Category: World

TOKYO, August 12, 2008 (AFP) – Japanese wholesale inflation hit a 27-year high of 7.1 percent in July on soaring commodity costs, the central bank said Tuesday, adding to gloom about the health of Asia’s largest economy. The fresh signs of pain in the manufacturing sector came on the eve of figures expected to show […]

Aug 12, 2008 (LBO) – Standard Chartered said that its push into Asia, Africa and the Middle East had fuelled a profits surge at the emerging markets bank despite a jump in bad debts caused by the credit crunch, AFP news agency reported.Standard Chartered, Britain’s fourth-biggest retail bank by market value, said in an earnings […]

SINGAPORE, August 12, 2008 (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Tuesday pushed ahead with his vision of an Asia Pacific Community but played down comparisons with the European Union following criticism from his predecessors.Speaking to diplomats, academics, business executives and students at a public lecture in Singapore, Rudd said his proposal, first floated in […]

CAIRO, August 10, 2008 (AFP) – Inflation soared to a record 23.1 percent in Egypt in July, fuelled by skyrocketing food prices, the CAPMAS national statistics agency reported on Sunday. The dramatic rise in the national consumer price index — the highest jump in 16 years — was mainly due to an increase of 32.5 […]

SINGAPORE, August 11, 2008 (AFP) – Singapore’s economic growth slowed to an annual 2.1 percent in the second quarter, the government announced on Monday, just days after cutting the full-year growth target to 4.0-5.0 percent. The quarterly performance was sharply down from the 6.9 percent rise recorded in the first quarter and brought real GDP […]

JAKARTA, August 11, 2008 (AFP) – A tribal chief in Indonesia’s West Papua launched a campaign Monday to get compensation from US mining giant Freeport for environmental damage to his homelands, a report said. Fabianus P., chief of the Kapiraya tribe, said tailings from Freeport’s huge gold and copper mine in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province […]

LONDON, August 11, 2008 (AFP) – A 93-year-old debut novelist has used the proceeds from her book to move her friends out of nursing homes and into her new country house, she said in British newspaper reports on Monday. When Lorna Page hit the jackpot with “A Dangerous Weakness”, a raunchy thriller set in the […]

SYDNEY, August 11, 2008 (AFP) – The plunging Australian dollar hit a new seven-month low on Monday as a fall in key commodity prices put the currency under pressure, ending months of highs. The currency opened at 88.49 US cents, down from 89.29 US cents on Friday and its weakest start since January 25. The […]

NEW DELHI, August 10, 2008 (AFP) – India’s top court has cleared South Korean steel giant Posco’s plan for a 12-billion-dollar plant in a controversial case seen pitting farmers’ interests against growing industrial development.In another key case viewed as a test of tribal rights, the court approved British mining company Vedanta Resources’ proposal to mine […]

MILAN, August 10, 2008 (AFP) – The Italian economy contracted in the second quarter, official data showed, adding to a deepening sense of gloom about the eurozone economy amid a flurry of bad news for the 15-nation bloc.Italy is the first eurozone country to reveal figures for the second quarter and a 0.3-percent quarter-on-quarter contraction […]

LONDON, August 10, 2008 (AFP) – Western concerns are growing over the impact of bloody clashes between Georgia and Russia on a key oil pipeline through the region from the Caspian Sea to the West, analysts say.While Georgia does not produce oil itself, US and European energy firms have counted on the pro-Western country — […]

WASHINGTON, August 9, 2008 (AFP) – The United States and European Union are leading a diplomatic push to prevent all-out war between Georgia and Russia, calling for a ceasefire as Russian tanks rolled into a rebel Georgian province. Envoys from the US, EU and Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were being deployed […]