Army overthrows Honduras president in vote dispute
Sunday June 28, 2009
By Mica Rosenberg
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The Honduran army ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya and exiled him on Sunday in Central America’s first military coup since the Cold War, after he upset the army by trying to seek another term in office.
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Honduran soldiers block a street near the residence of Honduras’ President Manuel Zelaya in Tegucigalpa June 28, 2009. (REUTERS/Edgard Garrido)
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U.S. President Barack Obama and the European Union expressed deep concern after troops came for Zelaya, an ally of socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, around dawn and took him away from his residence.
Speaking on Venezuelan state television, Chavez — who has long championed the left in Latin America — said he would do everything necessary to abort the coup against his close ally.
A military plane flew Zelaya to Costa Rica and CNN’s Spanish-language channel said he had asked for asylum there.
Pro-government protesters burned tires in front of the presidential palace in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and two fighter jets screamed through the sky over the city.
Honduras, an impoverished Central American country, had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s, but Zelaya’s push to change the constitution to allow him another term has split the country’s institutions.
Zelaya fired military chief Gen. Romeo Vasquez last week for refusing to help him run an unofficial referendum on Sunday on extending the four-year term limit on Honduran presidents.
Zelaya told Venezuela-based Telesur television station that he was “kidnapped” by soldiers and called on Hondurans to peacefully resist the coup.
OBAMA CALLS FOR CALM
The EU condemned the coup and Obama called for calm.
Honduras was a staunch U.S. ally in the 1980s when Washington helped Central American governments fight left-wing guerrillas.
“Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference,” Obama said.
It was the first successful military ouster of a president in Central America since the Cold War era. An opposition deputy said Congress would chose Roberto Micheletti, the head of Congress, as acting president later on Sunday.
The country’s Supreme Court last week came out against Zelaya and ordered him to reinstate fired military chief Vasquez. The court said on Sunday it had told the army to remove the president.
“It acted to defend the rule of law,” the court said in a statement read on Honduran radio.
The global economic crisis has curbed growth in Honduras, which lives off coffee and textile exports and remittances from Honduran workers abroad. Recent opinion polls indicate public support for Zelaya has fallen as low as 30 percent.
Honduras, home to around 7 million people, is a major drug trafficking transit point.
It is also a big coffee producer but there was no immediate sign the unrest would affect production.
source:The Star Online
Iran arrests UK embassy staff for ‘role in riots’
June 29, 2009
Iran has arrested eight local British embassy staff, triggering London’s fury and further exacerbating tensions with the West over the post-election turmoil in the Islamic republic.
The latest backlash against what Iranian leaders have branded as foreign “meddling” came as opposition leaders continued to defy the regime, rejecting a panel set up to hold a partial recount in the hotly-disputed presidential vote.
More than 2,000 people are still in detention and hundreds more are missing across Iran since a government crackdown on protests, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said on Sunday.
On Sunday, police dispersed about 3,000 supporters of opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi who defied a ban on public gatherings in Tehran, witnesses said.
The witness also spoke of a “minor confrontation” between police and the demonstrators who had gathered around Ghoba mosque to mark the anniversary of a prominent cleric killed in a bombing 28 years ago.
Iran has repeatedly accused Britain and the United States of stoking the unrest that swept the country after the June 12 election that returned hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power amid complaints it was rigged.
The Fars news agency said the eight staff members were arrested for having a “considerable role” in the riots.
Iran’s intelligence minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie confirmed the arrests and accused the British embassy of sending local staff “undercover among rioters in order to push its own agenda,” IRNA news agency reported.
“Some of these individuals… have been summoned. Some have been released after preliminary investigations and some have been kept in custody,” he said.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said London protested strongly to Tehran over the arrests, adding that their release was Britain’s “top priority” and dismissing claims the embassy was behind the demonstrations.
EU nations vowed on Sunday to respond to any harassment of diplomats in Iran with a “strong and collective response,” Miliband told reporters at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Corfu.
“There was … a unanimous view that the European Union would act with solidarity and common commitment in the face of harassment and intimidation,” he said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Manouchehr Mottaki, on state television’s website, urged Britain and the EU not to take rash action.
“Don’t continue with this losing game because this is neither in the interests of the British people nor the two countries’ relations that have (already) been damaged because of the British government’s behaviour,” he said.
He also called for European countries and officials to “revise their stand” towards Iran.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei added fuel to the fire, accusing European and American officials of making “idiotic comments” about Iran, state television reported.
The intelligence minister charged that “the British embassy played an important role in the recent riots both through media and its local sources (people),” IRNA reported.
“One of the things that this embassy did was to send out its local staff undercover among the rioters in order to push its own agenda,” Mohseni Ejeie said, adding that “they used some rioters to collect reports.”
