Category: World

TOKYO, Aug 22, 2007 (AFP) – Young Japanese are rapidly losing interest in cars and drinking and choosing instead to save their money, a survey said Wednesday. Japan is in the midst of its longest expansion in the post-World War II era, but private consumption has been stagnant. Young people in the world’s second-largest economy, […]

TOKYO, Aug 21, 2007 (AFP) – Japan’s Nissan Motor Co.announced Tuesday plans to install a fuel efficiency gauge in all future new models in its latest effort to tap growing interest in energy-saving motoring. Nissan said that based on its own tests it estimates the gauge could cut fuel consumption by an average 10 percent […]

TOKYO, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) – Japanese stocks rallied 3.69 percent in morning deals on Monday, lifted by a rebound on overseas markets after the US central bank on Friday cut a key interest rate to ease a credit squeeze, dealers said.The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s benchmark Nikkei-225 index of leading shares rose 562.89 points to […]

WELLINGTON, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) – The New Zealand government Monday launched an investigation into allegations that clothes imported from China contained dangerous levels of the chemical formaldehyde.Scientists working for the Target television consumer watchdog programme found levels of formaldehyde in woollen and cotton clothes of up to 900 times the level believed to cause […]

LONDON, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – The world’s banks have found themselves in the eye of the financial storm lashing world markets as analysts struggle to pinpoint their exposure to the slumping US housing sector. Markets in Europe and the United States staged a rebound on Friday, after a week of turmoil, as the US […]

CLEVELAND, Ohio, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – The US dream of home ownership is going up in smoke in Cleveland, now littered with broken promises and lost hopes as it tops the nation’s tragic roll call of foreclosures.In the first seven months of this year, there were 13,600 foreclosures in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County alone, […]

MALE, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – Voters in the Maldives were waiting for results Sunday from a referendum on how they want to be governed in future, after the tiny Pacific nation got an unusual taste of democracy.Protestors led by the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) have taken to the streets in recent years […]

MALE, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom on Sunday claimed victory in a referendum on how the Indian Ocean atoll nation should be governed, saying it was a mandate for his reform proposals. The Maldives consists of 1,192 tiny coral islands scattered 850 kilometres (550 miles) across the Equator. Only 200 […]

GENEVA, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – Swiss central bank chief Jean-Pierre Roth sharply criticised the US economic system in an interview published Sunday, after the home loans crisis that caused turmoil on world financial markets.“Something unbelievable happened,” Roth said in an interview in the Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag. The chairman of the Swiss National […]

NEW YORK, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) – Credit fears have played havoc with Wall Street stock portfolios and US investors could suffer more bruises from fresh upheavals sweeping world markets in the week ahead, despite an emergency rate cut. Confidence was in short supply on Wall Street this past week as investors sold off stocks […]

WASHINGTON, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) – The US Federal Reserve said Friday it had cut its discount window rate by 50 basis points to 5.75 percent citing “increased uncertainty” in the financial markets.The Fed moved to lower the overnight interest rate it charges members banks for loans in a bid to help soothe the US […]

WASHINGTON, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) – The United States on Thursday signalled opposition to any immediate expansion of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, ahead of upcoming summit talks on the sensitive issue. “Our view right now is that we would like to focus on deepening reform within APEC before we look at expanding […]