Category: World

WASHINGTON, March 11, 2008 (AFP) – The United States ranked North Korea and Myanmar Tuesday among the world’s worst violators of human rights and took other Asian countries to task for alleged abuses.In Australia, the report mentioned “domestic violence against women and children, particularly in Aboriginal communities, and societal discrimination against Aboriginal people.” But the […]

TOKYO, March 12, 2008 (AFP) – Japanese opposition lawmakers Wednesday voted down Bank of Japan deputy Toshiro Muto as the next central bank chief, defying the government which refused to look for a new candidate.Relations between the two main parties have been severely strained by a string of disputes culminating in the ruling coalition ramming […]

SINGAPORE, March 11, 2008 (AFP) – A Singapore teenager and her family have been charged with physically assaulting an Indonesian maid, including pulling out her teeth and pouring hot wax on her, the Straits Times reported Tuesday.More than 140,000 domestic workers mainly from Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, work in Singapore.Cases of employers abusing […]

LONDON, March 11, 2008 (AFP) – Oil prices struck a record high of 109.20 dollars per barrel on Tuesday after the dollar hit a fresh all-time low against the euro, traders said. The euro reached a record high of 1.5495 in European tradin. A weaker US currency increases demand for dollar-denominated oil as it becomes […]

NEW YORK, March 10, 2008 (AFP) – US stocks sustained a fresh beating Monday as oil prices briefly rocketed to fresh highs above 108 dollars a barrel and as The Blackstone Group private equity firm announced a big quarterly loss. Financial stocks fell heavily through the day in the wake of Blackstone’s revelation and as […]

TEHRAN, March 11, 2008 (AFP) – High inflation, unemployment, slack monetary policy and a lack of foreign investment: Iran is suffering from a litany of economic problems ahead of Friday’s legislative elections.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swept to power in 2005 on a platform to make the poor — many of whom have left villages to swell […]

HONG KONG, March 11, 2008 (AFP) – Asian stocks closed mostly up after a late rally Tuesday as bargain hunters emerged despite earlier US share price falls sparked by growing worries over a global credit crunch.Most markets around the region reversed early losses to turn higher in late trade, after suffering steep falls on Monday. […]

SAO PAULO, March 10, 2008 (AFP) – More than five million vehicles and almost nine in ten new vehicles in Brazil now run on both gasoline and ethanol derived from sugar cane, the car manufacturing association Anfavea said Monday. Anfavea president Jackson Schneider told reporters in Sao Paulo that Brazil — a pioneer in biofuels […]

PANAJI, India, March 10, 2008 (AFP) – Police in the Indian resort state of Goa Sunday arrested one of three men held in connection with the murder of a British teenager whose partially naked body was found on a beach last month.The man has been identified as 29-year-old Samsung D’Souza, an Indian working at a […]

DHAKA, March 10, 2008 (AFP) – Bangladesh has scrapped a deal to sell its fourth-largest bank to a Saudi prince for 458 million dollars after he failed to make any payment, the country’s finance minister said.Prince Bandar Bin Mohammad Bin Abdul Rahman won the bid to take a 93 percent stake in Rupali Bank in […]

ANKARA, March 8, 2008 (AFP) – Turkey has changed its method of calculating its gross domestic product, switching to the system used in the Europen Union which it is hoping to join, the country’s statistics office said Saturday. The change to the European System of Accounts (ESA95) has resulted in a steep “rise” in Turkey’s […]

PENANG, Malaysia, March 9, 2008 (AFP) – Weekend elections that have reshaped Malaysia’s political landscape will reverberate in the stock market and could dampen investor confidence, economists said Sunday. Massive defections by the small but economically dominant Chinese community and once loyalist minority Indians have highlighted resentment towards the Malay-led government’s economic policies, they said. […]