USA, Japan, & India Turn off the Lights

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

e-Con e-News 16-22 January 2022

Anyone hear the vroom of 500 million US dollars being paid to the white banks, last Tuesday? No clicking cameras, no clamorous reporters on location. How’s it done? Just a touch of a key? Who sent it from here? Who received it there? How was it divided? What were the loans taken for? Did Tuesday’s 32^nd Association of Professional Bankers (APB) meeting give details? What happened to the predicted end-of-the-world? Postponed once again?

About 20% of our annual import expenditure is allocated to oil imports.

While total export earnings are less than $1,000mn a month,

we have to spend about $350mn a month on oil alone.

About 70% of the imported fuel is used as fuel for vehicles.

It costs about 21% to generate electricity. Only 4% is used for industry.

– President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (see ee Agriculture, Green)

Ships, with overpriced crude oil, sail from US colonies in West Asia, sail past us to Singapore, to be refined, and then sail back here. We’re also a cemetery for Japanese used-cars. An expensive slow-moving parking lot for Tata & Bajaj. Is it just the US, India and Japan we must blame for promoting this deadly car-happy culture? Where does this energy go? Not into industry. Into the air, all to smog?

• US Exxon’s Chevron announced this week, their increased monopoly (47%) over Sri Lanka’s lubricant market, India’s IOC is 2^nd with 20% control; US ExxonMobil via McLarens Lubricants, 3^rd with 6%; Laugfs Lubricants 4^th with 5.65%, SL-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation was 5^th with 4.73%. Lubricant sales are linked to travel, transport, and power generation (ee Industry, Caltex)

     Who owns Exxon? Rockefeller et al. Who owns Pathfinder Foundation, Advocata, Verite, etc.? Rockefeller et al! Who owns our economists? Rockefeller et al. Who owns our economy?

• Who should we blame for this huge oil import bill? Where did the plans of DJ Wimalasurendra, GVS de Silva & SBD de Silva, to invest in our own energy sources and rural industry, end up?

     Let us séance to call up the ghost of Laxapana Wimalasurendra: Perhaps England’s Pearson PLC could make this an exam question. After all, Pearson is now the world’s top seller of books and tests. Yet it was Whitehall Securities, the investment arm of Pearson PLC, later owner of The Economist, who undermined Wimalasurendra. Will students ever learn about their sabotage? (ee 1 Aug 20)

• In July 2021 the Wijeya Group’s Sunday Times (ee, 24 July 21) opposed fuel rationing, as ’a move that could have a debilitating effect on development activities and the economy’. What development activities? School children from villages, coming to see Port City (no China visa needed!), should also be given guided tours of Colombots’ garages, carriageways, reckless driving habits.

     Spanish conquistadors introduced horses into the Americas? Colonial histories claim horses pushed the original people expand hunting territory, resulting in ‘inter-tribal’ warfare. What will private cars help do?

     ‘Is your journey necessary?’ was the English warning to car owners here, during their WW2. Japan had taken over Burma (from where England imported rice to Sri Lanka) and Singapore. England rationed food, textiles, and petrol. 5,000 schools joined the Emergency Food Production campaign. Colombo tennis courts were turned into vegetable gardens. The colonial government here imported & distributed (stolen Bengali & Egyptian) rice, wheat flour & (stolen Mauritian) sugar, froze prices, imposed rationing. To maximize production, they offered several ‘concessions’ to cultivators & workers, guaranteeing above-world prices to impoverished cultivators, under their Internal Purchase Scheme (ee 15 Feb 2020). Did the white-Blacks scream against import controls then? No! They remain loyalist as Royalists to their white colonial masters. Ah, those ‘good old days’ that sparked today’s ‘welfare’ state of so-called ‘free’ education & healthcare etc.

• Germany’s Goethe Institute is sponsoring ‘Music Matters’, while warships, from Germany playing Wagner, and from Japan brandishing the Rising Sun flag, cruised by Colombo Port’s Galbokka this week to demand ‘freedom of the seas’? Anyone hear cries about invasion? Where are the Colombot Anglomaniacs, who normally go all bonkers when a Chinese ship docks? Did a Hunnish Aryan choir singing Hadyn’s Deutschland Uber Alles greet it? Sri Lanka should sail a warship to the North Atlantic to demand ‘freedom of the seas’ and lebensraum – living room? (ee Sovereignty)

What links Rock’n’Roll, Mass Murder, Modern Art, Uber

& Economists’ Demand for Labor Flexibility in Silicon Valley?

By 1980 the Valley’s Stanford University had helped professors patent

more than 400 inventions. The top money earner was music:

Prof John Chowning’s FM synthesis: ‘at a certain frequency,

patterns of vibrations from 2 oscillators generated harmonic tones’

like those of musical instruments. Chowning sold it to Japan’s Yamaha…

     Many 1960s white rock’n’roll ‘stars’ (Grateful Dead, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac etc) were babies of US Silicon Valley’s military-industry workers. Massive government funding inspired their affluence, highly individualized behavior, and sense of urgency about nukes, etc, while their parents were also designing more mundane but equally devastating weapons of mass murder.

     Silicon Valley is hyped as the ‘hippest’ place on the planet. California-dreaming hype praises the flexibility of its labor market, with workers having to adapt to the fast-changing demands of the work process. Silicon Valley’s labor market is held up as the model policy for the world, engaging in the new economy to improve their prosperity and/or restructure their productive base. Yet most of its workers are treated very badly. As the cutting edge of ‘labor flexibility’, workers have little job security. Uber epitomizes such flexing:

• Is Uber sponsoring ‘modern art’ in Colombo? World Bank-linked Keells and their American-Express-linked Nations Trust Bank etc, are all gaga about the grating Gratiaen and the Keytian krap of the Kala Pola etc. Along with the usual-suspect sponsors of art: the private property dealers. Could Uber sponsor art? Uber workers are given no shelter, no hole to pee in, shit or puke, let alone wash their monoxide-greased faces. Ever see a speeding Uber rider flying in the air, gourmet food splattered all over the road, after being hit by a crazed driver in one of them monster 4WDs? Uber pays no taxes. Posts no profits. Yet steals public space. So why not give Uber workers a private canvass? Perhaps some Uber workers could vomit their bodily fluids – some sorrow, tears and blood – on those canvasses, and call it installation or performance art.

     The white-funded Colombutt art festival theme – ‘Language is Migrant’ – reminds that many of these ‘artists’ are the children of merchant market minorities, with regional and not national loyalties. These market minorities camouflage their economic class inside cultural and religious identities, of which they are the main funders.

• The new technologies, under capitalist domination, need to be transformed so as to enable greater cooperation among workers. It’s like making love. For some people it’s what happens in bed, or in a light-less place. Due to capitalist domination, and their need to prevent workers from organizing to replace them, work is turned lifeless and loveless. Each worker in it for themselves, at the expense of other workers.

• The capitalist media is full of ‘donations’ and ‘awards’, advertising and rewarding the ‘generosity and charity’ of imperialist governments, their banks (Citi, Standard Chartered, HSBC), multinationals (Unilever, P&G, Nestle etc), and local agents. The bulk of our so-called debt has to be paid to imperialist banks. This ee looks at these banks, and their links to the Paris Club of imperialist creditors, the London Club of private bankers, the Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) led by the OECD & the Berne Union to whom we owe money for buying their industrial goods (ee Focus).

• The Silence of the Bankers – The 32nd Convention of the Association of Professional Bankers (APBSL) took place January 18, while their white masters were meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 17-21 Jan. On cue, Oxfam diverted the WEF game into lamenting the rise of billionaires, etc.

     There’s still no news of what the APBSL discussed, only a rendition of the Central Bank Governor’s anodyne speech, where he asked them to be good citizens. Fat chance.

     There was no reportage at all on the APBSL’s keynote speech by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation Country Officer for Sri Lanka and Maldives, Victor Antonypillai. The IFC is sticking their fingers into private banks and NGOs as well. The IFC’s Antonypillai (related to our Chettiar Bankers of yore?) is proud of investing in such Unilever fronts as Sunshine PLC ‘to help expand consumer access to quality fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and support the domestic supply chain’. In other words, to hijack Sri Lanka’s home market, preventing its use as a basis for modern industrialization.

     It was also Antonypillai who ‘officially presented financial & digital financial literacy training modules to the Central Bank’. No wonder we remain illiterate and innumerate.

     Antonypillai cannot highlight that our usurers have yet again sabotaged a public development bank. Last CB Governor WD Lakshman had promised such a bank. The main criticism of the present CB governor focuses on trivial matters, like his demand for a pension, or his insistence on paying the mythical debts owed. The media refuses to discuss the need for public development banks, let alone their diffusion throughout the society, or why WDL proposed such a need.

     The hijacking of the DFCC and NDB came up again this week, with the NDB Investment Bank proudly claiming it had set a record of Rs75bn in capital raisings in 2021. Capital for what? Norfund, the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries, is the single largest shareholder of the hijacked NDB.

     Absolutely no conversation is therefore allowed on how public investment by state enterprises is way more effective in avoiding slumps than Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Instead, we’re repeatedly harangued that state companies are bureaucratic and inefficient compared to the private sector and cannot be relied on.

     The recent US Economists’ conference was reminded, ‘public investment by state enterprises would be much more effective in avoiding slumps than MMT’: It’s far better for a country to adopt a decisive policy of nationalizing financially troubled private companies instead of issuing more money for the unemployed. Totally the opposite of what economists here demand: robbing national enterprises! (ee Economists 15 Jan, ASSA)

     Did Antonypillai suggest that all so-called debtor countries, large and small, form a club, more powerful than the Paris and London Clubs of loansharks, to turn the so-called creditors into debtors, and finally invest in modern industrial production, through collective action? Dream on!

Contents:

A1. Reader Comments –

Colombo’s Victorian Fashions • Tea Thrives Minus Chemical imports? • SJB’s Disc Jocks • ee is the Best • ee Fact Checking • ee should replace White with Indian

A2. Quotes of the Week

• 656 Foreign Loans • Canada Hoards Vaccines • Pope & Usury

A3. Random Notes –

• English Lords & Human Rights • English Borders & Modern Wars • US Murders Martin Luther King Yet Again • Sunday Times Daily Amnesia • Rice & Memory • That Fake GDP Index  • Silicon Valley & Modern Slavery • Defense or War Department?

B. ee Focus    

B1. IMF, World Bank, Paris Club, London Club, Export Credit Agencies & Development Banks

C. News Index

_____________

A1. Reader Comments

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

• ‘Why do we imitate the traditions of dress and customs of Victorian England even in the highest echelons of State like the Supreme Court & Parliament? Wearing a wig in this hot humid climate cannot be comfortable.’

• ‘So Ceylon Tea production increased in 2021. What happened to all the cries about the lack of fertilizer hurting growth? This anti-organic barrage is fake, and many cultivators are switching’ (see ee Agriculture)

• ‘The SJB’s current international advisor is a disc jockey playing appropriate music pleasing the group on the dancing floor at a given time.’

• ‘Re: ‘They figure oligarchs will never bite the hand that holds their nuts’ – Do tell me who on earth can write more tellingly than ee? ee keeps getting better.’

• ‘Re: ‘JVP’s Bimal Ratnayake said Sri Lankan oil prices are higher than the rest of the world?’ Verite fact-checkers don’t check some public statements? Is ee not qualified as a fact checker?’

• ‘If ee changes “Whites” etc. to the equivalent “Indian” you can see the reasons for the plight of the Sinhala today. We are not alone. All former English dominions are in the same boat, like Fiji, countries in Africa and thr Caribbean. The so-called English Empire is in fact an English-Indian Empire colonized by the Indian with the English being the absentee landlord…’

_____________

A2. Quotes of the Week_

• ‘The Public Debt Department of the Central Bank is handling debt servicing of around 656 foreign loans and a domestic debt portfolio of Rs2.13 trillion’ – ee Economy

• ‘There is no moral justification for a country like Canada to hoard enough jabs to vaccinate its population 9 times over while developing countries are struggling to secure vaccines for frontline healthcare workers’ – ee Economists, Rich Hoarding Vaccines

• ‘The Papacy might denounce usurers, but, as the center of the most highly organized administrative system of the age, receiving remittances from all over Europe, and receiving them in money at a time when the revenue of other Governments still included personal services and payments in kind, it could not dispense with them. Dante put the Cahorsine moneylenders in hell, but a Pope gave them the title of ‘peculiar sons of the Roman Church’. Grosstete rebuked the Lombard bankers, and a bishop of London expelled them but papal protection brought them back. Archbishop Peckham, a few years later, had to implore Pope Nicholas III to withdraw a threat of excommunication, intended to compel him to pay the usurious interest demanded by Italian moneylenders, though, as the archbishop justly observed, ‘by your Holiness’s special mandate, it would be my duty to take strong measures against such lenders.’ The Papacy was, in a sense, the greatest financial institution of the Middle Ages, and, as its fiscal system was elaborated, things became, not better, but worse. The abuses which were a trickle in the 13^th century were a torrent in the 15^th.’ – Tawney, Religion & the Rise of Capitalism

___________

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

• England’s ‘Lord’ Ahmad is in Sri Lanka to appraise human rights? How does an idiotic ‘lord’ wax about human rights? 74 years of Soulbury independence has made us serfs. Human rights has become a game that several sides can play. It serves imperialism as well as the local oligarchy, which alternates between craven submission and faux anti-colonialism. The true national issues such the prevention of modern industrialization gain no mention. It’s sorry subterfuge where all communities are used as pawns. Does the TNA’s Sumanthiran honestly believe India will help Tamil people? The US government & military-industrial forces are busy weaponizing ‘Green’ after arming ‘Human Rights’.

• The lines drawn by imperialism, and the timebombs left by colonial rule are still active. Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf trekked to Afghanistan Tuesday to discuss fencing the 1893 English-drawn Durand Line separating the 2 countries.

     Snow is falling hard on the Indian side of the Siachen glacier, supposedly one of the world’s most dangerous places, where the next world war might begin (claimed US President Clinton). Both India and Pakistan claim ownership over the entire Siachen region. In 1975 US maps marked the glacier as part of Pakistan, which India called ‘cartographic aggression’.

     Both India & Pakistan source water off the glacial thaw from Siachen which feeds the Nubra & Shyok rivers, which flow into the upper Indus. The Siachen Glacier lies between the Saltoro Ridge and the main Karakoram range. After England divided India in 1947, the war for Jammu & Kashmir ended in a ceasefire line dividing the t2 countries. After the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War & 1972 Simla Agreement, the ceasefire line became a ‘Line of Control’ (LoC). In 1984 India violated the Simla Agreement by militarily occupying the Saltoro Ridge, which originates in the north from the Sia Kangri peak in the Karakoram range’s China border.

     So when will we go beyond the lines drawn by dead white men, and recall that China once called India: Tianxi ­– Western Heaven. And now, India, claimed as the ‘world’s pharmacy’, imports 60% of chemicals and other materials for pharma from China!

