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‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’
e-Con e-News 31 December 2023 – 06 January 2024
The President, in his imported New Year blue suit with fading blue tie, announces deploying a Sri Lankan Navy ship into the roiling Red Sea at a cost of Rs250million per fortnight. He hopes to thwart depreciation of the Rupee in case shipping companies hike their prices claiming diversion around the Cape of Tempests of South Africa (which last week took Israel – tho not their bloodier sponsors, the USA – to the International Court of Justice for genocide).
The President’s announcement was reported first in his family newspapers – mouthpieces & mirrors for the embassy whites & their white-Blacks – to signal support for the US genocide in West Asia. Almost immediately, the SLNavy clarifies they are doing a ‘feasibility’ study on the matter.
The President, desperately seeking allies outside of his fading blue alliance (hence the paling tie), announces this, just as the chair of Exxon-Rockefeller International – whose ‘Foundation’ plays godfather to all US NGOs behind the Aragalaya, also funding fake reconciliations – lands in the country to demand further opening up of labor laws, midst a lot of diabetic sugar coating about how wonderful Sri Lanka’s other prospects are.
Astute observers note the public jettisoning of so-called nonalignment – let alone the open media-celebrated arrival of an oily Rockefeller agent – as further evidence of the extent of US infiltration of an ostensibly independent Sri Lankan state.
The US wars in West Asia have aimed to cut off if not control South & East Asia’s access to energy sources. If Africa decides to intercept such ships, as they surely will one day, what will the President, & all his import-export-loving corporate sponsors, economists & other yipping poodles, do?
The President bared his Red Sea revelation at the end of a speech at the National Handicrafts Exhibition, and at the BMICH, of all places! Handicrafts are a very quaint epitome of our colonial underdevelopment & stultification, as we are prevented from advancing to modern machine industry. The BMICH – an enduring construct of SL-China Friendship!
A day later on 4 January, Air Force Commander Air Marshall Udeni Rajapksa is beckoned to meet US Ambassador & lost-Korean kurumitta Julie Chung, to discuss ‘Security Cooperation’ & ‘Maritime Security’. On 5 January, US-installed former President M Sirisena is also come-hithered to discuss ‘the political & economic landscape in the year to come.’ with Chung (see ee Sovereignty, ‘Helplessness & Confusion’ in the Coming Year – Thoradeniya).
Imperialism plays all sides, so no matter who wins, they always have a friend. Of course, they actually have no friends – they only have interests. They aim to use the imminent turmoil they have provoked to prepare for the US military’s entrance to set up their new 8th Fleet Base in Sri Lanka – joining their other ‘unsinkable aircraft carriers’: US-occupied Palestine (aka Israel), Bahrain (US Navy Central Command), & Hawaii (US Pacific Command base). – see ee Random Notes, 8th Fleet
A ‘Galle Concerto 2024’ is offering European literary & musical flatulence within Sri Lanka’s Ruhuna heartland, as soothing overtures to disaster. Let us recall that the post-1814 military-diplomatic ‘Concert of Europe’ was set up to unite the whites against the rest of the world, as well as undermine the Ottoman Empire (of which Israel is a white settler legatee). The 1815 soft-coup against the last redoubt of Sinhale (in the highlands) was their first prize (with the 1818 genocide soon after). This new ‘Concert of Europe’ (including all its settler states) awards prizes to literature as long as they sing the whites’ anti-Sinhala-Buddhist & anti-China baila.
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‘Do an unelected group of bureaucrats
staffing the Central Bank of a country
know better than the elected representatives
of the people and what is in their best interests?’
– Bram & Howard Nicholas (see ee Focus)
• Not Corruption But Capitalism! – Former USAID employee Dushni Weerakoon currently an Appointed Member of the Monetary Policy Board of the Central Bank & a Director of the Board of Investment (BOI), has joined the Cargills board as an Independent, Non-Executive Director. This is apparently not a conflict of interest or corruption. After all, recall that former Supreme Court Chief Justice K Siripavan joined the board of US World Bank-IFC-controlled Commercial Bank, ostensibly owned by John Keells Holdings (JKH). Weerakoon is also a director of this American Express-linked Nations Trust Bank (NTB) owned by JKH, Canada’s Fairfax’s HWIC Asia Fund, and Central Finance. She is also Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies of SL (IPS), whose studies are now thakata-thei with US thinktank Advocata (financed by US Atlas International, see ee Focus).
Weerakoon accompanies Ganesan Ampalavanar, who was also made a Non-Independent, Non-Executive Director. A Malaysian citizen, Ganesan served Nestle Group, 3 times as CEO (Nestle Indonesia, Nestle Vietnam, Nestle SL). – see ee Finance, Cargills appoints Dushni & Ganesan to board
The mushrooming of numerous Cargills Food City & Keells supermarkets (sometimes in the same vicinity) is causing the shuttering down of numerous neighbouring smaller kadays across the country. Not only shops, the government has provided these corporates with tons of import licenses and control over marketing & transport of goods. Switzerland’s Nestles is the dominant monopoly in dairy in Sri Lanka, behind the subversion & privatization of the National Milk Board.
Retail companies like Keells & Cargills Food City, fronted by such Parsi-capitalists as Rusi & Soli Captain, and Chettiar capitalists like the Pages, guided by US Rockefeller’s Citibank, promote rotten Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc. They have made massive profits in Sri Lanka in the last few years, often outpacing the rate of inflation. These profits are sparking further inflation, mainly due to market concentration. The Annual Reports of these companies also provide fascinating reading (literature not highlighted at arts festivals!). The US government’s USAID is also financing Cargills electric vehicle charging stations. Cargills & Keells have also extended their tenacles into leasing, while pushing impoverished people into leasing only.
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The US government’s demand for a new Central Bank Act has been fulfilled. This will bring Sri Lanka’s economy under further US control, just as all of Europe was first brought under US-military-occupied Germany’s Bundesbank, with Germany itself now under the Wall-Street-run US Federal Reserve. This is being blamed for the abandonment of all pretenses about Europe’s yearning for social democracy, which turns out to be the old muse for rising fascism (see ee Focus).
It is therefore fitting that we look at the Communist Party of Sri Lanka’s Alternative Program for Finance & Banking & Digital Transformation. The CPSL notes that the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) supervises the 32 banks that own the majority of the assets in the financial sector of Sri Lanka; and how the People’s Bank & Bank of Ceylon meant to fulfil citizens’ investment needs have been hijacked to operate more like commercial banks, undermining those engaged in productive activities who need financial support.
As for so-called corruption in high places, the US has inspired India’s Supreme Court to absolve the Indian PM Modi-Linked Adani Corporation recently charged for stock manipulation. The USA’s International Development Finance Corporation has stamped their approval of the Adani Colombo port project, to apparently counterbalance ‘Chinese investment’, in Hambantota, etc. The blocking of Hambantota port as a hub for southern industrialization has also been at their behest. The Financial Times in October reviewed customs records to show how the Adani Group, which is India’s largest coal importer, used offshore middlemen in Taiwan, Singapore & Dubai, to import coal at highly inflated prices – at more than double the prevailing market rate.’
Meanwhile, India is gaming the US-Russia divide, after Russia promised to support their initiative to ‘manufacture combat hardware under the Made in India program’.
This ee News includes an interview with Russia’s Central Banker & ‘Anti-Sanctions Tsarina’, who should be contrasted to Sri Lanka’s central banker who has been exposed as a US agent. Elvira Nabiullina is seen as an example of a citizen who defends her country. She explains how Russia games several scenarios in order to protect its workers from monetary devaluation, etc.
Meanwhile the US, facing defeat in the Ukraine as well as West Asia, wants the Group of 7 (G7) major industrialized nations to explore ways to confiscate $300billion worth of the assets they have frozen. Like other central banks, Russia’s Central Bank placed some of its gold & foreign exchange reserves in liquid assets, eg major currencies, gold, & government bonds. About half of those reserves were held in the white West. Central Bank Governor Nabiullina was criticized by nationalists for allowing such a large chunk of the bank’s reserves to be frozen… But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says ‘If something is confiscated from us, we will look at what we will confiscate,’ adding. ‘We will do this immediately.’ (see ee Economists)
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• Media reported the Colombo Tea Auction was suspended because ‘they have no idea as to how VAT would affect their operations’. There were rumors however that both Dilmah’s and Akbar’s tea offices were raided for tax-related fraud. Their imports (tea, packaging &other value addition inputs) are all VAT-deferred, cos importation is done under the premise of full re-export. But they only re-export a portion of it. Some of their goods are instead sold here. Some say we should thank the IMF for such housecleaning, but both companies were set to boycott the tea auction on Thursday, which could have temporarily crashed the tea market. Some suggest this may just drive up the price? But it’s the opposite. These 2 are the biggest buyers. So the tea could well sit in factories and rot. The factories won’t be able to sell their tea. Perhaps the President is trying to ensure his corporate vote bank does not stray, so let’s see how all this pans out. The bets are on: elections being postponed through some sort of extra-parliamentary jilmart… (see ee Agriculture, VAT impacts start of Colombo Tea Auction) Capitalist elections are the best democracy that dollars can buy, haha…
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All of the references in our introduction are backed up by our teeming ee News Compendium below. Please remember to note monopolistic agencies are usually behind any repetitive news….
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Contents:
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A1. Reader Comments –
• Rs35,000 Ticket to Galle Face New Year’s Eve • Sri Lanka as Green Open-air Human Zoo • Again, Who is Nathasha G? • Honoring Ammal & Menike • ee‘s Greater Chinese Wall • ee‘s News Links
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A2. Quotes of the Week –
• 1% owns 31% of Sri Lanka Assets • Aragalaya on Drugs • Invading 5-Star Rich Homes • Subsidized Ruling Class is the True Corrupt • Sri Lanka Goes Hawaii • Kurumiti Chung as New Viceroy • Canada’s Variable Definition of Genocide • Small Gaza Ain’t So Small • Smallholdings & Big Bureaucracies • Why China Chooses Marxism-Leninism & Mao Zedong Thought? • New Maidan Coop in Serbia • Haiti as Shining Star • IMF’s Fake Quality Analytics
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A3. Random Notes –
• US 8th Fleet Base in Sri Lanka • Bureaucrats Know Better than Voters • Don’t Pay Back ISBs • USA Tries to Set Economic Policy Worldwide • Advocata’s US Sugar Daddies
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B. ee Focus –
B1. Finance & Banking, Digital Transformation & the Communist Party of Sri Lanka
B2. Europe’s NATO Socialists Enable Fascism – Thomas Fazi
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C. Building Blocks –
• Guaranteed Rice Price for Industrialization • Creation of a Home Market for Industry • Japan’s Limits on Industrial Exports • Smallholding & Science • Extraordinary Culture of Machine Tools • Making Central Banks Independent of the People? • On State-owned Enterprises & Privatization
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D. News Index
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A1. Reader Comments
ee thanks Readers who send articles of interest. Please excerpt or summarize what is important about any news sent, or your comments, and place any e-link at the end. Email: econenews@gmail.com
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• ‘My neighbour spent Rs35,000 for a ticket to the New Year’s Eve bash at the Galadari, and she said the food was awful. The hotels were packed. So was Galle Face! What an aragalaya!’
• ‘Re: EU blocking Indonesia’s attempt to industrialize their own nickel – Green policies are the new mercantilism. The ‘just’ energy transition is rather unjust for us. All parts in this green supply chain are imported. We’re to become carbon-sink colonies for them. An open-air human zoo.’
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• ‘Re: ‘Who is this Nathasha G? We don’t understand this ee Reader’s comments on essayist Nathasha Gunasekera’s ‘Can Sun Tzu Rescue Us’? Anyone who reads the Sinhala press would know her. Perhaps ee Readers are so marooned in English, what they can’t read, doesn’t exist? And what on earth is ‘Marxian economics’ & ‘Another coming out wearing a multicoloured dress?’ Why did ee publish this incomprehensible letter, and what exactly is the reader afraid of? Dresses?‘
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• ‘Venkata is not a Tamil word. Venkatraman/Venkateshwara is a reincarnation of God Vishnu. In Sinhala Venu is Vishnu. Last time I made a mistake. It should be Venkata Rangammal Devi. Ammal is an honorific like Menike/Kumarihamy.’
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• ‘Keep on producing ee’s digital wall of text. It’s going to be a miracle more miraculous than the Great Wall of China. The Greater Wall of ee!
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• ‘Many thanks to ee for the access to some US journals with articles about the present situation.’
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A2. Quotes of the Week_
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• ‘The 200,000+ plus [tax] files that had existed throughout 2023 represent only 1% of the population, which according to UNDP Country Economist V Gunasekara ‘owns 31% of the total personal wealth in the country, while the bottom 50% owns less than 4% of the overall wealth in the country’.’ – Neville Ladduwahetty, see ee Economists, Unexplored Options to Raise Revenue
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• ‘You have to be on drugs to have driven out a President under whom the Value Added Tax (VAT) was at 8% and usher in an age when the VAT is now 18%.’– Namal Rajapaksa, see ee Security, A majority of those involved in the ‘Aragalaya’ were on drugs
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• ‘‘We will break into Colombo’s loku (large) houses, this is what the man told me’, a neighbor said last week, relating a chilling conversation he had with a tuk-tuk driver. Ominously, this prophecy was said matter-of-fact, almost as if discussing the price of the fare, no more, no less. ‘We cannot live like this, scrounging on the street, our children have no food and cannot pay for their books that the school demands. But Colombo’s 5-star hotels are full of the rich. This is not fair. We will rob,’ he had said.’ – see ee Economists, A spanking new bribery commission – but (alleged) gross corruptors in Sri Lanka’s cabinet?
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• ‘Next time you travel on a highway, enjoy electricity or pump petrol at lower than cost, remember that you haven’t paid for any of these. These SoEs (state-owned enterprises) may certainly be affected by some level of mismanagement, but 80-90% of the losses are borne due to product mis-pricing (ie, subsidies)… Printing money is not necessarily bad if it’s matched by productivity growth. In the absence of it or the lack thereof, printed money drives either inflation or currency devaluation… exports are not necessarily a good thing, although they are portrayed as such. Exports in fact impoverish a country’s citizens and take away goods that they could otherwise consume… Where did all the money go? Yes, some of it into the hands of politicians. Corruption – weed it out for sure. But most of it went into your pockets my friend. The only way for us to get out of this crisis, to beat the middle income trap, is to stop stealing from ourselves.’ – Deshan Pushparajah, ee Economists, Where did all the money go?
