Category: World

KUWAIT CITY, May 20, 2007 (AFP) – Kuwait on Sunday pegged its dinar to a basket of international currencies after more than four years of linking the local currency to the dollar, in a bid to reduce inflationary pressures.The oil-rich emirate had historically pegged the dinar to a basket of currencies before pegging it to […]

BEIJING, May 21, 2007 (AFP) – A new Chinese investment company charged with handling the nation’s bulging reserves has agreed to invest three billion dollars in US private equity company Blackstone, the American company said.Analysts have suggested that the new agency would start slowly while it refines its daily operations and so as not to […]

TEHRAN, May 21, 2007 (AFP) – Oil-rich Iran is to delay a plan, scheduled to be implemented on Wednesday, to ration petrol and raise pump prices that is expected to have a profound impact on its economy, officials said.Iran has been unable to distribute sufficient rationing cards in time to consumers to execute the plan, […]

SHUNEH, Jordan, May 19, 2007 (AFP) – G11 developing countries agreed at a summit Saturday on a framework to push for cooperation with G8 industrialised nations to ease their debts and build prosperous economies.“Our two organisations have a vital shared goal, to strengthen prosperity and peace in the 21st century,” Jordan’s King Abdullah II told […]

SHUNEH, Jordan, May 18, 2007 (AFP) – Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Friday opened a three-day Middle East World Economic Forum, urging political and business leaders to help end violence and prepare for the “day after peace.” Representatives of the G11 group of developing countries are also due to meet on the sidelines of the […]

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2007 (AFP) – World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz bowed to weeks of pressure Thursday and agreed to step down June 30 to end a favoritism scandal that had rocked the poverty-fighting institution. Wolfowitz, 63, said he was resigning in the “best interests” of the bank, thus ending a scandal over a generous […]

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2007 (AFP) – World Bank directors were to continue talks Thursday on the fate of Paul Wolfowitz, amid reports the embattled president is negotiating an exit deal in which the bank would take some blame for the controversial pay raise he negotiated for his girlfriend. Pressure to end the controversy increased as […]

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2007 (AFP) – World Bank executive directors said late Tuesday they would continue deliberations about the fate of the embattled bank president, Paul Wolfowitz. In a terse, two-sentence statement, the board said it had met Tuesday to discuss a report by an investigatory bank panel that concluded Wolfowitz had broken rules in […]

WASHINGTON, May 14, 2007 (AFP) – The World Bank executive board will decide on Tuesday whether bank president Paul Wolfowitz can continue to lead the institution, the bank said in a statement on Monday. A special bank committee “recommends the Executive Directors to consider whether Mr.Wolfowitz will be able to provide the leadership needed to […]

SYDNEY, May 13, 2007 (AFP) – Through wars, disasters and coups, foreign correspondent Kate Webb chronicled the turbulent birth of modern Asia, becoming a media legend who had the eerie experience of reading her own obituary. Webb, who died of cancer on Sunday at 64, covered many of Asia’s seminal events of the last four […]

GENEVA, May 13, 2007 (AFP) – Further increases in Swiss interest rates are still on the cards, one of Switzerland’s central bankers said Sunday, while also praising the management of the euro currency.The eurozone is Switzerland’s biggest foreign trade market. Thomas Jordan, who joined the board of the Swiss National Bank on May 1, told […]

BEIJING, May 14, 2007 (AFP) – China’s consumer price inflation eased in April, rising 3.0 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday. The index, a key indicator of consumer inflation in the world’s fourth-largest econnomy, was down from a year-on-year rise of 3.3 percent in March. Compared with March, consumer […]