The Empire Demands: Pick a Side!

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

e-Con e-News 23-29 October 2022

Cuba shot down a US U-2 spy plane flying over its airspace on 27 October 1962,

at the peak of what the US media love to call ‘The Cuban Missile Crisis’ – 60 years ago.

The US Navy also attacked a Soviet nuclear submarine B-59,

which auspiciously, we are told, did not escalate the provocation that day.

It’s another of those ‘most dangerous global moments’ that took place, 17 years

after the latest colonial power dropped atomic bombs on Asia, in Japan in 1945

to announce its arrival…1962 was also the year of that coup…

On Thursday, 20 October 2022, US Central Command chief Michael Kurilla visited the Ohio-class West Virginia SSBN (submarine with ballistic nuclear missiles), which ‘specially surfaced’ at ‘an undisclosed location’ in the Arabian Sea, bordering Sri Lanka. Kurilla is a veteran of the US invasions of Panama, Iraq, Haiti, Kosovo, and Bosnia.

     SSBNs, called the ‘stealthiest’ US submarines, are armed with 24 Trident II ballistic missiles, each of which can carry up to 10 warheads, in total giving the vessel an ammunition supply of 240 strategic nuclear warheads – ‘a vital component of the US nuclear triad’.

     Apparently, these immersible tombs and tomb-makers are not supposed to announce their locations, or their existence. Yet this frothing nuclear Moby Dick (‘of mass destruction’) is flipped up by the US, splashing out of the ocean called Indian (now Indo-Pacific). Not a word dribbles out in Sri Lanka’s media. The almighty memorizer google does not carry its usual millions of diversionary citations either on the incident.

     It’s another covert warning to those who think the premier genocidal white-settler state on the planet will allow dreamers to rule their – let alone our own – destinies, and escape the stranglehold of US hegemony, without a long-term political, economic and military plan. So what’s with the private show? A part of the constant de rigueur menacing?

Menacing or brandishing is a criminal offense in ‘many’ (but not all) US states,

generally defined as ‘displaying a weapon with the intent of placing another person

in fear of imminent physical injury or death…

Self-defense is often explicitly given as an exception …

The tangentially related crime of ‘Menacing by Stalking’ was introduced as a new charge.

And so the US cometh stalking the Indian Ocean so far away from its pirate settler coves in the North Atlantic. While it refuses to vacate Diego Garcia; it now states plans to establish a permanent force in the ‘Indo-Pacific’. So why bulge their genetically modified republic-destabilizing killer bananas ? – see ee Sovereignty, US Signals Readiness

• This week also had no media coverage, or liberal outragification, of Australian Navy warships in Sri Lanka’s ports. They said they’re participating in ‘Indo-Pacific Endeavor 2022’, and left after a naval exercise with the Sri Lankan Navy. Sri Lankan officials are apparently ‘yet to recognize’ the so-called ‘IndoPacific region’ and the Quad Group of which India is also a member.

     ‘The Indian Ocean should not be a ‘playground’ of world military powers’, State Defence Minister Premitha Bandara Tennakoon yearned, at an Indian Defence Ministers’ Conclave 2022 during the weapons bazaar DefExpo2022 – at Gandhinagar, in India.

     Tennakoon was said to be echoing President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s September vow that Sri Lanka ‘would not participate in any military alliance, and did not want the problems of the Pacific coming into the Indian Ocean… The geopolitics of the Indian Ocean has unfortunately made Sri Lanka the punching bag for Hambantota.’ The US apparently did not heed his call, and have kept sending hitmen to set the President straight (see ee Random Notes).

• The US War Department released its 2022 National Defense Strategy, to ‘reinforce and build out a resilient security architecture in the IndoPacific, and foster advantage thru advanced technology cooperation with partners like Japan & Australia.’

     Quad nations should establish a permanent maritime force that’s in being all the time’, offered former US chief of naval operations Gary Roughead, rotating command every 6 months among themselves.

• Those aspiring to lead Sri Lanka should understand the threats being made against Sri Lanka. The media maintains a supine ‘radio silence’, as US threats become more evident when we study the world around us.

     Pacific nations are rejecting threats by the US demanding they ‘pick a side’ – Solomon Islands Foreign Affairs Minister Jeremiah Manele says they shunned an initial US-Pacific declaration, because the US demanded they choose a side. The package came with military training by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) & more US Navy patrols. US 3^rd Fleet head, Vice Admiral Michael Boyle during a recent Rim of the Pacific exercise, warned: ‘The US is closer to conflict in the Pacific than it is to peace’. He called for a more centralized command & control structure, and a standing maritime force similar to those elsewhere around the globe that could rapidly respond to a crisis in the Indo-Pacific. He spoke of ‘a need to understand right now which nations in the Pacific would join the US if there was a conflict with either China or North Korea’.

• The US has declared [see below] its public war strategy to coincide with China’s 20^th National Congress. The US strategy depicts Russia & China as beset by problems associated with ‘the pathologies inherent in highly personalized autocracies’ that are ‘exporting an illiberal model of international order.’ Even declaring:

‘We will not use our military to change regimes or remake societies.’

So, then this flashing of nukes? Mere radioactive cant?

Days After ‘Threatening’ Saudi Arabia,

US Nuclear Submarine

Makes a Very Rare Appearance

in The Arabian Sea

This very atomic-Mosaic threat to indeed part the Red Seas (firing up every oil-well), is apparently aimed at Saudi Arabia, who the US accuses of aligning with Russia amidst NATO’s war in the Ukraine.

     The US & EU (claiming no choice) placed a cap on oil prices. They say Saudi Arabia & Russia, along with the rest of the producer alliance known as OPEC+, then cut oil production to drive up crude prices. OPEC+ insists it is a purely business decision. Such explanations normally resound hosannas ululated on Wall Street and its media choirs. So an elaborate dance writhes on. With the US even saying, they live not by profit alone.

     While Sri Lanka has been told to keep away from Russia & China – with Sri Lanka’s President finding the time to visit dead leaders in Tokyo, Japan – on November 8, India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar will meet Russia’s foreign minister S Lavrov.

• Top US & Canadian generals also met this week to plan the imminent invasion of Haiti, while US Secretary of State A Blinken visiting Canada ‘dodged questions’ about the joint US-Canada military invasion. Haiti, by the way, isn’t asking for military intervention! They are not asking to be rescued. It’s the unelected government put into power by Canada after the assassination of the last President. (The present US Envoy Julie Chung in Sri Lanka is accused of complicity in that assassination.)

     Haitians are on the streets denouncing ‘foreign aid’ and the invasion, saying the US and other powers have contributed to the destabilization of Haiti.  Protesters are also demanding the resignation of US-backed Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Next October will see the 40^th anniversary of the US invasion of Grenada in 1983, which took place after a devastating attack on a US marine base in Beirut.

     On Monday, US President Biden announced new sanctions on Nicaragua’s state-owned mining enterprises. Revenue from these mining operations fund Nicaragua’s social welfare programs.

• And then they publicly renounce live-action military adventures again. Yet the US also wages expensive wars via all ‘other means’. This ee Focus recounts their plans to control media to take over Iran, as well as the role of NGOs and other gangs in Haiti leading to assassination, coup, and now imminent invasion again; the threat to cut Ethiopia off from ‘social media’; the use of Elon Musk’s supposedly independent satellite system to circumvent state control over media, the use of Twitter (now ‘taken over’ by Musk); the role of intelligence in the ‘successful meddling in the internal affairs of another country’, with the provision of the latest ‘social media’ tools, the US role in the so-called ‘Arab Uprisings’.

• ‘White fragility’ is a recently publicized trope (2018) that sought to explain the mass & velocity of the ‘defensive instincts or reactions that a white person experiences when questioned about race or made to consider their own race.’

     So when imperialists are questioned about imperialism, what do we get, from the so-called Left & Right, and so-called Black & white? Welcome to the USA’s Global Fragility Act, which aims to target and take over countries deemed as too ‘fragile’ to survive any relationship with China or Russia. (see ee Focus)      

     All the pious rhetoric of their Colombo cabal, their lawfaring and the daily whinging of their troll armies, suggest the attempted division of Sri Lanka is at hand, midst an ongoing coup to prevent any further attempts at independence. Their actions in Myanmar, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc, make their aims palpably manifest.

• US Senator Robert Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a strident critic of Sri Lanka (& all the other ‘enemies’ of the empire), is reported under investigation about a company that’s authorized by the government of Egypt to certify exports of Halal food worldwide. Menendez was earlier accused of ‘influence peddling’. In 2017 prosecutors dropped corruption charges against him after a jury couldn’t agree on a verdict. These charges could very well have been media diversions. Menendez has much deeper links to the imperialist machine. He’s the US senator from New Jersey, home of Rockefeller’s ExxonMobil conglomerate.

• Dr IMF  – Never has a patient been so pawed over in the ICU by life-saving doctors. Never has a patient been kept alive by greater expectations. Even as the patient’s life supports & heirlooms are pawned off to the nearest financial magicians.

     This week saw the entry of yet another titled US official delivering we must assume was dollar-ed news: US Treasury’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert Kaproth – What therapies hath he administered as exchange, we can imagine. He may have made the Central Bank governor, more independent of Sri Lanka, promising him tenure-for-life in Iowa. Kaproth may have made money supply more dependent on Wall Street. He may have checked off the IMF’s deadlines to revive the patient in the new Gregorian year. The passage of the 22^nd Amendment to weaken state power, the petroleum sell-off, the utility hikes, the banking sector (see ee Quotes for a list of their demands). What is clear is: no Dollars are forthcoming yet…

     Minister of [No] Power & Energy Kanchana Wijesekera listened to Kaproth’s sermon ‘on restructuring Sri Lanka’s loss-making state-owned enterprises (SoEs)… in the Power & Energy Sector, policies, debt restructuring, fuel management system and petroleum products procurement.’ They probably failed to discuss Shell Oil’s recently ‘reported profits of $9.5bn for Q3 2022 compared to $4.1bn for Q3 2021’!

     Kaproth also met the Opposition Samagi Jana Balwaegaya (SJB), MPs Eran Wickramaratne, Harsha de Silva, Kabir Hashim. Kaproth had earlier been in Sri Lanka on June 27, with the US delegation consisting of Deputy Assistant State Secretary Kelly Keiderling, State Department Economic Chief John McDaniel, US Treasury Deputy Director for South Asia Catherine Reynolds. ee also noted his attempts to cash in on the anti-China sampan (ee 25 June & 02 July 2022).

     Economics affirms the Politics. Kaproth follows on the heels of US Assistant Secretary of State for South & Central Asian Affairs Don ‘Banana2’ Lu, who has given his face to the ongoing political chicanery in Pakistan. The assassination this week in Kenya of a Pakistani critic of the recently US-sponsored ‘soft-coup’ in Pakistan, followed the announcement of the removal of the political rights of recently soft-couped Pakistani President Imran Khan.

• Economic Crimes? – England’s latest Prime Minister is not just its first ‘Indian’ PM as all the media crows, but more importantly, it’s the first Goldman Sachs PM! – Yet Rishi Sunak has erased his Goldman Sachs & hedge fund career from his LinkedIn profile and from his official government bio. Sunak worked as a junior analyst at Goldman Sachs, 2001-04, to research railways. He joined TCI hedge fund, 2006-9, as a partner.

     US rail freight operator CSX sued Sunak’s TCI hedge fund, which had secretly bought shares in CSX, using opaque derivatives to disguise their large shares. TCI then paid $10million to CSX, plus legal fees. In 2009 he co-founded the hedge fund Theleme Partners, with Patrick Degorce.

     (In 2013 TCI became the 2^nd-biggest shareholder in England’s newly privatized Royal Mail. Shares rocketed almost 50% above their issue price, sparking criticism that government had undervalued one of England’s biggest state sell-offs in decades. In 2014 Sunak launched his parliamentary career).

     Sunak is married to Akshata Murty, daughter of Indian billionaire Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys. Narayana avoided millions of dollars yearly in taxes on Infosys dividends by claiming ‘non-domiciled’ status. Murty had to then pay taxes in England on her overseas income. Their combined wealth is estimated at a mere $800 million (ee Finance, Sunak).

Contents:

A1. Reader Comments –

• Nandalal Stops the Presses • Living in Interesting Times • Sangha Role • Multiple Social Rocket Launchers • open-Source Crap • Diyasena & US • US Student Debt

A2. Quotes of the Week

• JR the Red • Silver Melon Jam Days • Europe is a Garden • Global Fragility Act • Salley Does IMF • Supply Failure fuels Inflation • Truss’ Tax Error • Here Comes Starmer Trooper • Purity & Politics

A3. Random Notes –

• Central Bank’s Political Numeracy • Coconut Growers on Oil Imports • India & Australia Come Fishing • Have Missile Will Consult • UN WFP Famine Makers in Somalia • IMF Hammers Tunisian Economy • Nuland Kicks the Sahel Dust • The Other Columbus’ G-Spot • Saskatchewan Inclusive • England’s Hi-Tech Sabotage • The One & Many Socialisms • Steel & Industry • Finding Funds From Foundries

B. ee Focus       

B1. By All Means – Ethiopia’s Internet & Iran’s Musk

B2. By All Means – Arab Spring Dollars & Haiti Marked Fragile

B3. Some Lessons on Planning for the 21st Century from the World’s 1st Socialist Economy – Veduta

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

• ‘Re. IMF telling governments to listen to their central bankers, I hear Nandalal is stubbornly refusing to print money and is fighting with Ranil. To please his masters at the IMF.’

• ‘A war coming in? That opening paragraph sounded scary. We live in interesting times…’

• ‘When will the Maha Sanga rise up and defend the nation in times of need? And hence remind us of their role in Lanka as, ee points out, is in our historical writings.’

• ‘re: ‘Social-media-multiple-meme&hashtag-rocket-launchers, covert ‘lawfare’ & upgraded espionage’: Lovely.’

• ‘re: Google/Jigsaw: Gosh I used to buy this ‘it’s open-source’ crap… Google/Jigsaw are not private companies.’

• ‘Has ee heard of this new Diyasena king/saviour that’s about to emerge and cure Lanka of all its ills? Heard it’s been prophesied and I think the US is involved.’

• ‘Everybody knows of the commercialisation of educational resources. The bigger US scandal is the degree of debt young people have to bear in a country where big corporations swollen with profits pay no federal tax.’

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A2. Quotes of the Week_

• 1944 JR Jayawardene on Agriculture: ‘By reason of the expropriation of the most fertile lands in the island for the benefit of commercial interests, belonging mainly to foreigners, the vast majority of the people of this country have become landless. This Council is of the opinion that following the example of Denmark, Ireland & Mexico, legislation should be introduced… to compulsorily acquire large estates… and set up state & collective farms.’ – Hansard (State Council) Vol II, p2723

– 1944 JR on Industrialization: ‘No country can advance, unless it has key industries, unless it has the ability to make machines, unless it has the ability to produce chemicals.’ – Vol I, 31 March, p650-3

• ‘Today my blood boils to see the shelves of supermarkets full of orange juice from California! My mind raves with the loss of production, the unemployment our people suffer and the loss of our valued foreign exchange in imports. Down came the IMF axe of privatization and the canning factory was privatized. Floor prices are no more for the producers.

     Today in the remote areas, pineapples, red & ash pumpkin cannot be sold at all during the season. They fetch very low prices. Many a producer has told me, their produce has had to be buried. Silver-melon & Golden-melon jam are long forgotten: Imports taken their place. Thanks to the UNP & the IMF policies, we are creating employment for people in Developed Countries while our people remain unemployed.’ – ee Agriculture, Marketing

• ‘Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that humankind has been able to build – the 3 things together. And here, Bruges is maybe a good representation of beautiful things, intellectual life, wellbeing. The rest of the world is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.’ –European Commission VP Josep Borrell, October 13

• ‘US policy is framed around notions of cooperation & multilateralism, equity & diversity, care & peace, self-reliance, empowerment, and sovereignty. This language, we argue, actually becomes a veil over the malevolent actions of the US empire. These new strategies have come to fruition in Haiti, where the US is attempting to convince the neocolonial states in the Americas to staff on its behalf an army in Haiti. Haiti is the first place where the Global Fragility Act is being enacted. Other “priority” countries & regions: Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, & “West African Coastal Region”. The documents accompanying the Act must be read as documents of imperialist policy a& strategy. Those struggling against US imperialism need to look much more critically at these new forms of imperial practice. We need to read & understand these documents as we work to develop anti-imperialist strategies for our liberation.’ – Global Fragility Act, ee Sovereignty

• ‘The best economic scenario is that a new IMF program will start early next year, and that the new year will bring agreement with sovereign creditors and private bondholders on debt restructuring. IMF conditionality will require tax, monetary and some expenditure reforms. This may stabilise the economy. But deeper structural reforms – trade and FDI liberalisation, domestic deregulation, SOE privatisation and restructuring, cutting defence spending, labour-market reforms, better targeted social transfers, and the list goes on – are highly unlikely’ see ee Economists, US Advocata’s Razeen Salley

• ‘The current sharp rise in inflation rates in all the major economies does not derive from so-called ‘excessive demand’; or from excessive money supply growth; or wage demands forcing companies to raise prices. It primarily relies on the failure of supply to match demand.’ – ee Economists, The inflation conundrum

• ‘Truss’ real unforgivable offence was such tax cuts were not balanced by any curtailment in public expenditure elsewhere, or in any tax increase on the working people…. what finance, and indeed the entire capitalist class, expected from her was not just transfers to the rich, but also, simultaneously, some measure for fiscally promoting unemployment, which, according to the capitalist perception, is the only means of fighting inflation.’ – ee Economists, Why Tax Cuts

• ‘The Labour Party had under Jeremy Corbyn the largest mass membership of any political party in Europe. The current leadership has succeeded – quite deliberately – in losing half of them. The Labour members elected Keir Starmer on the basis of 10 pledges to carry out the kind of leftwing policies the Labour membership support. Almost all of those pledges have been summarily broken.