• The US Government assassinated Martin Luther King, and keep assassinating him every year, praising him, while burying his message and the African liberation struggle that brought him to the fore. How could Obama/Biden invoke MLK? Obama, invader of Libya, Syria, Yemen, Mali, Congo, etc. Meanwhile, more evidence surfaced this week, of the US role in the murder of Haiti’s President.

• ‘Memories of the people are short’, proclaimed Sunday Times this last week, though it’s not the people’s memory, but it’s the capitalist media’s job to promote the daily amnesia.

     Sri Lanka’s rich seem to have suddenly discovered poverty in Lanka very recently. Like tourists who suddenly discover their own backyard. In fact, they discover it every time their UNP is in the opposition. Then when they get their way, they conveniently forget people again…

It’s time to dub Xi Jinping the ‘father of rice’ – JVP’s Vijitha Herath.

What a sad state of affairs when the country which had reached self-sufficiency in rice and was known as the rice bowl of Asia is going around begging to feed its people – Sunday Times, 16 Jan 2022

It’s strange that the anglomanic ST or the amnesia-struck JVP cannot recollect that Lanka’s been importing rice for several colonial centuries now. The US-controlled World Bank and IMF also undermined people’s preference for rice, by promoting the import of wheat flour.

     The word for money – salli – is said to come from sahal – rice. Sri Lanka’s ancient culture built on rice production ‘flourished in the unfriendly environment of the Dry Zone by means of complex, ingenious and extensive irrigation works’. The English impoverished the villages, by undermining the public service and solidarity that enabled irrigation systems, which they destroyed. ‘The English importation of rice from Burma and its transport to the plantation districts was an elaborate enterprise, involving European millers, shipping agencies and insurance firms, and the railway, yet in the vicinity of the plantations there were no cart roads to provide an outlet for any surplus of locally grown paddy. The villages were entirely cut off from each other…

Business that was relatively safe was the prerogative of the European firms, while trading risks were taken by the indigenous and other Asian traders. In rice, potatoes, onions, chillies, dried fish and pulses, there was also a high degree of market instability, due to the vagaries of production, the irregularity of shipments, and the generally perishable nature of the goods. In Sri Lanka it was in these circumstances that European enterprise was ousted from the trade in rice, flour, sugar, and textiles. Memon merchants dominated this trade from about 1908 onwards, and later ‘indigenous’ traders gained a share … in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India, European investors did not respond to the demand for rice caused by an expansion of employment in the plantation and/or mining sector, in sharp contrast to the thrust of settler agriculture in Kenya and Rhodesia which even produced maize for consumption by African labour. But there would be no investment in local food production in non-settler colonial economies like Sri Lanka.

     The more significant aspect of the settlers’ economic activities, is the development of manufacturing production… In conditioning investment attitudes the fact that the settlers came from an industrially advanced or advancing society was not so important as their severance from metropolitan ties. As an independent capitalist class the settlers could engage in activities from which absentee capitalists or expatriate businessmen were precluded. The factor inhibiting the development of manufacturing industry in the nonsettler colonies was the external locus, through principals and head offices abroad, of the investors and of the apparatus of management and control.’ (adapted from SBD de Silva, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment)

• Magical indices such as GDP tell us little. If GDP was 1,000 times higher, it would have no effect on the wages people get, because wages are not determined by GDP, but by other factors. In Sri Lanka, postwar, post-2009, economists and government have been pronouncing high growth rates as an indication of the great state of the economy. Yet there’s a divergence between the numbers proclaimed by various indices (GDP etc) and people’s expectations and experiences.

     In spite of much-advertized growth rates, there has been a good deal of disappointment among the masses of the people. This is indicated in the continuing exodus, in the persistent deficits in the budget, and the current account balance. The purposes GDP serves, or is supposed to serve, was rejected by the Sarkozy Report (written by Amartya Sen, Stiglitz, et al) on economic indices: the International Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.

     Neither Sen nor Sarkozy are socialists, so it’s surprising few in Sri Lanka seem to have heard about it, and none of our usually garrulous economists or political analysts admit to having read it. Hence the paucity of the debate around the charge that the present authorities have been massaging the GDP. For the issue is, even if the GDP was -0 or =100, our economy is not being transformed in its totality.

     Economists have complained that the government is hung up on growth rates. But what does growth mean? Their concept of growth rate does not serve the process expected of the growth rate – in advances in economic performance and social wellbeing.

     Our overlords have bribed these economists who use such meaningless indices. The purpose of even quoting GDP is to claim there is an improvement in our wellbeing. The SL government and mainstream economists quote impressive growth rates – GDP-based growth rates. Such growth rates by themselves don’t necessarily lead to economic performance and social wellbeing. This growth is due to government expenditure on infrastructure. It has little or nothing to do and is not connected to new production processes, and, has otherwise no impact on the economy.

     So what does growth really mean? It is a self-expansive process, with inter-related investments that provide external economies to each other, a process involving increased production and productivity.

• US’ Silicon Valley is called ‘the most economically and technologically dynamic area in the world, and the seedbed of the information technology revolution’: Semiconductors in the 1950s. Integrated circuits in the 1960s. Microprocessors in the 1970s. Personal computers in the 1980s. Internet in the 1990s. Software development. Genetic engineering. Bioelectronics. Nanotechnology. Silicon Valley’s model of development, including its flexible labor market, is said to have spurred growth and innovation. Yet, it also generates considerable environmental stress, declining quality of life in the region, an extremely individualistic culture, increased inequality, and low level of social cohesion. Most of the Valley’s labor force ‘receives little pay, has no job security, and scant chances of professional promotion, particularly for ‘minorities’.

     The very same ‘flexibility’ that supports innovation and adaptation to a changing global market, translates into risk, insecurity, low wages, and deteriorating labor conditions for a significant proportion of the labor force… There’s no one simple formula; flexibility comes in different formats, and its social outcomes depend on the institutional environment, as well as on companies’ policies.

     Furthermore, while a flexible labor market favors adaptability, it also may undermine productivity. The reason is … there are 2 components in the stock of knowledge invested in the company: explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is acquired through experience, through knowledge of the specificity of the work process in the company, and it’s accumulated in the worker’s mind. The willingness and ability of the worker to reinvest this tacit knowledge in the company, making it formal, communicable knowledge, is essential for the company to go up the learning curve. However, why should the worker invest in the company, rather than in his own professional portfolio, if the partnership with the company is occasional, unstable, and unpredictable? So there is, to some extent, a structural contradiction between the conditions for flexibility and the conditions of productivity in the new economy…. with increasing globalization of the economy and the increasing importance of information and knowledge in driving competitive success, regionalization plays a fundamental role in the coordination of advanced economic activity. Knowledge and information sharing is at the core of this, since the trust and common conceptual frameworks that develop through repeated social & economic interaction facilitate economic coordination, the sharing of tacit knowledge and the development of innovation that is so central to competitive success in the information economy. (adapted from: Chris Benner, Work in the New Economy Flexible Labor Markets in Silicon Valley)

• ee Word Department: Should ee refer to the official US Defense Department, as its War Dept, or Monopoly of Violence Dept? Violence tends to be spread between several departments. From the better known Police etc, Private Security, Gangs etc, to those like the Labor (worker) Department, that actually prevent workers from organizing, to the Social Services (Welfare) Dept which prevents people from recovering from shocks to improve their quality of life (accident, illness) etc. ‘Welfare’ too is a tricky term. The open bailing-out of huge banks and corporations, let alone War Keynesianism, which actually rescued the capitalist countries in the 1930s etc (albeit at the expense of mass murdering tens of millions of others) is corporate welfare.

     Raymond Williams’ Keywords provides a valuable guide on how capitalism, among other systems, has shaped the English language, examining words like ‘interesting’ (compensation for loss), ‘improve’ (from profit), ‘pragmatic’ (good businessman), etc… The sheer uniformity of the local English media, is his master’s voice of the imperialists. They love to use ‘western’ to mean whites, when a lot of Asia and all of Africa is to our west.

__________

B. Special Focus_

 B1. IMF, WB, Paris & London Clubs, Export Credit Agencies & Development Banks

Countries in Asia, Africa and the non-Anglo Americas are not just invaded militarily by imperialism. Economic muscle, use of sanctions, prevention of investment, plus the obstruction of local modern production, is their key strategy. Covid an excellent opportunity, offering imperialism another handy tool for further colonization.

     Pharma importer Hemas’ Morison – ‘Make Premium Healthcare Affordable’ – is funding Sinhala media to proclaim it’s making ‘local’ medicines in Homagama. This is a lie. Imperialism keeps preventing modern production in our countries. Covid only oozes this to the surface. The ‘free trade’ economists who keep promoting deregulation, liberalization and privatization, refuse to confess what their policies have wrought in the health sector, let alone in the ‘Litro’ fiasco and the fuel ‘crisis’.

     What links the IMF, World Bank, Paris Club, London Club, Export Credit Agencies & Development Banks?  They all sing in concert to maintain the same imperialist policies.

     This week, a World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) representative spoke at the Sri Lanka Bankers Conference. The US Treasury controls the World Bank (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IFC controls Sri Lanka’s largest private bank, Commercial Bank. IFC also has interests in Unilever-linked Sunshine Holdings, in Keells & its National Trust Bank. Keels, linked to Indian Adani’s grab of Colombo Port. Sunshine merged their health business with Lanka’s largest tea exporter: Akbar Bros.

     This week also recalled that Norfund, ‘the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries is the single largest shareholder of NDB Bank’. Norfund is owned and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (see ee Finance).

     While they prevent ‘development banks’ in Sri Lanka, many imperialist ‘development’ banks are now taking direct control of Sarvodaya Finance, Sanasa Finance etc, and are linked to the rise of LOLC, major player in Colombo’s Stock Market. These imperialist banks function to sell their countries’ industrial machines, goods, experts, services, which the finance companies here lease to increase rural debt.

     Here’s a list of so-called ‘development’ banks and imperialist state ‘development agencies’, with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) leading the wolf pack:

     • KfW Bankengruppe, the world’s largest ‘national development bank’ is a German state-owned bank. Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG) is a Development Finance Institution (DFI) and a subsidiary of KfW Group. GTZ-GIZ – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Corporation for International Cooperation) is owned by the German government.

     • FMO (Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden NV) is a Dutch ‘development’ bank under their Ministries of Foreign Affairs & Economic Affairs.

     • Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency is under the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Swedfund, Sweden’s Development Finance Institution is owned by the Swedish government.

     Then there are imperialism’s Export Credit Agencies (ECAs):

     • ECAs finance the main bulk of world trade, through governments and private banks. Much of the so-called debt supposedly owed by underdeveloping countries is owed to banks supported by ECAs of the imperialist countries. The IMF estimated, more than 24% of the indebtedness of ‘developing and transition countries’ in 1996 was held by ECAs. ECAs exist to maximize the industrial profits of imperialist countries, whose huge export industries break into ’difficult’ markets through ECAs. Their government leaders can then boast that financing through these agencies contributes to increasing domestic jobs and exports.

     Export Credit Agencies provide insurance and guarantees to imperialist corporations if importers do not pay. These ECAs are official or semi-official branches of their governments, and facilitate trade, promote their own industry, and distribute foreign aid to grease the import mafia here. ECAs represent an important imperialist strategy to promote their industrial exports. ECA arrears have thus piled up debt on underdeveloping countries. The commercial interests of ECA activity are most evident in IMF ‘arrangements’, which signal the Paris Club and London Club ‘debt-rescheduling’ agreements.

     ECAs promote and facilitate the exports of imperialist countries’ industrial machinery and consumer goods. They provide financing through direct lending, insurance, or guarantees of loans made through private-sector finance. These are designed to reduce the risk of nonpayment on exports incurred by domestic export industries. Most trade transactions involve some form of credit, short-term, insurance or guarantee achieved through trade financing

     The two primary ECA institutions are the International Union of Credit & Investment Insurers (IUCII), or Berne Union (1934), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) Export Credits Division, which share intelligence on economies.

     The OECD was originally the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) set up in 1948 to impose US Marshall Plan and Canadian aid on Europe after WW2. The OECD monitors export credit activity of member states. The Berne Union represents public and private ECAs.

     The US ECA – Ex-Im Bank was set up  through Presidential Executive Order in 1934 to facilitate US trade with the USSR, underwriting credit for loans. Canada’s first ECA, the Exports Credits Insurance Corporation founded in 1943, was replaced by the Export Development Canada (EDC). Canadian companies go to the EDC first for trade finance before approaching commercial banks. Exports comprise a high percentage of GDP in Canada’s economy. The G7 ECAs took up 34.8% of exports and 39.1% of imports of world merchandise trade in 2008. Germany’s Hermes (1917), a ‘private’ insurance company, supports the German government in facilitating export trade financing. France’s COFACE (1946) provides export credit insurance. Italy’s SACE, controlled by its Ministry of Economy & Finance, insures against political and commercial risks. England’s ECA, Export Credits Guarantee Division (EGD, 1919) provides credit insurance and financing for longer-term commitments. The Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) facilitates both imports (primarily of raw materials to be used for modern industrial goods) and exports.

     When a debtor country defaults on a private loan guaranteed by an ECA, the ECA pays the lender. A guarantee from an official creditor country ECA means credit will be handled by the Paris Club (and not the London Club, below – it’s amazing how little information can be googled on these crucial ‘clubs’).

     The Paris Club,set up in 1955 funded by the French Treasury, hosts the major imperialist creditors. These all-powerful creditors ‘meet on the sly’, and gang together to ‘restructure’ repayment schedules on each individual loan owed to each member states’ government agencies. Transparency anyone?

     The Paris Club will only reschedule debt if the IMF arranges terms so debtor countries do not fall into arrears, which would prevent creditor countries from extending new export credits through their ECAs. These creditor countries are also in decision-making positions in the IMF and the Paris Club.

     The Paris Club includes official bilateral creditors (i.e., states) and, importantly, institutions of those states especially the Export Credit Agencies. The Paris Club creditors would seek relief from the private creditors, suppliers and commercial banks of the London Club. A considerable proportion of bilateral debt is money owed to private firms of ‘former’ colonial powers, private firms whose loans are guaranteed by their governments, essentially through ECAs, such as Coface in France or Ducroire in Belgium.

     After kneeling before the Paris Club, the indebted state can then prostrate before its private bank creditors, in the London Club – made up of the largest private banks that lend to states and companies. London Club negotiations are even more opaque and with ‘an even worse stench of profit at all costs’. They also seek IMF (US Treasury) approval, before applying for rescheduling or fresh loans from the deposit banks. London Club ensures that equal treatment is provided to all bank lenders while providing ‘rescheduling’ terms ‘to help the country return to creditworthiness.’

     Due to regulatory policies, commercial banks do not normally reschedule interest payments, which government creditors will often allow. In the early 1970s Export Credit Agency activity decreased after private sector banks covered the risks themselves (relying on their government’s guarantees) in making loans to underdeveloping countries.

