Category: Other

FRANKFURT, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – The dollar’s plunge has made the eurozone the world’s biggest economy by one measure and has underscored shifts that are reorienting the 15-nation bloc towards Asia, Russia and oil-rich Gulf states, analysts say. “With the euro now trading around 1.56 against the dollar, the size of its annual output […]

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – The financial hurricane tearing through Wall Street has sparked vast losses at major banks, but it has also exposed a formerly secretive corner of America’s financial markets. Millions of Americans track the Dow Jones Industrial Average and their stock portfolios on a daily basis, but the trillion-dollar trade in […]

DHARAMSHALA, India, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – Eighty people have been “confirmed” killed in unrest in Tibet, the India-based Tibetan government-in-exile said Sunday.“Regarding bodies, it’s 80. We have 80 unidentified bodies,” said Thubten Samphel, the spokesman for the Tibetan administration in Dharamshala. He said the toll had been established from “calls made from Tibet” by […]

BAGHDAD, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – The explosive vest has become the weapon of choice for Al-Qaeda in Iraq, with most jihadists nowadays wearing the lethal garment and the number of suicide attacks on the rise, the US military said Sunday. “There has been an increase over time in the use of suicide vest bombers,” […]

NEW YORK, March 14, 2008 (AFP) – The troubled US investment bank Bear Stearns said Friday it was receiving an emergency loan organized by a rival bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Bear Stearns share price plummeted after its president and chief executive, Alan Schwartz, said the bank’s liquidity position had “significantly […]

MOSCOW, March 14, 2008 (AFP) – Russia is ready to hand India military aircraft engineering secrets in a bid to win a 12-billion dollar (7.65-billion euro) aviation contract tender, Interfax agency reported Friday.Other world military aviation giants competing for the contract include Americans Boeing and Lockheed Martin, French group Dassault, the European consortium behind the […]

NEW YORK, March 13, 2008 (AFP) – Oil prices hit a record 111.00 dollars per barrel Thursday amid an accelerating price rally which traders say has been fueled by a sharp fall in the value of the US dollar and supply concerns.. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said speculators were largely responsible for the […]

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2008 (AFP) – The Indian head of an international electronics firm pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge of shipping restricted weapons technology to the Indian government, the US Justice Department said. Parthasarathy Sudarshan, president of Cirrus Electronics with offices in the United States, Singapore and India, admitted to the felony charge of […]

HARARE, 2008 (AFP) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Saturday called on beneficiaries of his government’s land reforms to work harder on farms to avert food shortages, at a ceremony ahead of this month’s elections.He said government investment in farm equipment “should see us greatly reduce the incidence of food shortages in future”. “What now […]

HONG KONG, March 14, 2008 (AFP) – Global commodities markets were bubbling on Friday after gold briefly peaked over 1,000 dollars an ounce, oil hit new highs and the dollar tumbled to a record low against the euro.In Asian markets Friday Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index opened up 1.05 percent after a 4.8 percent fall […]

SYDNEY, March 14, 2008 (AFP) – Australia’s central bank governor has predicted inflation is poised to rise to four percent, fuelling expectations interest rates will be hiked again. Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens, who has lifted rates twice this year in a bid to curb prices, said the latest inflation figures due next month were […]