Japan braces for strong typhoon Ma-On

Japan braces for strong typhoon Ma-On

Japan braces for strong typhoon Ma-On

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 01:08 AM PDT

Japan braced for heavy rain and fierce wind as strong typhoon Ma-On churned towards the country on Tuesday, prompting workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to take safety measures.

read more

Clinton pushes security, trade ties in India

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 01:07 AM PDT

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for deeper regional security cooperation and trade ties in talks with Indian leaders Tuesday, held in the shadow of triple bomb blasts in Mumbai.

read more

Japan bans Fukushima beef shipments over radiation

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 12:37 AM PDT

Japan on Tuesday banned all cattle shipments from Fukushima prefecture due to escalating fears of radiation-tainted beef in the country's meat distribution chain.

read more

S. Korea to adopt tougher rules on military bullying

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 12:36 AM PDT

South Korea's military on Tuesday announced tougher rules to combat barrack-room bullying after this month's deadly shooting rampage by a Marine who complained of abuse by superiors.

read more

Hong Kong orders recall of Glaxo children's drug

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 12:14 AM PDT

Hong Kong has ordered pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to recall an antibiotic used to treat infections in children which contained chemical additives, and warned it may sue the drugmaker.

read more

George Chan says it again, senior SUPP leaders should leave

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 11:59 PM PDT

Sarawak United People』s Party (SUPP) president Tan Sri Dr George Chan Hong Nam said the party's senior leaders should leave with him at the party's Triennial Delegates' Conference (TDC) in December.

read more

Former Alcatel staff pleads not guilty to bribery charge

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 11:58 PM PDT

A former staff of Alcatel Network Systems (M) Sdn Bhd pleaded not guilty at the Sessions Court here today to a charge of bribing an assistant procurement manager of Telekom Malaysia Berhad five years ago.

read more

Police on trail of three Perlop escapees

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 11:58 PM PDT

Police are still on the trail of three inmates who escaped from the Perlop Narcotics Rehabilitation Centre, 50km from here early yesterday morning.

read more

China threat growing despite better ties: Taiwan

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 11:53 PM PDT

China's military threat against Taiwan is bigger than ever, the island's defence ministry said Tuesday, despite three years of efforts by Taipei to pursue detente with the mainland.

read more

School first or course?

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 11:51 PM PDT

I agree with him. Based on the situation here, it is ideal and sensible to choose an interested course instead of a favourable university. However, if there is a chaos similar to the JPA scholarships issues, it is indeed perfectly justified to fight till the end.

read more

VIDEO: How aid helps Ethiopia's coffee trade

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 11:45 PM PDT

The lives of Ethiopian coffee farmers have been transformed with the help of long-term aid.


Gold soars above US$1,600 for first time

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 09:03 AM PDT

LONDON: The price of gold surged on Monday above US$1,600 per ounce for the first time in history, as investors bought the safe-haven metal amid deepening worries over the eurozone debt crisis. Gold jumped as high as US$1,600.10 an ounce in early morning trading on the London Bullion Market, as the precious metal extended its recent record-breaking surge which began on Friday. "Gold hit another milestone ... at US$1,600 as investors lose confidence in the ability of politicians to get to grip with the debt problems weighing down on sentiment," said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson. "More advances look likely while this lack of confidence prevails as investors plough capital into the asset." The precious metal is regarded by most investors as a safe-haven in times of global economic turmoil. This week, eurozone countries will seek to settle their debt crisis at an emergency summit to try and stop Greece toppling into default and dragging bigger euro economies into deeper trouble. EU president Herman Van Rompuy has said the summit in Brussels on July 21 would focus on both the financial stability of the eurozone and future financing of the Greek programme. Meanwhile, US politicians are wrangling over a deficit reduction plan which would allow President Barack Obama to avert a potentially catastrophic debt default in return for US$1.5 trillion in spending cuts. "Gold took out US$1,600 early this morning," added Spread Co analyst Ian O'Sullivan. "Investors are now adding real fears of a US default to go along with their European sovereign worries." Markets slid last week as the eurozone debt crisis, which has already sunk Greece, Ireland and Portugal, showed signs of spreading to Italy and Spain. Before the weekend, the European Union announced late on Friday that only eight of 91 European banks had failed so-called "stress tests" which were designed to assess their ability to withstand a worst-case economic scenario. A ninth bank, Germany's Helaba, said it had failed according to the EBA's standards but passed on its own calculation. -- AFP


More Chinese cities see home prices fall in June

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 09:05 AM PDT

BEIJING: More Chinese cities saw prices of new homes fall in June compared with the previous month, official data showed Monday, as Beijing vowed to step up efforts to cool its real estate market. The cost of new apartments in 12 out of 70 Chinese cities tracked by the National Bureau of Statistics fell, compared with nine cities in May, the NBS said in a statement. New home prices increased in 44 cities in June from the previous month -- down from 50 in May -- and were unchanged in 14 others. Soaring property prices are a major source of official and consumer concern in China with apartment costs rising out of the reach of many people and threatening to spark social unrest in the country of more than 1.3 billion. The cost of new homes in 67 of the cities surveyed rose year-on-year in June -- unchanged from April and May. China has introduced a range of measures aimed at reducing prices since late 2009, such as bans on buying second homes in some cities, hiking minimum downpayments and experimenting with property taxes in Shanghai and Chongqing. But officials are treading carefully as the real estate sector is a major driver of economic growth and land sales to developers are an important source of revenue for cash-strapped local governments. The government last week pledged to extend limits on new home purchases to smaller cities, adding it would tighten existing property restrictions in areas that have seen excessive price rises to push them "back to reasonable levels". To tame soaring prices -- and other consumer costs -- the central bank has also raised interest rates five times since October and increased the amount of money banks must keep in reserve numerous times. -- AFP