     In late 1970s, after the 1973 ‘oil crisis’, soaring food prices, and drop in the commodity prices exported by many underdeveloped countries in the mid-1970s, our governments began to have more serious balance of payments problems, and thus were unable to pay this debt.

     Our countries were forced to turn to Paris Club creditors for debt relief or restructuring: The Paris Club includes official bilateral creditors (imperialist states & their ECAs). Paris Club creditors are in turn supported by the London Club. The London Club first met in 1976 to try to screw Zaire (whose ‘kleptocracy’ they installed after murdering socialist leader Patrice Lumumba) due to its ‘repayment problems’.

     During the 1970s ‘deposit banks’ had become the main source of credit for indebted countries. By the end of the decade, these banks were granting over 50% of total credit allocated, all lenders combined. At the time of the debt crisis in 1982, the London Club colluded further with the IMF.

     When an underdeveloping country has many private loansharks, the main bankers form an Advisory Committee. The Bank Advisory Committee (BAC) for commercial banks is known as the London Club (as initial meetings were held there in the 1970s). Yet, like a mafia they have no fixed address (many meetings are held in NY, Paris, Frankfurt, wherever is convenient for the banks). The bank with the largest ‘exposure’ usually heads the London Club, while the remaining banks act as regional coordinators. The main actors in BAC negotiations are bankers and lawyers. Bankers arranged the original loans. Then ‘workout specialists… restructure’ commercial bank debt. The lawyers, were usually ‘house lawyers’ of the leading banks that chaired most of the BACs.

     The banks that dominated lending to our governments in the 1970s, were headquartered in the major industrial (aka imperialist) countries: In the US: Bank of America, Bankers Trust, Chase Manhattan, Chemical, First National Bank of Chicago, Citibank, Continental Illinois, JP Morgan, Manufacturers Hanover. In England: Barclays, Lloyds, Midland, National Westminster, Standard Chartered. In Germany: Deutsche, Dresdner, Commerzbank. In France: Banque Nationale de Paris, Banque Paribas, Crédit Lyonnais, Société Générale. In Japan: Bank of Tokyo, Dai-Ichi Kangyo, Fuji, Industrial Bank, Mitsubishi, Sanwa, Sumitomo. In Canada: Royal Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia. In Switzerland: Swiss Bank Corp, UBS.

     The London Club handled sovereign loans, trade credit for private sector importers & exporters and other short-term lending activities (eg, interbank credit & deposits), setting up branches or subsidiaries abroad to provide financial services (for traveler’s checks, credit cards, foreign exchange), and others demanded mandates to manage or hold foreign-exchange reserves.

     The London Club maximizes debt repayments using balance-of-payments projections supplied by the IMF. They analyse developments in the debtor country and liaise with the IMF to ensure any ‘adjustment program’ underpins debt restructuring. A final agreement establishes the minimum debt relief conditions to guide bilateral negotiations.

     Commercial banks, unlike government creditors, do not normally reschedule interest payments. During the  1980s debt crisis, countries began defaulting on loans to private banks (loans not guaranteed by ECAs). Commercial banks then demanded repayment of prior loan obligations, and refused to refinance loans.

     The structural adjustment policies set up by the IMF and World Bank were first advocated by the Paris Club, promoting further loans to ‘restructure’ a country’s external debt. After all, ECAs had guaranteed some loans to private banks. Commercial banks also looked for IMF assurances that a country was back on track: for the IMF ‘seal of approval’.

     One of the problems in the 1980s debt crisis was that countries were defaulting on their loans to private banks which did not have their loans guaranteed by Export Credit Agencies. Commercial banks then demanded repayment of prior loan obligations, and would not agree to refinance loans. This led to the US Treasury’s 1989 Brady Plan and issue of International Sovereign Bonds (ISBs).

     The commercial, political and exchange rate risks from the 1980s debt crisis resulted in the increased use of credit agencies to allow firms to increase their business to underdeveloping economies (& those in ‘transition’ from socialism) into the 1990s.This was because ECA activity in ‘emerging’ markets, or economies in transition increased due to the gap in private financing from commercial banks.

     In 1989 the US Treasury recognized that the traditional commercial bank debt restructuring mechanisms (London Club) were insufficient to solve debt crises. Their ‘Brady Plan’ had the IMF, WB, and bilateral creditor governments provide funds for debtor countries to reduce their debts by buying them back from their creditors or swapping them for other types of cheaper debt.

     Imperialist governments in the early 1990s also promoted the role of ECAs to expand exports during that recession. New commitments of officially supported export credits went from $23billion in 1988, to $70bn in 1993. ECAs had ‘continued to incur cash flow deficits’ similar to the 1980s problems, yet continued to extend new credits. Debtor countries then began making payments on debts previously rescheduled by the Paris Club, providing an income source for ECAs. Also, many governments decided to recognize a distinction between old business that was unlikely to be completely recovered (deficits covered by the relevant government) and new business that would have higher risk assessments. Thus, states became more involved in providing finance directly through their ECAs in order to facilitate domestic exports and increase economic growth. Export credit insurance provided by the G7 ECAs then stepped in to cushion steep declines in international trade during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Our countries keep having to pay for capitalism’s recurrent crises. Crisis, thy name is Capitalism!

     (References: Pamela Blackmon, The Political Economy of Trade Finance Export Credit Agencies, the Paris Club & the IMF)

__________________________________________________________

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.

• German Warship drops anchor in Colombo amid intense geopolitical competition

‘Together, the Indo-Pacific and Europe hold over 70% of the global trade in goods and services, as well as over 60% of foreign direct investment flows. The Sri Lankan and German Navies will carry out a joint naval exercise today before the ‘German warship starts sailing for Haifa port city in Israel’

– island.lk/german-navy-ship-bayern-drops-anchor-in-colombo-amid-intense-geopolitical-competition/

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/15/pictures-german-submarine-hunter-bayern-in-colombo/

• German and Japanese warships conduct naval exercises near Sri Lanka

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Navy-conducts-naval-exercises-with-German-and-JMSDF-ships/2-1136553

• Establishment of SL-Japan relations 70 years ago

– island.lk/a-series-of-events-to-mark-establishment-of-sl-japan-relations-70-years-ago/

• Counsel for CEB argues it was not illegal to deal with US energy group

– island.lk/counsel-for-ceb-argues-it-was-not-illegal-to-deal-with-us-energy-group/

• JR’s biographers blame machinations of Indian intelligence services & South Indian politicians

– island.lk/notes-on-sri-lankas-foreign-policy-an-unfinished-debate/

• Trinco Oil Tank Farm project is more strategic than economic

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Sri-Lanka-has-to-act-more-than-India/172-229397

• Credit line from Modi’s India at the cost of the Trinco oil tanks

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/columns/lanka-all-sail-and-no-anchor-468929.html

• SL Pact on Trinco Oil Tanks & Foreign Exchange crisis affecting fuel supply: Energy Minister

– dailymirror.lk/hard-talk/Were-facing-a-challenging-situation-regarding-fuel-supply-Energy-Minister-Udaya-Gammanpila/334-229304

• Sri Lanka seeks upto US$3.5 b loan from Japan

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/sri-lanka-seeks-upto-us3-5-b-loan-from-japan-468665.html

• JVP beats anti-India war drums over oil tank farm deal

– island.lk/jvp-beats-anti-india-war-drums-over-oil-tank-farm-deal

• JVP vows to revert agreements signed to sell state assets:Anura

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/JVP-vows-to-revert-agreements-signed-to-sell-state-assetsAnura/342-229388

• Heavy traffic due to JVP protest in Colombo

‘stop handing over ownership of country’s resources such as ports, oils tanks and lands to foreigners’

– adaderana.lk/news/80000/heavy-traffic-due-to-jvp-protest-in-colombo

• AKD exposes Government’s sell-off shopping list

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/20/akd-exposes-governments-sell-off-shopping-list/

• Thai Pongal gift: India provides housing for 1,000 more families in the plantation sector

– island.lk/thai-pongal-gift-india-provides-housing-for-1000-more-families-in-the-plantation-sector/

• Indian External Affairs Minister holds virtual meeting with Finance Minister Basil

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Indian-Minister-holds-virtual-meeting-with-Basil/108-229159

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/15/indian-foreign-minister-and-lankan-finance-minister-have-fruitful-online-interaction/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-india-ministers-discuss-us1-5bn-credit-lines-in-second-meeting-89669/

– economynext.com/india-reaffirm-assistance-to-sri-lanka-at-high-level-virtual-meeting-89651/

• Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Soliciting foreign intervention

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/editorial/voters-deprived-of-a-chance-to-speak-to-government-469073.html

• Tamil MPs seek PM Modi intervention on political solution

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Tamil-MPs-seek-PM-Modi-intervention-on-political-solution/108-229372

• Concerns on 13 A should be conveyed to Govt., instead of ‘outsiders’ say top Ministers

– ft.lk/news/Concerns-on-13-A-should-be-conveyed-to-Govt-instead-of-outsiders-say-top-Ministers/56-729349

– economynext.com/tamil-parties-should-engage-elected-govt-sri-lanka-not-part-of-indian-union-minister-89769/

• Friend in need: On India-Sri Lanka ties

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/17/friend-in-need-on-india-sri-lanka-ties/

• Sri Lanka’s fresh equidistant policy vis-à-vis India and China

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Sri-Lankas-fresh-equidistant-policy-vis-%C3%A0-vis-India-and-China/231-229473

• For whom are the Wahhabi here? – Nalin de Silva

– kalaya.org/2022/01/blog-post_19.html#more

• Trade Ministry seeks Pakistan investment to resolve economic crisis

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Trade-Ministry-seeks-Pakistan-investment-to-resolve-economic-crisis/2-1136543

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/21/lankan-minister-says-fta-with-pakistan-yet-to-tap-full-potential/

• Bangladesh Navy Chief meets Defence Secretary

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/20/bangladesh-navy-chief-meets-defence-secretary/

• South Korea’s National Assembly Speaker in Sri Lanka for mineral resources

– adaderana.lk/news/80016/south-koreas-national-assembly-speaker-arrives-in-sri-lanka

• England minister for South Asia calls on Northern and Eastern governors

– adaderana.lk/news/80011/uk-minister-for-south-asia-calls-on-northern-and-eastern-governors

– ft.lk/news/Sri-Lanka-UK-acknowledge-multifaceted-partnership/56-729351

• England says Sri Lanka needs good governance and equal rights for all

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Britain-says-Sri-Lanka-needs-good-governance-and-equal-rights-for-all/m172-229147

• England State Minister commends SL’s progress over human rights

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/UK-State-Minister-commends-SLs-progress-over-human-rights/108-229466

– island.lk/lord-ahmad-commend-lankas-progress-on-human-rights-front-presidents-media-division/

• Sri Lankan diaspora communities in England, recognized.

‘Acknowledging the significance of the Indian Ocean in global trade, both sides concurred on the need to pay particular attention to the economic dimension of the partnership. Welcoming the recent inauguration of the Sri Lanka – England Chamber of Commerce in London….’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SL-UK-recognize-British-Sri-Lankan-diaspora-communities-in-the-UK/108-229384

• Canada warns nationals in Sri Lanka of economic crisis-led food, med shortages

– economynext.com/canada-warns-nationals-in-sri-lanka-of-economic-crisis-led-food-med-shortages-89650/

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/15/canada-warns-its-citizens-over-sri-lankas-worsening-economic-situation/

• Sri Lanka disputes Canadian Travel Advisory

– island.lk/sri-lanka-disputes-canadian-travel-advisory/

• US Human Rights Watch says minorities, activists targeted; contradict pledges of reform

– island.lk/hrw-says-minorities-activists-targeted-in-sl-actions-contradict-pledges-of-legal-reform/

• Road to Sri Lanka’s economic recovery via India: Lankan envoy

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/road-to-sri-lankas-economic-recovery-via-india-lankan-envoy/

• Lanka has always supported the one-China policy unconditionally – Dr Kohona

– island.lk/lanka-has-always-supported-the-one-china-policy-unconditionally-dr-kohona/

• “As a refugee, my family fled a country” SL-born billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya

– newswire.lk/2022/01/19/as-a-refugee-my-family-fled-a-country-sl-born-billionaire-chamath-palihapitiya-responds-to-criticism/

• No support for any movement against India – Maldives’s Mohamed Nasheed

– dailymirror.lk/hard-talk/No-support-for-any-movement-against-India-Mohamed-Nasheed/334-229472

• Meeting of the Indian and Chinese army commanders at Chushul-Moldo border in Ladakh

– indianpunchline.com/mixed-signals-from-ladakh/

• Bangladesh’s Role In Combating Maritime Threat In The Strategic Bay Of Bengal

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/17/bangladeshs-role-in-combating-maritime-threat-in-the-strategic-bay-of-bengal/

• Bangladesh Needs Both The USA & China

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/20/bangladesh-needs-both-the-usa-and-china/

• US seeks to speed up delivery of new F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283620-us-seeks-to-speed-up-delivery-of-new-f-16-fighter-jets-to-taiwan

• How Moon of Alabama Feeds Chinese Counter-Propaganda

– moonofalabama.org/2022/01/how-moon-of-alabama-feeds-chinese-counter-propaganda.html

• Souring of Taliban’s relations with Pakistan  

‘the US tactic involves giving concessions to the Taliban in dollops in such a way that its dependency on Russia, China and other regional states (especially Iran and Pakistan) would diminish.’

– indianpunchline.com/reflections-on-events-in-afghanistan-39/

• How Cambodia’s ASEAN Chair Can Play A Key Role In Rohingya Refugee Crisis Solution

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/19/how-cambodia-as-asean-chair-can-play-a-key-role-in-rohingya-refugee-crisis-solution/

• Why the Kazakhstan intervention benefits China as well as Russia

‘Beijing’s support for the Moscow-led alliance’s actions to quell violence in the Central Asian nation shows value of regional stability to both powers. Chinese investment in the region has soared in recent years, with 56 projects worth nearly US$24.5 billion under way in Kazakhstan’

– scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3163409/why-kazakhstan-intervention-benefits-china-well-russia

• Blinken delays US response to Russia

– indianpunchline.com/blinken-delays-us-response-to-russia/

• US-Russian Talks Show Signs Of Progress

– moonofalabama.org/2022/01/us-russian-talks-are-a-sign-of-progress

• Yemen’s Houthi Tell Abu Dhabi To Pull Back Its Forces

‘Saudi Arabia wants to destroy the Houthi movement and install a Yemeni government that it can control. The UAE wants to control the ports of Yemen and the seaways around it.’

