Category: World

OSLO, Oct 13, 2006 (AFP) – The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh and the Grameen Bank which offers loans to poor people without any financial security. “Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such […]

BANGALORE, India, Oct 13, 2006 (AFP) – India’s biggest low-cost airline, Air Deccan, said Friday it has raised 4.5 billion rupees (100 million dollars) from two foreign banks to tide it over a financial crisis.G.R. Gopinath, Managing Director of Air Deccan, said the deal with British-based Banks Investec Bank and Germany’s Billon and HSH Nord […]

DHAKA, Oct 13, 2006 (AFP) – Nearly three decades after Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus launched the pioneering Grameen Bank, giving small loans to the poor, microcredit is hailed for helping more than five million Bangladeshis. Grameen began life in 1976 as a pilot project run by Yunus, a professor of rural economics at Chittagong […]

CANNES, France, Oct 13, 2006 (AFP) – After years of eager anticipation and a lot of talk, the multi-media age has finally dawned and a string of breakthrough deals at this week’s largest ever MIPCOM audiovisual trade show will send it on its way around the world.That was the message from the entire line-up of […]

PARIS, Oct 13, 2006 (AFP) – Microcredit has become an increasingly powerful tool to liberate the world’s poorest people, particularly women, from the prison of poverty and the power of loan sharks. It provides access to small loans to the world’s 1.2 billion poor people so they can rebuild their homes, pay school fees or […]

SINGAPORE, Oct 12, 2006 (AFP) – The Singapore government will issue a 20-year bond for the first time next year as part of efforts to further develop the local debt market, the de facto central bank said Thursday.The new Singapore Government Securities (SGS) bond will be issued in March 2007, the Monetary Authority of Singapore […]

PARIS, Oct 11, 2006 (AFP) – Oil prices have fallen because of stockbuilding and slowing demand but a possible OPEC output cut, global instability and growth in China and the Middle East are likely to keep the market under tension, the IEA said Wednesday.The International Energy Agency forecast an increase of 1.2 percent in global […]

DHAKA, Oct 11, 2006 (AFP) – Bangladeshi textile manufacturers pledged Wednesday to investigate child labour allegations after a British television network showed children making clothes for supermarket giant Tesco.Channel 4 News had secretly filmed children as young as 12 it said were working at four factories that supply the British supermarket giant. S.M. Fazlul Hoque, […]

SINGAPORE, Oct 11, 2006 (AFP) – Tech-savvy Singapore will offer free wireless broadband service in public areas from next year, the government said.The programme will increase the number of wireless hotspots from 900 currently to 5,000 over two years, allowing Singaporeans wireless connectivity beyond homes, offices and schools where the service is currently available, the […]

PARIS, Oct 10, 2006 (AFP) – Vineyards in the new world and even in China are stealing a march on traditionally dominant European producers in the race to slake the world’s fast-growing thirst for wine.From having a market share of just 1.6 percent 20 years ago, wines from countries like Chile, Australia and the United […]

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10, 2006 (AFP) – Malaysia will issue up to four licences to telecommunication operators to provide “fourth generation” wireless high speed Internet services, a senior minister said Tuesday.The government in July cancelled the original tender for the WiMAX 2.3 gigahertz spectrum, saying that the specifications were not in line with the ministry’s […]

LONDON, Oct 9, 2006 (AFP) – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged to push for reform of the banking and insurance sectors, and to raise investment in infrastructure, in an interview published in the Financial Times on Monday.“These are our two biggest priorities,” Singh told the newspaper. His remarks to the newspaper largely echo those […]