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• Sri Lanka as Hawaii?: ‘The US doesn’t want to see Sri Lanka tilt to China and is exerting tremendous pressure via Quad partners. Are we interested enough to protect our sovereignty?… • Land-rich but capital poor landowners soon had lands converted to large resorts, golf courses & fancy restaurants sprang up near beaches & on conservation lands. • Most beautiful land areas were grabbed by multinationals & became no-go areas for natives. • 2million acres of land was taken over from Native Hawaiians [who] had to make do with poorest agricultural lands situated in inaccessible areas & with no monies given to improve the lands. • The US military controls over 30% of O’ahu (most-populated island in Hawaii) • US military (100,000) make up 11% of Hawaii’s population 1.1million (that’s almost the Muslim population in SL) • Hawaii is the US Pacific Command headquarters, the ‘linchpin’ of US military strategy in the Asia-Pacific region • The US military owns or controls more than 205,925 acres, roughly 5% of the land. • Hawaii served to launch US wars in Vietnam & Iraq.’ – Shenali Waduge, ee Sovereignty, US illegally ‘annexed’ Hawaii: Will Sri Lanka’s fate be same with MCC?
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• ‘Now cost of living is higher than in 2022; true there are no petrol queues & quota systems; JVP/NPP stalwarts can fly in their limousines at will. The business conglomerates who funded the protesters also are happy and about the party they hired (JVP/NPP). Do the business conglomerates oppose IMF moves? They happily applaud the rulers’ submission & capitulation to IMF dictates and Julie Chung’s interference in our internal affairs as the Viceroy of Sri Lanka, with no resistance.’ – Sena Thoradeniya, ee Sovereignty, ‘Helplessness & Confusion’ in the Coming Year
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• ‘In a submission to the court in the Myanmar case last month, eg, Canada & 5 other Western governments argued that the evidence of genocide can include ‘a violent military operation triggering the forced displacement of members of a targeted group’ and also ‘subjecting a group of people to a subsistence diet, systematic expulsion from homes and the induction of essential medical services below minimum requirement’.’ – see ee Sovereignty, South Africa’s legal effort to declare Israel’s actions ‘genocidal in character’ poses dilemma for Canada
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• Small Gaza Ain’t So Small – ‘It would have been outlandish to suggest that a small region like Gaza, seemingly bereft of significant natural resources… let alone sovereignty, would become the world’s most significant geopolitical spot on earth. The ongoing Israeli war on Gaza and the legendary resistance of the Palestinian people, however, have changed our calculation – or perhaps miscalculation – regarding what a besieged nation can achieve, in terms of collective resistance, in fact changing the rules of the game altogether. – Ramzy Baroud, ee Sovereignty, A Shift
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• ‘The smallholding is burdened by taxes. Taxes are the life source of the bureaucracy, the army, the priests, and the court – in short, of the entire apparatus of the executive power. Strong government & heavy taxes are identical. By its very nature, smallholding property forms a basis for an all-powerful & numberless bureaucracy. It creates a uniform level of personal & economic relationships over the whole extent of the country. Hence it also permits uniform action from a supreme centre on all points of this uniform mass. It destroys the aristocratic intermediate steps between the mass of the people & the power of the state. On all sides, therefore, it calls forth the direct intrusion of this state power & the interposition of its immediate organs. Finally, it produces an unemployed surplus population which can find no place either on the land or in the towns and which perforce reaches out for state offices as a sort of respectable alms, and provokes the creation of additional state positions.’ – Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852
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• ‘Countries choose their doctrines in response to the historical problems that they face. There was a time when the Chinese nation was impoverished & weak and at the mercy of others. At that time, all kinds of doctrines & trends of thought were explored. Capitalism was tried, & failed. Reformism, Liberalism, Social Darwinism, Anarchism, Pragmatism, Populism, & Trade Unionism were also all tried & all failed. None of them could solve the problem of China’s future & destiny. It was Marxism-Leninism & Mao Zedong Thought that guided the Chinese people out of the long night and established a New China, and it was socialism with Chinese characteristics that led to the rapid development of China.
Ever since the beginning of Reform & Opening up, and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dramatic changes that followed in Eastern Europe, international commentators have issued endless forecasts about the impending collapse of China. However, instead of collapsing, China’s national power continues to grow comprehensively day after day, the living standards of its people continue to rise, and ‘the landscape here is beyond compare’. Our history has demonstrated that only socialism was able to rescue China, and only socialism with Chinese characteristics was able to develop China. This is the judgment of history, and the choice of our people.’ – Xi Jinping, Regarding the Construction of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, 2013
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• ‘We are witnessing this new attempt at a Maidan coup, because the authors of this attempt to overthrow Aleksandar Vucic are the same superficial Ivy League scenario plotters in the State Department, in the CIA, that have been guiding USA’s disastrous foreign policy adventures for the past 30 years.’ – ee Sovereignty, Serbian Maidan Attempt a ‘Desperate Flailing Response’ by NATO to Ukraine, Red Sea Failures
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• Haiti as Shining Star – The 1st country that defeated in turn, English, Spanish & French armies • 1st successful revolt of the enslaved in world history, creating a nation • 1st universal revolution that banished slavery • 1st modern nation-state of African origin • 1st independent country in Latin America • 1st state that automatically accepted all Blacks as citizens • 1st agrarian reform instituted in Latin America • 1st state to militarily support South American independence – Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US
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• ‘The Sri Lankan government is compelled to continue the economic reform program endorsed by the IMF following the unlocking of the 2nd tranche of US$337million – of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to Sri Lanka on December 12. According to this program, the government has to enact legislation by April 2024, strengthening accountability & rule of law and enact a Public Procurement Law that reflects international good practice.
A new Public Financial Management Law will have to be introduced in parliament in 2024 to strengthen the fiscal responsibility framework, budget formulation & execution, and improve the quality of analytics in the Medium-term Fiscal Framework, Ministry of Finance.’ – see ee Economy, SL steps into 2024 aiming to alleviate people’s problems
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A3. Random Notes (‘Seeing Number in Chaos’)_
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• US 8th Fleet Base in Sri Lanka – ee 20 July 2019 predicted US & Indian sponsorship of the ‘Aragalaya’, as well as noted their involvement in the Easter Attacks as prelude to invading the country. That ee reported this essay ‘The US Wants Sri Lanka to Become Its Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier in S Asia’ as stating: ‘it can be anticipated that the USA will covertly work together with India to attempt a repeat of RAW’s 2015 election meddling to try to unseat the patriotic incumbent and advance their agenda for turning the island nation into their joint protectorate.’ (see ee Sovereignty, The US Wants Sri Lanka)
However, the original article on that link has now strangely been replaced by this article (see ee Sovereignty: ‘US Central Command Taking Silk Road’)
The original 2019 article also quotes former President Mahinda Rajapakse as blaming India’s spy agency RAW for his 2015 election defeat (see ee Sovereignty, Rajapaksa Blames RAW).
And now, get this from US salaryman Prof Patrick Mendis, who refers to Sri Lanka as an ‘Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier’ in a November 23 lecture. Yawn! The term was first used by US general Alexander Haig to refer to Israel (see ee Sovereignty, The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier of Sri Lanka).
It turns out ‘the US’ interest in replacing the 1995 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Sri Lanka stems from its desire to turn the island nation into its unsinkable aircraft carrier in South Asia and possibly even the base of a prospective ‘8th Fleet’ tasked with controlling the so-called Indian Ocean.’
The 2019 article is more prescient: ‘Its [then] pro-Western Prime Minister [Ranil Wickremesinghe, now President – ee] is collaborating with the US to replace the 1995 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in order to make it easier for the US military to deploy to the country at will, which prompted the patriotic president to promise “I will not allow the SOFA that seeks to betray the nation. Some foreign forces want to make Sri Lanka one of their bases. I will not allow them to come into the country and challenge our sovereignty.” Only regional outlets reported on this simmering political-security crisis, even though it has global strategic implications in the event that the USA achieves its tacit goal of turning the country into its unsinkable aircraft carrier in South Asia.’
‘The Pentagon’s newly published ‘Indo-Pacific’ Strategy Report makes it clear that it intends to establish and maintain dominance over the so-called Indian Ocean through which a significant share of the global commercial and energy trade traverses in order to ‘contain’ China in the New Cold War. The recent rebranding of the Pacific Command to the ‘Indo-Pacific’ Command emphasizes the operational importance that the US places on this body of water, so it’s only natural that the next step might be the creation of an ‘8th Fleet’ tasked with controlling it. Accordingly, while the strategically positioned English-owned but US-leased island of Diego Garcia might seem like the most logical place to base it at, the tiny atoll is far away from the Afro-Eurasian landmass and therefore ill-suited for taking on such a role. Instead, Sri Lanka would make a much better location because of its proximity to the US’ new military-strategic ally India and being astride the global shipping routes on which a lot of the Chinese economy depends.
‘The only way to ensure that the US’ long-term strategic plans succeed is for President Sirisena to lose the upcoming elections that are scheduled for later this year [2019]. The Sri Lankan leader’s political career perfectly encapsulates the strategic dilemma in which his country has found itself. When his predecessor (& recent political ally Rajapaksa) openly embraced China as a ‘balancing’ force for guaranteeing Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in the face of the threats posed by the nearby rising Indian hegemon, he [Sirisena] channeled the West’s infowar against its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) deals (especially the one in Hambantota) to rally the masses with populist rhetoric & narrowly win the 2015 election. Rajapaksa blamed India’s foreign intelligence service for meddling in the run-up to the vote and being responsible for his defeat, which in hindsight was probably true after Sirisena temporarily pivoted towards New Delhi & its Washington patron immediately after his victory. The ‘honeymoon’ was short-lived, however, since [Sirisena] eventually decided to reorient towards China in order to ‘balance’ out the excessive influence that those 2 Great Powers began to wield over Sri Lanka.
‘His attempt to replace his ardently pro-Western PM late last year [Oct 2018] with Rajapaksa of all people in order to ensure the success of his new ‘balancing’ policy engendered a constitutional crisis that ultimately ended in failure, which resulted in the irreconcilable polarization in the country that some have claimed made the Easter suicide attacks much easier to carry out. In any case, Sri Lanka is divided like never before, and the US’ efforts to push through its revised SOFA are only accentuating the differences within the country and pushing its government closer to the edge of collapse. Barring any unforeseen circumstances such as Sirisena selling out to the US, he’s expected to keep his promise to fight tooth and nail against any deal that infringes on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, with it also being in the back of his mind that he needs to do so in order to stand the best chance of winning re-election. That being the case, it can be anticipated that US will covertly work together with India to attempt a repeat of RAW’s 2015 election meddling to try to unseat the patriotic incumbent and advance their agenda for turning the island nation into their joint protectorate.’ (see ee 20 July 2019, The US Wants SL…)
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• ‘Bureaucrats Know Better than Elected Representatives’ – ‘Indrajith Coomaraswamy, Sharmini Coorey & Shantha Devarajan (CCD)’s justification for an independent CBSL that focuses primarily on inflation: Policy makers & modern scholars provide various justifications for an independent central bank, but the historical impetus for this concept largely arises from the traditional quantity theory of money, which posits a clear dichotomy between real & monetary phenomena. This dichotomy suggests that the factors influencing real economic phenomena, economic growth & employment, are distinct from those affecting monetary phenomena, like inflation & the external balance. Nicholas & Nicholas (2023b) highlight that proponents of this theory argue for an independent central bank primarily focused on controlling inflation by regulating the money supply, with the tacit understanding that such monetary measures do not impact on real economic phenomena.
Despite recognising that central banks predominantly use interest rate adjustments as their main policy instrument and that these adjustments have a bearing on a broader range of macroeconomic phenomena than just inflation, CCD maintain that the rationale for an independent Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) that focuses primarily on inflation as mandated by the Central Bank Act (CBA) is its (CBSL’s) purpose should be ‘to serve the public by safeguarding the value of the currency’. The CBSL’s purpose should not be to further the goals of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). That is to say, for CCD, an unelected group of bureaucrats staffing the central bank of a country know better than the elected representatives of the people of a country what is in the best interests of the latter.
CCD argue that in any case the provisions of the CBA allow for the CBSL to take into consideration the impact of its policies on other macroeconomic phenomena such as growth and employment. They argue, ‘the CBA already requires the CBSL, subject to achieving its inflation objective, to support the Government’s economic policy framework and to pursue the inflation objective in a manner that brings output towards its full employment or “potential” level.’
What CCD fails to address in this regard is the point we made, in Nicholas & Nicholas (2023b): although the CBA requires the CBSL to be accountable for meeting inflation targets, it does not hold the CBSL accountable for the impact of its policies on other important macroeconomic phenomena, such as economic growth, employment, income distribution, and poverty. Arguing that the CBA requires the CBSL to consider these other macroeconomic factors when setting interest rates is not the same as holding it accountable for the effects of its policies on these phenomena.
CCD view the independence of central banks in the US, Europe & Japan as exemplars for Sri Lanka to emulate. However, what is this role model in essence? It is the increasing concentration of economic decision-making power within entities that are not held accountable for their actions. Consider, eg, the recent policies of quantitative easing adopted by the central banks of most advanced countries, following the lead of the US Federal Reserve. These policies have been dubbed the world’s greatest financial experiment, a sentiment reflecting their scale & impact. Yet, it was an experiment not subjected to public debate or scrutiny, and one that by many accounts has resulted in the transfer of unprecedented wealth to the wealthy. In a New Statesman article, 8 Oct 2017, ‘How the world’s greatest financial experiment enriched the rich’, C Thompson quotes Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the fabulously rich & powerful Rothschild family banking dynasty, as arguing: ‘Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws’.’ – The Nicholases, ee Economists, Why the Central Bank Act should be significantly amended by a future govt: a rejoinder to Coomaraswamy, Coorey & Devarajan
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• CTC-financed & Assembly-of-God-votebank-elected SJB MP Harsha de Silva is critical of the JVP’s stance of not paying back Sri Lanka’s ISB debt: ‘The MP made this claim after a video went viral online showing Sunil Handunneththi, former JVP MP & ex-chair of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), casually dismissing Sri Lanka’s obligations to its ISB holders: ‘How did we get stuck in ISBs? Everyone who puts in money for ISBs do so taking the risk involved. They calculate the interest with the risk included. They have already taken the risk from the interest. If we say we’re not paying the ISB debt, they’ll say ‘It’s okay, machang’, because the risk is contained in the interest,’ Handunneththi said in the video. ‘ISBs are for investing in risky economies. The maturity periods and interests are calculated after a risk analysis. That’s what we have to say to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) too. ‘Give us the loan if you wish to. We will pay it back, but give us a fair amount of time to pay back. We don’t want conditions,’ he added. (see ee Economists, NPP govt won’t honour)
However, Daily Mirror story ‘NPP has absolutely no idea how to run a country’, quotes CTC MP Harsha de Silva, saying the claims made by top economists of the National People’s Power (NPP) that a future NPP government will not honour Sri Lanka’s $12billion ISB debt shows that the NPP has no idea how to run a country… On Twitter he said, NPP‘s chief economic adviser Prof Anil Jayantha earlier insinuated a future NPP government will not honour SL’s $12bn ISB debt, has now been reiterated by its top economist Sunil Handunhetti as well.’
