Category: World

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – In a rare Sunday action aimed at heading off fresh market upheaval, the Federal Reserve cut a key rate for direct loans to certain financial institutions and said it would offer immediate liquidity to the brokerage system.“Today’s moves by the Federal Reserve are the desperate acts of failing men. […]

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – US banking titan JPMorgan Chase said late Sunday it was taking over the crisis-hit investment bank and brokerage Bear Stearns for around 236 million dollars. President George W. Bush last month signed a 168-billion-dollar economic stimulus and the government and banks have backed a number of initiatives to help […]

TOKYO, March 17, 2008 (AFP) – World markets saw another day of turmoil and investor jitters Monday as Asian shares plunged, oil hit a fresh high and the dollar fell to a new bottom after the near-collapse of US bank Bear Stearns. Dealers said an emergency cut by the US Federal Reserve to its discount […]

PARIS, March 17, 2008 (AFP) – The most urgent economic priority for European governments is to limit the damage from “the financial market crisis” amid threats of inflation and recession, the head of the IMF said here on Monday.Reforms could take different paths in different countries, and a consensus was needed, as had been achieved […]

KUWAIT CITY, March 17, 2008 (AFP) – Oil-rich Gulf Arab states hit by high inflation are under pressure to revalue their currencies or drop the peg to the flagging US dollar, but de-pegging will come at a cost, analysts say.“If we want high oil prices we should not worry about the (high) price of tomatoes,” […]

DHARAMSHALA, India, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – Eighty people have been “confirmed” killed in unrest in Tibet, the India-based Tibetan government-in-exile said Sunday.“Regarding bodies, it’s 80. We have 80 unidentified bodies,” said Thubten Samphel, the spokesman for the Tibetan administration in Dharamshala. He said the toll had been established from “calls made from Tibet” by […]

BAGHDAD, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – The explosive vest has become the weapon of choice for Al-Qaeda in Iraq, with most jihadists nowadays wearing the lethal garment and the number of suicide attacks on the rise, the US military said Sunday. “There has been an increase over time in the use of suicide vest bombers,” […]

FRANKFURT, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – The dollar’s plunge has made the eurozone the world’s biggest economy by one measure and has underscored shifts that are reorienting the 15-nation bloc towards Asia, Russia and oil-rich Gulf states, analysts say. “With the euro now trading around 1.56 against the dollar, the size of its annual output […]

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2008 (AFP) – The financial hurricane tearing through Wall Street has sparked vast losses at major banks, but it has also exposed a formerly secretive corner of America’s financial markets. Millions of Americans track the Dow Jones Industrial Average and their stock portfolios on a daily basis, but the trillion-dollar trade in […]

NEW YORK, March 14, 2008 (AFP) – The troubled US investment bank Bear Stearns said Friday it was receiving an emergency loan organized by a rival bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Bear Stearns share price plummeted after its president and chief executive, Alan Schwartz, said the bank’s liquidity position had “significantly […]

MOSCOW, March 14, 2008 (AFP) – Russia is ready to hand India military aircraft engineering secrets in a bid to win a 12-billion dollar (7.65-billion euro) aviation contract tender, Interfax agency reported Friday.Other world military aviation giants competing for the contract include Americans Boeing and Lockheed Martin, French group Dassault, the European consortium behind the […]

NEW YORK, March 13, 2008 (AFP) – Oil prices hit a record 111.00 dollars per barrel Thursday amid an accelerating price rally which traders say has been fueled by a sharp fall in the value of the US dollar and supply concerns.. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said speculators were largely responsible for the […]