Category: Other

SAO PAULO, March 10, 2008 (AFP) – More than five million vehicles and almost nine in ten new vehicles in Brazil now run on both gasoline and ethanol derived from sugar cane, the car manufacturing association Anfavea said Monday. Anfavea president Jackson Schneider told reporters in Sao Paulo that Brazil — a pioneer in biofuels […]

SINGAPORE, March 11, 2008 (AFP) – A Singapore teenager and her family have been charged with physically assaulting an Indonesian maid, including pulling out her teeth and pouring hot wax on her, the Straits Times reported Tuesday.More than 140,000 domestic workers mainly from Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, work in Singapore.Cases of employers abusing […]

LONDON, March 11, 2008 (AFP) – Oil prices struck a record high of 109.20 dollars per barrel on Tuesday after the dollar hit a fresh all-time low against the euro, traders said. The euro reached a record high of 1.5495 in European tradin. A weaker US currency increases demand for dollar-denominated oil as it becomes […]

PANAJI, India, March 10, 2008 (AFP) – Police in the Indian resort state of Goa Sunday arrested one of three men held in connection with the murder of a British teenager whose partially naked body was found on a beach last month.The man has been identified as 29-year-old Samsung D’Souza, an Indian working at a […]

DHAKA, March 10, 2008 (AFP) – Bangladesh has scrapped a deal to sell its fourth-largest bank to a Saudi prince for 458 million dollars after he failed to make any payment, the country’s finance minister said.Prince Bandar Bin Mohammad Bin Abdul Rahman won the bid to take a 93 percent stake in Rupali Bank in […]

DUBAI, March 9, 2008 (AFP) – The market for Islamic finance and banking is growing rapidly in the oil-rich Gulf thanks to burgeoning wealth and attractive financial instruments.Studies have put the total value of Islamic equity funds in the Gulf region at around 30 billion dollars (19.5 billion euros), said Khaled al-Masri, partner in asset […]

ANKARA, March 8, 2008 (AFP) – Turkey has changed its method of calculating its gross domestic product, switching to the system used in the Europen Union which it is hoping to join, the country’s statistics office said Saturday. The change to the European System of Accounts (ESA95) has resulted in a steep “rise” in Turkey’s […]

PENANG, Malaysia, March 9, 2008 (AFP) – Weekend elections that have reshaped Malaysia’s political landscape will reverberate in the stock market and could dampen investor confidence, economists said Sunday. Massive defections by the small but economically dominant Chinese community and once loyalist minority Indians have highlighted resentment towards the Malay-led government’s economic policies, they said. […]

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2008 (AFP) – The US Federal Reserve on Friday announced moves to pump 200 billion dollars into the financial system to try to contain contagion from a housing-related credit crunch that is pummeling the economy. “And there is a real possibility, given the escalating turmoil in credit markets, that the cut will […]

FORT WORTH, Texas, March 7, 2008 (AFP) – Former Olympic champion Marion Jones, sentenced in January to six months prison for lying about using steroids, Friday reported to a Texas jail, US Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said. All Jones’ results since September 1, 2000, have been stricken from the records and Jones has […]

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2008 (AFP) – As more signs point to a US economy that is sinking fast, the Federal Reserve is struggling to find ways to reignite growth even as confidence wanes among consumers, businesses and banks, analysts say.“Perhaps the ultimate resolution to the problem might have to come from some governmental action not […]

NEW DELHI, March 8, 2008 (AFP) – British brutality during colonial rule in India cannot be forgotten but the nation is too polite to ask for an apology, India’s vice president Hamid Ansari said, according to a report on Saturday.“The amount of brutality by the British cannot be forgotten,” Ansari was quoted as saying by […]