Category: World

LONDON, May 15, 2006 (AFP) – Record numbers of radio listeners are tuning into the BBC World Service, the public broadcaster said on Monday.The Service is attracting an average of 163 million listeners per week to its 33 language services during 2006, up from 149 million last year. The new high beats a previous weekly […]

NEW DELHI, May 14, 2006 (AFP) – The clamour is growing for Rahul Gandhi, scion of India’s most powerful political dynasty, to step into the spotlight after steering his mother Sonia Gandhi to a landslide by-election win.“Son Rises,” said the Times of India in a headline after Sonia racked up a record 417,000-vote victory margin […]

LONDON, May 14, 2006 (AFP) – The prices of commodities such as oil, copper, aluminium, platinum and sugar are smashing records — and will head higher owing to fierce demand from economic powerhouses India and China, analysts say. With sizzling rates of growth in the two emerging giants, home to one third of the world’s […]

NEW YORK, May 14, 2006 (AFP) – Microsoft and Google are girding for battle for supremacy over the information technology sector, a duel watched closely by others in the sector.The spectacular rise of Google in the past few years has raised questions about whether the Internet search titan is on track to dethrone Microsoft and […]

NEW DELHI, May 14, 2006 (AFP) – The clamour is growing for Rahul Gandhi, scion of India’s most powerful political dynasty, to step into the spotlight after steering his mother Sonia Gandhi to a landslide by-election win.“Son Rises,” said the Times of India in a headline after Sonia racked up a record 417,000-vote victory margin […]

HARARE, May 12, 2006 (AFP) – Zimbabwe said on Friday its inflation rate had crossed the landmark 1,000-percent threshold, arguably the highest in the world, with economists expressing pessimism about any major improvement soon. The Central Statistical Office said the year-on-year inflation rate in April was 1,042.9 percent, up 129.3 percentage points from March, in […]

HARARE, May 12, 2006 (AFP) – Zimbabwe said on Friday its inflation rate had crossed the landmark 1,000-percent threshold, arguably the highest in the world, with economists expressing pessimism about any major improvement soon. The Central Statistical Office said the year-on-year inflation rate in April was 1,042.9 percent, up 129.3 percentage points from March, in […]

AGRA, India, May 11, 2006 (AFP) – An Indian archaeologist is praying for a respite from a heat wave engulfing the Taj Mahal town of Agra, warning that heavy dust in the dry air could permanently scar the marble monument to love.Temperatures hovered this week at 45 Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) in the city, 200 […]

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2006 (AFP) – The global market for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions — an innovative offshoot of the Kyoto pact on global warming — has shown explosive growth, the World Bank said Wednesday.But in a new report, the World Bank also noted that recent events in the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) […]

MUMBAI, May 11, 2006 (AFP) – Reliance Petroleum shares jumped almost 70 percent on listing Thursday as investors rushed to buy a piece of the company operating what will be the world’s largest refinery complex, dealers said.Reliance Petroleum, a unit of India’s largest private company, Reliance Industries, opened at 101.95 rupees (2.66 dollars), compared to […]

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2006 (AFP) – Hispanics and Asians are the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States, where one in three people now belong to a minority group, the US Census Bureau said Wednesday. In 2005, the minority population totalled 98 million, or 33 percent of the 296.4 million US population, the agency […]

SINGAPORE, May 9, 2006 (AFP) – Singapore-based luxury resort and spa chain Banyan Tree has outlined plans for a public listing to raise funds for further international expansion. The company intends to raise more than 100 million Singapore dollars (64 million US) from the proposed listing, it said in a preliminary prospectus late Monday. It […]