I've taken it upon myself to keep myself updated on a day to day basis on the negotiated IMF bailout of 2 Billion dollars. Most of this would be copy/paste + some of my concerns and observations. I beleive we should all be aware of the implications of taking money from the IMF, some of which i hope to write in future posts, in this regard i greatly appreciate some of the statements made by the president that we will not be selling off our national treasures in the process. The President playing hard ball is good. But is this just an act? or is it a genuine attempt that is hopelessly out of place given our reserves position?? we will find out in time.
Transcript of a Press Briefing by David Hawley, Senior Advisor, External Relations Department, International Monetary Fund - imf.org
QUESTION: I wanted to know what you can say about the conditions—the IMF may be considering on the loan to Sri Lanka, a nearly $2 billion loan and there's some discussion of whether they could use it to support the rupee. I also wanted to know whether there's any consideration by the IMF how funds are using given the current military conflict in the country.
MR. HAWLEY: Thank you. Discussions are still ongoing with Sri Lanka and are expected to continue over the next few weeks. They're focused on achieving the government's—in order words, Sri Lanka's policy goals which include rebuilding reserves, reducing the budget deficit and bringing about balance of payment sustainability.
QUESTION: I guess maybe this is kind of a naïve question, but in countries that are involved in—at the U.N. where I usually report from they had a Security Council meeting about the conflict and humanitarian effects of it. What sort of follow through or restrictions are placed such that it isn't—since money is fungible is not used for—or of support to military action?
MR. HAWLEY: I'm sorry. I haven't understood the question.
QUESTION: Since the country is involved currently in a military offensive in the northern part of the country that's given rise to at least one briefing at the U.N. Security Council, what provisions are in place to make sure that such a loan doesn't indirectly simply support military action?
MR. HAWLEY: Let me say—let me repeat what I just said. Our discussion are still ongoing with the Sri Lankan authorities on a possible program, so let us wait for the outcome of those discussions. Thank you very much—and because you were a late arrival, it's 10:30. Thanks a lot.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Beer Saturday
7 am and working on Red Bull assignment
Walking down main street Fort, blistering hot sun…
Gorgeous girl passes by leaving a fresh scent of perfume, I smell the Air…. Can you blame me?
JP & sons, buying a Spinning Reel and Rod for Sana…. Fuck! The throw net is only 2500 Rupees!
Mutton rolls from Barista, horseshit probably taste better! The bastards…..
101 Marotuwa toots his horn! Moron… packing the Cooler with Beer is somehow more fun than actually consuming it…. Like taking a girl’s shirt off, anticipation…..
Life deals a terrible hand to some…. God, how blessed I am…. ‘’one more for my brother please…’’ the poor boy cries out, 2 mutton rolls obviously not enough….
Indian imports are taking over & the Indo Lanka FTA clearly favors them. I’m reminded of this by how the very fabric of society has been taken over by ‘’Made in India’’. A picture worth a thousand words…….. Indian Bikes!
Walking down main street Fort, blistering hot sun…
Gorgeous girl passes by leaving a fresh scent of perfume, I smell the Air…. Can you blame me?
JP & sons, buying a Spinning Reel and Rod for Sana…. Fuck! The throw net is only 2500 Rupees!
Mutton rolls from Barista, horseshit probably taste better! The bastards…..
101 Marotuwa toots his horn! Moron… packing the Cooler with Beer is somehow more fun than actually consuming it…. Like taking a girl’s shirt off, anticipation…..
Life deals a terrible hand to some…. God, how blessed I am…. ‘’one more for my brother please…’’ the poor boy cries out, 2 mutton rolls obviously not enough….
Indian imports are taking over & the Indo Lanka FTA clearly favors them. I’m reminded of this by how the very fabric of society has been taken over by ‘’Made in India’’. A picture worth a thousand words…….. Indian Bikes!
Fisherman’s Villa the sign read… I found myself in the kitchen of a Canadian Sri Lankan’s holiday home in Wadduwa…. Golf Cart, Pool, Basketball court, beach buggy, got the wrong place of course!
The fisherman’s Villa was gorgeous. The sandy floor of its open restaurant was comfortable on my oversized feet.
Freddy the German with a tattoo of ‘Sri Lanka’ and ‘Freddy’ in Sinhalese on his chest made me believe the UNP was conspiring with unseen German forces, the tattoo of an elephant below his right nipple clearly the cause.
