Category: World

TOKYO, Jan 22, 2007 (AFP) – Toyota Motor Corp. plans to build a low-cost car undercutting Renault’s emerging-market Logan through a “radical” rethink in design and production, the president of the fast-growing Japanese automaker said. “The focus is on low-cost technology,” Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe told Britain’s Financial Times newspaper in an interview published Monday. […]

TOKYO, Jan 22, 2007 (AFP) – International tuna conservation bodies Monday opened their first joint meeting to look at ways to save the animals from overfishing, which environmentalists fear is driving them to extinction.The five-day meeting in the western Japanese city of Kobe will look at ways to share information among regions to monitor tuna […]

BRUSSELS, Jan 18, 2007 (AFP) – After taking action against Microsoft and Google, Belgium’s French-speaking newspapers are seeking redress from another Internet search engine, Yahoo, their lawyer said Thursday.“We sent a letter of formal notice to Yahoo yesterday” so that it will stop publishing articles from Belgian newspapers on its search engine without prior authorisation, […]

Jan 18, 2007 (AFP) – The Bank of Japan decided against raising its ultra-low interest rates Thursday in the face of fierce political pressure, backing down in a standoff that has put its credibility into question.After a week during which government officials had lined up to publicly urge the central bank not to gamble the […]

WASHINGTON, Jan 16, 2007 (AFP) – People native to South Asia are at greater risk of heart attack at a younger age than other people because of factors that include lifestyle choices such as smoking, a study published in the US journal JAMA said Tuesday. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal account for about […]

PARIS, Jan 17, 2007 (AFP) – Airbus said on Wednesday it had lost first place to Boeing in the battle for orders in 2006, but said it would increase deliveries in 2007 and would launch a cargo version of its A330-200 plane. Airbus has led US-based Boeing for new orders since 2001, but the European […]

HONG KONG, Jan 16, 2007 (AFP) – Hong Kong has been ranked as the world’s freest economy ahead of rival Singapore in a report released on Tuesday by a right-wing American think-tank, The Heritage Foundation. The ranking by the Washington-based organisation puts the former British colony at the top of its Index of Economic Freedom, […]

MUMBAI, Jan 14, 2007 (AFP) – Tirandaaz Irani’s morning shift at the Yazdani Bakery and Restaurant in Mumbai’s historic Fort district is pretty much the same every day, and he’s hoping to keep it that way even as the city changes drastically around him. The nearly century-old bakery, set amid crowded streets lined by massive […]

GENEVA, Jan 13, 2007 (AFP) – Switzerland is the world’s third largest asset manager with over 6,900 billion Swiss francs (5,532 billion dollars, 4,280 billion euros) deposited in the country’s bank accounts, the Swiss Bankers Association said on Saturday Switzerland has a nine percent share of the global market, just below the United Kingdom with […]

DUBLIN, Jan 11, 2007 (AFP) – Irish researchers found traces of cocaine on every single banknote contained in a random sample tested in a study of drug contamination of currency, Dublin City University (DCU) said on Thursday. Researchers voiced suprise at the 100 percent figure, which compares for example to a recent US study which […]

NEW DELHI, Jan 10, 2007 (AFP) – The New York Stock Exchange and investment bank Goldman Sachs are among investors who plan to buy an unspecified stake in India’s National Stock Exchange, a report said Wednesday.The Economic Times business daily said that two Indian financial firms, ILandFS and IFCI, plan to sell to overseas investors […]

HARARE, Jan 10, 2007 (AFP) – Inflation in Zimbabwe hit a new record high of 1,281 percent on Thursday, puncturing government hopes of reining in the galloping rate which has left households struggling to make ends meet. Figures released by the central statistics office (CSO) showed that the year-on-year inflation rate had risen by 182 […]