     We have witnessed the Labour leadership refuse to endorse strikes, which are the main avenue for working class resistance, ban its MPs from the picket lines, and refuse to oppose massive Tory attacks on civil liberties at home, while vying to be the most enthusiastic zionists and warmongers abroad. Labour members are summarily expelled for connection to legitimate socialist organisations.’ – The Party is Over, ee Politics

• ‘It lacks the force of externalization, the force to make itself into a thing and to endure being. It lives in dread of staining through action and existence the splendour of its interiority; and in order to preserve the purity of its heart, it flees contact with reality. ‘It may well preserve itself in its purity, for it does not act.’ – Phenomenology of the Spirit’s critical analysis of the ‘beautiful soul’, of ‘conscience’, Hegel, 1969-79, Vol3, 483-7. (Hegel in 1821 may be applied to ‘Western Marxists’, ‘Academic Marxists’, Trotskyists, Anarchists, etc, in 2022)

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

• The Central Bank says: ‘survey reveals 58% of Lankan adults financially illiterate’. It should rather say, the Central Bank has made 58% of adults illiterate. What have they been doing to teach people in the last 72 years? The CB’s Financial Literacy Survey SL – 2021 was conducted by the ‘Regional Development Department of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, with the assistance of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) – under the IFC-DFAT Women in Work program. This first-ever countrywide Financial Literacy Survey in Sri Lanka, is part of the implementation of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy of Sri Lanka. Include whom? We don’t have to guess. That takes political numeracy.’

• Coconut Growers Association calls on the Ministry of Plantation Industries: 1. To restrict import of coconut oil & other edible oil for a period of 3-6 months, and use available coconuts to produce coconut oil.

2. Presently, coconut oil & other edible oils are imported to Sri Lanka without any controls. The Coconut Development Authority (CDA) Act authorizes the CDA to monitor &control import & export of all edible oil in Sri Lanka. However, this is now handled by the Ministry of Finance without any check & balances.’ There is no call for investment in related coconut industry inputs and by-products. (like masks with copra, etc)

• Last month, India’s Navy joined the multinational exercise Kakadu hosted by Australia’s Navy (RAN) in Darwin. The RAN exercise Sept 12-25 involved 34 aircraft from over 20 nations. India & Japan also held the 6^th edition of the bilateral naval exercise Jimex-2022 in Sept off Visakhapatnam. In early September, the Indian Air Force joined 16 other nations, including Quad partner countries, for the biennial Exercise Pitch Black, hosted by the Australian Air Force, which saw 100 aircraft & 2,500 military personnel from 17 nations.

     Australia’s Indo-Pacific Endeavour saw 5 ships, 11 helicopters & nearly 1,800 personnel visiting 14 countries including Sri Lanka, India, across Southeast Asia & Northeast Indian Ocean Sept 26 to Nov 26, according to Australia Defence Ministry. RAN ship HMAS Adelaide entered Visakhapatnam ….and….(the media doesn’t tell….).

• ‘Over 500 retired US military personnel – including dozens of high-ranking officers, generals & admirals – have landed lucrative jobs working for foreign governments since 2015. One of the top recruiters, Saudi Arabia, where 15 retired US generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for the Defense Ministry since 2016 alone: retired Marine Gen James L Jones, national security adviser to Barack Obama, and retired Army Gen Keith Alexander, who headed the National Security Agency under both Obama & George W Bush. In addition to the retired generals & admirals for hire, the US still deploys 65,000 military on-duty personnel across Saudi and the Gulf region…

• The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) in Somalia is accused of deliberately opening their warehouses as soon as farmers take their crops to market, thereby discouraging farmers from cultivation. They also provide Genetically Modified (GMO) food seeds to farmers which destroy the soil, and cannot be re-seeded.

• Meanwhile, in the land that sparked the supposed ‘Arab Spring’, the IMF, the EU & the World Bank are enforcing austerity & privatization, destroying the social safety net in Tunisia. The IMF is forcing the Tunisian government to reduce food subsidies in exchange for a new loan that will pay off previous loans. The real debt traps, pushing workers to migrate.

• US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland’s delegation to Mauritania, Mali, Niger & Burkina Faso Oct 16-20, included Assistant Secretary of War Celeste Wallander, AfricCom Major General Kenneth Ekman, Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State Michael Heath & Gregory LoGerfo, National Security Council Director Matthew Petit. They stressed the US commitment ‘to work closely with willing partners to tackle the growing threat of terror across the Sahel… They also shared US concerns ‘about the destructive role that Wagner forces are playing in Mali’.

• October 12 recalls the first major European invasion of the Americas by Genoan Christopher Columbus in 1492, which set off the continental genocide, after the Pope divided the world into 2, between Spain & Portugal. This was 14 years before the Portuguese invaded Sri Lanka, 1505-06.

     Recall the ‘Other Columbus‘ & his ‘discovery’: Realdus Columbus’ book De re anatomica (1559) describes the clitoris as the ‘seat of woman’s delight’: ‘Since no one has discerned these projections and their workings, if it is permissible to give names to things discovered by me, it should be called the love or sweetness of Venus’: ‘Amor Veneris, vel Dulcedo Appelletur’. He, like the earlier Columbus, got the actual location wrong. He claimed ‘protuberances, emerging from the uterus near that opening which is called the mouth of the womb’, which when rubbed or touched ‘semen swifter than air flows this way and that on account of the pleasure even with them unwilling [sic!]’. His ‘discovery’ was challenged by Italian Catholic priest Gabriele Falloppio (1523-62), who claimed a certain tube as Fallopian. Then there was Ernst Graffenburg (1950) who named the ‘G-spot’. Confused about what the priest was doing down there… but hope springs eternal.

• Meanwhile, the provincial Saskatchewan legislature in Canada invited a convicted wife-murderer and former MLA Colin Thatcher, son of a former Premier, to attend the throne speech at the legislature this week: The speech’s theme was ‘tough on crime’. The media is yet to disclose the background to the recent mass murder of original people that took place in Saskatchewan – in a gold mining town.

• Russia says England’s Navy blew up the NordStream pipeline. Last week England’s war minister Ben Wallace was beckoned to Washington. New English PM Sunak retained James Cleverly as foreign secretary & Wallace in defence. On Saturday the Russian fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol was attacked by unmanned aerial vehicles & autonomous maritime drones. The maritime drones are made in England, and Russia alleges that English specialists trained the Ukrainian navy in using them.

• ‘Steel is the alloy that underpins all industrial civilization. It’s needed for skyscrapers, bridges, highways, appliances, tools, missiles, machine guns, tanks, airplanes – you name it. No steel, no civilization. China produces a full 57% of the world’s steel’.

• English lesson: Find, Fund, Foundation & Finance of Industrialization

• Found – Middle English: from Old French fonder, from Latin fundare, from fundus ‘bottom, base’.

– early 16^th century: from French fondre, from Latin fundere ‘melt, pour’.

• Fund – early 17^th century (in sense ‘source or supply of material things’): from Latin fundus ‘bottom, base, landed estate’.

• Finance – late Middle English: from Old French finer ‘make an end, settle a debt’, from fin ‘end’ (see fine2). The original sense was ‘payment of a debt, compensation, or ransom’; later ‘taxation, revenue’. Current senses date from the 18^th century, and reflect sense development in French.

• Find – discover or perceive by chance or unexpectedly: Old English findan, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch vinden and German finden.

• There are as many ‘socialisms’ as there are undigested class fractions. Over 170 years ago, Marx & Engels identified numerous species of socialists, including the Feudal, Bourgeois and Christian varieties of ‘socialists’, in their 1848 Communist Manifesto, while declaring modern socialism as Scientific Socialism. The US & English governments on their corporate-controlled social-media sites, manufacture new fake varieties of unscientific ‘socialism’ every day.

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B. Special Focus_

B1. By All Means – Ethiopia’s Internet & Iran’s Musk

ee offers an around-the-world tour, with only a few stops to illustrate the ‘internet’ invasion that is escalating US colonial domination. ee starts with some quotes to dispel the illusions harbored about English democracy, then looks at the media and other wars around us, as well as techniques leveraged in Sri Lanka recently:

For the modern campaign, parties need paid PR practitioners

and they need paid troll farms. They don’t need little old men and women

going door to door, other than once or twice for a candidate photocall.

(see ee Politics, The Party is Over)

‘Heavy tweeters’ account for less than 10% of monthly overall users

but generate 90% of all tweets & half of global revenue…

A ‘heavy tweeter’ is defined as someone who logs in to Twitter

6 or 7 days a week and tweets about 3-4 times a week.

(ee Media, Internal Documents)

• Ethiopia & the Internet – ‘US HR6600 is the House bill, S3199 the Senate bill. S3199 has been revised to be even more threatening than it was when New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez introduced it in Nov 2021, and he recently resolved to push for its passage. Revised Menendez Senate bill S 3199 proposes sweeping sanctions to control every aspect of Ethiopian society, its economy, its politics, & even information shared in any public forum, including social media. It’s very similar to House bill HR 6600, but even more draconian in its current version. It is a form of full, all-out neocolonial policy. If you read between the lines, it’s all about stopping Ethiopia from getting beyond the realm of US hegemony.’ – ee Sovereignty, Ethiopia Nears Victory

• Musk to Front US Grab for Iran Media – Oct 21, CNN reported , the US government has ‘turned’ to Elon Musk’s satellite internet, to set up SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink inside Iran.

     This would be the second major theater this year – along with Ukraine – where the US government has got Starlink to help provide crucial telecommunication services… Starlink uses satellites to beam internet service to compact terminals on the ground. SpaceX has around 3,000 such satellites currently in orbit, and roughly 20,000 terminals on the ground in Ukraine.

     US officials hope that Starlink’s on-the-ground terminals will one day become as prevalent in Iran as satellite TV dishes. Starlink’s satellites require physical terminals on the ground to connect to, and their signals could be easy to detect. More instruction materials are needed, in Farsi, to help protesters understand how to better cover their tracks and use equipment safely. He argues more investment is needed on circumvention tools & work by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union:

     ‘It’s an ongoing national security interest to get rid of this regime. Here’s how: empower those democrats on the ground in Iran and the number-one way to do it is to find ways to support tech like that in the country… When it comes to more active US govt involvement, without getting into specific technologies, we’re always considering whether a technology would put those who use it at risk of being identified and harmed by their government in some way… All elements of the Biden administration are in lockstep on that.’

     One policy change the Biden administration made last month to expand internet services to Iranians was the ‘license issued by the Treasury Department’ to ‘give US technology companies greater freedom to operate in highly-sanctioned Iran… The beauty of General License D-2 is that it allows private companies to decide for themselves what products & services to offer inside Iran.’

     Musk said, if the terminals can get into Iran, SpaceX has already activated the signal. Yet, ‘there have been numerous reports of Starlink outages along the frontline as Ukraine has pushed into Russian-occupied areas. Ukraine had to proactively make a request for service to be turned on when an area is taken back. If the funding doesn’t come from SpaceX, Ukraine expects the Pentagon, Europe and private donors to step up.

     The success of Starlink in Ukraine is ‘great marketing’… yet, ‘Efforts to help should be grounded in understanding how Iranians communicate, the risks they face, and the censorship-circumvention technologies they have experience using.’ – cnn.com/2022/10/21/politics/white-house-musk-starlink-iran-protests-ukraine

• In 2009 the US State Department contacted the social networking service Twitter over ensuring continuous service to Iranians who were said to be ‘disputing’ an election. The revelation was meant to mitigate the Obama administration’s denial of ‘meddling in Iran’s internal affairs’ during ‘deadly street protests over the election result’.

     Twitter & Facebook have been used as tools by many young people to coordinate protests over the election’s outcome… State Department spokesman Ian Kelly strongly rejected that contacts to Twitter amounted to meddling in Iranian internal affairs. – reuters.com/article/us-iran-election-twitter-usa-idUSWBT01137420090616

• ‘2009: Excellent Intelligence – With regard to fomenting a popular revolution, successful meddling in the internal affairs of another country requires excellent intelligence if the efforts are to succeed. Indeed, a lack of intelligence can even lead a covert action program to backfire, as the regime manipulates it to its advantage. For a coup, the US would need a sense of the loyalties of different unit commanders, knowledge of the key points of communication that must be seized or neutralized, an understanding of regime counter-intelligence measures, among other factors. Without this information, the USA may back the wrong people or be beguiled by figures who are secretly controlled by Iranian intelligence.

     Iran also has multiple centers of power, which would make a coup far harder to pull off in Iran. In addition to parallel militaries, Iran’s economic and political institutions overlap in their areas of responsibility. This multiplicity makes it difficult to strike a quick and decisive blow to seize power. Knowing which centers are the most important would greatly aid this effort…

     The necessary level of detailed intelligence on Iran is simply not there. Because the USA has no embassy and has few Iranian experts within government ranks, information on the country’s incredibly complex politics is often inadequate or inaccurate. Much of the information the US requires involves an understanding of Iran’s remote areas (eg, Baluchistan) or is difficult to obtain comprehensively, such as the loyalty of various unit commanders. Consequently, any plan to aid a coup would first require a major effort to build up US intelligence on Iran, which would itself be time consuming and difficult given the inherent nature of Iranian society and the paranoia of the regime.

Pros & Cons – The following are the advantages and disadvantages of supporting a military coup.

Advantages: 1. Because the Iranian military has power of its own, a coup d’état would conceivably require the least support from the US. Washington could mostly leave it to the Iranian cabal to summon the power to topple the regime, and in theory, it should be capable of doing so. Based on the history of other coups, both in Iran & elsewhere, the US might only have to provide some money, communications assistance, and some specialized gear.

     2. Even a failed coup plot might make the regime fearful – and in so doing, make it more willing to cooperate – or simply cause it to focus internally, lessening its mischief making abroad.

     3. In theory, if the coup plotters succeeded, they would feel grateful to the USA, and so there would be some reasonable expectation of a better relationship between a new government in Iran and Washington.

Disadvantages: 1. Because of Iranian intelligence, there’s a high likelihood that the regime would uncover the coup plot and kill all of the participants to discourage anyone else contemplating such a step. This would end up strengthening the regime – the opposite of what the US had hoped to achieve.

     2. Attempting to foment a coup would require a much more intimate understanding of the Iranian officer corps than the US currently possesses, and it would be difficult to improve this quickly, given Iranian security measures. Indeed, if ordered to implement this option today, it is not clear that the US intelligence community would even know where to start.

     3. There is little evidence to suggest widespread disaffection against the regime among the security services, or that there are numbers of officers willing to move against it. If anything, based on the very limited information that the outside world has about the Iranian military, it appears the Iranian Armed Forces and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps compete for the regime’s favor.

     4. A military coup backed by the USA could play very badly among the Iranian people at large. It might appear to be ‘1953 redux’ and trigger a backlash against both the new government and the US.

     5. Moreover, it seems unlikely that a military coup would bring a democratic government to power. The US might be replacing an unfriendly autocracy with a friendly one, but this would hardly endear it to the region or the rest of the world, and one lesson that the US has learned from the 1953 revolution (among other events) is that supporting autocrats tends to undermine US interests over the long term.

     6. If the Iranians become aware of US efforts to instigate a coup plot, they would likely retaliate against the US, potentially in all the ways and against all of the locations discussed in association with previous options.

