Category: Other

HONG KONG, April 8, 2008 (AFP) – The world’s financial markets remain “exceptionally volatile” due to the subprime credit crisis, the chief executive of France’s largest bank said in Hong Kong on Tuesday.“Since I last presented to the market at the end of February, the environment remains very challenging and the market exceptionally volatile,” Baudouin […]

DOHA, April 6, 2008 (AFP) – Gulf central bank chiefs decided on Sunday to stick to their target date of 2010 for a single currency and did not discuss revaluing their dollar-pegged currencies against the tumbling greenback, officials said. “We are committed to the decision taken by the (Gulf Cooperation Council) summit that 2010 is […]

GENEVA, April 6, 2008 (AFP) – Swiss ministers and financiers are striving to reassure markets and citizens there is no banking crisis even as the once-mighty UBS totters after losing billions of dollars in subprime exposure. UBS, the country’s biggest bank and once a byword for safe, reliable investments, now has the dubious distinction of […]

TOKYO, April 5, 2008 (AFP) – Combined net profit at Japan’s six major banks is estimated to have dropped more than 40 percent for the year to March 2008, weighed down by losses related to US subprime mortgages, a daily said Saturday. The six banks are Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., […]

BANGKOK, April 5, 2008 (AFP) – There have been numerous disagreements during a week of intense climate change talks in Bangkok but there is one point all sides agree on — a long, tough road lies ahead. The five-day negotiations stretched past midnight on Friday before reaching a deal aimed solely at setting up more […]

NAIROBI, April 4, 2008 (AFP) – Kenyan papers and political watchdogs Friday criticised the size of a coalition cabinet announced a day earlier, saying 40 ministers were a colossal waste of money in a country with widespread misery.They also slammed President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, head of the Orange Democratic Movement, for creating the […]

TOKYO, April 4, 2008 (AFP) – New Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain said he saw no need for the US investment bank to raise fresh capital, in an interview with Japan’s Nikkei business newspaper published on Friday. He also said there were no plans to sell Merrill, which previously got an infusion of 12.8 […]

WASHINGTON, April 3, 2008 (AFP) – International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Thursday he sees a “major” slowdown in the global economy this year amid a credit market crisis. “What is certain is that the situation is very serious and that the slowdown in the United States, and subsequently in the rest of […]

PARIS, April 4, 2008 (AFP) – British charity Oxfam released Friday figures on aid spending showing that rich countries had broken promises made to substantially increase assistance to developing countries.The figures showed that in many of the Group of Eight (G8) richest nations, aid spending as a percentage of gross national income (GNI) had dropped […]

WASHINGTON, April 3, 2008 (AFP) – The US Congress Thursday steps up scrutiny of the government role in the rescue of Bear Stearns, even as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke argued the central bank “did not bail out” the Wall Street investment giant. A Senate hearing will seek details of the deal engineered by the Federal […]

HARARE, April 3, 2008 (AFP) – Zimbabweans waited anxiously on Thursday for an end to a deafening official silence over the outcome of their presidential election, after the opposition took control of parliament.The economy of Zimbabwe has been in meltdown since the start of the decade, with inflation now standing at over 100,000 percent and […]