International

• Thursday, September 3rd 2009 - 10:10 UTC

  EU hedge funds regulations threaten London’ position as global financial hub

  

  EU plans to regulate hedge funds are a “blatant attack” on London's role as an international financial centre, the mayor of the city has said. Boris Johnson added that suspicions ministers in Paris and Berlin were using the proposals to deliberately target London were “not unfounded”.

• Thursday, September 3rd 2009 - 07:10 UTC

  China first to buy 50 billion USD in IMF bonds

  

  China has agreed to buy the first International Monetary Fund bonds for about 50 billion dollars, the IMF said Wednesday. IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, Yi Gang, signed the agreement in Washington.

• Thursday, September 3rd 2009 - 03:34 UTC

  Strong lobbying from UK’s defence industry fearful of budget cuts

  

  Budget cuts could damage Britain’s armed forces and investing in the defence industry could help lead Britain out of recession, leading figures from the UK’s armaments sector said this week.

• Thursday, September 3rd 2009 - 03:26 UTC

  BP announces giant deep oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico

  

  British Petroleum announced Wednesday a giant oil discovery at its Tiber Prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The well, located in Keathley Canyon block 102, approximately 400 kilometres south east of Houston, is in 1,259 metres of water.

• Thursday, September 3rd 2009 - 03:21 UTC

  Falklands on route map for 2010 Games in India Queen’s Baton relay

  

  Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is to launch a baton relay – one of the longest in history – in the presence of Indian President Pratibha Patil to lift the curtain on the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, organizers announced this week.

• Wednesday, September 2nd 2009 - 13:12 UTC

  Gibraltar signs information exchange agreements to boost tax transparency

  

  Gibraltar Chief Minister Peter Caruana signed a tax information exchange agreement (TIEA) with the UK which is set to boost levels of transparency on tax-related issues, reports the Gibraltar Chronicle.

• Wednesday, September 2nd 2009 - 07:49 UTC

  China confirms stimulus and credit policies to prop economy

  

  Chinese top leaders reaffirmed on Tuesday the country’s stimulus program and easy credit policy following one of the worst monthly performances of the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets fearing recovery efforts could be loosing steam.

• Wednesday, September 2nd 2009 - 07:41 UTC

  Euro zone record in July: 15.1 million jobless

  

  Unemployment in the 16-member Euro zone hit a 10-year high in July, data released Tuesday showed. EU statistics office Eurostat said that another 167,000 people were unemployed in the Euro zone during July, pushing the jobless rate up to 9.5% from 9.4% in June which takes the total to 15.1 million people.

• Wednesday, September 2nd 2009 - 07:35 UTC

  IATA: air transport sector a “disaster”; airlines set to loose 9 billion USD

  

  ”The global situation of the air transport sector is a disaster” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO in a speech to JURCA, the association of airlines operating in Argentina.

• Wednesday, September 2nd 2009 - 07:23 UTC

  Terrorist suspect to be confirmed as Iranian Defence minister

  

  Iranian MPs have strongly backed the defence minister-designate, in defiance of Argentine demands for his arrest over a 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires. Ahmad Vahidi faced no opposition from MPs on the third day of a debate on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's choices for his new cabinet.