Category: Other

LONDON, Jan 29, 2007 (AFP) – British insurance group Prudential on Monday exited the consumer banking sector with the sale of its loss-making Internet bank arm Egg to US giant Citigroup for 575 million pounds in cash.Analysts welcomed the news, which leaves Prudential to concentrate on insurance and asset management, but said the price fell […]

MADRID, Jan 29, 2007 (AFP) – The number of tourists worldwide rose 4.5 percent last year from 2005 to reach a record 842 million, with Africa showing the sharpest gain, the World Tourism Organisation reported Monday.It forecast an increase of 4.0 percent in tourist numbers in 2007, noting that the trend was now toward a […]

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 28, 2007 (AFP) – When US Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss mentioned his doubts about climate change during a debate at the World Economic Forum last Friday, gasps emerged from the business-minded audience.“Whether it’s something that we need to be totally alarmed about, or nature taking its course, I don’t know,” said the […]

NEW DELHI, Jan 26, 2007 (AFP) – India may be registering blistering rates of growth but only three percent of its people understand the economic reforms being implemented and most think they have benefitted only the rich, said a survey published Friday.“Seventy-two percent of Indians were unaware of the economic changes that the country has […]

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 26, 2007 (AFP) – Davos regulars Bill Gates, Tony Blair and Bono sought Friday to stir the collective conscience of the annual huddle of global leaders over the plight of the developing world.Bono, the U2 frontman — a rare exception to the bar on celebrity delegates at this year’s gathering of the […]

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 25, 2007 (AFP) – US Trade Representative Susan Schwab on Thursday played down hopes of a breakthrough at a meeting on deadlocked global trade talks this weekend but said progress was being made.“I don’t think we’re looking at a breakthrough in the near term,” Schwab told AFP on the sidelines of the […]

NEW DELHI, Jan 24, 2007 (AFP) – India, one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone markets, said Wednesday it plans to announce its next generation — 3G — policy by March that telecom players expect will ease congestion. “The policy will be ready by March 2007,” Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran said on the sidelines of […]

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 24, 2007 (AFP) – The world’s business and political elite kicked off its annual retreat in Davos on Wednesday, with climate change and the Middle East riding high on the agenda — at least in public.The four-day gathering of movers and shakers in the Swiss ski resort boasted the usual impressive guest […]

TOKYO, Jan 22, 2007 (AFP) – Toyota Motor Corp. plans to build a low-cost car undercutting Renault’s emerging-market Logan through a “radical” rethink in design and production, the president of the fast-growing Japanese automaker said. “The focus is on low-cost technology,” Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe told Britain’s Financial Times newspaper in an interview published Monday. […]

TOKYO, Jan 22, 2007 (AFP) – International tuna conservation bodies Monday opened their first joint meeting to look at ways to save the animals from overfishing, which environmentalists fear is driving them to extinction.The five-day meeting in the western Japanese city of Kobe will look at ways to share information among regions to monitor tuna […]

BRUSSELS, Jan 18, 2007 (AFP) – After taking action against Microsoft and Google, Belgium’s French-speaking newspapers are seeking redress from another Internet search engine, Yahoo, their lawyer said Thursday.“We sent a letter of formal notice to Yahoo yesterday” so that it will stop publishing articles from Belgian newspapers on its search engine without prior authorisation, […]

Jan 18, 2007 (AFP) – The Bank of Japan decided against raising its ultra-low interest rates Thursday in the face of fierce political pressure, backing down in a standoff that has put its credibility into question.After a week during which government officials had lined up to publicly urge the central bank not to gamble the […]