• The USA could play multiple roles in facilitating a revolution. By funding and helping organize domestic rivals of the regime, the US could create an alternative leadership to seize power. As Raymond Tanter of the Iran Policy Committee argues, students and other groups ‘need covert backing for their demonstrations. They need fax machines. They need internet access, funds to duplicate materials, and funds to keep vigilantes from beating them up.’ Beyond this, US-backed media outlets could highlight regime shortcomings and make otherwise obscure critics more prominent. The US already supports Persian-language satellite tv (Voice of America Persian) & Radio (Farda) that bring ‘unfiltered’ news to Iranians (in recent years these have taken the lion’s share of overt US funding for promoting democracy in Iran). US economic pressure (& perhaps military pressure as well) can discredit the regime, making the population hungry for a rival leadership…

     Prominent (& certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential US proxy is NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by MeK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-US. In contrast, the group’s champions contend that the movement’s long-standing opposition to the Iranian regime and record of successful attacks on and intelligence-gathering operations against the regime make it worthy of US support. They also argue, the group is no longer anti-US and question the merit of earlier accusations. Raymond Tanter, one of the group’s supporters in the US, contends the MeK & NCRI are allies for regime-change in Tehran and also act as a useful proxy for gathering intelligence. The MeK’s greatest intelligence coup was the provision of intelligence in 2002 that led to the discovery of a secret site in Iran for enriching Uranium.’ – Which Path to Persia? Options for a New US Strategy toward Iran, Saban Center at Brookings Institution, 2009

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B2. By All Means – Arab Spring Dollars & Haiti Marked Fragile

• 2011: US Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings – ‘Even as the USA ‘poured billions of dollars

into foreign military programs & anti-terrorism campaigns’, US government-financed organizations were ‘promoting democracy’ in Arab states.

     ‘As officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing the US‘s democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools, and monitoring elections.

     A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grassroots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington…

     The Republican & Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican & Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The NED receives about $100million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the US government, mainly from the State Department.

     Some Egyptian youth leaders attended a 2008 technology meeting in New York, where they were taught to use social networking & mobile technologies to promote democracy. Among those sponsoring the meeting were Facebook, Google, MTV, Columbia Law School, & the State Department…

     ‘We learned how to organize and build coalitions,’ said Bashem Fathy, a founder of the youth movement that ultimately drove the Egyptian uprisings. Mr Fathy, who attended training with Freedom House, said, ‘This certainly helped during the revolution.’

– nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html

The NED’s History of Supporting Reactionaries in Haiti – The NED funded ‘civil society groups’ to undermine President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the years leading up to the 2004 coup d’états that removed him and thousands of others from elected office.

      Aristide won an overwhelming majority of 92% of the vote in the 2000 Presidential elections. His party, Lavalas also won 80% of the seats in the House Assembly. It was then that the NED began funding opposition groups inside Haiti.

      In Damming the Flood, author Peter Hallward describes how the NED, through its subsidiary the International Republican Institute (IRI), helped fund a destabilization campaign against Aristide.

      This destabilization campaign included funding ‘civil society groups’. One such anti-Aristide group was Democratic Convergence (CD). Founded months after Aristide’s election victory in 2000, the NED funded this coalition of 200 political organizations who wanted his government overthrown. Led by former Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul, CD included industrialists, bankers, importers, media & intellectuals among their members.

      Many CD members went on to become part of another US-funded anti-Lavalas organization – the Group of 184, headed by industrialist Andy Apaid Jr. Apaid-funded paramilitary gangs who terrorized and murdered Lavalas supporters, while CD founder Stanley Lucas openly talked in radio interviews about assassinating Aristide. See ee Sovereignty,The NED’s Role in Undermining Democracy in Haiti

The Global Fragility Act, April 2022

The US is ushering a new foreign policy doctrine through ‘The Global Fragility Act.’ We need to not only understand these new forms of imperial practice, but to also see the cunning use of language in the service of US imperialism.

     In December 2019, President Donald Trump signed into law HR2116, ‘The Global Fragility Act of 2019’ (Title V of Div J, PL 116-94). Introduced by Democratic Representative Eliot L Engel, then chair of the House’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of Representatives (including, significantly, Karen Bass), the Global Fragility Act presents a new set of strategies for deploying US soft power in a changing world. The Act focuses US foreign policy on the idea that there are ‘fragile states’ whose ‘fragility’ could undermine US security interests. The US defines ‘fragile states’ as those ‘where state weakness or failure would magnify threats to the American homeland.’ Hailed as ‘landmark’ legislation and as a ‘potential game-changer in the world of US foreign aid,’ the Act seems to be a resetting of US foreign policy in ways that shift tactics while maintaining the objectives and strategies of US global domination. One of the stated objectives of the Global Fragility Act is for the US government to be proactive in preventing conflict and instability, instead of assuming a reactive stance.

     But under the pretext of ‘preventing conflicts,’ ‘promoting stability in countries prone to widespread violence,’ through the support, of ‘locally driven political solutions,’ the language of the Act hides the legislation’s real intentions: to rebrand US imperialism by using a wide range of actors and resources, including neocolonial governments and their local and regional structures, to enact policies aimed at upholding US global power. The Act clearly articulates its main goal: to advance ‘US national security and interests,’ and to ‘manage rival powers’ (ie, Russia & China).

     In April 2022 the Biden-Harris administration affirmed its commitment to implementing the Global Fragility Act by issuing documents outlining a Strategy for its implementation. The Strategy was supplemented by a complimentary document, the ‘Prologue,’ that outlines the principles underlying this new foreign policy strategy. The Global Fragility Act demands that at least 5 pilot countries and regions be named. All those chosen will have individual 10-year plans, and each 10-year strategy will act as a blueprint for extending the Act’s reach across the world.

     Below, we reprint the Prologue as a way to demonstrate the cunning use of language in the service of US imperialism. Reading this document, US policy is framed around notions of cooperation and multilateralism, of equity and diversity, of care and peace, of self-reliance, empowerment, and sovereignty. This language, we argue, actually becomes a veil over the malevolent actions of the US empire. These new strategies have come to fruition in Haiti, where the US is attempting to convince the neocolonial states in the Americas to staff an army in Haiti on its behalf. Haiti is the first place where the Global Fragility Act is being enacted. Other ‘priority’ countries and regions are: Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and the ‘West African Coastal Region.’ The documents accompanying the Act must be read as documents of imperialist policy and strategy. Those struggling against US imperialism need to look much more critically at these new forms of imperial practice. We need to read and understand these documents as we work to develop anti-imperialist strategies for our liberation. (see ee Sovereignty, Prologue: The Global Fragility Act)

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B3. Some Lessons on Planning for the 21^st Century from the World’s 1^st Socialist Economy – Elena Veduta (1 Oct 2022, Part 2)

Between 1929-34, the USSR was 1^st in Europe & 2^nd in the world in terms of growth of industrial production & national income.⁸

     The advantages of this method were demonstrated by the centralized economy of the USSR during WW2. Quarterly, monthly and 10-day recalculations became the main form of planning: eg, while smelting about 3 times less steel and producing almost 5 times less coal than Germany, the USSR created almost twice as many weapons and military equipment during wartime.⁹

     After the war, the course of industrializing the Soviet economy continued. Every year between 1947-54 saw real incomes of the population increase, rising by up to 34% compared to pre-war levels.

     Competition between the US and the USSR began in the Cold War. The US strategy was to export investments to other capitalist countries, with the construction of a unipolar world of dollar-based hegemony regulated by the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile the USSR maintained its course of industrialization regulated by economic planning of key industries.

     In the ‘clash’ of the superpowers, there were unequal starting conditions. During the war, US industry had doubled; by 1945 US gold reserves accounted for more than 70% of the world’s reserves overall.¹⁰ The main US achievement was the development of the science of cybernetics, which studied information processes to create automated control systems. After the economic recovery in the post-WW2 years, the USSR’s leadership should have seen the importance of cybernetics in the development of economic planning. Instead, this new science was incorrectly described as a pseudoscience, slowing down its development in the USSR.

     The Collapse of the Project of the Socialist Economy of the USSR (1950-91) – Achieving military parity with the US was not enough to enable the USSR to win the Cold War. The continuation of the course of industrialization after the war led to a disproportionate development of the economy, resulting in an economic crisis. The USSR needed to transition from prioritizing the development of industries that determine technological progress to improving its citizens’ quality of life.

     By the 1950s, the economy of the USSR was faced with the problem of processing a colossal amount of information for planning the national economy. The volume of production increased and relationships between producers became more complex, requiring many iterations to generate plans. This was not possible with manual planning. It required the automating of state management of the economy and developing small businesses in industries directly related to satisfying domestic needs.

     Disregard for cybernetics drew the country into discussions about the economic problems of socialism, which continued after Stalin’s death and were followed by the imposition of a damaging theory of commodity production under socialism, serving to deform the economy of the USSR by initiating economic chaos and eventually restoring capitalism in 1991.

     The complex, planned control of a huge country required automation. After discussions that took place 1956-57 at the Institute of Economics in Moscow, under the leadership of academician K Ostrovityanov, a troubled mode of commodity production under socialism was officially adopted, contradicting Karl Marx’s writings on the practice of economic planning. State-owned enterprises worked according to the plan and, at the same time, for profit. This doctrine divided the country’s economists into Marxists (advocates of a non-commodity economy), who denied the commodity nature of production under socialism, and restorers of capitalism (promoters of a commodity economy). The ideological struggle between these economists received a new impetus with the awareness that cybernetics were needed to solve economic problems.

     Yet, while cyberneticists were busy solving the complex problem of automating economic management, the party nomenklatura, afraid of losing the privileges that came from planned, manual control, imposed economic ‘reforms’ from the 1950-90s. At the same time, a shortage of goods in the consumer market was created in the short-term interests of the nomenklatura by fixing prices, which led to increased speculation and corruption. The system of equilibrium prices – a necessary feedback mechanism of the consumer market that plays an important role in optimizing the supply structure – was excluded from the economic planning process. This doomed the ruble to defeat by the dollar. The reforms aimed at giving more and more rights to enterprises, allowing them to focus on profit, intensified the chaos in public administration and ultimately led to the collapse of the country in 1991, with the restoration of capitalism and the transfer of management of the country’s development to global capitalist forces.¹¹

     How do we explain why the nomenklatura ended up choosing to dismantle socialism? It is necessary to note, Stalin eliminated the party maximum in 1932. According to academic ES Varga, the abolition of the party maximum contributed to the disintegration of Soviet society into layers with huge differences in income and the personal enrichment of appointed party nomenklatura. Their example was followed by the bureaucracy and the lower strata, becoming expressed in careerism, intrigues against competitors, theft, and corruption. The contradiction between the officially proclaimed communist morality and the real ideology of the ruling circles led to a widening gap between the elites and the working people, and encouraged cynicism and careerism in society.¹²

     The steady transformation of a workers’ state into a bureaucratic state by Stalin’s abolition of the party maximum was not a linear process. There was an ideological struggle by those who, despite the creeping restoration of capitalism, continued to work for the practical implementation of communist ideals. During the Great Patriotic War (WW2), there is no doubt that Stalin and party authorities fully reflected the aspirations of the masses. It is an undeniable, historic truth that Soviet leadership under Stalin – though at a huge human cost – made an enormous contribution to the creation of the world’s first socialist economy, which managed to defeat fascism and become one of the centers of the bipolar world. In this period the USSR carried through its first planned industrialization program, which both secured victory in WW2 and further enabled the post-war economic recovery.

Digital Projects of Capitalist & Socialist Economies – Digital Projects of the Capitalist Economy

The current economic crisis, ongoing since 2008 and most recently punctuated by the pandemic slowdown, constitutes the deepest downturn of the post-war period. Unprecedented progress is predicted in both cybernetics and artificial intelligence (AI). However, the introduction of digital technologies into the fields of trade, financial services, workflow, and population control, all happening in the context of economic chaos, reduces social productivity and destroys society while increasing the power of multinational corporations.

     The material carrier of AI is a computer or a computing network that provides data exchange to serve users. The interests of the dominant social strata determine the functions of AI and algorithms. Multinational corporations, striving to preserve capitalism and keep power, resorting to speculative instruments such as ‘green’ derivatives and cryptocurrencies, set a course of ‘peaceful’ creative destruction of production and significantly increased the relative surplus population through the introduction of AI. They have used the pandemic period to rapidly develop AI that controls the behavior of people and to establish a so-called Green Course aimed at ‘liberating’ the planet from real human needs.

     All current and conceived global projects emanating from multinational corporations and the US, such as ‘inclusive capitalism’ and the Green New Deal, lack viable strategies for overcoming the global crisis and therefore are aimed simply at preserving capitalism.¹³

     There are naive ideas about the possibility of achieving economic planning using algorithm-based digital platforms that centralize and manage information without the influence of corrupt interests. A 2017 article by John Thornhill notes the possibility of using state digital platforms for planning production. It quotes Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, who asserts ‘Big Data’ will make the market smarter and eventually build a planned economy.¹⁴

     But so-called big data is actually a spontaneous set of indicators that will never solve the problem of disproportionate economic development. Without eliminating the causes of the global crisis, the expansion of big data only increases the exploitation of personnel and information chaos, leading to a robotic society with massive unemployment and total control over its populations through AI.¹⁵ In his conceptualization of the 4^th industrial revolution and the new trans-humanistic order, Klaus Schwab replaces democracy with the dictatorship of multinational corporations, seeking to use the achievements of the digital revolution to establish complete digital control over humanity.¹⁶

     The situation today confirms the words of the great cyberneticist Norbert Wiener: ‘Let us imagine that the 2^nd [industrial] revolution is over. Then the average person with average or even less ability will not be able to offer anything for sale that would be worth paying money for. There is only one way out: to build a society based on human values different from buying and selling. To build such a society will require a lot of preparation and a lot of struggles, which, under favorable circumstances, can be conducted on the ideological plane, and otherwise – who knows how?’¹⁷

     Schwab’s ideology relies on the paradigm of economic cybernetics. This same paradigm underlies the creation of an automated management system for a socialist economy in the interests of people. This science was born in the USSR – the only country with a history of dedicated attempts to use computing power to improve the quality of life for the people, and not just the profits of a minority segment of society…(To be continued)

Endnotes

8. Raymond Barr, Political Economy (Moscow: International Relations, 1995).

9-10. Veduta, Strategy & Economic Policy Governance.

11. Poteryaiko, ‘Professor Veduta: There Is No ‘Digitalization’ That Can Help, If the Direction of Economic Policies Is Corrupt,’ Svobodnaya Pressa (Dec19, 2019).

12. Politburo Central Committee, ‘Protocol No87 of the Sessions of the Politburo Central Committee VKP’ (Feb 8, 1932): 9; ‘Stalinskoye nevraventsko (Stalinist Inequality).’

13. Veduta, ‘Manifesto for Inclusive Capitalism: ‘Trust Us, & You Will Be Happy,’ REGNUM News Agency, Dec 2, 2021; Veduta, ‘New ‘Green’ Course Called to End Our Economics,’ Business Online, May 26, 2021.

14. Veduta, ‘New ‘Green’ Course…; John Thornhill, ‘The Big Data Revolution Can Revive the Planned Economy,’ Financial Times, Sept 4, 2017.

15. Guy Standing, The Precariat: the New Dangerous Class (NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011).

16. Klaus Schwab & Thierry Malleret, Covid-19: The Great Reset (Zurich: Agentur Schweiz, 2020).

17. Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, or Control & Communication in the Animal & the Machine (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1948), 77.

18. Wiener, Cybernetics. (monthlyreview.org/2022/10/01/some-lessons-on-planning-for-the-twenty-first-century-from-the-worlds-first-socialist-economy/)

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C. News Index______________________________________________

• ee News Index provides headlines & links to make sense of the weekly focus of published English ‘business news’ to expose the backwardness of multinational, corporate controlled ‘local media’:

C1. Sovereignty

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

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

• Days After ‘Threatening’ Saudi Arabia, US Nuclear Submarine Makes A Very Rare Appearance In The Arabian Sea

– eurasiantimes.com/days-after-warning-saudi-arabia-us-nuclear-submarine-makes/

• Quad needs ‘standing force’ in Indo-Pacific: ex-US Navy chief

‘Currently, the 14 time zones spanning from Hawaii to the Indian Ocean are covered by the US Indo-Pacific Command, based in Pearl Harbor….[He] proposed a headquarters for Northeast Asia and a separate headquarters for Southeast Asia that also encompasses the eastern Indian Ocean’

– asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/Quad-needs-standing-force-in-Indo-Pacific-ex-U.S.-Navy-chief

• Indian Ocean should not be ‘playground’ of world military powers: SL

– island.lk/indian-ocean-should-not-be-playground-of-world-military-powers-sl/

– adaderana.lk/news/85805/indian-ocean-should-not-be-playground-of-world-military-powers-sri-lanka

– themorning.lk/indian-ocean-should-not-be-playground-of-world-military-powers-sri-lanka/

• Top US Treasury official visits SL

‘US Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia Robert Kaproth arrived to meet with government and economic experts to discuss the way forward on the country’s economic recovery’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Top-US-Treasury-official-visits-SL/108-247417

– ft.lk/news/Senior-US-Treasury-official-calls-on-President/56-741375

• US Treasury official in Colombo for talks on economic recovery following debt trap mess

‘Kaproth had talks with Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera today on reforms of state-owned enterprises and the petroleum and power sectors.’

