Coup After Coup After Coup: Sabotaging the 5th Industrial Revolution in Sri Lanka

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

e-Con e-News 7-13 April 2024

ee wishes readers a Happy New Year!

Last week, ee reproduced an Island report recalling how an attempted military coup, to overcome the so-called 2018 ‘constitutional coup’, was thwarted. Observers of such machinations of state & statecraft wonder if the latest tale about former President Maithripala Sirisena allegedly disclosing an ‘Indian Hand’ as being behind the April 2019 bombings, may indeed be true. ee also wonders if the dearly beloved ‘Cardinal’ too had inside information about this all along, ‘incensed’ because this handler was being censored? After all, the precious prelates of the Catholic Church must surely have hourly access via the Vatican to the oldest of the black-robed practitioners of such Jesuitical methods, amply provided to certain actors at regular intervals, 1948, 1959, 1962, 1971 and 1983-2009?

     In those smoky hours in 2019, ee also wondered about the role of such ‘secretive’ organizations as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – the power behind India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – seeking to kill (& malign) 3 birds (Christian, Muslim, & Buddhist) with one coordinated blow. This also included a so-called ‘failed attempt’ at an Indian-owned hotel, where the alleged bomber later blew himself (or was blown up) at another non-Indian location. India’s PM N. Modi was the first foreign head of state to visit Sri Lanka after that carnage, in June 2019, chaperoned throughout by Sajith Premadasa. Meanwhile, media this week also headlined the push for a ‘Hindu Eelam Movement’ & their Presidential candidate (see ee Sovereignty).

     If Indian secret services had arranged the April 2019 terror, do their links with Sri Lanka’s own secret services explain why they were not pursued? Their ‘warning’ beforehand fits the pattern, evident in the planners of the Moscow concert hall attack who also claimed, later, that they had ‘warned’ the recipient (Russia) of their intended actions beforehand. Our good & generous neighbour too ‘warned’ us in 2019. Double gain! First, it signals friendliness and diverts suspicion away. Second, it allows later icing on the cake by blaming the recipient for not taking the warning seriously, to perhaps suit their own stratagems. ee would have loved to see ‘our’ mass media outlets pursue other parties like the JVP & their current apparently popularized leader about his opinion on this matter. We guess, it is too much to ask for that level of independence in ‘our’ media. Meanwhile, perhaps fearing arrest or possible harm, Sirisena and family are said to be taking refuge in Singapore, that bastion of the rule of law where a former fugitive Central Banker resides – the closest outpost perhaps, far from India’s hitmen?

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• Fast & Furious in Mariyakaday – Last week ee wondered if there were weapons meant for Sri Lanka aboard that Maersk-chartered Baltimore-bridge-crashing ship that had docked at the US Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, prior to its fateful Maryland snafu. Curiosity was piqued by the amount of ‘empty containers’ on that ship making such a long journey all the way around that Cape of Storms aka Good Hope.

     With the US (& their Core Group, including Canada, etc) about to invade Haiti, to apparently suppress ‘gangs’, it is important to recall that it is the US via their ‘gusano’ (expat Cuban) gangsters in Miami who are flooding Haiti with guns. Haiti does not have a ‘gang problem’, it has a US imperialism problem. The same goes for Somalia, which the Anglo-Saxon media keeps repeating, has a ‘piracy problem’. It is the US (& their EU allies) who’s financed various ‘terrorist’ groups in Somalia. Again, East Africa & Red Sea & West Asia too, have an US imperialism problem, but no Anglo-Saxon media dare call it so.

     ee also recalls how the US sold 1,000s of firearms to Mexican ‘drug cartel’ leaders, which has led to the current ‘gang wars in Mexico’. The US claimed this ‘gunwalking’, or ‘letting guns walk’ tactic was ‘purposely’ used by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) Project Gunrunner aka Operation Fast & Furious to identify gang leaders. Each weapon was equipped with a GPS unit, to supposedly enable the ATF to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them. Instead, over 150 Mexican civilians were maimed or killed by these guns in Mexico. In September 2011, the Mexican government linked an undisclosed number of guns found at about 170 crime scenes, to the US project. The US scheme aimed to intentionally arm the Sinaloa drug cartel to defeat rival drug gangs. US President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege in order to withhold documents about the project. Mexico – so far from their Aztec gods & so close to the US – has a US imperialism problem too. The US’ pitbulls in Ecuador just broke into the Mexican embassy in Quito. Just as the USA’s pitbulls in occupied Palestine just bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria. Unprovoked attacks, indeed! So, the question remains: just what was in those Dali containers? Which fractions in which political faactions are they arming?

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‘Customs has no way of knowing who the consignee is & what

the cargo is until the cargo manifest is filed by the agent here.

Even then, cargo description is in most cases not sufficient to properly

identify such goods. No one will declare contents as ‘Toxic Waste’.’

– Customs Spokesman Senior Customs Director Seevali Arukgoda

Another administrative ‘coup’ is in progress to reduce or remove the powers of Customs Officials and replace them with ‘senior traders’ aka fraudulent importers. Customs unions, threatening industrial action if the Finance Ministry’s proposed amendments go through, say this is being done on behalf of the same ‘family of corrupt officials’ that annulled the 1953 Foreign Exchange Control Act and relaxed policies in 2017, enabling the bleeding of foreign exchange out of the country, causing the present economic ‘crisis’ (see ee Random Notes).

     After ee’s revelations on 30 March about hazardous wastes aboard that Danish-Maersk-chartered ship, a National Coordinating Committee (NCC) of ‘all relevant stakeholders’ was formed in Colombo and met on Friday, 5 April 2024. There has been no news since on what was decided, though we see that Germany’s GIZ is supposedly going to fund a pilot pre-arrival processing of import shipments, from May, where Colombo will get ‘cargo information 48 hours before the departure of the ship from the foreign port.’

     There were however continued attacks on ee (by Maersk-related NGOs & media) with doubts expressed about our revelations. They carefully admit that the materials imported were indeed hazardous, but only one of the 4,700 containers was for Sri Lanka and it was a ‘normal’ hazardous import needed for ‘manufacture’, while ignoring why Maersk was transporting toxic US waste through our waters. Maersk has gained a reputation for attacking its own workers who report on their mischief (see ee Random Notes).

     However, in the Daily Mirror, Rohan Masakorala, ‘founder of Shippers Academy International, a former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Shippers’ Council & 1^st Secretary General of the Asian Shipper’s Council’ calls ee a ‘false blog’ (whatever that is) publishing ‘false information’ attempting ‘to mislead the very vulnerable Sri Lankan society’, tarnishing ‘the image of a reputed shipping line, a private terminal operator in the Port of Colombo & US government institutions supporting Sri Lankan maritime sector through capacity building initiatives’ (see ee Random Notes).

     Yet, also in the Daily Mirror, Gehan L Kuruppu – also a ‘former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Shippers’ Council’ & 38-year veteran in this import-export scene – decries the attacks on the media who publicized ee’s revelations, adding:

‘Who the toxic materials & fuel were consigned to in Sri Lanka – in technical

terms the consignee of the cargo or the notify party – is not being reported.

Also, it is a long way for such hazmat & fuel to be exported in one voyage

without calling in other ports en route to Colombo Port. There are reports of uncertainty

about who is exporting such toxic waste to Sri Lanka, and who is importing them.

Are the US & the media institutions attempting to divert attention

from the ship charterer Maersk Line’s involvement?

Unless there is some classified information that cannot be divulged

for reasons that are unknown to authorities. In this instance, it is not possible to say

that the authorities cannot find who the exporter & the importer are,

as the US Customs rules are that any vessel leaving the port of US origin

has to make a prior establishment in filing the manifest.’

(see ee Industry, Baltimore Bridge collapse, Dali & controversy)

Ansell Lanka General Manager Ramesh Nanayakkara told the Sunday Times’ Sunimalee Dias (who reports Maersk & IMF, World Bank, ADB press releases as uninvestigable gospel) that they had one container on the Dali bound for Colombo that contained a chemical resin classified as hazardous. Used ‘in the normal manufacturing process’ – this raw material is used to make ‘industrial gloves’, and has been ‘imported for over 2 decades’. ‘The country of origin of this particular chemical is the USA’. The rest of the over 500 containers were said to be for transshipment cargo due for India.

     If this is gospel, isn’t it odd to bring this resin all the way from Baltimore? Is this imported ‘resin’ another ploy for foreign-exchange fraud? Ansell is linked to an old English multinational Dunlop, now based in Australia. Why not import the resin from there? Or produce it here? And if the rest of the containers were going to India, Singapore &/or Malaysia, or most going to China[ as some claimed, why not thru the Pacific? After all their talk of ‘carbon footprints’ & ‘Asia-Pacific’ etc. Odd, no?

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‘English industrial policy was to prohibit any form

of industrialisation in any of their colonies’

– HN Thenuwara (see ee Focus)

Lanka is about to miss the 5th industrial revolution, having missed the first 4 industrial revolutions in the world, and HN Thenuwara, a former Sri Lanka Central Bank Director of Economic Research now teaching at the University of Iowa, USA, is worried. This latest revolution of the industrial kind is being fueled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Thenuwara therefore consults ChatGpt to find out what he thinks we should do (see ee Focus). Unfortunately, he does not quite get it, as neither can ChatGpt, whose intelligence is not that artificial at all.

     While Thenuwara very kindly lays out what the first 4 revolutions were all about, he does not quite hit the nail on the thumb. The English did not just prohibit, they destroyed & mutilated, as in India, where they cut the thumbs of the weavers, etc. In Sri Lanka, ingenious traders, including, and not only Indian, importers & exporters, and the Central Bank & officials they have trained very well, who all work on behalf of US & European multinationals & banks, will simply not allow any hint of a modern industrial policy in our parts of the world.

     Thenuwara repeats standard mercantile shibboleths about 1970-77, saying ‘the country experimented with closed economy policies, which are countermeasures of industrial revolutions, and resulted in colossal failure’. His notion of failure is not good or bad, it’s sheer ignorance! Because even if there was a loss, a lack of industry would have led to further greater losses elsewhere – as is now evident, with no modern production taking place.

     And industrial policy did not ‘fail’ – it was strangled and sabotaged! He fails to show how the proportional representation system impacted those institutions curbing corruption. He ignores how the current US and EU greenwashing is to bind Sri Lanka into only buying their machinery and not making our own. He also does not call out India’s blatant movies to tie Sri Lanka into India’s industrial orbit, making it Chennai’s bitch. Finally, a top Central Bank official going to work for a foreign country, especially a country that displays constant enmity to the country’s economic wellbeing, may well constitute high corruption as well.

     Thenuwara should have asked ChatGPT to improve on this sentence: ‘Imperialist industrial policy will sabotage any form of industrialization in their colonies (including India & Japan, etc)’.

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• Just like the US & EU are constantly threatening to remove Sri Lanka’s preferred access to their hallowed market (GSP+, etc), the US is now threatening South Africa with similar menace after S Africa took US-funded Israel to the International Court of Justice for their ongoing genocide in Palestine. While the ICJ’s ruling of ‘plausible’ genocide doesn’t appear to have deterred Israel one bit (these international bodies are weaponized only against us, usually triggered along with other force-multipliers), the US has launched an investigation into South Africa’s ‘uppity negro’ behavior (see ee Focus), detailing not only their upset about Israel, but also South Africa daring to continue to pursue closer ties with Russia, China, Iran. This sheds further light on how the US views and treats Sri Lanka, a more acquiescent vassal.

     Hence, the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act was introduced in the US House on February 6. Pandor says, ‘There’s almost an implication that when the USA holds a particular position, South Africa must follow… I don’t know whether it’s because we’re Africans or some other reason.’

     South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor was thus beckoned to Washington, DC. South Africa’s accession to the beckoning may relate to the ‘behind-the-scenes’ deal struck in 1994 between Afrikaner cabinet minister Roelf Meyer & then ANC General Secretary (now President) Cyril Ramaphosa under the aegis of the USA, which led, 1948 Soulbury-suckering-like, to the maintenance of white minority rule over the economy. The US must be threatening to expose this ‘behind-the-scenes’ deal to undermine the ANC before the upcoming elections.

     In May 2023, the US’ South Africa ambassador’s unfounded accusation that the country was providing weapons to Russia, led to President Ramaphosa saying the allegation ‘had a most damaging effect on our currency, our economy, and our standing in the world; in fact, it tarnished our image’. In August 2023, a South African official said the country would not give in to pressure from the US to stop using Chinese company Huawei’s equipment on its networks.

     South Africa is the USA’s largest trading partner in Africa. About 600 US businesses operate in the country. The US African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA) provides sub-Saharan African countries some duty-free access to the US. The US has removed several countries from AGOA, eg, Ethiopia, Mali, Guinea, Uganda, Gabon, Niger, & the Central African Republic. The unstated threat of potential removal from AGOA hovers over the US-South Africa relationship, too.

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Contents:

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A1. Reader Comments –

• Watch out ee! • Fake BBC Election Analysis • Recruit & Kill • Nuking Gaza • What Kinda Humans?

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A2. Quotes of the Week –

• Highest Commissioners • Finance Ministers & BDSM • Volatile & Sharp Living • False Blogs • Why do outsized cargo ships even exist? • Yellen asks Usain Bolt to Run Slower • ‘How do you win a war in Asia? • USA’s West Point Mafia • Haiti First to Abolish Slavery • USA’s Variable Free Trade • Machines & Productivity

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A3. Random Notes –

• ISIS is USA &… • Maersk Hid Israeli Containers on Dali • Dali Going to China? • Maersk did not inform Central Environment Authority (CEA) • Sri Lanka’s International Sovereign Bondage Story • Over $15trillion added to Global Debt • Unions take Labour Reforms to Court • Customs trade unions oppose changes to Customs Ordinance • Taking Eppawala Phosphate to Market • UN FAO’s Agro-Follies • Unilever & Russian Ice Cream • 1942, England takes Lanka into World War 2

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B. ee Focus –

• B1. How to Miss 5 Industrial Revolutions – HN Thenuwara

• B2. US Threatens South Africa for Taking Israel to World Court

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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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• ‘Re: Media attacks on ee – Controversy is good publicity for ee. However, the next strategic & tactical move is to try to organize & expand ee beyond the mortals who are doing it, and simultaneously see to it that you have security around your house, family, friends & of course not to forget your mortal Black asses! Having now stoked a hornet’s nest, these vicious human wasps are now gonna seriously target you. Aluta continua. Good luck!’

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• ‘The Korean election defeat of the President’s party was entirely due to cost of living, so claims the BBC. Not at all due to belligerence against nearby neighbours. BBC has been vigorous in explaining this, lest others think that US warmongering is unpopular!

     You can also be sure that there will be a ‘border incident’ with China created by the Indian military and/or secret services, before the elections. Many key people in these establishments answer only to their US handlers. They may be ‘Indian’ only in name or location. Like the equivalent Sri Lankan types. BBC is always ready to add its little help with the slant it gives in its news.’

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• ‘I’m unable to figure out what drives people who plan this kind of murder and cover up by killing their hired murderers. Say, those Tajik or whoever the attackers of the [Moscow] concert hall may have been, were doing it for money, that may still be understandable, though they may be cruel & dumb or gullible or… But whoever recruits them, befriends them, plans with them how to escape, and then sets up the means to kill them when they reach the planned safe haven, must be of a different kind altogether?’

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• ‘The question remains as to what kind of beings these are. Befriending people, winning their confidence & sending them off on a mission where they will likely die – but planning to kill them yourself if the ‘enemy’ fails to do so, as their survival risks potential later exposure. Such schemers somehow appear of a different kind – even to those who say things like, ‘Nuke Gaza’: eg, Asked about why US money is being spent to build a port to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, Republican Congressman Walberg said, ‘It’s (President) Joe Biden’s reason. I don’t think we should. I don’t think any of our aid that goes to Israel to support our greatest ally, arguably maybe in the world, to defeat Hamas, & Iran & Russia & probably North Korea’s in there & China too, with them helping Hamas. We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick’.’

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A2. Quotes of the Week_

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• Agriculture’s Highest Commissioners – ‘Can our agricultural community not be supported by the government by paying them a reasonable price for their crops? In Japan the government buys rice from farmers at higher than market rates. We, on the other hand, leave purchasing to middlemen who exploit farmers, enrich themselves & hoard supplies to raise local market prices. Similarly, the cost of egg production can be lowered by encouraging the production of Indian corn (food input for poultry) locally, and paying farmers better prices. It will increase production & eliminate the need to import eggs.

     This editorial space is insufficient to cover the gamut of products including the manufacture of medicines that can be produced locally thereby bringing down import requirements. It takes political will to reach this goal. But is the fatal attraction of commissions too great to overcome?’ – Daily Mirror Editorial (see ee Agriculture, Avurudhu, Ramadan & Easter Sunday amid a crumbling economy)

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• ‘Finance Ministers are routinely compelled to check the spreads on the bonds that their countries have issued in international capital markets, which are determined by the international credit ratings agencies. The process has meant that these Ministers’ priorities were always going to be focused more on the interests of external creditors rather than their own populations.’ – D. Gunawardena, ee Economists, A bloc to confront global debt crisis: What role for Sri Lanka?

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• ‘In Sri Lanka, the long-term exchange rate trend has been on a depreciating path over the past 4.5 decades due to the country’s weak trade performance. Therefore, its short-term movements have been volatile and sharp as it was dependent primarily on short-term borrowings, stock market & bond market flows.’ – S. Abeyratne (see ee Economists, Big Mac & Exchange Rate Determination]

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• ‘Certain print media, electronic media & social media, joined by the politicians of Sri Lanka, made a mockery out of a ship accident that happened in the territorial waters of the United States of America, on March 26, 2024.

     The conspiracy theory started with a blog post that was circulated targeting different interest groups, to build up a story that had no substance or any credible data but an attempt to mislead the very vulnerable Sri Lankan society.

     It is indeed shocking that some sections of society that are considered educated, were circulating bogus information on social media platforms published in the media, without fact-checking to say the least. It was quite surprising to see reputed media organisations and responsible politicians in Sri Lanka trying their best to mislead the public of the country by publishing falls [sic!] information. The motives behind were unclear but was evident that it was targeting to tarnish the image of a reputed shipping line, a private terminal operator in Port of Colombo & US government institutions supporting SL maritime sector through capacity building initiatives. Simply a false blog was made a national news item without any fact-finding attempts to sensationalise public sentiments.

     Ignorance & irresponsibility – It is disturbing to note that responsible media & politicians could not distinguish the difference between toxic waste & hazardous cargo.’

