Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Tuesday the city-state's red-hot property market was a matter of concern and needed careful monitoring to avoid the creation of a bubble. "Our property market has been taking off, which is causing some consternation," he told Reuters in an interview. "We have had a series of measures

Lloyds had a good third quarter and is on track for a decent financial performance in 2010 as bad debts fall and margins improve, the part-nationalised British bank said on Tuesday. "We continue to expect the group to deliver a good financial performance for the full year," the bank said in a statement. Some UK

Japan's broad-based Topix index fell to its lowest close in 19 months on Tuesday as the yen's strength against the dollar hurt shares of exporters such as automakers, while weakness in financial shares weighed on confidence. The benchmark Nikkei average hit a seven-week low but analysts said the Topix has been hit particularly hard by

Oil edged higher on Tuesday, with investors cautious ahead of expected monetary easing from the U.S. Federal Reserve, capping gains from an apparent upwards shift in price tolerance among OPEC ministers. U.S. crude for December rose 40 cents to $83.35 a barrel at 0506 GMT, adding to gains of nearly 2% the previous session. ICE

The Australian dollar leapt after Australia's central bank surprised markets with a rate hike on Tuesday, leading the U.S. dollar to give back gains in ranges that tightened ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting. The Reserve Bank of Australia raised its cash rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.75% as a

The Group of 20 must do more to strengthen international supervision of the financial sector, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Monday. "More has to be done in the area of international supervision. You can have the best regulation in the world but if its implementation is not supervised, it will not

Greek police said it had intercepted on Monday a booby-trapped parcel addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, after another package exploded at a courier company in Athens. "One of the explosive devices that the suspects were carrying was addressed to the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy," a police spokesman told Reuters. He said

A parcel exploded at a courier company in Athens on Monday and police detonated two more bombs wrapped in packages, one carried by two suspects and the other left at another delivery firm in the Greek capital, police said. Greek police believes blast not linked to Al Qaeda. According to initial evidence the parcel that

The Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders will meet U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on Nov. 18 to take stock of U.N.-mediated talks aimed at reuniting the Mediterranean island that has been divided for 36 years, the United Nations announced on Saturday. The announcement said the meeting would take place "in the framework of