– greekcitytimes.com/2022/10/26/us-treasury-official-colombi-bri/

• US senior official holds discussions with government on SOE reforms

– colombopage.com/archive_22B/Oct25_1666719957CH.php

• Quad needs ‘standing force’ in Indo-Pacific: ex-US Navy chief

– asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/Quad-needs-standing-force-in-Indo-Pacific-ex-U.S.-Navy-chief

• US wants Pacific to pick a side

– pacificadvocate.com/us-wanted-pacific-pick-side/?cn-reloaded=1

• EU External Action Service Deputy MD Pampaloni raises concerns on Govt use of PTA

– ft.lk/front-page/EEAS-Deputy-MD-Paola-Pampaloni-raises-EU-s-concerns-on-Govts-extensive-use-of-PTA/44-741445

• US-colony Korea’s Santhush meets with SL’s Sabry

– ft.lk/news/Korea-s-Santhush-meets-with-SL-s-Sabry/56-741431

• SL embassy in USA fails to provide ‘Sri Lanka’s true story’ to US lawmakers.

‘Two US Department of Commerce officials from the Office of the General Counsel’s Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP), Zmarak Khan, Senior Counsel (Standing 4th from left) and Attorney Advisor Jocelyn Steiner met with directors of the Sri Lanka-America Chamber of Commerce’

– island.lk/sl-expatriates-in-us-use-diplomatic-tool-to-promote-trade-commerce-investments/

• Booker Prize for Sri Lankan Peasants!

– youtube.com/watch?v=sTqPOr4_dO0

• Manipulation at World Fellowship of Buddhists Conference – Buddhism Losing Its Voice in Asia

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/27/manipulations-at-world-fellowship-of-buddhists-conference-buddhism-is-losing-its-voice-in-asia/

• EUR 7 mn EU funding for Mediation Boards

‘The four-year project titled ‘Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution’ (SEDR) is implemented by the British Council in partnership with the Asia Foundation.’

– island.lk/eur-7-mn-eu-funding-for-mediation-boards/

• England is already Sri Lanka’s second largest export market (for raw materials!)

‘SL membership in Developing Countries Trading Scheme would enable it to grow – Deputy HC’

– island.lk/sls-membership-of-the-developing-countries-trading-scheme-would-enable-it-to-grow-deputy-british-hc/

• ‘EU Support for Peaceful and Inclusive Society’ project underway

‘For the European Day of Languages partnered by Embassies of Switzerland, Italy, France, Alliance Française, Goethe-Institut and the British Council. This was followed by Threads on Threads: An International Conference on Textiles in Sri Lanka, South Asia and Europe, with the Threads of History Museum and Lanka Decorative Arts, as an initiative of the EU Cultural Heritage Series.’

– island.lk/eu-support-for-peaceful-and-inclusive-society-project-underway/

• ‘Friends of Sri Lanka Group’ re-launched in the European Parliament

– adaderana.lk/news/85825/friends-of-sri-lanka-group-re-launched-in-the-european-parliament

• Lest Sri Lanka has forgotten: All that haunts us today began in 1980s – Waduge

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/23/lest-sri-lanka-has-forgotten-all-that-haunts-us-today-began-in-1980s/

• Returnees who fled to India asked to attend mobile services

‘The ministry estimated the number of returnees at 12,500 belonging to about 7,000 families’

– island.lk/returnees-from-india-asked-to-attend-mobile-services

• When India has 28 states, why does Sri Lanka allow Tamil Nadu to dictate India’s diplomacy with Sri Lanka?

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/25/when-india-has-28-states-why-does-sri-lanka-allow-tamil-nadu-to-dictate-indias-diplomacy-with-sri-lanka/

• Challenges facing the development of Trincomalee port and its environs

‘But all these require three things: political consensus; management of extreme nationalistic and anti-India and anti-foreign sentiments; environmental and legal clearances, and wide consultations with civil society groups so that decisions are not stalled by protests, court cases’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/24/challenges-facing-the-development-of-trincomalee-port-and-its-environs/

• State Minister of Defence, with Army and Navy officers, on visit to India f

– island.lk/india-commits-to-strengthen-defence-cooperation-with-lanka/

• ‘USA and England have much more draconian laws to tackle terrorism’

‘Asela Seresinhe’s Terrorism & the Criminal Law of Sri Lanka…’

– island.lk/thico-investments-money-laundering-and-related-matters/

• Sirisena boasts of his successful foreign policy to current rulers

‘within the last three years, as you all know, this country has been in trouble’

– island.lk/sirisena-boasts-of-his-successful-foreign-policy-to-current-rulers

• Bipartisanship enabling 22nd Amendment needs to be sustained by statesmanship: USAID NPC

– island.lk/bipartisanship-that-enabled-22nd-amendment-needs-to-be-sustained-by-statesmanship/

• Prologue: The Global Fragility Act, April 2022

– blackagendareport.com/document-prologue-global-fragility-act-april-2022

• UN endures, but in the shadow of big powers

– island.lk/un-endures-but-in-the-shadow-of-big-powers/

• ‘India’s Dominion status did not imply something less than independence’?

– island.lk/ups-and-downsii/

• Increasing tensions between the Pakistan Army and Imran Khan portend political unrest

– island.lk/increasing-tensions-between-the-pakistan-army-and-imran-khan-portend-political-unrest/

• Exiled pro-Imran Pakistani Reporter Shot Dead in Kenya

– newsclick.in/exiled-pakistani-reporter-shot-dead-kenya

• Japan’s ‘Special Relationship’ With Myanmar

– irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-column/japans-special-relationship-with-myanmar-has-abetted-decades-of-military-rule.html

• Xi Jinping, 20th Party Congress, and The Developmental World Order

– vk.com/@580896205-xi-jinping-20th-party-congress-and-the-developmental-world-o

• The Importance of the 20th CPC National Congress to the World

– blackagendareport.com/importance-20th-cpc-national-congress-world

• China’s Path to Socialist Modernisation

– newsclick.in/China-Path-Socialist-Modernisation

• The World After the Hegemony – Valdai Discussion Club

– valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-world-after-the-hegemony/

• A World Without Superpowers – Valdai Discussion Club

– valdaiclub.com/a/reports/a-world-without-superpowers/

• Beijing marks 77th anniversary of recovery of Taiwan from Japanese occupation

– globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1277975.shtml

• Why is national reunification an unshakable demand?

– globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1241710.shtml

• UNGA Resolution 2758 cannot be challenged, the one-China principle cannot be shaken: Chinese FM

– globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1277931.shtml

• China won’t export development model, opposes imposition on others

– globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1277885.shtml

• US War Policy traces Cold War mental map

– asiatimes.com/2022/10/bidens-china-policy-traces-cold-war-mental-map/

• Who Started the China War? Nasty Old Xi? Or Mean Old America?

– patreon.com/posts/unlocked-who-war-59931922

• Beware a new generation of ‘Washington Warriors’ bent on deterring China

– scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3158527/beware-new-generation-washington-warriors-bent-deterring-china

• New military leadership appointments show China is bracing itself for conflict

– straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/new-military-leadership-appointments-show-china-is-bracing-itself-for-conflict

• China’s leadership reshuffle puts greater weight on relations with the U.S.

– cnbc.com/2022/10/23/chinas-leadership-reshuffle-puts-greater-weight-on-relations-with-the-us-.html

• Ideological snipers aim at Scholz even before he leaves for China

– globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1277882.shtml

• Kishida Sacks Minister Yamagiwa amid Unification Church Row

– jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2022102400994

• Why is Saudi Arabia Defying the US? – Hitman

‘the Petro-standard is being threatened for the first time in fifty years. China is already buying oil from Russia with yuen.’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/22/why-is-saudi-arabia-defying-the-us/

• Iran: the revolution that never was

‘Don’t be fooled: the CIA, MI6 and Mossad are all out to impose regime change’

– asawinstanley.substack.com/p/iran-the-revolution-that-never-was

• Iran Is Conducting “Massive” Military Drills On The Azerbaijan Border

– oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Iran-Is-Conducting-Massive-Military-Drills-On-The-Azerbaijan-Border.html

• US Recruits Elon Musk’s SpaceX for Iran Regime – New Atlas

– youtube.com/watch?v=z7YPelgBQHw

• US Senator Bob Menendez under criminal investigation over Egyptian contracts

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303317-us-senator-bob-menendez-under-criminal-investigation

• Ethiopia Nears Victory in its Civil War, US Scrambles to Control the Outcome

– blackagendareport.com/ethiopia-nears-victory-its-civil-war-us-scrambles-control-outcome

• An Inversion of Truth: the TPLF and its Commitment to Peace

– blackagendareport.com/inversion-truth-tplf-and-its-commitment-peace

• French Cement giant Lafarge to pay $778m fine for financing Islamic terrorist groups

– theparadise.ng/lafarge-to-pay-778m-fine-for-financing-islamic-terrorist-groups/

• Mali Accuses France of Providing Support for Armed ‘Criminal Groups’

– moroccoworldnews.com/2022/10/351944/mali-accuses-france-of-providing-support-for-armed-criminal-groups

• ‘We will attack the French,’ a livid Mali proclaims after French planes violated its airspace

‘With Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mauritania, the Ivory Coast, and many more nations, it practically controlled 30–40% of Africa.’

– tfiglobalnews.com/2022/10/20/we-will-attack-the-french-a-livid-mali-proclaims-after-french-planes-violated-its-airspace/

• US Undersecretary Nuland Interagency Delegation to Mauritania, Mali, Niger, & Burkina Faso

– miragenews.com/under-secretary-nuland-led-interagency-880141/

• Russian Wagner mercenaries destroying Mali, US delegation warns in Africa

– todaynewsafrica.com/russian-wagner-mercenaries-destroying-mali-u-s-delegation-warns-in-africa/

• “Not One Inch”

‘A new book on the notorious promise which US Secretary of State Baker gave Soviet President Gorbachev in 1990, now at its final test on the battlefields of World War III against Russia.’

– http://johnhelmer.net/stab-in-the-back-not-one-inch-but-right-to-the-heart/#more-69049

• “The US Signals Readiness to Launch Nuclear Strike Against Russia”

– http://johnhelmer.net/the-us-signals-readiness-to-launch-nuclear-strike-against-russia/#more-69043

• Russia’s homage to Nord Stream pipelines

– indianpunchline.com/russias-homage-to-nord-stream-pipelines/

• US breaks ice, Russia thaws – Bhadrakumar

– indianpunchline.com/us-breaks-ice-russia-thaws/

• Washington’s Plan to Break Up Russia

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/28/washingtons-plan-to-break-up-russia/

• Top US and Canadian officials meet to consider armed intervention force in Haiti

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303312-top-us-and-canadian-officials-meet-to-consider-armed-intervention-force-in-haiti

• The US NED’s Role in Undermining Democracy in Haiti

– blackagendareport.com/neds-role-undermining-democracy-haiti

• If Haitians thought imperialism was finished with them, they were mistaken

– counterpunch.org/2022/10/21/roaming-charges-duck-soup-vincent/

• Haiti’s White Warlords, Part 2

– blackagendareport.com/index.php/haitis-white-warlords-part-2

• Canadian tribunal rules Indigenous child compensation deal falls short

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303023-canadian-tribunal-rules-indigenous-child-compensation-deal-falls-short

• Borrell’s Exculpatory Plea: ‘So Many Black Swans – How Could We Have Seen Crisis Coming?’

– english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/borrells-exculpatory-plea:-so-many-black-swans—-how-could

• US gets a nasty surprise in Ukraine – Bhadrakumar

‘Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu exposes the ‘dirty bomb’ conspiracy by Ukraine and its western mentors’

– indianpunchline.com/us-gets-a-nasty-surprise-in-ukraine/

• How to See the World Like the Biden Administration

‘The new US National Security Strategy is a guide to protecting liberal world under chronic threat’

– foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/17/how-to-see-the-world-like-the-biden-administration/

• On Going Seriously Boom

‘Biden, Blinken, and Bolton, bibbety bobbety boo, and their families, live in DC, the priority target. While the rats are aboard the ship, they won’t sink it. If they are discovered boarding a Greyhound out of Washington at three a.m., dressed as washerwomen, it will be time to worry.’

– thesaker.is/on-going-seriously-boom/

• Biden Orders Progressives to Denounce Themselves on Ukraine

– blackagendareport.com/biden-orders-progressives-denounce-themselves-ukraine

• Jeffrey Sachs shutdown by NYTimes for calling US “the most violent country in the world” at Athens Democracy Forum.

– johnmenadue.com/extraordinary-intervention-by-jeffrey-sachs-at-the-athens-democracy-forum/

________________________________________________________________

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.

• Gifting of cars worth Rs 10 mn each to retired Anglican Bishops without authority

– island.lk/court-clears-way-for-diocesan-council-and-elections-of-anglican-church/

• Indian trawler poaching in SL waters intercepted with its crew of seven

‘brought to the Kankesanthurai Harbour and handed over to the Mailadi Fisheries Inspector’

– island.lk/india-hosts-interpol-general-assembly-this-week/

• BASL: If 21A fails, that will adversely affect future law reform initiatives

– island.lk/basl-if-21a-fails-that-will-adversely-affect-future-law-reform-initiatives/

• Ensure integrity of nominations to Constitutional Council: Sri Lanka Bar Association

– economynext.com/ensure-integrity-of-nominations-to-constitutional-council-sri-lanka-bar-association-101478/

• HRCSL writes to minister on application of Police Ordinance to civilian protests

– themorning.lk/hrcsl-writes-to-minister-on-application-of-police-ordinance-to-civilian-protests/

• Call for probe on Sumanthiran’s criticism of SC: Speaker says matter in hands of party leaders

– island.lk/call-for-probe-on-sumanthirans-criticism-of-sc-speaker-says-the-matter-in-the-hands-of-party-leaders/

• Newly acquired US offshore petrol craft for Sri Lanka reaches Singapore

– island.lk/newly-acquired-sl-offshore-petrol-craft-reaches-singagpore/

• Navy boat found after extensive search operation by several countries and agencies

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/navy-boat-found-after-extensive-search-operation-by-several-countries-and-agencies-499831.html

• Indian Cops uncover links between Coimbatore bomber & Zahran Hashim

– english.newsfirst.lk/2022/10/26/indian-cops-uncover-links-between-coimbatore-bomber-zahran-hashim

– english.newsfirst.lk/2022/10/29/coimbatore-bomber-reveals-links-to-april-attacks

• CBK assassination attempt suspects among LTTE prisoners pardoned by President

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/23/presidential-pardons-for-8-ltte-prisoners/

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Eight-ex-LTTE-cadres-get-Presidential-pardon/108-247311

• Minister Devananda gets Rs 200,000 compensation for attack in prison

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Minister-Devananda-gets-Rs-200-000-compensation-for-attack-in-prison/2-1139274

• Lucky criminals

‘The President’s Office has said CBK was consulted and her approval obtained for the presidential pardon for the aforesaid LTTE cadres. This, President Wickremesinghe has done while a hunt is on for the leaders of Aragalaya!’

– island.lk/lucky-criminals/

• Govt has no defence against HR allegations if PTA detainees are mistreated – Dilan

– english.newsfirst.lk/2022/10/26/govt-has-no-defence-against-hr-allegations-if-pta-detainees-are-mistreated-dilan

• Tangalle Magistrate orders TID Director to appear in courts

‘for not reporting facts about the two IUSF leaders Wasantha Mudalige and Ven. Galwewa Siridhamma Thera, who are being detained under the PTA for 90 days.’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Tangalle-Magistrate-orders-TID-Director-to-appear-in-courts/108-247502

• Protest opposite Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) in Narahenpita

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Protest-opposite-TID-office/2-1139298

• PTA detained IUSF leader Siridhamma Thera hospitalised with serious illness

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/PTA-detained-IUSF-leader-Siridhamma-Thera-hospitalised-with-serious-illness/108-247460

• Do not extend D/O against Wasantha & Siridhamma Thero – HRCSL

– english.newsfirst.lk/2022/10/26/do-not-extend-d-o-against-wasantha-siridhamma-thero-hrcsl

• Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) demands release of Aragalaya activists…

– dailymirror.lk/caption_story/Demanding-release-of-Aragalaya-activists/110-247574

• Complaint against Ananmaduwa SJB organiser

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Complaint-against-Ananmaduwa-SJB-organiser/2-1139317

• Luxury prison cell gazette is yet to be implemented

– themorning.lk/luxury-prison-cell-gazette-is-yet-to-be-implemented/

• 36 shot dead among 435 murders in 2022 so far….

