As troops stepped up their efforts to flush out Tiger guerrillas from the little remaining terrain in the Mullaitivu district, the Government redoubled its efforts to counter international pressure to halt its military campaign.
Any expectation of a spectacular spurt in economic growth is unrealistic for three fundamental reasons. First, the end of the war per se is inadequate to provide the surge to growth. A long-lasting robust peace is the actual precondition for economic development.
The politically-volatile South Asian country of Afghanistan has long been described as a "graveyard of empires" -- first the British empire, then the Soviet empire, and soon perhaps the neo-colonial American empire.