     (The writer, Rohan Masakorala, an economist by profession, with well over 32 years of experience in the shipping, international trade & logistics industry, is the founder of Shippers Academy International, a former Chair of Sri Lanka Shippers’ Council & 1^st Secretary General of Asian Shipper’s Council) – see ee Industry, Baltimore-Colombo sensationalised conspiracy theories on ship Dali

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• ‘Why do outsized cargo ships even exist? The answer is that shipping companies need to maximize profits. Worldwide, cargo ships have gotten bigger, and with increased automation & technology, crews have gotten smaller. Containerization is the longshore component of this process. The oversized Dali, described as being as tall as the Eiffel Tower, was staffed by a crew of just 22 workers. Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, chartered it, reported more than $51billion in revenue in 2023. Earlier, a Maersk whistleblower was disciplined and then fired after reporting inoperable lifeboats, unpermitted alcohol consumption, faulty emergency fire equipment, and other concerns aboard a Maersk-operated ship to the federal government. As a result, Maersk was sanctioned by the US Labor Department 8 months prior to the crash. Workers at Baltimore Port have questioned why tugboats were not assigned to Dali. The answer is obvious – it costs money & cuts into profits.

     What’s next for workers? The most immediate question is the loss of income for the estimated 15,000 workers who have lost paychecks. The 2,400 longshore workers who belong to International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333 are on the frontlines. These workers are hired daily, so there is no work for them when there are no ships or cargo to load & unload… There is a level of uncertainty not only for these workers but also for those who work at small restaurants & convenience stores in the area & in other port jobs… There needs to be a comprehensive relief program, including a halt on mortgage foreclosures, evictions & repossessions during the rebuilding, and the government must protect people from price gouging.’ – ee Workers, Deadly Bridge Collapse Exposes Capitalist Decay

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• ‘What Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run a less fast because he can’t keep up.’ – Renaud Bertrand, (see Roberts, ee Economists, China’s unfair ‘overcapacity’)

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• ‘How do you win a war in Asia? The same way the US did in WW2: with ships & marines with the Army & Air Force serving a support role. Except there is a problem, the current and last Secretaries of Defense are West Pointers. The SECDEF before that was a marine but he was forced out after a disagreement with the Secretary of State who was a West Pointer. Two decades of Land Wars in Asia have decimated our Maritime capabilities as trillions was rerouted into Army coffers by the West Point mafia demon in DC. And now that the land wars are over is the Army Corps of Engineers helping rebuild shipyards & bridges? Is the Army rebuilding its once mighty fleet of dredges? Is it working jointly with the SeaBees & Merchant Marine? Is it rebuilding watercraft? No, today’s West Point Mafia leader Jack Reed controls the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee & has blocked the Future of the Navy Commission that Congress created to develop a naval rebuilding strategy. Now under General Lloyd Austin & Reed every single navy shipbuilding project is delayed. The West Point Mafia has gutted every Maritime service.’ – John Konrad, gCaptain, the leading maritime news platform

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• ‘The 1805 Constitution of Haiti was the first state document to proclaim universal emancipation. Its announcement of the permanent abolition of slavery predated abolition in the English colonies by almost 3 decades and in the US by 60 years.’ – see ee Sovereignty, ‘Constitution of Hayti, 20 May 1805’

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• ‘The USA was always for free trade after WWII as long as it was the most efficient & strongest industrial producer. But now that it’s not the strongest anymore, it’s gone back to the protectionism that in the 19^th century built up its industry to begin with.’ – Hudson, Mercouris & Diesen, ee Economists, US Economic Decline & Rise of Greater Eurasia

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• ‘[Canadian] output per hour is now just 70% of the US level, down from almost 90% in the early 1980s. Over the long run, our performance has been the worst of any major industrial country save Italy. Economists across the political spectrum agree that the main sources of long-term productivity growth are investments in machinery & equipment, new technologies embodied in new products & services, intellectual property & education, and skills. High productivity, high wage economies are on the cutting edge of innovation.’ – Andrew Jackson (see ee Economists, Neoliberalism is Canada’s Real Productivity Problem)

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

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• ISIS is USA &… – ‘RAND is a highly influential, Washington DC-headquartered ‘think tank’. Bankrolled to the tune of almost $100 million annually by the Pentagon and other US government entities, it regularly disseminates recommendations on national security, foreign affairs, military strategy, and covert & overt actions overseas. These pronouncements are more often than not subsequently adopted as policy.

     For example, a July 2016 RAND paper on the ‘unthinkable’ prospect of ‘war with China’ forecast a need to fill Eastern Europe with US soldiers in advance of a ‘hot’ conflict with Beijing, as Russia would undoubtedly side with its neighbor & ally in such a dispute. It was therefore considered necessary to tie down Moscow’s forces at its borders. 6 months later, scores of NATO troops duly arrived in the region, ostensibly to counter ‘Russian aggression’.

     Similarly, in April 2019 RAND published Extending Russia. It set out ‘a range of possible means’ to ‘bait’ Moscow ‘into overextending itself,’ so as to ‘undermine the regime’s stability.’ These methods included; providing ‘lethal aid’ to Ukraine; increasing US support for the Syrian rebels; promoting ‘regime change in Belarus’; exploiting ‘tensions’ in the Caucasus; neutralizing ‘Russian influence in Central Asia’ and Moldova. Most of this came to pass thereafter.

     In this context, RAND’s Nov 2008 Unfolding the Long War makes for disquieting reading. It explored ways the US Global War on Terror could be prosecuted once coalition forces formally left Iraq, under the terms of a withdrawal agreement inked by Baghdad & Washington that same month. This development by definition threatened Anglo dominion over Persian Gulf oil & gas resources, which would remain ‘a strategic priority’ when the occupation was officially over.

     ‘This priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war,’ RAND declared. The think tank went on to propose a ‘divide & rule’ strategy to maintain US hegemony in Iraq, despite the power vacuum created by withdrawal. Under its auspices, Washington would exploit ‘fault lines between [Iraq’s] various Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflicts’, while ‘supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran’:

     ‘This strategy relies heavily on covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare, and support to indigenous security forces… The US & its local allies could use nationalist jihadists to launch proxy campaigns to discredit transnational jihadists in the eyes of the local populace… This would be an inexpensive way of buying time… until the US can return its full attention to the [region]. US leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni Conflict… by taking the side of conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world.’

     ‘Great Danger’ – So it was that the CIA & MI6 began supporting Sunni ‘nationalist jihadists’ throughout West Asia. The next year Bashar Assad rejected a Qatari proposal to route Doha’s vast gas reserves directly to Europe, via a $10billion, 1,500 km-long pipeline spanning Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria & Turkey. As extensively documented by WikiLeaks-released diplomatic cables, US, Israeli & Saudi intelligence immediately decided to overthrow Assad by fomenting a local Sunni rebellion, and started financing opposition groups for the purpose.

     This effort became turbocharged in Oct 2011, with MI6 redirecting weapons & extremist fighters from Libya to Syria, in the wake of Muammar Gaddafi’s televised murder. The CIA oversaw that operation, using English intelligence as an arm’s length cutout to avoid notifying Congress of its machinations. Only in June 2013, with then-President Barack Obama’s official authorisation, did the Agency’s cloak&dagger connivances in Damascus become formalised – and later admitted – under the title ‘Timber Sycamore’.’ – see ee Sovereignty, How CIA & MI6 Created ISIS

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• Maersk Hid Israeli Containers on Dali – The ship that crashed that Baltimore bridge named after a US slave owner and national-anthem composer, was made in US-occupied Korea’s Hyundai shipyard, and was chartered by US-military linked Danish shipper Maersk. The ship has had several ‘accidents’. As noted before, true ownership is made highly opaque. The media claims the ship is owned by British Virgin Islands-based Grace Ocean Investment, with Singapore-based Synergy Marine ‘overseeing safety’ and managing the crew of 21 Indian nationals (and they’ve now added one Sri Lankan too) all being detained on the ship. Synergy’s parent, investment holding company, Unity Group Holdings International is based in Hong Kong. We’re also now told that HongKong’s Gold Star Line, A.P. Moeller-Maersk, Italy’s MSC and Israel’s ZIM Integrated Shipping Services are the main carriers that also had containers on the Dali. ee notes that Israel’s Zim’s containers were hidden beneath the other containers to avoid detection (see ee Industry, Correction: Unified Command continues Key Bridge Response 2024).

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• Dali Going to China? – The Baltimore-bridge-crashing ship was on its way to Singapore after Sri Lanka, claims Maersk’s Masakorala. Going to Malaysia, say others. Going to China says yet other media in Sri Lanka (we dare not call them Sri Lankan media, for they are mainly soaped by Unilever, etc). ee finds it strange that the US-media and its conspiracy-theory machine has not chosen to highlight this China connection. No US media has mentioned this. Given the raging Sinophobia in the white Atlantic, you would think they would immediately latch onto this and hatch yet another conspiracy after another. But no such red ketchup is being splashed.

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• Sri Lanka is a party to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal, which entered into force in 1992. The Central Environment Authority (CEA) points out that under the Convention, if there is any vessel carrying hazardous material or any type of waste, it should be informed to the relevant authorities from the country it is originating from, which would then inform the destination authorities. “Normally, exporters want clearance, so they send the information as early as possible,” a CEA official said. He noted that, however, in the case of the consignment of the Dali vessel, this was not informed to the relevant authorities concerned’.

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• ‘International Sovereign Bonds constitute the most complex & heaviest of portion of our debt burden. A near 70% of these ISBs were issued during the period 2015-19 under the ‘Yahapalana’ Government. There is a cruel irony in this mad theatre. Sri Lanka entered the International Capital Market in 2007. The story of how we did what we did is described in a paper ‘Sri Lanka Steps into the International Capital Markets’ by Assistant Governor CJP Siriwardena in the CBSL’s 60th Anniversary Commemorative Volume. For the benefit of those interested in our economic history he records: ‘The main opposition political party opposed the sovereign bond issue strongly with a threat that they would not honour under their government, obligations arising from the bond issue.’

     The Sunday Times of August 2007 reported, the UNP had written to 3 foreign banks informing them that a future UNP government would not honour the repayment of the proposed $500mn bond to be taken by the Government, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe declared. He said by the time we pay back the loan in another decade; the amount would be as high as $850mn or Rs12,000mn making the nation a debtor for 10 long years to HSBC. (sundaytimes.lk/070826/News/nws5.html) In 2015 the new government did not repudiate the ISB debts. Instead, it floated yet another ISB issue for $650mn due in 2025.

     The Government specified the use of proceeds. ‘The Government will use the net proceeds from the issue of the Bonds (estimated to be $648,067,737 after deduction of underwriting commission & fees as well as estimated expenses) to fund ongoing and/or new development projects of the Government.’

     Now whenever, we ask the SJB’s economic experts why they raised such huge ISB loans, the standard response is that they had to roll over Rajapaksa folly. It is a classic exemplification of the maxim suppress truth to suggest a falsehood ‘Suppresio Veri’ – Suggestio Falsi. In the CBSL annual report for 2015 under External Sector Policies and Developments 5.11.2 there is a curious disclosure couched in convoluted jargon: ‘Meanwhile, the Central Bank intervened in the domestic foreign exchange market as a net supplier throughout the year. Accordingly, the Central Bank supplied US$3,429mn to the market, while absorbing $179mn, resulting in a supply of $3,250mn, on a net basis, during the year.’

     During the Yahapalanaya years 2015-19 the Central Bank regularly intervened to stabilise the Rupee by supplying Dollars to the market while floating ISBs. Borrowing Dollars in international capital markets at 7% annual interest while supplying Dollars to peg the Rupee is anything but economics. The NPP economists should ask their SJB counterparts to explain the rationale of borrowing in the international capital markets to defend the Rupee which despite all efforts soared from Rs131 to the Dollar in 2015 to around Rs180 to the Dollar in 2019.

     A young motor enthusiast tells me that during years 2017-18, the country imported the highest number of Land Rover Range Vogue SUVs to the country. I don’t know what they are but on inquiry I was told that they were the preferred chariots of our modern-day Caesars of filthy lucre. No doubt those owners of such exotic chariots would want continuity of vulgar Bourgeoisie opulence no matter the price.’ – S de Alwis, ee Economists, The dismantling of the hegemony of the dominant class is not a certainty

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• ‘And talking of rising debt, the real crisis right now is among the countries of the Global South. Over $15trillion was added to the global debt mountain last year, bringing the total to a new record high of $313trn, up from $210trn just a decade ago. Emerging & developing economies have been the worst hit by previous debt crises, World Bank research shows. To meet debt payments, at least 100 countries will have to reduce spending on health, education & social protection, IMF estimates.  Debt distress is when a country is unable to fulfil its financial obligations, eg repayments due on its debt. The IMF & World Bank reckon 60% of low-income countries are at or near this point.

     What is to be done to end the debt distress for these countries? Existing international agencies & mainstream economists offer 2 alternative strategies: 1) is to ‘restructure’ the debt.  That means poor governments unable to meet their debt obligations must negotiate with a host of creditors like the IMF, WB, other governments, banks & hedge-fund bond holders, to get them to agree to a ‘haircut’ on what they are owed &/or agree to push out the times for repayments and reduce the interest on loans.  But there is no cancellation of the debt (often crippling & odious), just renegotiation. & renegotiation is often blocked by private lenders which demand their pound of flesh on time.

     Take Zambia: Zambian government has finally reached an agreement with a steering committee of investors to restructure its 3 outstanding eurobonds, more than 3 years after defaulting. 2 initial agreements rejected in Nov, once by the IMF and twice by the Official Creditor Committee (OCC). There is no cancellation of the debt.  Zambia still owes $1.35bn on one bond and will get a small reduction in the value of another. But this haircut is balanced by a steeper repayment schedule: $498mn to be paid next year to the IMF; and $578m each year from 2026-28.

     The alternative solution offered to countries in serious debt to foreigners is: cut public spending & raise taxes to obtain sufficient budget surpluses for repay the debt – ie, fiscal austerity. Take Jamaica, a tiny island state, recently heralded by mainstream economists as a great success story in paying down its debt, halving its government debt to GDP ratio from 144% in 2012 to 2023.

     We are told, this great achievement should be a guide to other poor countries on getting their house in order by running ‘austere’ budgets – with surpluses much higher than even Greece was forced to run after 2015 Troika crisis.

     It is claimed that tiny [sic!] Jamaica (hardly a model for others, I think) achieved this fiscal improvement without any rise in unemployment. But even those presenting their glowing report on Jamaica’s fiscal prudence had to admit that infrastructure spending was suppressed, ie, government investment forced down and ‘we don’t have a clear sense of whether a little less fiscal consolidation – if the additional funds had gone into things like education spending or health spending – might have been equally good or better.’ Indeed. Actually, during last 10 years Jamaican economy & living standards have stood still, as measured by per capita income. Hardly a poster for the austerity alternative.

     For Global South economies deep in unrepayable debt, the current choice is: rescheduling often on even harsher terms; or forced stagnation of the economy to pay back foreign creditors. – Michael Roberts, ee Economists, From the Magnificent 7 to the Desperate 100  

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• Unions take Labour Reforms to Court – ’14 trade unions representing workers across various sectors at the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) are discussing court action against the proposed labour law reforms demanded by the IMF. They say the labour law reforms have been drafted without consultation and are devoid of a transparent common consensus among the key tripartite stakeholders of employment, concerning its specific operating terms of reference. It is contrary to principles of the ILO Conventions governing tripartite consultation and stands to fail in the realisation of norms of ‘Decent Work.’  All trade unions stand united together with the support of the working population and the general public in their determination to reject the proposed draft law in toto and to fully defeat any attempt to advance it. The proposed ‘ill-conceived labour law reforms which are contrary to recognised universal norms will create inconsistencies in ensuring such compliance.’ It will drive international businesses and supply chains away from Sri Lanka, further exacerbating national economic challenges. Over the last few decades, the supervisory bodies of the International Labour Organisation on numerous occasions have drawn the urgent attention of the government to the glaring inconsistencies and deficiencies of local labour laws with its ratified Conventions. What Sri Lanka needs right now is a framework of labour laws that is reflective of progressive modernism and that it is consistent with norms of the civilized global society and the principles of the ILO to guarantee a ‘Decent Work’ environment for the workforce.’ – see ee Workers

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• Customs trade unions oppose changes to Customs Ordinance – ‘The Finance Ministry has decided to amend sections of the Sri Lanka Customs Ordinance, which the Customs Trade Union Alliance says will curtail the powers of customs officials. After the FM’s draft amendments were sent to the Customs Director General, the Union on April 4, requested the State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya to immediately withdraw the amendments. Signed by all customs officers’ trade unions, including the Customs Staff Officers Association, the Senior Customs Supervisors Association, and the Customs Officers’ Association, the letter states that if the amendments, harmful to Customs officials, the national revenue and the general public, are not withdrawn, every possible trade union action will be taken against them. The state minister has violated the agreement with trade unions that amendments would be incorporated only subsequent to discussions with officers.

     ‘The government of good governance, which existed previously, had annulled the Foreign Exchange Control Act and adopted a Foreign Exchange Act that created relaxed policies, and these had halted the scope for regulating foreign exchange in this country, and all of us are having to suffer its consequences as of today. In that way, through these so-called amendments, which are being submitted without a proper study, we have realised what is expected by the political authorities, including the family of corrupt officials behind this, by submitting such foolish amendments without taking into consideration what our alliance pointed out in relation to the harmful impact that could affect the economy of this country.’