Yet CTC’s SJB MP Harsha de Silva himself had also strongly advised the last Government against paying $500mn ISB debt in 2022: ‘Speaking in Parliament, de Silva said when the Government was readying to pay $500mn ISB payments in January 2022, he had strongly advised the Government against it, as the country would run out of money to finance our essential imports. However, the Government had ignored the warnings and was determined to make the payment.’ – Harsha de Silva alleges fraud committed in ISB payments, says businessmen linked to Govt benefited from ISB payments (20 April 2022), see ee Economists, Harsha Alleges
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• ‘In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer & member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor Jr, Director of the US Chamber of Commerce. The memo was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the US Supreme Court… Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber & corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced the creation of the Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s ‘hands-off business’ philosophy.’ – see ee Security, The Powell Memo (aka the Powell Manifesto)
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• Advocata’s US Sugar Daddies – Advocata in Sri Lanka was created and funded by shadowy US groups, eg Cato Institute & the Atlas Network: junktanks ‘behind neoliberal policies around the world… Most of the program for government announced by Javier Milei, the demagogic new Argentinian president, feels eerily familiar in the northern hemisphere.
A crash program of massive cuts; demolishing public services; privatising public assets; centralising political power; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations & oligarchs; destroying regulations that protect workers, vulnerable people & the living world; supporting landlords against tenants; criminalising peaceful protest; restricting the right to strike. Anything ring a bell?
Milei is attempting, with a vast ‘emergency’ decree & a monster ‘reform bill’, what the Conservatives have done in England over 45 years. The crash program bears striking similarities to Liz Truss’s ‘mini’ (maxi) budget, which trashed the prospects of many poor & middle-class people and exacerbated the turmoil that now dominates public life…
Milei’s program was heavily influenced by Argentinian neoliberal thinktanks belonging to something called the Atlas Network, a global coordinating body that promotes broadly the same political & economic package everywhere it operates. It was founded in 1981 by English citizen, Antony Fisher. Fisher was also the founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), one of the first members of the Atlas Network.
The IEA created, to a remarkable degree, Liz Truss’s political platform. In a video conversation on the day of her ‘mini’ budget with another member of the institute, its then director general, Mark Littlewood, observed: ‘We’re on the hook for it now. If it doesn’t work it’s your fault and mine.’ It didn’t work – in fact, it crashed spectacularly, at great cost to us all – but, thanks to England’s media, the BBC included, which continue to treat these fanatical corporate lobbyists as purveyors of holy writ, they’re off the hook.
Last year, the IEA was platformed on English media an average of 14 times a day: even more often than before the disaster it helped inflict on England. Scarcely ever was it challenged about who funds it or whom it represents. The 3 peers nominated by Truss in her resignation honours list have all worked for or with organisations belonging to the Atlas Network (Matthew Elliott, TaxPayers’ Alliance; Ruth Porter, IEA & Policy Exchange; Jon Moynihan, IEA). Now, like US supreme court justices, they have been granted lifelong powers to shape our lives, without democratic consent… Nothing has been learned: these corporate lobby groups still mould our politics. Policy Exchange, which, as Rishi Sunak has admitted, ‘helped us draft’ England’s vicious new anti-protest laws, is also a member of the Atlas Network… The Atlas Network itself & many of its members have taken money from funding networks set up by the Koch brothers & other rightwing billionaires, and from oil, coal & tobacco companies and other life-defying interests. The junktanks are merely the intermediaries. They go into battle on behalf of their donors, in the class war waged by the rich against the poor. When a government responds to the demands of the network, it responds, in reality, to the money that funds it. Atlas Network, etc, are a highly effective means of disguising & aggregating power. They are the channel through which billionaires & corporations influence politics without showing their hands, learn the most effective policies & tactics for overcoming resistance to their agenda, and then spread these policies & tactics around the world. This is how nominal democracies become new aristocracies. They also seem to be adept at shaping public opinion: eg, around the world, neoliberal junktanks have not only lobbied for extreme anti-protest measures, but have successfully demonised environmental protesters… Donald Trump has never developed a coherent platform of his own. He doesn’t have to. His policies have been written for him, in a 900-page Mandate for Leadership produced by a group of thinktanks led by the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is a member of the Atlas Network. Many of the proposals in the ‘mandate’ are, frankly, terrifying. They have nothing to do with public demands and everything to do with the demands of capital… Very similar programs have been dumped on other countries, beginning with Argentina’s neighbour Chile, after Augusto Pinochet’s coup in 1973.’ – see ee Economists, What links Rishi Sunak, Javier Milei & Donald Trump? The shadowy network behind their policies
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B. Special Focus____________________________________________
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B1. Finance & Banking, Digital Transformation & the Way Forward: Alternative Program of Communist Party of Sri Lanka, Pt 13
Introduction – Sri Lanka’s financial system operates under the supervision of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL). The banking sector’s main component is made up of 26 licensed commercial banks and 6 licensed special banks. It is these 32 banks that own majority of the assets in the financial sector of Sri Lanka. In addition, Sri Lanka’s financial system is made up of licensed finance companies, registered leasing companies, licensed microfinance companies, primary dealers of government securities, licensed leasing companies, authorized foreign exchange dealers, authorized money changers, and authorized money brokers.
There is also a banking and finance institution system that does not come under the supervision of the CBSL. This system is made up of Sanasa and Cooperative Banks. Outside of Central Bank supervision, there also exist illegal microfinance companies. Past governments took steps to establish the People’s Bank and to nationalize Bank of Ceylon in order to fulfil citizens’ investment needs. This move was expected to contribute to economic growth and increase productivity in the country. However, state banks today operate more like commercial banks and citizens engaged in production activities face a number of challenges when seeking financial support.
Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in Asia that completely lacks a dedicated development bank for industry & agriculture. All previous attempts at setting up development banks have either been politically sabotaged, or privatized and turned into commercial banks. The Sri Lankan financial system lends money for imports & consumption, creating a vicious cycle of currency devaluation & asset price inflation which benefits only a minority of traders, financial speculators & landlords.
Sri Lanka’s production economy has been starved of patient, long-term credit. Over 50% of credit distributed by commercial banks are given for imports & consumption. High & unstable interest rates have made it difficult for smaller producers to acquire credit and plan their investments.
Considering the above circumstances, the primary goals of our financial & banking policy are: • Increase the productivity of the real economy • Ensure full employment • Ensure sustainable growth • Manage price stability • Manage the exchange rate
The Way Forward – Idirimagen Idiriyata
1. Policy-oriented Banks – The CBSL should immediately conduct a survey of the relative productivity of all economic sectors in Sri Lanka, and work with fiscal authorities to establish a financial framework for industrialization which would include the establishment of an EXIM Bank, and development banks for strategic sectors including agriculture, fisheries, SMEs, and export-oriented manufacturing. These development banks should provide long-term concessional credit for firms in strategic sectors based on project viability.
2. De-Dollarization – The Central Bank of Sri Lanka should immediately draw up a roadmap for gradual de-dollarization, implying diversification of reserve assets. The CBSL should work with central banks of friendly countries to enable trade settlement in bilateral currencies.
3. Multiple Interest Rates – Instead of a single base interest, the CBSL should maintain differential base rates, with more favorable rates for strategic sectors such as domestic food production & export manufactures.
4. Green Monetary Policy – The CBSL should use forward guidance to induce a carbon mitigation & green transformational strategy for Sri Lanka. The CBSL should build its own credit rating system taking firm emission dynamics as a factor. The CBSL can also use a credit ceiling for carbon-intensive industries, coupled with concessional credit programs to help industries transition. Further, the CBSL should actively be involved in research and formulating green financial instruments such as Green Bonds.
5. Digitization
a) Digital Currency – CBSL should develop its own Central Bank Digital Currency to enhance its monetary policy toolbox. A CBDC would enable the CBSL to set agile interest rates, regulate cross-border netting, issue wholesale programmable coins, and gain deeper data insights into the functioning of the domestic economy.
b) Digital Payment Systems – CBSL should create a blueprint for a national digital payments system with the intent of improving financial literacy & financial inclusion. A national digital payment system could help moderate friction in the financial system and improve the circulation of capital. It would also help bring SMEs & own-account workers into the formal sector.
c) Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning – CBSL should invest in modern AI & ML-based technologies to better monitor macroeconomic indicators in real-time and forecast economic behavior. The CBSL can use the data to help policymakers formulate counter-cyclical policies. Advanced methods of modelling the Sri Lankan economy could also be used to virtually stress-test government economic policies before they are implemented.
d) FinTech – CBSL should take the lead in creating a conducive regulatory sandbox for the development of Financial Technology. Fintech regulations should be based on the unique conditions of the domestic economy and the specific objectives outlined by state industrial policy.
6. Combatting Financial Fraud & Illicit Payments –The CBSL should develop a robust monitoring framework with which to combat the Undiyal & Hawala systems, and trade mis-invoicing & illicit financial transfers.
Digital Transformation
Introduction – Currently, the global economy is preparing itself for the 4th industrial revolution. Industry 4.0 is the next phase of development of industry, driven by machinery that is intelligent, data-driven, interconnected, and networked both vertically & horizontally. This phase of industrial development will be driven by autonomous machines that make decisions through data and self-improve their productive capacities through machine learning and other types of cross-sectional data integration.
To facilitate Industry 4.0, economies need to build their next level of infrastructure. However, Sri Lanka is yet to fully build its telecommunication grid. Therefore, information technology (IT) policies should be accelerated. Sri Lanka has the skills & capability to build its own satellite or drone-based 4G telecommunications network, albeit with imported components, which could provide free, high-speed internet to every household & production unit in Sri Lanka. This could, with a little overseas collaboration, be upgraded to 5G.
What is lacking is state backing and the structure of the economy, which is geared to imports, not to local innovation or production: eg, to build any telecommunications product, a permit is required (for each separate product) from the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), together with clearance from the Ministry of Defence, a process that can take months. It is unlikely that the thousands of imported devices have to go through the same process. The following are a few of the challenges faced by Sri Lanka’s IT sector, most often due to lack of data, resulting in failed companies and inefficient distribution of resources.
Problems – Digital infrastructure in Sri Lanka was built mainly by private companies with market incentives, leading to unequal access to the internet. In contrast, developed countries built digital infrastructure with state-owned telecom companies which prioritized equitable access for all. Furthermore, Sri Lanka’s tech sector was not built with the purpose of supporting the productivity of domestic industries. Therefore, the IT industry developed like a plantation – without any linkages or synergies with the domestic economy. The IT sector remains dependent on foreign firms for outsourcing and adds little value to domestic firms.
Meanwhile, state policies of austerity have created constraints for public investment in IT infrastructure and digitalization. Education policies have not suitably nurtured IT skills necessary for widespread adoption of IT solutions. Poor industrial planning has led to a mismatch between products & services provided by private firms and the needs of the market. This is largely due to lack of access to data.
The Way Forward – Idirimagen Idiriyata
1. Expanding Public Digital Infrastructure – It is proposed to radically expand Sri Lanka’s digital infrastructure in order to build the foundations for Industry 4.0 and enhance the country’s competitiveness in the global market.
a) Grid Expansion – Expand the telecommunication grid and 5G penetration. Priority should be given to providing high-speed internet to rural areas.
b) Satellites – Launch a SL-owned satellite and make full use of the telecommunications bandwidths allocated to Sri Lanka. Use ground-based repeaters & drones to provide complete coverage to the entire island & surrounding exclusive economic zones. Sri Lanka should conduct a full-scale land survey using satellite systems. Which will earn valuable information about the human landscape & the natural landscape. This data can later be used to create a national positioning & navigation system.
c) E-governance – The government should build a management, security & regulatory framework for digital infrastructure & services. Government should build APIs (application programming interface) to enhance its servicing capacity. State network management should be introduced to audit and regulate digital networks. Use Blockchain technology for E-Governance to ensure transparency. Use immutable ledger technology applications to audit the public sector.
d) Digital ID – Develop digital ID & authentication systems. This will enable digital access to services, reduce compliance complications and protect the privacy of citizens. A digital ID will speed up the adoption of FinTech, RegTech, and e-governance services.
e) State-owned Data Analytics – The state should modernize the Department of Census & Statistics with new technology to provide data-driven insights for both policymakers & entrepreneurs.
f) Cybersecurity – Establish a sound data & cybersecurity governance system.
g) Digital Tenders – The public sector should introduce a market-oriented electronic tender bidding system to improve transparency & efficiency in the public sector.
2. Port City Colombo as a Digitization Lab – Port City should be used as an incubator to test run digitization policies. The Port City has great potential as a laboratory for various digital policy implementations since it was built to be a smart city. The state should also build a data exchange & trade platform in the Port City to incentivize the adoption of big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in the private sector.
3. Digitization of Education – The education systems should prioritize IT skills development, including universal digital literacy. High-quality digital learning resources should be provided to all learning institutions including schools, universities and vocational & technical training institutes.
4. Digitization & Industrialization – New businesses & start-ups should be encouraged to incorporate ‘digital thinking’ in their production & distribution processes. Industrial policies should be aligned to promote the development & adoption of modern techniques such as IOT, Big Data, and automation in the agriculture, manufacturing & construction sectors in order to improve productivity. Incentives such as subsidies, tax credits & long-term loans should be used to spur adoption of these solutions.
5. Encouraging Tech Start-ups – The State should develop start-up incubator networks in collaboration with banks & universities in order to spur innovation at the university level. Platforms should also be created to help crowdsource capital for start-ups. Links should also be developed between these incubators and local & foreign venture capital & private equity funds.
6. Digitizing Finance – Banks & financial institutions should be encouraged to expand service coverage through the internet in order to broaden financial inclusion. The state should also formulate a legal framework to facilitate network lending & internet consumers. Big Data & AI should be used to modernize evaluation of creditworthiness of borrowers on a case-by-case basis. Meanwhile, legal frameworks for Internet Financial Consumer Rights & Investor Protection should be strengthened through the establishment of a financial consumer dispute resolution mechanism.
7. Digitizing Healthcare – The State should build a unified digital data system for healthcare that merges both private & state patient data. This should enable the automation of healthcare administrative processes while fine-tuning service delivery between private & public sectors. This should also help provide long-term tracking of individual & collective health trends, alongside early warning through predictive analysis.
