Category: World

SYDNEY, October 7, 2008 (AFP) – Australia’s central bank slashed interest rates by one percent Tuesday amid fears of a global slowdown sparked by the US-based financial crisis.The Reserve Bank of Australia reduced its official cash rate to 6.0 percent, just a month after a 25 basis point cut marked the first downward movement in […]

SEOUL, October 7, 2008 (AFP) – South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak called for calm Tuesday as the won plunged, saying the nation does not face a repeat of the 1997/98 financial crisis. “The current crisis facing the nation is wholly different from the foreign exchange crisis of 1997,” he told a cabinet meeting. “Excessive optimism […]

LONDON, October 7, 2008 (AFP) – Royal Bank of Scotland shares dived by a third on Tuesday, accelerating its losses as Britain’s second biggest bank was hit by fresh concerns about the global financial crisis, dealers said.RBS shares sank to 99 pence in morning trade, showing a steep loss of 33.15 percent from the closing […]

KUWAIT CITY, October 7, 2008 (AFP) – Shares plunged across the Arab world on Tuesday as panic over the global financial crisis gripped investors, with the market in oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia sinking by more than seven percent. The biggest loss was reported in Egypt, where the key index plummeted by more than 16 percent […]

GANDHINAGAR, October 7, 2008 (AFP) – India’s Tata Motors signed an agreement on Tuesday to secure a new home for its troubled Nano cheap car project in the business-friendly state of Gujarat. The move came after Ratan Tata, the group’s chairman, decided to abandon a nearly completed factory in communist-run West Bengal due to violent […]

WASHINGTON, October 6, 2008 (AFP) – Troubled lender Wachovia Corp. appeared determined Sunday to plow ahead with a planned union with Wells Fargo & Co., despite an order from a New York State Supreme Court in favor of jilted suitor Citigroup. Citigroup was blindsided last week in its bid to complete a tie-up after Wachovia, […]

LONDON, October 6, 2008 (AFP) – British finance minister Alistair Darling is considering giving banks billions of pounds in return for shares to shore them up in the face of the global credit crunch, media reports said Monday. The plan is a middle way between full nationalisation, as with Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley […]

NEW DELHI, October 6, 2008 (AFP) – India’s corporate optimism has sunk on worries about the global economy and weakening demand, according to a new survey Monday, as the stock market and rupee fell to fresh lows. Some 57 percent of the 348 firms in the cross-sector survey reported Asia’s third-largest economy had grown “moderately […]

DUBAI, October 6, 2008 (AFP) – A Dubai government firm on Monday announced it will build a “new city” in the booming Gulf emirate at a projected cost of 95 billion dollars, shrugging off the global financial turmoil.The announcement came one day after Dubai developers Nakheel said it planned to build a tower which will […]

NEW DELHI, October 5, 2008 (AFP) – A decision by the giant Tata Group to shift a factory building the world’s cheapest car after angry farmer protests has refueled debate about India’s troubled industrialisation push.The company said late last week it was pulling the Nano car project out of West Bengal state, even though the […]

DUBAI, October 5, 2008 (AFP) – United Arab Emirates-based firms Dana Gas PJSC and Crescent Petroleum announced that they had begun producing gas under a deal with Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region over Baghdad’s objections. The firms said that, following completion of the project’s first phase, they expected to supply 75 million cubic feet (2.25 million […]

BERLIN, October 5, 2008 (AFP) – The German government has offered an unlimited guarantee for all private savings accounts, a finance ministry spokesman told AFP Sunday, amid the spreading financial crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said earlier in a statement to reporters: “We tell all savings account holders that your deposits are safe. The federal […]