Shareholder Director Rayynor Silva has resigned from the Board of Citrus Leisure Plc and its subsidiaries with effect from 16 April. No reasons were given for the resignation, but market talk was that ties between Rayynor and Citrus Director Dilith Jayaweera had strained owing to some news item regarding the latter in the former’s media ...

HNB Pathum Vimana, the biggest deposit draw in Sri Lanka, has rewarded countless Sri Lankans with amazing prizes over the last twenty years. The lucky winners of the Pathum Vimana 2011 draw received their prizes at a ceremony organized by Hatton National Bank. The prize presentation for the winners was held at HNB Towers on ...

Reuters: Real Madrid have one hand on a first La Liga trophy in four years after Cristiano Ronaldo scored a brilliant winner in a 2-1 victory at Barcelona on Saturday that stretched their lead over their bitter rivals to seven points with four games left. On a dramatic, rain-lashed night at the Nou Camp, the ...

Last Sunday when the unknown Ajinkya Rahane scored 103 runs off just 60 balls at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, which helped the Rajasthan Royals to score a massive 195 runs at IPL season five, my mind went to just one ethos the IPL is all about – highlighting performance. It is how IPL ...

Reuters: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi took their remarkable scoring achievements to new heights when they jointly set a record for La Liga goals in a season of 41 on Saturday. Portuguese international Ronaldo, who set the previous best of 40 last term, nodded home an Angel Di Maria centre in the 74th minute at ...

PYONGYANG,(Reuters) : North Korea’s new leader delivered his first major public speech on Sunday as the impoverished state celebrated the centenary of its founder’s birth, calling for a push to “final victory” despite a failed rocket launch two days earlier. A jowly Kim Jong-un, clad in black and the third of his line to rule ...

Reuters: Japan’s Sony Corp flagged a record $6.4 billion annual net loss, double an earlier forecast and a fourth straight year of red ink, as it writes off deferred tax credits, heaping more pressure on its new CEO to turn around the giant electronics company. Sony, which plans to cut 10,000 jobs – about 6 ...

DUBAI (Reuters): Iran has cut oil exports to Spain and may halt sales to Germany and Italy, Iran’s English-language state television reported on Tuesday, in an apparent move to strengthen its position ahead of crucial talks with world powers later this week. But, in an indication that Tehran’s “counter-sanctions” were of little impact, Spain’s biggest ...

News Butterfly, the unique TV programme from the US’ FOX news network, is now filming in Colombo for an exclusive segment on Sri Lanka’s new upswing. News Butterfly Market Place (NBMP) is described as a ‘unique women’s movement on TV’. According to NBMP, ‘the programme is a TV Channel venture for beautiful and talented women ...

The challenges Sri Lanka has to face in its march towards development are manifold. Although the war has ended the wrong political ideologies, the proposals and timetables it created are still in operation. By Government Information Department Additional Director General Chandrapala Liyanage Similarly, various social activity groups and individuals and organisations operating under the advice ...

Reuters: Federal Reserve policymakers on Monday signaled little appetite for further monetary steps to stimulate U.S. growth in an economy that is gradually strengthening. “With my current outlook, I think our policy stance is still the one best suited to foster steady gains in output and employment and to maintain stable prices,” Cleveland Fed President ...

Button gives McLaren win Vettel second for Red Bull Raikkonen scores points on return MELBOURNE(Reuters): Jenson Button ignored an incident-packed race behind him and calmly steered his McLaren to victory at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix ahead of world champion Sebastian Vettel on Sunday. It was the Briton’s third victory in four years at Albert ...

By D.C. Ranatunga “We bear a very heavy responsibility to build up this service with great care, vigilance and intellectual integrity so that the people of this country belonging to different ethnic groups, believing in four different faiths, of diverse economic groups, living in varying environments, urban and rural, with different levels of literacy and ...

NEW YORK (Reuters): Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim retained his position atop Forbes magazine’s annual list of the world’s billionaires on Wednesday with an estimated worth of $ 69 billion, while his Mexican rival Ricardo Salinas Pliego enjoyed the largest increase in wealth. Microsoft Corp cofounder Bill Gates ranked second at $ 61 billion and Warren ...

Reuters: Lionel Messi at his breathtaking best tore Bayer Leverkusen apart with a record five-goal Champions League haul on Wednesday as Barcelona swept into the quarter-finals 7-1 on the night and 10-2 on aggregate.  The Argentine World Player of the Year became the first player to score five in a Champions League match. Substitute Cristian ...