     Fraudulent importers found guilty and penalized by custom officers could be pardoned by a new Board of Appeal dominated by senior ‘traders’, which ‘seriously challenges the rule of natural justice’. Also, although ‘All government officers are disciplined through the establishment code’, the new proposals will enable the separate punishing of customs officers.’ – see ee Workers

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• Selling off Eppawala Rock Phosphate – ‘The government is seeking foreign investors to manufacture phosphate fertiliser from Eppawala rock phosphate, through a planned public private chemical fertiliser company jointly with the Lanka Phosphate Limited (LPL) operating under the Ministry of Agriculture. They promise compensation to North Central Province people relocated from surrounding areas due to the implementation of the new public private venture. They promise to save around $38mn or more than 50% of foreign exchange spent to import Triple Super Phosphate Fertiliser (TSP) for paddy & other crops cultivations and the difficulty in importing phosphate fertiliser due to the ongoing conflict between Ukraine & Russia. Sri Lanka requires about 150,000 metric tons of TSP fertiliser annually and of this 95,000MT are imported per annum. LPL is currently mining and processing to fulfil the local phosphate fertiliser requirement in the country.  LPL produces around 50,000MT of Eppawala Rock Phosphate (ERP) annually, for local requirement and it supplies to the farmers through private and public fertiliser companies. It produces 2 types of rock phosphate fertilizers, namely ERP & High-Grade Eppawala Rock Phosphate, which are used as phosphate fertiliser for perennial crops in the country.’ – see ee Agriculture, Seeking foreign investors to manufacture phosphate

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• UN FAO’s Agro-Follies – ‘In my FAO capacity, I managed to set up the Agrarian Reform & Training Institute (now renamed Kobbekaduwa Institute) in Ceylon, with FAO assistance. Later in Rome in 1970, I was appointed Senior Economist for Asia & the Far East in the Economic Analysis Division. In 1976, I was appointed Chief of the Land Tenure & Agrarian Reform Service at the Director level, being the youngest to be appointed to that level at that time. However, my career in FAO became blocked thereafter for various political reasons.

     FAO at that time was highly compartmentalized into specialized technical fields, while the organization itself was becoming more bureaucratic, autocratic & politicized. Although the technical directors were highly qualified, they had PhDs from countries that had the opposite set of factor proportions to the developing world’s small farmers. They were accustomed to having plenty of land & access to capital, thus choosing strategies that best utilized these resources. But these are what around 70% of the farmers of the developing world did not have.

     Hence, by a strange quirk of history, the most qualified FAO experts were the least qualified to help the farmers of the developing world. They were trained in countries which had the opposite factor proportions to those that the developing countries had. They were now called upon to cater to small farmers with little land, no capital, but with surplus labour.

     Although completely boxed-in within the field of agrarian reform, my knowledge of agricultural problems and policies was much broader and deeper, due especially to my field work & agricultural planning experience in Sri Lanka. I felt strongly, eg, that FAO had no technologies nor improved farming systems for small & subsistence farmers, who make up some 70% of all farmers in the developing world. Fed up and frustrated, I simply handed in my resignation to FAO in 1987 – 2 years before my time – and just walked away.

     This represented for me, the greatest failure in my life, since with this impetuous decision, I had lost my only chance to change the policies of the international organizations relating to the developing world farmers. As in Sri Lanka, where I took on the Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Finance & Planning and the Prime Minister herself, I should have taken on the Director-General of FAO. I had written a policy paper arguing that FAO’s policy towards the farmers of the developing countries was all wrong. But instead of confronting the Director-General with it, I chickened out (on the advice of the Director du Cabinet). I resigned from FAO in ‘surrender’ mode, afraid of the Director-General of FAO – to my lasting regret.

     I also regret very much that I did not go to some other development institute to develop my own ideas about small farm development and publish them. I chickened out of this too, because I would have had to go to another country (England or Norway – where there were research institutes) and set up house alone there. Because of this rash decision to resign from FAO without confronting the Director-General, I went into a deep (mental) depression – because I had failed in my duty. I buried myself in international consulting. I found that I was much in demand by IFAD, which was based in Rome.’ – Arulpragasam (see ee Agriculture, Falling Leaves: Autobiographical memoir of a high achiever

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• Unilever & Russian Ice Cream – ‘Once number-one but now in third place in the producers table, Unilever’s Russian entity Inmarko, was bought from its Russian owners and integrated into Unilever’s multinational group from 2008; until 2021 it had been the undisputed leader in the ice cream market in Russia for more than a decade.

     In Russia, Unilever manages 2 factories in Omsk & Tula with a total capacity of more than 100,000 tons of products per year. At the time of its launch in 2011, the Tula factory was Unilever’s largest ice cream production site in Eastern Europe. In 2013 Unilever opened a centre for research into Russian frozen food tastes & composition as part of the Tula complex. It has also been producing for the US Mars company non-ice cream products under Snickers & Mars brands, while importing other Mars brands, eg, Bounty, Twix. Following the start of the Special Military Operation, Mars announced it would ‘scale back our business and will refocus our efforts in Russia on our essential role in feeding the Russian people & pets. Any profits from our Russian business will be used for humanitarian causes. We have suspended new investments in Russia and will not import or export our products in or out of Russia. Our social media & advertising activity in Russia & Belarus will remain suspended.’

     Until the war Unilever was the largest exporter of ice cream from Russia, which provided more than 15% of its sales revenue. In 2020 a quarter of Tula plant’s production went to US, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark. The Omsk factory supplied exports to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan & Azerbaijan. With a large Russian emigré & tourist population, the US has been taking the largest volume of exported Russian ice cream – in 2021 shipments to the US jumped almost 3fold on the year earlier to 10,600 tons in volume, $29mn in value. That figure represented a third of all Russian ice cream sales abroad. Kazakhstan & Mongolia followed with $23mn and $5.7mn, respectively. However, Iran’s retaliation against Israel will be a defining moment for the US. At the same time, the company said it would maintain its supply of food products to the domestic Russian market. In fact, last year output grew by 15%.

     Fear of being driven out of the Russian market is acknowledged by Unilever executives: ‘it is clear that were we to abandon our business & brands in the country, they would be appropriated – and then operated – by the Russian state. In addition, we do not think it is right to abandon our people in Russia. The second option would be to sell the business, but to date we have not been able to find a solution which avoids the Russian state potentially gaining further benefit, and which safeguards our people.’

     ‘Since March 2022, we have ceased all imports & exports of our products into & out of Russia, and we have stopped all media & advertising spend. We have also ceased all capital flows into & out of the country. We continue to supply our everyday food & hygiene products made in Russia to people in the country. We understand why there are calls for Unilever to leave Russia. We also want to be clear that we are not trying to protect or manage our business in Russia. However, for companies like Unilever, which have a significant physical presence in the country, exiting is not straightforward.’ (www.unilever.com/) There is constant media pressure & political lobbying by Ukrainian organizations to compel Unilever to close down in Russia entirely. See the BBC report of last July.

     Unilever, which is headquartered in London & owned in the US, has the largest share of the global ice cream market (17%), but it is now losing its Russian market share. Last year, the Unilever chief executive admitted, was ‘a disappointing year for ice cream.’  His financial report for 2023 did not disclose revenue and profit figures for Russia, but acknowledged the ‘risk that the operations in Russia are unable to continue, leading to a loss of turnover, profit and a write-down of assets.’ The report estimates its ice cream production assets in the country to be worth €600mn. The company announced last month that it is trying to sell out of ice cream altogether.

     At the same time as Unilever struggles to preserve its Russian assets & revenues in order to hold up the selling price of its global ice cream business, Danone & PepsiCo are facing even more substantial losses, as their Russian businesses are under pressure to sell at a 50% discount to Russian competitors and combinations of Russians with friendly-country investors.

     Until 2022 the growth of the leading domestic ice cream producers was achieved by individual plant expansions; and by mergers & acquisitions as smaller regional ice cream makers have been persuaded to sell out. Since then the war is driving the internationals into the hands of the domestic producers. With Putin’s support, a Russian ice cream oligarchy is beginning to replace the multinationals whose takeover had been agreed with Medvedev.’ – ee Agriculture, Russian Ice Cream

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• 1942, England takes Lanka into World War 2, Part 1: Fearing Ceylon joining with Japan, English colonial government in Lanka set the price of rice above market rate to encourage production. • University of Ceylon set up with faculties in Arts, Science, Medicine, ‘Oriental Studies’; 904 students. State Council decided to replace English eventually with the Sinhala & Tamil languages in administration & law courts. • DB Jayatilaka retired to become Ceylon’s ambassador to India at New Delhi, Don Stephen Senanayake made leader of the Ceylon National Congress. • Anuradhapura Preservation Ordinance to preserve historic city and build new town. • Pawnbroker Ordinance enacted in Ceylon. • Durban became HQ & assembly point for English imperial taskforce to invade Vichy Madagascar. South Africa & Ceylon became major repair & maintenance facility for warships & merchant vessels – 13,000 ships repaired throughout war in Ceylon. • English troops sent to suppress ‘Quit India’ protests in Bengal & Bihar. English caused famine in Bengal leading to 3 million deaths through starvation, disease, exposure. • All Japanese men of military age jailed in Canada, Japanese-Canadian property confiscated; 16,000 Germans taken there as prisoners. • Special Operations Executive (SOE) head Frank Nelson replaced by Charles Hambro, head of English bank Hambro. SOE station near Algiers, codenamed Massingham, to operate into south France. SOE mounted Operation Harling, into Greece to disrupt railway-borne materials to the German Panzer Army Africa. SOE missions into Czech Protectorate of Bohemia & Moravia, later into Slovakia. Operation Anthropoid: assassination of SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. 1942-43: Czechoslovaks set up Special Training School (STS) at Chicheley Hall in Buckinghamshire. • January 1: Japanese army invaded Labuan Island so as to capture Borneo. • Jan: After English battleships went down in the Gulf of Siam, and US defeat at Pearl Harbor, England turned Ceylon into an armed camp. Japanese landed in Rabaul in New Guinea. • SOE Oriental Mission set up ‘stay-behind’ and resistance organizations after the Japanese invasion of Malaya. • Jan 11: Japanese forces took over Tarakan Island. Dutch garrisons destroyed oil fields prior to fleeing. • Jan 15: To coordinate fight against Japanese, the US, English, Dutch & Australian forces combined all available land and sea forces under the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM or ABDA) as supreme command for all Allied forces in South East Asia, set up in Singapore absorbing British Far East Command. ABDA covered Burma in the west, to Dutch New Guinea & the Philippines in the east, during Pacific War. ABDA led by England’s Commander-in-Chief India General Sir Archibald Wavell, to control the ‘Malay Barrier’ (or ‘East Indies Barrier’ running down Malayan Peninsula, through Singapore & southernmost islands of Dutch East Indies) to retain English control of the Indian Ocean & western sea approaches to Australia. Western half of north Australia added to the ABDA area; the rest plus Territory of New Guinea under Australian control. General Douglas MacArthur controlled Allied forces in the Philippines. Overall commander being England’s Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, with US Army Air Force Lt General George Brett as deputy commander, England’s Lt Gen Henry Royds Pownall as chief of staff. US Admiral Thomas C Hart as naval commander, Dutch Lt General Hein ter Poorten as ground forces commander, & England’s Air Chief Marshal Richard EC Peirse as the air commander. • Wavell moved ABDA headquarters to Bandung in Java. • Jan 17: Japanese forces used Tarakan airfield as a forward airbase. • Jan 24: Balikpapan captured. Dutch garrisons destroyed oil fields prior to fleeing. Under ABDACOM, US Navy attacked Balikpapan, Borneo, but Japanese captured oil wells of Borneo. • 25 Jan: Thailand declared war on the US & England. Free Thai Movement set up by Force 136 & OSS. • Jan 28: Japanese forces controlled airfields in Balikpapan. • Jan 1942 to mid-1943: Battle of the Caribbean, 330k tons of merchant shipping lost. • February: Japanese attacked Darwin. • Malayan Communist Party before the fall of Singapore formed Malayan Peoples’ Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA).• Feb 9: Far Eastern Council (aka Pacific War Council) set up in London & Washington. Feb 13: Battle of Palembang. • Feb 15: Surrender of ‘Fortress Singapore’. With the fall of Singapore, radar, barrage balloons, heavy & light anti-aircraft guns installed in Lanka to defend harbors. English had Air & Naval base built at Addu Atoll (to supplement Trincomalee & Colombo after loss of Singapore. 2 Mobile Naval Base Defence Organization (MNBDO) units transferred from Mediterranean. Gan Island in Chagos chosen for aerodrome. • 6-inch naval guns placed at Eclipse Point in Chagos, with 2 platoons of Indian Garrison Troops. • Feb 19: Japanese landed in Timor. ABDA guerilla campaign in Timor by Australian & Dutch infantry. • 25 Feb: Wavell resigned as supreme commander. Control of Burma given to the British India Command. Wavell again made Commander-in-chief India. • Feb-Mar: Japan destroyed Main ABDA naval force at Battle of the Java Sea. Japan attacked Burma – (to be continued… excerpts from K Sri Bhaggiyadatta’s Very Personal Ingrisi History of the World)

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B. Special Focus____________________________________________

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• B1. How to Miss 5 Industrial Revolutions – HN Thenuwara

The signs of having gone through industrial revolutions are the country becoming wealthy, and population having a high level of per capita income

The world has already undergone 4 industrial revolutions and is now witnessing the dawn of the 5^th revolution being fuelled by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Sri Lanka has missed the first 4 and may miss the 5^th too. This note explains how Sri Lanka missed the first 4, and further explains broad parameters of how to avoid missing the 5^th.

     An Industrial Revolution is a profound economic, technological & social transformation arising from a series of innovations that radically transforms the existing ways of production & distribution. Industrial revolutions occur when a country creates a suitable environment for innovation and is in a process of proto industrialisation (having primitive industries) which enables the population to gain a reasonable purchasing power, and the population has means of acquiring knowledge & skills. Some countries, not all, have already gone through 4 industrial revolutions, and are now passing through the 5^th industrial revolution. The signs of having gone through industrial revolutions are the country becoming wealthy, and population having a high level of per capita income.

     The first industrial revolution happened in England from 1750-1850. At that time England had an environment conducive to investment & innovation. Law & order reigned supreme, property rights were protected, and the government facilitated private enterprises. The results were industrial & scientific innovations.

     The revolutionary inventions were the textile machinery such as spinning jenny (1764) by James Hargreaves, the spinning frame (1769) by Richard Arkwright, and the power loom (1785) by Edmund Cartwright, which revolutionised textile production. This mechanisation reversed the comparative advantage in producing textiles to England, from India, which used mainly manual labor [ee: England also cut Indian weavers thumbs and broke their looms!]. Later, the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1776 became a primary cause of the 1^st Industrial Revolution. Steam engines were initially used to pump water out of mines but later used in steam locomotives, steamships, & machines in factories.

     Furthermore, the government & wealthy merchants build infrastructure, eg, canals, railroads & bridges to facilitate long-distance trade, benefiting from the innovations in iron & steel production processes. This was further facilitated by the invention of the electric telegraph by Samuel Morse in the 1830s that revolutionised communication by allowing messages to be transmitted over long distances almost instantly, and facilitated coordination of economic activities, transportation & commerce on a national as well as global scale.

English industrial policy was to prohibit any form of industrialisation in any of their colonies

During the advent of the 1^st industrial revolution, Sri Lanka was mostly under the rule of European colonisers. In 1815 Sri Lanka was fully conquered by the English Empire. In fact, at that time the English industrial policy was to prohibit any form of industrialisation in any of their colonies, and to use them only as sources of raw material to fuel industrialisation in England. In colonies they built canals & railroads and used steam engines only to transport raw materials from inner parts of colonies to the seaports. They set up government institutions that facilitated the extraction of resources and did not set up complete sets of institutions necessary for industrialisation and promoting economic growth & development within colonies. Thus, Sri Lanka missed the 1^st industrial revolution.

     The 2^nd industrial revolution took place from about 1850-1930 with the discovery of electricity, chemicals such as synthetic dyes, fertilisers, explosives, antibiotics, the internal combustion engine, mass production of factory goods using assembly lines, further advances in communication & transportation, and the establishment of research laboratories by major companies & governments. During this time Sri Lanka continued to remain a colony of the English Empire and was subject to their rule of ‘no industrialisation’ in colonies. Thus, Sri Lanka missed the 2^nd industrial revolution too.

     The 3^rd industrial revolution began in around 1930 and lasted until 2000. It was fuelled by electronics, digital technology, computers, space exploration, nuclear fusion, electron microscopes, synthetic fibres, antibiotics, fibre optics, mobile phones, and the internet. Sri Lanka gained independence in the middle of this industrial revolution in 1948. At the time, Sri Lanka was lagging in technology, growth & development because of not having gone through the first 2 industrial revolutions.

     Sri Lanka also did not have a complete set of Government institutions to maintain a corruption-free economy. This incompleteness later led to countrywide corruption and creating a generation of rent-seekers whose primary objective was to profit from the Government, at the expense of the welfare of the general public. This should have been obvious to the political leaders and bureaucrats of Sri Lanka who oversaw the transition of political power from the colonial master. Thus, the need to import & adopt technology and to install the full set of institutions should have been a top priority of the country. In similar situations, countries like Japan & Singapore adopted correct strategies.

     After missing industrial revolutions, the strategies of Japan & Singapore were to reenact the missed revolutions quickly and be ready for the new revolutions to come. In Japan, when a US navy ship forcefully entered a Japanese port in 1853, the Japanese realised that their country was backward in technology. Their response was to overthrow the existing lethargic political regime, and bring back a regime committed to industrial development. They developed factors of production such as technology, infrastructure, and human capital. They set up state-owned enterprises such as cotton spinning mills & factories to produce commodities such as cement, sugar, beer. They invested in infrastructure and developed human capital to provide skills by enhancing domestic technological education and through foreign training. The country did not suffer from corruption and as a result the government was able to successfully engineer the first industrial revolution and was ready for the future revolutions.

Singapore also has a similar story – By the time Singapore regained independence in 1965, the world was going through the 3^rd industrial revolution, and Singapore was just a poor country. To escape from poverty, post-independent Singaporean politicians had the foresight to create an environment conducive to staging industrial revolutions.

     1) The Singaporean government invited foreign investors to set up low-tech industries such as textiles & garments. Next, they began to set up higher education institutions to produce a skilled workforce with the objective of inviting high-tech industries. The higher-education institutions benefited from the emigration of professionals from South Asia, and the return of Singaporean professionals who were working abroad, attracted by excellent benefits provided by the government. Eventually, those institutions provided higher levels of skills to the Singaporean population and helped attract industries with higher technology as planned, and helped advance the country from low-technology industries to industries with advance technology.

     The Singaporean government had further realised that their future depended on free trade. Being a small country, the domestic market was not large enough to support any industry that depends solely on the domestic market, and any industry must compete internationally. To facilitate international trade, they set up a monetary authority with sole objective of maintaining stable exchange rates which prevented frenzied money printing and hyperinflation, enhanced the efficiency of ports & the airport, and build an efficient road network & mass transport systems. Those efforts paid off quickly and Singapore reenacted the first 3 industrial revolutions and was ready for the 4^th industrial revolution by 2000.