8. E-commerce – The government should promote the development of both B2C (business to consumer) & B2B e-commerce. All economic sectors should be encouraged to actively use e-commerce platforms in order to optimize the procurement & distribution system. The state should also encourage the development of all types of cross-border e-commerce, with the aim of boosting exports. The government should build a single internal system of cross-border e-commerce customs clearance & inspection and quarantine, settlement, and other key aspects of the cross-border e-commerce segment.
9. Digital Solutions for Sustainability – The state should build an online pollution surveillance system backed by Big Data gathered from various IoT (internet of things) applications & existing data sources. Such a surveillance system will help scale up the reversal mechanism for externalities and help to understand the dynamism of pollutant discharge. The data from these mechanisms should be made publicly accessible and can also be used to grade administrative regions, as well as production units to create incentive structures for tackling pollutants.
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B2. Europe’s NATO Socialists Enable Fascism – Thomas Fazi
There’s a story European progressives like to tell themselves: that, after the horrors of WW2, their governments struck a quasi-utopian compromise between capitalism & socialism – only for it to be corrupted by the import of the cutthroat capitalism that defined (US preseident) Reagan’s neoliberal counterrevolution in the early 1980s.
It’s a comforting fable, designed to excuse their own failures. It is, however, completely untrue. Neoliberalism wasn’t exported to Europe from across the Atlantic (or from across the Channel, for that matter). It was a largely homegrown affair – one that was, in fact, spearheaded by European Socialists, and by one Socialist in particular: Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission from 1985-95, who died this week.
To understand this tragedy, we need not return to 1945, but 1981. In May, the Socialist François Mitterrand was elected France’s president, after more than 2 decades of the Left being excluded from office. He went on to form a government that also included Communist ministers for the first time since 1947, prompting a widespread belief that France was headed for a radical break with capitalism.
At the time, such a notion was not inconceivable. Most European governments still firmly believed in the importance of economic dirigisme and the need for capital controls & regulated financial markets, which presupposed a high degree of economic sovereignty. Nowhere was this truer than in France:
In many ways, this optimism had been brewing for years. The French had always been particularly reluctant to agree to any supranational authority – a consistent position that had hampered progress towards an economic & monetary union. In general, there was still the belief that individual nations had the power to shape their own economic & political destinies – and even to challenge the capitalist system itself.
Nothing exemplifies this better than Mitterrand’s victory in the spring of 1981. The new president’s policy agenda embodied an ambitious reform program of Keynesian economic reflation & redistribution. It also proposed extensive nationalisations of France’s industrial conglomerates. By implementing this platform, Mitterrand claimed, his government would precipitate a ‘rupture’ with capitalism, and lay the foundations for a ‘French road to socialism’. It’s easy to see why this represented a moment of immense hope not just for the French Left, but for the entire European Left – of the kind not witnessed since.
Soon after the Mitterrand experiment began, however, it started to unravel. As a reaction to the Socialists’ ambitious plan for economic reform, capital started to flee France almost immediately. Despite the imposition of draconian capital controls, the government was unable to halt the flight.
This created a downward pressure on the franc (further exacerbated by post-1979 global interest rate hikes), threatening France’s membership in the European Monetary System (EMS) – the system of semi-fixed exchange rates created in 1979. Under the EMS, the central banks of other European economies had little choice but to shadow the Bundesbank’s restrictive monetary policy. Yet this was incompatible with Mitterrand’s reflationary program – and Mitterrand found himself in a position where a decision had to be made about whether to leave the EMS or abandon his progressive agenda. Regrettably, he chose the latter path.
And so, in the spring of 1983, Mitterrand & the Socialists drastically reversed course, in what came to be known as the tournant de la rigueur (turn to austerity): rather than growth & employment, the emphasis was now on price stability, fiscal restraint & business-friendly policies. A crucial aspect of this was the gradual rollback of virtually all capital controls & restrictions on financial transactions. And who was the main architect of this shift? Mitterrand’s finance minister, Jacques Delors.
The effects of this U-turn cannot be overestimated. Mitterrand’s victory in 1981 had inspired the widespread belief that a break with capitalism – at least in its extreme form – was still possible. Yet 2 years later, the French Socialists had succeeded in ‘proving’ the exact opposite: that globalisation was an inescapable reality. Even though there were alternatives available to Mitterrand (eg, leaving EMS and floating the franc), the conclusion most people drew was that the ‘Keynesian road to socialism’ had failed. Capital had won.
To make matters worse, the French Socialists, after having embraced neoliberalism at home, then proceeded to export their newfound views – on everything from capital movements to monetary integration – to the rest of Europe. Here, Delors was also central: ‘National sovereignty no longer means very much, or has much scope in the modern world economy. A high degree of supranationality is essential.’ This was a radical departure from France’s traditional souverainiste stance, which had already been seriously compromised by France’s decision to join the EMS, under which, as noted, the country was effectively forced to subjugate its own monetary-fiscal policy independence to the Bundesbank’s monetary policy.
For all of France’s historical concerns about supranational (ie, ‘European’) encroachment on its sovereignty on the one hand, and German hegemony on the other, few missed the irony of it being the Socialists who gave up that freedom – and to Germany of all nations. But by the late 1970s, French politicians on both sides of the political divide had come to accept that maintaining France’s status required them to remain firmly ‘in Europe’ – ie, in the EMS – which in turn entailed adopting a low-inflation, stable-currency policy.
This brought about a distinct shift in attitudes among the Socialists towards Europe – a mood that Delors summed up in Oct 1983: ‘Our only choice is between a united Europe & decline.’ As Rawi E Abdelal, business administration professor at Harvard Business School, noted: ‘To the extent that the French Left continued to hope for socialist transformation, its members could see Europe as the only arena in which socialist goals could be achieved.’ The problem was that, by 1983, they had little to offer in terms of a Europe-wide progressive alternative, since they had accepted the notion that social-political objectives should be subjugated to ‘price stability’.
And so, 2 years later, France strongly supported Delors’ nomination to the post of President of the European Commission – a position he would go on to hold for a decade, serving for 3 terms, longer than any other holder of the office. It is no exaggeration to say the Delors presidency was groundbreaking, giving the European integration process a momentum that had been lacking in the preceding decade. It is also the period in which the foundations of monetary union, and more generally of neoliberal Europe, were laid down – a development in which Delors, and the French Socialists in general, played a key role.
Their logic was the following: given that, within the EMS, the Bundesbank effectively set the interest rates for all participating states, and that leaving the EMS wasn’t considered an option, the French became increasingly convinced that there was only one way to preserve a low-inflation fixed exchange rate system while also wrestling control of monetary policy away from Germany: to push for a full European monetary union. For Delors, creating a single European currency became an utmost priority, and he set out to persuade his reluctant fellow European policymakers to embrace the idea. The first step was the signing of the Single European Act, in 1986, which set the objective of establishing a single market by 1992. Delors also proceeded to export France’s new views on capital movements to the rest of Europe, by pushing for the full liberalisation of capital flows across the continent – paving the way for a monetary union.
This brings the historical importance of the French Left’s neoliberal turn into stark relief: if the French hadn’t embraced financial liberalisation at the domestic level, they never would have offered their support for an integrated European financial market – and a monetary union would likely never have seen the light of day.
The Commission’s proposals were initially met with fierce resistance from a number of governments. But by the late 1980s, Delors had succeeded in radically changing Europe’s approach to capital controls – and in getting EU member countries to introduce full capital mobility by 1992, effectively making the free movement of capital a central tenet of the emerging European single market. This was a binding obligation not only among EU members but also between members and third countries.
In effect, Delors had succeeded in pushing Europe to fully embrace the ‘Paris consensus’, the European equivalent of the Washington consensus. The consequence of this was a European financial system that was, in principle, the most liberal the world had ever known. In this sense, the Europeans, far from being passive recipients of the free-market policies being concocted in Washington, actually preceded the US in embracing neoliberal globalisation, and promoting the spread of global capital.
This also profoundly influenced the construction of the monetary union. In short, Delors succeeded in convincing European governments that, by joining EMS and liberalising capital flows, they had effectively already lost much of their economic sovereignty; they therefore had little choice but to embrace monetary integration as a way to regain some sovereignty at the supranational level, by ‘having a say’ in Europe’s collective monetary policy. It was a shrewd argument, but a fallacious one: as history would show, by ceding their monetary policy to a supranational central bank, European governments simply ended up losing what little sovereignty they had left.
However, Delors was aided by the fact that, by the early 1990s, even the German establishment had come round to the idea of a monetary union – and indeed, national elites in most European countries had come round to the notion of a supranational central bank, fully immune to democratic pressures, as a useful way to insulate economic policy from popular contestation. By 1989 the Delors Committee had published its hugely influential Delors Report, which essentially acted as a blueprint for the construction of monetary union in the coming years.
The final act of this democratic tragedy came 3 years later with the Maastricht Treaty. This didn’t only establish a timeline for the establishment of monetary union (in line with Delors Report), but also created a de facto economic constitution that embedded neoliberalism into the very fabric of the European Union. By the time the Delors Commission came to an end, in 1995, much of the groundwork for the techno-authoritarian & anti-democratic juggernaut that the EU would later become was laid – and, to a large degree, we have Delors, a French Socialist, to thank for that.
Ironically, this didn’t just lead to the demolishing of the Left’s cherished European social model, to the benefit of financial-corporate interests (&, of course, Germany), but it also paved the way to the demise of the European socialist Left – and to the rise of the populist Right. More than anyone else, it is the latter who, today, should pay tribute to Delors. (see ee Economists, Delors)
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C. Building Blocks
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Every ee carries these extracts below to counter: 1) The constant harangue about exports, when they must at all times serve to advance or recapture and control of our home markets to develop modern industry. 2) We need to learn about machine industry versus handicraft, assembly and manufacture 3) The rules of the Sangha require constant interaction between people.
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• ‘The biggest handicap to industrial development is not the lack of capital but the absence of external economics, such as cheap power, cheap transport, technical and managerial ability, and above all the lack of a home market. The home market in an agricultural country is essentially the rural market. It is only a prosperous peasantry that can provide the home market for our industry. This is the connection between a guaranteed price for paddy and the industrialization of our country’ – Philip Gunawardena
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• ‘The Creation of a Home Market for our Industry is the pivot on which the future industrialisation of our country rests. In Ceylon’s context The Home Market essentially means The Peasant Market. To create the home market therefore we must substantially raise the living standards of the mass of the peasants so that they will be able to buy the goods produced by our industry. This demonstrates clearly the necessary connection between Industrialization & Agrarian Reform.’ – Policy Statement of the Ministry of Industries, 1956
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• ‘Their field of production, the smallholding, admits of no division of labor in its cultivation, no application of science and, therefore, no diversity of development, no variety of talent, no wealth of social relationships. Each individual peasant family is almost self-sufficient; it itself directly produces the major part of its consumption and thus acquires its means of life more through exchange with nature than in intercourse with society.’ – Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p124
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• ‘Japan will retain and encourage the branches of the machine industry that yield high added value, but production facilities that involve a low degree of processing and generate low added value should be moved to developing countries… so that Japan can concentrate on high technology & knowledge-intensive industry.’– Japan’s Council on Industrial Structure, 1977 (in SBD de Silva, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment)
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• Economics Not Taught – The Machines Nobody Knows – The Extraordinary Culture of Machine Tools – If we were a truly ‘developing’ country, here are the questions a national media would need to ask: A plan requires a political, economic & military strategy, which will first assess peasant & worker power, land (including natural resources), & capital, that the nation possesses, and the time needed to transform these powers into material reality:
Here’s ee’s Index of a Real Economy or, at least, how a real economy would be measured:
1. The index of a strong economy is modern industry.
2. The index of modern industry is the production of machines.
3. Machine tools (MT) are the most important of all machines.
4. MT is needed for huge diversified metal fabricating industries (auto, electrical, etc.)
5. MT is essential for production of machines for all other industries.
6. Full data on machinery production is needed:
7. What portion of our machinery needs are supplied by machines built in Sri Lanka?
8. What is the trend? Are we producing more or less machines than we did before?
9. Data on imports & exports of machinery is needed (esp shipments of MTs & other Industrial Machinery)
10. MT production vs imports, must include: Mining & Metallurgical Machinery, Pulp & Paper Machinery, Textile Machinery, Woodworking Machinery, Logging Machinery, Sawmill Machinery, Office & Business Machines (adapted from: ee 20-26 Sept 2020).
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• Making Central Banks Independent of the People?
– anchor.fm/shiran-illanperuma/episodes
– youtube.com/watch?v=_AWg6VvTj9g
– eesrilanka.wordpress.com/2019/08/10/imf-independence-the-central-bank/
– eesrilanka.wordpress.com/2020/06/27/make-the-central-bank-independent-of-capitalism/
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• On State-Owned Enterprises and Privatization
– anchor.fm/shiran-illanperuma/episodes/On-State-Owned-Enterprises-and-the-Privatization-Debate-w-Vinod-Moonesinghe-e1vric4
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D. 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’:
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D1. 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.
• Red Sea Deployment: Ranil Plays Pandu with Sri Lanka’s Security to Please the USA
• Sending Sri Lanka Navy to Red Sea is Insane, Irrational and Asking for Trouble
• To Prevent Rupee Depreciation Sri Lanka President backs USA in War Against West Asia
• Sri Lanka to deploy Navy ship on Red Sea amidst rising Houthi threats to Rupee
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-send-navy-ship-to-counter-houthi-attacks-in-red-sea-145932/
• R250M per fortnight Cost of Red Sea deployment Huge: SLN still studying US proposal
– https://island.lk/red-sea-deployment-sln-still-studying-us-proposal/
• SL Navy conducts feasibility study for Red Sea deployment amidst Houthi concerns
• 21 Indian Fishermen Detained By Sri Lanka for “Illegal Poaching” Released
• India tells Sri Lanka to not allow any Chinese research vessel to dock at ports or in EEZ – The Hindustan Times
• Sri Lanka’s reported denial of Chinese research vessel only proves India’s domineering diplomacy toward neighbors – Global Times
‘the regional hegemonic mentality of India is becoming increasingly stronger,’
– https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202401/1304657.shtml
• NARA express concerns over proposed National Hydrographic Bill
– https://island.lk/way-cleared-for-national-hydrographic-bill/
• The US Wants Sri Lanka to Become Its “Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier in South Asia” (2019)
• US Prof. Patrick Mendis calls Sri Lanka an Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier like Israel (2024)
– https://www.youtube.com/live/m8J0SKSfjEI?si=otzJ4uayP8sMzF9F
• US Central Command (CENTCOM) Taking Silk Road China Pakistan Economic Corridor (S-CPEC+) Real Seriously (2019)
‘Fearmongering speculation about China’s military motives, the US might use this as the pretext for launching Indian-led multilateral “freedom of navigation” patrols’
– https://eurasiafuture.com/centcom-is-taking-s-cpec-real-seriously/?
