Geneva—Over a
hundred ministers gathered Monday for a World
Trade Organisation conference, with pressure
growing on the United States to boost
negotiations for a global trade pact. Amid
violent demonstrations outside the conference
centre, developing countries have called for
urgent action on the Doha Round of talks on
trade liberalisation, which have foundered since
they were launched in 2001.
Karachi—Business
community will have to maintain unity in their
ranks if they want to get their problems and
issues resolved. Senator Abdul Haseeb Khan said
this while addressing a meeting of Citizen
Social Forum (CSF) held on Sunday. He expressed
grave concern over the differences among
different ranks of business community and said
that this is the main cause of their failure to
get their problems resolved yet.
Frankfurt—The
German industrial conglomerate MAN could face up
to 300 million euros (450 million dollars) in
fines, costs and fiscal sanctions stemming from
a corruption affair, a press report said on
Monday. A MAN spokesman told AFP the amount was
just “speculation,” and added: “The only firm
figure is 50 million euros in internal
investigation costs that have already been
booked.
Dublin
—Ireland’s top two banks hope to get about 28.2
billion euros (42.5 billion dollars) in return
for soured property loans which will be
transferred to a “bad bank” scheme, they said in
statements on Monday. Allied Irish Bank (AIB)
said it hoped to get 17 billion euros and Bank
of Ireland (BofI) said it could receive 11.2
billion euros if a 30 percent discount is
applied to the loans.
Tokyo—Japan’s debt-laden government said Monday
it planned a new round of stimulus spending
worth more than 31 billion dollars to prop up a
feeble economic recovery that is threatened by
the strong yen. Japan, which has this year been
digging itself out of its worst post-war
recession, now faces the threat of the yen
trading at a 14-year high against the dollar,
which hurts the profits of exporters such as
Toyota and Sony.