Iranian opposition leaders meanwhile continued to challenge the regime, rejecting a panel set up by election supervisory body, the Guardians Council, to hold a partial recount.
Both Mousavi — Ahmadinejad’s strongest rival — and another defeated candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, are demanding a new vote because of what they say are widespread irregularities.
The Guardians Council, an unelected body of 12 jurists and clerics, said a committee of political figures and candidate representatives would be set up to recount 10 percent of the ballots and draw up a report on the vote.
But in a letter to the council, the reformist former parliament speaker Karroubi said that a partial recount was “not enough” and called for an independent body to probe “all aspects of the election.”
Mousavi rejected the Guardian Council’s panel outright, while the other defeated candidate, Mohsen Rezai, has agreed to be part of the committee if Mousavi and Karroubi also agree to nominate representatives to the body.
But Mousavi, who has spearheaded the massive public opposition to the vote, has demanded a rerun, refusing to be cowed by a persistent crackdown against his supporters.
Mousavi, who was prime minister in the post-revolution years, won 34 percent of the vote against 63 percent for Ahmadinejad, a gap of 11 million votes, according to official results.
Since the election at least 17 people have been killed in clashes with security forces, according to state media. Foreign media are banned from the streets under new restrictions imposed in the wake of the election.
source:NST Online
Stars gather at awards, remember Jackson
June 29, 2009
Singers, actors and television personalities saluted Michael Jackson as a transformative figure at the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards, which was hastily retooled to be a night of tribute to the entertainer.
Stars arriving on the red carpet told reporters personal stories about the “King of Pop,” and hailed Jackson for breaking down racial barriers.
“We miss him and we love him and we just feel devastated,” said singer Alicia Keys, urging people to remember Jackson in a “respectful, positive way.”
Asked how Jackson had influence her, Keys replied: “In every way. How could he not influence us to break the barrier and to think bigger, and to try new things and to break the rules.
“Tonight I think is a true memorial for him. It’s really about honoring him this evening.”
BET announced shortly after Jackson’s death that the annual awards ceremony would be tweaked to serve as an unofficial memorial for the singer and a celebration of his life.
“Michael Jackson’s the biggest thing that’s happened to music in our lifetime. When we heard he had passed away we knew we had to revamp this whole show and make it special just for him,” said BET Chairwoman and CEO Debra Lee.
“It’s going to be a celebration tonight, it’s going to be a little sad, but it’s going to be a celebration,” Lee said.
Attendees said they remained in shock over Jackson’s sudden and unexpected death.
Singer Chaka Khan held back tears as she spoke to reporters.
“I haven’t gotten to the point where I can break down yet because I just don’t believe it,” she said.
“I have to believe that energy lives on and he’s still with us in some amazing way.”
Several stars hailed Jackson’s role in breaking down racial barriers and giving African-Americans a hero to idolize.
“He’s one of the reasons why Barack Obama’s president,” said hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
“He started the change in the world about how African-Americans are perceived,” he added.
Taraji P. Henson, the Oscar-nominated star of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” echoed Combs’s words.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing — celebrating his life and that’s what this night is about,” Henson said.
“He’s the biggest star in America — in the world. I feel like he parted a gap so that Obama could be the president. His rise to fame was the beginning of ‘Oh, black people are okay.’”
Actress and co-host of talkshow “The View” Sherri Shephard said she was “still numb.”
“I mean, Michael Jackson shaped every part of our lives… I used to dream about marrying Michael.”
source:NST Online
Emaar downplays debt burden of Dubai property merger
June 29, 2009
Dubai real estate giant Emaar Properties said on Sunday that the debt of the entity to be created through its merger with three other property developers will not exceed 3.64 billion dollars, seven percent of combined assets.
Emaar’s share shed 9.97 percent of its value on Sunday.
The company said the three Dubai Holding units had by the end of 2008 a combined total assets book value of 126 billion dirhams (34.3 billion dollars), while their total external debt amounted to about 3.4 billion dirhams (926 million dollars).
Meanwhile, the assets of Emaar, which is building the world’s tallest tower, Burj Dubai, had by March 31 a book value of 68 billion dirhams (18.5 billion dollars) and a total debt of 10 billion dirhams (2.7 billion dollars), it said.
The assets of the Dubai Holding units include an “attractive land bank,” Emaar said, adding that it will contribute positively to the consolidation.
Tatweer is in charge of developing Dubailand, which was expected to be the Middle East’s equivalent of Orlando, but most of its projects hang in the balance as the emirate’s once-booming property sector struggles to stand on its feet after being hit hard by the global financial crisis.