Post-independence politicians may not have realised complementary needs of industrial success

Sri Lanka, like other newly independent post-colonial countries, made some attempts in the 1950-60s to set up state-owned industrial enterprises, notably in cement, steel, paper, tires, plywood, petroleum refining, fertiliser, and electricity. The nationalisation or acquiring f private enterprises by the Government swept through the country beginning 1957 all the way to 1980s. Such private enterprises were bus transport, airport, seaports, banking, insurance, petroleum distribution, graphite mines, major export crop plantations, and newspapers. But the post-independence politicians of Sri Lanka may not have realised the complementary needs of industrial success. They may not have recognised the needs of upgrading political stability, filling the gaps in Government institutions, developing infrastructure, developing higher education institutions, maintaining monetary stability, establishing anti-corruption practices, and maintaining ethnic & religious harmony, among many other factors that would foster industrial success and lead to further innovations.

     The policies adopted in Sri Lanka were, in fact, the opposite of the required policies. As a result, the mostly agrarian Sri Lanka economy could not see a vast success in state-owned enterprises, could not develop a proto-industrial state, could not avoid corruption becoming omnipresent, witnessed professionals emigrating to foreign countries in large numbers, and the eruption of civil wars.

     During 1970-77, the country experimented with closed economy policies, which are countermeasures of industrial revolutions, and resulted in colossal failure. From 1978 onwards, policies were reversed to embrace free trade, develop infrastructure such as power generation, and set up low-tech industries such as production of garments. Yet, insufficient efforts were made to develop other complementary infrastructure and institutions. As corruption in the state sector intensified, the state-owned enterprises faltered. Furthermore, the stability of the country disintegrated as signified by the eruption of a major ethnic strife in northern Sri Lanka, and the worsening of insurgency in southern Sri Lanka in mid to late 1980s. The entire country was engulfed in violence, which distanced Sri Lanka from becoming industrialised.

     A further devastating impact on industrialisation happened when Government institutions & civil service were undermined after 1978. A dictatorial political culture swept through the country and already weak Government institutions were further weakened. Politics entered the civil service, and politically appointed bureaucrats played havoc in policy circles and distanced the country further from reenacting the 3 bygone industrial revolutions. During this era, some efforts were made to plant low-tech industries such as garment manufacturing. Those industries benefited from the availability of low-cost labour but should have gradually upgraded to high-tech industries as was the case in Japan & Singapore. This did not happen because of insufficiency in the production of high-skill work force, weaknesses in institutions, and failures in other policy spheres. Meanwhile, the world was awakening to the 4^th industrial revolution.

     The 4^th industrial revolution happened from 2000-20 spearheaded by digital & wireless technology. There were further advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and quantum computing. Both production and consumer applications were seamlessly integrated through the internet. The result was an exponential increase in the per capita income of those countries who benefited from the 4^th industrial revolution.

     During 2000-20, Sri Lanka’s macroeconomic policies led to deterioration of economic stability as it amassed a massive foreign debt stock without any corresponding assets to show for it and went through an episode of frenzied money printing culminating in inflation, currency depreciation and an embarrassing foreign debt default. Sri Lanka to date remains bankrupt with no sign of the resumption of repaying debt, while the 5^th industrial revolution is dawning upon the world

Some signs of Sri Lanka’s capabilities – Showing some signs of Sri Lanka’s capabilities, the private sector benefited from the imports of new technology, mostly in telecommunication & information technology (IT), amidst political disharmony, civil unrest & weak economic policies. Universities also embraced the new technology and produced graduates with degrees in IT. The benefits did not spread throughout the nation, due to the failure of converting newly available technology to an industrial revolution. Instead, foreign countries began to attract Sri Lanka’s high-skilled graduates through selective emigration and with remote job opportunities facilitated by the internet. Thus, Sri Lanka’s opportunities to stage an industrial revolution became muted, while rich nations became the biggest beneficiaries of Sri Lanka’s advances in technological education.

The 5^th industrial revolution is being fuelled by Artificial Intelligence. Judging by the speed of developments in AI, it seems that within next 5 years the world will become an unrecognisable place. In response to the fast developments in AI, Government institutions, private sector institutions and universities in developed countries are vigorously experimenting with the applications of AI and finding strategies to face challenges posed by AI. To seek strategies from AI for Sri Lanka to stage an industrial revolution, we posed the question ‘Can Sri Lanka stage an industrial revolution?’ to ChatGPT4, the latest AI application in internet search. This is the response:

     Sri Lanka has the potential to undergo significant industrial development, which could be seen as an industrial revolution. However, whether it can stage an industrial revolution akin to those seen in Western countries during the 18-19th centuries depends on several factors:

    Economic Stability: Sri Lanka has faced economic challenges, including debt, inflation, currency depreciation. Overcoming these issues is crucial for creating a stable environment that encourages investment & industrial growth.    

    Infrastructure Development: Adequate infrastructure, including transportation, energy & communication systems, is essential for industrial growth. Investments in these areas can facilitate industrial activities and attract foreign investment.

    Education & Skilled Workforce: Developing a skilled workforce through education and training is crucial for supporting industrialisation. This includes not only technical skills related to manufacturing and industry but also innovation & research capabilities.

     Government Policy & Regulation: Supportive government policies, including incentives for investment, clear and favourable regulations, and efforts to maintain political stability, are important for fostering an environment conducive to industrial growth.

     Technology & Innovation: Embracing new technologies and encouraging innovation can help Sri Lanka move up the value chain in manufacturing & industry, making it more competitive on a global scale.

     Access to Markets: For an industrial revolution to be sustainable, there must be access to markets for manufactured goods. This includes both domestic markets and export opportunities.

     Environmental & Social Considerations: Sustainable industrial growth also requires attention to environmental protection and social impacts, ensuring that industrialisation does not come at the expense of environmental degradation or social unrest.

     In summary, while Sri Lanka has the potential to stage significant industrial development, achieving an industrial revolution would require concerted efforts in economic stabilisation, infrastructure development, education, government policy, technology adoption, market access, and sustainability.

     Since AI is fast developing and changing the economic environment, Sri Lanka’s policymakers may use the above suggestions and generate a more comprehensive political and economic policy package to recapture the foregone 4 industrial revolutions, and get ready to stage the 5^th industrial revolution.

(The writer has worked at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka as the Superintendent of Public Debt, Director of Economic Research, and Assistant Governor. At present he teaches Economic Theory & Policy at the University of Iowa, USA. He may be contacted through thenuwarahn@gmail.com) 

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• B2. US South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act

A bill to enact a full review of the bilateral relationship between the US & South Africa. The US Congress finds the following:

     1) The actions of the African National Congress (ANC), which since 1994 has held a governing majority and controlled South Africa’s executive branch, are inconsistent with its publicly stated policy of nonalignment in international affairs.

     2) In contrast to its stated stance of nonalignment, the South African Government has a history of siding with malign actors, including Hamas, a US designated Foreign Terrorist Organization and a proxy of the Iranian regime, and continues to pursue closer ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russian Federation.

     3) The South African Government’s support of Hamas dates back to 1994, when the ANC first came into power, taking a hardline stance of consistently accusing Israel of practicing apartheid.

     4) Following Hamas’ unprovoked and unprecedented horrendous attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, where Hamas terrorists killed and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis, members of the South African Government and leaders of the ANC have delivered a variety of antisemitic & anti-Israel-related statements & actions, including:

     a) on Oct 7, South Africa’s Foreign Ministry released a statement expressing concern of ‘escalating violence’, urging Israel’s restraint in response, and implicitly blaming Israel for provoking the attack through ‘continued illegal occupation of Palestine land, continued settlement expansion, desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque and Christian holy sites, and ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people’;

     b) Oct 8, ANC’s national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said of the devastating Hamas attack, ‘the decision by Palestinians to respond to the brutality of the settler Israeli apartheid regime is unsurprising’;

     c) October 14, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, accused Israel of ‘genocide’ in statements during a pro-Palestinian rally;

     d) Oct 17, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor accepted a call with Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh;

     e) Oct 22, FM Pandor visited Tehran and met with President Raisi of Islamic Republic of Iran, which is actively funding Hamas;

     f) on November 7, in a parliamentary address FM Pandor called for the International Criminal Court to charge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with war crimes;

     g) Nov 17, South Africa, along with 4 other countries, submitted a joint request to the International Criminal Court for an investigation into war crimes being committed in the Palestinian territories; and

     h) on December 29, 2023, South Africa filed a politically motivated suit in the International Court of Justice wrongfully accusing Israel of committing genocide.

     5) The South African Government has pursued increasingly close relations with the Russian Federation, which has been accused of perpetrating war crimes in Ukraine and indiscriminately undermines human rights. South Africa’s robust relationship with Russia spans the military and political space, including –

     a) allowing a US-sanctioned Russian cargo ship, the Lady R, to dock and transfer arms at a South African naval base in December 2022;

     b) hosting offshore naval exercises, ‘Operation Mosi II’, carried out jointly with the PRC & Russia, between Feb 17-27, corresponding with the 1-year anniversary of Russia’s unjustified & unprovoked invasion of Ukraine;

     c) authorizing a US-sanctioned Russian military cargo airplane to land at a South African Air Force Base;

     d) reneging on its initial call for the Russian Federation to immediately withdraw its forces from Ukraine and actively seeking improved relations with Moscow since Feb 2022; and

     e) dispatching multiple high-level official delegations to Russia to further political, intelligence, and military cooperation.

     6) South African Government interactions with the PRC Government & ANC interactions with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who are committing gross violations of human rights in Xinjiang province and implement economically coercive tactics around the globe, undermine South Africa’s democratic constitutional system of governance, as exemplified in –

     a) ongoing ANC & CCP inter-party cooperation, especially with the fundamental incompatibility between the civil and democratic rights guaranteed in South Africa’s Constitution and the CCP’s routine suppression of free expression and individual rights;

     b) the recruitment of former US & NATO fighter pilots to train Chinese People’s Liberation Army pilots at the Test Flying Academy of South Africa which the Department of Commerce added to the Entity List on June 12, 2023;

     c) South Africa’s hosting of 6 PRC Government-backed & CCP-linked Confucius Institutes, a type of entity that a CCP official characterized as an ‘important part of the CCP’s external propaganda structure’, the most of any country in Africa;

     d) South Africa’s participation in a political training school opened in Tanzania funded by the CCP where it trains political members of ruling liberation movements in 6 Southern African countries. The school instils CCP ideology into the next-generation of African leaders and attempts to export the CCP’s system of party-run authoritarian governance to the African continent;

     e) cooperation with the PRC under the PRC’s global Belt &Road Initiative which, while trade & infrastructure-focused, is designed to expand PRC global economic, political & security sector-related influence; &

     f) the widespread presence in South Africa’s media & technology sectors of PRC state-linked firms that the US has restricted due to threats to national security, including Huawei Technologies, ZTE & Hikvision, which place South African sovereignty at risk and facilitate the CCP’s export of its model of digitally aided authoritarian governance underpinned by cyber controls, social monitoring, propaganda, and surveillance.

     (7) The ANC-led South African Government has a history of substantially mismanaging a range of state resources and has often proven incapable of effectively delivering public services, threatening the South African people & economy, as illustrated by –

     a) President Cyril Ramaphosa’s February 9, 2023, declaration of a national state of disaster over the worsening, multi-year power crisis caused by the ANC’s chronic mismanagement of the state-owned power company Eskom, resulting from endemic, high-level corruption;

     b) the persistence of South African state-owned railway company Transnet’s insufficient capacity, which has disrupted rail operations and hindered mining companies’ export of iron ore, coal, and other commodities, in part due to malfeasance and corruption by former Transnet officials;

     c) an ongoing outbreak of cholera, the worst in 15 years, which is due in part to the South African Government’s disease prevention failures, as President Ramaphosa admitted on June 9, 2023, including a failure to provide clean water to households; and

     d) rampant state capture, that emerged and grew during the administration of former President Jacob Zuma and has damaged South Africa’s international standing and profoundly undermined the rule of law, continues to negatively impact the economic development prospects and living standards of the South African people while deeply damaging public trust in state governance.

SEC 3. Sense Of Congress – It is the sense of Congress that:

1) it is in the national security interest of the US to deter strategic political & security cooperation & information sharing with the PRC & Russian Federation, particularly any form of cooperation that may aid or abet Russia’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine or its international standing or influence; and

2) the ANC’s foreign policy actions have long ceased to reflect its stated stance of nonalignment, and now directly favor the PRC, Russian Federation, & Hamas, a known proxy of Iran, and thereby undermine US national security & foreign policy interests.

SEC 4. Presidential Certification of Determination with Respect to South Africa

     a) In General – Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the President, in consultation with the Secretary of State & Secretary of Defense, shall certify to the appropriate congressional committees and release publicly an unclassified determination explicitly stating whether South Africa has engaged in activities that undermine US national security or foreign policy interests.

     b) Accompanying Report – The certification required by subsection (a) shall be accompanied by an unclassified report submitted to the appropriate congressional committees, with a classified annex if necessary, providing the justification for the determination.

Sec 5. Full Review of the Bilateral Relationship

     a) Bilateral Relationship Review – The President, in consultation with the Secretary of State, Administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Secretary of Defense, US Ambassador to South Africa, and the heads of other departments and agencies that play a substantial role in US relations with South Africa, shall conduct a comprehensive review of the bilateral relationship between the US & South Africa.

     b) Report on Findings – Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees (Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives; and 2) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate) a report that includes the findings of the review required by subsection (a). – http://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7256/text

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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 18^th 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.

• Controversy over Katchatheevu ahead of Indian polls and Sirisena’s bombshell claim

– https://island.lk/controversy-over-katchatheevu-ahead-of-indian-polls-and-sirisenas-bombshell-claim/

• Gotabaya urged to rectify flaws in ‘Conspiracy’, admit his own failures

– https://island.lk/gotabaya-urged-to-rectify-flaws-in-conspiracy-admit-his-own-failures/

• Is JVP/NPP signalling left and turning right?

– https://island.lk/is-jvp-npp-signalling-left-and-turning-right/

• US National Security Advisor talks to Sri Lankan National Security Advisor

‘to complete the fiscal, monetary, and governance elements of its IMF program’

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/07/sri-lanka-usa-talk-defence-ties

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/SL-US-discuss-boosting-peace-and-security-in-region/44-760561

– https://island.lk/u-s-national-security-advisor-engages-in-bilateral-talks-with-sri-lanka-counterpart/

• US Coast Guard to transfer fourth vessel to SLN

– https://island.lk/us-coast-guard-to-transfer-fourth-vessel-to-sln/

• Speaker Abeywardena gets cold feet

– https://island.lk/external-interventions-in-grs-ouster-manohara-challenges-hrcs-stand/

• External interventions in GR’s ouster: Manohara challenges HRC’s stand

– https://island.lk/external-interventions-in-grs-ouster-manohara-challenges-hrcs-stand/

• Arms manufacturers show Indian capability to Sri Lankan military

‘Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics, Zen Technologies, SSS Defence, Bharat Forge, Big Bang Boom Solutions, AWEL, AVNL, Mahindra Defence, Sager Defence and TATA Advances System.’

– https://economynext.com/arms-manufacturers-show-indian-capability-to-sri-lankan-military-158316/

• Second India-Sri Lanka Defence Seminar

‘Led by Anurag Bajpai, Additional Secretary, Department of Defence Production, India’s Ministry of Defence, leading Indian Defence Public Sector entities and a wide range of private sector players’

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98596/india-to-remain-sri-lankas-most-reliable-friend-offers-modern-defence-equipment

• Cooperation with India is Sri Lanka’s only option: High Commissioner

– https://economynext.com/for-sri-lanka-and-india-cooperation-is-the-only-option-high-commissioner-158232/

• Indian HC explains how Covid-19, Russia-Ukraine conflict expanded India’s role in SL

– https://island.lk/indian-hc-explains-how-covid-19-russia-ukraine-conflict-expanded-indias-role-in-sl/

• A “Hindu” presidential candidate and the “Hindu Tamil Eelam” concept – Jeyaraj

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/A-Hindu-presidential-candidate-and-the-Hindu-Tamil-Eelam-concept/4-760530

• Wigneswaran considers himself best Tamil candidate to run for President

– https://island.lk/wigneswaran-considers-himself-best-tamil-candidate-to-run-for-president/

• TNA rules out fielding candidate at presidential election

– https://island.lk/tna-rules-out-fielding-candidate-at-presidential-election/

• Sumanthiran accepted NPP’s invitation on behalf of TNA

– https://island.lk/sumanthiran-accepted-npps-invitation-on-behalf-of-tna/

• Report on Indo-Lanka bridge project to be submitted to President RW

– https://island.lk/report-on-indo-lanka-bridge-project-to-be-submitted-to-president-rw/

• It is up to India to settle the issue of poaching in Sri Lankan waters

– https://island.lk/it-is-up-to-india-to-settle-the-issue-of-poaching-in-sri-lankan-waters/

• Kachchativu and its maritime boundary ignore international law

– https://island.lk/kachchativu-and-its-maritime-boundary-ignore-international-law/

• Turning Kachchativu issue into another Kashmir – Sunday Times Editorial

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/editorial/turning-kachchativu-issue-into-another-kashmir-554144.html

• Lankan islet with Catholic shrine makes waves in Indian polls

– https://island.lk/lankan-islet-with-catholic-shrine-makes-waves-in-indian-polls/

• India’s diplomatic war with Sri Lanka: An election stunt? – Pakistan Today

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/07/indias-diplomatic-war-with-sri-lanka-an-election-stunt/

• Why a Sri Lankan island is sparking an Indian election controversy

–  https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/10/why-a-sri-lankan-island-is-sparking-an-indian-election-controversy/

• Modi bottom trawling Tamil Nadu votes

– https://island.lk/modi-bottom-trawling-tamil-nadu-votes/

• The hidden but real issue in the row over Kachchativu

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/11/the-hidden-but-real-issue-in-the-row-over-kachchativu/

• ‘No ground’ for Indian request for return of Katchatheevu island: Douglas Devananda

‘West Bank which is located below Kanyakumari – it is a much bigger area with extensive sea resources – it is 80 times bigger than Kachchatheevu, India secured it at the 1976 review agreement.’

