Category: World

OXFORD, England, July 25, 2007 (AFP) – It is not only humans who have been hit by Britain’s worst floods in 60 years — cats, dogs and donkeys are also suffering, prompting a rescue mission on an unprecedented scale. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) has sent a third of […]

SOFIA, July 24, 2007 (AFP) – Six foreign medics sentenced to death then life imprisonment in Libya in a controversial AIDS case were free in the Bulgarian capital Tuesday after the EU struck a multi-million-dollar financial and trade deal with Tripoli.The five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor who also has Bulgarian citizenship were released […]

HARARE, July 25, 2007 (AFP) – Zimbabwe’s central bank on Wednesday increased the price of gold by 757 percent in a bid to curb rampant smuggling of the precious metal and cover soaring production costs, an official said. Zimbabwe’s gold production is this year expected to drop to about 8,700 kilogrammes from 11,354 kilogrammes last […]

TOKYO, July 24, 2007 (AFP) – Japan’s defence ministry hopes to make a prototype of a next-generation stealth plane, the first new fighter jet designed by the officially pacifist country in 30 years, a report said Tuesday.The design would not include installing weapons and it is unclear if Japan would actually produce the prototype due […]

MUNDHA KHERA, India, July 24, 2007 (AFP) – It’s a hot, humid Sunday morning in northern India, but the oppressive heat does not deter a group of about 15 farmers from trudging door-to-door, offering advice and sometimes warnings. “Do not sell your precious land. Even if you are offered millions of dollars, do not sell. […]

CARACAS, July 22, 2007 (AFP) – Venezuela’s fiery socialist President Hugo Chavez on Sunday vowed to kick out foreigners who brand him a “tyrant,” after a Mexican politician spoke at a forum here on sensitive democracy issues.“No foreigner can come here to attack us.Anyone who does must be removed from this country,” Chavez said on […]

DHAKA, July 22, 2007 (AFP) – A former Bangladeshi lawmaker was Sunday sentenced to two decades in jail by an anti-corruption court for illegally amassing more than a million dollars in cash and property, a government lawyer said.The court also ordered Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan’s property confiscated, public prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain Kazal said. “The judge in […]

DUBAI, July 21, 2007 (AFP) – Burj Dubai, a tower rising in the booming Gulf emirate, on Saturday became the tallest building in the world at 512.1 metres (1,680 feet), developers said.Burj Dubai, or Dubai Tower, now surpasses Taiwan’s Taipei 101 which is 508 metres (1,667 feet) tall, and has 141 storeys, more than any […]

CHICAGO, July 19, 2007 (AFP) – Asia is overtaking the United States as the largest market for auto sales, but the US will remain the more lucrative market for the next decade, a senior executive at General Motors said Thursday. Overall industry sales in the Asia Pacific region are expected to surpass North America for […]

WASHINGTON, July 19, 2007 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund is revising its economic growth forecasts amid a “global boom,” the IMF chief economist said Thursday, suggesting a bump up in official estimates. “We were criticized for being optimistic at the time of our spring forecast,” Simon Johnson told reporters, referring to an IMF April […]

BANGKOK, July 20, 2007 (AFP) – The Thai prime minister on Friday agreed on new measures aimed at curbing the baht’s rise, while the central bank governor insisted the country would not return to a fixed exchange rate system.“My government has a clear stance that we want to stablise the currency,” army-installed Prime Minister Surayud […]

NEW DELHI, July 19, 2007 (AFP) – India’s unwanted baby girls have been drowned in milk, burned alive in sealed mud pots or fed milk laced with poisonous seeds, but these days it is much easier to kill them in the womb.These are some of the chilling anecdotes in a new book on how a […]