Category: World

April 15, 2008 (AFP) – British inflation stood at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in March, unchanged from February, as declines in the cost of household equipment offset hikes to air travel and energy, official data showed Tuesday.The 12-month inflation rate for March meanwhile held above the Bank of England’s 2.0-percent target for a […]

SINGAPORE, April 16, 2008 (AFP) – Oil prices eased in Asian trade on Wednesday after a series of record highs driven by supply worries, dealers said.In morning trade, New York’s main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, was 30 cents lower at 113.49. The contract earlier topped 114 dollars a barrel for […]

VIENNA, April 15, 2008 (AFP) – OPEC on Tuesday left unchanged its 2008 estimate of growth in world oil demand, arguing that while high prices and slowing economies would brake demand in major industrialised countries, appetite for crude would remain robust elsewhere.. On a day when the price of crude in New York jumped to […]

BRUSSELS, April 16, 2008 (AFP) – Inflation in the 15 nations sharing the euro reached a record 3.6 percent in March, the European Union’s Eurostat data agency said Wednesday, revising up a first estimate of 3.5 percent. The rate, the highest since the launch of the single European currency in 1999, exceeded economist forecasts for […]

SINGAPORE, April 16, 2008 (AFP) – Hong Kong has the world’s priciest apartment rents, with the lease for a three-bedroom unit costing more than 9,700 US dollars on average a month, a survey released Wednesday said.Singapore, which positions itself as a Southeast Asian business hub, saw Asia’s biggest year-on-year rental increase of more than 30 […]

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2008 (AFP) – The White House on Monday authorized the release of 200 million dollars in emergency food aid to help alleviate a growing global food crisis, a spokeswoman said. “With this action, an estimated 200 million in emergency food aid will be made available through the US Agency for International Development,” […]

April 15, (LBO) – Pakistan will reduce its borrowings from the Central Bank in the coming months to cut inflation, newly appointed finance minister Ishaq Dar has said. “Government borrowings have been quite excessive from the central bank in the last nine months,” Dar was quoted as saying in Bloomberg at the IMF meetings in […]

NEW DELHI, April 15, 2008 (AFP) – The daughter of assassinated Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi on Tuesday confirmed she had met one of the people behind her father’s murder. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said meeting Nalini Sriharan at her prison helped her come to terms with the killing of her father by a suicide bomber in […]

WASHINGTON, April 13, 2008 (AFP) – The World Bank on Sunday launched a “New Deal” to fight hunger and poverty and urged governments to take action against a food crisis that has sparked deadly unrest in developing countries.A doubling of food prices over the past three years could push 100 million people in poorer developing […]

WASHINGTON, April 13, 2008 (AFP) – World economic leaders have taken steps to alleviate the worst financial shock in decades and a food price crisis that is sparking deadly unrest in developing countries. In three days of meetings that ended Sunday, finance ministers and central bankers grappled with the credit squeeze and inflation emergencies against […]

PARIS, April 14, 2008 (AFP) – Farming practices must change to confront soaring food prices that threaten to drive millions of poor people around the world into even deeper poverty, said a new study to be released here Tuesday. “Business as usual is no longer an option,” the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology […]

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2008 (AFP) – Rising prices, especially for food, could have terrible consequences for the world, including the risk of war, and action needs to be taken to keep inflation in check, the IMF head said Saturday. “Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today …the consequences will be terrible,” […]