Category: World

WASHINGTON, Nov 16, 2006 (AFP) – Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, whose ideas helped power a conservative policy revolution in the 1980s, died Thursday at the age of 94.Friedman died of heart failure in San Francisco, California, near Stanford University where he taught most recently, friends and associates said. Friedman won the Nobel prize for […]

SINGAPORE, Nov 17, 2006 (AFP) – US beverage giant Coca-Cola Company, in a long-term plan to diversify from soft drinks, will serve coffee and tea-making expertise from its first Asian specialty outlet, company executives said Friday. He described the concept as “pretty much a work in progress for the next six months.” – by Bernice […]

NEW DELHI, Nov 17, 2006 (AFP) – Ruling Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi on Friday outlined her vision of India’s future, not as a traditional military superpower, but as a force for world peace and prosperity.The Italian-born Congress leader, who spurned the premiership after her party scored an upset election victory in 2004, urged the […]

WASHINGTON, Nov 16, 2006 (AFP) – When Wayne Steinard visited his doctor earlier this year he faced two options: either undergo open heart surgery in the US for 100,000 dollars or have it done in India for 6,700 dollars. “I chose India,” the 59-year-old uninsured building contractor from Florida told AFP, reflecting a growing trend […]

BEIJING, Nov 15, 2006 (AFP) – China is planning to expand a consumption tax on luxury items and adjust upward other taxes in an effort to even out income distribution and reduce poverty, state press reported Wednesday.Ongoing tax reforms should include adjustments to the personal income tax, property tax, and consumption tax in an effort […]

HALIFAX, Canada, Nov 14, 2006 (AFP) – Few people had heard of microcredit before a determined Bangladeshi economist called Muhammad Yunus won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, but Yunus has put the industry in the spotlight as a potential poverty-busting tool.“Governments in developing countries must demonstrate a strong political commitment towards supporting microfinance as an […]

LONDON, Nov 15, 2006 (AFP) – Seven big investment banks said on Wednesday that they planned to create a new pan-European platform for trading shares to rival established stock markets. The seven banks are Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS. The initiative by the banks is aimed at […]

DHAKA, Nov 15, 2006 (AFP) – Bangladesh exports grew a record 31.5 per cent to 3.25 billion dollars in the first quarter of the 2006-2007 financial year amid a boom in the textile industry, an official said Wednesday. The growth was powered by a 33.5 percent year-on-year growth of textile shipments such as t-shirts, jeans […]

SINGAPORE, Nov 14, 2006 (AFP) – Singapore will raise its consumption tax next year to fund social programmes for its lower income households rather than turn to Scandinavian-style welfare systems, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in remarks published Tuesday.Raising the goods and services tax (GST) from the existing five percent to seven percent will […]

GENEVA, Nov 14, 2006 (AFP) – Drug prices have increased in the past five years despite a commitment by the World Trade Organisation’s 149 members to make them more accessible to the world’s poor, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Tuesday.MSF said in a statement that newer HIV medicines recommended by the World […]

RIYADH, Nov 13, 2006 (AFP) – Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia posted a record budget surplus of 58 billion dollars in 2005 on the back of surging crude prices while its gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 6.5 percent, newspapers reported Monday. In its annual report on the Saudi economy, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), […]

WASHINGTON, Nov 10, 2006 (AFP) – What do Bill Gates, Queen Sofia of Spain, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and billionaire philanthropist George Soros all have in common?They all believe that small business loans known as microcredit can help lift tens of millions of the world’s poorest people, who mainly live across Asia, out […]