Category: World

SINGAPORE, April 12, 2008 (AFP) – Record high oil prices, environmental concerns, affluent lifestyles as well as the need to dodge city traffic are driving a boom in Asia’s motorcycle and bicycle market, industry figures say.The rediscovery of cycling as a way to keep fit is also helping to boost demand for two-wheelers, those at […]

PARIS, April 12, 2008 (AFP) – Inflation in Europe, far from being throttled as suggested in some quarters only 18 months ago, is alive and kicking hard at the middle classes as well as ordinary workers.Price rises, and consequent constraints on living standards, are pushing trade unions into confrontation with management in many countries. A […]

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2008 (AFP) – The global economy faces “considerable challenges” in the shape of a slowing US economy, financial market turmoil and higher inflation, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Saturday. Paulson, addressing the spring meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, said global growth had been favorable in past years but […]

NEW YORK, April 10, 2008 (AFP) – A photograph of a nude Carla Bruni, the ex-model now married to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was sold Thursday to a Chinese collector for 91,000 dollars at Christie’s — more than 20 times its predicted price. The gelatin silver print, taken by photographer Michel Comte in 1993, depicts […]

NEW DELHI, April 11, 2008 (AFP) – Indian inflation accelerated to 7.41 percent, according to official data released Friday, dealing a blow to the government and fanning expectations of monetary tightening. Annual inflation quickened to 7.41 percent for the week ended March 29, from seven percent the previous week, according to the Wholesale Price Index, […]

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2008 (AFP) – The global economic outlook is increasingly grim with the United States mired in a recession from a housing meltdown whose effects are still spreading, the IMF said Wednesday. Global expansion is set to slow to 3. 7 percent in 2008 amid an unfolding crisis that began in the United […]

HONG KONG, April 10, 2008 (AFP) – Soaring fuel costs and a decision to buy aircraft instead of renting them led to the demise of budget Hong Kong airline Oasis, the company’s founders said in an open letter published Thursday.Raymond and Priscilla Lee apologised to the thousands of stranded passengers, company employees and to investors […]

SINGAPORE, April 10, 2008 (AFP) – Singapore’s economy grew an annual 7.2 percent in the first quarter, faster than the 5.4 percent expansion recorded in the previous three months, the government said Thursday. But economists said the growth is likely to taper off in coming months amid a widely-expected US-led global slowdown. Last quarter’s performance […]

MANILA, April 10, 2008 (AFP) – She helped turn many of the world’s prawn farmers into millionaires, but Jurgenne Primavera now worries that her life’s work might have indirectly accelerated the destruction of fish nurseries.The Filipina zoologist, whose research on breeding the black tiger prawn became a manual that revolutionised the aquaculture industry, pointed at […]

DUBAI, April 9, 2008 (AFP) – Foreign workers making up the bulk of the labour force in the robust Gulf economies are feeling the crunch of rocketing prices and weak currencies with some even asking why stay at all.“A segment of workers is considering leaving, particularly those from countries that are seeing strong economic growth,” […]

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2008 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the worldwide losses stemming from the US subprime mortgage crisis could hit 945 billion dollars as the impact spreads in the global economy. The IMF, in a particularly stark report, said that falling US housing prices and rising delinquencies on the residential mortgage […]

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2008 (AFP) – Federal Reserve staff predict the US economy will contract in the first half of 2008 amid worsening housing market and credit woes, minutes from a central bank meeting revealed Tuesday.Such a downturn would be defined as a recession by most economists.Moreover, some policymakers at the central bank see the […]