The Thai government may begin charging foreigners up to 500-baht ($16.13) to enter the country starting from January next year, said authorities this week, in the hopes of attracting a better “quality” of holidaymakers and, at the same time, pay for tourists who seek treatment at local hospitals but can’t afford the bill.
The world’s largest coffee chain, Starbucks Corp, has come under fire from China’s official state broadcaster, China Central Television (CCTV), for charging locals up to 50 percent more for some of its products compared to what it charged in other markets such as the U.S. or India.
Global sugar prices have risen to a one-year high after a fire broke out at several warehouses in the southern Brazilian port of Santos last Friday, destroying some 180,000 tons of sugar in the process.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the fire damaged six warehouses belonging to Brazilian sugar giant Copersucar, threatening to put the terminal out of action for at least six months while repairs are made.
Argentine scientists have found a way to convert gas produced by bovine digestive systems into a fuel source, reported Reuters on Monday, though they do not expect the method to be practical for at least another 30 years.
U.S. banking giant JP Morgan Chase will reportedly pay $13 billion to end federal and state investigations into mortgage-backed securities it sold before the financial crisis, marking the largest civil penalty ever levied onto a U.S. company and wiping out more than half of the bank’s 2012 profits.
Multiple U.S. media reports over the weekend suggested that a deal had been struck last Friday between the bank and the U.S. Justice Department, bringing to an end to civil mortgage litigation against JP Morgan, whilst still leaving room for criminal prosecution.
An estimated 30 million people worldwide are currently living as slaves, according to the inaugural Global Slavery Index published Thursday, with India said to have the largest number of enslaved people, though African countries still had the highest proportional figure based on population.
The World Bank has cut its forecast for India’s economic growth from 6.1 percent to 4.7 percent in this fiscal year, citing a sharp slowdown in manufacturing and high interest rates as the key factors driving down investment.
In its India Development Update report released on Wednesday, the bank warned that “high headline inflation, an elevated current account deficit, and rising pressure on fiscal balances from the depreciation of the rupee” continued to be major risks for the Indian economy.
As nations worldwide continue to fret over the U.S. budget impasse, China has once again called for the creation of a new international reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar, in order for the world “to permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the U.S.”
More than half of employees working at the largest fast-food chains in the U.S. are earning so little in wages that they must rely on some sort of public assistance to get by, according to a new study co-published by the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Illinois on Tuesday.
The study, which came after large nationwide protests by fast-food workers this year, found that about 52 percent of U.S. fast-food workers had been dependant on at least one form of public assistance between 2007-2011, costing taxpayers nearly $7 billion a year.
Some 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted every year, according to a United Nations report published in September. Other reports suggest that the number is much higher at close to 4 billion tons.