Freddy poked his 2 cents and got a couple of shots of rum for his trouble. Amicable dude he was. This bloke was more patriotic about Sri Lanka than some Sri Lankan people know. ‘Shri Lanka Matha’ and all…… and even knew who Freddy Silva was….
The fisherman’s Villa was gorgeous. The sandy floor of its open restaurant was comfortable on my oversized feet.
Freddy the German with a tattoo of ‘Sri Lanka’ and ‘Freddy’ in Sinhalese on his chest made me believe the UNP was conspiring with unseen German forces, the tattoo of an elephant below his right nipple clearly the cause.
Freddy poked his 2 cents and got a couple of shots of rum for his trouble. Amicable dude he was. This bloke was more patriotic about Sri Lanka than some Sri Lankan people know. ‘Shri Lanka Matha’ and all…… and even knew who Freddy Silva was….
Choppy waters, no fish, 2 bottle of rum and 18 bottles of beer
120 kmph down Galle road, Mr. Martinus clearly taken up by the ‘Go Kimi’ comments thrown at him, an inability to scent sarcasm can twist a mans mind into reckless driving I found out….
7 pm and working on Red Bull assignment
Friday, March 20, 2009
Media and the GSP+ Madness
I'm a little ticked off right now! some of you may prove me wrong and bring forth some proof documents and reports. But it doesn't really matter. I expect the media who keeps shouting about almost everything in this country (to their credit) to stop growing balls and grow a bit of brains. Harsh. Yes. But does it matter?
They can report so many things of such national importance day long like the Cricketers being the victims of a terrorist attack, the abduction of a little girl, the death of LW, how Mr. Ceylinco seems to have fucked everyone and how a little girl just died of a vaccination in Matara. But please explain how it is possible that i can't find a single article written about Minister Rohitha Bogallagama's visit to the EC (European commission) in late Jan, early Feb.
Let me illustrate why this fucking meeting was so important.
I'll let the data do the talking first.
SL Apparel Exports $Million
2003
EU - 777
US-1470
2004
EU - 985
US - 1539
2005
EU - 1014
US - 1633
2006
EU - 1153
US - 1630
2007
EU - 1448
US - 1595
2008
EU - 1604
US - 1508
Garment exports to the EU have grown by 106% since 2003. $827 Million. About 3% of our GDP. All this in just 6 years. More than 200,000 people work in the industry. Many of whom are sometimes the only bread winner of the family like myself. yeah, I'm the king of my castle now baby. Mom's retired and siblings are married. So, i take care of things at home.
Forget me, there are thousands of innocent village girls who carry the burden of feeding an entire family. sending their brothers and sisters to school and making sure their ailing parents get proper medical attention.
I guess the media does not find people dying of Hunger as report worthy as much as soldiers dying in machine gun fire or journalists being slain on the streets. Fuck y'all.
I had to search the net, read papers, call friends for a good 2 days to just be sure he went on the trip. let alone what the outcome of such a nationally important meeting was.
Where the Fuck was the media then?? i think y'all are just another bunch of biased imbeciles who will report anything that will sell you more papers.
Finally, after 2 days of trying to know if somawathi will have a job to feed her triplets who don't have a father who was reported missing in action, this is where i got to know the Hon. Minister even made the journey. Nope, couldn't find anything on any online local newspapers. I had to bloody crawl into a EU website of some sort to find out. No body seems to know either. This is a state of apathy of a new form. Economic apathy. Fuck the IMF bailout. If we focused on keeping the pressure on the politicians to own up to the 27 international conventions required to gain the GSP+ scheme, we wouldn't be needing constant bailouts. We'll have enough reserves flowing in from the EU Godammit!!! but, with the way things are going. You can bet arse that we might need another bailout sometime in the distant future. Trading our values resources like trinco, pilawoos and majestic city in return.
So... after all this. What happened at this meeting??
i dun fucking know!!
So special thanks to the Media for being on the ball.
They can report so many things of such national importance day long like the Cricketers being the victims of a terrorist attack, the abduction of a little girl, the death of LW, how Mr. Ceylinco seems to have fucked everyone and how a little girl just died of a vaccination in Matara. But please explain how it is possible that i can't find a single article written about Minister Rohitha Bogallagama's visit to the EC (European commission) in late Jan, early Feb.
Let me illustrate why this fucking meeting was so important.
I'll let the data do the talking first.