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/05/no-ground-for-indian-request-for-return-of-katchatheevu-island-sri-lankan-minister-douglas-devananda/

• Katchatheevu island implications on India-Sri Lanka relations

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=98589

• Uncomplicated route to Kachchatheevu – Austin Fernando

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Uncomplicated-route-to-Kachchatheevu/4-760585

• Sri Lanka Hones Its Balancing Act

– https://island.lk/sri-lanka-hones-its-balancing-act/

• Ex-President Sirisena draws an India connection – Editorial

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Ex-President-Sirisena-draws-an-India-connection-EDITORIAL/172-280331

• Sri Lanka Parliament schedules 3-day Easter attack debate after former president’s revelation  

‘Sirisena’s claim was based on an arrest of an Indian and a telephone conversation. However, such a plot was not proven with evidence’

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-parliament-schedules-3-day-easter-attack-debate-after-former-presidents-revelation-157772/

• Easter Sunday attacks: CID probes Sirisena’s charge; BASL issues tough statement

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/ranil-and-basil-meet-for-weekly-election-strategy-talks-554151.html

• Thonda on WEF Young Global Leaders Community list

– https://island.lk/thonda-on-wef-young-global-leaders-community-list/

• Inputs to Thondaman’s Cabinet paper on State apology to Muslims on COVID cremations

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Inputs-to-Thondaman-s-Cabinetpaper-on-State-apology-to-Muslims-on-forced-COVID-cremations/4-760426

• Buddhist Viharas & Eelam Part 12F1 & F2a&b.

‘Tamil settlers brought in by the English administration in the early 20th century, to colonize the north and east, entrenched the Hindu religion in those two areas.’

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/09/buddhist-viharas-and-eelam-part-12f1/

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/10/buddhist-viharas-and-eelam-part-12f2a/

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/10/buddhist-viharas-and-eelam-part-12f2b/

• Role of Buddhism in fight against caste oppression in Tamil Nadu

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Role-of-Buddhism-in-fight-against-caste-oppression-in-Tamil-Nadu/172-280411

• Prime Minister Dinesh calls on Ban Ki-moon

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Prime-Minister-Dinesh-calls-on-Ban-Ki-moon/108-280398

• Canadian envoy visits BOI

– https://www.ft.lk/business/Canadian-envoy-visits-BOI/34-760484

• 74th Annual General Meeting of the United Nations Association of Sri Lanka

– https://island.lk/agm-of-united-nations-association-of-sri-lanka/

• US Warns China About Its Exports and Support for Russia

– https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/business/economy/us-china-yellen.html

• U.S. support for Philippines, Japan defense ‘ironclad’ – Biden says

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98590/us-support-for-philippines-japan-defense-ironclad-biden-says-amid-growing-china-provocations

• The true legacy of Japan in WW2

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/plus/letters-to-the-editor-5-553798.html

• The anatomy of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ – Prabhat Patnaik

– https://mronline.org/2024/04/08/the-anatomy-of-a-hindu-rashtra/

• Beneath the peace and normalcy in the North – USAID NPC Perera

– https://island.lk/beneath-the-peace-and-normalcy-in-the-north/

• Sri Lanka opposes dissolution of Palestinian state: President

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-opposes-dissolution-of-palestinian-state-president-157882/

• Sri Lanka condemns attack on Iranian Consulate in Damascus

– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/Sri-Lanka-condemns-attack-on-Iranian-Consulate-in-Damascus/2-1145516

• Top Iranian general says resistance ready to strike Israeli embassies: Tel Aviv closes 28 consulates around the world out of fear

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351567-top-iranian-general-says-resistance-is-ready-to-strike-israeli-embassies-tel-aviv-closes-28-consulates-around-the-world-out-of-fear

• Iran’s retaliation against Israel will be a defining moment for the US

– https://www.indianpunchline.com/irans-retaliation-against-israel-will-be-a-defining-moment-for-the-us/

• Iran’s Retaliation Delay Keeps Pressure on US And Israel

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/irans-retaliation-delay-keeps-pressure-on-us-and-israel

• Iran opens new consulate in Damascus, accusing Washington of giving Israel green light to attack

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351773-iran-opens-new-consulate-in-damascus-accusing-washington-of-giving-israel-the-green-light-to-attack

• Israel To Launch Major Escalation? A direct attack on Iran?

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/is-israel-primed-for-major-escalation

• Massacre of innocents and hypocrisy of West

– https://island.lk/massacre-of-innocents-and-hypocrisy-of-west/

• How World Central Kitchen Serves Israel’s Genocidal Agenda

– https://blackagendareport.com/how-world-central-kitchen-serves-israels-genocidal-agenda

• Gaza War ends. Will Biden get a Nobel?

– https://www.indianpunchline.com/gaza-war-ends-will-biden-get-a-nobel/

• Two Israeli Actions Misfired, Pushed Netanyahoo into Retreat

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/two-israeli-actions-misfired-pushed-netanyahoo-into-retreat-.html

• How CIA and MI6 Created ISIS

– https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/how-cia-and-mi6-created-isis/comments

• The US and ISIS: It’s Complicated

– https://scheerpost.com/2024/04/05/the-us-and-isis-its-complicated/

• Moscow Shines Spotlight on Who Comes After Zelensky

– https://johnhelmer.net/moscow-shines-spotlight-on-who-comes-after-zelensky/#more-89705

• Edward Luttwak: Time to Send NATO Troops to Ukraine

– https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/edward-luttwak-time-to-send-nato/comments

•  US troops in Moldova in emerging Plan B for Ukraine

– https://asiatimes.com/2024/04/us-troops-in-moldova-in-emerging-plan-b-for-ukraine/

• Ukraine – To Hurt Russia Means Pain for Ukraine

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/ukraine-to-hurt-russia-means-pain-for-ukraine.html

• Russia Expects ‘Unconditional Capitulation’ Of Kiev Regime

“This is how it will go down in history – as an inhuman and hateful regime of terrorists and Nazis who betrayed the interest of their people and sacrificed it for Western money..’

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/russia-expects-unconditional-capitulation-of-kiev-regime.html

• Are US-South Africa ties at breaking point over Israel’s war on Gaza?

– https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/28/are-us-south-africa-ties-at-breaking-point-over-israels-war-on-gaza

• Human Rights Industrial Complex Protects Paul Kagame in Rwanda

– https://blackagendareport.com/human-rights-industrial-complex-protects-paul-kagame-rwanda

• In Praise of Blood: Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front

– https://blackagendareport.com/praise-blood-crimes-rwandan-patriotic-front-1

• Kagame: Murderer of Millions in Congo and Rwanda

– https://blackagendareport.com/kagame-murderer-millions-congo-and-rwanda

• Constitution of Hayti, 20 May 1805

– https://blackagendareport.com/document-constitution-hayti-20-may-1805

• CARICOM, Regional Arm of the Core Group, Sells Out Haiti Again

– https://blackagendareport.com/caricom-regional-arm-core-group-sells-out-haiti-again

• U.S. to carry out naval drills near six Latin American nations

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351931-us-to-carry-out-naval-drills-near-six-latin-american-nations

• Nicaragua closes embassy in Berlin after suing Germany over Gaza genocide

‘Germany — Israel’s second-largest arms provider, after the United States — sold weapons worth 326.5 million euros ($354 million), a tenfold increase compared to 2022’

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351964-nicaragua-closes-embassy-in-berlin-after-suing-germany-over-gaza-genocide

• UN Human Rights Council Again Supports US Regime Change Plans for Nicaragua

– https://blackagendareport.com/un-human-rights-council-again-supports-us-regime-change-plans-nicaragua

• Ecuador Kidnaps Former Vice President from Mexican Embassy

– https://blackagendareport.com/ecuador-kidnaps-former-vice-president-mexican-embassy

• Mexico calls on the International Court of Justice at The Hague to expel Ecuador from UN

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351995-mexico-calls-on-the-international-court-of-justice-at-the-hague-to-expel-ecuador-from-the-united-nations

• Nicaragua breaks ties with Ecuador after raid on Mexican embassy

– https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/nicaragua-breaks-ties-with-ecuador-after-raid-on-mexican-embassy/3185509

• International condemnation of invasion of Mexican embassy in Ecuador

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351539-international-condemnation-of-invasion-of-mexican-embassy-in-ecuador

• United National Antiwar Coalition Conference: Decolonization & Fight Against Imperialism

– https://blackagendareport.com/unac-conference-decolonization-and-fight-against-imperialism

*

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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.

• Essential services order: Circular leaves President out

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/enter-a-new-breed-of-graduate-teachers-manipulated-by-politics-554272.html

• Over 7,500 security personnel deployed at mosques for Ramadan

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Over-7-500-security-personnel-deployed-at-mosques-for-Ramadan/108-280452

• England’s Amnesty Int’l urges accountability for ‘unlawful use of weapons’ in policing protests

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98570/amnesty-urges-accountability-for-unlawful-use-of-weapons-in-policing-of-protests-in-sl

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/SL-law-enforcement-officials-must-be-held-accountable-for-abuses-during-protests-Amnesty/44-760560

– https://island.lk/ai-says-sl-police-must-be-held-accountable-for-abuses-during-protests/

• A stretch remains to be cleared of landmines in North – govt.

– https://island.lk/a-stretch-remains-to-be-cleared-of-landmines-in-north-govt/

• 61 deaths by hanging in prisons in past four years

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/61-deaths-by-hanging-in-prisons-in-past-four-years-554280.html

• Prison suicides: Rehab, counselling, spiritual/aesthetic progs. to be enhanced

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/uWI19JxgwVpl1FtLGZg1

• Prison Deaths in Sri Lanka: Suicides, Medical Conditions, and Assaults Cause Concern

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/07/prison-deaths-in-sri-lanka-suicides-medical-conditions-and-assaults-cause-concern

• Presidential pardon for 779 prisoners

– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/Presidential-pardon-for-779-prisoners/2-1145507

– https://island.lk/president-to-pardon-779-prisoners/

• Sri Lanka minister declines to explain pardon sought for convicted monk

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-minister-declines-to-explain-pardon-sought-for-convicted-monk-158187/

• Ven. Gnanasara Thera not among prisoners to be released

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Ven-Gnanasara-Thera-not-among-prisoners-to-be-released-tomorrow/108-280650

• Sri Lanka Yukthiya operations leading addicts to seek Ayurveda high

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-yukthiya-operations-leading-addicts-to-seek-ayurveda-high-158279/

• Govt. in talks with UAE on extradition of SL drug barons

– https://island.lk/govt-in-talks-with-uae-on-extradition-of-sl-drug-barons/

• Two Indian vessels carrying massive cache of narcotics intercepted off Sri Lanka

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98594/two-vessels-carrying-massive-cache-of-narcotics-intercepted-off-sri-lanka

• Navy intercept multi-day fishing trawler carrying 200kg of narcotics

– https://island.lk/navy-intercept-multi-day-fishing-trawler-carrying-200kg-of-narcotics/

• 10 suspects arrested with 200 kgs of heroin in SL waters

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/10-suspects-arrested-with-200-kgs-of-heroin-in-SL-waters/108-280654

• STF arrests three suspects with weapons in Maradana

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/STF-arrests-three-suspects-with-weapons-in-Maradana/108-280630

• Corporal from Air Force Rugby pool killed in police shootout at Angamuwa in Padukka

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/top-story/Corporal-from-Air-Force-Rugby-pool-killed-in-police-shootout/155-280362

• Air Force Probing Death Of Corporal in Police Shooting

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/08/air-force-probing-death-of-corporal-in-police-shooting

• Suspect in Horana double murder killed in police shootout

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98501/suspect-in-horana-double-murder-killed-in-police-shootout

• Woman and her paramour arrested over murder of husband

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98588/woman-and-her-paramour-arrested-over-murder-of-husband

• Man takes woman hostage, dies in police shooting

– https://island.lk/man-takes-woman-hostage-dies-in-police-shooting/

• Man killed in police shooting in Mawanella

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/top-story/Man-killed-in-police-shooting-in-Mawanella/155-280313

• Two killed in shooting in Moragahahena

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Two-killed-in-shooting-in-Moragahahena/108-280323

– https://island.lk/two-suspected-robbers-shot-dead/

• Man shot dead in Gampaha

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Man-shot-dead-in-Gampaha/108-280404

• Musician arrested with drugs worth Rs. 40 Mn in Kotahena

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Musician-arrested-with-drugs-worth-Rs-40-Mn-in-Kotahena/108-280318

• 23 including organised criminal gang members arrested by special police teams

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98514/23-including-organised-criminal-gang-members-arrested-by-special-police-teams

• Apple Warns iPhone Users in 92 Countries, Including India, of ‘Mercenary Spyware Attacks’

‘Modi government is yet to come out with a full disclosure, as it has neither denied nor confirmed using the Pegasus tool (which is a government-to- government purchase) in the Supreme Court.

– https://www.newsclick.in/apple-warns-iphone-users-92-countries-including-india-mercenary-spyware-attacks

• English foreign minister says England will continue to arm the Israeli war machine

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351746-british-foreign-minister-says-uk-will-continue-to-arm-the-israeli-war-machine

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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.

• How to miss five industrial revolutions – Thenuwara

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/How-to-miss-five-industrial-revolutions/4-760419

• Decline: Why Ranil and Sajith ain’t no JR and Premadasa – Jayatilleka

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Decline-Why-Ranil-and-Sajith-ain-t-no-JR-and-Premadasa/4-760584

• A bloc to confront global debt crisis: What role for Sri Lanka? – D. Gunawardena

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/A-bloc-to-confront-global-debt-crisis-What-role-for-Sri-Lanka/4-760536

• Sajith-AKD debate: “People Development” programs of political parties should be discussed – Kusal Perera

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Sajith-AKD-debate-People-Development-programs-of-political-parties-should-be-discussed/4-760458

• SJB’s economic policy managed by SLPP dissidents – President

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/07/sjbs-economic-policy-managed-by-slpp-dissidents-president/

• President assures to empower citizens with basic needs

– https://www.ft.lk/top-story/President-assures-to-empower-citizens-with-basic-needs/26-760559

• President says SJB’s economic strategy strays from UNP policies under SLPP influence

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/President-says-SJB-s-economic-strategy-strays-from-UNP-policies-under-SLPP-influence/44-760443

• Sri Lanka president wants legal system modernised to facilitate economic growth

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-president-wants-legal-system-modernised-to-facilitate-economic-growth-158051/

• Agreements With IMF Should Be Legalized – President

‘He highlighted the country’s history of reversing decisions after agreeing to IMF programs and stressed that this represents the nation’s final opportunity for economic recovery’

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/09/agreements-with-imf-should-be-legalized-president

• Sri Lanka President does not want to create election mentality amid reforms: state minister

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-president-does-not-want-to-create-election-mentality-amid-reforms-state-minister-158105/

• Sri Lanka defaults on USD 6 billion payment despite rising reserves: Patali

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Sri-Lanka-defaults-on-USD-6-billion-payment-despite-rising-reserves-Patali/108-280392

• Sri Lanka political elites’ vested interests linked to weak institutional structures: US CPA

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-political-elites-vested-interests-linked-to-weak-institutional-structures-study-158301/

• The dismantling of the hegemony of the dominant class is not a certainty – S De Alwis

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/The-Falcon-and-Falconer/4-760583

• The challenging task of sustaining the initial economic growth – Sanderatne

‘The continuity of the IMF programme depends on the outcome of the elections.’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/the-challenging-task-of-sustaining-the-initial-economic-growth-554139.html

• Big Mac and Exchange Rate Determination – Abeyratne

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/big-mac-and-burgernomics-553934.html

• Debate over profits of banks: Who shares them ultimately? – Wijewardena

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Debate-over-profits-of-banks-Who-shares-them-ultimately/4-760400

• New wave of global terrorism, as capitalism enters a period of steep global decline – David

– https://island.lk/the-ugly-new-face-of-terrorism/

• Greedflation, employment and poverty – CA Saliya

– https://island.lk/greedflation-employment-and-poverty/

• Developing a creative economy – Mothilal de Silva

‘based on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Creativity as done by Taiwan for semiconductors, China for AI and South Korea for creative industries’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/developing-a-creative-economy-553899.html

• Disguising perverse exploitation of the poor for money-making as microfinance initiatives.

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/tDA4W3NuwyTWbSxybNtS

• Para tariffs hinder competitiveness – Garment Fraudsters

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/DI9ddaYdCNJkmbGriedP

• State-owned Enterprises: Losses cost Rs.141,809 per household – US Advocata

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/FLVspoyYsCS6svcP5gUM

– https://island.lk/soe-losses-costing-lkr-141809-per-sri-lankan-household-advocata/

• US very concerned about breaking the cycle of period poverty in Sri Lanka

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/v5RpGGawAwJo6HVwpSes

• Economic sentiment improves – LMD-Peppercube Survey

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Economic-sentiment-improves-Survey/44-760447

• Harnessing value from diversity – Part II: A few management tips – Janaka Seneviratne

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Harnessing-value-from-diversity-Part-II-A-few-management-tips/4-760489

• SL needs younger directors – those who are wonderfully weird than dreadfully dull – R Peiris

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Sri-Lanka-needs-younger-directors-those-who-are-wonderfully-weird-than-dreadfully-dull/4-760456

• China’s unfair ‘overcapacity’ – Roberts

‘What Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run a less fast because he can’t keep up.’ – Renaud Bertrand

– https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/04/10/chinas-unfair-overcapacity/

• Yellen says China is too big to export its way to rapid growth

– https://www.reuters.com/world/china/yellen-says-china-is-too-big-export-its-way-rapid-growth-2024-04-05/

• Yellen meets China’s Premier Li amid ‘tough conversations’ on industry

‘It was “indecent” for the US treasury secretary to “blame and contain China’s development in advanced areas” in an attempt to protect USA’s “backward productive capacity.”’

– https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-China-tensions/Yellen-meets-China-s-Premier-Li-amid-tough-conversations-on-industry

• Industrial Agriculture: Lessons from North Korea

– https://monthlyreview.org/2024/03/01/industrial-agriculture-lessons-from-north-korea/

• The Senegal Delta and Global Capitalism

– https://monthlyreview.org/2024/02/01/the-senegal-delta-and-global-capitalism/

• From the Magnificent Seven to the Desperate Hundred – Roberts

– https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/04/07/from-the-magnificent-seven-to-the-desperate-hundred/

• US Economic Decline & Rise of Greater Eurasia –Hudson, Mercouris & Diesen

– https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04/the-duran-us-economic-decline-and-rise-of-greater-eurasia-michael-hudson-alexander-mercouris-glenn-diesen.html

• Death of empires: History tells us what will follow the collapse of US hegemony

‘Occupying a central place in his theory is the notion that the cycle of rise and fall of each successive hegemon terminates in a crisis of financialization’

– https://www.rt.com/business/594432-financialization-death-empires/

• Neoliberalism is Canada’s Real Productivity Problem – Andrew Jackson

– https://socialistproject.ca/2024/04/neoliberalism-is-canadas-real-productivity-problem/

• What is needed is more private sector, more competition, and economic growth – Sweden

– https://www.ft.lk/columns/Peak-state-capitalism-what-s-next/4-760529

*

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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.

