Category: Other

TOKYO, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) – Japanese stocks rallied 3.69 percent in morning deals on Monday, lifted by a rebound on overseas markets after the US central bank on Friday cut a key interest rate to ease a credit squeeze, dealers said.The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s benchmark Nikkei-225 index of leading shares rose 562.89 points to […]

WELLINGTON, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) – The New Zealand government Monday launched an investigation into allegations that clothes imported from China contained dangerous levels of the chemical formaldehyde.Scientists working for the Target television consumer watchdog programme found levels of formaldehyde in woollen and cotton clothes of up to 900 times the level believed to cause […]

CLEVELAND, Ohio, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – The US dream of home ownership is going up in smoke in Cleveland, now littered with broken promises and lost hopes as it tops the nation’s tragic roll call of foreclosures.In the first seven months of this year, there were 13,600 foreclosures in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County alone, […]

MALE, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – Voters in the Maldives were waiting for results Sunday from a referendum on how they want to be governed in future, after the tiny Pacific nation got an unusual taste of democracy.Protestors led by the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) have taken to the streets in recent years […]

MALE, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom on Sunday claimed victory in a referendum on how the Indian Ocean atoll nation should be governed, saying it was a mandate for his reform proposals. The Maldives consists of 1,192 tiny coral islands scattered 850 kilometres (550 miles) across the Equator. Only 200 […]

GENEVA, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – Swiss central bank chief Jean-Pierre Roth sharply criticised the US economic system in an interview published Sunday, after the home loans crisis that caused turmoil on world financial markets.“Something unbelievable happened,” Roth said in an interview in the Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag. The chairman of the Swiss National […]

LONDON, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) – The world’s banks have found themselves in the eye of the financial storm lashing world markets as analysts struggle to pinpoint their exposure to the slumping US housing sector. Markets in Europe and the United States staged a rebound on Friday, after a week of turmoil, as the US […]

NEW YORK, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) – Credit fears have played havoc with Wall Street stock portfolios and US investors could suffer more bruises from fresh upheavals sweeping world markets in the week ahead, despite an emergency rate cut. Confidence was in short supply on Wall Street this past week as investors sold off stocks […]

NEW YORK, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) – The dollar tumbled against the yen Thursday, but notched up gains against the euro and the British pound as investors unwound risky “carry trades” that had previously depressed the Japanese currency.Analysts said the Japanese currency’s fortunes had risen as some speculators unwound so-called carry trades, in which investors […]

SINGAPORE, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) – Singapore’s central bank said the domestic money and foreign exchange markets have been orderly despite the global turmoil sparked by a crisis in the US sub-prime mortgage sector. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement issued late Thursday it has been “closely monitoring” developments in the […]

TOKYO, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) – Credit fears unleashed fresh turbulence on Asian stock markets Friday as Tokyo spiralled lower and other bourses in the region struggled to find a floor a day after one of the worst routs in recent years.A late recovery overnight on Wall Street helped shares to open higher in Sydney, […]