– moonofalabama.org/2022/01/yemens-houthi-tell-abu-dhabi-to-pull-back-its-forces.html

• UAE says it suspects drones caused Abu Dhabi fires, Yemen Houthis claim attack

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/17/uae-says-it-suspects-drones-caused-abu-dhabi-fires-yemen-houthis-claim-attack/

• Saudi jets ferociously bomb Yemen

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283211-saudi-jets-ferociously-bomb-yemen

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283346-saudi-led-warplanes-intensify-airstrikes-against-yemeni-capital

– adaderana.lk/news/80068/at-least-100-killed-or-wounded-in-yemen-prison-air-strike-carnage

• U.S. bombed Syrian dam in 2017 despite warning that tens of thousands could die

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283652-us-bombed-syrian-dam-in-2017-despite-warning-that-tens-of-thousands-could-die

• Israel to give U.S. secret weapons wish list for purported use on Iran and Lebanon

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283089-israel-to-give-us-secret-weapons-wish-list-for-purported-use-on-iran-and-lebanon

• Morocco Drives a War in Western Sahara for Its Phosphates

– newsclick.in/morocco-drives-war-western-sahara-its-phosphates

• “Pan African Solidarity is Key to Fighting Against Western Dominances”

– blackagendareport.com/pan-african-solidarity-key-fighting-against-western-dominances-interview-kamau-franklin-community

• Millions of US dollars to destabilize Cuba

‘Long list published by US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, on February 23, 2021, of organizations that received money to intervene in Cuba during 2020’

– en.granma.cu/mundo/2022-01-18/millions-of-us-dollars-to-destabilize-cuba

• Suspicion of US involvement in the assassination of president Jovenel Moise

– blackagendareport.com/former-ambassador-haitian-president-put-him-aside-and-embrace-prime-minister-option

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283361-judge-responsible-for-investigating-moises-assassination-denounced

• Investigation into Haitian president’s assassination still blocked

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283018-investigation-into-haitian-presidents-assassination-still-blocked

• Venezuela demands U.S. return diplomatic assets

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283456-venezuela-demands-us-return-diplomatic-assets

• Venezuela reinforces military presence on Colombian border to fight armed drug traffickers

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283022-venezuela-reinforces-military-presence-on-colombian-border-to-fight-armed-drug-traffickers

• Bolivia denounces theft of goods from Venezuelan Embassy in La Paz by Juan Guaidó

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283136-bolivia-denounces-theft-of-goods-from-venezuelan-embassy-in-la-paz-by-juan-guaido

• Iran, Venezuela, Sudan, Antigua & Barbuda, Congo, Guinea, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu lose UN voting rights

– frontline.thehindu.com/dispatches/iran-venezuela-sudan-and-others-lose-un-voting-rights/article38265993.ece

• Biden-Harris and the Never-Ending Commitment to War and Terror

– blackagendareport.com/biden-harris-and-never-ending-commitment-war-and-terror

• Now is the Moment for Scotland to Declare Independence

– craigmurray.org.uk/

________________________________________________________________

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.

• Currency Smugglers arrested at BIA; Rs. 40 Mn worth foreign currency seized

 – newsfirst.lk/2022/01/20/currency-smugglers-arrested-at-bia-rs-40-mn-worth-foreign-currency-seized/

• Five including cop dead in motor accidents

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/22/five-including-cop-dead-in-motor-accidents/

• Envoy Moragoda promotes Modi’s controversial Aadhar card for Sri Lanka

‘it is considered as the world’s largest biometric ID system’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/columns/economic-crisis-affects-moves-to-revive-tourism-canada-issues-advisory-469145.html

• INTERPOL’s Operation Flycatcher: disrupting Lanka’s terror networks

‘the five-day (8 – 12 November) operation saw the arrest of six suspects linked to terrorism’

– island.lk/operation-flycatcher-disrupting-lankas-terror-networks

• England’s CORVI Rapid assessment to protect coastal communities

• Govt. partners with Stimson Center, Commonwealth Blue Charter on Climate Risk Rapid Assessment Project…supported by England’s Blue Planet Fund through the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat’

– island.lk/corvi-rapid-assessment-to-help-lanka-prioritise-investments-in-protecting-coastal-communities/

• The Cardinal, Wahhabism, Fatwa and Reconciliation – Nalin de Silva

– kalaya.org/2022/01/blog-post_17.htm

• The Politics of the Cardinal and others – Nalin de Silva

– kalaya.org/2022/01/blog-post_15.html#more

• Defence Secy. reacts to Cardinal’s criticism about probe

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Defence-Secy-reacts-to-Cardinals-criticism-about-probe/108-229162

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/15/cardinal-ranjith-at-tewatte-church-today-disappointingly-continuing-to-raise-allegations-in-face-of-now-known-facts/

• Cardinal accuses some leaders of using Easter attacks for political benefit

– island.lk/cardinal-accuses-some-leaders-of-using-easter-attacks-for-political-benefit/

• Easter Sunday carnage cannot be blamed on Muslim extremists alone – Cardinal

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/15/easter-sunday-carnage-cannot-be-blamed-on-muslim-extremists-alone-cardinal/

• “Election Phobia” and Easter Sunday Massacre: Two Threaten to Disclose Facts

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Election-Phobia-and-Easter-Sunday-Massacre-Two-Threaten-to-Disclose-Facts/231-229173

• Retired doctor arrested over Borella church hand grenade incident

– adaderana.lk/news/79981/retired-doctor-arrested-over-borella-church-hand-grenade-incident

– island.lk/grenade-inside-borella-church-retired-doctor-arrested-weapons-recovered-from-piliyandala-home/

• Muslim community is once again living in fear that they could become race-hate targets

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Explosive-devices-and-growing-mistrust-of-the-state-EDITORIAL/231-229307

• Failure in security intelligence and preventive action

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/sunday-times-2/failure-in-security-intelligence-and-preventive-action-468959.html

• NGO to move SC against acquittal and discharge of first accused in Welikada Prison killings

– island.lk/ngo-to-move-sc-against-acquittal-and-discharge-of-first-accused/

• A prisoner files FR Executive action of Fmr. President challenged

– dailymirror.lk/print/front_page/A-prisoner-files-FR-Executive-action-of-fmr-President-challenged/238-229242

• Anti-Death Penalty Group condemns ongoing use of death penalty in SL

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Anti-Death-Penalty-Group-condemns-ongoing-use-of-death-penalty-in-SL/342-229294

• Welikada killings: US HRW opposes death sentence for top ex-prison official

– island.lk/welikada-killings-hrw-opposes-death-sentence-for-top-ex-prison-official/

• There is no national security without child protection – Dr. Wickramanayake

‘a child is sexually abused every 2 hours and Sri Lanka has fallen to the abysmal 10% of countries least safe for children against violence’

– dailymirror.lk/hard-talk/There-is-no-national-security-without-child-protection-Dr-Wickramanayake/334-229175

• MP denies trying to help Ethanol fugitive through BIA

‘Former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake’s wife Mela and daughter Onella served on the director board of the company that runs the Global Park.’

– island.lk/mp-denies-trying-to-help-fugitive-through-bia/

• Patriotic surgeon who volunteered to work on battlefield

– island.lk/patriotic-surgeon-who-volunteered-to-work-on-battlefield/

• English abolished all anti-Catholic legislation enacted by the Dutch in Ceylon

– island.lk/history-of-st-sebastians-shrine-kandana/

• England’s queen is head of the armed forces

– island.lk/queen-elizabeth-strips-prince-andrew-of-his-titles-amid-sex-abuse-court-case/

• Nuclear powers pledge to avoid wars—even as they continue to upgrade their arsenals

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/sunday-times-2/nuclear-powers-pledge-to-avoid-wars-even-as-they-continue-to-upgrade-their-arsenals-468949.html

• January 6, 2021 insurrection certainly damaged US soft power

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/sunday-times-2/whatever-happened-to-soft-power-469021.html

_____________________________________________________________

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.

• New York Times writes in a negative tone about economies of all perceived US ‘enemies’

– moonofalabama.org/2022/01/slanted-reporting-can-lead-to-bad-foreign-policies.html

• Debt restructuring could trigger further rating downgrades: S&P

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Debt-restructuring-could-trigger-further-rating-downgrades-S-P/273-229420

• Is it possible to recover from the economic crisis? – Nalin de Silva

– kalaya.org/2022/01/blog-post_21.html

• Dullas says no decision on IMF assistance yet; urges all not to demonise global entity

– ft.lk/front-page/Dullas-says-no-decision-on-IMF-assistance-yet-urges-all-not-to-demonise-global-entity/44-729304

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Govt-will-not-rule-out-deal-with-IMF-completely-Media-Minister/108-229557

• Cabraal rules out devaluation, IMF program

– ft.lk/front-page/Cabraal-rules-out-devaluation-IMF-program/44-729428

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-restructuring-debt-without-foreign-imf-experts-cb-chief-89824/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-restructuring-debt-without-foreign-imf-experts-cb-chief-89824/

• Country will be developed without assistance of IMF- Basil

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/22/country-will-be-developed-without-assistance-of-imf-basil/

• Gamini Senarath assumes office as new Secretary to the President

– ft.lk/front-page/Nivard-commends-departing-PB-looks-to-more-contribution/44-729302

– ft.lk/front-page/Gamini-Senarath-assumes-office-as-new-Secretary-to-the-President/44-729303

• Three years is enough to bring about development – Garvin Karunaratne

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/18/is-three-years-enough-to-make-a-country/

• If China restructures debt, others will follow: S. R. Attygalle

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/15/if-china-restructures-debt-others-will-follow-s-r-attygalle/

• Sri Lanka forex problem the biggest challenge: President

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-forex-problem-the-biggest-challenge-president-89727/

• CB asks Sri Lanka banks to share fuel, essential good forex payment on priority

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-banks-asked-to-share-fuel-essential-good-forex-payment-on-priority-89803/

• Industrialisation abandoned in favour of orthodox prescriptions of fiscal consolidation & untrammelled privatisation – Devapriya

– island.lk/foreign-exchange-foreign-policy-and-economic-roundtables/

• Rating downgrades discourage investors – JVP

– island.lk/rating-downgrades-discourage-investors-jvp-2/

• If JVP continues with socialist ideology, they face same fate as Prabhakaran and LTTE – Financial Times

– ft.lk/columns/A-thriving-economy-instead-of-a-dependent-economy/4-729318

• SL Economists Oppose Government’s Allocation of $500Million for Maturing Bond Repayment

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/17/sri-lanka-economists-oppose-governments-allocation-of-500-million-for-maturing-bond-repayment/

• A country needs no enemies when its own politicians advise ISB default: Ajith Nivard Cabraal

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/17/a-country-needs-no-enemies-when-its-own-politicians-advise-isb-default-ajith-nivard-cabraal/

• The Dollar Crisis & God Natha – Nalin de Silva

– kalaya.org/2022/01/blog-post_16.html

• Resolving energy crisis: Bouquets and brickbats – Tennakoon

– ft.lk/columns/Resolving-energy-crisis-Bouquets-and-brickbats/4-729317

• Seven factors of concern at upcoming Monetary Policy Review – First Capital

– island.lk/seven-factors-of-concern-at-upcoming-monetary-policy-review/

• Money supply eases making case for some cooling in prices – First Capital Research

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Money-supply-eases-making-case-for-some-cooling-in-prices/273-229509

• Resolving the foreign reserves crisis and increasing production – Sanderatne

‘impractical policies and inadequate investment in research and efforts for the adoption of high yielding technology for increasing productivity’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/columns/resolving-the-foreign-reserves-crisis-and-increasing-production-469027.html

• Sri Lanka needs corrective economic package: Wijewardena

‘SL’s credit has now been downgraded to ‘CCC’ and ‘CC’ levels by rating agencies and locked out commercial debt markets’

– island.lk/sri-lanka-needs-corrective-economic-package-wijewardena/

• Mid-1960s SL realised economy would not move forward without exports & FDI – Abeyratne

‘Unlike today, there was not even a single country to provide an example of an open economy!’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/its-the-same-pit-468644.html

• Sri Lanka has to make 3 vital International sovereign bond (ISB) payments this year

‘In addition to development bonds, bilateral and project loans). $500 million on January 18, $1billion due in July and $5 billion at the end of the year. A repayment of $5 billion is due in 2023; $4.8 billion in 2024; $5 billion in 2025; and $3.8 billion in 2026.’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/to-pay-or-not-to-pay-468649.html

• Sri Lanka has to hike rates, tourism recovery will not help end forex crisis: Bellwether

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-has-to-hike-rates-tourism-recovery-will-not-help-end-forex-crisis-bellwether-89697/

• Seek advice from non-partisan experts to find solution to crisis, urges BASL

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/seek-advice-from-non-partisan-experts-to-find-solution-to-crisis-urges-basl-469176.html

• Let’s get an independent body to reveal true state of affairs of the CB

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/plus/letters-to-the-editor-9-468720.html

• The Rajapaksas to blame for Sri Lanka’s disastrous 2021 – Neil DeVotta,

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/19/the-rajapaksas-to-blame-for-sri-lankas-disastrous-2021/

• Negotiating foreign debt: The IMF, rating agencies and the UN

– ft.lk/columns/Negotiating-foreign-debt-The-IMF-rating-agencies-and-the-UN/4-729382

• SL Economic Outlook 2022: Experts call for bold and radical reforms – German Foundation

– island.lk/lankan-economic-outlook-2022-experts-call-for-bold-and-radical-reforms/

• “How can SL overcome current economic crisis?”: World’s leading debt restructuring expert

‘‘Sri Lanka Economic Outlook 2022’ forum by NextGenSL and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom…H.D. Karunaratne, newly-appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo, Kasturi Chellaraja Wilson, Hemas Group CEO and Economist Deshal DeMel…also spoke’

– newswire.lk/2022/01/17/an-sri-lanka-overcome-current-economic-crisis-worlds-leading-debt-restructuring-expert-explains/

• FT-ICCSL top webinar on ‘Impact of Forex Crisis and Solutions’ at 4 p.m. today

‘keynotes by the Central Bank Governor Cabraal and NCAER former Director General and World Bank Regional Economic Advisor for South Asia Shekhar Shah. Panel discussion featuring SJB MP Harsha de Silva, Verite’s Nishan de Mel, HNB, NDB and Cargills Bank’s Rajendra Theagarajah, WB Senior Economist Sibel Kulaksiz, UN ESCAP Economist Alberto Isgut, Oxford Political Review’s Brian Wong, Employers’ Federation’s Suresh Shah, World Economic Forum’s Talal Rafi.’

– ft.lk/front-page/FT-ICCSL-top-webinar-on-Impact-of-Forex-Crisis-and-Solutions-at-4-p-m-today/44-729476

• Dollar Crisis: What aggravated it

– island.lk/dollar-crisis-what-aggravated-it/

• Afghanistan, Pakistan, SL, Bangladesh And Nepal Need China In Their Development Process

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/16/afghanistan-pakistan-sri-lanka-bangladesh-and-nepal-need-china-in-their-development-process/

• South’s development debacle compounded by SAARC’s inner paralysis

– island.lk/souths-development-debacle-compounded-by-saarcs-inner-paralysis/

• Emerging economies are now more heavily indebted.

