adminAustralia cruise past New Zealand
Brisbane — Debutant paceman James Pattinson ripped through New Zealand’s top order in a brilliant morning spell to fire Australia to an emphatic victory by nine wickets on the fourth afternoon of the first Test here yesterday.
Blind French eaterie seeks to conquer New York
PARIS — A French restaurant where diners cannot see what they are eating, often spill their wine and must conduct conversations while staring into pitch darkness has proved such a success in Europe that it is making a foray into the Americas.
Costs increases squeeze commercial farmers
Cape Town — South Africa’s commercial farmers’ income has hardly been great, especially for those planting crops. Stock farmers have suffered heavily from stock theft and job opportunities dried up.
Gross farm income in the year to end-February last year amounted to R121.766bn, 2.2 percent more than the previous year. Current revenue was 3.1 percent up at R89.286 billion, according to the latest figures from Statistics South Africa (SSA).
Debt funds needed in all euro zone states: Germany
BERLIN — Every country in the euro zone needs to set up a special national fund for sovereign debt that is more than 60 percent of gross domestic product, Germany’s finance minister told a newspaper.
China-US trade up 17pc
BEIJING — Commerce Minister Chen Deming said Friday that China-US trade rose 17 percent year-on-year to reach 363 billion US dollars in the first ten months of the year.
The increase led to China and the United States becoming each other’s second-largest trading partners, Chen said at a dinner held by the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham-China).
Australia approves uranium exports to India
Australia’s ruling Labour Party has approved plans to open up uranium sales to India, clearing the way for talks on a bilateral nuclear agreement and resolving an issue that has caused diplomatic tensions between the two nations.
‘Time to step on the gas’ to bolster US economy: Obama
WASHINGTON — The United States should step up efforts to revive its economy even after the private sector has been creating jobs over the past 21 months in a row, President Barack Obama said on Saturday.
DRC opposition rejects early results
Opposition parties in Democratic Republic of Congo have rejected partial results released by the electoral commission giving incumbent President Joseph Kabila an early lead in the vote count from the 28 November presidential election.
Violence kills 25 across Somalia
At least 25 people have been killed and scores others wounded in a new wave of violence that rocked different parts of war-torn Somalia, Press TV reports.
As many as 12 people, including five government soldiers, died in the capital Mogadishu’s northern neighbourhoods of Yaqshid and Hiliwa on Saturday as fierce clashes broke out between al-Shabab militants and Somalia’s transitional government forces.
Muslim Brotherhood-led coalition wins 40 percent votes in first round polls
CAIRO — The Democratic Alliance, led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, won around 40 percent of votes among party candidates in the preliminary results of the first stage of the People’s Assembly polls, official Al-Ahram newspaper reported yesterday.