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Home » ColumnsSinhala speaking Russian PM looks for Syria’s smoking-gun
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was in the news last week over the breakthrough agreement with the US on the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, was a onetime junior diplomat in the Russian Embassy in Colombo in the early 1970s. According to a former UN Tass correspondent, who was also based in Colombo at [...]
Northern verdict: Crucial factor for next presidential poll
Trouncing of UPFA in NP raises major new issues for the Rajapaksa regime UNP and JVP suffer more setbacks; main opposition party must urgently put its house in order It took less than a quarter of Sri Lanka’s 14.4 million voters to send strong messages, both to the Government and the Opposition, at last week’s [...]
Talking statues and flouting statutes
As Paradise was preparing for its next international summit in more than thirty-five years, its statues were having a conference of their own. They had been summoned by the statue of the Father of the Nation, the DS Statue. “Actually as a matter of fact,” the DS statue said, “I wanted to know your views [...]
Pillay’s update: Has Sri Lanka become an imperial guinea-pig?
Wednesday’s oral update on Sri Lanka by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to the 24th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva seems to confirm the view that the rights body is using the Sri Lankan case to test the still-debated concept of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ or R2P, as it [...]
Prerequisites for attracting foreign direct Investment
Despite the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) for sustained economic development discussed last week, the country has failed to attract an adequate amount of the right type of FDI over many years. All forms of FDI have not reached US$ 1 billion. The flow of FDI has been inadequate and not of the types [...]