Category: World

DHAKA, July 15, 2007 (AFP) – The small Buddhist community in Bangladesh plans to donate a few strands of a lock of hair said to have come from the Buddha to Sri Lanka as a goodwill gesture, officials said Sunday. Three cabinet ministers from majority-Buddhist Sri Lanka along with religious leaders are scheduled to arrive […]

HARARE, July 13, 2007 (AFP) – Authorities in Zimbabwe announced the arrest of hundreds more retailers and executives as part of an ongoing price crackdown Friday as it emerged the head of the central bank had warned against the blitz. Mugabe has warned that his government will seize and nationalise companies that refuse to toe […]

NEW YORK, July 13, 2007 (AFP) – News magnate Rupert Murdoch will expand his media empire with a business news channel to challenge industry leader CNBC, as he presses on with a bid to add The Wall Street Journal to his portfolio. The global media mogul has set October 15 as the launch date of […]

BEIJING, July 12, 2007 (AFP) – A decades-long search by the world’s tallest man for a bride finally came to an end on Thursday when the Chinese herdsman married a woman who barely stands up to his elbow.Bao Xishun, who stands 2.36 metres (seven feet nine inches), wed sales clerk Xia Shujun in a traditional […]

NEW YORK, July 11, 2007 (AFP) – The euro surged to a record high against the dollar Wednesday on growing concerns about risky loans in the US property market and a European Central Bank hint of an interest rate hike.In late New York trade, the dollar stood at 1.2062 Swiss francs, up from 1.2019 Tuesday. […]

TOKYO, July 12, 2007 (AFP) – McDonald’s said Thursday it will launch a chain of coffeeshops in Japan, hoping to tap into the country’s growing love of coffee but at lower prices than rivals.The Japanese unit of the global burger empire said it will open 15 “McCafes” in the Tokyo region next month and hoped […]

SANTIAGO, July 10, 2007 (AFP) – Copper prices soared Tuesday as labor strikes pressured some of the largest copper mines in Chile, which supplies one-third of the world’s supply of the metal.“There is a direct impact on the mine’s production.Because of the violence by a group of subcontractors, it was decided to suspend ore extraction, […]

LONDON, July 9, 2007 (AFP) – The British finance ministry wants to shut down the government arms sales department, the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), The Guardian reported on Monday.Citing unnamed political sources, the daily said that former Treasury minister Stephen Timms had ordered a review of DESO because of criticisms that it helped subsidise […]

LONDON, July 9, 2007 (AFP) – World oil prices fell on Monday after rebels in key energy producer Nigeria freed a three-year old British girl. The kidnapping last week of Margaret Hill, along with US supply concerns, had pushed oil prices to near 11-month highs on Friday, above 76 dollars a barrel in London. In […]

NEW DELHI, July 8, 2007 (AFP) – Kishore Biyani, known as India’s “King of Retail”, is spending the weekend his favourite way: trawling the aisles of one of his Big Bazaar supermarkets, eyeing what customers are loading up on.“Modern (chain store) retail makes up about eight percent of total retail in India and is expected […]

LISBON, July 8, 2007 (AFP) – Seven “new” wonders of the world including the Great Wall of China and the Coliseum in Rome, selected by nearly 100 million voters and upsetting cultural experts, were announced late Saturday at a celebrity-studded televised ceremony in the Portuguese capital. The others are the Taj Mahal in India, the […]

SEATTLE, Washington, July 6, 2007 (AFP) – The revolutionary materials used to build Boeing’s ground-breaking Dreamliner 787 passenger jet look set to transform the civil aviation industry forever, officials said Friday. Speaking to journalists ahead of the 787’s formal roll-out on Sunday, Boeing officials declared that the composite plastics that make up around 50 percent […]