Category: World

SINGAPORE, Dec 12, 2006 (AFP) – Asia-Pacific financial markets will remain generally strong but face greater volatility and higher risks in 2007, Standard and Poor’s said Tuesday. The US-based credit watchdog said in a statement that the regional economic outlook remained positive despite an expected US slowdown next year. But higher financing costs, increased corporate […]

HARARE, Dec 11, 2006 (AFP) – Zimbabwe’s inflation spiral rose to 1,098.8 percent last month, up 28.6 percentage points from October, the Central Statistical office said Monday.Last month, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa predicted a marginal economic growth in the coming year, adding that inflation would dip to 350 percent as he presented the budget for […]

WASHINGTON, Dec 10, 2006 (AFP) – A stellar cast of US economic leaders heads to China this week to press for the world’s manufacturing workshop to overhaul the desperately one-sided trade between the two nations.Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will head the US delegation for the inaugural meeting of a […]

LONDON, Dec 8, 2006 (AFP) – Garment workers in Bangladesh are working 80 hours a week for just five pence (seven euro cents, nine cents) an hour to produce cheap clothes for British consumers, a report claimed Friday. Anti-poverty charity War on Want said the employees were also having to endure poor working conditions to […]

BEIJING, Dec 7, 2006 (AFP) – When Shanghai police broke up a counterfeit pharmaceuticals ring that produced fake Tamiflu in August, it seemed a blow had been struck against China’s notorious intellectual property thieves.Tamiflu, produced by Roche, is one of the few treatments deemed effective against bird flu, and the seizure of 400 kilograms of […]

NEW DELHI, Dec 7, 2006 (AFP) – Europe’s Airbus said Thursday it would hike investment in India to at least one billion dollars as it forecast the country would need 1,100 new planes over 20 years to meet soaring travel demand. The aircraft maker had pledged to plow back 500 million to 600 million dollars […]

BRUSSELS, Dec 7, 2006 (AFP) – Political parties and parliaments are seen as the world’s most corrupt institutions and governments are not doing enough to combat the problem, a poll by a respected global graft watchdog said Thursday. The Transparency International survey, of some 60,000 people in 62 countries, found that many ordinary citizens thought […]

PARIS, Dec 6, 2006 (AFP) – Slowing activity in the US economy and a possible sudden cooling of overheated property markets are the main threats to the world economy in 2007 after vigorous recovery this year. The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday it was lowering its growth estimate for next year from its current prediction […]

HELSINKI, Dec 5, 2006 (AFP) – The world’s richest two percent of adults own more than half of global household wealth, while half the world’s population own only one percent, a UN report published on Tuesday showed. “The study finds wealth to be more unequally distributed than income across countries,” Anthony Shorrocks, director of the […]

PHUKET, Thailand, Dec 1, 2006 (AFP) – Thai and US officials Friday sent off a ship carrying a tsunami warning device designed to protect millions of people around the Indian Ocean from a repeat of the catastrophe two years ago. Some 220,000 people in a dozen countries were killed by a tsunami that hit off […]

PANAJI, India, Nov 30, 2006 (AFP) – The once low-budget tourist haven of Goa is facing a crisis, environmentalists say, as developers force up land prices and a tourism boom threatens the delicate coastal ecology.“As a result our forest cover, which was 34 percent in 2001 and projected to increase to 40 percent, has now […]

NEW DELHI, Nov 30, 2006 (AFP) – India’s economy grew a faster-than-expected 9.2 percent in the second quarter to September, official data showed Thursday, prompting concerns that overheating will require higher interest rates.The Indian rupee weakened Wednesday against the dollar to 44.74 from 44.65 after the data was announced, and strengthened against the euro to […]