Greece’s track and field federation may be forced to suspend all their existing programmes and activities, said Federation head Vassilis Sevastis to the Associated Press on Tuesday, after cuts in state funding had left several coaches and suppliers unpaid for months.
The Australian government has announced it will overhaul its visa assessment system for American workers as its economy struggles to fill jobs in key sectors that are currently enjoying a boom, mostly on the back of strong demand from China. According to industry projections, Australia will need 1.3 million extra workers over the next five years.
On Monday, Australia’s Skills Minister Chris Evans and the United States Ambassador to Australia Jeffery Bleich announced a new scheme to help American workers have their trade qualifications recognised faster.
The bank that bet big on a housing market crash in 2007/08, and profited from it, is about to place another bet on the US real-estate market. This time, Goldman Sachs is taking aim at a rebounding property market in the United States.
International trade groups, along with other foreign government officials, have advised the Indian government to reconsider their proposal to retroactively tax corporations for prior overseas deals, said a report by Reuters on Monday, as concerns grew over the overall investment confidence in Asia’s third largest economy.
Ice cream prices could go up by as much as 10 percent around the world this year, said a report by the Telegraph on Monday, after two of the world’s largest producers of the vanilla spice reported much lower than expected harvests in the last two months.
A quick preview of the key economic events for the upcoming week:
This week, investors will be eagerly anticipating the European Central Bank interest rate announcement. The Bank that has so far provided bailout money at a benchmark rate of 1 percent is expected to make its announcement on Wednesday. Should the Bank decide to increase the rate, investors fear the PIIGS would not be able to handle the higher debt servicing costs.
With the aim of saving 27 billion euros ($36 billion) in 2012, the Spanish government has announced almost 17 percent in budget cuts, a budget that the government says is the ‘most austere’ since the country became a democracy in 1977.
Despite violent demonstrations and protests that took place in major cities across Spain, the Spanish government insisted that the cuts were vital to avoid financial ruin.
Africa’s development efforts could be at risk of stalling, said a representative from the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Sunday, after new figures showed that African countries were paying out more for oil imports than what they received in financial aid.
According to the IEA, Sub-Saharan Africa received just $15.6 billion in overseas development aid last year, as compared to the $18 billion they spent during the same period for importing oil from overseas.
The once-thriving Greek port city of Perama – just 14.48km away from the capital of Athens – could be on the verge of a “humanitarian crisis”, said global humanitarian aid organisation Doctors of the World on Friday, as thousands of residents struggle to afford basic human necessities such as food and healthcare.
State-owned Chinese oil company PetroChina announced this Thursday that it pumped 2.4 million barrels of oil per day last year – overtaking Exxon Mobil’s 2.3 million bpd to be the world’s largest publicly traded producer of oil.
