Editorial
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Pakistan set the Chinese cat among the South Asian canaries this week in the foothills of the Himalayas. Instead of cooperation, the 18th SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit that concluded on Thursday was a theatre for geopolitical games with India rising up as a bulwark to stop China’s bid to expand its [...]
Have fixed day for elections
A Presidential proclamation has been made this week calling for a Presidential election which will be held on January 8, 2015. There is great debate on the eligibility of the incumbent President contesting a third consecutive time. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court opinion giving the predictable thumbs up for the President to contest, the intention of the [...]
Holes in the Budget
And so, the 2015 Budget was passed by a two-thirds majority as expected, while the committee stage debate on the various ministry votes continues. However, did the Budget lack credibility, and was public accountability of public finances and its prioritisation of expenditure questionable? It contained much of the broken promises of last year in what [...]
The hills are alive with the sound of landslides
The drought came first, heaping untold misery upon man and beast. The deluge followed and, with it, a sweeping landslide. A succession of environmental disasters in recent years has proved that Sri Lanka remains ill-equipped to mitigate threats and save precious lives. If anything, the country is racing towards bigger catastrophes. The Koslanda landslide on [...]
Enter the Dragon
No other country in Sri Lanka’s post-war history has wielded the influence, had the reach or commanded the servility that China today does. The bilateral relationship between the two nations has grown so rapidly that few have had the time, or the required information, to analyse the direction it is taking. Sri Lanka and China [...]