The U.S. House of Representatives swiftly passed a bill on Thursday to recoup controversial bonuses paid to American International Group Inc <AIG.N> as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to calm the furor by taking responsibility. In the face of public outrage at the fact that AIG paid $165 million in bonuses after receiving $180 billion
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Pirates seized a Greek-owned cargo ship off the coast of Somalia late on Thursday, the third such incident in the past two months, Greece's merchant marine ministry said. "The Saint-Vincent-flagged cargo vessel Titan with 24 crew was sailing from the Black Sea to Korea when it was attacked by pirates," a ministry official who declined
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Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Antonis Paschalides departs Friday for Moscow where Cyprus will participate in the 4th International Tourist Exhibition entitled “Intourmarket 2009», organised by the Russian Federation. According to an official announcement issued here today, Cyprus will be the honored country in this year’s exhibition which will result in additional promotion of
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China and other emerging nations back Russia's call for a discussion on how to replace the dollar as the world's primary reserve currency, a senior Russian government source said on Thursday. Russia has proposed the creation of a new reserve currency, to be issued by international financial institutions, among other measures in the text of
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English Premier League soccer team Tottenham Hotspur reported a record half-year profit on Thursday, boosted by player sales, but said it had not been forced to sell its top stars to balance the books. The club said pretax profit rose to 39.8 million pounds ($56.7 million) in the six months to the end of 2008,
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By Tom Perry Chadi Thoumas quit his job in the United Arab Emirates when his employer decided to slash his salary by more than two thirds. A victim of a sharp slowdown in Dubai's economy, he is now home in Beirut, one of an unknown number of Lebanese whose loss of lucrative Gulf employment has
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Hundreds of thousands of people across France on Thursday began protests expected to draw at least a million demonstrators to the streets to denounce President Nicolas Sarkozy's handling of the economic crisis. The protests, which polls show are backed by three quarters of the French public, reflect growing disillusionment with Sarkozy's pledges of reform. The
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Investors approved HSBC Holdings Plc's record 12.9 billion pound ($18.4 billion) rights issue on Thursday, which the bank said would keep it financially strong as it faced "unprecedented turmoil". The bank said over 99 percent of shareholders who voted supported the rights issue and 92.9 percent approved a related resolution allowing the bank to briefly
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By Paul Taylor They're at it again. European Union leaders are bickering about how to spend a small fraction of their economic stimulus effort while the U.S. Federal Reserve is boldly throwing money at the battle against recession. The contrast is striking between the Fed's $1 trillion monetary boost and EU governments' haggling over redirecting
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British house prices have yet to trough and it will be at least a year before they stabilise despite interest rates remaining at a record low, a Reuters poll showed. Average house prices are seen falling 14 percent this year after plummeting 16 percent in 2008 and are likely to fall a further 4 percent
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