30 Dec 2011 - 6:02pm
HONG KONG: The sight of French President Nicolas Sarkozy running to Beijing to solicit funds to save the eurozone summed up what for some was the economic story of 2011 -- Asia's boom versus the West's gloom.
Coming after some regional nations were forced to go cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund for bailouts amid the 1997-98...
29 Dec 2011 - 9:48pm
SARAJEVO: Bosnia ended a 14-month deadlock after its Muslims, Croats and Serbs agreed to form a government, but analysts said Thursday it was just a tiny step forward in the ethnically-divided country.
In the Balkan country where most powers are divided between two entities -- the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serbs' Republika Srpska --...
29 Dec 2011 - 2:55pm
APIA: The Pacific island nation of Samoa is poised to leap into the future this week, axing Friday December 30 as it switches time zones to be closer to its major trading partners in Australasia.
The plan to jump across the international dateline will take Samoa from being one of the last places to see the sun each day to being among the...
29 Dec 2011 - 1:56pm
WASHINGTON: Iran could make good on its threat and temporarily shut down or disrupt oil shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, but it would trigger a devastating US military reaction and leave Tehran utterly isolated on the world stage, experts say.
While Iran is invoking a possible closure of the vital strait as it faces the...
29 Dec 2011 - 1:40pm
NEW YORK: From Spain's indignados protesters to Occupy Wall Street, 2011 was the year when people power, fueled by frustration at a deepening financial crisis, confronted the Western world's elites.
Initially it was the drama in North Africa that gripped the world, starting with Tunisians ousting president-for-life Zine El Abidine Ben Ali,...
28 Dec 2011 - 6:37pm
ATHENS: Early elections in Greece have been delayed to give the interim government more time to rescue the country's crisis-hit economy, but political uncertainty looks set to complicate delicate talks with creditors.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos late on Tuesday said ballots would be set in late April to enable critical negotiations...
28 Dec 2011 - 4:14pm
DUBAI: The Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has threatened to block if the West applies sanctions on its oil exports, is a strategically important waterway through which 40 per cent of the world's seaborne oil transits.
The strait links the Gulf, bordered by petroleum-rich states like Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab...
28 Dec 2011 - 2:02pm
RIO DE JANEIRO: Tomazia Ferreira Martins has been living for 40 years at the same house in the hillside Rio shanty town of Rocinha -- but as long as drug gangs ruled the neighborhood, she never got mail delivered at home.
Now that the government has flooded the area with police and soldiers and pacified her slum, letter carriers are...
28 Dec 2011 - 1:36pm
PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy's re-election hopes have been hit by new figures showing unemployment at a 12-year high amid an austerity drive that leaves him little room to manoeuvre.
The figures issued on Monday showed the number of registered job seekers in France rising by 29,900 in November to reach 2.84 million, the highest...
27 Dec 2011 - 6:08pm
LONDON: A decade after the euro came into circulation, the British are more hostile than ever towards a currency that faces a battle for survival, and cannot hide their satisfaction at holding on to the pound.
Yet such sentiment masks the fact that while the eurozone is struggling, the British economy is not exactly booming either....
