-226502
• Homelands-Seylan in funding partnership for Canterbury Lexus Golf Resort Apartments
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Homelands-Seylan-in-funding-partnership-for-Canterbury-Lexus-Golf-Resort-Apartments/273-226500
• Christmas at the John Keells’ Crescat Boulevard
– island.lk/christmas-at-the-boulevard/
• Corporate Connections Head Yash Vasant in Sri Lanka
– ft.lk/front-page/Corporate-Connections-Head-Yash-Vasant-in-Sri-Lanka/44-727043
• edotco Sri Lanka signs BOI deal for 400 more multipurpose smart streetlamp pole sites
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/edotco-Sri-Lanka-signs-BOI-deal-for-400-more-multipurpose-smart-streetlamp-pole-sites/273-226666
• Sri Lanka-Korea Business Council members hosted by Korean ambassador Santhush
– island.lk/sri-lanka-korea-business-council-members-hosted-by-korean-ambassador-santhush/
• New Zealand to ban cigarettes for future generations
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/New-Zealand-to-ban-cigarettes-for-future-generations/273-226564
• Italy fines Amazon record US$ 1.3bn for alleged abuse of market dominance
‘Alphabet’s Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have also drawn scrutiny in Europe.’
– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Italy-fines-Amazon-record-US-1-3bn-for-alleged-abuse-of-market-dominance/273-226565
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C10. Politics (Anti-parliament discourse, unelected constitution)
ee Politics points to the constant diversions and spectacles and the mercantile and financial forces funding the political actors, of policy hijacked by private interests minus public oversight.
• Communist Party salutes to its Comrade Collure
– timesonline.lk/news-online/Communist-Party-salutes-to-its-Comrade-Collure/2-1136181
• Civil Society & Professors who Represent ‘International Community’ Interests
– kalaya.org/?p=4777
• A Leftist Wishes to Slap Me
– kalaya.org/?p=4787
• Govt. MP strikes discordant note, slams Parliament over National List farce
– island.lk/govt-mp-strikes-discordant-note-slams-parliament-over-national-list-farce/
• “Determined to address issues in the North” Jeevan Thiagarajah
– dailymirror.lk/plus/Determined-to-address-issues-in-the-North-Jeevan-Thiagarajah/352-226453
• Role of Theosophists in Buddhist revival
‘Ven Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera even questioned Olcott’s understanding of Buddhism and challenged him for a debate. Olcott is said to have fled to India the night before the debate… a Ceylonese had to be “at least a nominal Christian” to secure government employment from the highest to the village level.’
– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Role-of-Theosophists-in-Buddhist-revival/172-226370
• Parliamentary Privileges
– kalaya.org/2021/12/blog-post_6.html
• SJB MPs have chosen to make their speeches on the budget via social media platforms.
– island.lk/expensive-jokes/
• Johnston on why Yahapalana govt. did not have JO members prosecuted
– island.lk/johnston-on-why-yahapalana-govt-did-not-have-jo-members-prosecuted
– island.lk/dinesh-insists-manusha-tried-to-intimidate-speaker
• Daunting challenges ahead – GR two years in office
– island.lk/daunting-challenges-ahead/
• Review of Rajiva Wijesinha’s Representing Sri Lanka
‘Western interests could pressurise and punish us at any given moment’
– island.lk/downhill-all-the-way/
• Fonseka declared he will hang the Rajapaksas in Bogambara prison
– island.lk/yanne-koheda-malle-pol/
• Over 2,000 recommendations of parliamentary watchdog committees ignored
‘officials responsible for many instances of financial misappropriation find excuses such as leaving the country when they are summoned before the COPE or COPA.. no powers to compel the officials to implement our recommendations’
– island.lk/over-2000-recommendations-of-parliamentary-watchdog-committees-ignored/
• JVP, SJB, TNA and the Muslims have all entered a period of positional warfare – David
– island.lk/big-tent-better-for-minorities-than-quad/
• Military domination, JVP rule or centrist stabilisation? – Jayatilleka
‘We’ve had power cuts before, but never power cuts, water cuts, shortages, exploding cookers, queues, shrivelling harvests, skyrocketing prices and an exodus of middle-class Sinhala youth.’
– ft.lk/columns/Military-domination-JVP-rule-or-centrist-stabilisation/4-727196
• A Realist Reading of the Political Marketplace – Jayatilleka
‘Lankan liberals who fetishize the free-market above all in economics, are totally impervious to and imperiously ignore the signals of the political marketplace’
– island.lk/a-realist-reading-of-the-political-marketplace/
• The mirage of a military solution?