• India’s spy agency RAW behind my poll defeat, says former president Rajapaksa (2015)
• India makes Rajiv assassination case convict witness in Kerala drug seizure case
• US-funded former speaker Jayasuriya calls for abolition of executive presidency
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-former-speaker-calls-for-abolition-of-executive-presidency-145641/
• President announces resettling of Northern displaced people this year
– https://island.lk/president-announces-resettling-of-northern-displaced-people-this-year/
• Devolution of power is not just a political concept but an economic reality – President
• President Ranil backs 13A for stronger local economy without interference
– https://www.ft.lk/top-story/President-urges-economic-empowerment-via-13A/26-757129
– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/cyyxtDNc8XsmoW6NgMEo
– https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=96162
– https://economynext.com/use-13th-amendment-for-economic-development-sri-lanka-president-146172/
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/President-endorses-13A-for-strong-local-economy/108-274498
• Federation of National Organizations (FNO) warns SLPP MPs against supporting GTF-led initiative
‘The FNO alleged that the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government was going ahead with moves to fully implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution’
– https://island.lk/fno-warns-slpp-mps-against-supporting-gtf-led-initiative
• Office for National Unity and Reconciliation Bill to be taken up next Tuesday
– https://island.lk/office-for-national-unity-and-reconciliation-bill-to-be-taken-up-next-tuesday/
• South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission wasted Tax Payers money – so will Sri Lanka’s! – Waduge
• Indian Leasing of Trinco oil tanks: Cabinet reveals feasibility study recommendations
– https://island.lk/leasing-of-trinco-oil-tanks-cabinet-reveals-feasibility-study-recommendations/
• Cabinet green-lights first phase of Trincomalee oil tank development project
• Western Left and the US-China Contradiction – Prabhat Patnaik
‘Significant segments of the non-Communist Western Left see the developing contradiction between the US and China in terms of an inter-imperialist rivalry… ironically making these segments of the Left implicitly or explicitly complicit in US imperialism’s machinations against China’
– https://www.networkideas.org/news-analysis/2023/11/western-left-and-the-us-china-contradiction/
• Anuradhapura: capital for more than a thousand years – Nalin de Silva
– http://www1.kalaya.org/2023/12/blog-post_31.html
• We Sinhala – Nalin de Silva
‘Nation can be defined in different ways. It has absolutely nothing to do with genes’
– http://www1.kalaya.org/2024/01/blog-post.html
• Mahavansa written to establish Sinhala Buddhist culture in this country – Nalin de Silva
– http://www1.kalaya.org/2024/01/blog-post_5.html
– http://www1.kalaya.org/2024/01/blog-post_4.html
• Sri Lanka seems still blind to the machinations of Western powers – S Fernando
‘The alleged abduction of a female Swiss Embassy employee, just a week after the swearing in of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the seventh executive President, rattled the government.’
– https://island.lk/lttes-balasingham-garnier-and-western-diplomatic-missions/
• US illegally “annexed” Hawaii: Will Sri Lanka’s fate be same with MCC? – Waduge
– https://srilankabriefly.org/us-illegally-annexed-hawaii-will-sri-lankas-fate-be-same-with-mcc/
• “Helplessness and Confusion” in the Coming Year – Thoradeniya
– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2023/12/31/helplessness-and-confusion-in-the-coming-year/
• Buddhist Viharas 7 Eelam Part 12C&D
– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/01/02/buddhist-viharas-and-eelam-part-12c/
– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/01/02/buddhist-viharas-and-eelam-part-12d/
• Sinhala Buddhists must oppose carving out Eelam by claiming Truth, Unity and Reconciliation
• Whither the “Ilankaith Thamizhar” of Sri Lanka? – Jeyaraj
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Whither-the-Ilankaith-Thamizhar-of-Sri-Lanka/172-274544
• Three arrested for protesting against Ranil in Jaffna
– https://island.lk/three-arrested-for-protesting-against-ranil-in-jaffna/
• Two arrested for raising black flags against President
• Gajendrakumar calls upon Tamils to boycott next presidential election
– https://island.lk/gajendrakumar-calls-upon-tamils-to-boycott-next-presidential-election/
• LTTE Chief Prabhakaran got his deputy Mahathaya arrested and executed as a Indian Agent
• Root causes of the ethnic conflict: Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism – Ambika Satkunanathan
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/How-to-evade-justice-Reconciliation-without-accountability/4-756911
• Top UN official Wignarajah concludes series of high-level meetings in Sri Lanka
– https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=96147
• UN Wignarajah to assist reforms, digitalization and poverty eradication programs in Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka president to invite Tamil diaspora for northern development
• JVP leader blames Lanka’s plight on racism of political leaders
‘When we speak of nationalism we still have to talk of our forefathers in the times of 1818 & 1848 rebellions. We have had no national heroes since then. We have no Nehrus, Gandhis and Patels. When India produced such…we had Stevens, Junius Richards, Ridgeways and Solomon Diases.’
– https://island.lk/jvp-leader-blames-lankas-plight-on-racism-of-political-leaders/
• US-Lanka agree on measures to thwart illegal movement of nuclear and radioactive material
‘The signatories would be the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Navy on behalf of the US and Sri Lanka, respectively’
• Sri Lanka Navy to ink MoU with US Nuclear Security Administration
• Pakistan Defence Secy. Here
– https://island.lk/pakistan-defence-secy-here/
• Myanmar govt. agrees to release 56 Sri Lankans held in a cyber camp, in an urgent operation
• Sri Lanka FM calls Myanmar counterpart for help in repatriating Myawaddy detainees
• Rohingya refugees agitate as UNHCR office in Colombo plans closure
– https://island.lk/rohingya-refugees-appeal-to-un-to-keep-sri-lanka-office-open/
• New Zealand HC pays farewell call on Sri Lanka Defence Secretary
• Gaza genocide: Lanka’s Jekyll-and-Hyde Palestinian policy
• Canada Duraiappah’s nephew glad to be back home
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/news/duraiappahs-nephew-glad-to-be-back-home-543904.html
• Ringing in the New Year with precious gifts from the Bell family
‘HCP Bell was the first Archaeological Commissioner of Ceylon from 1890 to 1912.’
• India-Russia ties get a makeover – Bhadrakumar
‘We also understand and are willing to support their initiative to manufacture combat hardware under the ‘Make in India’ programme’
– https://www.indianpunchline.com/india-russia-ties-get-a-makeover/
• Buddhism is a major ingredient in India’s foreign policy
• Ship with 15 Indians on board hijacked off Somalia cost
• Indian navy rescues crew after Arabian Sea hijack attempt
• Prime Minister of Nepal Unveils Italian Architect’s plan for Ramagrama Stupa Conservation
• White House says Russia used missiles from North Korea to strike Ukraine
– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/chsagLrZcmK3UGGI8fDU
• Most surprising development of 2023 was rapprochement between Japan and South Korea
‘Richard Haass, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations’
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/sunday-times-2/2023-a-year-of-war-and-little-peace-543741.html
• Palestinian children aren’t part of the “international community”, obviously
‘US-England say their warships are protecting the “international community” from Yemen’s Houthis.’
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/2024-The-year-the-world-and-Sri-Lanka-change/4-757018
• Hizbullah’s Response to Assassinations by Israel in Lebanon
• Iran mourns as death toll from Kerman explosions reaches 84
• US forces sink ‘Houthi’ boats in Red Sea after attack on Maersk vessel
– https://island.lk/us-forces-sink-houthi-boats-in-red-sea-after-attack-on-maersk-vessel/
– https://island.lk/perils-to-sustained-growth-2/
• Lebanese Resistance Causes Enemy Losses – Ready To Fight Off Attacks
• U.S. military bases in northeastern Syria targeted by explosive-laden drones
• U.S. occupation forces attacked over 118 times in Iraq and Syria since October
• Rolling back Colonialism’s Last Redoubt
‘“Two States” has now been exposed for the farce that it always was’
– https://www.sundayobserver.lk/2023/12/31/opinion/13185/rolling-back-colonialisms-last-redoubt/
• Genocide in Gaza: S. Africa hauls Israel before ICJ
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/news/genocide-in-gaza-s-africa-hauls-israel-before-icj-543889.html
• South Africa’s legal effort to declare Israeli actions ‘genocidal in character’ poses dilemma for Canada
• A Shift… ‘Gaza, Saudi, Iran, Venezuela & More’
– https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/04/gaza-saudi-iran-venezuela-and-more
• On Palestinian and Other Resistance in Times of Catastrophe
– https://socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed-video/palestinian-resistance-times-of-catastrophe/
• Israeli family in key New York Times report refutes story of alleged rape by Hamas fighters
• Harvard’s former Black president warns U.S. institutes in danger of losing legitimacy
“Trusted institutions of all types – from public health agencies to news organizations – will continue to fall victim to coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their leaders’ credibility.”
• The Israel Supporter and The Sandwich
– https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-israel-supporter-and-the-sandwich
• What Is the Israel Lobby and What Does it Do?
– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/01/02/what-is-the-israel-lobby-and-what-does-it-do/
• Serbian Maidan Attempt a ‘Desperate Flailing Response’ by NATO to Ukraine, Red Sea Failures
• Ugandan President hails SL President for stabilizing economy
• ‘Beginning of the end’ for EU as we know it after surge in hard-Right support
– https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/31/beginning-of-end-for-eu-hard-right-surge/
• The biggest foreign policy losers of 2023
– https://responsiblestatecraft.org/foreign-policy-failures-2023/
• Brazil supports Argentina in dispute over the Malvinas Islands
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D2. 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.
• Way cleared for National Hydrographic Bill
– https://island.lk/way-cleared-for-national-hydrographic-bill/
• NARA express concerns over proposed National Hydrographic Bill
• Govt. sees need for A2P SMS system to tackle security challenges due to excessive use
‘Excessive use of short message systems has led to fraud, spam and illegal activities’
• Sri Lanka to study England’s Infobip centralized SMS firewall proposal
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-study-infobip-centralized-sms-firewall-proposal-145888/
• Bar Association complains of spike in arbitrary acts by authorities
– https://island.lk/bar-association-complains-of-spike-in-arbitrary-acts-by-authorities/
• Outcry on social media against Colpetty Police searching son of ICI/CIC Director
• Brigadier APR David was suspected in the 1962 Coup
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/plus/appreciations-14-543669.html
– https://island.lk/brigadier-apr-david-vsv-usp-fbim-psc-officer-and-a-gentleman/
• Sri Lanka to Remove Barriers to Women Rising to Top Roles in Military
– https://island.lk/sri-lanka-to-remove-barriers-to-women-rising-to-top-roles-in-military/
• Minister Devananda complains against Jaffna police ‘in league with drug dealers’
– https://island.lk/minister-devananda-complains-against-jaffna-police/
• Devananda alleges that Jaffna VIP dodged narcotics search operation
• Drug raid goes awry in South; Sergeant killed, SI injured
– https://island.lk/drug-raid-goes-awry-in-south-sergeant-killed-si%e2%80%88injured/
• Six persons, local fishing trawler seized with narcotics on southern sea
• Navy, PNB carry out major drug bust at sea
– https://island.lk/navy-pnb-carry-out-major-drug-bust-at-sea/
• Over 20,000 arrested for drug dealing and other criminal activities in 14 days
– https://island.lk/over-20000-arrested-for-drug-dealing-and-other-criminal-activities-in-14-days/
• Patali: Operation Yukthiya has left some children destitute
– https://island.lk/patali-operation-yukthiya-has-left-some-children-destitute/
• Police demolish beach hotel at Dehiwala belonging to fugitive drug dealer
– https://island.lk/police-demolish-beach-hotel-at-dehiwala-belonging-to-fugitive-drug-dealer/
• Demolition of hotel built with drug money on Dehiwala beach continues – police
– https://island.lk/demolition-of-hotel-built-with-drug-money-on-dehiwala-beach-continues-police/
• Demolition of hotel: Some questions
– https://island.lk/demolition-of-hotel-some-questions/
• The term “underworld” should not be used to describe what are organised criminal gangs
• A majority of those involved in the ‘Aragalaya’ were on drugs
“You have to be on drugs to have driven out a President under whom the Value Added Tax (VAT) was at 8% and usher in an age when the VAT is now 18%’– Namal Rajapaksa
• Lawyers request AG to prosecute Acting IGP for torture
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Lawyers-request-AG-to-prosecute-Acting-IGP-for-torture/44-757126
• Lifelines And Life Sentences
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Lifelines-And-Life-Sentences/172-274014
• Can a male cop search my handbag? Apparently the answer is yes!
• Indian inmate attacks official at Boossa high security prison
• State Minister threatened me with death at pistol point – detainee tells court
• Royal pardon for 44 Lankans in UAE prisons
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/news/royal-pardon-for-44-lankans-in-uae-prisons-543880.html
– https://island.lk/forty-four-sri-lankans-in-different-jails-across-uae-pardoned-by-royal-order/
• Mass suicide?: Probes into 7 recent deaths under similar circumstances handed over to CID
• CID called in to trace members of ‘suicide cult’
– https://island.lk/cid-called-in-to-trace-members-of-suicide-cult/
• Govt. expedites legislation against religious distortion
• Pastor Fernando granted bail on strict conditions
– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/Pastor-Jerome-gets-bail/2-1144547
– https://island.lk/pastor-fernando-granted-bail-on-strict-conditions/
• Prasanna Nimal Wikramanayake KC
– https://island.lk/prasanna-nimal-wikramanayake-kc/
• The Powell Memo (aka the Powell Manifesto)
– https://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
– https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/
• Russia’s electronic warfare tactics are helping it turn the tide against Ukraine
‘Russian jamming. Moscow has quietly developed a knack for taking out some of Ukraine’s most prized missiles and rockets’
– https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/27/russia-electronic-warfare-turn-tide-war-ukraine/
• Russian Armed Forces deliberately hit a Kharkov hotel where a meeting of US generals and intelligence was planned
– https://pravda-en.com/world/2023/12/31/245134.html
• 2024: Hypersonic Strikes, Disasters, War, and More Global Trends
– https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/first-of-the-year-sitrep-hypersonic/comments
• Homelessness among England’s armed forces veterans rises by 14%
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D3. 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.