‘Public-debt-to-GDP ratios were already rising before the onset of the pandemic. But now they have reached alarming heights, at more than 60 per cent of GDP’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/submerged-by-the-covid-19-pandemic-468628.html

• Rich countries hoarding vaccines disregards poorer regions breathes life into new variants, worsens economic disparity

– globaltimes.cn/page/202201/1246196.shtml

• Impose 1% Surcharge on Richest 10% Indians to Reduce Inequality: Oxfam India

‘A 4% wealth tax on 98 richest families can take care of the ministry of health and family welfare for more than two years’

– newsclick.in/impose-1-per-surcharge-richest-10-per-indians-reduce-inequality-oxfam-india

• 10 richest men in the world doubled wealth amid COVID pandemic

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/10-richest-men-in-the-world-doubled-wealth-amid-COVID-pandemic/108-229249

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283141-oxfam-warns-the-poor-die-from-covid-while-the-rich-get-richer

• Income Inequality Increases in 2021: Oxfam’s recent report

– newsclick.in/income-inequality-increases-2021-persistent-rise-corona-cases-and-other-news

 • Inside Job Rating Agencies

‘All three agencies made billions of dollars giving high ratings to risky securities’

– youtube.com/watch?v=wM8lvMUPsb0

• The great GDP swindle – Stiglitz

‘French president Sarkozy established the International Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, owing to dissatisfaction with the statistical information about the economy and society… whether GDP provides a good measure of living standards.’

– theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/sep/13/economics-economic-growth-and-recession-global-economy

• Why Is the IMF Trying to Be an Aid Agency?

‘Who is going to clean up the inevitable financial mess in emerging markets if persistent inflation forces the US Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates significantly?’

– project-syndicate.org/commentary/imf-acting-like-aid-agency-risks-embarrassment-by-kenneth-rogoff-2022-01?

• When it rains more, there’s less economic growth (Bad news: There’s more rain now)

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/21/when-it-rains-more-theres-less-economic-growth-bad-news-theres-more-rain-now/

____________________________________________

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.

• Soaring food prices stoke inflation hits 14-pct in December 2021

– ft.lk/top-story/Soaring-food-prices-stoke-inflation/26-729478

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-national-inflation-hits-14-pct-in-december-2021-after-money-printing-89847/

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/22/inflation-increases-to-14/

• Public sector serves vital function of providing basic needs for vast majority of the population

– island.lk/integrity-of-public-service/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/19/is-the-public-served/

• Economic sentiment wanes: LMD-NielsenIQ Business Confidence Index (BCI) Survey

– ft.lk/front-page/Economic-sentiment-wanes-Survey/44-729477

• Sri Lanka transfers funds to repay US$500mn sovereign bond

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-transfers-funds-to-repay-us500mn-sovereign-bond-89691/

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Foreign-debt-repayment-of-500-m-tomorrow/2-1136501

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Sri-Lanka-settles-USD-500M-sovereign-bond/342-229286

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-pays-us500mn-sovereign-bond-89738/

• SL debunks debt default doomsayers

– ft.lk/front-page/SL-debunks-debt-default-doomsayers/44-729271\

• CBSL expects gradual economic recovery after ‘temporary setbacks’ posed by Covid 3rd wave

– island.lk/foreign-investors-in-shares-seen-as-negative-net-selling-tops-rs-2-billion/

• CB Chief at 32nd Anniversary Convention of the Association of Professional Bankers

– ft.lk/front-page/Banking-industry-must-be-agile-to-stay-the-course-CB-Chief/44-729270

• CBSL adopts further policy measures to strengthen macroeconomic stability

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/cbsl-adopts-further-policy-measures-to-strengthen-macroeconomic-stability/

• Debt management reforms to tackle rising domestic borrowings

‘55% of total domestic borrowings were raised by Treasury Bonds, 29% Treasury Bills and another 16% by way SLDBS and Provisional Advance of Central Bank in 2021’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/debt-management-reforms-to-tackle-rising-domestic-borrowings-468632.html

• Latest SLDB issue of $ 100 m gets undersubscribed

– ft.lk/front-page/Latest-SLDB-issue-of-100-m-gets-undersubscribed/44-729471

• Exporters blatantly violating CB directions resort to imports to evade rules

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/exporters-resort-to-imports-to-evade-rules-468662.html

• Sri Lanka imports soar to three year high amid ‘forex shortages’

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-imports-soar-to-three-year-high-amid-forex-shortages-89675/

• Basil assures essential imports whilst servicing debt

– ft.lk/front-page/Basil-assures-essential-imports-whilst-servicing-debt/44-729250

• US$ 1.5bn emergency Indian credit facility for Lanka to fund essential imports

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/us-1-5bn-emergency-indian-credit-facility-for-lanka-to-fund-essential-imports-469184.html

– ft.lk/front-page/Basil-firms-up-2-4-b-support-from-India/44-729249

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/15/usd-1-bn-term-loan-from-india-for-essential-commodities-and-of-usd-500-mn-for-fuel-purchase/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/18/indias-helping-hand-to-forex-and-energy-starved-sri-lanka/

• Sri Lanka in ‘debt trap’, India’s response shows pushback against China has begun

‘India-led Quad can rescue Sri Lanka from its ‘Made in China’ crisis. But timing is key’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/18/sri-lanka-in-debt-trap-indias-response-shows-pushback-against-china-has-begun/

• India allows Sri Lanka to delay Asian Clearing Union settlements by two months

– economynext.com/india-allows-sri-lanka-to-delay-acu-settlements-by-two-months-89655/

• China-SL to decide on relief plans

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/21/china-sl-to-decide-on-relief-plans/

 • Finance Minister presents Special Goods and Services Tax Bill at Parliament

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/20/finance-minister-presents-special-goods-and-services-tax-bill-at-parliament/

• Ministry wants info on all lands coming under state entities

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/ministry-wants-info-on-all-lands-coming-under-state-entities-469174.html

• Sri Lanka Development Bonds US$100mn auction announced

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-development-bonds-us100mn-auction-announced-89659/

• China is SL’s 4^th biggest lender, after international financial markets, Asian Development Bank (ADB) & Japan.

– island.lk/amidst-political-turmoil-dullas-takes-a-courageous-stand/

• Central Bank may raise rates as inflation pressure builds

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sri-lanka-cenbank-may-raise-rates-as-inflation-pressure-builds/

Sri Lanka busts US$664mn in ‘reserves for imports’ in two months

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-busts-us664mn-in-reserves-for-imports-in-two-months-89755/

• Weekly Treasury bill auction fully subscribed

– ft.lk/financial-services/All-time-high-volume-fully-subscribed/42-729333

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-treasuries-yields-up-at-auction-short-term-curve-inverted-89779/

• Sri Lanka hikes rates 50bp to curb BOP trouble, inflation

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-hikes-rates-50bp-to-curb-bop-trouble-inflation-89781/

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/20/cbsl-increases-sdfr-slfr-by-50-pts/

– timesonline.lk/news-online/CORRECTED-Policy-interest-rates-rise-in-SLs-Central-Bank-monthly-review/2-1136536

– island.lk/central-bank-of-sri-lanka-adopts-further-policy-measures-to-strengthen-macroeconomic-stability/

– ft.lk/top-story/CBSL-takes-new-key-measures-to-boost-macroeconomic-stability/26-729429

– ft.lk/financial-services/Monetary-policy-tightening-cycle-continues-bond-market-remains-dull/42-729395

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/20/sri-lanka-raises-rates-to-rein-in-prices-boost-reserves/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-bond-yields-friday-after-rate-in-rate-hike-week-89825

• Sri Lanka imports surge to US$2.2bn in Dec 2021 after reserves sales

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-imports-surge-to-us2-2bn-in-dec-2021-after-reserves-sales-89807/

• President’s Parliamentary policy statement has no answers to the crises of the masses – Eran

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/presidents-parliamentary-policy-statement-has-no-answers-to-the-crises-of-the-masses-eran/

• China’s GDP grows by 8.1% in 2021 despite pandemic

– ft.lk/front-page/China-s-GDP-grows-by-8-1-in-2021-despite-pandemic/44-729272

• Prosperity Index edges up in first year of pandemic

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Prosperity-Index-edges-up-in-first-year-of-pandemic/273-229603

_________________________________________________________________________

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

• Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM) and Standards Institution (SLSI) to define National Human Resource Management Standards

– island.lk/cipm-and-slsi-collaborate-to-define-national-hrm-standards/

• Employees Provident Fund to rectify huge losses in past, bad investments

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/epf-to-rectify-huge-losses-in-past-bad-investments-468656.html

• EPF Listed Equity Portfolio end 2021 records Rs. 112 billion, against cost of Rs. 84 billion

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/value-of-epfs-listed-equity-portfolio-as-at-end-2021-records-a-market-value-of-rs-112-billion-against-cost-of-rs-84-billion-an-increase-of-rs-28-billion/

– ft.lk/front-page/Value-of-EPF-s-listed-equity-portfolio-swells-to-Rs-112-b-versus-Rs-84-b-at-cost/44-729243

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-epf-makes-capital-gains-as-stocks-soar-89695/

• Gazette a small win for teachers’ struggle: Stalin

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/gazette-a-small-win-for-teachers-struggle-stalin-469163.html

• Tax collectors to launch massive protest against special GST Act

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Tax-collectors-to-launch-massive-protest-against-special-GST-Act/342-229181

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Protest-today-Jan-18-over-attempt-to-set-up-Special-GST-collection-unit/2-1136509

– ft.lk/front-page/Special-GST-Bill-presented-to-Parliament/44-729426

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/special-goods-and-services-tax-issues-and-concerns/

• Over 500 CEB engineers fall sick

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/CEB-engineers-fall-sick-tomorrow/108-229203

– island.lk/more-than-500-ceb-engineers-to-report-sick-today-over-appointment-of-acting-gm/

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/18/ceb-engineers-union-to-launch-sick-leave-campaign/

• CEB Engineers condemn appointment of ’corrupt’ GM

– timesonline.lk/news-online/In-Pictures-CEB-Engineers-condemn-appointment-of-corrupt-GM/2-1136523

– economynext.com/trouble-brewing-at-sri-lankas-ceb-over-new-illegal-gm-89689/

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/20/ceb-employees-to-continue-work-to-rule-campaign/

– island.lk/cebeu-threatens-to-continue-with-their-agitation-against-appointment-of-retired-person-as-gm/

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/22/ceb-tus-to-intensify-work-to-rule-action/

• Public Health Inspectors to withdraw from Airport if foreigners don’t follow health guidelines

– island.lk/phis-threaten-to-pull-out-of-duties-at-bia/

• Sri Lanka’s zoo workers threaten to starve animals over allowance demand

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-zoo-workers-threaten-to-starve-animals-over-allowance-demand-89805/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-zoo-workers-end-protest-promise-to-continue-unauthorised-fertilizer-business-legally-89831/

• DG of National Zoological Gardens Dept withdraws from duties

– adaderana.lk/news/80069/dg-of-national-zoological-gardens-dept-withdraws-from-duties

• Hotel workers protest

‘receive the Rs.5,000 allowance, just as what was announced for the public sector and for the employers to consider adding the service charge as part of their monthly salary.’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Hotel-workers-protest/273-229600

• Protesters call on Govt. to protect local businesses – National Trade Protection Council

– timesonline.lk/news-online/In-Pictures-Protesters-call-on-Govt-to-protect-local-businesses/2-1136522

• Gas cylinder victims pin hope on group action to win justice: All Island Consumer Collective

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/gas-cylinder-victims-pin-hope-on-group-action-to-win-justice-469220.html

• Island-wide survey on Nutritional Status of Sri Lanka

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/21/island-wide-survey-on-nutritional-status-of-sri-lanka/

• Special gazette on extending retirement age of public servants issued

– adaderana.lk/news/80013/special-gazette-on-extending-retirement-age-of-public-servants-issued

• Workers’ remittances in 2021 fall to 10-year low

– ft.lk/front-page/Workers-remittances-in-2021-fall-to-10-year-low/44-729246

• Sri Lanka to give Rs10 for migrant worker dollars till April

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-give-rs10-for-migrant-worker-dollars-till-april-89802/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-central-bank-bears-rs8-extra-payment-for-remittances-89816/

• Fresh round of incentives from CBSL to up remittances

– dailymirror.lk/business__main/Fresh-round-of-incentives-from-CBSL-to-up-remittances/245-229604

• South Korean Govt. to assist in job creation, vocational training and investment opportunities

‘currently, approximately 22,000 Sri Lankan migrants are employed in South Korea. ‘

– ft.lk/ft_tv/South-Korean-Govt-to-assist-in-job-creation-vocational-training-and-investment-opportunities-in-SL/10520-729485

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/21/prime-minister-requests-for-more-employment-opportunities-for-sri-lankans-in-south-korea/

• Scholarship exam for grade 5 students on Saturday (January 22).

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Year-Five-Scholarship-and-big-dreams-EDITORIAL/231-229474

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-sets-up-108-centers-for-covid-hit-children-to-face-scholarship-exam-89843/

• Students, teachers of Al Gazzaly school in Atulugama say ’No’ to vaccine

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Students-teachers-of-Al-Gazzaly-school-in-Atulugama-say-No-to-vaccine/108-229467

• Decolonising education and critical thinking

‘educational institutions are ideological state apparatuses used to promote and reinforce the ideology of the dominant classes’

– island.lk/decolonising-education-and-critical-thinking/

• Moratuwa Uni & Dhammika & Priscilla Perera Foundation to building skilled ICT workforce

– island.lk/university-of-moratuwa-and-dhammika-priscilla-perera-foundation-take-the-first-steps-in-building-a-skilled-ict-workforce-in-sri-lanka/

• Liberal Arts Perspectives – Usvatte-aratchi

‘it all depended on teachers and systems matter much less’

– island.lk/liberal-arts-perspectives/

• The International Society of Female Professionals Recognizes Anjalika Silva

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/21/the-international-society-of-female-professionals-recognizes-anjalika-silva/

• 1977 general election indicated the end of socialist unions in Sri Lanka

– island.lk/the-winds-of-change-part-32/

• HK Rythm Foundation for women entrepreneurs in Jaffna & Kilinochchi with Sarvodaya

– island.lk/rythm-foundation-empowers-women-entrepreneurs-in-partnership-with-sarvodaya/

• Women in Management, IFC and Government of Australia recognise inspiring women

– island.lk/women-in-management-ifc-and-government-of-australia-recognise-inspiring-women-from-sri-lanka-and-maldives/

– ft.lk/special-report/Women-in-Management-IFC-and-Govt-of-Australia-recognise-inspiring-women-from-Sri-Lanka-and-Maldives/22-729325

• Aitken Spence medical certificates justifying distress loans were fraudulent

– island.lk/chari-de-silva-leaves-caltex-and-begins-long-career-at-aitken-spence/

• GDP Is Growing, but Workers’ Wages Aren’t

‘GDP is not a measure of well-being, let alone that of middle- or working-class families. While GDP measures overall output, it does not reveal who benefits from expanding output…[GDP maybe bigger] but gains have accrued disproportionately to high earners and owners of capital – the USA’s rich…’

– americanprogress.org/article/gdp-growing-workers-wages-arent/

• Science, not sports, can save the world from the pandemic

– island.lk/sports-science-and-sense/

• Education in Cuba: A comparative regional view

– en.granma.cu/cuba/2022-01-19/education-in-cuba-a-comparative-regional-view

• The 700,000 Club: Joe Biden’s Deportation Frenzy

‘From mid-September 2021, to January 12, 2022, the Biden regime deported 14,800 Haitian asylum seekers, a large percentage of whom were minors’

– blackagendareport.com/700000-club-joe-bidens-deportation-frenzy

• Annual Resurrection of a Fake Dr. King & Re-entombment of Black Liberation Movement – Black Alliance For Peace

– blackagendareport.com/annual-resurrection-fake-dr-king-and-re-entombment-black-liberation-movement

• Against the “Triple Evils”: The Biden Administration’s Affront to Dr. King’s Legacy

 – blackagendareport.com/against-triple-evils-biden-administrations-affront-dr-kings-legacy

• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., All Labor Has Dignity, March 18, 1968

– blackagendareport.com/speech-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-all-labor-has-dignity-march-18-1968

• For Black People, Ridin’ With Biden is a Health Hazard

– blackagendareport.com/black-people-ridin-biden-health-hazard

• Ontario’s Long-Term Care and Hospital Crises

‘The 75,000 residents in long-term care were told would lose their beds if they went out of their homes for overnight visits….17,712 LTC residents and 8,235 healthcare workers infected with COVID-19. 4,077 LTC residents lost their lives. Others died due to inadequate care and feeding.’

