Category: World

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 […]

WASHINGTON, May 9, 2007 (AFP) – The board of the World Bank has given an additional week to embattled bank president Paul Wolfowitz to defend himself in a nepotism scandal, the bank said in a statement Wednesday.“The Executive Directors met today to consider a request from the President for additional time to comment on the […]

KYOTO, Japan, May 5, 2007 (AFP) – The Asian Development Bank came under pressure Saturday not to abandon the region’s poorest as it considers a major overhaul in response to warnings that it risks becoming irrelevant. With Asia’s rapid economic growth expected to wipe out widespread absolute poverty in much of the region by 2020, […]

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, April 27, 2007 (AFP) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Friday that burgeoning economic ties with Asian countries were paying off for the country shunned by its former trading allies in the west. “I am pleased to report that significant headway has been made with a number of investment projects that have […]

HARARE, April 26, 2007 (AFP) – Zimbabwe, already battling to contain the world’s highest rate of inflation, announced on Thursday that the figure had soared once more to 2,200 percent. Before the devaluation, the Zimbabwean dollar had been trading at around 25,000 to the greenback, against the official rate of 250 dollars. After the official […]

MUMBAI, April 24, 2007 (AFP) – The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday left key short-term borrowing rates unchanged as it seeks to keep economic growth on track despite inflation running well above its comfort zone.The RBI’s decision had been widely expected following a series of rate hikes but significantly, the central bank also tweaked […]

SINGAPORE, April 23, 2007 (AFP) – The debate over the million-dollar paychecks of Singapore’s cabinet ministers is “rubbish” because the city-state needs to attract extraordinary people to run it, founding leader Lee Kuan Yew said in remarks published Monday.“The biggest mistake any Singaporean can make is to believe that Singapore is an ordinary country and […]

NEW DELHI, April 23, 2007 (AFP) – India’s booming services and software industry Monday announced that an independent watchdog has been setup to create a “global safe-deposit vault” to halt data theft such as credit card details. Shyamal Ghosh, a former Indian bureaucrat, was named chairman of the Self Regulatory Organisation and said the watchdog […]

NEW YORK, April 18, 2007 (AFP) – The struggling dollar faced renewed selling pressure Wednesday as sterling jumped to a 26-year high and the euro topped 1.36 dollars amid fresh concerns about US economic prospects. The euro reached as high as 1.3616 dollars before falling back to 1.3607 at 2100 GMT against 1.3564 late Tuesday […]

NEW YORK, April 17, 2007 (AFP) – Sterling climbed above the psychological barrier of two dollars Tuesday for the first time since 1992 as data on both sides of the Atlantic suggested future rate movements will hurt the greenback. The British currency benefited from higher-than-expected British inflation data which raised expectations of an interest rate […]

WELLINGTON , April 18, 2007 (AFP) – The New Zealand dollar hit its highest level against the US currency for 25 years on Wednesday after inflation data reinforced expectations of further interest rate increases. High interest rates have made the New Zealand currency attractive to foreign investors while weakness in the US dollar has also […]

TOKYO, April 18, 2007 (AFP) – The dollar languished at a near 15-year low against the British pound and a two-year trough versus the euro in Asian trade Wednesday as the market bet on further hikes in European interest rates, dealers said.The pound sterling firmed to 2.0074 dollars in Tokyo morning trade from 2.0063 in […]