– ft.lk/columns/The-mirage-of-a-military-solution/4-727171
• Prevent growth of extremism through stronger institutions – USAID’s NPC Perera
– island.lk/prevent-growth-of-extremism-through-stronger-institutions/
• Liberal dogmatism and Sri Lanka’s future – Devapriya
– island.lk/liberal-dogmatism-and-sri-lankas-future/
• Failure to prevent Black July was one of Sirisena Cooray’s lasting regrets – Gunasekera
– island.lk/an-era-ends/
• LTTE’s Anton Balasingham: Up close and personal – Jeyaraj
‘Things changed soon as Stanislaus got a job as translator at the British High Commission’
– ft.lk/columns/LTTE-s-Anton-Balasingham-Up-close-and-personal/4-727068
• ‘By no stretch of imagination is this a Sinhala or Sinhala Buddhist Country’ – Wigneswaran
– dailymirror.lk/opinion/By-no-stretch-of-imagination-could-you-call-this-country-a-Sinhala-or-Sinhala-Buddhist-Country-Wigneswaran/231-226198
• Jennings had a poor and mistaken impression of the country’s cultural heritage
– island.lk/constitutionalism-governance-and-the-people/
• Lal Soysa
– island.lk/lal-soysa/
• Blacks in United States are a great deal ahead of the Sinhala in seeking justice
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/05/the-peoples-voice-against-the-killing-of-george-floyd-clearly-shows-that-the-blacks-in-united-states-are-a-great-deal-ahead-in-seeking-the-justice-in-demanding-the-right-to-equality-before-th/
• Tamil oppressors denied Tamils justice, equality and dignity
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/04/tamil-oppressors-denied-tamils-justice-equality-and-dignity/
• Xi stresses developing religions in Chinese context
‘uphold the principle that religions in China must be Chinese in orientation’
– http://www.news.cn/english/2021-12/04/c_1310352026.htm
• Backed by Africom, Corporations Plunder DR Congo for “Climate-Friendly” Materials & Blame China
– blackagendareport.com/backed-africom-corporations-plunder-dr-congo-climate-friendly-materials-and-blame-china
• 60 Years After His Death, Fanon’s Ideas Remain the Weapons of the Oppressed
– blackagendareport.com/frantz-fanon-lives-60-years-after-his-death-fanons-ideas-remain-weapons-oppressed
• Crying at the Centro Fidel Castro Ruz
– blackagendareport.com/crying-centro-fidel-castro-ruz
• Arts of Rebellion in the Fourth World War.
– blackagendareport.com/bar-book-forum-jennifer-s-ponce-de-leons-another-aesthetics-possible
• Anti-Communism, Anti-Blackness, and Imperialism
– blackagendareport.com/anti-communism-anti-blackness-and-imperialism
• White Supremacy, Nazism and Fascism R U.S.
– blackagendareport.com/white-supremacy-nazism-and-fascism-r-us
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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.
• Field Marshal tears modern-day Mahawamsa chroniclers over recording of Eelam War IV
– island.lk/field-marshal-tears-modern-day-mahawamsa-chroniclers-to-shreds-over-poor-recording-of-eelam-war-iv/
• Last thoughts at death determine thoughts at conception of the next birth
– island.lk/matters-of-life-and-death/
• King of Lankan pop – Clarence Wijewardena’s contributions to music industry
– island.lk/king-of-lankan-pop/
• Short Stories are Pieces of Art Motivated by others, of others, for others!
– dailymirror.lk/news-features/Short-Stories-are-Pieces-of-Art-Motivated-by-others-of-others-for-others/131-226204
• Sinhala Poetry from London
– londonkavi.com
• Sinhala ‘Evgeni Onegin’ Russian romantic novel written in verse by Alexander Pushkin.
– http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/09/the-pond-butterflies-and-the-rainbow/
• Intimate and painful details of the experience of being banished
‘Ceylon, she reminds us, became a Malay and Javanese verb that connotes banishment (disailankan)’
– island.lk/intimate-and-painful-details-of-the-experience-of-being-banished/
• Indian Journalists Union expresses concern over sedition charge against Silchar journalist
– lankaweb.com/news/items/2021/12/05/iju-expresses-concern-over-sedition-charge-against-silchar-journalist/
• Afghanistan followed by Mexico, Pakistan, India emerge dangerous for journalists in 2021
• #NoMore Censorship of Africa’s Roving Digital Army of Peace
– blackagendareport.com/nomore-censorship-africas-roving-digital-army-peace
• Writing as a Powerful Tool of Resistance
– newsclick.in/Writing-as-a-Powerful-Tool-Resistance
• Identity and Indenture, in Fact and Fiction
‘The new novel, Children of Sugarcane, reckons with the “colonial fingerprints” on our contemporary society, while providing a nuanced view of indenture and its afterlives’
– newsclick.in/identity-indenture-fact-fiction
• President of Peru denounces media campaign to remove him from power
‘Audios, videos and many edited ones will come out, but what they cannot do is to silence us and bend the efforts” of the government’
– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/278990-president-of-peru-denounces-media-campaign-to-remove-him-from-power
• The US Prison System’s War on Reading
– blackagendareport.com/american-prison-systems-war-reading
• Craig Murray out of Jail: Scotland is still part of an imperialist United Kingdom.
– craigmurray.org.uk
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email: econenews@gmail.com
blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com
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