– socialistproject.ca/2022/01/demanding-answers-from-ford/

• Vancouver rents continue to spiral out of control

– socialistproject.ca/2022/01/left-municipal-election-platform-vancouver/

• Unions and Climate Change: Toward Global Public Goods

– socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed-video/unions-climate-change-global-public-goods/

• England to task military with stopping migrant boat crossings

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283213-uk-to-task-military-with-stopping-migrant-boat-crossings

• English talks with Ghana and Rwanda about internment camps to receive deportees?

– craigmurray.org.uk/

_________________________________________________________________________

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.

• Professionals’ National Front opposes MILCO appointment

– island.lk/professionals-national-front-opposes-milco-appointment/

• Ex-MILCO chairman appointed as new head of Ceylon Fertilizer Company

– adaderana.lk/news/80056/ex-milco-chairman-appointed-as-new-head-of-ceylon-fertilizer-company

• Castlereigh and Maussakele reservoirs Dry weather causes a drop in water levels

‘The Canyon hydro power complex fed by the Maussakele reservoir has not been in operation for about a month due to maintenance works in the tunnel’

– dailymirror.lk/print/front_page/Castlereigh-and-Maussakele-reservoirs-Dry-weather-causes-a-drop-in-water-levels/238-229568

• Water Board facing financial issues due to pending payments of Rs. 5.1 Bn

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/21/water-board-facing-financial-issues-due-to-pending-payments-of-rs-5-1-bn/

• President makes sudden inspection visit to Agrarian Development Dept.

– adaderana.lk/news/80060/president-makes-sudden-inspection-visit-to-agrarian-development-dept

– ft.lk/front-page/President-makes-sudden-inspection-visit-to-Agrarian-Development-Department/44-729473

• Chemical fertlizer is a massive agro business

‘The government, instead of taking the necessary steps to solve this issue for the struggling farmers, tried to make a business out of organic fertilizer too’

– dailymirror.lk/insight/More-power-to-Farmers/374-229305

• SL annually imports food worth Rs. 300 billion, much of which can be locally produced

– island.lk/faulty-decisions/

• Sri Lanka to import the highest stock of rice in a decade

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Sri-Lanka-to-import-the-highest-stock-of-rice-in-a-decade/2-1136498

• China donates shipment of rice to Sri Lanka

– island.lk/china-donates-shipment-of-rice-to-sri-lanka-2/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-seeks-rice-bailout-from-china-after-fertilizer-ban-89819/

• It’s time to dub Xi Jinping the ‘father of rice’: Vijitha Herath

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/22/its-time-to-dub-xi-jinping-the-father-of-rice-vijitha-herath/

• After fertilizer policy failure, Sri Lanka leader offers record 95 rupees for paddy

– economynext.com/after-fertilizer-policy-failure-sri-lanka-leader-offers-record-95-rupees-for-paddy-89663/

• A kilo of wheat flour at Rs. 80 for the estate sector – Namal assures

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/15/a-kilo-of-wheat-flour-at-rs-80-for-the-estate-sector-namal-assures/

• Green agriculture: Prez admits shortcomings, reiterates commitment

– island.lk/green-agriculture-prez-admits-shortcomings-reiterates-commitment/

• Govt. stubborn on organic manure from China

– island.lk/govt-stubborn-on-organic-manure-from-china/

• Maha yield saved if 50% of $6.7 mn paid to China had been utilised for agrochemical imports

– island.lk/maha-yield-could-have-been-saved-if-half-of-usd-6-7-mn-paid-to-china-had-been-utilised-for-agrochemical-imports-mp/

• NPQS to probe imported Beetroot in local market

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/19/npqs-to-probe-imported-beetroot-in-local-market/

• Cabinet extends financial support program for small tea and rubber plantations

– ft.lk/front-page/Cabinet-extends-financial-support-program-for-small-tea-and-rubber-plantations/44-729305

• Majority of facilities extended to tea sector underutilised: Plantation Industries Minister

– ft.lk/front-page/Majority-of-facilities-extended-to-sector-underutilised-Plantation-Industries-Minister/44-729474

• Ceylon Tea fights its own battles

‘Ceylon Tea is now in the Dimbula season and the concerns are grave as the industry fights against a high cost of production and comparatively the prices are marginally higher than last year’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/ceylon-tea-fights-its-own-battles-468625.html

• 26 million kilo increase in tea output last year despite fertiliser crisis

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Ceylon-Tea-brews-strong-cuppa-in-2021-despite-challenges/273-229506

– island.lk/26-million-kilo-increase-in-tea-output-last-year-despite-fertiliser-crisis/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-2021-tea-output-up-9-3-pct-despite-fertilizer-crisis-minister-89844/

• All-time record prices for two John Keells estates

– island.lk/all-time-record-prices-for-two-estates/

• Iraq tops list as largest importer of Ceylon Tea

‘Iraq, Turkey, Russia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), China, Libya, Azerbaijan, Chile and Syria’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Iraq-tops-list-as-largest-importer-of-Ceylon-Tea/273-229505

• Technology Provider OKLO Upgrades Ceylon Tea e-Auction into Digitalised Platform

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sri-lankan-technology-provider-oklo-upgrades-ceylon-tea-e-auction-into-powerful-digitalised-platform/

• Oil palm production could be a game-changer for Sri Lanka’s rural economy

‘In April 2021, the Sri Lankan Government took an unprecedented decision of banning palm oil imports and ordered the uprooting of oil palm trees to be replaced with rubber trees’

– ft.lk/columns/Oil-palm-production-could-be-a-game-changer-for-Sri-Lanka-s-rural-economy/4-729220

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/CPOPCs-2nd-smallholder-outreach-webinar-promotes-good-agricultural-practices/273-229502

– island.lk/council-of-palm-oil-producing-countries-holds-2nd-small-holders-outreach-webinar-towards-promoting-good-agricultural-practices/

When Coffee and Ceylon were synonymous

‘soil erosion and decreased rainfall would follow unless the cutting of forests was regulated. ‘

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/16/when-coffee-and-ceylon-were-synonymous-2/

• Lasantha Wickramasinghe removed as MILCO Chairman?

– adaderana.lk/news/80001/lasantha-wickramasinghe-removed-as-milco-chairman

• Dr. Cynthia Jayasuriya, the leading ENT surgeon will be remembered for promoting manioc

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/plus/appreciations-9-468713.html

• Elephant barrier trenching fails due to faulty structural design

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/sunday-times-2/elephant-barrier-trenching-fails-due-to-faulty-structural-design-468921.html

• How Does an Underwater Volcano Form?

‘Two thirds of all volcanic activity happens in the deep sea’

– newsclick.in/how-does-underwater-volcano-form

• Kungas of Mesopotamia first known instance of Human-Engineered Species, Study Reveals

– newsclick.in/kungas-mesopotamia-human-engineered-species-study-reveals

• The man who tortured Kenyans saved African elephants in 1980s

– island.lk/the-man-who-saved-african-elephants-in-1980s/

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

• Brent oil jumps to highest level in seven years

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283215-brent-oil-jumps-to-highest-level-in-seven-years

• 5 Reasons Why Oil Prices Could Soon hit $100 a Barrel

– newsclick.in/5-reasons-why-oil-prices-could-soon-hit-%24100-barrel

• Revitalization of industrial development in Sri Lanka

‘For the industrial sector to grow, there must first be a consensus among the policymakers and key stakeholders on the priority actions…’

– island.lk/revitalization-of-industrial-development-in-sri-lanka/

• Marked hike in new orders in manufacture of food and beverages sector in November

– island.lk/marked-hike-in-new-orders-in-manufacture-of-food-and-beverages-sector-in-november/

– ft.lk/front-page/Manufacturing-services-sectors-expand-in-December/44-729267

• Sri Lanka factories hurt by import disruptions amid recovery: PMI

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-factories-hurt-by-import-disruptions-amid-recovery-pmi-89760/

• Purchasing Managers’ Indices for Manufacturing & Services activities expand in Dec 2021

– island.lk/purchasing-managers-indices-for-both-manufacturing-and-services-activities-expand-in-december-2021/

• Chevron Lubricants regains market share in 3Q while competitors lose out

‘Chevron increases market share to 47%. No.2 player IOC had a market share of 20%; ExxonMobil via its local nominee McLarens Lubricants Limited placed third with market share of 6%. Laugfs Lubricants was fourth with 5.65 percent, state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation was fifth with 4.73 percent…Lubricant sales are a close proxy for travelling and transport activities in an economy and how dynamic its industrial activity, including power generation.

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Chevron-Lubricants-regains-market-share-in-3Q-while-competitors-lose-out/273-229504

• Power Ministry seeks fuel from Indian Oil Corporation to generate electricity

– island.lk/power-ministry-seeks-fuel-from-lioc-to-generate-electricity/

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-power-ministry-eyes-fuel-from-indian-oil-89692/

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/India-steps-up-critical-support-to-Sri-Lanka-for-fuel/108-229291

– ft.lk/front-page/India-stepping-up-critical-fuel-support-to-Sri-Lanka/44-729266

– timesonline.lk/news-online/India-steps-up-critical-support-to-Sri-Lanka-for-fuel/2-1136513

• Skyrocketing coal prices aggravate power crisis

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/skyrocketing-coal-prices-aggravate-power-crisis-469179.html

• 90,000 metric tonnes of petrol, 150,000 mt of diesel and 90,000 mt of crude oil needed a month

 – sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/us-4-billion-needed-for-uninterrupted-fuel-supply-469188.html

• Heat over CEB top seat as country faces worst-ever power crisis

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/heat-over-ceb-top-seat-as-country-faces-worst-ever-power-crisis-469161.html

– dailymirror.lk/print/front_page/Dr-M-N-Susantha-Pereras-appointment-as-CEB-GM-lawful/238-229217

• No power cuts until Tuesday: Minister

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/No-power-cuts-until-Tuesday-Minister/342-229171

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-minister-promises-no-power-cuts-till-jan-18-amid-demand-for-dollarized-payments-89672/

• CB to release USD 30mn to buy fuel for CEB from 5 ships anchored in Sri Lankan waters

– island.lk/cb-to-release-usd-30mn-to-buy-fuel-for-ceb/

• CPC to provide diesel to CEB sufficient to keep lights on for only 8 days

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/CPC-to-provide-diesel-to-CEB-sufficient-to-keep-lights-on-for-only-8-days/273-229414

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-ceb-to-get-8-days-of-diesel-for-power-generation-minister-89764/

• A fake fracas between Minister of Power and Minister of Energy

– island.lk/a-fake-fracas/

• Energy Minister assures sufficient stocks of fuel for a week

– ft.lk/front-page/Energy-Minister-assures-sufficient-stocks-of-fuel-for-a-week/44-729300

• No shortage of aircraft fuel and SriLankan Airlines dollar reserves: Chanaka

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/No-shortage-of-aircraft-fuel-Chanaka/273-229507

• To remind our leaders what we need today: Wind Power to save forex spent on fuel imports.