• Poverty rates rise for 4th year in a row, with 26% of Sri Lankans living below the poverty line

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/avurudu-blues-553940.html

• More than a quarter of Lankans living in poverty – World Bank

– https://island.lk/more-than-a-quarter-of-lankans-living-in-poverty-world-bank/

• Sri Lanka’s Rupee leads emerging markets in 1st quarter of 2024

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/top-story/Sri-Lankas-Rupee-leads-emerging-markets-in-1st-quarter-of-2024/155-280668

• Large-scale dev. projects: To be recommenced post debt restructuring

‘work on 33 separate projects has slowed down due to the non-release of loans by foreign lenders’

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/cnC3Gp02ELmSDk0ssq7P

• IMF Move to reform state-owned banks

‘The set of reforms for the state-owned banks was identified by a committee consisting of specialists from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB) and Central Bank of Sri Lanka.’

– https://island.lk/move-to-reform-state-owned-banks/

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/Reforms-to-governance-of-state-owned-banks-to-kick-off-soon/273-280599

• Sri Lanka IMF, World Bank loan linked state bank reforms get cabinet nod

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-imf-world-bank-loan-linked-state-bank-reforms-get-cabinet-nod-158018/

• Cabinet approves reforms for State-owned banks to mitigate economic risks

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Cabinet-approves-reforms-for-State-owned-banks-to-mitigate-economic-risks/44-760556

• US World Bank demands right policies before elections

‘enhancing competitiveness with SOE reforms, private sector participation and engaging untapped export potential; and protecting the poor and vulnerable’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/get-policies-right-before-elections-world-bank-553907.html

• Elections could dent Sri Lanka’s recovery: ADB

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Elections-could-dent-Sri-Lankas-recovery-ADB/108-280661

• ADB on track for reforms-based funding for Sri Lanka

‘reform SOEs; strengthen social safety nets; improve education & health outcomes; achieve nationally determined contribution targets on climate and promote renewable energy; and modernise agriculture’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/adb-on-track-for-reforms-based-funding-for-sri-lanka-553896.html

• ADB’s knowledge engagement in Sri Lanka to be aligned with govt’s reform programme

– https://island.lk/adbs-knowledge-engagement-in-sri-lanka-to-be-aligned-with-govts-reform-programme/

• Sri Lanka Shows Signs of Recovery but Must Maintain Reform Momentum, says ADB

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/11/sri-lanka-shows-signs-of-recovery-but-must-maintain-reform-momentum-says-adb

– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/Sri-Lanka-showing-signs-of-recovery-ADB/2-1145519

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/11/sri-lanka-shows-signs-of-recovery-but-must-maintain-reform-momentum-adb/

• SJB asks for costs, other information about retaining international firms to give financial and legal advice on debt restructuring

‘France-based Lazard as financial advisor and Clifford Chance LLP as legal advisor’

– https://island.lk/sjb-asks-for-costs-other-information-about-retaining-international-firms-to-give-financial-and-legal-advice-on-debt-restructuring/

• Third IMF tranche by June provided debt restructuring is concluded

– https://island.lk/third-imf-tranche-by-june-provided-debt-restructuring-is-concluded/

• Sri Lanka hard-pressed against time to conclude agreements for debt restructuring

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/top-story/Sri-Lanka-hard-pressed-against-time-to-conclude-agreements-for-debt-restructuring/155-280442

• Govt. to hold another round of talks with private creditors in Washington

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/govt-to-hold-another-round-of-talks-with-private-creditors-in-washington-554282.html

• Sri Lanka optimistic about finalising debt restructuring talks in London

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/sri-lanka-optimistic-about-finalising-debt-restructuring-talks-in-london-554284.html

• Lanka expected to reach agreement with its commercial creditors – IMF

– https://island.lk/lanka-expected-to-reach-agreement-with-its-commercial-creditors-imf/

• Vulnerabilities in banking sector require close monitoring: World Bank

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/Vulnerabilities-in-banking-sector-require-close-monitoring-World-Bank/273-280434

• Sri Lanka’s central bank buys $715mn from fx markets in March

– https://economynext.com/sri-lankas-central-bank-buys-715mn-from-fx-markets-in-march-158260/

• Sri Lanka services surplus exceeds trade deficit in Feb 2024: analysis

‘no foreign shipper will actually send goods to Sri Lanka without being paid in dollars, except for short term suppliers’ credit.’

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-services-surplus-exceeds-trade-deficit-in-feb-2024-analysis-158108/

• As rupee value rises quick measures to bring down prices

‘ensure that the benefits are passed on to consumers of imported goods, including food items.’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/as-rupee-value-rises-quick-measures-to-bring-down-prices-554286.html

• Inland Revenue Dept. intervention sought to curb profiteering traders

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Inland-Revenue-Dept-intervention-sought-to-curb-profiteering-traders/44-760496

• Sri Lanka to publish ‘indicative prices’ for essential goods as rupee strengthens

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-publish-indicative-prices-for-essential-goods-as-rupee-strengthens-157960/

• Sri Lanka consumer confidence surges to new peak in March 2024

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-consumer-confidence-surges-to-new-peak-in-march-2024-158296/

• Budget undergoes complete overhaul for the first time in history

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/budget-undergoes-complete-overhaul-for-the-first-time-in-history-553953.html

• Sri Lanka’s debt repayments to be suspended until 2028

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/07/sri-lankas-debt-repayments-to-be-suspended-until-2028/

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/07/sri-lanka-s-debt-repayments-to-be-suspended-until-2028-sagala-ratnayaka

• Sri Lanka forex reserves improving, but global oil prices keep increasing

– https://island.lk/sri-lanka-forex-reserves-improving-but-global-oil-prices-keep-increasing/

• Gross official reserves just shy of US$ 5bn: CB

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Gross-official-reserves-just-shy-of-US-5bn/215-280349

• Sri Lanka foreign reserves rise $431mn to US$4.9bn in March

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-foreign-reserves-rise-431mn-to-us4-9bn-in-march-157776/

• Government continues debt servicing of multilateral US lenders

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/government-continues-debt-servicing-of-multilateral-lenders-553950.html

• Sri Lanka repays $1,338mn to multilateral lenders up to Feb 2024: PMD

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-repays-1338mn-to-multilateral-lenders-up-to-feb-2024-pmd-157756/

• Nearly $ 2 b worth of foreign debt and interest settled, Govt says – PMD

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/UdQJjfmFt7VUu25y82ew

• IRD urges digital collection of tax data

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/IRD-urges-digital-collection-of-tax-data/273-280598

• Govt. to upgrade defective RAMIS amid opposition from IRD unions

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/govt-to-upgrade-defective-ramis-amid-opposition-from-ird-unions-554258.html

• The $2bn dirty-money case that rocked Singapore

‘More than half of Asia’s family offices – firms which manage private wealth – are now in Singapore’

– https://island.lk/the-2bn-dirty-money-case-that-rocked-singapore/

• Vietnam property tycoon sentenced to death in country’s largest-ever fraud case

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/SbNkvuScZFIIzClibKBC

• Vietnam businesswoman sentenced to death, central banker to life over bad credit

– https://economynext.com/vietnam-businesswoman-sentenced-to-death-central-banker-to-life-over-bad-credit-158323/

• Panama Papers trial gets underway eight years after tax evasion scandal

‘The Panama Papers represent just a fraction of the trillions of dollars hidden away, often illegally, in offshore tax havens’

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351771-panama-papers-trial-gets-underway-eight-years-after-tax-evasion-scandal

*

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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

• The Sinhala New Year is April 13&14

– http://www1.kalaya.org/2024/04/13-14.html

• PHI Union gripped by fear following Treasurer’s death

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/PHI-Union-gripped-by-fear-following-Treasurers-death/108-280553

• Customs trade unions oppose changes to Customs Ordinance

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/customs-trade-unions-oppose-changes-to-customs-ordinance-554256.html

• Unions take labour reforms to court

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/unions-take-labour-reforms-to-court-553947.html

• Immigration officials stage symbolic protest

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Immigration-officials-stage-symbolic-protest/108-280649

• Fuel distributors warns of trade union action after April 20

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Fuel-distributors-warns-of-trade-union-action-after-April-20/108-280619

• Hartal-Left and Trade Unionism.

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/11/hartal-left-and-trade-unionism/

• Usual protesters take U-turn; Sri Lanka postal employees agree to work on April 12 holiday

– https://economynext.com/usual-protesters-take-u-turn-sri-lanka-postal-employees-agree-to-work-on-april-12-holiday-158029/

– https://island.lk/postal-staff-have-unanimously-agreed-to-report-to-work-on-april-12-state-minister-for-mass-media/

• Essential services order: Circular leaves President out

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/enter-a-new-breed-of-graduate-teachers-manipulated-by-politics-554272.html

• Sri Lanka’s labour force participation rate hits new low in 2023

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Sri-Lankas-labour-force-participation-rate-hits-new-low-in-2023/108-280514

• More than a quarter of Lankans living in poverty – World Bank

– https://island.lk/more-than-a-quarter-of-lankans-living-in-poverty-world-bank/

• No political interference in providing 10kgs of rice to low-income families

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/No-political-interference-in-providing-10kgs-of-rice-to-low-income-families/108-280644

• Sri Lanka spent nearly 200 billion rupees as social welfare in 2023

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-spent-nearly-200-billion-rupees-as-social-welfare-in-2023-158044/

• Sri Lanka adds 182,000 people to get tax payer income support, Rs58bn paid

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-adds-182000-to-get-tax-payer-income-support-rs58bn-paid-158148/

• Keheliya, others further remanded until 22 April

– https://island.lk/keheliya-others-further-remanded-until-22-april/

• Verdict on petition against remanding of Medical Supplies Division’s Director put off

– https://island.lk/verdict-on-petition-against-remanding-of-medical-supplies-divisions-director-put-off/

• Dr. Chamal Sanjeeva reinstated at Ministry of Health

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/G7tfqEnMeGkrzNQvzQnN

• All wards of state-run orphanages and children’s homes get gifts from Prez

– https://island.lk/all-wards-of-state-run-orphanages-and-childrens-homes-get-gifts-from-prez/

• Two cops, arrested over assault on driver in Medawachchiya, remanded

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=98575

• 23 year old youth ends up having his testicles removed

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/23-year-old-youth-ends-up-having-his-testicles-removed/108-280618

• Police open fire at defiant lorry transporting cattle; one injured

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98571/police-open-fire-at-defiant-lorry-transporting-cattle-one-injured

• Aberdeen Holdings unveils the Snehadhana Foundation

– https://island.lk/aberdeen-holdings-unveils-the-snehadhana-foundation/

• Two Covid-19 deaths reported from Kurunegala Teaching Hospital?

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/top-story/Two-COVID-19-deaths-reported-from-Kurunegala-Teaching-Hospital/155-280653

• Five students of Jaffna leading school have contracted TB

– https://island.lk/five-students-of-jaffna-leading-school-have-contracted-tb/

• Sri Lanka to recruit 2,500 teachers for English medium

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-recruit-2500-teachers-for-english-medium-158175/

– https://island.lk/2500-more-english-medium-teachers-to-be-recruited/

• Kotalawala Defense University to Admit Local Students for Medical Degree

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/09/kdu-to-admit-local-students-for-medical-degree

• Sri Lanka to offer paid medical degrees through KDU

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-offer-paid-medical-degrees-through-kdu-158008/

– https://island.lk/cabinet-nod-to-enroll-fee-paying-students-for-degree-of-medicine-course-at-the-general-sir-john-kotalawala-defense-university/

• Enter a new breed of graduate teachers manipulated by politics

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/enter-a-new-breed-of-graduate-teachers-manipulated-by-politics-554272.html

• Rural students benefit from Japanese benevolence

– https://island.lk/rural-students-benefit-from-japanese-benevolence/

• Colombo Caregiver School holds Its grand orientation

– https://island.lk/colombo-caregiver-school-holds-its-grand-orientation/

• Sri Lanka state workers, military given Rs107bn in April salaries

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-state-workers-military-given-rs107bn-in-april-salaries-158063/

• Govt to release government employees April salaries with Rs.10,000 allowance from today

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Govt-to-release-April-salaries-with-Rs-10-000-allowance-from-today/108-280356

• Government Employee Salary for April to Include Increased Allowance, Paid Before 10^th

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/07/government-employee-salary-for-april-to-include-increased-allowance-paid-before-10th

• Govt. to upgrade defective RAMIS amid opposition from IRD unions

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/govt-to-upgrade-defective-ramis-amid-opposition-from-ird-unions-554258.html

• Astronomical pay hikes and CB decision makers working in their ivory towers

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/plus/letters-to-the-editor-5-553798.html

• FD interest rates and senior citizens plight

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/plus/letters-to-the-editor-5-553798.html

• A plea to reintroduce interest scheme for senior citizens

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/plus/letters-to-the-editor-5-553798.html

• Independent CBSL made a peon’s pay equal a doctor’s salary

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/awesome-star-wars-break-out-over-this-years-auspicious-times-to-eat-554241.html

• 120 plantation workers in Nallatanniya hospitalised due to food poisoning

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/120-plantation-workers-hospitalised-due-to-food-poisoning/108-280385

• New school admissions dropped by 40,000 in 2023

– https://island.lk/new-school-admissions-dropped-by-40000-in-2023/

• Dullas calls for affiliation of Colleges of Education to universities

– https://island.lk/dullas-calls-for-affiliation-of-colleges-of-education-to-universities/

• Probe launched into students’ use of STF-like uniforms at school event

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Probe-launched-into-students-use-of-STF-like-uniforms-at-school-event/108-280387

• Nalanda Innovation Hub: A space to unlock Ratnapura’s entrepreneurial skills

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/plus/nalanda-innovation-hub-a-space-to-unlock-ratnapuras-entrepreneurial-skills-553804.html

• CINEC revolutionizes English education in Lanka with tailored degree programmes

– https://island.lk/cinec-revolutionizes-english-education-in-lanka-with-tailored-degree-programmes/

• Educational reforms: Need for cautious, holistic approach

– https://island.lk/educational-reforms-need-for-cautious-holistic-approach/

• Women in Tech Sri Lanka concludes insightful sessions with NIBM Galle in view of IWD

– https://island.lk/women-in-tech-sri-lanka-concludes-insightful-sessions-with-nibm-galle-in-view-of-iwd/

• UNDP’s mobile exhibition showcasing women’s empowerment initiatives in Nuwara Eliya

– https://island.lk/undps-mobile-interactive-exhibition-showcasing-womens-empowerment-initiatives-in-nuwara-eliya/

• Harvard Asia Pacific Regional Conference successfully concludes in Colombo

– https://www.ft.lk/ft-click/Harvard-Asia-Pacific-Regional-Conference-successfully-concludes-in-Colombo/15-760593

• In 1823, US Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions set up Female School in Uduvil

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/plus/uduvil-in-its-bicentennial-year-remembers-its-founder-principal-553789.html

• “Government is ready to implement a program for the welfare of retired war heroes and their families” – State Minister of Defence

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/07/government-is-ready-to-implement-a-program-for-the-welfare-of-retired-war-heroes-and-their-families-state-minister-of-defence/

• Sri Lankans migrating for foreign employment drops 4.2-pct in 2023

– https://economynext.com/sri-lankans-migrating-for-foreign-employment-drops-4-2-pct-in-2023-157759/

• Sri Lankan Expatriates Contribute $572.4 Million In March

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/08/sri-lankan-expatriates-contribute-572-4-million-in-march

• Sri Lanka worker remittances up 0.7-pct in April 2024

‘Remittances generally rise in March ahead of traditional New Year holidays and also in December’

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-worker-remittances-up-0-7-pct-in-april-2024-157794/

• Remittances reach seasonal high of US$ 572mn in March

‘Disinformation campaigns carried out by certain factions with vested interests too partly helped to slow the key inflow to the country as migrant Sri Lankans were made to believe that the political authority at the time was misappropriating the dollars they sent back home.’

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Remittances-reach-seasonal-high-of-US-572mn-in-March/215-280345

• Sri Lankans migrating for foreign employment drops 4.2-pct in 2023

– https://economynext.com/sri-lankans-migrating-for-foreign-employment-drops-4-2-pct-in-2023-157759/

• Jaffna resident who paid 7,000 Euros for forged Polish visa nabbed at BIA

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Jaffna-resident-who-paid-7-000-Euros-for-forged-Polish-visa-nabbed-at-BIA/108-280506

• Four Pakistanis arrested in Nepal for taking four Sri Lankan migrant workers hostage

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Four-Pakistanis-arrested-in-Nepal-for-taking-four-Sri-Lankans-hostage/108-280311

– https://island.lk/four-pakistanis-arrested-in-nepal-for-taking-four-lankans-hostage/

• Uncertainty looms over 48 Sri Lankans trapped in Myanmar cyber-crime saga

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Uncertainty-looms-over-48-Sri-Lankans-trapped-in-Myanmar-cyber-crime-saga/108-280353

• Sri Lankans rescued from Cyber Slave Camp in Myanmar to be sent home within next week

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/12/sri-lankans-rescued-from-cyber-slave-camp-in-myanmar-to-be-sent-home-within-next-week

• Eight Sri Lankans rescued from Myanmar cybercrime camps safely arrive in Thailand

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98576/eight-sri-lankans-rescued-from-myanmar-cybercrime-camps-safely-arrive-in-thailand

• Sri Lankans rescued from cyber slave camp in Myanmar transferred to Embassy

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Sri-Lankans-rescued-from-cyber-slave-camp-in-Myanmar-transferred-to-Embassy/108-280629

• Sri Lankans among those injured in Ukrainian drone strike in Russian Region

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/04/sri-lankans-among-those-injured-in-ukrainian-drone-strike-in-russian-region

• ‘Absence of embassies affects job opportunities for Sri Lankans in Eastern European countries’

– https://island.lk/absence-of-embassies-affects-job-opportunities-for-sri-lankans-in-eastern-european-countries/

• DIMO graduates secure overseas German job opportunities

– https://island.lk/dimo-graduates-secure-overseas-job-opportunities/

• Truth about air safety

– https://island.lk/truth-about-air-safety/

• Israel Announces Arrival of 6,000 Construction Workers from India During April-May 2024

– https://www.newsclick.in/israel-announces-arrival-6000-construction-workers-india-during-april-may-2024

• Google workers revolt over $1.2 billion contract with Israel

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351844-google-workers-revolt-over-12-billion-contract-with-israel

• New Zealand tightens visa rules amid near record migration

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/international/New-Zealand-tightens-visa-rules-amid-near-record-migration/107-280324

• The Unremarkable Death of Migrants in Sahara Desert

– https://www.newsclick.in/unremarkable-death-migrants-sahara-desert

• English government targets Muslim civil servants in witch-hunt

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351821-british-government-targets-muslim-civil-servants-in-witch-hunt

• Deadly Bridge Collapse Exposes Capitalist Decay

– https://blackagendareport.com/deadly-bridge-collapse-exposes-capitalist-decay

• American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)’s Dark Past

‘The sinister role that “free and independent” American unions have historically played in capitalism’s world-wide war against Communism.’

