I read with interest your observations on Sri Lanka’s election of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (“Sri Lanka’s Lenin-loving new president riles old guard”, Report, September 28; and “Sri Lanka bets on a leftist outsider”, FT View, September 27).
I agree that there is concern about the remains of Dissanayake’s old People’s Liberation Front (JVP) and its role in insurrections in 1971 and 1987-89, but the general election on November 14 is unlikely to give the party a two-thirds majority in parliament, and the president is keen to reduce his own executive powers. He has clearly renounced any return to the use of force.
Yet I felt the article was less than generous in its critique when previous elected governments have been mired by corruption and incompetence, with Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the 2019 election winner, needing to flee the country to escape the consequences of misrule — the fall in the value of the Sri Lanka rupee from SLRs250 to SLRs420 to the pound sterling being just one example.
In last month’s vote, the old guard was well defeated at the ballot box and indications so far are more optimistic than you portray. The stock market has moved sharply upwards, the IMF seems to have had satisfactory preliminary talks and the impression that he is anti-Indian does not correspond with his public statements. Indeed the island itself seems to have confidence in the new dawn, although of course it’s very early days.
This sustainable initiative follows Emirates’ successful “Aircrrafted by Emirates” up-cycled items collection. By repurposing materials, Emirates reduces waste and supports its partner, Team New Zealand, in their shared commitment to excellence and innovation.
US stocks eked out slight gains, with Wall Street appearing in a generally cautious mood against the backdrop of rising tensions in the Middle East.
The S&P 500 closed less than 0.1 per cent higher on Wednesday, with the energy, technology and financial sectors emerging as the benchmark index’s best performers.
Investors bought energy stocks as the conflict in the Middle East continued to support the price of oil. Shares in industry leaders ExxonMobil and Chevron added 1.3 and 0.8 per cent, respectively.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, settled 0.5 per cent higher at $73.90 a barrel.
Advertisement
The Nasdaq Composite added 0.1 per cent, with Apple and Nvidia the only members of the “Magnificent Seven” group of tech stocks to advance.
The yield on the policy-sensitive 2-year Treasury note added almost 0.02 percentage points to 3.63 per cent.
Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free
The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
Joe Biden ordered 1,000 soldiers to go to devastated regions across the Southeastern United States as Washington scrambled to deal with the deadly aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
The White House said on Wednesday it would deploy the troops to assist with ongoing delivery of food, water and other aid to stricken communities.
Advertisement
The storm, which developed in the north-west Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, where scientists have recorded unusually warm sea temperatures, made landfall in Florida before sweeping through Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina over the weekend, killing more than 100 people and causing torrential rain and mudslides across inland mountainous regions.
Biden was expected to fly over western North Carolina, much of which remains difficult to reach by road, before travelling to Georgia and Florida on Thursday, according to the White House schedule. Vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris also headed to Georgia.
The troops will join 6,000 National Guard members and more than 4,800 federal workers spread across the multiple states affected by the hurricane, including 1,200 emergency workers in North Carolina.
Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, said earlier in the week that hundreds of homes and businesses had been destroyed and many areas were still in a search-and-rescue phase.
“We are there and we will continue to be there and we will reach the most difficult to access locations,” said Mayorkas.
The Department of Defense said on Wednesday that it had activated 22 helicopters and dozens of high-water vehicles to aid in the rescue efforts, while the Army Corps of Engineers was supporting with debris removal, wastewater management and bridge inspections.
Advertisement
More than 1.3mn people across the south-eastern US states of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina were still without power as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the tracking site PowerOutage.us. The White House said this compared with a peak of 4.6mn people without power last Friday at the height of the storm.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said that it had provided 50 Starlink satellite systems to bolster communications services after the internet and mobile network failed across the affected south-east regions.
Grassroots groups in western North Carolina were organising via social media to disperse food, water and petrol to rural communities which were isolated after mudslides and raging rivers destroyed roads across the region.
Helene is the eighth Atlantic hurricane of category four or five strength to make landfall in the US in the past eight years. The economic losses were estimated at up to $34bn by Moody’s this week, resulting from property damage and business disruption.
Scientists have found that warming sea temperatures are linked to more intense hurricanes. A preliminary study from the Lawrence Berkeley Lab in California found that climate change may have boosted the amount of rainfall over parts of Georgia and North Carolina by as much as 50 per cent.
Madeleine Speed’s report “Worker shortages pose risk to food supply, warns Arla” (September 24) highlights how dairy farmers are quitting the industry. Herdspeople need to live near their work, but rural homes are invariably occupied by retirees or become holiday homes. Affordable rural homes can be built on so-called “rural exception sites”, but local authorities often require housing needs surveys to prove a need. These surveys cost a lot of money and only go to families who already have a home! Local authorities refuse to recognise numbers on their housing waiting list as proving need.
Only three parishes in the whole of East Devon have had such a survey in the past two years, so it is not a surprise that affordable rural homes are not being built. There are over 5,000 families in East Devon who are desperate for a home, but our council refuses to recognise them as being in need. The problem is the Nimbys.
Uber is launching a limited-time safari experience in Cape Town, South Africa, available from 4 October, 2024, to 25 January, 2025, as the latest experience in their ‘Go Anywhere’ series of travel products
You wrote about Kemi Badenoch’s controversial comments on maternity pay at the Conservative party conference (Report, October 1), yet over the past two weeks a broader and ongoing clash of opinions over parental rights has been unfolding.
Deloitte made a clear statement by equalising parental leave, Campaign group The Dad Shift called for longer paternity leave and Badenoch argued statutory maternity pay is “excessive”. What’s clear is the lack of consensus on how best to support working parents.
But this isn’t about pitting genders against each other over caregiving roles or trading the “motherhood penalty” — the term used to describe the disadvantages that working mothers face in the workplace compared to childless women or men — for a broader “parenthood penalty”.
The choice hinges on organisations offering extended or equalised parental leave to encourage fathers to share responsibilities — critical to reducing the motherhood penalty, which accounts for 80 per cent of the gender pay gap. A cultural shift is needed where senior leaders model and endorse active parenthood to create an environment where both men and women feel confident using parental support without fear of damaging their careers or reputations.
Advertisement
Emma Spitz Chief Client Officer and Parental Transition Coach, The Executive Coaching Consultancy, London EC3, UK
You must be logged in to post a comment Login