The US quit the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday (June 19) with rhetoric intended to assert the moral high-ground, slamming the council and selectively ‘naming and shaming’ council members outside its charmed circle of ‘friends.’ While the statements of US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington reeked of imperial arrogance, the irony of this grandstanding by one of the worst human rights offenders on the planet would not have been lost on many in the global South, who have been at the receiving end of its worst depredations over time.
Haley accused the council of being “a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of
Sri Lanka’s official statistics bureau, Department of Census and Statistics or DCS, has released the country’s 2018 first quarter provisional economic growth data in its website (available at: http://www.statistics.gov.lk/national_accounts/dcsna_r2/reports/2018.06.18/Q1_2018_(2018_06_18).pdf).
These numbers may change later when DCS refines its data set. For instance, in the current release, DCS has firmed up its estimation of total output in the first quarter of 2017 by reducing its value from the previously released numbers. Had that previous high number been used, the growth rate in the first quarter 2018 would have been much lower than what has been announced in the current release.
Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in New Delhi Chitranganee Wagiswara has highlighted investment and tourism opportunities in the island during a visit to Mumbai.
Sri Lanka wants to leverage its strategic location to position the country as ‘the Hub of the Indian Ocean’, Wagiswara told a business gathering attended by over 125 executives in the World Trade Center in Mumbai.
Addressing the members of the All India Association of Industries (AIAI) Wagiswara, who was on an official visit to Mumbai from 13-14 June 2018 invited Indian entrepreneurs to invest in Sri Lanka, a statement said.