SL Apparel Exports $Million
2003
EU - 777
US-1470
2004
EU - 985
US - 1539
2005
EU - 1014
US - 1633
2006
EU - 1153
US - 1630
2007
EU - 1448
US - 1595
2008
EU - 1604
US - 1508
Garment exports to the EU have grown by 106% since 2003. $827 Million. About 3% of our GDP. All this in just 6 years. More than 200,000 people work in the industry. Many of whom are sometimes the only bread winner of the family like myself. yeah, I'm the king of my castle now baby. Mom's retired and siblings are married. So, i take care of things at home.
Forget me, there are thousands of innocent village girls who carry the burden of feeding an entire family. sending their brothers and sisters to school and making sure their ailing parents get proper medical attention.
I guess the media does not find people dying of Hunger as report worthy as much as soldiers dying in machine gun fire or journalists being slain on the streets. Fuck y'all.
I had to search the net, read papers, call friends for a good 2 days to just be sure he went on the trip. let alone what the outcome of such a nationally important meeting was.
Where the Fuck was the media then?? i think y'all are just another bunch of biased imbeciles who will report anything that will sell you more papers.
Finally, after 2 days of trying to know if somawathi will have a job to feed her triplets who don't have a father who was reported missing in action, this is where i got to know the Hon. Minister even made the journey. Nope, couldn't find anything on any online local newspapers. I had to bloody crawl into a EU website of some sort to find out. No body seems to know either. This is a state of apathy of a new form. Economic apathy. Fuck the IMF bailout. If we focused on keeping the pressure on the politicians to own up to the 27 international conventions required to gain the GSP+ scheme, we wouldn't be needing constant bailouts. We'll have enough reserves flowing in from the EU Godammit!!! but, with the way things are going. You can bet arse that we might need another bailout sometime in the distant future. Trading our values resources like trinco, pilawoos and majestic city in return.
So... after all this. What happened at this meeting??
i dun fucking know!!
So special thanks to the Media for being on the ball.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Bad Day!
No not the song, accidentally deleted my Blogroll.....
The last 5 minutes have been painful trying to re-establish what seems to be an ocean of shit i like to read, (Shit can be used in the context of ''Good'' by me, hence the statement... ''Good shit'')
Brings me the point of realizing how much we depend on electronic databases...
Numbers on a phone
E mail contact list
ur blog
blogroll
hard disk... years of music, data
internet explorer favourites, ever formatted ur PC and come back to find out that ur 79 fav's are missing.... much of which u don't remember....??
**Fuck it, the machines are already waging a Cold war on humanity**
The best part is we don't even see it coming! Ring the bell's ya morons! this is a state of emergency.... Let's not leave it to Neo, let's screw the machines over with our own counter insurgency.....
Pencils
paper
Glue
typewriters
ink
Bring out the Armoury!!!! **Mel Gibson tone in Braveheart when he screamed his testicals off''
To you who stand with me on this day..... as a brother in battle against these ruthless machines you will forever be with me in paradise where i swear to share half of the virgins waiting on me!!!
Off to manually back up my phone numbers on my planner.....
Based on the Whacksters first comment on this post, i am willing to throw in an extra virgin in paradise to anyone who can come up with a way of manufacturing pencils, paper, glue etc. without the use of any machines..... May God be with you in this great cause!!
The last 5 minutes have been painful trying to re-establish what seems to be an ocean of shit i like to read, (Shit can be used in the context of ''Good'' by me, hence the statement... ''Good shit'')
Brings me the point of realizing how much we depend on electronic databases...
Numbers on a phone
E mail contact list
ur blog
blogroll
hard disk... years of music, data
internet explorer favourites, ever formatted ur PC and come back to find out that ur 79 fav's are missing.... much of which u don't remember....??
**Fuck it, the machines are already waging a Cold war on humanity**
The best part is we don't even see it coming! Ring the bell's ya morons! this is a state of emergency.... Let's not leave it to Neo, let's screw the machines over with our own counter insurgency.....
Pencils
paper
Glue
typewriters
ink
Bring out the Armoury!!!! **Mel Gibson tone in Braveheart when he screamed his testicals off''
To you who stand with me on this day..... as a brother in battle against these ruthless machines you will forever be with me in paradise where i swear to share half of the virgins waiting on me!!!
Off to manually back up my phone numbers on my planner.....
Based on the Whacksters first comment on this post, i am willing to throw in an extra virgin in paradise to anyone who can come up with a way of manufacturing pencils, paper, glue etc. without the use of any machines..... May God be with you in this great cause!!
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