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/36-shot-dead-among-435-murders/108-247579

• Vehicle thefts spike, alert issued

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Vehicle-thefts-spike-alert-issued/108-247622

• More vehicles stolen during first nine months of 2022 than during whole of 2021

– island.lk/more-vehicles-stolen-during-first-nine-months-of-2022-than-during-whole-of-2021/

• Drug dealer assaulted, wife raped for failure to settle dues

– island.lk/drug-dealer-assaulted-wife-raped-for-failure-to-settle-dues/

• SI arrested after police weapon fired accidentally during tense situation in Thihagoda

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SI-arrested-after-police-weapon-fired-accidentally-during-tense-situation-in-Thihagoda/108-247644

• General amnesty for Armed Forces absentees

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/General-amnesty-for-Armed-Forces-absentees/108-247642

– adaderana.lk/news/85813/general-amnesty-for-tri-forces-absentees

• Police will have 16,000 vacancies end of the year :IGP

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Police-will-have-16-000-vacancies-end-of-the-year-IGP/2-1139273

• Over 4,000 cops in SL are physically unfit: IGP

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Over-4-000-cops-in-SL-are-physically-unfit-IGP/108-247490

• Govt. to get tough with shirkers in uniform making false claims

– island.lk/govt-to-get-tough-with-shirkers-in-uniform-making-false-claims/

• Indian Ayurveda for Sri Lankan police personnel

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/25/indian-ayurveda-for-sri-lankan-police-personnel/

• Probe on former US Naval electrical engineer’s death in Sri Lanka

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Probe-on-former-US-Naval-electrical-engineers-death/2-1139264

• Human rights violation probes: Nawaz J’s panel’s term extended

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/human-rights-violation-probes-nawaz-js-panels-term-extended-499808.html

• Constitutional yo-yo games and a ‘rehabilitation’ bill in the gutter

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/columns/constitutional-yo-yo-games-and-a-rehabilitation-bill-in-the-gutter-499662.html

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/columns/president-must-not-repeat-gotas-rehab-gazette-folly-499626.html

• Court calls for investigation report against Diana Gamage on passport issue

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Court-calls-for-investigation-report-against-Diana-Gamage-on-passport-issue/108-247554

• Ex-soldier who obtained passport under different name arrested on return from Dubai

– island.lk/ex-soldier-who-obtained-passport-under-different-name-arrested-on-return-from-dubai/

• Court of Appeal commutes teenager’s death penalty to 7-year-jail

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/CA-commutes-teenagers-death-penalty-to-7-year-jail/108-247505

• Engineering faculty murder in 1997 after ragging: Appeal Court upholds death sentence

– dailymirror.lk/top_story/Engineering-faculty-students-murder-in-1997-following-severe-ragging-Appeal-Court-upholds-death-sentence-for-convict/155-247643

• STF arrests accomplices of overseas underworld gangsters

– timesonline.lk/news-online/STF-arrests-accomplices-of-overseas-underworld-gangsters/2-1139297

• India hosts Interpol General Assembly this week

– island.lk/india-hosts-interpol-general-assembly-this-week/

• Afghan money lenders were numerous in Ceylon with no respect for the Money Lending Act

– island.lk/some-tidbits-from-my-practice-in-the-district-court-of-colombo/

• Over 500 retired US military personnel advising foreign governments since 2015

– counterpunch.org/2022/10/21/roaming-charges-duck-soup-vincent/

• Wife Murderer invited by Saskatchewan to attend throne speech at legislature

– theline.substack.com/p/kristin-raworth-desperate-for-consistent

_____________________________________________________________

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.

• Exogenous Economic Shocks “Make the Economy Scream”: With Neo(liberal) Civil Society in the Asian 21^st Century?

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/22/exogenous-economic-shocks-make-the-economy-scream-with-neoliberal-civil-society-in-the-asian-21^st-century/

• If Government shuts down SLAirlines, cancelling debt to state banks & CPC will crash banks

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/23/srilankan-airlines-is-it-a-paradise/

• SL state finances would improve with domestic domestic restructure: US Verité Research

‘The Verité Research Sri Lanka Economic Policy Group members are: Prof. Dileni Gunewardena, Prof. Mick Moore, Dr. Nishan de Mel, and Prof. Shantayanan Devarajan.’

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-state-finances-would-improve-with-domestic-domestic-restructure-think-tank-101433/

– ft.lk/front-page/Verit%C3%A9-Research-Sri-Lanka-Economic-Policy-Group-moots-domestic-debt-restructuring/44-741277

• Considering the benefits if Govt. restructures domestic debt: US Verité Research

– dailymirror.lk/news-features/Considering-the-benefits-if-Govt-restructures-domestic-debt/131-247396

• Ambitious targets with no proper plans a major pitfall in budgets: US Verité Research

– ft.lk/front-page/Ambitious-targets-with-no-proper-plans-a-major-pitfall-in-budgets-Verit%C3%A9-Research/44-741275

• Another crucial discussion of Sri Lanka’s creditors fixed for November 3

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Another-crucial-discussion-of-Sri-Lankas-creditors-fixed-for-November-3/2-1139314

• What happened to ‘radio-silence’ on IMF Agreement? – Harsha

– english.newsfirst.lk/2022/10/29/what-happened-to-radio-silence-harsha

• IMF remains only hope for Sri Lanka to emerge from crisis: CB Governor

‘President’s Media Division Director General Dhanushka Ramanayake with Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe: SL expects to obtain financing assurances from its creditors by Dec. and activate US $ 2.9bn IMF bailout package by Jan. 2023’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/IMF-remains-only-hope-for-Sri-Lanka-to-emerge-from-crisis-CB-Governor/108-247393

• ‘Stabilization is a very very painful process’ – CBSL Governor

– english.newsfirst.lk/2022/10/25/stabilization-is-a-very-very-painful-process-cbsl-governor

• Government told to act soon on re-profiling domestic debt to avoid haircuts

‘the present path of quietly restructuring domestic debt through high inflation disproportionately hurts Sri Lanka’s wage-dependent working population and increases poverty’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Government-told-to-act-soon-on-re-profiling-domestic-debt-to-avoid-haircuts/108-247385

• Central Bank confirms SL looking to lower lending category to access concessional funding

‘launch of the State of the Economy 2022 report’

– dailymirror.lk/business/CB-confirms-SL-looking-to-lower-lending-category-to-gain-access-to-concessional-funding/215-247457

• Central Bank observes sizeable return of currency in circulation into banking system

– dailymirror.lk/business/Cbobservessizeablereturnofcurrencyin-circulationintobankingsystem/215-247452

• Central Bank survey reveals 58% of Lankan adults financially illiterate

– dailymirror.lk/business/Central-Bank-survey-reveals-58-of-Lankan-adults-financially-illiterate/215-247456

• IMF loan installment expected early next year – Minister of Foreign Affairs

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/23/imf-loan-installment-expected-early-next-year-minister-of-foreign-affairs/

• IMF program contingent on higher direct taxes

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/23/sri-lankas-tax-conundrum-2022/

• Sarwat Jahan now IMF Resident Representative for Sri Lanka

‘Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the President on National Security Sagala Ratnayake met with the outgoing and the incoming IMF Resident Representative for Sri Lanka… President’s Senior Adviser on Economic Affairs R.H.S. Samaratunga also joined.’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Sarwat-Jahan-now-IMF-Resident-Representative-for-Sri-Lanka/108-247627

– ft.lk/ft_tv/IMF-representatives-discussion-on-prior-action-and-debt-restructuring/10520-741406

– ft.lk/front-page/Sagala-holds-talks-with-IMF-on-fast-tracking-debt-restricting/44-741442

– http://bizenglish.adaderana.lk/meeting-between-presidential-senior-advisor-sagala-ratnayake-and-imf-representatives-to-discuss-prior-action-and-debt-restructuring/

• Crucial talks on debt restructuring to be held next week

– island.lk/crucial-talks-on-debt-restructuring-to-be-held-next-week/

• Role of tax cuts in Sri Lankan crisis – Asia Times

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/24/role-of-tax-cuts-in-sri-lankan-crisis/

• More tax hikes in upcoming Budget

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/more-tax-hikes-in-upcoming-budget-499874.html

• Out-of-the box approach to raise taxes

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/out-of-the-box-approach-to-raise-taxes-499471.html

• New tax rates unfeasible with 45% below poverty: Harsha

– ft.lk/front-page/New-tax-rates-unfeasible-with-45-below-poverty-Harsha/44-741279

• SJB vows to defeat proposed tax reforms in Parliament

– ft.lk/news/SJB-vows-to-defeat-proposed-tax-reforms-in-Parliament/56-741356

• Govt.’s taxation crusade faces legal hurdle

– ft.lk/front-page/Govt-s-taxation-crusade-faces-legal-hurdle/44-741363

• Auditor General can’t act against wrongdoers without National Audit Service Commission

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/tax-rupees-at-work-499476.html

• Independent Commissions under threat: Sajith warns against replacing Rohini & Punchihewa

– island.lk/independent-commissions-under-threat-sajith-warns-against-move-to-replace-rohini-and-punchihewa/

• Sri Lanka opposition MP presents private bill to remove secrecy clause in asset declaration act

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SJB-MP-submits-a-Private-Members-Bill/108-247435

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-opposition-mp-presents-private-bill-to-remove-secrecy-clause-in-asset-declaration-act-101455/

– ft.lk/front-page/Eran-campaigns-for-effective-assets-declaration/44-741290

• Former Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal released on bail

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Ajith-Nivard-Cabraal-released-on-bail/108-247491

• Technical Errors in the Legal System – Kulatunga.

‘During the last few months, we had the crude shock of so many cases before higher courts getting dismissed due to technical errors in the filing of the case’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/25/legal-system/

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure performance of Govt. agencies: Namal

– ft.lk/front-page/KPIs-to-measure-performance-of-Govt-agencies/44-741437

• Public support vital for SL’s economic recovery process – CBSL Governor

– island.lk/public-support-vital-for-sls-economic-recovery-process-cbsl-governor/

• Reviving declining tea production vital for increasing export earnings – Sanderatne

‘unavailability of chemical fertilisers, weedicides and fuel and financial constraints have been responsible for this dip in production and exports.’

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/columns/reviving-declining-tea-production-vital-for-increasing-export-earnings-499665.html

• Child’s guide to Ranilnomics VII: Economic reforms unproductive unless extractive institutions are halted – Wijewardena

– ft.lk/columns/Child-s-guide-to-Ranilnomics-VII-Economic-reforms-unproductive-unless-extractive-institutions-are-halted/4-741255

• Central Bank continues MMT-styled money printing despite monetary policy tightening – Colombage

– ft.lk/columns/Central-Bank-continues-MMT-styled-money-printing-despite-monetary-policy-tightening/4-741305

• Mr. President, do you know the ground reality? Rohantha NA Athukorala, Head, Indian AI company for Sri Lanka, Maldives and Pakistan

‘Mr. President, you have been put on alert by UNHCR on this issue and it’s time you take decisive steps to identify those who were responsible for Economic crimes. The 22nd Amendment has given you the teeth to do this task as all in the parliament are Sri Lankan citizens.’

– ft.lk/columns/Mr-President-do-you-know-the-ground-reality/4-741308

• The road to crisis and what lies beyond – US Advocata’s Razeen Salley

– ft.lk/columns/The-road-to-crisis-and-what-lies-beyond/4-741379

• ADB’s GDP growth forecast for Sri Lanka in 2022 is a staggering -7.6 % – Seneka Abeyratne

– island.lk/is-the-interim-budget-speech-growth-oriented/

• Global economic recession – A crisis of capitalism?

– island.lk/global-economic-recession-a-crisis-of-capitalism/

• Rising Hunger, Growing Poverty – Prabhat Patnaik

‘The Global Hunger Index (GHI) for 2022 recently came out, showing India occupying the 107^th position among the 121 countries…war-ravaged Afghanistan (rank 109); the rank of crisis-hit Sri Lanka is 64, of Nepal 81, of Bangladesh 84 and of Pakistan 99.’

– newsclick.in/rising-hunger-growing-poverty

• Why Tax Cuts on Rich Boomeranged on Liz Truss – Prabhat Patnaik

– newsclick.in/Why-Tax-Cuts-Rich-Boomeranged-Liz-Truss

• Chinese modernisation carries global significance – Ambassador of China to Sri Lanka

– ft.lk/columns/Chinese-modernisation-carries-global-significance/4-741419

• Why Economic Inequality is a Burning Issue that Needs Attention

‘A new report by Oxfam & the Development Finance Institution (DFI) has revealed that most governments failed to take necessary steps to combat the explosion of inequality caused by Covid.’

– newsclick.in/Economic-Inequality-Burning-Issue-Needs-Attention

• IMF cuts Asia’s economic growth forecast in latest regional projection

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Intl-Monetary-Fund-cuts-Asias-economic-growth-forecast-in-latest-regional-projection/273-247664

• World Bank: Unprecedented shocks rattle South Asia, exacerbating challenges & dampening growth

– island.lk/wb-unprecedented-shocks-rattle-south-asia-exacerbating-challenges-and-dampening-growth/

• Currency depreciations risk intensifying global food, energy crisis: World Bank

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Currency-depreciations-risk-intensifying-global-food-energy-crisis-World-Bank/108-247518

• Wall Street bankers in Riyadh renew warnings over world economy

– reuters.com/business/jpmorgans-dimon-says-world-politics-more-concerning-than-possible-us-recession-2022-10-25/

• Life Expectancy: The US and Cuba in the Time of Covid

– socialistproject.ca/2022/10/life-expectancy-usa-cuba-time-of-covid/

• The inflation conundrum – Roberts

‘The current sharp rise in inflation rates in all the major economies does not derive from so-called ‘excessive demand’; or from excessive money supply growth; or wage demands forcing companies to raise prices. It primarily relies on the failure of supply to match demand.’

– thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2022/10/28/the-inflation-conundrum/

• Slouching towards utopia; or hurtling towards disaster? Roberts on DeLong

‘DeLong falls back on old ones: the classic Keynesian prescription for the vagaries of the market economy: “governments must manage, and manage competently”.’

– thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2022/10/25/slouching-towards-utopia-or-hurtling-towards-disaster/

_____________________________________________

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.

• Days Leading Up to the 2023 Budget on Nov.14

– ft.lk/front-page/Govt-to-present-Budget-2023-on-14-Nov/44-741370

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/2023-Budget-on-Nov-14/108-247552

– island.lk/budget-to-be-presented-on-14-nov/

• Committee on Public Finance approves four out of five Gazettes

– island.lk/committee-on-public-finance-approves-four-out-of-five-gazettes/

• Large-scale tax evasion and the role played by chartered accountants/tax consultants

– island.lk/accusations-reiterated-explanation-sought-from-fm/

• Nationwide food inflation peaks to 86%

– ft.lk/front-page/Nationwide-food-inflation-peaks-to-86/44-741298

• New State Management Act to manage state assets

‘no proper records of the majority of over 400 SOEs operating in several key sectors’

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/new-state-management-act-to-manage-state-assets-499459.html

• President appoints committee to ensure availability of essential items

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/President-appoints-committee-to-ensure-availability-of-essential-items/108-247520

• Supreme Court concludes hearing into VAT bill: Determination to be communicated to Speaker

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SC-concludes-hearing-into-VAT-bill-Determination-to-be-communicated-to-Speaker/108-247503

• Tax on export crops likely in Budget 2023

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/tax-on-export-crops-likely-in-budget-2023-499492.html

• First 9-months export haul surpasses $ 10 b mark

– ft.lk/top-story/First-9-months-export-haul-surpasses-10-b-mark/26-741289

• Traders, services providers resist passing on cost reductions

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/traders-services-providers-resist-passing-on-cost-reductions-499792.html

• Union Assurance study reveals low saving patterns among Sri Lankans

– island.lk/union-assurance-study-reveals-low-saving-patterns-among-sri-lankans/

• Indonesia offers 10-year visa for US $ 128,000 in bank

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Indonesia-offers-10-year-visa-for-US-128-000-in-bank/273-247665

• China economy grows, but Xi’s new power spooks investors – AFP

– ft.lk/front-page/China-economy-grows-but-Xi-s-new-power-spooks-investors/44-741271

• Japan to spend $ 260 b to tackle inflation, weak yen

– ft.lk/front-page/Japan-to-spend-260-b-to-tackle-inflation-weak-yen/44-741438

• US economy grows for first time this year in third quarter

– ft.lk/front-page/US-economy-grows-for-first-time-this-year-in-third-quarter/44-741439

• Even as U.S. economic recovery rebounds, demand stalls

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303246-even-as-us-economic-recovery-rebounds-demand-stalls

• US Fed’s Powell Calls US Economy “Robust” as Personal Savings Rate Collapses to Same Level as in Financial Crisis of 2008

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/10/feds-powell-calls-u-s-economy-robust-as-personal-savings-rate-collapses-to-same-level-as-in-financial-crisis-of-2008/

_________________________________________________________________________

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

• Trade Union Collective Centre (TUCC) and the Combined People’s Movement Protest Arrests

– dailymirror.lk/caption_story/Protest-Rally-held/110-247570

• JVP-led trade union front issues warnings to govt.

