Stories for June 5th 2009

Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:35 UTC
Air France crash mystery deepens

The mystery surrounding the crash of an Air France plane off the coast of Brazil deepened after Brazilian officials said items they had pulled from the sea were not in fact debris from the downed Airbus.
Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:16 UTC
Falkland Islands: Weekly Penguin News Update

Headlines: ‘A step back for the West’ - SAAS is forced to drop Fox Bay from its schedule; Will Falklands Landholdings split up its farms?; Shackleton joins Ross and Fitzroy at school; Islander abroad honoured.
Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:13 UTC
ECB anticipates steep GDP fall and “stabilization phase” in 2010

In a move which was widely expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) elected to keep interest rates for the euro zone on hold at 1% and announced that the planned purchase of 60 billion Euros in company bonds will commence in July.
Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:11 UTC
Bank of England keep rates and quantitative easing unchanged

The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee voted Thursday to maintain the official rate unchanged at 0.5% for the third month in a row, but no fresh measures to stimulate the economy were announced.
Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:08 UTC
Raul Castro removes architect of the “convertible peso”

The head of Cuba's central bank Francisco Soberón has resigned after holding the job for fifteen years. He was replaced by Ernesto Medina who heads Banco Financiero Internacional, one of Cuba's biggest banks, according to an official announcement read on Thursday evening news.
Friday, June 5th 2009 - 08:21 UTC
The noose tightens: another ministerial shove for PM Brown to step down

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been put under further pressure to step down as Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell dramatically announced he was quitting the Cabinet as polls closed in crunch elections.
Friday, June 5th 2009 - 08:13 UTC
Argentina’s spat with Uruguay not exclusive, say diplomats

The diplomatic spat to which Uruguay is being exposed by Argentina over the Botnia pulp mill conflict is not exclusive or an isolated case, it was revealed during a recent meeting of Uruguayan ambassadors that returned to Montevideo to address trade issues.
Friday, June 5th 2009 - 08:09 UTC
Short of dollars, Venezuela tightens currency exchange controls

Venezuela tightened currency-exchange controls this week cutting in half the amount of dollars that residents may obtain through the government to send to relatives abroad according to Official Gazette.