Category: Other
Pushed Back
NEW YORK, September 21, 2011 (AFP) – Sentencing of Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund magnate convicted in the biggest Wall Street insider trading case in years, has been postponed until October. A court order Wednesday by New York federal Judge Richard Holwell moved sentencing day from September 27 to October 13. No reason was given. […]
India says poverty begins below 50 cents a day
NEW DELHI, September 21, 2011 (AFP) – India’s economic planning body has said any villager earning more than 50 cents a day is not poor and should not qualify for government welfare — a figure condemned by experts. Those with a daily income of 25 rupees (50 cents) in villages and 32 rupees (65 cents) […]
NASA bus-sized satellite to crash-land this week
WASHINGTON, September 21, 2011 (AFP) – What goes up must come down. But where? That’s the big question when it comes to a 20-year-old NASA satellite the size of a tour bus which is careening toward Earth and set to crash-land later this week. The US Department of Defense and NASA are tracking the six-ton […]
Sri Lanka tea plantations seen making losses
Sept 20, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lankan tea crops and prices have fallen below those of last year imposing losses on plantations whose costs also went up with a recent wage hike, a broker has said. The ‘Uva’ quality season when teas grown on the eastern slopes of the island’s central hills yield their best […]
‘s labour unease
NEW DELHI, September 19, 2011 (AFP) – India’s top automaker Maruti Suzuki, already grappling with sliding sales, is in a test of nerves with its factory workers after production was hit by a dispute over alleged sabotage. Output at the Japanese-controlled firm’s Manesar plant in northern India has been thrown out of gear for three […]
Jaguar Land Rover to open engine plant in Britain
LONDON, September 19, 2011 (AFP) – Indian-owned luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover is to open a factory to build low-emission engines in Britain with the creation of up to 750 jobs, the company said on Monday. The £355 million (0 million, 560 million euros) facility will be based near Wolverhampton in central England, with work […]
False Papers
Sept 19, 2011 (LBO) – A Sri Lankan student seeking to study in the United Kingdom was arrested for fraud because she submitted a false education certificate with her visa application, the British high commission said. “They have also have been banned from travelling to the UK for ten years.” “The UK Border Agency referred […]
” for Bangladesh
DHAKA, September 18, 2011 (AFP) – As Abdus Salam Murshedey strolls through his vast garment factory in Dhaka, hundreds of seamstresses stitch shirts for export shipments he says will be boosted by a relaxing of Indian import rules. Murshedey has built his company, Envoy Group, into a multi-million dollar firm with 18,000 employees on the […]
Sri Lanka warned against giving elephant to Philippines
September 16, 2011 (AFP) – An international animal rights group warned Sri Lanka Friday against giving the Philippines a baby elephant, saying the creature would face a “lifetime of confinement, boredom and abuse”. The Asian unit of US-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wrote to Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne […]
India hikes interest rates by 25 basis points
MUMBAI, September 16, 2011 (AFP) – India’s central bank on Friday raised interest rates for the 12th time in 18 months to combat near double-digit inflation, despite signs of slowing economic growth. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised its repo rate, at which it lends to commercial banks, by a quarter percentage point to […]
Indian rupee slides to near two-year low
MUMBAI, September 14, 2011 (AFP) – India’s rupee slid to a near two-year low against the US dollar on Wednesday on worries about the deepening European debt crisis and as global markets tumble. The partially convertible Indian unit weakened to 48.02 rupees to the dollar on growing demand for the US currency from banks and […]
Delhi tells bureaucrats to work fast or pay up
NEW DELHI, September 15, 2011 (AFP) – Bureaucrats in the Indian capital New Delhi will have to pay money out of their own pockets from Thursday if applications for driving licences, birth certificates and other paperwork are delayed. City authorities have set up a website to allow people to check the status of their applications, […]