Columns

Political Column

A head-on confrontation between the Government and the Supreme Court over lowering petrol prices became inevitable this week after Ministers agreed there will be no revision. Certainly not for the moment. After a special Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the Government said, "all Ministers unanimously agreed to study the directive in depth and present their observations" at the next meeting.

5th Column

The last cricket song has been sung, and dissipated all their ‘blues’!

“Thaaththa,” Bindu Udagedera asked, “what is all this fuss about the Cricket Board?”

Situation Report

Eelam War IV: Which way the last phase next year?

In just three more days, the dawn of 2009, will usher Sri Lanka into a new era though what it portends exactly remains unclear. Throughout the old year, 2008, the ongoing separatist war has remained the major issue to preoccupy the Government and Sri Lankans alike. The country received the most number of references in the media worldwide on this one single issue.

Thoughts from London

Raman’s war and his historical analogies

The other day a journalist friend of mine (more a TV person than a print journalist) emailed me an article by B. Raman, a former additional secretary of India’s cabinet secretariat and currently the director of the Institute For Topical Studies in Chennai.

The Economic Analysis

End of a turbulent year for the economy

We would wish to end the year on a happy note. Yet the year has been a turbulent one. It has been a year of confusion, uncertainty and global economic recession. Never has the world witnessed such an escalation in the price of oil to a record of nearly US $ 150 and then a tumbling down of oil prices to less than US$ 40 per barrel. “No Cheap Oil”, the London Economist said in a cover story. And we now have unbelievably cheap oil prices.

Lobby

Not Issued on this week

Focus on Rights

Not Issued on this week

Inside the glass house

Cooping up Africa's coup leaders

When a disgruntled military force staged a coup in Sudan in the late 1960s, the army officers leading the revolt were so disciplined that the battle tanks rumbling through the streets to the presidential palace in Khartoum stopped at every traffic light scrupulously obeying signals. Or so the story goes.