• CTC Harsha de Silva strongly advised Government against paying $500 million ISB in 2022
– https://www.ft.lk/news/Harsha-de-Silva-alleges-fraud-committed-in-ISB-payments/56-733640
• NPP against ISB Payments has absolutely no idea how to run a country: CTC Harsha
• NPP govt won’t honour Sri Lanka’s ISB debt, warns Harsha de Silva
– https://economynext.com/npp-govt-wont-honour-sri-lankas-isb-debt-warns-harsha-de-silva-146179/
• IMF demanded VAT – Nalin de Silva
– http://www1.kalaya.org/2024/01/blog-post_3.html
• VAT hike will send local business reeling, warns CCC
– https://island.lk/vat-hike-will-send-local-business-reeling-warns-ccc/
• Harsha finds many drawbacks in VAT system, ‘including lot of confusion even at highest echelons’
• Sajith must renounce SJB Economic Council’s technocratic dreamscapes & fetishism of the foreign – Jayatilleka
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/2024-The-year-the-world-and-Sri-Lanka-change/4-757018
• Why the Central Bank Act should be significantly amended by a future govt: A rejoinder to Coomaraswamy, Coorey, and Devarajan – The Nicholases
• Where did all the money go? – Deshan Pushparajah
– https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/where-did-all-money-go-deshan-pushparajah
• Ex-PUCSL Chief warns of further economic contraction in 2024
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Ex-PUCSL-Chief-warns-of-further-economic-contraction-in-2024/44-757128
• Government pledges 75% dip in cost of living by end-1Q24
• MP Harsha de Silva poor on the interpretation of the poor
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/slide-1/MP-de-Silva-poor-on-the-interpretation-of-the-poor/329-273230
• Sri Lanka CB chief urges public to be become informants to boost tax revenue
• Central Bank hosts Rockefeller International Chairman who wants open labour policies
• Amid economic hardships, presidential polls will dominate the New Year – Sunday Times Political Editor
‘Originally, government leaders claimed that the purpose of a VAT increase was to enhance government revenue. Now officials argue that efforts are being made to “mitigate’ impact of VAT’
• 2023 steadiness was due to being under debt moratorium – Sunday Times Political Editorial
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/editorial/state-of-the-nation-in-2024-543816.html
• President promises 5% economic growth in 2026/27 under current economic policies
• Sagala threatens severe action against those spreading falsehoods about VAT
– https://island.lk/sagala-threatens-severe-action-against-those-spreading-falsehoods-about-vat/
• Traders have jacked up prices according to their whims and fancies.
‘Transporters, restaurateurs, bakers and others have already made the most of the situation by effecting disproportionate increases in the prices of their goods and services. ‘
– https://island.lk/a-year-of-challenges-ahead/
– https://island.lk/nightmare-unfolding/
• Government started black market in the first place: SJB Unionist Ananda Palitha
• Jayasumana pushing for Opp. campaign against govt.’s economic strategy
– https://island.lk/jayasumana-pushing-for-opp-campaign-against-govt-s-economic-strategy/
• Perils to sustained growth 1&2 – G. Usvatte-aratchi
– https://island.lk/perils-to-sustained-growth/
– https://island.lk/perils-to-sustained-growth-2/
• Economic recovery, improved foreign reserves amid signs of economic growth: Sanderatne
‘Manufactured exports fell 50% due to depressed demand for exports in Western markets.’
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Official-reserves-cross-US-4bn-mark-in-2023/215-274557
• Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the trigger point for long-term worsening process: Wijewardena
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/My-View-completes-13-years-Still-batting-and-not-out-yet/4-756856
• Economy is characterised by acute income and wealth inequality – Abeyratne
‘The top 10 per cent of the population earns nearly half of the country’s total incomes even before the crisis; the bottom 50 per cent of the population acquires only about 10 per cent of income’
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/business-times/new-ammunition-for-the-new-year-543617.html
• Unexplored options to raise revenue – Neville Ladduwahetty
– https://island.lk/unexplored-options-to-raise-revenue/
• Sri Lanka when Googled don’t help build brand Sri Lanka – Rohantha Athukorala
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Googling-Sri-Lanka/4-757068
• Sri Lanka & Sri Lanka – T. Gunasekera
‘European Central Bank made the implicit explicit by stating that profit margins had become the main driver of inflation, responsible for 66% of real-terms price increases in 2022.’
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Sri-Lanka-Sri-Lanka/4-756971
• “On the positive side, SLAirlines slated for privatisation next year” – Kussi Amma Samath
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/business-times/crystal-ball-in-2024-543615.html
• Re-negotiating IMF terms backed by a fresh mandate may be way out for the economy
• Distribution of burden in meeting IMF conditions not much discussed – USAID NPP Perera
– https://island.lk/hoping-against-hope-in-the-new-year/
• Big question mark over future of democratic development in South Asia
‘The empowerment of people is a multifaceted phenomenon, but the basic material requirements of a people, such as food, water and shelter, need to be satisfied first’
– https://island.lk/big-question-mark-over-future-of-democratic-development-in-south-asia/
• Sri Lankan Chapter of Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) meet with the President
• Entrepreneurs rip into CBSL Governor over refusal to amend Parate Law and Freeze Debts
• The Rise of The Zombie Firms: The Problem with Recapitalising Banks – M. Udara Peiris
‘recapitalisation will predominantly benefit business owners with insolvent enterprises’
• Can Imported EVs be a win-win for Sri Lanka’s transportation industry? – Anura Wijayapala
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Can-EVs-be-a-win-win-for-Sri-Lanka-s-transportation-industry/4-757023
• The year 2024: Election year for Sri Lanka and Blue Ocean Strategy
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/The-year-2024-Election-year-for-Sri-Lanka-and-Blue-Ocean-Strategy/4-757002
• VAT on jewellery: Serious challenges for all stakeholders and possible solutions
• Head of Economic Oversight Committee to move CIABOC against revenue authorities
‘politicians and officials colluded with big business to amend relevant laws to prolong appeal process’
– https://island.lk/head-of-economic-oversight-committee-to-move-ciaboc-against-revenue-authorities/
• A spanking new bribery commission – but (alleged) gross corruptors in Sri Lanka’s cabinet?
– https://island.lk/new-bribery-commission-appointed-after-delay-over-differences/
• What can (and cannot) be done about corruption
– https://www.ft.lk/columns/What-can-and-cannot-be-done-about-corruption/4-756912
• Requirement for individuals over 18 years to register with CGIR not valid
• Pragmatic and progressive structural transformation to enhance tax net – Gishan Illangakoon
• Recolonising Young Minds Via National Education Policy – Prabhat Patnaik
‘To believe that the syllabi and course contents in Third World universities should be identical with those in metropolitan universities is itself a symptom of being hegemonised by imperialism.’
– https://www.newsclick.in/recolonising-young-minds-nep
• Xi Jinping in context
– https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/xi-jinping-context
• What Moscow’s Anti-Sanctions Tsarina leading Russia’s Central Bank says about economic war with the West
‘the central bank has long pursued a policy aimed at protecting incomes from devaluation as a result of high inflation, and we will continue doing so.’
– https://www.rt.com/business/589811-elvira-nabiullina-interview-rbk/
• What and Where Are Russia’s $300 Billion in Reserves Frozen in the West?
• Ukraine SitRep: Tit For Tat, Tat, Tat – Russia Intensifies Missile Strikes
• Jacques Delors destroyed the European Left: The French Socialist enabled the populist Right
– https://unherd.com/2023/12/jacques-delors-destroyed-the-european-left/
• What links Rishi Sunak, Javier Milei and Donald Trump? The shadowy network behind their policies
• Top ten posts of 2023: AI, polycrisis, banking and inflation – Roberts
• Forecast 2024: stagnation, elections and AI – Roberts
‘The US quest for reindustrialization is almost certain to fail. The alt-right blames unions and “Cultural Marxism”, but US unions are long dead, and workforce too expensive, with or without unionization’
– https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/forecast-2024-stagnation-elections-and-ai/
• How Geopolitics Might Crash a 2024 Economic Soft Landing for the US-led world
‘Adding to uncertainties next year are a welter of elections in more than 50 economies, shaping the incentives of policymakers and their political opponents.’
• Why ‘Bidenomics’ is falling flat with voters
“Trump was always talking up the economy and for better or worse that changed people’s perceptions of that labor market.”
– https://thehill.com/business/4376617-why-bidenomics-is-falling-flat-with-voters/
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D4. 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.
• IMF Representatives to Visit Sri Lanka for Economic Assessment on January 11
– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/1/5/imf-representatives-to-visit-sri-lanka-for-economic-assessment
• Partial relaxation of 2020 vehicle import ban to boost prospects for diversified financials
• SL steps into 2024 aiming to alleviate people’s problems
• Sri Lanka import bill slightly down amid lower remittances in November
• Sri Lanka Customs earns record Rs. 970 b revenue in 2023
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Sri-Lanka-Customs-earns-record-Rs-970-b-revenue-in-2023/44-756948
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-customs-earns-rs970bn-in-2023-despite-import-restrictions-145683/
• Inflation as per CCPI gains again in November
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Inflation-as-per-CCPI-gains-again-in-November/44-756898
• CCPI based headline inflation gains in December as new tax looms
– https://island.lk/sri-lanka-inflation-climbs-as-new-tax-looms/
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-2023-inflation-at-4-0-pct-in-december-145323/
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/CCPI-based-headline-inflation-gains-in-December/44-756957
• Uptick in inflation likely due to VAT
– https://island.lk/uptick-in-inflation-likely-due-to-vat/
• President gives ‘political nod’ to central bank to create up to 7-pct inflation
‘Inflation hurts the poorest most, slashes savings of retirees and also reduces real savings available for businesses and the government, triggering foreign borrowings making long-term planning difficult’
• Sri Lanka sees at least 2-pct economic growth in 2024
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-sees-at-least-2-pct-economic-growth-in-2024-145464/
• Export sector records Year-on-Year growth
‘Earnings from the exports of industrial goods declined in November 2023, with a significant share of the decline being contributed by garments.’
– https://island.lk/export-sector-records-year-on-year-growth/
• State revenue accounted for 11.2% of GDP in 2023 – State Minister for Finance
• Govt. revenue in 2023 reach Rs. 3.1 t surpassing revised estimate
• Sri Lanka posts external current account surplus for five quarters
‘after monetary stability was restored….Sri Lanka has repaid multilateral debt, the CB has collected reserves and also settled some dollars borrowed through swaps in 2023, while private banks also built-up dollar balances or repaid credit lines’
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-posts-external-current-account-surplus-for-five-quarters-145822/
• Sri Lanka foreign reserves up US$829 to US$4.4bn in Dec 23
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-foreign-reserves-up-us829-to-us4-4bn-in-dec-23-146238/
• Rollercoaster year for Government Securities: 2023 Highlights
• Due to past exemptions there’s leakage of taxes and government was forced to broaden the base
– https://island.lk/estimated-rs-1400-bn-from-vat-in-2024/
• Severe challenges to the financial sector in 2023: Central Bank
• Central Bank’s Financial Stability Review 2023 reveals strained balance sheets, deterioration in credit quality, and sectoral risks
‘The Licensed Finance Companies (LFCs) sector has shifted to pawning/gold loan facilities in the first nine months of the year and this has heightened the sector’s risk to fluctuations in global gold prices’
– https://island.lk/central-bank-releases-financial-stability-review-for-year-2023/
• Banking sector consolidation marked as next area of focus
‘several banks including two Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) reported a decline in profits during the period.’
• Public funds for bank recapitalisation only as last resort: CB Governor
• Blow after blow: After VAT new excise tax on fuel, other items
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-hikes-fuel-prices-after-vat-145374/
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Fuel-LPG-prices-soar-with-VAT/44-756944
• Sri Lanka says 43 items including medicine, foods, education exempt from VAT
• Sri Lanka lifts PAL tax on petrol, diesel, LP Gas, fertilizer as VAT widened
‘PAL tax, a so-called para-tariff, which is not recoverable, can make economic system more efficient by making domestically produced goods more export competitive’
• Sri Lanka to remove PAL on many items coming under higher VAT
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-remove-pal-on-many-items-coming-under-higher-vat-145170/
• Taxpayers can evade income taxes for up to 15 years under current legislation: Mahindananda
• Tax arrears top Rs 940 billion and much of it ‘unrecoverable’• Inland Revenue gets new Commissioner General
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Inland-Revenue-gets-new-Commissioner-General/44-757041
– https://island.lk/tax-arrears-top-rs-940-billion-and-much-of-it-unrecoverable/
• Rs 50,000 fine for not obtaining Taxpayer Identification Number
– https://island.lk/rs-50000-fine-for-not-obtaining-taxpayer-identification-number/
• Data security concerns raised over IRD website
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Data-security-concerns-raised-over-IRD-website/44-757042
• Taxing confusion
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Taxing-confusion/44-757043
• One-month grace period for acquiring property without opening tax files
– https://island.lk/one-month-grace-period-for-acquiring-property-without-opening-tax-files/
• Sri Lanka gives extra month to buy vehicles, licenses, and property sans income tax file
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Siyambalapitiya-announces-delay-in-tax-changes/44-756846
– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/SJG7kFgISLD43voXKLAS
• Personal income tax payers in IRD books better than doubles
– https://island.lk/personal-income-tax-payers-in-ird-books-better-than-doubles/
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Sharp-rise-in-tax-files-IRD/44-756847
• Sri Lanka’s tax revenues for 2023 revised up to Rs2,752bn: Minister
– https://economynext.com/sri-lankas-tax-revenues-for-2023-revised-up-to-rs2752bn-minister-145457/
• New minimum 15% global corporate tax rate for major multinational companies in effect
• US national debt hits record US $ 34trillion
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/US-national-debt-hits-record-US-34tn/273-274371
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D5. 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
• Intellectuals have not been produced in this country for thousands of years – Nalin de Silva
– http://www1.kalaya.org/2024/01/blog-post_86.html
– http://www1.kalaya.org/2024/01/blog-post_5.html
• Unions Protest Bill Splitting CEB into Six Entities
– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/1/5/unions-protest-bill-splitting-ceb-into-six-entities
• New employee recruitment for Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) halted
• CEBEU calls for wide-ranging, transparent consultations to redraft Electricity Act
– https://island.lk/cebeu-calls-for-wide-ranging-transparent-consultations-to-redraft-electricity-act/
• Leave of all CEB employees cancelled
– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/Leave-of-all-CEB-employees-cancelled/2-1144544
• Electricity supply, petroleum product distribution gazetted as essential services
• CEB continues strike action despite warnings
– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/CEB-continues-strike-action-despite-warnings/2-1144569
• CEB vows to take action against employees on strike
• Another court order issued against CEB trade unionists’ protests
– https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=96164
• CEB management to suspend employees who disrupt services or act in violation of CEB guidelines
• Government and the power sector trade unions are engaged in a game of chicken
– https://island.lk/stop-game-of-chicken-2/
• Workers continue to protest for third consecutive day against move to privatise CEB
• Airport & Aviation Services (AASL) Chairman places 28 officials on compulsory leave amid airport disruption allegations
– https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=96155
• Sri Lanka New Employment Bill will include transgender workers’ rights: Minister
‘Sri Lanka has 16 labor laws including the Employment of Women, Young People and Children Act that prohibits women working at night’
• Rs.100,000 salary in Jan. 2023 worth significantly less by year-end
• State sector employment trade unions knew of decision not to disburse 2023 bonuses-allowances
• Concessions for govt employees after Thai Pongal festival this year – President
• Colombo lavishly decorated with power guzzling illuminations
‘while tens of thousands of domestic electrical connections disconnected due to non-settlement of bills’
– https://island.lk/what-will-the-new-year-bring/
• Navy continues relief operations in Trinco and Polonnaruwa
• Investigations into patient’s death indicate CO2 during surgery at National Hospital
• NHSL: Death due to administration of carbon dioxide, probe still on
– https://island.lk/nhsl%e2%80%88death-due-to-administration-of-carbon-dioxide-probe-still-on/
• Report on patient’s death allegedly due to negligence at NHSL to be submitted today
• Sri Lanka urges parents to vaccinate children for measles after spreading
• Another inmate of Matara Prison succumbs to Meningitis
– https://island.lk/another-inmate-of-matara-prison-succumbs-to-meningitis/
• Health Minister watchful for Covid JN.1 variant, screening of Indians not necessary
• Sanity amidst chaos: The story of Aragalaya street medics
– https://island.lk/sanity-amidst-chaos-the-story-of-aragalaya-street-medics/
• Illness and Consciousness – A personal experience
– https://island.lk/illness-and-consciousness-a-personal-experience/
• Joining in Psychosocial work back home in Sri Lanka – Padmani Mendis
– https://island.lk/joining-in-psychosocial-work-back-home-in-sri-lanka/
• Kataragama Kapuwa’s arrest sparks debate of divine offerings
– https://island.lk/kataragama-kapuwas-arrest-sparks-debate-of-divine-offerings/
• Offerings Made To Devales; Where Do All The Monies Go?