– https://redsails.org/aflcios-dark-past/

• The Power of Blood Sacrifice

– indi.ca

• Engels and Science – Bernal, 1935

– https://redsails.org/engels-and-science/

• Psychoanalysis and Marxism – Bernal, 1937

– https://redsails.org/psychoanalysis-and-marxism/

• Empirical & Holistic Turn: Hegelian Dialectics of Technoscience Revisited – Hub Zwart, 2022

– https://redsails.org/the-empirical-and-the-holistic-turn/

*

_______________________________________________________________

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.

• Sri Lanka president asks new owners not to mortgage, sell houses

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-president-asks-new-owners-not-to-mortgage-sell-houses-158202/

• National Policy on Drinking Water and National Policy on Water Security to be implemented

– https://island.lk/national-policy-on-drinking-water-and-national-policy-on-water-security-to-be-implemented/

• P&S extends clean water initiative to rural communities under “Manu Mehewara”

– https://island.lk/ps-extends-clean-water-initiative-to-rural-communities-under-manu-mehewara/

• Avurudhu, Ramadan and Easter Sunday amid a crumbling economy

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Avurudhu-Ramadan-and-Easter-Sunday-amid-a-crumbling-economy/172-280265

• Consumer Affairs Authority to monitor prices of 9 essential food items

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/CAA-to-monitor-prices-of-9-essential-food-items/44-760551

• Committee on Ways and Means reveals traders’ profits range from Rs. 100 to Rs. 1000 per kilo from imported essential food items

– https://island.lk/committee-on-ways-and-means-reveals-traders-profits-range-from-rs-100-to-rs-1000-per-kilo-from-imported-essential-food-items/

• Vegetable prices increase

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Vegetable-prices-increase/108-280641

• Chicken retail prices increased

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Chicken-retail-prices-increased/108-280637

• Will import eggs from India again if local prices increase: Minister

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Will-import-eggs-from-India-again-if-local-prices-increase-Minister/108-280633

• Avurudu shopping woes: Soaring prices pose major barrier at food markets

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/avurudu-shopping-woes-soaring-prices-pose-major-barrier-at-food-markets-554122.html

• New Year kevili table cost has decreased by 2% from 2023 to 2024

– https://island.lk/new-year-kevili-table-cost-has-decreased-by-2-from-2023-to-2024/

• Bakers, eateries won’t cut prices in response to meagre gas price drop

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/bakers-eateries-wont-cut-prices-in-response-to-meagre-gas-price-drop-554082.html

• Need to minimise post-harvest losses

– https://island.lk/need-to-minimise-post-harvest-losses/

• After Maldives, India supplies onions to neighbour Sri Lanka and ally UAE

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/07/after-maldives-india-supplies-onions-to-neighbour-sri-lanka-and-ally-uae/

• India loosens onion export ban to help neighbors

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/09/india-loosens-onion-export-ban-to-help-neighbors

• Chinese onion becomes cheaper in Sri Lanka than Indian ahead of festivals

– https://economynext.com/chinese-onion-becomes-cheaper-in-sri-lanka-than-indian-ahead-of-festivals-157958/

• Sri Lanka to export chilli, eggplant, okra and maize seeds: Minister

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-export-chilli-eggplant-okra-and-maize-seeds-minister-157862/

• Sri Lanka ready to export seed varieties for the first time

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Sri-Lanka-ready-to-export-seed-varieties-for-the-first-time/108-280320

• Hot weather brings bad news of white fly infestation in coconut trees

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/hot-weather-brings-bad-news-of-white-fly-infestation-in-coconut-trees-554058.html

• Mailaththamadu dairy farmers want speedy solution to grazing land issue

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Farmers-furry-rages/131-280491

• Sri Lankan shrimp industry on a nosedive

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/sri-lankan-shrimp-industry-on-a-nosedive-553959.html

• Singapore inspects Sri Lanka poultry, seafood, rice processors ahead of exports

– https://economynext.com/singapore-inspects-sri-lanka-poultry-seafood-rice-processors-ahead-of-exports-157874/

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/SFA-officials-explore-local-food-processing-firms/273-280432

• Eight Nabbed for Illegal Sea Cucumber Harvesting

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/09/eight-nabbed-for-illegal-sea-cucumber-harvesting

• McDonald’s closes business in Sri Lanka due to poor hygienic status

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/big-mac-and-burgernomics-553934.html

• Watawala Plantations invests Rs. 1.86 million in transformer for Nakiyadeniya Palm Oil Mill

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/watawala-plantations-invests-in-key-infrastructure-unit-553914.html

• Sri Lanka accelerates agri-tech innovation utilising drones

– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/Sri-Lanka-accelerates-agri-tech-innovation-utilising-drones/2-1145517

• Agripreneurship Villages Project to boost innovations in sector

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Agripreneurship-Villages-Project-to-boost-innovations-in-sector/44-760548

– https://island.lk/establishment-of-youth-agri-entrepreneurship-villages-for-the-advancement-of-agricultural-innovation-program/

• Falling leaves – an autobiographical memoir of a high achiever – LC Arulpragasam

– https://island.lk/falling-leaves-an-autobiographical-memoir-of-a-high-achiever/

• Betel chewing a cardinal pleasure

– https://island.lk/betel-chewing-a-cardinal-pleasure/

• Sri Lanka’s Ceylon tea prices fall for third week

– https://economynext.com/sri-lankas-ceylon-tea-prices-fall-for-third-week-157791/

• Father of Ceylon Tea feted

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/father-of-ceylon-tea-feted-in-scotland-553885.html

• It’s nesting time for sea turtles, wildlife officials ensure safe haven

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/08/urgent-politburo-meeting-held-by-the-slfp

• The Emperor of Ice Cream is Russian Ice Cream

– https://johnhelmer.net/the-emperor-of-ice-cream-is-russian-ice-cream/#more-89691

*

______________________________________________________________

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.

• Sri Lankans asked to choose auspicious times from disputed almanac

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/sri-lankans-asked-to-choose-auspicious-times-from-disputed-almanac-554119.html

– https://island.lk/blind-faith-in-seers/

• Old harvest festival rituals of the sun; doing it their way

‘nine core rituals are observing the new moon, bathing for the old year, the dawn of the new year, the inauspicious time, boiling milk, partaking of meal and ganudenu (exchange of money wrapped in betel leaf), anointing with oil, departure for work and planting a sapling’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/plus/old-rituals-doing-it-their-way-553813.html

• Auspicious times! Exposing incompetence or astrology a pseudoscientific myth?

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Auspicious-times-Exposing-incompetence-or-astrology-a-pseudoscientific-myth/172-280330

• Awesome starwars break out over this year’s auspicious times to eat

‘The Sun’s transmigration begins on April 13th night at 9.05, dressed in blue and facing south, when it enters the constellation of Aries. The lighting of the hearth is at 11.06pm and the time to partake the first meal at 12.06 am that night.’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/awesome-star-wars-break-out-over-this-years-auspicious-times-to-eat-554241.html

• Rs 750m pledged, but India-Sri Lanka ambulance service faces funding emergency

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/rs-750m-pledged-but-india-sri-lanka-ambulance-service-faces-funding-emergency-554219.html

• Chinese donation of data collecting equipment to help atmospheric studies

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/chinese-donation-of-data-collecting-equipment-to-help-atmospheric-studies-554260.html

• Radio-pharmaceutical facility to be set up in Katunayake

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/radio-pharmaceutical-facility-to-be-set-up-in-katunayake-554294.html

• Free Trade Zone Manufacturers Association Elects New Team

– https://www.ft.lk/business/FREE-TRADE-ZONE-MANUFACTURERS-ASSOCIATION-ELECTS-NEW-TEAM/34-760481        

• 7 to 25 years tax exemptions for investors setting up factories in Eravur BOI zone

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/7-to-25-years-tax-exemptions-for-investors-setting-up-factories-in-eravur-boi-zone-554264.html

• Govt urged to fix issues and go ahead with Adani wind power project in Mannar

– https://island.lk/govt-urged-to-fix-issues-and-go-ahead-with-adani-wind-power-project-in-mannar/

• Could ‘greenwashing’ Adani wind project help save Mannar?

– https://island.lk/could-greenwashing-adani-wind-project-help-save-mannar/

• Cabinet approves amended Electricity Sector Reforms Bill

– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/Cabinet-approves-amended-Electricity-Sector-Reforms-Bill/2-1145504

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-cabinet-approves-revised-electricity-reform-bill-157981/

• Cases filed by ex-PUCSL chairman put off due to inadequate time

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Cases-filed-by-ex-PUCSL-chairman-put-off-due-to-inadequate-time/108-280389

• CEB Online bill hassle

– https://island.lk/online-bill-hassle/

• A viable FIT for Sri Lankan electricity industry

– https://island.lk/a-viable-fit-for-sri-lankan-electricity-industry/

• Germany’s GIZ to fund SL pilot pre-arrival processing of import shipments from May

‘getting cargo information 48 hours before the departure of the ship from the foreign port’

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-pilot-pre-arrival-processing-of-import-shipments-from-may-158237/

• Baltimore-Colombo sensationalised conspiracy theories on ship Dali

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Baltimore-Colombo-sensationalised-conspiracy-theories-on-ship-Dali/215-280341

• Baltimore Bridge Collapse: MV Dali, SL authorities anchored in mystery?

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Baltimore-Bridge-Collapse-MV-Dali-SL-authorities-anchored-in-mystery/131-280215

• Baltimore Bridge collapse, Dali and controversy

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Baltimore-Bridge-collapse-Dali-and-controversy/131-280581

• Chemical on board Dali was raw material used to make industrial gloves, says BOI company

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/chemical-on-board-dali-was-raw-material-used-to-make-industrial-gloves-says-boi-company-554211.html

• Key Facts About The Collapse Of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge

‘Baltimore is the busiest US port for shipments of car and light trucks… second busiest for coal exports… largest US port by volume for handling farm and construction machinery, as well as agricultural products such as sugar and salt’

– https://gcaptain.com/key-facts-about-the-collapse-of-baltimores-francis-scott-key-bridge/

• Correction: Unified Command continues Key Bridge Response 2024

‘The 14 that were impacted were assessed by an industrial hygienist for potential hazards. The chemical components assessed were soap products, perfume products, or not otherwise specified resin.’

– https://www.keybridgeresponse2024.com/post/correction-unified-command-continues-key-bridge-response-2024

• Failure to implement Industries State Minister request to reduce the price of arrack

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/enter-a-new-breed-of-graduate-teachers-manipulated-by-politics-554272.html

• Chamber of Marine Industries charts new course

– https://www.ft.lk/business/Chamber-of-Marine-Industries-charts-new-course/34-760434

• Seeking foreign investors to manufacture phosphate fertiliser from Eppawala rock phosphate

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/harnessing-maximum-benefits-from-eppawala-rock-phosphate-553944.html

• Sri Lankan gold smuggling attempt foiled near Vedhalai Coast

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Sri-Lankan-gold-smuggling-attempt-foiled-near-Vedhalai-Coast/108-280309

• KKS Port acquires Sri Lanka Cement Corp land

– https://economynext.com/kks-port-acquires-sri-lanka-cement-corp-land-158013/

• Plastic and Rubber Institute of Sri Lanka (PRISL) renews MOU with Malaysian counterpart

– https://www.ft.lk/business/PRISL-renews-MOU-with-Malaysian-counterpart/34-760569

• National Chamber and KPMG forge strategic collaboration to develop SME sector

– https://www.ft.lk/business/National-Chamber-and-KPMG-forge-strategic-collaboration-to-develop-SME-sector/34-760508

• US Fitch: SL Construction Guarantee Fund premiums plunges, investment income up

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-construction-guarantee-fund-premiums-plunges-investment-income-up-158263/

– https://www.ft.lk/business/Fitch-affirms-Construction-Guarantee-Fund-s-BB-National-IFS-Rating-Outlook-Stable/34-760571

• Colombo identifies 100, unsafe crumbling buildings

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/colombo-identifies-100-unsafe-crumbling-buildings-554198.html

• Three arrested at BIA attempting to smuggle goods worth over Rs. 10m

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98578/three-arrested-at-bia-attempting-to-smuggle-goods-worth-over-rs-10m

• CCTV cameras purchased for Immigration Dept. six years ago yet to be installed

– https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/CCTV-cameras-purchased-for-Immigration-Dept-six-years-ago-yet-to-be-installed/2-1145508

– https://island.lk/immigration-and-emi-cctv-system-not-installed-for-six-years/

• Online train reservations: CGR’s scam ride Kandy to Ella

‘Isn’t it incredible that these tickets are available on https://12go.asia/ for a 3-4 times the price’

– https://www.ft.lk/travel-tourism/Online-train-reservations-CGR-s-scam-ride-Kandy-to-Ella/27-760428

• Fuel usage drops as Sri Lankans plunge into financial difficulties

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Fuel-usage-drops-as-Sri-Lankans-plunge-into-financial-difficulties/131-280490

• National Transport Commission launches raids on busses over charging travellers

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/12/ntc-launches-raids-on-busses-over-charging-travellers

• National Transport Commission (NTC) has failed to assign buses for people to leave Colombo

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/NTC-has-failed-to-assign-buses-for-people-to-leave-Colombo-Anjana/108-280636

• No private buses on April 13

– https://island.lk/no-private-buses-on-april-13/

• SLTB reports Rs. 25 mn revenue boost during New Year season

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/ApsTKPN3LAJk5m7z87rR

• Government cautions public to minimize road accidents & firework-related incidents

– https://island.lk/government-urges-public-to-exercise-caution-and-minimize-road-accidents-and-firework-related-incidents/

• Sri Lanka expects up to 200 thousand vehicles on the road in New Year

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-expects-up-to-200-thousand-vehicles-on-the-road-in-new-year-158020/

• Expressway debts could take 160 years to settle despite profit: Minister

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Expressway-debts-could-take-160-years-to-settle-despite-profit-Minister/108-280516

• Transfer of expressways from RDA to Sahasya to take six months: Min Sec

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/transfer-of-expressways-from-rda-to-sahasya-to-take-six-months-min-sec-554072.html

• Katunayaka expressway plunged into darkness

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Katunayaka-expressway-plunged-into-darkness/108-280684

• President opens first phase of Rs. 5.28 b Kompagngna Veediya flyover

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/President-opens-first-phase-of-Rs-5-28-b-Kompagngna-Veediya-flyover/44-760493

Sri Lanka’s China-backed port starts container transshipment amid Red Sea crisis

– https://economynext.com/sri-lankas-china-backed-port-starts-container-transshipment-amid-red-sea-crisis-158082/

• H’tota Port receives BOI recognition as significant FDI contributor

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Htota-Port-receives-BOI-recognition-as-significant-FDI-contributor/215-280343

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/Hambantota-International-Port-ventures-into-container-operations-with-MSC/273-280604

• SriLankan Airlines elevates Ground Handling with State-of-the-Art equipment upgrade

– https://island.lk/srilankan-airlines-elevates-ground-handling-with-state-of-the-art-equipment-upgrade/

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/SriLankan-Airlines-elevates-ground-handling/44-760562

• Japan provides USD 8.4 mn worth equipment to BIA

– https://island.lk/japan-provides-usd-8-4-mn-worth-equipment-to-bia/

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Japan-grants-aid-to-strengthen-operations-at-BIA/108-280622

• Airport and Aviation Services (SL) restarts halted BIA-DP phase II with Access Engineering

– https://www.ft.lk/business/AASL-restarts-halted-BIA-DP-phase-II-with-Access-Engineering/34-760482

• Sri Lanka’s Access to complete substructure of halted airport terminal

‘Access will work under Japan Airport Consultants, Inc and Nippon Koei Co. Ltd.’

– https://economynext.com/sri-lankas-access-to-complete-substructure-of-halted-airport-terminal-157968/

• Japan extends loans to strengthen facilities at BIA and Colombo Port

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=98574

• Japan extends $8.4 m grant for health resilient pro-mobility borders at BIA & Colombo Port

‘disease-detecting scanners, baggage scanners, full-body scanners, foreign passport scanners and a biometric access control system.’

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Japan-extends-8-4-m-grant-to-boost-health-resilient-pro-mobility-borders-at-BIA-and-Colombo-Port/44-760565

• Sri Lanka airport, port get scanners and smart toilets from Japan

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-airport-port-get-scanners-and-smart-toilets-from-japan-158287/

• Jetwing takes off and then July 1983 hits

– https://island.lk/jetwing-takes-off-and-then-july-1983-hits/

• Sweden moves labour-intensive garment assembly to Sri Lanka?

– https://island.lk/swedish-fashion-brand-frank-dandy-on-its-move-from-china-to-sri-lanka/

• Former Venezuelan oil minister Tareck El Aissami arrested in corruption case

– https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/351787-former-venezuelan-oil-minister-tareck-el-aissami-arrested-in-corruption-case

• Passenger demand up 21.5% in February: IATA

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Passenger-demand-up-21-5-in-February-IATA/215-280344

• US strategic petroleum reserve replenishment slowed by rising oil price

– https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/biden-administration-slowly-puts-oil-back-into-spr-emergency-stash-2024-01-04/

*

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D8. Finance (Making money from money, banks, minus 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.