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/16/to-remind-our-leaders-what-we-need-today-wind-power-to-save-forex-spent-on-fuel-imports-2/

• Sri Lanka state radio enters solar power at ex-Deutsche Welle site

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-state-radio-enters-solar-power-at-ex-deutsche-welle-site-89765/

• Gas Shortage : Kerosene carts make a glorious comeback to Colombo

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/11/gas-shortage-kerosene-carts-make-a-glorious-comeback-to-colombo/

• Power station at Kelanitissa complex inactive

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/19/power-station-at-kelanitissa-complex-inactive/

– dailymirror.lk/top_story/Kelanitissa-Power-Station-at-a-complete-halt-power-outage-reported/155-229369

• Endure daily power-cuts or face countrywide indefinite blackouts, warns Minister Gammanpila

‘‘Electricity supply cannot be maintained at the expense of transport sector’

– island.lk/endure-daily-power-cuts-or-face-countrywide-indefinite-blackouts-warns-minister-gammanpila/

• 1,800 MT diesel received by Kelanitissa, CEB says no power cuts

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/20/1800-mt-diesel-received-by-kelanitissa-ceb-says-no-power-cuts/

• Now, CEB plans to ‘rationalise’ tariff

– island.lk/now-ceb-plans-to-rationalise-tariff/

• Planning to provide an uninterrupted power supply – Gamini Lokuge

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Planning-to-provide-an-uninterrupted-power-supply-Gamini-Lokuge/108-229548

• Daily power cuts up if no substantial USD loan by March 2022: Minister of Energy

– island.lk/udaya-sounds-dire-warning/

– adaderana.lk/news/80064/four-hour-power-cuts-possible-if-a-large-loan-is-not-secured

• PUCSL reveals CEB’s questionable bids to purchase power

– island.lk/pucsl-reveals-cebs-questionable-bids-to-purchase-power/

• Largest supplier Tokyo Cement (accounting for approximately 38% of production), INSEE (35%), Ultratech (13.6%), Singha etc., demand dollars

– ft.lk/front-page/Institute-of-Builders-decries-cement-shortage-urges-swift-support-from-CBSL/44-729475

• 4-lane expressway Mirigama to Kurunegala built by local contractors and local financing

‘Local contractors were ICC, Access, Nawaloka-KDESH-JV Consortium. Sierra, Olympus, Tudawe Brothers – KDAW-NEM, E&C Consortium, MAGA, CML MTD, and VVK-HOVEL JV Consortium’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/keep-your-trust-in-us-president-tells-people-at-inauguration-of-2nd-segment-of-expressway-469167.html

• Sri Lanka to build four new flyovers with Hungarian funds

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Sri-Lanka-to-build-four-new-flyovers-with-Hungarian-funds/273-229416

• Kiriella asks for his share of credit for Central Highway project

– island.lk/kiriella-asks-for-his-share-of-credit-for-central-highway-project/

• COSMI-CIPE to boost participatory governance in large-scale infrastructure projects

‘Confederation of Micro, Small and Medium Industries and Centre for International Private Enterprise’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/COSMI-CIPE-to-boost-participatory-governance-in-large-scale-infrastructure-projects/273-229599

• Air Pollution Levels of several urban areas rise sharply

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/22/air-pollution-levels-of-several-urban-areas-rise-sharply/

• Lankan private investor gets licence to provide aircraft line maintenance services at BIA

– island.lk/lankan-private-investor-gets-licence-to-provide-aircraft-line-maintenance-services-at-bia/

• Ratmalana Airport to commence regional and international flights

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/ratmalana-airport-is-to-commence-regional-and-international-flights-from-29th-of-this-month-almost-half-a-century-later-from-its-inception/

• Richard Nuttall appointed as new CEO of SriLankan Airlines

‘his reputation had been tainted when Bahrain Air had been declared bankruptcy in 2011’

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Richard-Nuttall-appointed-as-new-CEO-of-SriLankan-Airlines/2-1136537

• Boat and ship building records over $82 m export earnings in 2021

‘New shipyard in Trinco port by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) and Japan’s Colombo Dockyard…22 harbours around the country…’

– ft.lk/business/Boat-and-ship-building-records-over-82-m-export-earnings-in-2021/34-729255

• Jayamanna is new SLPA Chairman; promises to fast-track development

‘Jayamanna is the Founder/Chairman of DPJ Holdings and affiliated companies.’

– ft.lk/front-page/Dr-Jayamanna-assumes-duties-as-new-SLPA-Chairman-promises-to-fast-track-development/44-729421

• Indian credit to buy 500 mini buses for commuter transport & 750 jeeps for Police Department

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/sri-lanka-seeks-upto-us3-5-b-loan-from-japan-468665.html

• India’s CEAT tyres chosen as original equipment for India’s Lanka Ashok Leyland vehicles

– island.lk/ceat-tyres-chosen-as-original-equipment-for-lanka-ashok-leyland-commercial-vehicles/

• HNB-Indra Traders offer leasing for unregistered vehicles, freezers and pre-owned vehicles

– island.lk/hnb-indra-traders-offer-exclusive-leasing-solutions-for-unregistered-vehicles-freezers-and-pre-owned-vehicles/

• Access Group wins bid to develop US $ 200mn logistics and biz park in Ekala

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Access-Group-wins-bid-to-develop-US-200mn-logistics-and-biz-park-in-Ekala/273-229419

– ft.lk/front-page/Access-gets-BOT-logistics-facility-contract-from-Govt/44-729306

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-access-logistics-park-gets-36-acre-state-land-89763/

 • Macksons secures state land to set up Rs.6bn sanitaryware plant

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Macksons-secures-state-land-to-set-up-Rs-6bn-sanitaryware-plant/273-229417

• SLT-MOBITEL and ZTE MOU to collaborate for local device manufacturing

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/slt-mobitel-and-zte-sign-historic-mou-to-collaborate-for-local-device-manufacturing-and-talent-development/

• ICTA and World Bank Initiate Digital Development Mission

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/icta-and-world-bank-initiate-digital-development-mission/

• Lotus Tower to be used for digitalising all TV channels

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Lotus-Tower-to-be-used-for-digitalising-all-TV-channels/108-229558

• SLASSCOM, IFC launch new Japan-funded study on women technopreneurs

 – ft.lk/front-page/SLASSCOM-IFC-launch-new-study-on-landscape-for-women-technopreneurs/44-729340

• 5G to accelerate the digital economy development in Sri Lanka: Huawei

– ft.lk/front-page/5G-to-accelerate-the-digital-economy-development-in-Sri-Lanka/44-729386

• Keheliya turns down request for abolishing price control on medicine

– island.lk/keheliya-turns-down-request-for-abolishing-price-control-on-medicine/

• State Pharmaceutical Corporation Chairman Dr. Prasanna Gunasena resigns

– timesonline.lk/news-online/SPC-Chairman-Dr-Prasanna-Gunasena-resigns/2-1136508

• “80% of the pharmaceutical industry is import-dependent,”

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/a-bitter-pill-to-swallow-469224.html

• Treasury releases funds to import essential medicines

– adaderana.lk/news/80057/treasury-releases-funds-to-import-essential-medicines

• Cancer drug to be imported privately without registration

‘The maximum retail price of the drug has been fixed at Rs 90,250 a vial’

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/news/cancer-drug-to-be-imported-without-registration-469182.html

• Scorpion venom for a novel anti-corona virus?

– dailymirror.lk/news-features/Scorpion-venom-for-a-novel-anti-corona-virus/131-229236

• Kumudesh exposes commission vultures who rejected gift of gene sequencing machine

‘A lot of people claim that Chinese companies are corrupt but in fact it is our officials who are corrupt’

– island.lk/kumudesh-exposes-commission-vultures-who-rejected-gift-of-gene-sequencing-machine/

• Approval granted to six importers of Molnupiravir, the oral antiviral pill

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Approval-granted-to-six-importers/108-229556

• Japan grants equipment worth Rs. 300 m to Sri Lanka hospitals

– ft.lk/news/Japan-grants-equipment-worth-Rs-300-m-to-Sri-Lanka-hospitals/56-729462

• German importer wants SL agri-product exporters to use superior packaging for Europe

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/leading-german-importer-urges-sri-lankan-agri-product-exporters-to-practice-superior-packaging-to-capture-european-markets/

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Lankan-agri-product-exporters-urged-to-practise-superior-packaging-to-capture-European-markets/273-229503

• Wijeya Newspapers wins in Printing and Packaging Industry Sector

– ft.lk/news/Platinum-for-Wijeya-Newspapers-in-Cleaner-Production/56-729309

• PM opens World Bank-funded Car Parks in Kandy

– island.lk/pm-opens-wb-funded-projects-in-kandy/

– ft.lk/front-page/Macksons-gets-land-to-put-up-Rs-6-b-bathware-plant-in-Kalutara/44-729307

• India, Sri Lanka extend cooperation on science and technology for 3 more years

– ft.lk/front-page/India-Sri-Lanka-extend-cooperation-on-science-and-technology-for-3-more-years/44-729470

• Asgardia and Cyber Nation States

– dailymirror.lk/news-features/Asgardia-and-Cyber-Nation-States/131-229396

• Shipwrecks in Sri Lanka

– island.lk/shipwrecks-in-sri-lanka/

• China’s Lenovo & Its Recklessness Under Fire

– redsails.org/this-is-a-great-struggle/

• China releases development plan for big data industry

– http://www.news.cn/english/2021-11/30/c_1310343537.htm

• Industrial and logistics investments across Asia Pacific to flourish in 2022

– island.lk/industrial-and-logistics-investments-across-asia-pacific-to-flourish-in-2022/

• Mexican government finalizes purchase of Deer Park Refinery in U.S.

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283667-mexican-government-finalizes-purchase-of-deer-park-refinery-in-us

• International airlines suspend some US flights over 5G uncertainty

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/international-airlines-suspend-some-us-flights-over-5g-uncertainty/

• Microsoft’s US $ 69bn acquisition of Activision to face antitrust test

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Microsofts-US-69bn-acquisition-of-Activision-to-face-antitrust-test/273-229413

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/19/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard/

• Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs oppose Canadian pipeline

– socialistproject.ca/2022/01/canada-chooses-oil-companies-over-indigenous-peoples/

• Winter storm leaves 230,000 people without power in U.S.

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283209-winter-storm-leaves-230000-people-without-power-in-us

• How Horses Transformed Life for Plains Indians

– history.com/news/horses-plains-indians-native-americans

______________________________________________________________________

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.

• Gross Written Premium in 3Q21 for Long-Term Insurance & General Insurance: Rs.161 Bn

‘27 insurance companies (insurers): 13 in Long Term (Life) Insurance, 12 in General Insurance and two dealing in both. 68 insurance broking companies’.

– ft.lk/financial-services/Insurance-industry-performance-in-3Q-of-2021/42-729332

• Fitch Ratings upgrade Harry J’s Continental Insurance to A+

 ‘Continental Insurance Lanka Ltd., a fully owned subsidiary of Melstacorp PLC/Distilleries Co’

– ft.lk/financial-services/Fitch-Ratings-upgrade-Harry-J-s-Continental-Insurance-to-A/42-729331

• Citigroup to sell Southeast Asia retail business to Singapore’s UOB for US $3.7bn

‘bank would close retail operations in 13 markets, including 10 in Asia, to refocus on its more lucrative institutional and wealth management businesses’

– dailymirror.lk/financial-news/Citi-to-sell-Southeast-Asia-retail-business-to-Singapore%E2%80%99s-UOB-for-US–3-7bn/265-229259

• Ishara Nanayakkara gets a seat on HNB Board

‘Ishara-controlled Browns Investments PLC (BIL) owns the maximum 9.9% voting stake in HNB, and accounts for 45% of non-voting shares’

– ft.lk/front-page/Ishara-Nanayakkara-gets-a-seat-on-HNB-Board/44-729424

• Rasitha Gunawardana appointed to HNB Board

‘He was a director in People’s Leasing and Finance, People’s Insurance, People’s Merchant Finance, Lanka Clear, Institute of Bankers, Credit Information Bureau (CRIB), People’s Travels and People’s Micro Finance… HNB Board: Aruni Goonetilleke (Chairperson), Jonathan Alles (Managing Director/CEO), Dilshan Rodrigo, Amal Cabraal, Madu Ratnayake, Damien Fernando, D. Cooray, O. Chandrawansa, P.R. Saldin, K.V.N. Jayawardene, Kithsiri Gunawardena, R. Gunawardana and Prasad Samarasinghe (alternate to Damien Fernando).’

– ft.lk/financial-services/Rasitha-Gunawardana-appointed-to-HNB-Board/42-729399

• JKH completes $ 50 m worth first phase of $ 80 m private placement with ADB

– ft.lk/front-page/JKH-completes-50-m-worth-first-phase-of-80-m-private-placement-with-ADB/44-729425

– island.lk/conclusion-of-phase-1-of-private-placement-of-ordinary-shares-of-jkh-to-adb/

• NDBIB sets a record Rs75B in capital raisings in 2021

‘Norfund, the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries is the single largest shareholder of NDB Bank’

– economynext.com/brand_voice/ndbib-sets-a-record-rs75b-in-capital-raisings-in-2021/

• Sampath Bank Partnership with the National Chamber of Exporters

– island.lk/sampath-bank-announces-strategic-partnership-with-the-national-chamber-of-exporters/

• The galloping stock market: How long the carnival will last is anybody’s guess

‘droves of what the market calls ‘retailers,’ – relatively small investors with little capital to play with, attracted to the CSE like moths to light’

– island.lk/the-galloping-stock-market-2/

• Buoyant bourse lets record Rs. 124 b in capital raising in 2021

– ft.lk/front-page/Buoyant-bourse-lets-record-Rs-124-b-in-capital-raising-in-2021/44-729247

• CSE capital-raising in 2021 reaches record high of Rs. 124 billion

– island.lk/cse-capital-raising-in-2021-reaches-record-high-of-rs-124-billion/

• Shares up as communication, real estate stocks gain

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Shares-up-as-communication-real-estate-stocks-gain/273-229412

• Power cut rumours hit stock market amid profit-taking

– island.lk/power-cut-rumours-hit-stock-market-amid-profit-taking/

• Stock market posts creditable recovery after early losses

– ft.lk/front-page/Stock-market-posts-creditable-recovery-after-early-losses/44-729301

• Sri Lanka stocks edge up ahead of policy rate decision; foreigners exit

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-edge-up-ahead-of-policy-rate-decision-foreigners-exit-89778/

• Shares down as CB policy rate hike fails to cheer investors

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Shares-down-as-policy-rate-hike-fails-to-cheer-investors/273-229510

• CSE in talks with firm to list on foreign currency platform, Multi Currency Board (MCB)

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/business-times/cse-in-talks-with-firm-to-list-on-foreign-currency-platform-468641.html

• Climate Disclosure training program for Listed Companies of CSE

– island.lk/climate-disclosure-training-program-for-listed-companies-of-cse/

• Methodology revision of All Share Price Index

– island.lk/methodology-revision-of-all-share-price-index/

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Revised-ASPI-calculation-methodology-from-Monday/273-229602

• Cryptocurrencies tumble, with bitcoin falling 7% and ether down 8% in the last 24 hours

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/cryptocurrencies-tumble-with-bitcoin-falling-7-and-ether-down-8-in-the-last-24-hours/

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/22/metaverse-heavy-hitters-and-the-new-reality/

• Nomura May Shed Light on the Repo Blowup and Fed Bailout of the Gang of Six in 2019

 – wallstreetonparade.com/2022/01/a-nomura-document-may-shed-light-on-the-repo-blowup-and-fed-bailout-of-the-gang-of-six-in-2019/

• Nomura, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs Got $8Trillion from Fed Emergency Repo Loans in 4Q19

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/01/nomura-jpmorgan-and-goldman-sachs-received-a-cumulative-8-trillion-from-the-feds-emergency-repo-loans-in-fourth-quarter-of-2019/

• Dallas Fed Chair Kaplan’s Created the Biggest Trading Scandal in US Fed History

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/01/after-its-president-created-the-biggest-trading-scandal-in-fed-history-dallas-fed-chair-calls-robert-kaplans-tenure-great-leadership/

• Is Citigroup Under Orders from Its Regulators to Break Itself Up?

‘the bulk of Citibank’s deposits were foreign and a large part of those deposits were not insured or had low insurance amounts.’

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/01/is-citigroup-under-orders-from-its-regulators-to-break-itself-up/

• Can the US Fed Engineer a Soft Landing for the Biggest Bubble Since $12,000 Tulip Bulbs?