• Sri Lankans struggling to buy food, says WFP report
‘borrowing money, purchasing food on credit, spending savings or skipping debt payment, selling jewellery to buy food, reducing spending on education and health and selling household assets’
– https://island.lk/sri%e2%80%88lankans-struggling-to-buy-food-says-wfp-report/
• The Treasury has been allowed to pay off debts of Pensioner’s Fund and made it independent
• Tax hike likely to see surge in cheaper rail travel
• Nightmare experience with SriLankan on Christmas day flight
– https://island.lk/nightmare-experience-with-srilankan-on-christmas-day-flight/
• Dispelling Myths on Health and Welfare of plantation workers in Sri Lanka’s plantation RPCs
• Two leaves and a bud: the history of Malaiyaham as pedagogy – Sivamohan
‘in 1823, land was allocated for the first large scale coffee plantation in the hill country’
– https://island.lk/two-leaves-and-a-bud-the-history-of-malaiyaham-as-pedagogy/
• Two leaves and a bud: History of Malaiyaham as pedagogy’ – A response by GAD Sirimal
‘The Sinhalese of the last century, displayed an unconquerable repugnance to undertake work upon the European estates’
– https://island.lk/two-leaves-and-a-bud-history-of-malaiyaham-as-pedagogy-a-response/
• US Advocata: Minimum wage model partly responsible for the high costs of production
– https://island.lk/advocata-institute-releases-comprehensive-report-on-the-tea-industry-of-sri-lanka/
• Remember Sajith’s “Usa nam security, miti nam kamkaru”
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/columns/alliances-in-the-offing-543810.html
• Understanding informal remittances during a crisis: Experience from Sri Lanka
• Crisis Hit Sri Lankans End Up In Foreign Cyber Slavery
• S. Arabia has recruited 63,000 Lankan workers last year
– https://island.lk/s-arabia-has-recruited-63000-lankan-workers-last-year/
• Running out of diplomats and out of excuses
‘27 of our missions—then almost half of them—had political appointees as high commissioners, ambassadors, consuls general and deputy high commissioners.’
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/columns/running-out-of-diplomats-and-out-of-excuses-543714.html
• Rewarded for good job done at SLT by being fired, and musical chairs with Arjuna Mahendran
• Stalin raises issue of delays in holding two vital exams
– https://island.lk/stalin-raises-issue-of-delays-in-holding-two-vital-exams/
• Calculators? Why not?
– https://island.lk/calculators-why-not/
• Lankan origin innovator Dr. Sithamparanathan made OBE
– https://island.lk/lankan-origin-innovator-dr-sithamparanathan-made-obe-in-kings-new-year-honours/
• Education & Foreign Ministries art competition for school children to highlight Indian Ocean
• Active Bhikkuni Order is of significance for the preservation of Buddhism
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/plus/letters-to-the-editor-11-543673.html
• Refloating of ‘Goschen’– a novel experience for us railway men
– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231231/plus/refloating-of-goschen-a-nov
el-experience-for-us-railway-men-543665.html
• To the US from Giruvapattuwa
– https://island.lk/giruwa-pattuwen-amerikawata-to-the-us-from-giruvapattuwa/
• England bans overseas students from bringing their families
– https://island.lk/uk-bans-overseas-students-from-bringing-their-families/
• Six Dots That Changed the World for the Blind
– https://www.newsclick.in/six-dots-changed-world-blind
• Belgian Women’s Rights Platform Zelle Resolves to Continue Fight for Equality
– https://www.newsclick.in/belgian-womens-rights-platform-zelle-resolves-continue-fight-equality
• Essential Services in Quebec and the ‘crystal ball’ by François Legault
‘In societies that recognize conflict as an element of social life, the role of the right – that is to say the justice system – is to regulate the moments when discord between social actors comes to the fore.’
– https://socialistproject.ca/2024/01/essential-services-quebec-francois-legault/
• New Jersey imam shot and killed outside his mosque
‘The killing of Imam Hassan Sharif was not motivated by domestic terrorism or bias.’
– https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67878896
• SpaceX accused of unlawfully firing staff critical of Elon Musk
• US job growth accelerates in December; wage gains solid – Reuters
– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/96174/us-job-growth-accelerates-in-december-wage-gains-solid
*
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D6. 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.
• Hundreds of villagers repair Dematawewa road, which links 28 villages to the nearest township
– https://island.lk/way-forward-2/
• Significant rise in vegetable prices
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Significant-rise-in-vegetable-prices/108-274527
• Colombo Commercial Fertilizers, Ceylon Fertilizer Co to sell plantations subsidized fertilizer
‘The annual fertilizer requirement for tea cultivation is 40,000 metric tons costing roughly 6.8 billion rupees…the Sri Lanka Tea Board had given loans to purchase fertilizer, but some tea growers allegedly use the money for other purposes’
– https://island.lk/tea-production-to-get-into-top-gear-as-fertilizer-usage-issues-come-to-the-fore/
• National Chamber of Commerce meets IGTD Exim Chamber of Commerce from India
‘importers of cinnamon, clove, coconut, tea, rubber, granite, marbles as well as exporters of corn, garlic, millet, mustard cake, mustard oil, onion and onion powder, frozen French fries, potato, red chilli, green chilli, other agri products and filter products such as air oil separators, basket filters, ceiling filters, cyclone separators.’
• Worm Infestation Threatens Nochchiyagama Maize Crop
– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/1/5/worm-infestation-threatens-nochchiyagama-maize-crop
• Diseased Australian seed potatoes land northern farmers in a rotten deal
‘Agriculture Modernisation Project (ASMP), supported by the World Bank and the European Union, with the Ministry of Agriculture’
• Northern Governor wants DMC to assess crop failures during natural calamities besides loss of property and lives
• Govt. slashes Special Commodity Levy on imported rice
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Govt-slashes-Special-Commodity-Levy-on-imported-rice/44-757050
• Testing delay hinders Basmati rice imports from Pakistan
• Villagers allege Vavuniya officials wasted 2,000 kilos of rice from TN
– https://island.lk/villagers-allege-vavuniya-officials-wasted-2000-kilos-of-rice-from-tn/
• World Bank’s Agricultural Information System fails to streamline farmers’ compensation
‘The AIMS was developed by the Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board with technical assistance from the IFC under the Global Index Insurance Facility – a multi donor trust fund.’
– https://island.lk/cabinet-nod-for-agriculture-sector-modernization-program/
• Sri Lanka farmers given air rifles to protect crops from animals
‘given to farmers cultivating pineapple, pomegranate, guava and papaya.’
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-farmers-given-air-rifles-to-protect-crops-from-animals-145845/
• Cabinet nod for agriculture sector modernization program
‘increasing farmers’ income & productivity, market regulation, increasing export-oriented products, fostering agri-entrepreneurs & making use of information technology’
– https://island.lk/larger-role-for-agriculture-in-building-a-developed-country/
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Agricultural-sector-modernisation-program-gets-Cabinet-nod/44-756958
• Sri Lanka coconut auction prices end 6-pct down in 2023
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-coconut-auction-prices-end-6-pct-down-in-2023-145417/
• Harry Jayawardena’s Lanka Milk Foods effects shareholding restructuring of 4 subsidiaries
‘Ambewela Products, United Dairies Lanka, Ambewela Livestock Co, and Pattipola Livestock Co’
• Sri Lanka to get support from England’s Blue Plant [sic!] Fund
‘get support under the Fund’s Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP)’
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-get-support-from-uks-blue-plant-fund-145646/
• VAT impacts start of Colombo Tea Auction; pent up demand buoys prices
• My continuing battle against the Tea Hub proposal that would have debased pure Ceylon Tea
‘Multinationals [Unilever?] have long reduced the content of Ceylon tea in packs branded as such’
• Tea Board Chief calls for unified strategy in 2024 industry plans
• US Advocata’s comprehensive report on Sri Lanka’s tea industry
‘The attendance-based minimum wage model is partly responsible for the high costs of production of Sri Lanka’s Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs)’
• When Ceylon Tobacco went into agriculture with Navajeevana at Alutharama
‘the land was totally cleared of the forest cover and consequently left bare and exposed to winds to blow and rains to wash away the invaluable top soil.’
– https://island.lk/when-ceylon-tobacco-went-into-agriculture-with-navajeevana-at-alutharama/
• Comprehensive legal framework to address challenges in ‘Beedi’ Industry
‘revise the tax policy related to the importation of essential raw materials for the beedi industry…and curb the illicit import of raw materials’
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-draft-legal-framework-regulate-beedi-industry-146157/
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/High-level-meeting-to-address-beedi-industry-challenges/44-757120s
• Businessman arrested at BIA with foreign cigarettes worth Rs. 2.7mn
• JFS Agro Food, Sabaragamuwa Uni. collaborate on kurakkan-based instant health foods
• A turnaround in farmers’ opinion of oil palm cultivation: Unilever
– https://island.lk/a-turnaround-in-farmers-opinion-of-oil-palm-cultivation/
• Legacy in Colour: Sri Lanka’s Timeless Natural Dye Tradition
‘Key industry players in the Sri Lankan apparel industry, such as Hayleys Fabric PLC, Noyon Pvt Ltd, Dynawash, and Ocean Lanka lead this movement’
• New Reforestation and Forest Cover Act.
– https://island.lk/new-reforestation-and-forest-cover-act/
• Government mulls reversing palm oil cultivation ban: A close aide to President
• X-Press Pearl probe in chaos, House Committee finds fault with MEPA, AG, Fisheries Ministry
• Oversight Committee told no coordination among agencies regarding X-press Pearl disaster
• A ‘Green Revolution’ that hoodwinked a prime minister
‘Had the campaign of Madam Bandaranaike and Minister Kobbekadwa worked Sri Lanka would perhaps been self sufficient in food’
• Environmentalists claim Akurana officials cutting down trees instead of clearing garbage
• Colomboscope goes green with The Way of the Forest
• Lanka’s Blue Whale: Eight Evolutionary Stages (Part II)
– https://economynext.com/lankas-blue-whale-eight-evolutionary-stages-part-ii-146205/
• Fragmented Ancestral Lands, High Input Costs do a Disservice to Bihar’s Bhojpur Farmers
“Tractors have replaced traditional ploughing using oxen in all villages. So, cow dung fertiliser is no longer available. We are completely dependent on chemical fertilisers from the market.’
*
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D7. 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.
• Leasing of Trinco oil tanks: Cabinet reveals feasibility study recommendations
‘Sixty one tanks have been leased to the Trincomalee Terminal Private Ltd., a joint venture between the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Lanka IOC for a period of 50 years’
– https://island.lk/leasing-of-trinco-oil-tanks-cabinet-reveals-feasibility-study-recommendations/
• Partial relaxation of 2020 vehicle import ban to boost prospects for diversified financials
• Kanchana unveils progress on Electricity Bill Amendments
‘the committee addressed discrepancies in the Sinhala version’
– https://www.ft.lk/business/Kanchana-unveils-progress-on-Electricity-Bill-Amendments/34-757062
– https://island.lk/ceb-to-submit-proposal-for-lowering-power-tariffs-soon/
• Charitha Herath raises concerns on power sector reforms
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Charitha-Herath-raises-concerns-on-power-sector-reforms/44-757038
• CEBEU calls for wide-ranging, transparent consultations to redraft Electricity Act
– https://island.lk/cebeu-calls-for-wide-ranging-transparent-consultations-to-redraft-electricity-act/
• Sri Lanka power minister, India HC discuss energy partnerships
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-power-minister-india-hc-discuss-energy-partnerships-145139/
• ‘Bidding for renewables will certainly work’ –response
– https://island.lk/bidding-for-renewables-will-certainly-work-response/
• India Tyre maker CEAT installs 2.4MW rooftop solar plant
‘Regen Renewables represents SUNTECH, one of the world’s largest -1 Solar panel manufacturers and inverter manufacturer Siemens-KACO in Sri Lanka,’
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-tyre-maker-installs-2-4mw-rooftop-solar-plant-146081/
• SJB unionist: IOC and Sinopec benefit from special levy on fuel to recover CPC losses
• Court summons Colombo’s leading private hospital for selling MRP drugs at exorbitant rates
• Immunoglobulin case: AG wants probe on Rs. 144.4mn money trail
• CID dragnet closing in fast on Health Ministry IG fraud
– https://island.lk/drug-procurement-scam-cabinet-office-hands-over-documents-to-cid/
• Drug procurement scam: Cabinet Office hands over documents to CID
• Immunoglobulin scandal: Ex-Deputy Director of Health Services arrested
• Another top health official arrested over Immunoglobulin scandal
– https://island.lk/another-ex-health-official-arrested-over-procurement-racket/
• UNICEF helps accelerate supplementary measles immunisation activity in SL
– https://island.lk/unicef-helps-accelerate-supplementary-measles-immunisation-activity-in-sl/
• Govt. initiates VAT exemption for Ayurvedic products and medicines to lower healthcare costs
– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/oofA33dT1t8OyqLHSDja
• England’s Resettlement & Renaissance and Malaysia’s Alaka and Ananda Foundations donate intraocular lenses
– https://island.lk/eye-hospital-receives-more-donations-govt-assures-rs-110-mn/
• Earnings from the exports of industrial goods declined in November 2023
‘with a significant share of the decline being contributed by garments.’
