Category: World

LONDON, October 31, 2008 (AFP) – Oil prices fell heavily again on Friday as the prospect of a global recession and weakening energy demand weighed on the market, analysts said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery shed 1.46 dollars to 64.50 dollars per barrel. London’s Brent North Sea crude for December […]

WASHINGTON, October 31, 2008 (AFP) – The world faces a growing risk of conflict over the next 20 to 30 years amid an unprecedented transfer of wealth and power from West to East, the US intelligence chief has said. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, predicted rising demand for scarce supplies of food and […]

TOKYO, October 31, 2008 (AFP) – Japanese inflation slowed in September from a recent decade high, easing concerns about the impact of high energy costs on Asia’s largest economy, the government said Friday. Core consumer prices rose 2.3 percent in September from a year earlier, up for a 12th straight month, official figures showed. But […]

HANOI, October 31, 2008 (AFP) – The World Bank Friday said it was lending communist Vietnam 60 million dollars for a project to modernise its central bank with better training and technology. “This effort is critical in ensuring Vietnam’s sustainable economic growth and continued progress in poverty reduction, especially at a time of global financial […]

VIENNA, October 31, 2008 (AFP) – Emerging economies will be the next to topple in the global financial crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn wrote in article published here on Friday. Emerging countries are facing additional problems, Strauss-Kahn wrote in a guest commentary for the daily Der Standard. Their economies “aren’t […]

WASHINGTON, October 29, 2008 (AFP) – The US Treasury said Wednesday it had finalized the infusion of 125 billion dollars into nine major commercial banks as part of a financial system rescue plan. Officials said Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo each received 25 billion dollars in capital. Bank of America got 15 billion […]

WASHINGTON, October 30, 2008 (AFP) – The US economy contracted at a 0.3 percent pace in the third quarter as a global credit crunch prompted consumers and businesses to retrench, government data showed Thursday.The drop in gross domestic product (GDP) was the first negative figure since the fourth quarter of 2007, the Commerce Department reported […]

LONDON, October 30, 2008 (AFP) – Oil prices slipped back on Thursday in volatile trade, reversing early gains as the market reacted to news of shrinking economic growth in the United States, the world’s top energy consumer. An overnight cut in US interest rates, along with a similar move in China, had earlier bolstered prices […]

WASHINGTON, October 30, 2008 (AFP) – The US Federal Reserve sliced its key interest rate another 0.5 percentage points to 1.0 percent Wednesday as signs emerged of thawing credit markets around the world. The Fed’s expected action came after China also chopped its benchmark one-year deposit rate by 27 basis points to 3.60 in a […]

SYDNEY, October 30, 2008 (AFP) – Australia’s Westpac Banking Group announced Thursday that its annual net profit rose 12 percent, driven by strong deposit and lending growth.Net profit for the year ended September 30 rose to 3.86 billion dollars (2.58 billion US) from 3.45 billion dollars the previous year, the bank said in a statement. […]

NEW YORK, October 28, 2008 (AFP) – A frenzied buying spree sent US shares soaring Tuesday with the second-largest point gain in history for blue chips amid hopes for a rate cut and easing of a global credit crunch. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed 889.35 points (10.88 percent) to finish at 9,065.12. The gain […]

DUBAI, October 28, 2008 (AFP) – Cheaper oil prices may damage the economies of non-oil producing Arab countries because of a fall in remittances and other cash inflows from the Gulf states, analysts said. Remittances sent home by migrant workers contributed three billion dollars or 20 percent of gross domestic product in Jordan last year, […]