Word: colombos
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CEYLON A Quarrel of Tongues In the eastern part of the island of Ceylon, the bodies of three women, three children and a man were recovered from a well into which they had jumped in a panic-stricken search for shelter. In the capital city of Colombo (pop. 424,816), dozens died and hundreds were injured when police and mobs battled through Lipton's Circus, a tree-shaded plaza where seven roads meet. Trains were derailed, buses overturned and burned; terrified passers-by had to submit to a language test at the hands of mobsters and if they failed...
...month. By tying up island transport in incessant union warfare against rival Marxists, Gunawardena drove Banda to nationalize all buses Jan. 1. Later in the month, after even rougher bullyboy tactics by Gunawardena's dockworkers immobilized 72 cargo-crammed freighters in the harbor, Banda nationalized the port of Colombo. Over the opposition of moderate members of Banda's coalition but with Banda's approval, the legislature last week passed a bill empowering Gunawardena's Agriculture Ministry gradually to take over most of the island's paddy land...
...Middle Way. "Anything can happen," says a Western observer in Colombo. "We were bound to see a certain amount of assertion of independence in a country where until a few years ago citizens couldn't send telegrams, make long-distance calls, make out a bill of lading or hold a government job unless they spoke English. I just hope it doesn't get out of hand." The hand is Lawyer Banda's, fluttering excitedly out of his white robes as he says: "If we have peace in the world for the next 25 years, then I feel...
...have dried up most sources of private capital, foreign and local. In partial compensation, Ceylon has got $20 million from the Soviet bloc, the great bulk of it a grant from Communist China, which is hungry for Ceylon's rubber. Recently a 16-man Soviet delegation came to Colombo to talk over a proposed Soviet credit to finance oil prospecting, expansion of Ceylon's sugar and textile industries and construction of hydroelectric projects. Prospects that the Soviet credit would go through, announced Ceylonese Transport Minister Maithripala Senanayake last week, were "favorable...
...with the Soviet Union for a twelve-year $125 million loan, and last week West German Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard was on the verge of okaying $143 million in credits toward construction of a new steel plant in iron-rich Orissa. Other loans may come from Japan and the Colombo Plan nations...