Category: Other
Morgan Stanley struggling with Mitsubishi UFJ capital injection: report
NEW YORK, October 13, 2008 (AFP) – US banking giant Morgan Stanley on Sunday was trying to salvage a nine-billion-dollar deal to sell 21 percent of its capital to Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, The New York Times said Sunday. Negotiations between the two banks amid the current global market turmoil were seen as crucial […]
Global financial crisis will hit army of overseas Filipino workers
MANILA, October 13, 2008 (AFP) – There are few countries in the world where you will not find a Filipino worker.Even in tiny Iceland, one of the countries hardest hit by the financial crisis, there were 1,411 at last count. At any given time, about 10 percent of the Philippines’ 90 million population is hard […]
South Korea eases rules on investment in banks amid crisis
SEOUL, October 13, 2008 (AFP) – South Korea’s government said Monday it will allow conglomerates and other non-banking firms to buy a bigger stake in local banks to ease privatisation and guard against the global financial crisis. Under a law to be submitted to parliament next month, the conglomerates — known as chaebol — and […]
IMF ready to lend to countries during financial crisis; endorses G7 plan
WASHINGTON, October 11, 2008 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund said Saturday it was ready to lend to countries in need of capital, as the 15 eurozone economies and Britain redied a Paris summit to seek a joint response to the global financial crisis. “Using its emergency procedures, the Fund stands ready to quickly make […]
Golden Age for TV beckons
CANNES, October 12, 2008 (AFP) – A golden age for television beckons as established TV companies go head on with the Internet and other new digital media platforms to woo audiences worldwide.And with a fast growing variety of new forms of audiovisual entertainment being rolled out for audiences of all ages, viewers are firmly in […]
European finance crisis summit opens in Paris
PARIS, October 12, 2008 (AFP) – European leaders opened a summit in Paris on Sunday to try to agree on decisive measures to confront the global financial crisis. President Nicolas Sarkozy predicted that “an ambitious, coordinated” plan would emerge from the meeting held nearly a month after the collapse of US investment giant Lehman Brothers […]
Supreme Order
Oct 11, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has called for new laws to cut political interference in investment projects and the handing out of concessions, following the reversal of an illegal sale of state lands in which a former president was involved. The investment value which was first listed as 250,000 US dollars […]
Gross Betrayal
Oct 11, 2008 9LBO) – Sri Lanka’s former president Chandrika Kumaratunga had grossly violated public trust in a deal where state lands and a tax holiday were given to a firm in which an associate was covertly holding shares, the island’s Supreme Court has said. The judgement delivered by Supreme Court justice Shirani Tillakawardene said […]
Legal Signal
Oct 11, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka top grouping of legal professionals had unanimously condemned an attack on anti-corruption activist and lawyer J C Weliamuna, sending a powerful message against the culture of impunity in the country, lawyers said. Weliamuna had appeared in human rights cases relating to police brutality. He also appeared in a […]
US plans to inject capital into banks: Paulson
WASHINGTON, October 11, 2008 (AFP) – Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday that the US government planned to invest directly in US banks to prevent them from failing, expanding the focus of the government’s 700-billion-dollar rescue plan. “We’re going to do it as soon as we can do it and do it effectively,” Paulson said […]
IMF, World Bank meet amid financial mayhem
WASHINGTON, October 11, 2008 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank opened their annual meetings Saturday in the midst of global financial chaos that has governments racing to find the means to tame it. The meetings follow Wall Street’s worst week on record and a pledge by the Group of Seven major […]
Singapore economy in recession
SINGAPORE, October 10, 2008 (AFP) – Singapore’s trade-sensitive economy has declined for a second straight quarter, the government said Friday, meaning the city-state has entered a recession for the first time in six years.On a seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter annualised basis, real GDP declined by 6.3 percent in the third quarter after contracting 5.7 percent in […]