Intel Corporation President and CEO Paul Otellini last week detailed a number of announcements and plans aimed at expanding the company’s smartphone product portfolio and customer ecosystem, including strategic new engagements with Orange, Lava International Ltd., ZTE, and Visa.   ”We are very pleased to add new, important customers and capabilities to our phone offerings ...

New Delhi: India has urges all parties in Maldives to maintain calm and to exercise restraint, said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday. In a reply to a question on developments in the Maldives, the official spokesperson urged all parties to maintain calm and to exercise restraint. He encouraged them to exercise their ...

Reuters: Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez broke his silence on Wednesday after surgery in Cuba for a suspected recurrence of cancer to insist he was recovering well and “soaring like the condor”.  “I send you all my supreme love. We will live and we will recover!” the 57-year-old socialist leader enthused via Twitter from Havana where ...

Reuters: A planned referendum in Ireland and a German court ruling cast new uncertainty on Tuesday over efforts to overcome the euro zone’s debt crisis, just when a flood of central bank money appeared to be calming financial markets.  Ireland’s prickly electorate, which has twice voted “No” to European Union treaties before reversing itself, will ...

By C. Bryson Hull MALE (Reuters): It was an ordinary blue felt pen, and not a bullet, that killed Mohamed Nasheed’s term as the first democratically elected president of the Maldives. After rising to acclaim as a champion of democracy and action against climate change, Nasheed is now back on the streets where he led ...

The episode will be aired on 25th February 2012 at 9.00 p.m. on ITNThis Saturday’s episode of IDEATORS on ITN partners with Sri Lanka leading jeans brand LiCC. IDEATORS’ is the British Council’s flagship reality-TV entrepreneurship challenge As competition intensifies on the hit TV show, the participants face a unique challenge surrounding the premium jeans ...

By Lakmal Sooriyagoda The Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court ordered the news directors of four television channels that the video footage of the UNP led protest held in front of the Fort railway station be handed over to the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) in order to trace persons who behaved in an unruly manner. Filing a ...

Reuters: On a recent Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight, water flowed from the toilets through the aisles during the entire journey from London to Islamabad. "What if it reaches some electrical wires and puts us in danger?" said one concerned passenger to another after flight attendants brushed off repeated complaints. "This could be a catastrophe." ...

Reuters: Iran, facing sanctions that could cripple its oil exports, has told world powers it wants to resume long-stalled talks with “new initiatives”, and France said it might be open to addressing suspicions about its nuclear programme. Tehran made the offer in a letter to the EU’s foreign policy chief obtained by Reuters on Thursday, ...

Trinity College, Kandy, won the first place of the ‘IT Mastermind 2011’ Inter School Quiz tournament organised by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) and fully sponsored by ESOFT Computer Studies Pvt Ltd. Accordingly, the laptop computer worth Rs. 75,000 being the prize for the first place winner, and the set of computer peripherals ...

LONDON (Reuters) : Oil hit a six-month high near $120 a barrel on Wednesday as concern about supply from Iran, other Middle East producers and Africa outweighed those about the health of the global economy. Prices jumped after Iran’s Press TV reported Iran had banned exports to six EU countries in retaliation for European Union ...

Sri Lanka’s benchmark stock index, the world’s worst performer this year, may extend its slump as the central bank raises interest rates to curb inflation, according to HSBC Holdings Plc’s private banking unit. HSBC Private Bank, which oversees about $499 billion, will wait for stock valuations to fall to “single digit” multiples before it considers ...

Reuters: Rafa Nadal has hit out at what he called a “general campaign” in France to discredit Spanish athletes by implying their success is due to the use of illegal drugs. Speaking to reporters a day after the Spanish tennis federation (RFET) said it would sue French TV broadcaster Canal+ for “unacceptable and damaging insinuations” ...

MALE (Reuters): The former President of the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives sat inside his house awaiting arrest on Thursday after being ousted from his post in what he said was a coup at gunpoint. About 200 supporters stood under umbrellas in the pouring rain outside as Mohamed Nasheed spoke to reporters at his ...

Ambassador updates foreign reporters on post-conflict development and reconciliation in Sri Lanka “Sri Lankans support a home grown solution for reconciliation” Ambassador invites international correspondents to visit Sri Lanka WASHINGTON: Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya hosted a group of foreign correspondents here in a January 25 reception held at his residence, prompting a discussi...