• HNB and Ideal Motors partner up once again to offer exclusive perks on Mahindra automobiles, Powerol generators

– https://island.lk/hnb-and-ideal-motors-partner-up-once-again-to-offer-exclusive-perks-on-mahindra-automobiles-powerol-generators/

• Ravi Tissera appointed as HNB Finance Non-Executive Director

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/Ravi-Tissera-appointed-as-HNB-Finance-Non-Executive-Director/273-280600

• LOLC clinches seventh successive SLIM-Kantar People’s Awards 2024

– https://island.lk/lolc-clinches-seventh-successive-peoples-award/

• Loss-making State Mortgage & Investment Bank (SMIB)  faces political pressure in recovering loans

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Loss-making-SMIB-faces-political-pressure-IN-recoverING-loans/131-280332

• World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Citizens Development  Business Finance (CDB)’s green portfolio

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/IFC-supports-CDB-to-expand-green-portfolio/273-280435

• Seylan Bank stops Parate execution on Asia Capital loans

– https://www.themorning.lk/articles/rphA5j9IwMzmH3kEKtpd

• Assetline Finance appoints Nanda Fernando to board

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/Assetline-Finance-appoints-Nanda-Fernando-to-board/273-280601

• Indra Silva buys 1.2% more of Sampath Bank for Rs. 1.2 b from Prabhash

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Indra-buys-1-2-more-of-Sampath-Bank-for-Rs-1-2-b-from-Prabhash/44-760563

• Arthur ends 36-year Directorship in Sampath Bank Group but remains last living founder

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Arthur-ends-36-year-Directorship-in-Sampath-Bank-Group-but-remains-last-living-founder/44-760492

• Cargills Bank records Rs.730mn PBT in 2023

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/Cargills-Bank-records-Rs-730mn-PBT-in-2023/273-280437

• Delvin Pereira joins Amana Bank board

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Delvin-Pereira-joins-Amana-Bank-board/215-280510

• ESG reporting to be recognized at CFA Capital Market Awards

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/ESG-reporting-to-be-recognized-at-CFA-Capital-Market-Awards/273-280431

• SEC and CSE organise Island wide teacher training programmes

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/SEC-and-CSE-organise-Island-wide-teacher-training-programmes/273-280422

• Sri Lanka rupee closes at 298.90/299.00 to the US dollar (A08)

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-closes-at-298-90-299-00-to-the-us-dollar-157933/

• Sri Lanka sells Rs85bn in 2026 to 2032 bonds

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-sells-rs85bn-in-2026-to-2032-bonds-157955/

• Bullish investor sentiment boosts Colombo stock market to new recent high

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Bullish-investor-sentiment-boosts-Colombo-stock-market-to-new-recent-high/44-760491

• Sri Lanka rupee opens at 298.60/65 to the US dollar (A09)

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-opens-at-298-60-65-to-the-us-dollar-157971/

• Sri Lanka Treasury bill yields marginally down across maturities

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-treasury-bill-yields-marginally-down-across-maturities-158045/

• Sri Lanka stocks close up, consumer durables and apparel push turnover

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-close-up-consumer-durables-and-apparel-push-turnover-158054/

• Sri Lanka rupee closes at 298.60/65 to the US dollar

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-closes-at-298-60-65-to-the-us-dollar-158058/

• Colombo stock market mark 10th consecutive day of gain

– https://www.ft.lk/financial-services/Colombo-stock-market-mark-10th-consecutive-day-of-gain/42-760541

• Share market sees marked buying interest due to positive outlook on debt restructuring front

– https://island.lk/share-market-sees-marked-buying-interest-due-to-positive-outlook-on-debt-restructuring-front/

• Sri Lanka rupee opens at 298.40/50 to the US dollar (A10)

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-opens-at-298-40-50-to-the-us-dollar-158146/

• Sri Lanka stocks close up, All Share passes 12,000

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-stocks-close-up-all-share-passes-12000-158216/

• Sri Lanka rupee closes at 298.50/55 to the US dollar

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-rupee-closes-at-298-50-55-to-the-us-dollar-158243/

• Colombo stock market soars to 2 year high as investors sustain bull run

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Colombo-stock-market-soars-to-2-year-high-as-investors-sustain-bull-run/44-760564

• ASPI soars beyond 12,000, first time in 2 years

– https://island.lk/aspi-soars-beyond-12000-first-time-in-2-years/

• HSBC agrees to sell off Argentina business

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/HSBC-agrees-to-sell-off-Argentina-business/273-280597

• For the First Time in History, the US Fed Is Reporting Billions in Losses Weekly; It’s Still Paying High Interest Income to the Mega Banks on Wall Street

– https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/04/for-the-first-time-in-history-the-fed-is-reporting-billions-in-losses-weekly-its-still-paying-high-interest-income-to-the-mega-banks-on-wall-street/

• New York Fed Will Not Confirm or Deny that 5-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase Is Custodian of $2.4 Trillion of Its Securities

– https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/04/new-york-fed-will-not-confirm-or-deny-that-5-count-felon-jpmorgan-chase-is-custodian-of-2-4-trillion-of-its-securities/

• The Black Swan Rears Its Head: The US Fed Has Negative Capital Using GAAP Accounting

– https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/04/the-black-swan-rears-its-head-the-fed-has-negative-capital-using-gaap-accounting/

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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’

• UDA owned land in Thalawathugoda; UDA Minister Prasanna Ranatunga under the spotlight for forceful occupation of reserved land

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/recomended-news/UDA-owned-land-in-Thalawathugoda-UDA-Minister-Prasanna-Ranatunga-under-the-spotlight-for-forceful-occupation-of-reserved-land/277-280408

• SJB asks how much was given to owners of historically significant private properties in Kandy from UNESCO grants

– https://island.lk/sjb-asks-how-much-was-given-to-owners-of-historically-significant-private-properties-in-kandy-from-unesco-grants/

• Cabinet Designates Secondary Businesses of Strategic Importance

– https://island.lk/designation-as-secondary-businesses-of-strategic-importance/

• Sri Lanka Insurance posts Rs. 10.6 b pre-tax profit in FY23

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Sri-Lanka-Insurance-posts-Rs-10-6-b-pre-tax-profit-in-FY23/44-760555

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Sri-Lanka-Insurance-records-Rs-10-6bn-PBT-in-2023/215-280512

• Cabinet approves further step to operationalise SL-Singapore FTA

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Cabinet-approves-further-step-to-operationalise-SL-Singapore-FTA/44-760552

• Exploiting rural consumer behaviour in Sri Lanka

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business-news/Understanding-the-evolution-of-consumer-behaviour-in-Sri-Lanka/273-280415

• Middle class brand loyalty shrinks: Sparkwinn

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/business/Middle-class-brand-loyalty-shrinks-Sparkwinn/215-280511

• Insurer tarnishes export company’s reputation by spreading allegations of arson

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/concerns-over-insurance-553924.html

– https://island.lk/lack-of-ethical-conduct-and-professionalism-within-insurance-industry/

• AIA Insurance and Commercial Bank Forge Bancassurance Partnership

– https://island.lk/aia-insurance-and-commercial-bank-forge-bancassurance-partnership/

• Expolanka appoints Bokuto Yamauchi as Group CEO of Expolanka Holdings

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/new-leadership-at-expolanka-553861.html

• Indira Malwatte appointed to Kotmale Holdings Board

‘She was…on a number of World Bank, ITC, GIZ, CBI and JETRO export development projects.

– https://www.ft.lk/business/Indira-Malwatte-appointed-to-Kotmale-Holdings-Board/34-760568

• Sujeewa Mudalige new Chairman at Ambeon as new owners make changes to Board

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Sujeewa-Mudalige-new-Chairman-at-Ambeon-as-new-owners-make-changes-to-Board/44-760549

• SL minimum room rates slammed as cartelized scheme that is illegal in market economies

“Artificial pricing is illegal in the US and EU. Even Communist countries won’t impose rates.”

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-minimum-room-rates-slammed-as-cartelized-scheme-that-is-illegal-in-market-economies-157684/

• Supreme Court to adjudicate on hotel rates issue next month

‘MRR system…has adversely impacted Indian business in the country’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/business-times/supreme-court-to-adjudicate-on-hotel-rates-issue-next-month-553956.html

• Cheaper year-old vehicles imported for tourist industry

– https://island.lk/cheaper-year-old-vehicles-for-tourist-industry/

• Sri Lanka earns billion dollars from tourism in first quarter

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-earns-billion-dollars-from-tourism-in-first-quarter-157797/

– https://www.ft.lk/top-story/1Q-tourism-earnings-top-1-b/26-760449

• More Secondary Businesses in Port City get Cabinet nod

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/More-Secondary-Businesses-in-Port-City-get-Cabinet-nod/44-760553

• Key campaigner welcomes new England advisory; says major win

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Key-campaigner-welcomes-new-UK-advisory-says-major-win/44-760494

• England removes harsh references to Sri Lanka in updated travel advisory

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/enter-a-new-breed-of-graduate-teachers-manipulated-by-politics-554272.html

– https://island.lk/united-kingdom-revises-travel-advisory-for-sri-lanka/

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/UK-improves-travel-advisory-to-SL/44-760448

• Debate over Lanka’s No. 1 ranking for solo female travel

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/enter-a-new-breed-of-graduate-teachers-manipulated-by-politics-554272.html

*

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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.

• Myth of Malimawa: A Compass Without the Magnetic Needle: Anura Kumara Presidency in a Cloud Cuckoo Land – Sena Thoradeniya

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/09/myth-of-malimawa-a-compass-without-the-magnetic-needle-anura-kumara-presidency-in-a-cloud-cuckoo-land/

• Cabinet approves increase of deposits for Presidential, Parliamentary and PC polls

– https://island.lk/cabinet-approves-increase-of-deposits-for-presidential-parliamentary-and-pc-polls/

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Cabinet-nod-to-jack-up-Presidential-and-other-election-deposits/44-760547

– https://island.lk/revision-of-election-security-deposit/

• Sri Lanka to hike election deposits paid by candidates

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-to-hike-election-deposits-paid-by-candidates-158040/

• Sri Lanka voter lists opened for public scrutiny

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-voter-lists-opened-for-public-scrutiny-158194/

• Five million undecided voters waiting to hear economic policies of presidential candidates: Herath

– https://island.lk/five-million-undecided-voters-waiting-to-hear-economic-policies-of-presidential-candidates-charitha-herath/

• On 7 April 1942, 4 LSSP political prisoners escaped from Bogambara Prison

– https://island.lk/the-great-escape/

• EC’s local council election decisions contravene the Constitution: AG

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/ecs-local-council-election-decisions-contravene-the-constitution-ag-554296.html

• It’s a bad precedent says Opposition as Dep. Speaker temporarily halts sittings

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/its-a-bad-precedent-says-opposition-as-dep-speaker-temporarily-halts-sittings-554266.html

• Eleven MPs elected in 2020 not any more in Parliament

– https://island.lk/eleven-mps-elected-in-2020-not-any-more-in-parliament/

• Snake charmer Dilith makes a condemned bud bloom

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/awesome-star-wars-break-out-over-this-years-auspicious-times-to-eat-554241.html

• Why JVP, SLLP Cannot Win Next Presidential Election: Minorities Shun Them Both

– https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2024/04/10/why-jvp-sllp-cannot-win-next-presidential-election-minorities-shun-them-both/

• Ranil and Basil meet for weekly election strategy talks

‘SLPP prefers general elections first, but Rajapaksa says they will leave the decision to President. Basil urges President to woo members from SJB and smaller parties for polls campaign. SLFP in crisis; Sirisena’s leadership suspended after CBK moves court. SJB signs MoU with six SLPP dissidents, but questions over what others will do’

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/ranil-and-basil-meet-for-weekly-election-strategy-talks-554151.html

• Presidential race and horse-trading

– https://island.lk/presidential-race-and-horse-trading/

• Sri Lanka president on the offensive as election looms, hits out at SJB, NPP

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-president-on-the-offensive-as-election-looms-hits-out-at-sjb-npp-157879/

• JVP youth wing accuses President using state resources for political campaign

– https://island.lk/jvp-youth-wing-accuses-president-using-state-resources-for-political-campaign/

• SJB and SLPP splinter group sign MOU

– https://island.lk/sjb-and-slpp-splinter-group-sign-mou/

• GL mocks President’s claim of presiding over only country in Asia where democracy is completely safeguarded

– https://island.lk/gl-mocks-presidents-claim-of-presiding-over-only-country-in-asia-where-democracy-is-completely-safeguarded/

• SLPP to take disciplinary action against G.L. Peiris

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98597/slpp-to-take-disciplinary-action-against-gl-peiris

• Ranil: SJB has abandoned UNP vision

– https://island.lk/ranil-sjb-has-abandoned-unp-vision/

• SJB leaders won’t be able to hold their positions if party membership loses faith: Fonseka

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/SJB-leaders-wont-be-able-to-hold-their-positions-if-party-membership-loses-faith-Fonseka/108-280402

• ‘Namal has more time to run for presidency’ – Mahinda Rajapaksa

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98497/namal-has-more-time-to-run-for-presidency-mahinda-rajapaksa

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/MR-says-Namal-has-ample-time-for-Presidential-bid/44-760446

• Mahinda mandated to pick Pohottuwa Presidential candidate

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Mahinda-mandated-to-pick-Pohottuwa-Presidential-candidate/44-760567

• Dullas says four former Presidents should bow out of politics

– https://www.ft.lk/front-page/Dullas-says-four-former-Presidents-should-bow-out-of-politics/44-760566

• Sri Lanka’s SJB must inform NPP in writing if Sajith wants debate: Tilvin

– https://economynext.com/sri-lankas-sjb-must-inform-npp-in-writing-if-sajith-wants-debate-tilvin-157905/

– https://island.lk/jvp-renews-its-challenge-for-debate/

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/top-story/NPP-says-AKD-ready-for-Presidential-debate-by-Daily-Mirror/155-280407

• ITN directed to live telecast Sajith – AKD debate

– https://island.lk/itn-directed-to-live-telecast-sajith-akd-debate/

• Sajith not ready for Presidential debate hosted by Daily Mirror?

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Sajith-not-ready-for-Presidential-debate-hosted-by-Daily-Mirror/108-280505

• War of words continues between Sri Lanka’s SJB, NPP on debate

– https://economynext.com/war-of-words-continues-between-sri-lankas-sjb-npp-on-debate-158281/

• SJB: JVP’s call for RW’s participation in proposed debate diversionary tactic

– https://island.lk/sjb-jvps-call-for-rws-participation-in-proposed-debate-diversionary-tactic/

• SJB lays down condition for Sajith-Anura debate

– https://island.lk/sjb-lays-down-condition-for-sajith-anura-debate/

• NPP focus on women

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/ranil-and-basil-meet-for-weekly-election-strategy-talks-554151.html

• The NPP’s sidestepping in Jaffna and repeating deadly mistakes

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/the-npps-sidestepping-in-jaffna-and-repeating-deadly-mistakes-2-554136.html

• Crossovers and double crosses: Crisscross Gota’s mandate

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/columns/enter-a-new-breed-of-graduate-teachers-manipulated-by-politics-554272.html

• National Organizer Tissa cautions SJB Leadership on whom to associate with

– https://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking-news/Tissa-cautions-SJB-Leadership-on-whom-to-associate-with/108-280355

• CBK secures interim injunction against Maithri’s SLFP chairmanship

– https://island.lk/cbk-secures-interim-injunction-against-maithris-slfp-chairmanship/

• Dayasiri says he does not rejoice in the court injunction against Sirisena

– https://island.lk/dayasiri-says-he-does-not-rejoice-in-the-court-injunction-against-sirisena/

• SLFP headquarters sealed yesterday as a crime scene

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/crime-scene-ignominy-for-crisis-ridden-slfp-554288.html

• SLFP headquarters sealed; charges of missing files

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/slfp-headquarters-sealed-charges-of-missing-files-554277.html

• SLFP convenes urgent politburo meeting led by CBK

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98498/slfp-convenes-urgent-politburo-meeting-led-by-cbk-

• Urgent Politburo Meeting Held by the SLFP

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/08/urgent-politburo-meeting-held-by-the-slfp

– https://island.lk/fox-in-a-hole/

• Sri Lanka Freedom Party appoints Nimal Siripala as acting chair, CBK as advisor

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-freedom-party-appoints-nimal-siripala-as-acting-chair-cbk-as-advisor-157894/

– https://www.adaderana.lk/news/98509/nimal-siripala-appointed-acting-chairman-of-slfp

• Bid to align SLFP with UNP ahead of polls alleged

– https://island.lk/bid-to-align-slfp-with-unp-ahead-of-polls-alleged/

• Battle for SLFP leadership gets down and dirty

– https://island.lk/battle-for-slfp-leadership-gets-down-and-dirty/

• Blues red in tooth and claw

– https://island.lk/blues-red-in-tooth-and-claw/

• Sirisena, family leave for Thailand

– https://island.lk/sirisena-family-leave-for-thailand/

• Electoral Redistricting Battles Rage Across the United States

– https://blackagendareport.com/electoral-redistricting-battles-rage-across-united-states

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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.

• What is Jathika Chinthanaya?

– https://island.lk/what-is-jathika-chinthanaya/

• Sri Lanka govt waits for LD approval to establish Chartered Institute for Journalists: Minister

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-govt-waits-for-ld-approval-to-establish-chartered-institute-for-journalists-minister-158304/

• UN Safeguarding democracy by combatting hate speech and disinformation outside Israel

– https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240407/news/safeguarding-democracy-by-combatting-hate-speech-and-disinformation-554079.html

• ICC inks historic agreement with MTV Channel (Pvt) Ltd for Sri Lanka cricket rights

– https://english.newsfirst.lk/2024/04/12/icc-inks-historic-agreement-with-mtv-channel-pvt-ltd-for-sri-lanka-cricket-rights

• Sri Lanka plans politically correct names for Avurudu games – US EconomyNext

– https://economynext.com/sri-lanka-plans-politically-correct-names-for-avurudu-games-157945/

• Unravelling Sri Lanka’s great mysteries except female clitoridectomy

– https://island.lk/unravelling-sri-lankas-great-mysteries/

• India’s NewsClick editor-in chief Prabir Purkayastha, who completes 6 months in jail.

– https://www.newsclick.in/good-fight-continues

• Apple Warns iPhone Users in 92 Countries, Including India, of ‘Mercenary Spyware Attacks’

– https://www.newsclick.in/apple-warns-iphone-users-92-countries-including-india-mercenary-spyware-attacks

• To Struggle! A Review of Marcello Musto’s The Last Years of Karl Marx

– https://monthlyreview.org/2024/02/01/to-struggle-a-review-of-marcello-mustos-the-last-years-of-karl-marx/

• Ukraine – Faking News Still Does Not Help Winning

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/ukraine-faking-news-still-does-not-help-winning

• How The White Empire Is Going White Dwarf

– indi.ca

• The Illusion of Control

– indi.ca

• Stupid Cat and Great God

– indi.ca

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email: econenews@gmail.com

blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com

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