– https://island.lk/export-sector-records-year-on-year-growth/
• US-Lanka agree on measures to thwart illegal movement of nuclear and radioactive material
• New Year Celebration at Institute of Chemistry Ceylon
– https://island.lk/new-year-celebration-at-institute-of-chemistry-ceylon/
• Govt. issues Gazette increasing excise duty on liquor
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Govt-issues-Gazette-increasing-excise-duty-on-liquor/44-756941
• Sri Lanka approves Norway’s TIQRI Software for Port City incentives
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-approves-tiqri-software-for-port-city-incentives-145633/
• Alumex welcomes Directors
‘De Silva serves on the Boards of Singer Finance, Hayleys Leisure, Autodrome and Central Industries.. Rajakariar is Chief Financial Officer for South Asia Gateway Terminals’
– https://www.ft.lk/business/Alumex-welcomes-two-new-Non-Executive-Independent-Directors/34-757060
• Cement prices increased
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Cement-prices-increase/108-274495
• Construction expenses up by 20% following VAT hike
– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/1/6/construction-expenses-up-by-20-following-vat-hike
• Battered Construction Industry pinning hopes on government-funded projects in 1H2024
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Contraction-in-construction-sector-continues/44-756897
• VAT increase, a severe blow to construction sector, industry veteran says
– https://island.lk/vat-increase-a-severe-blow-to-construction-sector-industry-veteran-says/
• US Advocata: SLs cannot afford a house amid state-protected building material oligopolies
• Sri Lanka to build foreign research ship handling capacity amid 1-year ban – sources
‘“It is not about banning Chinese ships as the Indian media claimed. The decision was also not due to Indian pressure.’
• 405 container ships have been diverted since mid-December as a result of the attacks
• US Military-linked Shipping Giant Maersk to avoid Red Sea routes for foreseeable future
• First train derailment of the year reported
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/First-train-derailment-of-the-year-reported/108-274510
• Railway Diesel Power-set project goes ahead with Chinese help
‘Ratmalana Railway workshop complex with 34 huge factories established by English rule in 1936 on a 34-acre land .. operates under Chief Mechanical Engineers Sub department the rolling stock of the Railways: 180 locomotives of 21 different types, 800 passenger coaches, and 1,500 freight wagons’
• India To Donate 20 Locomotives to Boost Sri Lanka’s Rail Network
• Tax hike likely to see surge in cheaper rail travel
‘“Our current income is only sufficient to cover diesel cost,”’
• Two engines collide at Fort; no injuries
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Two-engines-collide-at-Fort-no-injuries/108-274347
• Romantic KV railway line to find new lover in Hambantota
• David Pieris Motor Company opens its 7th 3-Wheeler Workshop Express in Galle
– https://island.lk/dpmc-opens-its-7th-workshop-express-in-galle/
• SriLankan wet-leases two aircraft from Air Belgium
– https://economynext.com/srilankan-wet-leases-two-aircraft-from-air-belgium-145328/
• Dustbin, toothbrush and waste app win at Sri Lanka youth innovator awards
‘organized by the European Union, Dilmah Tea and the Dilmah Genesis Centre.’
• World’s largest oil producer Aramco plans to deepen its push into China
• Who Invented the Steam Engine?
– https://www.livescience.com/44186-who-invented-the-steam-engine.html
• End of 2023 Roundup – Update on the Ukraine War’s Technological Progress
– https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/end-of-2023-roundup-update-on-the/comments
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D8. 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.
• Cargills appoints Monetary Board’s Dushni and Nestle Ganesan to board
– https://island.lk/cargills-appoints-dushni-and-ganesan-to-board
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Cargills-appoints-Dushni-and-Ganesan-to-the-board/44-756956
• CBSL extends suspension on business of Perpetual Treasuries
– https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=96173
– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Suspension-on-Perpetual-Treasuries-further-extended/215-274555
• ‘Organised defaulters’ may make bank loans harder for genuine businesses
– https://island.lk/organised-defaulters-may-make-bank-loans-harder-for-genuine-businesses/
• Is Microfinance making poverty worse?
– https://island.lk/is-microfinance-making-poverty-worse/
• New Regulations for Moneylending and Microfinance Next Week
‘Microfinance & Credit Regulatory Authority Bill in parliament to repeal Microfinance Act of 2016… Microfinance institutions mostly deal with rural low-income people.’
– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/1/5/new-regulations-for-moneylending-and-microfinance
• SL’s digital lending user base is at 1.3 million: Robocash Sri Lanka
• Development Financial Institutions (DFIs) to invest in climate change in Sri Lankan firms
‘The Solidaridad Network.. International Financial Corporation (IFC), FMO (the Dutch Entrepreneurial Bank), and Dutch Rabobank…’
• How the US has saved Adani
– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/01/05/how-the-us-has-saved-adani/
• Adani-Hindenburg Row: SC Asks SEBI to Complete Probe in Pending Cases Within 3 Months
‘Supreme Court of India said no more probes were needed,’
– https://www.newsclick.in/Todays-news-round-up-Jan-03-2024
• Hindenburg row: Gautam Adani says Indian Supreme Court ruling is truth prevailed
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Hindenburg-row-Gautam-Adani-says-truth-has-prevailed/44-757040
• Gautam Adani reclaims Asia’s richest spot after court reprieve
– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/jIU4SGHYNYeGPm9mivVj
• Sampath’s Shashi now National Savings Bank (NSB) GM/CEO on 10 January
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Shashi-to-assume-office-as-NSB-GM-CEO-on-10-January/44-756900
• Ex-Sampath Bank MD joins Boards of several Hayleys subsidiaries
‘Hayleys owner Dhammika Perera is biggest shareholder at Sampath Bank with Vallibel One owning 14.95% stake…Fernando, Director of Lanka Bangla Finance is Senior Fellow of Institute of Bankers’
• MAS Holdings Consultant Timothy Speldewinde appointed to Hayleys Board
‘On board of Kingsbury, Horana Plantations and WealthTrust Securities and Contemporary Ceylon
– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Timothy-Speldewinde-appointed-to-Hayleys-Board/44-757039
• Bank of Ceylon named ‘Bank of the Year – Sri Lanka’ by England’s The Banker
• Sri Lanka’s DFCC Bank sells Rs8bn Tier 2 debt
– https://economynext.com/sri-lankas-dfcc-bank-sells-rs8bn-tier-2-debt-146234/
• Sri Lanka rupee opens at 323.10/90 to the US dollar (J02)
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-opens-at-323-10-90-to-the-us-dollar-145377/
• Sri Lanka rupee closes at 322.20/40 to the US dollar
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-closes-at-322-20-40-to-the-us-dollar-145444/
• Sri Lanka rupee trades stronger at 320.80/321.10 to the US dollar
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-trades-stronger-at-320-80-321-10-to-the-us-dollar-145476/
• VAT hike spreads gloom among investors; disposable income an issue
– https://island.lk/vat-hike-spreads-gloom-among-investors-disposable-income-an-issue/
• Sri Lanka stocks close up, but turnover remains low
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-close-up-but-turnover-remains-low-145532/
• Sri Lanka rupee closes at 321.50/322.00 to the US dollar
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-closes-at-321-50-322-00-to-the-us-dollar-145539/
• Colombo stock market begins 2024 on the up with subdued activity in contrast to 2023
‘on the back of price appreciation in blue chip and banking counters such as CTC, MELS and COMB’
• Sri Lanka rupee opens at 321.70/322.00 to the US dollar (J03)
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-opens-at-321-70-322-00-to-the-us-dollar-145617/
• Sri Lanka stocks close up, investors remain wary
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-close-up-investors-remain-wary-145743/
• Sri Lanka Treasuries yields steady at auction
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-treasuries-yields-steady-at-auction-145764/
• Sri Lanka rupee closes at 322.60/90 to the US dollar
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-closes-at-322-60-90-to-the-us-dollar-145769/
• Trading in Sampath Bank amounts to 11% of total turnover
– https://island.lk/trading-in-sampath-bank-amounts-to-11-of-total-turnover/
• Sri Lanka rupee opens at 322.50/323.00 to the US dollar(J04)
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-opens-at-322-50-323-00-to-the-us-dollar-145829/
• Sri Lanka stocks close up, but more liquid index down
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-close-up-but-more-liquid-index-down-146105/
• Sri Lanka rupee closes at 322.45/60 to the US dollar
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-closes-at-322-45-60-to-the-us-dollar-146111/
• Sri Lankan Airlines restructuring delays dampen share market
– https://island.lk/sri-lankan-airlines-restructuring-delays-dampen-share-market/
• Sri Lanka stocks close up, Food, Beverage and Tobacco shares push turnover (J05)
• Sri Lanka rupee closes at 322.45/65 to the US dollar
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-closes-at-322-45-65-to-the-us-dollar-146210/
• CB raises Rs.155bn at first bill auction for 2024 where only 3-month yield budged
• US Federal Agency Study Contradicts Fed Chair: Finds Banking System is Ripe for Another Crisis and Remains “Fragile and Uncertain”
• Bill Dudley, Former Kingpin of Darkness at New York Fed, Now Urges Transparency at Fed
– https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/01/bill-dudley-former-kingpin-of-darkness-at-the-new-york-fed-now-urges-transparency-at-the-fed/
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D9. 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’
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• Politicians in related businesses resorting to unfair practices
• Sri Lanka gets 1.48 million tourists in 2023 led by India, Russia
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-gets-1-48-million-tourists-in-2023-led-by-india-russia-145387/
• SoftLogic’s Asiri Port City Hospital & TIQRI promise Medical Tourism at Port City
‘Sri Lanka’s health sector has suffered several setbacks with a shortage of medicines and a lack of staff including doctors and nurses in the state-owned main hospitals as well as the regional hospitals.’
– https://island.lk/cabinet-okays-making-asiri-port-city-hospital-pvt-company-strategic-investment/
– https://economynext.com/asiri-hospital-in-sri-lankas-port-city-named-strategic-investment-145505/
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D10. 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.
• Onset of another tsunami of public consternation
– https://island.lk/bragging-begging-and-booing/
• Has the JVP unequivocally ruled out an armed struggle to win government?
• Gajendrakumar calls upon Tamils to boycott next presidential election
– https://island.lk/gajendrakumar-calls-upon-tamils-to-boycott-next-presidential-election/
• SLPP dissident group, too, breaks up
– https://island.lk/slpp-dissident-group-too-breaks-up/
• UPFA, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya in talks to form alliance
– https://island.lk/upfa-pivithuru-hela-urumaya-in-talks-to-form-alliance/
• Sri Lanka ex-president cast Viyathmaga aside, claims Godahewa
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-ex-president-cast-viyathmaga-aside-claims-godahewa-145669/
• 2024 Prez poll: Champika denies alliance with MR-Ranil grouping, won’t contest
– https://island.lk/2024-prez-poll-champika-denies-alliance-with-mr-ranil-grouping-wont-contest/
• Sri Lanka Freedom Party crisis: Dayasiri wants back in to prevent crossovers
• SJB Leader wants action against not only Rambukwella but also 113 MPs who defeated no-faith motion against him
• Sajith claims Ranil afraid of grand alliance in the making
– https://island.lk/sajith-claims-ranil-afraid-of-grand-alliance-in-the-making/
• Out of 14 SLFPers in Parliament, nine back RW
– https://island.lk/maithripala-loses-mp-to-sjb/
• SJB grassroot level members unhappy about newcomers?
• 2024: Year of the Chinese Dragon and the Year of South Asian Elections – Philips
– https://island.lk/2024year-of-the-chinese-dragon-and-the-year-of-south-asian-elections/
• Political and Electoral Uncertainty in Sri Lanka Ahead of 2024 – Devapriya
– https://island.lk/political-and-electoral-uncertainty-in-sri-lanka-ahead-of-2024/
• Sir John Kotelawala: How he grew in DS’s shadow to become an effective leader – Hulugalle
• Regarding the Construction of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics – Xi Jinping, 2013
– https://redsails.org/regarding-swcc-construction
• How Greece’s KKE uses Marxist terminology to cover its retreat from Marxism
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D11. 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.
• Online Safety Bill to be presented to Parliament on January 23: Minister
• Sri Lanka to study England’s Infobip centralized SMS firewall proposal
‘Excessive use of short message systems has led to fraud, spam and illegal activities’
– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-study-infobip-centralized-sms-firewall-proposal-145888/
• GoPro Guerilla Warfare (Vs. A TikTok Genocide)
– indi.ca
• SL’s south coast to come under fresh focus with England’s ‘Galle Concerto 2024’
• Proving that liberation and enlightenment in Buddhist philosophy are “evidence-based”
• Practices, beliefs, and rituals have lost their meaning
– https://island.lk/let-our-children-see-the-truth/
• New Year Greetings from the German Dharmaduta Society
• “Black MGR” Pocket Mourning Meetings in North and East
‘Vijayakanth’s office was always open and supportive of refugees going from Sri Lanka’
• Some memorable moments with Hatha
– https://island.lk/some-memorable-moments-with-hatha/
• Cultural Vandalism Should Be Eradicated
– https://island.lk/cultural-vandalism-should-be-eradicated/
• A World We have Lost – The sun has set on the British Empire: Leelananda de Silva
‘The Prime Minister of England is a Hindu. The Mayor of London is a Muslim, and the Scottish First Minister is a Muslim. The Royal family is more commoner than it was.’
– https://island.lk/a-world-we-have-lost/
• Indian journalists targeted with Israeli spyware
– https://economynext.com/indian-journalists-targeted-with-spyware-145213/
• Mainstream Media Avoiding the Big Story on Jeffrey Epstein and Sealed Court Documents
• Zelenski’s Propaganda Outlet Is Leading His Decline
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email: econenews@gmail.com
blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com
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e-Con e-News 