Stories for 2009

Tuesday, January 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
Five Brazilian banks concentrate 65% of financial assets

The share of total assets held by Brazil's five largest banks rose to 65.72% at the close of 2008, up more than 13 percentage points from the end of the previous year, according to Central bank figures quoted by financial and business daily Valor.
Tuesday, January 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
Britain's house prices fell a record 15.9% during 2008

Britain's biggest building society has said house prices fell by a record 15.9% during 2008 as it warned the property market was in for another turbulent year. Nationwide said prices were likely to have further to fall before significant numbers of buyers returned to the market, although it stopped short of making a specific forecast for price drops in 2009.
Tuesday, January 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
Forest fire smoke plumes slow tourist traffic in Uruguay

A forest fire that was preventing tourists from reaching Uruguay's sea resorts, including the upscale vacation spot of Punta del Este has been brought under control, although fire-fighters and the military were still working to extinguish the blaze completely, officials said.
Tuesday, January 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
Rich Latin-Americans, leading banks caught in Madoff's net

Wealthy Latin Americans are among the biggest victims of an alleged 50 billion US dollars Ponzi scheme orchestrated by financier Bernard Madoff, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Tuesday, January 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
Wall Street Ratings agencies threatened? Standards too Poor?

Ratings companies used to have a great name. No longer. The subprime mortgage crisis has seen to that. Once seen as being blue chip companies with a sterling reputation, the ratings companies have now come to be seen as part of the sordid network of double dealing in Wall Street in which conflicts of interest and outright dishonesty led to millions losing money, while the fat cats of the ratings companies raked it all in.
Monday, January 5th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
South Korea and Japan reopen markets to Chilean pork

South Korea and Japan reopened their markets to Chilean pork, according to a release in Seoul from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
Monday, January 5th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
Cubans can now build their homes with own private funds

Cubans will be permitted to build their own homes using their own private funds, President Raul Castro announced on Sunday, in the latest reforms to back off the centralized economy hard-line orthodoxy of the past five decades.
Monday, January 5th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
Japan calls for no re-fueling of whaling activists' vessels

Japanese whalers are pressing for Australian and New Zealand authorities to refuse port entry to Sea Shepherd anti-whaling activists “terrorist ship” when they return from the Antarctic to refuel.
Monday, January 5th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
Brazil beefs up troops and forts to protect Amazon forest

Brazil plans to double the number of troops along the borders of its vast Amazon rain forest area in the framework of the “Protecting Amazon” project, reported O Estado de Sao Paulo” this weekend.
Monday, January 5th 2009 - 20:00 UTC
IMF considers UK Chancellor Darling's forecast “optimistic”

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer prediction on when the UK economy could start to recover may be “optimistic”, a director of the International Monetary Fund has said.