No image available
/ 16 September 2008
A power-sharing agreement between Zimbabwe’s main political rivals is unlikely to bring immediate economic relief to millions of Zimbabweans.
No image available
/ 15 September 2008
Zimbabwe’s new government will have six executive posts headed by President Robert Mugabe and prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
No image available
/ 15 September 2008
Fallout from the global financial crisis is not over and more consolidation could occur in the financial sector, the IMF said on Monday.
No image available
/ 10 September 2008
Ministers from rich and poor countries met in Accra last week to discuss ways to make the system of aid more effective.
No image available
/ 9 September 2008
World economic growth is set to continue to slow in the second half of 2008 before a gradual recovery in 2009, the IMF said on Tuesday.
Share prices dropped sharply on the world’s financial markets early last week amid fears that the year-long credit crunch is entering a dangerous new
The world economy remains stuck ”between the ice of recession and the fire of inflation”, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Friday.
World leaders gathered in Rome on Tuesday for a United Nations summit on food security as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged "hard decisions" and heavy investment in agriculture. "For years, falling food prices and rising production lulled the world into complacency," Ban said, adding: "Governments put off hard decisions."
Africa’s cocoa makes the world’s chocolate, its fish, fruit and vegetables reach tables around the globe and its oil powers vehicles and factories from China to the United States. Yet far from benefiting from soaring commodity prices, African states are being squeezed as hard as any by the costs of fuel and food imports.
Sitting under a pair of mango trees and sipping coconut water, Toolsy Poorun (87) says he thought he would live in Terre Rouge forever. But then Chinese investment came to this part of Mauritius. Poorun, who lives in the suburbs of the Indian Ocean island’s capital Port Louis, now finds himself caught up in China’s African push.
Malawi’s announcement that it had foiled a fourth coup attempt in four years is fuelling suspicions of growing government paranoia and doubts over chances for a political deal crucial to donor funding. The arrest of senior opposition figures over the latest suspected plot has left crisis talks between the government and opposition near collapse.
A further -billion of debt relief for the world’s poorest countries is needed despite a decade of progress, the Jubilee Debt Campaign warns on Friday. The group’s latest report calls on the G8, World Bank and International Monetary Fund to cancel -billionn of debt, which it says is ”unpayable” and an obstacle to the battle against global poverty.
The worst of the financial-sector crisis is over, although the impact on the broader economy will likely drag on in coming months, International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Thursday. "There are good reasons to believe that the largest part of disclosure in financial institutions has been done," he said.
Zimbabwe has paid back 000 in arrears to the African Development Bank (ADB), despite vast economic problems at home, as part of efforts to meet commitments to donors, the bank said on Monday. ”Zimbabwe has in all paid 000 to the bank group despite numerous economic challenges,” the bank said.
China and India and are moving toward becoming the biggest economies in the world: with 2,4-billion people, or 40% of the world’s population and annual GDP growth rates of between 8% and 10%, experts say that they could one day overtake the United States.
The United Nations’s new top adviser on food blamed two decades of wrong-headed policies by world powers for the food crisis sweeping the globe in a stinging interview published on his first day in office. Frenchman Olivier de Schutter told <i>Le Monde</i> newspaper the world needed to prepare for the end of "cheap food".
The ”DC Madam,” whose arrest for running a high-end prostitution ring sent sex-scandal tremors through the United States capital, hanged herself on Thursday in a shed at her mother’s house, police said. Deborah Jeane Palfrey was convicted last month on federal racketeering charges for running the prostitution ring for the rich, famous and powerful.
The scale of losses and the economic fallout from the global credit crunch may not be as bad as feared and subprime losses could end up costing less than half market forecasts, the Bank of England said on Thursday. The central bank is still concerned about the consequences of the credit crisis but Deputy Governor John Gieve said conditions could stabilise soon.
United Nations agencies and the World Bank pledged on Tuesday to set up a task force to tackle an unprecedented rise in global food prices that is threatening to spread social unrest. The international bodies called on countries not to restrict exports of food to secure supplies at home.
Rising food prices have developed into a global crisis, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday. Concerns about food security mounted this week as rice prices hit records in Asia, and the United States warned that staples for the world’s hungry were getting much more expensive.
It is an overcast morning in the Bulaq neighbourhood of Cairo, three hours after the muezzin’s call to prayers. The streets are choked with honking cars, while goats — and a few ragged-looking people — pick at piles of stinking rubbish overflowing from metal wheelie bins.
Computer maker Hewlett-Packard sees Africa as one of its fastest-growing markets, it said on Tuesday, expecting the world’s poorest continent to rival India for IT outsourcing within a decade. Hewlett-Packard Africa MD Rainer Koch said its sales on the continent are rising by 25% year-on-year.
A ”silent tsunami” unleashed by costlier food threatens 100-million people, the United Nations said on Tuesday, but views differed as to how to stop it. The Asian Development Bank said there was enough food to go round, and the key was to help the poor afford it. It said Asian governments that have curbed food exports were overreacting.
Record high oil prices over a barrel are slowing world economic growth, John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said on Monday. ”It’s dampening growth — that’s for sure, but of course it is benefiting exporters,” he said. ”It’s going to slow growth as we’ve said before. It’s one of the many factors this year.”
More than 3 000 delegates from 193 nations will descend on the Ghana capital, Accra, on Sunday for five days of United Nations talks on globalisation — against a backdrop of rising food prices and an economic slowdown. The talks will be opened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who will warn that not everyone benefits from globalisation.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Friday that soaring world food prices can have dire consequences, such as toppling governments and even triggering wars. Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that the price hikes that have set off rioting in Haiti, Egypt and elsewhere are an ”extremely serious” problem.
The Cabinet is concerned about ”collusive behaviour” in the food industry, leading to higher prices, government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday. Meanwhile, thousands of people were expected to take part in a protest against high food prices in Johannesburg on Thursday afternoon.
Thousands of people are expected to take part in a protest against high food prices in Johannesburg on Thursday, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Wednesday. ”We expect more than 5 000 people from trade unions, non-government bodies and community organisations to turn up,” the Cosatu Gauteng secretary said.
If governments take on private-sector debt created during the subprime crisis, the poor will be hardest hit, economist Iraj Abedian said in Cape Town on Tuesday. ”Heaven help us if it happens in developing countries,” he told a discussion on the global economic meltdown.
South Africa would be wise to increase household savings in the current economic climate, helping to ease pressure on financing of the current-account deficit, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Tuesday. Manuel said that the country’s savings rate was not adequate at just under 14% of gross domestic product.
Oil prices eased from recent highs in Asian trade on Monday after international finance ministers warned that near-term global economic prospects had weakened. In afternoon trade, New York’s main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, fell by 29 cents to ,85 per barrel.
A doubling of food prices over the past three years could push 100-million people in poorer developing countries further into poverty and governments must step in to tackle the issue, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Sunday at the end of the World Bank spring meeting in Washington, DC.