Category: World

CHICAGO, Jan 31, 2008 (AFP) – Climate change will cause severe crop losses in Africa and Asia within the next 20 years unless farming practices are changed, a study released Thursday has found. Those crop losses could lead to food shortages and a loss of livelihood among the world’s poorest people, the authors warned. And […]

BANGKOK, Feb 1, 2008 (AFP) – A Thai man accused of trafficking tiger and leopard carcasses as well as hundreds of live pangolins has turned himself over to authorities, police said Friday.The Thai navy raided the trafficking operation on the Laos border late Tuesday and retrieved the carcasses of six tigers and five leopards, plus […]

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 31, 2008 (AFP) – Dethroned Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel left the struggling Internet firm’s board of directors on Thursday.Semel’s departure comes just two days after Yahoo revealed plans to lay off 1,000 employees as part of an effort to revitalize a company that analysts say strayed from its profitable strengths while […]

WASHINGTON, Jan 30, 2008 (AFP) – The US Federal Reserve has stepped up its campaign to head off recession with another half-point rate cut as part of an aggressive move to avert a downward economic spiral, analysts say.The cut Wednesday in the federal funds rate to 3.0 percent came just eight days after an emergency […]

LONDON, Jan 31, 2008 (AFP) – Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell said on Thursday that net profits leapt 23 percent last year to a record 31.331 billion dollars (21.115 billion euros), energised by soaring crude prices.Net profit on a current cost of supply basis, excluding fluctuations in the value of inventories, rose by 9.0 […]

SINGAPORE, Jan 30, 2008 (AFP) – The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), fresh from multi-billion-dollar capital injections into troubled global financial institutions, has the capacity for an additional bailout, a report said Wednesday. “We will look at any deal that is shown to us.We have a duty to do so. We would still have […]

JAKARTA, Jan 30, 2008 (AFP) – A strong 6.6-magnitude earthquake rocked the eastern Indonesian province of Maluku on Wednesday, prompting the issuing of a tsunami alert, the meteorology and geophysics office said here.The earthquake, which struck at 4:32 pm (0732 GMT) was centered 300 kilometres (185 miles) northeast of the East Timorese capital Dili, some […]

WASHINGTON, Jan 29, 2008 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday lowered its 2008 global growth outlook, citing a US slowdown and financial market turmoil that have put emerging economies at risk. The global economy is poised to grow 4.1 percent this year, down 0.3 percentage points from a previous estimate, the IMF report […]

SYDNEY, Jan 30, 2008 (AFP) – Floods in Australia, freezing weather in China and transport bottlenecks in Indonesia have helped stoke a sharp rise in the price of coal, putting pressure on Asian consumer industries. Soaring demand from China and India as their economies steam ahead has also combined to push the cost of the […]

PARIS, Jan 28, 2008 (AFP) – French judges placed rogue trader Jerome Kerviel under formal investigation on Monday but stopped short of charging him with fraud and decided he could walk free from police custody.Shares in Societe Generale, where Kerviel is alleged to have lost more than seven billion dollars, took a battering as allegations […]

TOKYO, Jan 29, 2008 (AFP) – The dollar slipped against the yen in Asian trade on Tuesday as traders bet on another US interest rate cut this week to try to ward off a US recession, dealers said.The dollar slipped to 106.71 yen in Tokyo midday trade from 106.87 in New York late Monday. But […]

OSLO, Jan 29, 2008 (AFP) – Perhaps the most unlikely victims of the US subprime crisis are eight small Norwegian towns currently licking their wounds after seeing tens of millions of dollars in risky investments go up in smoke.A soaring number of defaults on US subprime mortgages, or loans made to people with poor credit […]