‘The rally with JVP trade union wing leader, K.D. Lalkantha, was organised by the Trade Union Coordinating Centre’s United People’s Movement (TUCCPM), at Hyde Park, Colombo. Chairman of the All Ceylon Management Services Officers’ Union, Udeni Dissanayake, Independent Port Employees’ Union President, Lal Bandamuwa, Ven. Koswatte Mahanama Thera representing the Galle Face strugglers, President of the Colombo University Students’ Union, Hiruna Hettiarachchi, President of the Association of Health Professionals, Ravi Kumudesh, lawyer Dr. Kaushalya Ariyarathne, Progressive Women’s Collective, Ceylon Bank Employees’ Union President, Chandana Dissanayake, Workers’ Rights Movement’s General Secretary, Piyasiri Fernando, Amila Jeewantha Peiris, representing the Galle Face strugglers, said: “I visited Convenor of the Inter-University Bhikku Federation, Galewela Siridhamma Thera, D.M.P. Abeyratne, of the Railway Unions’ Alliance,

Inter-Company Employees Union (JVP), Wasantha Samarasinghe. Also: All Ceylon Medical Officers’ Association President Dr. Jayantha Bandara, General Secretary of the Samagi Workers’ Union Subash Perera, Socialist Youth Union National Organizer Eranga Gunasekera, National Programme Coordinator of Da-Bindu Collective Chamila Thushari, All Ceylon Nurses’ Union Chairman Amila Ratnayake, National Organizer of the All Ceylon Fisheries Federation Ratna Gamage, Secretary of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation branch of the Sri Lanka Nidahas Sevaka Sangamaya Nishantha Ranaweera, National Water Supply and Drainage Board Workers’ Union President SGN Liyanarachchi, All Ceylon Farmers’ Federation Secretary T.B. Sarath, National Trade UInion Front Organizer Tamara Gayani Hettipola, Harbour Workers’ Union Alliance’s Roshan Perera, Sri Lanka Postal and Telecommunication Workers’ Union Chairman Chinthaka Bandara, Attorney-at-Law Manoj Nanayakkara representing the Galle Face strugglers, Jagath Manuwarna of the Aluth Parapura, President of the Moratuwa University Students’ Union Nishan Kavinda, and Priyantha Prabhath of the CEB United Trade Unions Alliance’

– island.lk/jvp-led-trade-union-front-issues-warnings-to-govt/

• EUR 7 mn EU funding for Mediation Boards

‘The four-year project titled ‘Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution’ (SEDR) is implemented by the British Council in partnership with the Asia Foundation.’

– island.lk/eur-7-mn-eu-funding-for-mediation-boards/

• Jobs freeze at apparel factories

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/jobs-freeze-at-apparel-factories-499489.html

• Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) claims relationship with trade unions, apparel workers

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/JAAF-to-strengthen-and-consolidate-relationship-with-trade-unions-apparel-workers/108-247670

• JAAF presses Govt. for more FTAs as key to boost apparel’s resilience

– ft.lk/top-story/JAAF-presses-Govt-for-more-FTAs-as-key-to-boost-apparel-s-resilience/26-741446

• Airline Pilots – salaries and income tax reforms

– island.lk/airline-pilots-salaries-and-income-tax-reforms/

• India to witness highest salary hike in 2023; Sri Lanka among lowest wages in the World

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/India-to-witness-highest-salary-hike-in-2023-Sri-Lanka-among-lowest-in-the-World/108-247556

• Sri Lanka opposition leader proposes dollar-earning sectors be taxed less

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-opposition-leader-proposes-dollar-earning-sectors-be-taxed-less-101467/

• University Teachers Association goes before Supreme Court against Inland Revenue Bill

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/University-Teachers-Association-goes-before-Supreme-Court-against-Inland-Revenue-Bill/108-247633

• Govt. says 58% of households seeking financial assistance under various social welfare schemes

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Govt-says-58-of-households-seeking-financial-assistance-under-various-social-welfare-schemes/108-247595

• Accepting applications for ‘Leave No One Behind’ welfare benefits program ends

– adaderana.lk/news/85821/accepting-applications-for-leave-no-one-behind-welfare-benefits-program-ends

• Millions without meals, children skipping school

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/millions-without-meals-children-skipping-school-499785.html

• Road mishap claims one, injures 32 in Mawanella

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Road-mishap-claims-one-injures-32-in-Mawanella/108-247420

• China gives unforgettable Deepavali present of houses to 10 residents of Kaluvankerny

– island.lk/china-gives-unforgettable-deepavali-present-to-10-residents-of-kaluvankerny/

• Report on minor children’s care mandatory for women aged below 45 when migrating: SLFEB

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/22/report-on-minor-childrens-care-mandatory-for-women-aged-below-45-when-migrating-slfeb/

• Stop mothers who have children under five years from leaving for foreign jobs: Geetha

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Stop-mothers-who-have-children-under-five-years-from-leaving-for-foreign-jobs-Geetha/108-247524

• English as the medium of instruction in the Law College will definitely ensure quality

– island.lk/english-as-medium-of-instruction-at-law-college/

• Foreign jobs: Lanka fails to seize opportunities for want of planning

– island.lk/foreign-jobs-lanka-fails-to-seize-opportunities-for-want-of-planning/

• SL migrant workers permit to import e-vehicles with CIF value of up to 50% of remittances sent

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SL-migrant-workers-permit-to-import-e-vehicles-with-CIF-value-of-up-to-50-of-remittances-sent/108-247492

• Local IT industry battles mass mid-level migration

– themorning.lk/local-it-industry-battles-mass-mid-level-migration/

• 45 attempting to migrate illegally to Australia arrested

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/45-attempting-to-migrate-illegally-to-Australia-arrested/108-247303

– island.lk/police-foil-another-bid-to-migrate-to-australia-illegally/

• England accused of putting Lankan Tamil refugees at risk in Indian Ocean

– island.lk/uk-accused-of-putting-lankan-tamil-refugees-at-risk-in-indian-ocean/

• ‘Illegal to deport Lankan refugees in England’s Diego Garcia island’

– themorning.lk/illegal-to-deport-lankan-refugees-in-britains-diego-garcia-island/

• Compensation of Rs 30 m awarded in a case of medical negligence

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Compensation-of-Rs-30-m-awarded-in-a-case-of-medical-negligence/2-1138955

• Two arrested with a rifle in a Sugar factory

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Two-arrested-with-a-rifle-in-a-Sugar-factory/2-1139256

• Child safety in society is a Human Right! – Editorial

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Child-safety-in-society-is-a-Human-Right-EDITORIAL/172-247583

• High prevalence of HIV among school and university students

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/25/high-prevalence-of-hiv-among-school-and-university-students/

– dailymirror.lk/top_story/HIV-spreading-among-youngsters-Medical-Expert/155-247496

• Alarming narcotics crisis in Jaffna: From a group of 22, 19 tested positive yesterday

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/alarming-narcotics-crisis-in-jaffna-from-a-group-of-22-19-tested-positive-yesterday-499866.html

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/ritai-youths-sucked-into-drug-hell-by-the-dozen-crimes-rebound-499775.html

• USAID, Pizza Hut launch 28 Training Kitchens for Sri Lankan youth

‘Taco Bell, Domino’s, McDonald’s, Burger King and Popeyes pledged to support Pizza Hut’s efforts by providing trainers and employment opportunities for graduates.’

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/usaid-pizza-hut-launch-28-training-kitchens-for-sri-lankan-youth-499462.html

• I have seen immense progress in my village since Independence

– island.lk/have-we-progressed-since-independence/

• Educational reforms Sri Lanka demands today for a brighter tomorrow

– island.lk/educational-reforms-sri-lanka-demands-today-for-a-brighter-tomorrow-5/

• ‘My hope is necessary, but not enough’ teaching and learning Feminism at the University

– island.lk/my-hope-is-necessary-but-not-enough-teaching-and-learning-feminism-at-the-university/

• German Day at Musaeus College

‘graced by German Ambassador in Sri Lanka Holger Seubert and the Chairman of Musaeus College, Ajita De Zoysa. Stefan Winkler Director of Goethe-Institut Sri Lanka…’

– island.lk/german-day-at-musaeus-college/

• Baqian Law Group is debarred by the Supreme Court

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Baqian-Law-Group-is-debarred-by-the-Supreme-Court/2-1139261

• Sri Lanka Tourist Development Authority (SLTDA) permits employment of overseas therapists

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SLTDA-permits-employment-of-therapists-from-overseas/108-247433

• I don’t mind whoever brings Disney Land or even hell into this country: Women and Child Affairs State Minister

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/I-dont-mind-whoever-brings-Disney-Land-or-even-hell-into-this-country-Geetha/108-247508

• Monkey Appears At Batticaloa Funeral To Mourn

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/22/monkey-appears-at-funeral-to-mourn-the-man-who-showed-her-kindness-we-have-feelings-and-so-do-other-animals/

• India Bank Employees to Go on Strike for a Day on Nov 19 Against ‘Growing Attacks’

‘outsource various non-core activities in a branch and to transfer employees.’

– newsclick.in/bank-employees-go-strike-day-nov-19-growing-attacks

• Climate impact on health: India’s heat-related deaths went up by 55% – The Lancet data

– island.lk/climate-impact-on-health-indias-heat-related-deaths-went-up-by-55-the-lancet-data/

• 4 New Zealand Uber Drivers Declared Employees in Landmark Ruling

– newsclick.in/4-new-zealand-uber-drivers-declared-employees-landmark-ruling

• Australia’s most notorious #MeToo case ends in chaos

– rt.com/news/565449-australia-metoo-brittany-higgins/

• The US Working Class: Friend or Foe? – Che Guevara (1954)

– redsails.org/amiga-o-enemiga/

• Even nuns watch porn, Pope says, warning of risks

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Even-nuns-watch-porn-Pope-says-warning-of-risks/108-247559

• The Rot of LA’s Neoliberal Democratic Party Politics

‘Herein lies the real problem, which is the rot that is liberal Democratic Party politics and its dependence on identity politics and neoliberal multiculturalism.’

– blackagendareport.com/rot-las-neoliberal-democratic-party-politics

• Educators and Critical Pedagogy: An Antidote to Authoritarianism

– socialistproject.ca/2022/10/educators-and-critical-pedagogy/

• White Nationalists to Convene at American Renaissance Conference in Tennessee in November

– blackagendareport.com/white-nationalists-will-convene-american-renaissance-conference

_________________________________________________________________________

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.

• Importing wheat flour through Open Accounts allowed from today

– adaderana.lk/news/85809/importing-wheat-flour-through-open-accounts-allowed-from-today

• Agriculture Ministry says adequate paddy stocks available

– adaderana.lk/news/85820/agriculture-ministry-says-adequate-paddy-stocks-available-

• COPE raises Land Reforms Commission (LRC) failure to collect Rs 2 bn, lawyer drawing two salaries

– island.lk/cope-raises-lrcs-failure-to-collect-rs-2-bn-lawyer-drawing-two-salaries/

• Neglect of ancient tanks ruins Nuwara Kalaviya – Karunaratne.

“It is absolutely necessary that action is taken to revert to the vibrant system that we had when the GA was handling minor irrigation with the Vel Vidanes or when the Agrarian Services was handling with the cultivation committees. Otherwise the death knell of Nuwara Kalaviya is a foregone conclusion.”

– island.lk/neglect-of-ancient-tanks-ruins-nuwara-kalaviya/

• Establish a Marketing Department Today – Karunaratne

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/25/working-in-trade-requires-trusted-officers/

• We should go beyond the traditional systems to earn more foreign income – PM

– adaderana.lk/news/85817/we-should-go-beyond-the-traditional-systems-to-earn-more-foreign-income-pm

• Buddhasasana Minister orders release of some land around Kurundi Viharaya for cultivation

– island.lk/buddhasasana-minister-orders-release-of-some-land-around-kurundi-viharaya-for-cultivation/

• Local government institutions should emulate the CMC and help increase food production

– island.lk/a-little-bit-of-sunshine/

• Sri Lanka President relaxes broken rice imports for animal feed

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-president-relaxes-broken-rice-imports-for-animal-feed-101465/

• SL receives 144 MT of maize seeds from Japan for Maha cultivation

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/SL-receives-144-MT-of-maize-seeds-from-JICA-Emergency-Assistance-for-Maha-cultivation/273-247663

• Urea offloaded at Colombo Port for paddy and maize harvest

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Improved-harvest-ahead/273-247668

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/First-shipment-carrying-13-000-MT-urea-unloaded/108-247626

• PM visited crop plantations

‘maintained under the Food Security Committee at Kethumathi Viharaya in Sri Jayawardenepura’

– dailymirror.lk/caption_story/PM-visited-crop-plantations/110-247507

• Sri Lanka coconut prices gain for 5th week

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-coconut-prices-gain-for-5th-week-101508/

• Sri Lanka aims for food security after ill-fated fertilizer ban – Nikkei Asia

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/24/sri-lanka-aims-for-food-security-after-ill-fated-fertilizer-ban/

• TN’s first Sri Lankan-Tamil traditional food shop opens in Thoothukudi

– island.lk/tns-first-sri-lankan-tamil-traditional-food-shop-opens-in-thoothukudi/

• Contribution of governors & provincial council officers essential for rural revival: PM

– themorning.lk/contribution-of-governors-provincial-council-officers-essential-for-rural-economic-revival-pm/

• Ross Dairies acquires Watawala’s fresh milk arm Lonach

– ft.lk/front-page/Ross-Dairies-acquires-Watawala-s-fresh-milk-arm-Lonach/44-741276

• Poultry farmers struggle to obtain animal feed: All Island Poultry Farmers’ Association

‘Since the industry’s parent bird farms have stopped their buy-back programmes, 20,000 small and medium scale poultry farmers among 30,000, have already shut down their businesses, he claimed.

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/poultry-farmers-continue-to-struggle-to-obtain-animal-feed-499788.html

• SL’s animal husbandry industry suffers due to animal feed scarcity, price hike: Amaraweera

addressing the USSEC-US Soybean Export Council annual conference in Washington, USA’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SLs-animal-husbandry-industry-suffers-due-to-animal-feed-scarcity-price-hike-Amaraweera/108-247356

• Colombo Tea Auction sees 5.3 MnKgs come under hammer this week

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Colombo-Tea-Auction-sees-5-3-MnKgs-come-under-hammer-this-week/273-247667

• Syria starts buying tea from India in absence of supplies from Sri Lanka

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Syria-starts-buying-tea-from-India-in-absence-of-supplies-from-Sri-Lanka/108-247636

• Tax on export crops likely in Budget 2023

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/tax-on-export-crops-likely-in-budget-2023-499492.html

• Health Ministry takes lead in cutting down salt by ordering all its canteens not to add it to rice

– island.lk/health-ministry-takes-lead-in-cutting-down-salt-by-ordering-all-its-canteens-not-to-add-it-to-rice/

• What should one do when scientists differ on safety of glyphosate?

