Category: South Asia

THE HAGUE, January 23, 2009 (AFP) – Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo hopes to alert the world to the plight of child soldiers when he finally faces Congolese militiaman Thomas Lubanga next week at the International Criminal Court’s first-ever trial.“This case is about how serious it is to enlist hundreds of children and transform them into killers,” […]

KUALA LUMPUR, January 22, 2009 (AFP) – Malaysia is on alert for Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, saying he may have fled here after troops surrounded his last remaining stronghold, according to reports Thursday.Police chief Musa Hassan told the New Straits Times daily he had ordered a nationwide alert following reports that Prabhakaran, […]

Jan 19, 2009 (LBO) – Cairn India, which has won a license to explore for oil off Sri Lanka’s west coast, said it got Indian government approval to go ahead with the development of an oil field in north-west India. The company said it holds material exploration and production positions in west India and east […]

NEW DELHI, January 15, 2009 (AFP) – India’s inflation fell for a tenth straight week, according to official data Thursday, creating more room to boost the nation’s slowing economy, economists said.Annual inflation stood at 5.24 percent for the week to January 3, down from 5.91 percent a week earlier, according to the Wholesale Price Index, […]

MUMBAI, January 11, 2009 (AFP) – A billion-dollar accounting scandal at one of India’s top outsourcing firms has left the government and financial regulators scrabbling to control the damage.Besides huge losses for investors, the scandal has seriously dented India Inc.‘s reputation for strong corporate governance, often viewed as being a notch above its other Asian […]

Jan 04, 2009 (LBO) – The new government in the Maldives, in move to privatize the economy, is looking at selling state-owned businesses and becoming more investor friendly, the Maldivian leader said on a visit to Colombo. We come here to open the country for business. We are looking at an ambitious decentralization program. We […]

DHAKA, December 30, 2008 (AFP) – Former Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed has won a landslide victory in general elections, with her party picking up more than 75 percent of seats, an Election Commission official said Tuesday.Commission spokesman S.M. Asaduzzaman told AFP that votes in 295 of the 299 seats had been counted, and Sheikh […]

ISLAMABAD, December 27, 2008 (AFP) – Pakistan has redeployed thousands of troops to the border with India, officials said Friday, in a dramatic escalation of tensions with New Delhi in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.Washington urged the two sides to avoid escalating tensions and said it was touch with both countries. Indian Prime Minister […]

NEW DELHI, December 14, 2008 (AFP) – India on Sunday denied any of its aircraft had intruded into Pakistani air space, as tensions ran high between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours over the Mumbai attacks.Pakistan’s air force said Indian jets flew over the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir and the eastern city of Lahore, both places […]

NEW DELHI, December 12, 2008 (AFP) – India’s industrial growth unexpectedly shrank for the first time in 15 years, data showed Friday, hit by the widening global recession that has weakened demand in Asia’s third-largest economy. Industrial production contracted by 0.4 percent in October after expanding by 12.2 percent in the same month a year […]

NEW DELHI, December 7, 2008 (AFP) – The Indian government on Sunday announced an extra four billion dollars in spending to shield the economy from the impact of the global financial crisis.The government said it would also ensure a substantial increase in expenditure for next year’s budget.“The government has decided to seek authorisation for additional […]