March, 2016

• 7 March

  Syria opposition agrees to attend Geneva talks

  BEIRUT / AP Syria’s opposition on Monday agreed to attend a new round of UN-sponsored peace talks set for this week in Geneva after a landmark ceasefire led to a dramatic drop in fighting. The truce between President Bashar Al Assad’s regime and non-extremist rebels, brokered by Russia and the United States, has defied expectations and led to the first ...

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• 7 March

  Demolition resumes in Calais as new refugee camp to open

  Calais / AfP A second week of demolition was underway on Monday in the Calais migrant camp known as the “Jungle” while France’s first international-standard refugee camp was set to open further along the coast. A group of children tried to offer white roses to the line of riot police holding back migrants and volunteers as workers resumed the dismantling ...

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• 7 March

  Tunisia kills 21 extremists after attack near Libya border

  

  Zarzis / AFP Tunisian forces killed 21 extremists who attacked police and army posts near the Libyan border on Monday in a new spillover of violence that also saw four civilians killed. It was the second deadly clash in the border area in less than a week. The defence ministry said that a soldier was also killed in the fighting ...

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• 7 March

  Crisis-hit Greeks put own woes aside to help refugees

  

  Athens / AFP Their own wages and pensions have been slashed by the debt crisis, but thousands of Greeks are putting their own economic woes aside to help desperate refugees trapped in the country by the Balkan border blockade. People old and young, from couples with babies to pensioners and teenagers, came to Athens’ Syntagma Square on Sunday loaded with ...

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• 7 March

  Fresh worry: Aussie banks face high bad-debt charges

  

  Canberra / Bloomberg Already faced with higher capital requirements and a housing market past its peak, Australian banks have a new headache to contend with: corporate loans. Bad-debt provisions at the lenders are set to rise to their highest in eight years by 2018, as the chances of defaults in the mining, agricultural and dairy sectors increase, according to a ...

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• 7 March

  Indian banks file for top corporate’s arrest

  

  Bangalore / AFP A group of Indian banks has petitioned a court seeking the arrest of corporate honcho Vijay Mallya, the beleaguered businessman accused of defaulting on hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, a lawyer said. Heavily indebted Mallya has been deep in a financial fight over his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, which owes more than $1 billion to a ...

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• 7 March

  Dollar sale: Manufacturers lobby Nigeria Central Bank

  

  ABUJA / BLOOMBERG Nigeria’s biggest manufacturing body has lobbied the central bank to sell dollars directly to its members, bypassing commercial lenders as it looks to counter a shortage of foreign-currency it says threatens thousands of jobs in Africa’s largest oil producer. The Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria, which has about 2,700 members, proposed weekly auctions of dollars to manufacturing businesses ...

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• 7 March

  Banca Popolare di Vicenza owners back public offering

  

  Bloomberg Banca Popolare di Vicenza SCpA’s owners approved a plan to raise as much as 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) in an initial public offering and transform the cooperative lender into a joint-stock firm, a crucial step toward ensuring its survival. The proposals passed at a meeting in Vicenza, Italy, after the European Central Bank (ECB) warned that without a ...

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• 7 March

  Turbulent markets part of ‘gathering storm’, key bank warns

  

  Zurich / AFP A fragile calm in global financial markets has given way to all-out turbulence, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) said, warning of a ‘gathering storm’ which has long been brewing. In its previous quarterly report, watched closely by investors, the BIS — which is known as the central bank of central banks — warned of an ‘uneasy ...

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• 7 March

  Hong Kong home sales tumble 70% as slowdown intensifies

  

  HONG KONG / Bloomberg Hong Kong residential home sales plunged 70 percent in February from a year earlier to a 25-year low, as falling prices and economic uncertainty deterred buyers. Last month, 1,807 homes were sold in Hong Kong, compared with 6,027 a year earlier, according to government statistics. Home sales fell from 2,045 in January, the data show. “The ...

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