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/01/can-the-fed-engineer-a-soft-landing-for-the-biggest-bubble-since-12000-tulip-bulbs/

• JPMorgan Bank Rigged Markets, Laundered Money, and Admitted to Five Felony Counts

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/01/jpmorgans-board-made-jamie-dimon-a-billionaire-as-the-bank-rigged-markets-laundered-money-and-admitted-to-five-felony-counts/

___________________________________________________________________________________

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’

• Sri Lanka tourists hotels asked to take payments only in foreign exchange

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-tourists-hotels-asked-to-take-payments-only-in-foreign-exchange-89845/

• Thousands visit Port City without visas: Rohitha

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Thousands-visit-Port-City-without-visas-Rohitha/342-229387

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Threat-of-a-Port-City-cluster-emerging/108-229248

– timesonline.lk/news-online/In-Pictures-Large-crowds-and-lots-of-rubbish-at-Port-City/2-1136505

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/nearly-90000-visit-port-city-colombo-within-a-week/

– ft.lk/lifestyle/Nearly-90-000-visit-Port-City-Colombo-within-a-week/8-729321

• Colombo Port City Economic Commission forges ahead

– ft.lk/top-story/Colombo-Port-City-Economic-Commission-forges-ahead/26-729251

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-china-backed-port-city-to-see-breakthrough-in-2022-1q-89658/

• Sri Lanka to amend Intellectual Property Act

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Sri-Lanka-to-amend-Intellectual-Property-Act/273-229418

• South Asian Federation of Accountants inducts CMA’s Hennayake Bandara as new President

‘Bandara is Past President of Association of Accounting Technicians (AATSL), Past President of Association of Professional Bankers (APBSL), Treasurer Organization of Professional Associations and Council Member of Institute of Advanced Technological Education, and General Manager/ CEO of National Savings Bank.’

– ft.lk/business/South-Asian-Federation-of-Accountants-inducts-CMA-SL-s-Hennayake-Bandara-as-new-President/34-729234

• Selendiva calls for registration of investment brokers to develop hospitality assets

– ft.lk/front-page/Selendiva-calls-for-registration-of-investment-brokers-to-develop-hospitality-assets/44-729244

• Sri Lanka to take action against discriminatory tourist hotels — again

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-take-action-against-discriminatory-tourist-hotels-again-89762/

• JAT Holdings breaks ground on USD 2.2 mil state-of-the-art R&D Centre

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/jat-holdings-plc-breaks-ground-on-usd-2-2-mil-state-of-the-art-rd-centre/

– ft.lk/front-page/JAT-Holdings-breaks-ground-on-2-2-m-state-of-the-art-R-D-Centre/44-729430

• 20th Annual General Meeting of the Sri Lanka – China Business Council

‘Abans, Bank of China Colombo Branch, David Pieris Motor Co., Heritage Teas, South Asia Gateway Terminals, Sudath Perera Associates, Acorn Aviation, John Keells Holdings, Prima Ceylon (Private) and Sunshine Tea were elected to Executive Committee. Dinithi Dias, Manager Business Council, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce; Ruwan Senavirathne, Vice President, SLCHBC, Stretchline; Li Guangjun, Economic & Commercial Counsellor, Embassy of People’s Republic ; Aruna Perera, President, SLCHBC, MAC Holdings; Chaminda Perera, Senior Vice President, SLCHBC, Deranya; Haroun Cader, Treasure SLCHBC, Sinwa Holdings; Thulitha Mendis, Immediate Past President SLCHBC, Singer, Minidi Gamalath, Sudath Perera Associates; Udith Wijetunge, David Pieris Motor Co.; Chandrika Ranawaka, Bank of China; Jay Ong Jhon Seon, Prima Ceylon; Prabath Harshakumar, John Keells Holdings; Nathaniel Umesh Nithiyanandarajah, Sunshine Tea; Ted Muttiah, South Asia Gateway Terminals; K. Kunendran, Abans, Kumudu Jayalath, Acorn Aviation; Shiraj De Silva, Heritage Teas’

– timesonline.lk/business/20th-Annual-General-Meeting-of-the-Sri-Lanka-China-Business-Council/10-1136512

• Bangladesh – Sri Lanka Preferential Trade Agreement: Gains and Policy Challenges

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/bangladesh-sri-lanka-preferential-trade-agreement-gains-and-policy-challenges/

• In Sri Lanka over 135 years ago, Unilever Sunlight is iconic regardless of race & religion

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sunlight-presents-best-ever-sunlight-for-the-best-ever-year/

______________________________________________________

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.

• On the Question of Dialectics (1915) – V. I. Lenin’

– redsails.org/on-the-question-of-dialectics/

• Calls for immediate reappointment of ex-Chairmen, members to watchdog committees

– island.lk/opposition-calls-for-immediate-reappointment-of-ex-chairmen-members-to-watchdog-committees

• JVP will work with the military for a takeover

– island.lk/your-slip-is-showing-mr-president/

• The JVP-NPP equation and two suggestions to the NPP – Jayatilleka

– island.lk/the-jvp-npp-equation-and-two-suggestions-to-the-npp/

• SJB has not yet broken decisively out of the diminished UNP vote-enclave – Jayatilleka

– ft.lk/columns/Towards-another-1977-Yes-and-No/4-729308

• This is what living in anarchic times look like: Anura

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/19/this-is-what-living-in-anarchic-times-look-like-anura/

• 1962 Coup: Disgruntlement Within Army and Police Top Brass

– dailymirror.lk/plus/1962-Coup-Disgruntlement-Within-Army-and-Police-Top-Brass/352-229614

• Pres calls on youth who painted wall art and cultivated barren paddy fields

– island.lk/youth-tooting-and-hooting/

• President instructs officials to expedite construction at Kuragala Sacred Site

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/President-instructs-officials-to-expedite-construction-at-Kuragala-Sacred-Site/342-229179

• President’s Speech and Indigenous Knowledge – Nalin de Silva

– kalaya.org/2022/01/blog-post_18.html

• Fellow politicians & Ceylon Mudaliyars – Nalin de Silva

‘Portuguese colonials created the Mudaliyar class in the 17th century by enlisting natives of different castes from coastal areas, who were most likely to serve the Portuguese masters with utmost loyalty’

– kalaya.org/2022/01/blog-post_20.html

• The SLFP and SLFPers

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/The-SLFP-and-SLFPers/172-229392

• Chandrika says Sirisena should be thrown out of SLFP

– island.lk/chandrika-says-sirisena-should-be-thrown-out-of-slfp/

– ft.lk/columns/President-Chandrika-and-former-Chief-Justice-Shirani-Bandaranayke/4-729384

– ft.lk/news/Retired-CJ-Shirani-Bandaranayake-praises-CBK-for-commitment-to-judicial-independence/56-729407

• Cabinet reshuffle delayed as SLFP breakaway imminent

– dailymirror.lk/latest_news/Cabinet-reshuffle-delayed-as-SLFP-breakaway-imminent/342-229180

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SLFP-to-stay-in-Govt-and-criticize-Dr-Raghavan/108-229154

• SJB reiterates it won’t back any common candidate

– island.lk/sjb-reiterates-it-wont-back-any-common-candidate/

• “Stakeholders must protect government”: Dinesh

– island.lk/stakeholders-must-protect-government-dinesh/

• Sumanthiran nonplussed by President’s speech

– island.lk/sumanthiran-nonplussed-by-presidents-speech/

• Tamil politics on a slippery slope

– dailymirror.lk/news-features/Tamil-politics-on-a-slippery-slope/131-229471

• Failure to pass Budget: Mawanella PS, Balangoda UC Chairmen removed

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Failure-to-pass-Budget-Mawanella-PS-Balangoda-UC-Chairmen-removed/108-229168

• Fonseka on Great Britain Sex Scandal

– island.lk/fonseka-calls-for-radical-change-in-political-culture/

• Ranil Wickramasinghe sponsored Arjuna Mahendran to lead the Central Bank of Ceylon

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/21/ranil-wickremesinghe-interview-with-wion/

• Early elections, or attempts to have term-extending referenda

– island.lk/anura-kumara-is-ready-to-lead-sajith-asks-the-government-to-leave-rajapaksa-mulls-referendum-and-sirisena-calls-it-silly/

• Politics, democracy and community leadership intertwined – Deshapriya

– island.lk/politics-democracy-and-community-leadership-intertwined-deshapriya/

• National Movement for Social Justice led by Karu demands abolition of 20A

– island.lk/nmsj-led-by-karu-demands-abolition-of-20a/

• Speaker: MPs borrowed only 330 books from Parliamentary library in 2021

– island.lk/speaker-mps-borrowed-only-330-books-from-parliamentary-library-in-2021/

– ft.lk/top-story/Professionalism-pause-in-Parliament/26-729298

– island.lk/casting-pears-before-mps/

• Historic task—a non-racist and human security ideology: USAID NPC Perera

– island.lk/historic-task-a-non-racist-and-human-security-ideology/

• Kanni Wignaraja, the highest ranking Sri Lankan at the UN

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/plus/look-at-what-we-share-rather-than-our-differences-468727.html

• ‘Menike Mage Hithe’ is BJP’s theme song in Uttar Pradesh elections

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/16/menike-mage-hithe-is-bjps-theme-song-in-uttar-pradesh-elections/

• Who is Roberta Metsola, the New President of the European Parliament?

‘Partit Nazzjonalista (Malta’s Nationalist Party) is part of the center-right EPP group…’

– newsclick.in/Who-Roberta-Metsola-New-President-European-Parliament

• White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide.

‘white reconstruction” names the long half-century that has followed the official, legislated end of United States apartheid’

– blackagendareport.com/bar-book-forum-dylan-rodriguezs-book-white-reconstruction

• On the Biden Plantation

– blackagendareport.com/biden-plantation

• Setback to Biden as Voting Rights Bill Collapses, Democrats Unable to Change Filibuster

– newsclick.in/setback-biden-voting-rights-bill-collapses-democrats-unable-change-filibuster

• The Biden-Harris Administration is a Political Expression of the Empire’s Crisis of Legitimacy

– blackagendareport.com/biden-harris-administration-political-expression-empires-crisis-legitimacy

• Biden and His Promises, Promises. Why Did You Believe?

– blackagendareport.com/biden-and-his-promises-promises-why-did-you-believe

• The Disintegrating Façade of US Democracy

– blackagendareport.com/disintegrating-facade-us-democracy

• Marxism and Black Liberation w/Frank Chapman

– blackagendareport.com/marxism-and-black-liberation-wfrank-chapman

• Domenico Losurdo and William C. Roberts

‘Losurdo criticizes Western Marxism for its utopianism and anticommunism, whereas Roberts sits squarely within that tradition’

– redsails.org/losurdo-and-roberts/

• Lenin’s Socialism – From the Perspective of the Future

– socialistproject.ca/2022/01/lenins-socialism-from-the-perspective-of-the-future/

__________________________________________________________

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.

• ‘Memories of the people are short’ – Sunday Times

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/columns/the-wealth-of-a-country-is-in-the-people-a-sober-warning-by-lankas-church-469023.html

• Chamber of Commerce webinar on ‘The Right to Information and the Private Sector’

‘Transparency International’s Sankitha Gunaratne, and Verité Research, Research Director Subhashini Abeysinghe will present…’

– island.lk/ccc-to-weaponize-private-sector-with-one-of-the-most-important-anti-corruption-tools-in-democracy-rti/

• Registrations open for inaugural National Data Protection Symposium

‘Queen Mary University’s Ulrich Wuermeling; LAWASIA’s Sunil Abeyratne; Chamber of Commerce Rajendra Theagarajah; Dialog’s Trinesh Fernando; AAL Sanduni Wickramasinghe, Lanka Bell and FITIS’ Prasad Samarasinghe; Cargills’ Yasith Fernando; Aventude’s Thurupathan Vijayakumar; University of Colombo’s Sampath Punchihewa; Cargills Bank’s Mahesha Amarasuriya; ICTA’s Anura De Alwis; Dialog’s Shenuka Jayalath, AAL Thishya Weragoda, CSE’s Lankesha Molligoda and AAL Samantha De Soysa…The Official Newspaper Daily FT and Electronic Media Partner News First.

– ft.lk/front-page/Registrations-now-open-for-inaugural-National-Data-Protection-Symposium/44-729341

• Ogilvy Group’s Redworks is their specialized corporate communications arm

– island.lk/ogilvy-redworks-stepping-into-a-decade-of-excellence/

• Sinhalese the result of a tidal wave of migration or long process of non-linear development

– island.lk/sinhalese-the-result-of-a-tidal-wave-of-migration-or-long-process-of-non-linear-development/

• Museums through Prof. Thapar’s eyes

– island.lk/museums-through-prof-thapars-eyes/

• Rajitha Dissanayake’s new play A Day in July 2019

– island.lk/a-day-in-july-2019a-socio-political-critique/

• TV Cricket commentators ignite debate on DRS authorship

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/21/tv-commentators-ignite-debate-on-drs-authorship/

• Over 50 local and foreign artists to explore ‘Language is Migrant’ – Colomboscope

‘Kohler, Keells, Nations Trust Private Banking, Crystal Property Group, JAT Holdings, Park Street Mews, Uber….’

– island.lk/art-and-architecture-exhibitions-highlight-a-thriving-arts-scene/

– sundaytimes.lk/220102/plus/over-50-local-and-foreign-artists-to-explore-language-is-migrant-467168.html

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/art-and-architecture-exhibitions-highlight-a-thriving-arts-scene/

– ft.lk/ft-lite/Crusade-to-make-Colombo-artistic/6-729452

• Sri Lankans celebrate Buddha’s first visit to the island

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/01/18/sri-lankans-celebrate-buddhas-first-visit-to-the-island/

• The Rise and Decline of Tamil Buddhism

– dailymirror.lk/news-features/The-Rise-and-Decline-of-Tamil-Buddhism/131-229176

• Fossilised remains of a herd of Rhinoceros unearthed in Lunugala

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Fossilised-remains-of-a-herd-of-Rhinoceros-unearthed-in-Lunugala/108-229297

– newsfirst.lk/2022/01/20/prehistoric-rhinos-in-sri-lankas-lunugala/

• Handagama’s portrayal of caste repression: Alborada or Pablo Neruda story

– ft.lk/columns/Handagama-s-portrayal-of-caste-repression-Alborada-or-Pablo-Neruda-story/4-729204

• Wally Bastian introduced kaffringha music culture

– sundaytimes.lk/220116/columns/lanka-all-sail-and-no-anchor-468929.html

• Patriarch of the Press Herbert A. J. Hulugalle (1980)

– island.lk/patriarch-of-the-press/

• ‘Havana Syndrome’ – CIA Can Not Rule Out That Cuban Crickets Chirped Russian

– moonofalabama.org/2022/01/havana-syndrome-cia-can-not-rule-out-that-cuban-crickets-have-chriped-in-russian.html

• Salvadorans protest following reports that phones of journalists were hacked

 ‘with the Israeli NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware’

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/283307-salvadorans-protest-following-reports-that-phones-of-journalists-were-hacked

• Journalist exposed corruption in FIFA and International Olympic Committee passed away

– newsclick.in/andrew-jennings-tribute-man-who-brought-forefront-corruption-global-sport

_________________________________________________

email: econenews@gmail.com

blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com

_________________________________________________