Bookstore chain Borders writes final chapter

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 04:57 PM PDT

NEW YORK: Embattled US bookstore chain Borders said Monday it would liquidate after failing to find a buyer amid the growing popularity of e-books and the slow economy. Borders, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February and hoped to attract a bidder as it reorganized, said it would close its 399 stores. More than 10,000 people will lose their jobs. Borders said it will seek court approval Thursday of a previously announced proposal from liquidators Hilco and Gordon Brothers to buy the store assets of the business and start the liquidation, in the absence of a formal proposal from anyone else who would keep the business alive. "Following the best efforts of all parties, we are saddened by this development," said Borders Group president Mike Edwards. "We were all working hard towards a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, eReader revolution, and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now." Under the proposal and subject to court approval, the liquidation is expected to begin for some stores and facilities as soon as Friday, with a phased rollout of the program expected to wind up by the end of September. Borders said it intended to liquidate under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code and, as a result, it expected to be able to pay vendors for all expenses incurred during the bankruptcy cases. Borders had announced in early July that it had a bid from investment firm Najafi which wanted to keep the chain going, but Edwards last week confirmed that Najafi had withdrawn. In July 2010, Borders launched an online store for e-books to challenge Amazon, Apple, and others already in the fast-growing digital books market. But many industry analysts said the move came too late. -- AFP


World economy to keep strong but risks abound: Poll

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 09:08 AM PDT

LONDON: The world economy should expand steadily this year and next thanks mainly to prospering emerging powers, a Reuters poll showed, but fiscal troubles lurking in Europe and potentially the United States risk blowing this view apart. The quarterly survey of more than 350 economists from all over the world showed a dimmer outlook for most of the rich-world Group of Seven economies since the last survey in April. Only Germany, booming thanks to buoyant exports, is expected to post growth averaging more than 3 per cent this year. Elsewhere, fiscal austerity in Europe and growing debt fears have soured analysts' sentiment. By contrast, emerging powers like China have enjoyed near double-digit annual growth rates since the global recession -- but they face risks of their own, struggling to contain rampant inflation that has accompanied fervent growth. Economists pointed to the fiscal crisis raging in the euro zone's peripheral countries and the political deadlock in the United States surrounding an increasingly urgent lift to the country's legal debt ceiling as the biggest risks to global economic growth. "If the (euro zone) debt crisis is mishandled, it's a major threat. But it's a threat comparable to the mishandling of the U.S. sovereign debt crisis. It's six and two threes," said Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citi. The poll showed the world economy expanding 4.1 per cent this year and 4.3 per cent next year, little changed from April's survey. Buiter said that authorities in emerging markets are largely behind the curve in monetary policy, which could leave open the prospect that their boom could become a bubble and then a bust -- but not for a couple of years. While economists cut their U.S. economic outlook compared with a poll published last month, they still see the United States performing better this year than struggling European peers like Britain, Italy and France. They saw the U.S. economy growing an average 2.5 per cent this year, before picking up to 3.0 per cent next year -- comfortably in excess of the sub-2 per cent growth rates seen for this year for Europe's G7 members, excluding Germany. "It was the surge in oil and gasoline prices that hurt the (U.S.) economy the most in the first half, and now that they're down, that should take the weight off," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. The dimming U.S. outlook has had a knock-on effect for Canadian growth prospects this year, with economists applying a hefty downgrade to their quarterly growth profiles. -- Reuters


Cisco cutting workforce by 9pc

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 04:55 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO: US networking giant Cisco on Monday said it will eliminate 6,500 jobs, cutting its global workforce by nine per cent as part of a move to slash its annual operating costs. The California-based company also announced a deal to sell its television set-top box facility in Juarez, Mexico to Foxconn Technology Group. The 5,000 workers at the company will become Foxconn employees, Cisco said. Foxconn was expected to take over the facility in Mexico in the early months of next year. Cisco said the moves were part of an action plan to "simplify the organization, refine operations, and reduce annual operating expenses" by a billion dollars. Cisco in April pulled the plug on its Flip video camera business, which it bought about two years ago for US$590 million, and cut 550 jobs. Cisco's decision to shut down the Flip unit was part of what the company said was a move to exit aspects of its consumer businesses and focus on other priority areas. Cisco explained at the time that it was realigning its remaining consumer businesses "to support company priorities -- core routing, switching and services; collaboration; architectures; and video." Cisco chairman and chief executive John Chambers said the company was devoted to a "network-centric platform strategy."-- AFP


