Category: World

NEW YORK, Dec 7, 2007 (AFP) – Wall Street enters the home stretch of 2007 in an upbeat mood as investors brace for a meeting of the Federal Reserve which is widely expected to yield a third straight cut in US interest rates. Bond prices weakened in the past week as investors moved into stocks. […]

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 7, 2007 (AFP) – JetBlue will begin offering passengers free e-mail access on one of its airplanes next week as Internet connections that have become ubiquitous on the ground begin taking to the skies.Industry analysts expect 2008 to be the year in-flight Internet begins to take-off. An Airbus-320 passenger jet called “BetaBlue” […]

WASHINGTON, Dec 8, 2007 (AFP) – The White House faced another clash with Congress Saturday after furious Democratic lawmakers demanded a probe into the CIA’s destruction of tapes showing harsh interrogations of captured Al-Qaeda operatives.The Central Intelligence Agency’s admission that it destroyed tapes of at least two interrogations in 2005, at a time when Congress […]

TOKYO, Dec 7, 2007 (AFP) – Japan’s economy grew at an annualised pace of 1.5 percent in the third quarter of 2007, much less than an initial estimate of a 2.6 percent expansion, the government said Friday. But the world’s second-largest economy saw a recovery after shrinking in the second quarter, buoyed by brisk exports […]

WASHINGTON, Dec 6, 2007 (AFP) – A vast mortgage relief package brokered by the Bush administration is likely to ease the pain of the US housing slump but with an uncertain cost for markets and the financial system, analysts say.“That’s a loss for mortgage holders but it’s a smaller loss than would come from foreclosure,” […]

CARACAS, Dec 5, 2007 (AFP) – President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday his push to have Venezuela accept sweeping constitutional reforms has “not finished” despite being rejected in a weekend referendum. “The discussion on the transformation of the state is not finished,” he told state VTV television. “While the opposition continues to celebrate a Pyrrhic victory, […]

SINGAPORE, Dec 6, 2007 (AFP) – Oil prices fell in Asia trade Thursday after OPEC rebuffed pressure and left output unchanged, dealers said. The market’s muted reaction to a sharper-than-expected drawdown in US crude stocks also reflected growing concerns that high prices may eventually take their toll on consumers, they said. In early morning trade, […]

BERLIN, Dec 6, 2007 (AFP) – One in every four people has been asked to pay a bribe to the police, and political parties and parliaments are the most tainted by corruption, a Transparency International study released on Thursday shows. The poor are targeted for bribes in both developed and developing countries, according to the […]

PARIS, Dec 6, 2007 (AFP) – A strong euro and tougher credit conditions will weigh on the eurozone economy next year, the OECD predicted on Thursday, cutting its 2008 growth forecast to 1.9 percent from 2.3 percent previously. It also warned that a stronger-than-expected slowdown in the United States, Europe’s biggest trade partner, would also […]

SYDNEY, Dec 5, 2007 (AFP) – Australia’s central bank left interest rates on hold at an 11-year high of 6.75 percent Wednesday, while warning that it remained concerned about inflationary pressures. The decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia had been widely anticipated by economists, who believed the bank was likely to take the view […]

LOS ANGELES, Dec 4, 2007 (AFP) – Teenage actors and singers such as 15-year-old “Hannah Montana” starlet Miley Cyrus are among the most highly paid young stars on the planet with annual income worth millions of dollars, Forbes magazine revealed Tuesday. Cyrus, daughter of the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, recently shot to stardom in […]

WASHINGTON, Dec 3, 2007 (AFP) – Rich nations should hire women from developing economies in a bid to break a WTO deadlock on cross-border movement of professional service providers, a World Bank study says.Industrialized nations are reluctant to accept migrants from developing economies such as nurses and IT workers as part of proposals under the […]