– island.lk/what-should-one-do-when-scientists-differ-on-safety-of-glyphosate/

• Netherlands to provide innovative agro know-how to ‘Grow Food’ program

– ft.lk/news/Netherlands-to-provide-innovative-agro-know-how-to-Grow-Food-program/56-741433

• Aflatoxins saga: bitter truth

– island.lk/aflatoxins-sagabitter-truth/

• President sacks Central Environmental Authority Chairman for environmental exploitation

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/columns/president-sacks-cea-chairman-for-environmental-exploitation-499834.html

• Young Zoologists’ Association celebrates its 50^th anniversary

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/50-years-of-educating-lankan-youth-on-nature-and-wildlife-499804.html

• Ena’s fascination with local fauna and flora

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/plus/enas-fascination-with-local-fauna-and-flora-499373.html

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/plus/carrying-on-her-legacy-at-the-aluwihare-heritage-centre-499368.html

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/plus/appreciations-499355.html

• Greenwash: USAID PLANT to join hands with Consortium for Conservation

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/plant-to-join-hands-with-consortium-for-conservation-499453.html

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

• Lanka IOC revenues and profits soar on higher prices and volumes in 2Q

‘Besides auto fuel, the company also engages in bunkering, lubricants, bitumen and petrochemicals,’

– dailymirror.lk/business/Lanka-IOC-revenues-and-profits-soar-on-higher-prices-andvolumes-in-2Q/215-247455

– ft.lk/front-page/LIOC-continues-with-robust-performance-in-2Q/44-741297

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-ioc-unit-reports-rs12-3-bn-in-sept-2022-profits-101500/

• Living in Darkness while the wind rages through every minute. We are fools – Karunaratne

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/27/living-in-darkness-while-the-wind-rages-through-every-minute-we-are-fools/

• Petroleum Products (Special Provisions) (Amendment) Act effective from Oct. 26

– adaderana.lk/news/85807/petroleum-products-special-provisions-amendment-act-effective-from-oct-26

– themorning.lk/petroleum-products-special-provisions-amendment-act-effective-from-oct-26/

• The Petroleum Bill – its quiet passage and disquieting politics

– island.lk/the-petroleum-bill-its-quiet-passage-and-disquieting-politics/

• Speaker endorses Petroleum Products (Amendment) Bill

– ft.lk/news/Speaker-endorses-Petroleum-Products-Amendment-Bill/56-741216

• Alleged fraudulent coal tender annulled: Sobhitha Thera’s FR petition withdrawn

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Alleged-fraudulent-coal-tender-annulled-Sobhitha-Theras-FR-petition-withdrawn/108-247421

• How do Sri Lanka’s new electricity prices compare with those in other countries?

‘CEB, LECO, regulator PCUSL, do not practice these principles, but simply use some arbitrary prices and a process of trial and error to target the income expected from the sale of electricity.’

– island.lk/how-do-sri-lankas-new-electricity-prices-compare-with-those-in-other-countries/

• 2.5% social security tax added to electricity bills

– adaderana.lk/news/85773/25-social-security-tax-added-to-electricity-bills

– island.lk/electricity-bill-up-by-2-5/

• Customers of LECO exempted from Social Security Contribution Levy’

– island.lk/customers-of-leco-exempted-from-social-security-contribution-levy/

• Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) says electricity bill reaches Rs.30 mn; yet unpaid

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/LRH-says-electricity-bill-reaches-Rs-30-mn-yet-unpaid/108-247637

• Solar Self-Consumption systems for Sri Lanka

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/solar-self-consumption-systems-for-sri-lanka-499456.html

• Sri Lanka renewable energy sector may go to court over unsettled CEB arrears

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-renewable-energy-sector-may-go-to-court-over-unsettled-ceb-arrears-101476/

• Sri Lanka transport minister says public can force tuk-tuk fare drop

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-transport-minister-says-public-can-force-tuk-tuk-fare-drop-101477/

• Sri Lanka mulls hi-tech circulator buses without conductor: Minister

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-mulls-hi-tech-circulator-buses-without-conductor-minister-101474/

• Telecommunications Regulatory Commission goes from Defence to Technology Ministry

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/TRC-goes-to-Technology-Ministry/108-247553

– ft.lk/front-page/TRCSL-rightfully-moved-back-to-Technology-Ministry/44-741371

• Dialog commissions its latest DTV Broadcast Centre & Satellite Earth Station in Puttalam

– island.lk/dialog-commissions-its-latest-dtv-broadcast-centre-satellite-earth-station-in-puttalam/

– ft.lk/front-page/Dialog-commissions-latest-DTV-Broadcast-Centre-Satellite-Earth-Station-in-Puttalam/44-741364

• How the Sri Lankan heritage of a shipping hub was destroyed

‘This myth against Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was promoted by SL governments especially by the Bandaranaike governments which initiated nationalisation of private entities and by the false adaptation of the Marxist thinking in the country.’

– ft.lk/columns/How-the-Sri-Lankan-heritage-of-a-shipping-hub-was-destroyed/4-741342

• Keith D. Bernard appointed as Ports Authority Chairman

‘Senior manager in an USAID funded private sector development project and Director General of the Sri Lanka Press Institute, Joint Managing Director of Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation…Working Director of the Road Development Authority, on the Expert Panel of the Ministry of Public Enterprise Development to manage State-Owned Enterprises such as the State-owned Banks, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, Sri Lankan Airlines etc. Director of Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, Lanka Hospitals and Lanka Hospitals Diagnostic, Capital Alliance Investments, Lanka Salt, Road Development Authority, Fintrex Finance, and now an Independent Director of Jaya Container Terminals.’

– dailymirror.lk/business/Keith-D-Bernard-appointed-as-Ports-Authority-Chairman/215-247454

• No more international airports, please! Just implement Aviation Policy of 2017 ASAP

– island.lk/no-more-international-airports-please/

• Cabinet nod to sign bilateral Civil Aviation agreement with Netherlands

‘The agreement would facilitate direct passenger and cargo flights between the two countries.’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Cabinet-nod-to-sign-bilateral-Civil-Aviation-agreement-with-Netherlands/108-247487

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-sign-aviation-pact-with-netherlands-to-boost-tourism-investment-101468/

• ‘Only Open University and IIHS were offering healthcare degrees. Now there are 17 players’

– island.lk/founder-iihs-dr-kithsiri-edirisinghe-receives-global-acclaim-for-visionary-leadership-in-education/

• Dire shortage of anti-cancer drugs in hospitals: Govt. Pharmacists’ Society

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Dire-shortage-of-anti-cancer-drugs-in-hospitals-Govt-Pharmacists-Society/108-247431

• Acute shortage of over 90 essential medicines again in hospitals, pharmacies: GMOA

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Acute-shortage-of-over-90-essential-medicines-again-in-hospitals-pharmacies-GMOA/108-247358

• Sri Lanka facing shortage of 150 essential drugs; govt looking to boost local production

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-facing-shortage-of-150-essential-drugs-govt-looking-to-boost-local-production-101449/

• Shortage of 160 essential medicines

– island.lk/shortage-of-160-essential-medicines/

• Health Ministry to buy Rs. 1 bn data system?

– themorning.lk/health-ministry-to-buy-rs-1-bn-data-system/

• World Bank funds acquisition of 60 ambulances

– island.lk/wb-funds-acquisition-of-60-ambulances/

• 6 million doses of Pfizer vaccine to go to waste due to people’s reluctance to receive 4th booster

– island.lk/six-million-doses-of-pfizer-vaccine-may-go-to-waste-due-to-peoples-reluctance-to-receive-fourth-booster-dose/

• Japan gifts USD 5.5 million worth of medical equipment to NHSL, Ragama Teaching Hospital

– island.lk/japan-gifts-usd-5-5-million-worth-of-medical-equipment-to-nhsl-ragama-teaching-hospital/

– ft.lk/news/Japan-grants-5-5-m-worth-medical-equipment-to-National-Hospital-and-Ragama-Teaching-Hospital/56-741430

• Govt. receives more Chinese medical aid

– island.lk/govt-receives-more-chinese-medical-aid/

• More medicine ordered under Indian LoC

– english.newsfirst.lk/2022/10/29/more-medicine-ordered-under-indian-loc

• National Day for the Supply Chain declared for Oct 24

‘The Minister explained the importance of the supply chain by citing the example of rubber, which is converted to tires successfully from rubber milk through rubber tappers to tire factories.

– timesonline.lk/news-online/National-Day-for-the-Supply-Chain-declared-for-Oct-24/2-1139270

• Apparel sourcing association seeks transformation in sector

‘Anil Wettewe (Past Chairman), Gopal K Iyer (Secretary General), Shweta Dhir (Vice Chairman), Wilhelm Elias (Chairman), Azmina Kareem (Vice Chairman), Gayan Galapitige (Secretary), Denver Jayasundara (Hon. Treasurer). Standing: Ex-Co Members Padmal Silva, Angie Dep, Yasmi Bari, Manjula Bahlendran’

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/apparel-sourcing-association-seeks-transformation-in-sector-499449.html

• Newspaper Society of Sri Lanka urges Media Minister to remove the cess on newsprint imports

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/media-minister-proposes-lifting-of-cess-on-newsprint-imports-499872.html

• Scientist wins Nobel for showing that reality isn’t real – Nury Vittachi

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/27/scientist-wins-nobel-for-showing-that-reality-isnt-real/

• Commentary on Nuri’s story

– kalaya.org/2022/10/blog-post_29.html

– kalaya.org/2022/10/blog-post_44.html

• World facing ‘first truly global energy crisis’: International Energy Agency (IEA)

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/World-facing-first-truly-global-energy-crisis-says-report/273-247591

• Should Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince & PM MBS visit Bangladesh along with India, Pakistan?

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/25/should-saudi-arabias-crown-prince-and-pm-mbs-visit-bangladesh-along-with-india-pakistan/

• Why does Bangladesh need Saudi Arabia’s investment in power and energy sector urgently?

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/25/why-does-bangladesh-need-saudi-arabias-investment-in-the-power-and-energy-sector-urgently/

• Germany agrees to controversial sale to Chinese shipping group of Hamburg port terminal

– euronews.com/2022/10/26/germany-agrees-to-controversial-sale-of-hamburg-port-terminal

• Energy crisis accelerating exodus of companies from Europe

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303247-energy-crisis-accelerating-exodus-of-companies-from-europe

• Oldest Night Sky Map Found in Medieval Parchment in Egyptian Monastery

– newsclick.in/oldest-night-sky-map-found-medieval-parchment-egyptian-monastery

• Lucrative clean-up contracts after Hurricane Ian rake in huge US profits

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303249-lucrative-clean-up-contracts-after-hurricane-ian-rake-in-huge-profits

______________________________________________________________________

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.

• Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) outlines USD 100 million fund for Sri Lanka

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/27/aiib-outlines-usd-100-million-fund-for-sri-lanka/

• Bangladesh Bank (BB) asks banks not to transact with Sri Lanka through Asian Clearing Union (ACU) mechanism.

‘In response to the self-motivated decision by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) to remain temporarily suspended from ACU mechanism with effect from October 14, 2022’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/BB-asks-banks-not-to-transact-with-Sri-Lanka-through-ACU-mechanism/108-247580

• Central Depository Systems (CDS) facilitates dispatch of e-warrants for ACL Cables dividends

– island.lk/cds-facilitates-the-dispatch-of-e-warrants-for-acl-cables-plcs-dividends/

• SL to draft new law in compliance with Singapore Convention on Mediation

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SL-to-draft-new-law-in-compliance-with-Singapore-Convention-on-Mediation/108-247592

• Gazette notification stipulating regulations pertaining to Port City to be issued soon

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Gazette-notification-stipulating-regulations-pertaining-to-Port-City-to-be-issued-soon/108-247590

• HNB is annual corporate leasing partner for Ceylon Motor Traders Association (CMTA)

‘Founded in 1919, the Ceylon Motor Traders Association is affiliated with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and is widely accepted as the voice of the Sri Lankan Automotive Industry. It is the most senior automotive trade association in the region and represents all major international automotive manufacturers through its agents.’

– island.lk/hnb-signs-on-as-annual-corporate-leasing-partner-for-cmta-2/

• Browns Investments gathers interest at CSE after coal tender speculation

– themorning.lk/browns-investments-gathers-interest-at-cse-after-coal-tender-speculation/

• Thilini Priyamali found to have allegedly defrauded Rs. 1.28 b: Police Spokesman

– ft.lk/front-page/Thilini-Priyamali-found-to-have-allegedly-defrauded-Rs-1-28-b-Police-Spokesman/44-741368

• New Crypto fraud hits Sri Lankans by storm, over 8,000 people lose billions

– dailymirror.lk/top_story/New-fraud-hits-Sri-Lankans-by-storm-over-8-000-people-lose-billions/155-247568

– ft.lk/front-page/Rs-14-b-fraud-via-crypto-scheme/44-741369

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-arrest-3-more-locals-over-cryptocurrency-fraud-police-101509/

• Is Colombo’s Stock Market on the Verge of Collapse?

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/25/is-colombos-stock-market-on-the-verge-of-collapse/

• Kosala elected to Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) Board of Directors

‘Gamage is the Managing Director of Lanka Securities Ltd., which is a joint venture stockbroking company of the Bank of Ceylon group and First Capital Securities Corporation, Pakistan…on the Board of Renuka Consultants… He was also the President of the Colombo Stockbrokers Association (CSBA) from the year 2019 to 2021.’

– ft.lk/business/Kosala-elected-to-CSE-Board-of-Directors/34-741260

• Finance and leasing companies remain more susceptible to interest rate risk: Fitch

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Finance-and-leasing-companies-remain-more-susceptible-to-interest-rate-risk-Fitch/108-247387

• Sampath Bank announces Rs. 10 b Basel III compliant debenture issue

– ft.lk/front-page/Sampath-Bank-announces-Rs-10-b-Basel-III-compliant-debenture-issue/44-741273

• National Development Bank (NDB) CEO collects prestigious award in Washington

– dailymirror.lk/business/NDB-CEO-collects-prestigious-award-in-Washington/215-247450

• Abans Finance rights issue oversubscribed

‘Directors are Chairman Cecil Perera, Rusi Pestonjee, Mhiran Embuldeniya, Thulci Aluwihare, Mrs. Srini Ratnayake Choksy and Sanjaya Bandara, Chief Executive Officer Dharshan Silva.’

– island.lk/abans-finance-rights-issue-oversubscribed/

• Softlogic Finance to raise over Rs. 850 m in rights issue

– ft.lk/front-page/Softlogic-Finance-to-raise-over-Rs-850-m-in-rights-issue/44-741274

• DFCC Bank partners Bancstac’s Paycorp to accept online payments from international cards

‘seamlessly accept payments from UnionPay International, American Express, Discover Network and Diners Club, along with domestic payment methods such as LankaPay-JCB Cards and LANKAQR’

– island.lk/dfcc-bank-partners-with-bancstac-empowers-businesses-to-accept-online-payments-from-major-international-cards/

• Sri Lanka bond yields marginally down, guidance peg unchanged (O25)

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-bond-yields-marginally-down-guidance-peg-unchanged-101451/

• Sri Lanka bond yields steady, bills up (O26)

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-bond-yields-steady-bills-up-101472/

• Sri Lanka sells less than offered volume of bills, yields fixed

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-sells-less-than-offered-volume-of-bills-yields-fixed-101470/

• Sri Lanka T-bond yields up; T-bill rates edge down (O27)

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-t-bond-yields-up-t-bill-rates-edge-down-101495/

• Sri Lanka T-bond yields up; T-bills unquoted (O28)

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-t-bond-yields-up-t-bills-unquoted-101504/

• Sri Lanka debt office raises less than expected funds via bond auction

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-debt-office-raises-less-than-expected-funds-via-bond-auction-101502/

• Sri Lanka shares fall to 2-1/2-month low amid economic uncertainties; foreigners buy (O25)

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-shares-fall-to-2-1-2-month-low-amid-economic-uncertainties-foreigners-buy-101453/

• CSE starts off in the green but sulks in bearish mode by mid-day

– island.lk/cse-starts-off-in-the-green-but-sulks-in-bearish-mode-by-mid-day/

• Sri Lanka stocks regain on mild bargain hunting; turnover slumps to 2-mo low (O26)

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-regain-on-mild-bargain-hunting-turnover-slumps-to-2-mo-low-101473/

• Blue chip stocks boost bourse following three-session decline

– island.lk/blue-chip-stocks-boost-bourse-following-three-session-decline/

• Sri Lanka stocks regain on mild bargain hunting; turnover slumps to 2-mo low

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-regain-on-mild-bargain-hunting-turnover-slumps-to-2-mo-low-101473/

• ASPI gains over 2 per cent for the second time this week in the wake of bargain-hunting (O27)

– island.lk/aspi-gains-over-2-per-cent-for-the-second-time-this-week-in-the-wake-of-bargain-hunting/

• Sri Lanka shares gain over 2-pct in mid-day trade

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-shares-gain-over-2-pct-in-mid-day-trade-101475/

• CSE’s main stock index dragged down by energy and financial sectors (O28)

– island.lk/cses-main-stock-index-dragged-down-by-energy-and-financial-sectors/

• Bears back at bourse but week closes on the up

– ft.lk/front-page/Bears-back-at-bourse-but-week-closes-on-the-up/44-741444

• CSE remains positive despite low investor activity

– ft.lk/front-page/CSE-remains-positive-despite-low-investor-activity/44-741367

• Sri Lanka stocks down from over 1-wk high amid budget uncertainties; turnover picks up

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-down-from-over-1-wk-high-amid-budget-uncertainties-turnover-picks-up-101505/

• Xi’s Power Grab Spurs Historic Market Rout as Foreigners Flee – Bloomberg

– bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-24/china-markets-set-for-cautious-start-after-leadership-overhaul

• BlackRock Stands at the Nexus Between Derivatives Blowing Up in U.K. Pensions and the Shortest Tenure of a Prime Minister in U.K. History

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/10/blackrock-stands-at-the-nexus-between-derivatives-blowing-up-in-u-k-pensions-and-the-shortest-tenure-of-a-prime-minister-in-u-k-history/

• The US Fed’s Trading Scandal Broadens into a Scandal with the Mega Banks It “Regulates”

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/10/the-feds-trading-scandal-broadens-into-a-scandal-with-the-mega-banks-it-regulates/

• JPMorgan Chase Quietly Settles Whistleblower Case Involving Charges of Keeping Two Sets of Books and Improper Payments to Tony Blair

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/10/jpmorgan-chase-quietly-settles-whistleblower-case-involving-charges-of-keeping-two-sets-of-books-and-improper-payments-to-tony-blair/

• A Former Goldman Sachs/Hedge Fund Guy Is the New English Prime Minister

– wallstreetonparade.com/2022/10/a-former-goldman-sachs-hedge-fund-guy-is-the-new-u-k-prime-minister/

___________________________________________________________________________________

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’

• Company registration fee hike gazetted

– ft.lk/front-page/Company-registration-fee-hike-gazetted/44-741372

• Cargills FoodCity opens 500th outlet with Central Bank Governor Weerasinghe as chief guest

‘Sometimes we see that although the rupee has depreciated by about 70%, prices of some goods have increased by 300%-400%.’

