In a bid to strengthen ties and mutual cooperation, China has promised $20 billion in credit for Africa over the next three years. The loan is double the amount China pledged in a three-year period in 2009, since which time China has become Africa’s largest trading partner.
Chinese president Hu Jintao had made the announcement at a summit in Beijing yesterday, where leaders from 50 African nations were in attendance.
Germany’s capital city, Berlin, could potentially be trillions of euros in debt, claimed a report by Reuters on Wednesday, after the village of Mittenwalde – just 30km away from Berlin’s city centre – uncovered a certificate of debt in its archives, which dated back to 1562.
Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti plans to cancel at least three public holidays from the national calendar so as to improve economic productivity, reported Sky News on Wednesday, with the nation’s public debt now spiralling up to more than $1.5 trillion.
The World Trade Organisation has ruled that China discriminates against foreign providers of electronic payment services. Currently, only one company in China, UnionPay, is allowed to process yuan-denominated transactions.
According to the WTO dispute panel, Beijing has violated WTO rules by requiring all yuan-denominated payment cards issued in China to work with the network belonging to the state-owned UnionPay, as well as requiring every merchant and ATM to accept UnionPay.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC have been slapped with a record $5 billion fine for environmental damaged caused by an oil spill in Nigeria’s Bonga field last year, reported the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, though company representatives now insist that there was no legal basis for the fine.
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Public officials from Bangladesh’s education ministry will soon have their activities tracked while at work, reported Reuters on Tuesday, after Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid installed close-circuit television cameras in all key offices to catch any form of bribery in his ministry.
Europe’s largest bank, HSBC, has been investigated for alleged money-laundering offences involving Iran, drug cartels and terrorists.
In a 340-page report released ahead of a US Senate hearing on Tuesday, it is alleged that the HSBC’s lax controls saw the bank launder billions of dollars for accounts linked to drug cartels and terrorist groups.
Days after news of the LIBOR scandal broke, a report commissioned by the G20 warns that oil prices could be rigged by traders as the current system of oil price reporting is “susceptible to manipulation or distortion.”
According to the report by the International Organisation of Securities Commission, an inquiry has revealed a “variety of issues” over the way oil spot market prices are determined and how it ultimately affects the “transparency and functioning of oil markets.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered India’s economic growth estimate from 6.9 percent to 6.1 percent for 2012, reported Reuters on Monday, with the cut seen to be the steepest among any emerging economy in the world.
“In the past three months, the global recovery, which was not strong to start with, has shown signs of further weakness,” wrote the IMF in its latest World Economic Outlook report.
