Tag Archives: pictures

Sri Lanka Tourism Looks to Boom After War’s End

Hoteliers big and small in Sri Lanka are getting ready to cash in on what they say is the inevitable boom around the corner after last month’s end to the nation’s bloody quarter-century-old civil conflict. Tourism in this tropical-island nation was one of the industries hit hardest by the war between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam . From the white-sand beaches of Hikkaduwa to the verdant mountains of Kandy, the tourism industry has endured a 25-year-old yo-yo ride with profits fluctuating from year to year with the state of the conflict.

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Is Obama’s Financial-Reform Plan Bold Enough?

Almost every reference to the financial regulatory plan that was unveiled today by President Obama is prefaced with something along the lines of “the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulation since the 1930s.” Obama himself used such language in his speech this afternoon.

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Hank Greenberg on the Stand: Is the Ex-AIG Chief Lying?

Is Maurice Greenberg a liar? That seems to be the multibillion-dollar question in an ongoing court battle that pits Greenberg and his firm Starr International against his former employer AIG. The deeply troubled insurance giant claims Greenberg, through Starr International, improperly gained control of hundreds of millions of shares of AIG stock when he was booted from the company in 2005.

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As Congress Starts Writing Health Reform, Kennedy’s Absence is Felt

It’s been a decade and a half since anyone in Congress has attempted to put together a major overhaul of the health care system, and no one on Capitol Hill or the White House these days is under any illusions that it will come easy. But as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Wednesday becomes the first to begin the process of formally drafting a bill — one that members will call the Affordable Health Choices Act — it’s already clear that the task will be that much tougher because of the absence of the committee’s, and the issue’s, driving force

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More Trouble in West Africa’s Narco State

Some were actually hoping the wretched west African nation of Guinea-Bissau might have a fresh start this summer. In March, both the country’s dictatorial President, Joao Bernardo Vieira, and its mighty army chief Tagme Na Waie were assassinated, creating something of a clean slate, a chance for the country to start anew with a presidential election scheduled for June 28.

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Will the Public Plan Make or Break Health Reform?

To the leaders of the Republican Party, a public health-care insurance option is a “non-starter,” the first step on a slippery slope to socialized medicine; in the eyes of the American Medical Association , it could “restrict patient choice”; and for President Barack Obama, as he put it Monday during his speech to the AMA in Chicago, it’s an essential part of any health care reform package that will “put affordable health care within reach for millions of Americans.” With all the hand wringing over a public plan, you could be excused for thinking there is already a specific plan on the table. There is not. But that hasn’t stopped House and Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle from turning a public plan into one of the most contentious issues being debated inside the Beltway, one that could potentially make or break the passage of landmark health care reform this year

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