– dailymirror.lk/business/Cargills-FoodCity-opens-500th-outlet/215-247494

– island.lk/effective-supply-chain-management-benefits-end-consumer-cb-governor/

• Ceylon Chamber hails passing of 21A

– dailymirror.lk/business/Ceylon-Chamber-hails-passing-of-21A/215-247453

• Expolanka Holdings Gross Profit improved by 25% to Rs. 28.3 billion in Q2

– ft.lk/front-page/Expolanka-Holdings-records-steadfast-performance-in-Q2/44-741434

– http://bizenglish.adaderana.lk/expolanka-holdings-record-steadfast-performance-for-q2-fy22/

• LMD-NielsenIQ Business Confidence Index picks up

‘debt restructuring process apparently underway together with seeking new sources of funding and investment hold the key to Sri Lanka’s immediate future’

– ft.lk/front-page/Business-confidence-picks-up/44-741443

• New checks on casinos: Rs 500mn for licence; told to apply before Oct. 30

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/new-checks-on-casinos-rs-500mn-for-licence-told-to-apply-before-oct-30-499864.html

• Betting and gaming industry hit with plethora of tax hikes

– island.lk/betting-and-gaming-industry-hit-with-plethora-of-tax-hikes/

• Salley seeks court order preventing auction of land

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Salley-seeks-court-order-preventing-auction-of-land/2-1139296

• Russia calls on SL businesses to leverage direct flight resumption

– themorning.lk/russia-calls-on-sl-businesses-to-leverage-direct-flight-resumption/

• New Authority for Small Islands’ Development

‘The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) has already signed an agreement to lease out Uchchamunai island to a Swiss investor allowing him to obtain approval from relevant authorities.’

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/business-times/new-authority-for-small-islands-development-499483.html

• Wildlife Dept blacklists, suspends people, vehicles entering Yala & any national park for 3 years

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Wildlife-Dept-blacklists-suspends-people-vehicles-entering-Yala-and-any-national-park-for-three-years/108-247422

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Suspend-trackers-that-went-with-a-group-abusing-animals-in-Yala-Amaraweera/108-247409

– themorning.lk/yala-troublemakers-surrender-with-7-suvs-and-granted-bail/

• My son not involved, didn’t leave Colombo during the last ten days: Wild Life Amaraweera

‘164 jeeps, including 916 individuals, entered the Yala National Park on this day.’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/My-son-is-not-involved-he-didnt-leave-Colombo-during-the-last-ten-days-Amaraweera/108-247573

– island.lk/slpp-politicians-son-nephew-led-group-wreaked-havoc-in-yala/

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Yala-incident-VIP-animals-facing-legal-consequences-now/172-247581

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Hooliganism-privilege-and-sanctity-of-sanctuaries/172-247675

• Diana to leave for US soon to initiate talks with Walt Disney

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/24/diana-to-leave-for-us-soon-to-initiate-talks-with-walt-disney/

• Samsung appoints convicted heir to top job

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Samsung-appoints-convicted-heir-to-top-job/273-247594

_______________________________________________________

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.

• International Realignments and the Absence of Progressive Voices in the West

– blackagendareport.com/international-realignments-and-absence-progressive-voices-west

• The Controversy over Dual Citizenship in Sri Lanka’s Parliament – Waduge

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/28/the-controversy-over-dual-citizenship-in-sri-lankas-parliament/

• Amidst conspicuous absentees of Govt. MPs and sole dissenting vote, 22A is passed

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/columns/amidst-conspicuous-absentees-of-govt-mps-and-sole-dissenting-vote-22a-is-passed-499811.html

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/columns/approval-of-22a-a-windfall-for-president-499823.html

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/columns/amending-we-will-go-499819.html

– island.lk/weerasekera-voted-against-22a/

• 21 A: Weerasekera says they could have denied 2/3

– island.lk/21-a-weerasekera-says-they-could-have-denied-2-3/

• LSSP Leader explains his absence at crucial vote, says he is for 21st Amendment

– island.lk/lssp-leader-explains-his-absence-at-crucial-vote-says-he-is-for-21st-amendment/

• Sunak, dual-citizens and mistaken identity

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Sunak-dual-citizens-and-mistaken-identity/172-247510

• So-called Revolution in Sri Lanka is only done to destroy Sinhala Buddhism – Nalin de Silva

– kalaya.org/2022/10/blog-post_25.html

• Pohottu As USA Proxy Part 9E, F

‘The U.S. economic sanctions on Afghanistan have exacerbated the local food crisis’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/22/pohottu-as-usa-s-proxy-part-9e/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/22/pohottu-as-usa-s-proxy-pt-9f/

• ‘1950s rebellions in the country brough great concern within Ven. Somarathna Thera’

– island.lk/a-tribute-to-a-pioneer-who-united-sri-lanka/

• Mechanism to take action against monks involved in anti-religious activities: Vidura

‘45% of the monks who usually enter Buddhist universities leave the order in the final year.’

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Mechanism-to-take-action-against-monks-involved-in-anti-religious-activities-Vidura/108-247638

• New arrangement to inform Nayaka Theros regarding monks involved in anti-religious activity

– adaderana.lk/news/85812/new-arrangement-to-inform-nayaka-theros-regarding-monks-involved-in-anti-religious-activities

• FSP denies having truck with SJB at coming polls

– island.lk/fsp-denies-having-truck-with-sjb-at-coming-polls/

• AKD’s Isolationism & Eran’s Error – Jayatilleka

‘“We are supporting the reforms and supporting the President to implement them”, were it to be taken as SJB policy, would seriously cramp the party’s style as the main Opposition’

– island.lk/akds-isolationism-erans-error/

• Ranil emulating his uncle J. R. Jayewardene – AKD on Postponement of elections

– island.lk/ranil-emulating-his-uncle-j-r-jayewardene-akd/

• Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment focused at the Select Committee

– timesonline.lk/news-online/Gender-Equality-and-Womens-Empowerment-focused-at-the-Select-Committee/2-1139262

• Opposition made passage of 22A possible – SJB

– island.lk/opposition-made-passage-of-22a-possible-sjb/

• TNA denies its party has any dual-citizen MPs

– themorning.lk/tna-denies-its-party-has-any-dual-citizen-mps/

• Ranil and Basil to consummate a no-contest electoral marriage between UNP and SLPP

– island.lk/the-petroleum-bill-its-quiet-passage-and-disquieting-politics/

• No local elections in March 2023

– island.lk/welcome-to-the-political-circus/

• Hold much-delayed Local Government elections to canalise people’s resentment democratically

– island.lk/it-aint-over/

• Wijeyadasa requests Speaker to appoint PSC to amend electoral system

– adaderana.lk/news/85775/wijeyadasa-requests-speaker-to-appoint-psc-to-amend-electoral-system

• PAFFREL wants Speaker to act on at least 10 dual citizens in Parliament.

– island.lk/paffrel-wants-speaker-to-act/

• JVP plans protest in Colombo tomorrow

– island.lk/jvp-plans-protest-in-colombo-tomorrow/

• Real aragalaya will begin soon at home: Hirunika, National Organiser of SJB Women’s Wing

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Real-aragalaya-will-begin-soon-at-home-Hirunika/108-247619

• SL Association of Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO): One Industry One Voice join in raising concerns on upcoming protests

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/SLAITO-One-Industry-One-Voice-join-in-raising-concerns-on-upcoming-protests/108-247669

• Purge begins!

– island.lk/purge-begins/

• 21st A: Split SLPP loses ground, BR suffers setback

– island.lk/21st-a-split-slpp-loses-ground-br-suffers-setback/

• Achieve objective of Local Govt. Machinery through a simple Election process

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Achieve-objective-of-Local-Govt-Machinery-through-a-simple-Election-process/172-247676

• Basil not out for good

‘The statement indicates a threat that he would dissolve the Parliament if they defeated the 22nd Amendment. Hence, they supported it’

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Basil-not-out-for-good/172-247582

• PM urged not to put off LG polls

– island.lk/pm-urged-not-to-put-off-lg-polls/

• A regime that fears elections is a danger to society.

– island.lk/another-ruse-3/

• Probe panel ‘indicts’ Sasikala for events leading to Jayalalithaa’s death

– island.lk/probe-panel-indicts-sasikala-for-events-leading-to-jayalalithaas-death/

• Ranil Jayawardena resigns as England Environment Secretary as Sunak begins cabinet reshuffle

– adaderana.lk/news/85764/ranil-jayawardena-resigns-as-uk-environment-secretary-as-sunak-begins-cabinet-reshuffle

– island.lk/uks-ranil-resigns/

• The Party is Over

– craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/10/the-party-is-over/

• Former English PM Boris Johnson pulls out of leadership race to replace Liz Truss

– cnbc.com/2022/10/23/former-uk-pm-boris-johnson-reportedly-pulls-out-of-leadership-race.html

• 4 PMs in 4 Years, How Will Rishi Sunak get England out of Trouble

– newsclick.in/britain-4-pms-4-years-how-will-rishi-sunak-get-uk-out-trouble

• Why are TV Channels and Some Groups Focused on Sunak’s Religiosity?

– newsclick.in/why-are-tv-channels-and-some-groups-focused-sunaks-religiosity

• Who is Rishi Sunak and what can England expect? – CGTN

‘The former chancellor of the exchequer was the only candidate to secure the backing of at least 100 Conservative lawmakers in the governing party’s leadership race’

– news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-26/InFocus-Who-is-Rishi-Sunak-and-what-can-Britain-expect–1erJJdeIsZG/index.html

• New English PM Sunak unveils top team as historic tenure begins

– ft.lk/news/New-UK-PM-Sunak-unveils-top-team-as-historic-tenure-begins/56-741300

• Rishi Sunak Cheerleading Needs a Reality Check

– newsclick.in/Rishi-Sunak-Cheerleading-Needs-Reality-Check

• Donald Trump calls on Brazilians to re-elect Bolsonaro

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303313-donald-trump-calls-on-brazilians-to-re-elect-bolsonaro

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C11. Media (Mis/Coverage of economics, technology, science and art)

ee Media shows how corporate media monopoly determines what is news, art, culture, etc. The media is part of the public relations (corporate propaganda) industry. The failure to highlight our priorities, the need to read between the lines. To set new perspectives and priorities.

• Newspaper Society of Sri Lanka urges Media Minister to remove the cess on newsprint imports

– sundaytimes.lk/221023/news/media-minister-proposes-lifting-of-cess-on-newsprint-imports-499872.html

• M.S. de Silva, Lanka’s first (successful) journalist/entrepreneur

‘His was among the first companies that traded with China and the business proved a success. I remember him importing a Chinese bike, branded Phoenix, at a time Raleigh was king, which he could price very competitively. He was also among the first to export coconut seedlings to Cuba.’

– island.lk/m-s-de-silva-lankas-first-successful-journalist-entrepreneur-2/

• The new Booker Prize winner appears to be a Empire Loyalist

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2022/10/22/the-new-booker-prize-winner/

• Vesak Carolling – Nalin de Silva

– kalaya.org/2022/10/blog-post_28.html

• The Diversity Dumpster Fire

‘Colored people and women are becoming the face of everything while everything falls apart’

– indi.ca

• How Media Is Like A Dream

– indi.ca

• Moving up the CCS ladder, the 1915 riots and war service – Monck-Mason Moore

– island.lk/moving-up-the-ccs-ladder-the-1915-riots-and-war-service/

• Liberalised industry led to the disintegration of the local cinema

– island.lk/between-pathiraja-and-premarathne-the-cinema-of-vasantha-obeyesekere/

• State Literary Awards Ceremony held under President’s patronage

– adaderana.lk/news/85823/state-literary-awards-ceremony-held-under-presidents-patronage

• The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka launches exhibition ‘Encounters’

‘generously supported by the European Union, Foundation for Arts Initiatives, John Keells Foundation, and Asian Hotels and Properties.’

– island.lk/the-museum-of-modern-and-contemporary-art-sri-lanka-launches-exhibition-titled-encounters/

• Paradise in Tears – Victor Ivan

‘why asked he had purchased three copies of my book, he replied that one copy was for him, one for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) library and the other for Sonia Gandhi.’

– ft.lk/columns/Paradise-in-Tears/4-741377

• Google fined $162 million by India antitrust watchdog for abuse of Android platform

– adaderana.lk/technology/85664/google-fined-162-million-by-india-antitrust-watchdog-for-abuse-of-android-platform

• PM Modi urges people to check facts before sharing on social media

– island.lk/pm-modi-urges-people-to-check-facts-before-sharing-on-social-media/

• Media Continue To Push ‘US Officials Said’ Claims Even When Those Are Obvious Lies

– moonofalabama.org/2022/10/media-continue-to-push-us-officials-said-claims-even-when-those-are-obvious-lies.html

• Some Media Won’t Tell You When The Saudis Snub Biden

– moonofalabama.org/2022/10/some-media-wont-tell-you-when-the-saudis-snub-biden.html

• Biden regime ‘disappears’ a potential whistleblower

– rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/fbi-raid-abc-news_producer-1234613619/

– alethonews.com/2022/10/22/has-the-biden-regime-disappeared-a-potential-whistleblower/

• US War Propaganda and Billionaire Control of US Politics

– blackagendareport.com/margaret-kimberley-and-danny-haiphong-us-war-propaganda-and-billionaire-control-us-politics

• Fake news war-mongering and the war in Ukraine – Editorial

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Fake-news-war-mongering-and-the-war-in-Ukraine-EDITORIAL/172-247320

• Mike Davis: 1946–2022

‘A brilliant radical reporter with a novelist’s eye and a historian’s memory’

– thenation.com/article/culture/mike-davis-obituary

– haymarketbooks.org/blogs/474-mike-davis-1946-2022

– latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-10-26/the-key-to-mike-davis-brilliance-he-never-fit-in

– versobooks.com/blogs/4850-the-american-earthquake-mike-davis-and-the-politics-of-disaster?

• Internal documents show Twitter is losing its most active users

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303022-internal-documents-show-twitter-is-losing-its-most-active-users

• Apple, Amazon warns of slower sales as economy weakens

– radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/303248-amazon-warns-costs-may-eviscerate-profits-shares-crash

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Amazon-warns-of-slower-sales-as-economy-weakens/273-247666

• Musk is now Twitter boss, fires CEO Agrawal, policy chief Vijaya Gadde

– island.lk/musk-is-now-twitter-boss-fires-ceo-agrawal-policy-chief-vijaya-gadde/

• The unbearable smugness of AI

‘technology has made us “hackable” animals, with AI predicting our innermost desires’

– island.lk/the-unbearable-smugness-of-ai/

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email: econenews@gmail.com

blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com

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