No consensus as Europe limps toward Greece summit

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 09:13 AM PDT

BRUSSELS: Confusion over competing policy proposals reigned among officials and bankers on Monday as Europe struggled to put together a second bailout of Greece and prevent the region's debt crisis from spreading. French government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse said she believed a summit of the euro zone's 17 national leaders scheduled for Thursday in Brussels would agree on a rescue of Greece, supplementing a 110 billion euro ($154 billion) bailout launched in May last year. But after three weeks of preparatory talks, it remained unclear whether government officials and commercial bankers could agree on a way for private owners of Greek government bonds -- banks, insurers and other investors -- to contribute to the bailout by taking cuts in the face value of their holdings. The uncertainty pushed the euro down against other currencies on Monday and the government bond yields of indebted euro zone states rose, with Italy's 10-year yield climbing more than 0.2 percentage point to a euro-era high. Paul de Grauwe, a professor of international economics at Leuven University in Belgium who has informally advised European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, said politicians had delayed taking decisive action on Greece for so long that their options were narrowing fast. "I'm afraid to hope. I still hope, yes, but I'm not optimistic," he said. "We've had solutions in the past, but we haven't grasped them. Now it's too late for some of those solutions to work anymore; the opportunity has been lost." Officials are wrestling with a range of schemes for Europe's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to finance a voluntary buy-back or swap of Greek debt that would be conducted at a discount to face value, helping to reduce Greece's 340 billion euro mountain of sovereign debt. But all of the schemes could face major technical and legal obstacles, in some cases requiring the approval of national parliaments in the euro zone. Other proposals still appear to be on the table; Germany's Die Welt newspaper reported on Monday that governments were considering a levy on banks as a way to involve private creditors in rescuing Greece. An official of a major euro zone government who is familiar with the talks said he had not heard of a proposal for a bank levy, but added: "There are at the moment so many proposals that you cannot rule out anything." If a deal on private creditor participation is reached, it may cut Greece's debt by just 20 or 30 billion euros, not nearly enough by itself to solve the problem. Analysts have estimated the debt would have to be roughly halved, to 80 per cent of gross domestic product, to make it manageable in the long run. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that while this week's summit was "urgently necessary," she would only attend if lower-ranking officials had already prepared a clear rescue plan. "I will only go there if there is a result." As part of the second bailout, officials have also been looking at other measures to help Greece including up to 60 billion euros of additional emergency loans from European governments and the International Monetary Fund; steps to recapitalize Greek and European banks; and ways to stimulate Greek economic growth. Some official sources have said interest rates on bailout loans extended to Greece, Ireland and Portugal may be cut and maturities on those loans extended drastically, perhaps to 30 years. There has also been talk of expanding the 750 billion euro bailout facility which the European Union and the IMF jointly created last year as the debt crisis erupted. But de Grauwe said financial markets were now putting so much pressure on weak euro zone states that it was unclear whether cutting interest and extending maturities on their emergency loans would help them regain access to the markets. "If that was to be a solution, it's a solution we should have implemented months ago, when it would have worked." Another source of concern is signs that the IMF and other major governments around the world, which want to prevent the European crisis from poisoning debt markets globally, may lose patience with Europe's handling of the problem. Die Welt quoted unnamed diplomatic sources as saying the IMF was angered by Europe's crisis management and that "influential parties" in the Fund wished not to take part in further bailouts of Greece. It did not elaborate. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary and White House adviser Lawrence Summers, writing in a column contributed to Reuters on Sunday, said Europe needed to act much more aggressively than it had done so far to prevent the Greek crisis from damaging both the region's single currency and the global economic recovery. He recommended steps including sharp cuts in interest paid on bailout loans, allowing countries to buy European Union guarantees for their issues of new debt, and a menu of options for private investors to become involved. "It is to be hoped that European officials can engineer a decisive change in direction but if not, the world can no longer afford the deference that the IMF and non-European G20 officials have shown toward European policymakers over the last 15 months," Summers wrote. Many private economists think some form of regional guarantee for countries' debt along the lines suggested by Summers -- or perhaps even the issuance of joint euro zone bonds -- may ultimately be the only way to emerge from the crisis without one or more weak states being forced out of the zone. But Germany has shown no appetite for such a sweeping solution, which in any case would require a complex and time-consuming revision of the EU treaty. "We are against euro bonds," German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Friday, repeating Berlin's concern that a common bond for the single currency area would provide no meaningful incentives for national governments to pursue prudent budget policies. -- Reuters


VIDEO: Cyprus FM quits over navy blast

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 10:51 PM PDT

The Cypriot Foreign Minister has offered to resign following an explosion a week ago at a naval base in Cyprus which killed 13 and destroyed the island's main electricity power station.


Australia central bank sounds rates caution

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 10:54 PM PDT

Australian interest rates will likely remain on hold for an extended time after a central bank commentary Tuesday warned of uneven domestic growth, slowing commodity prices and global debt fears.

read more

Stabilising Japan nuclear crisis on schedule: PM

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 10:53 PM PDT

Japan's embattled Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday that the first phase of efforts to bring the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant under control is on schedule and near completion.

read more

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)