Emaar said it expected the consolidation process to be completed in about four months, boasting that the new entity will be “one of the largest real estate developers worldwide.”
source:The Star Online
Blur comeback brings Glastonbury to a close
June 29, 2009
Indie rockers Blur returned to Glastonbury Festival for the first time in 11 years to close out three days of music that included sets by Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young.
The recently re-formed Brit pop kings played classics including “Song 2″ and “Park Life” as the Sunday sun set on the temporary city of 137,500 people gathered here in southwest England for the world-famous music and performing arts event.
Michael Jackson’s death and torrential storms on Thursday and Friday — almost a prerequisite for the gathering which is known as much for its terrible weather as for its lineup — created a muted start to this year’s festival.
Many fans sported t-shirts remembering the king of pop, who died Thursday, while acts including Lily Allen and Dizzee Rascal paid tribute to Jackson during their performances.
But a weekend of sunshine and Springsteen’s enthusiastic performance at Saturday’s prestigious headline set ensured the crowd, though exhausted after days of heavy partying and sleep deprivation, should go home happy.
The US rocker’s dynamic show, along with Young’s much appreciated Friday night slot, vindicated the decision taken by festival organisers Michael Eavis and his daughter Emily to return to their rock roots despite the success of last year’s Jay-Z experiment.
The organisers were fined 3,000 pounds (3,500 euros, 5,000 dollars) after Springsteen’s set went nine minutes over the curfew of half past midnight, but Eavis said he was happy to foot the bill for such a “spectacular” performance.
“I know I always say this but it really must be the best one ever. I’ve been waiting for Neil Young for 39 years and Bruce Springsteen did a hell of a show — what energy he’s got,” Eavis told reporters on Sunday.
“I’m already on the phone to try and get next year’s headliners and these are people who haven’t played here before.”
Eavis has hosted Glastonbury since 1970, and he is expected to pull out the stops for its 40th anniversary next year. U2 and the Rolling Stones are among those who have never played the event and are thought to be on his wishlist.
Sunday’s highlights included performances by New Yorkers Yeah Yeah Yeahs and their livewire frontwoman Karen O, who invigorated the audience on The Other Stage with a relentless hour-long performance of their disco rock hits.
Representing the current plethora of female singer-songwriters meanwhile were Ladyhawke and Bat for Lashes, playing at the same time on the John Peel and The Other Stage.
New Zealander Ladyhawke’s 1980’s inspired melodies, including “Paris is Burning” and “Back of the Van”, cut through the stifling atmosphere in a packed John Peel tent.
And Anglo-Pakistani star Bat for Lashes and her brand of enchanting folk pop fitted perfectly into the rural surroundings as she repeated the success of her first appearance at the event in 2007.
Real name Natasha Khan, she is the cousin of Pakistani squash player Jahangir Kahn.
While Blur’s long-awaited set brought the official festival to a close, thousands of determined revellers were likely to stay up through the night before heading to the alternative Green Fields area with its very own ’stone circle’ to watch the sun rise over the site for the final time.
Work will then begin on dismantling the 20 official stages and the 3.5 metre (11-feet) high perimeter fence, as the site is transformed back into its everyday existence as a sleepy diary farm.
source:NST Online
NKorea warns of “dark clouds of nuclear war”
June 25, 2009
North Korea warned that “dark clouds of nuclear war” are gathering over the peninsula and vowed to strengthen its atomic arsenal as it marked the anniversary of the 1950-1953 conflict.
Rodong Sinmun, newspaper of the ruling communist party, accused the United States and its ally South Korea of trying to provoke a new war with a bolstered US nuclear “umbrella” over the South.
“A touch-and-go situation has been created on the Korean peninsula…with dark clouds of a nuclear war gathering as the hours tick by,” it said in a lengthy commentary marking the anniversary.
The paper said a new war could break out any time and the North would continue to strengthen its nuclear arsenal.
“As long as the US hostile policy continues, we will never give up our nuclear deterrent and even strengthen it,” Rodong said.
The conflict began with a North Korean invasion on June 25, 1950. It ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the communist North and capitalist South still technically at war.
Cross-border relations have soured since a conservative government took office in Seoul last year with a firmer policy towards the North.
And international tensions have grown since Pyongyang’s long-range rocket launch in early April and its nuclear test in late May.
The North has also fired short-range missiles, renounced the truce in force on the peninsula and repeatedly warned of possible war.
At a US-South Korean summit in Washington last week, Washington reaffirmed its commitment to provide the South with a nuclear umbrella.
Officials believe the North will fire short-range or mid-range missiles off its east coast in the next fortnight, after warning foreign ships to stay clear of a specific area during the period.
Washington has also said it is prepared for the North’s possible firing of a long-range missile towards Hawaii, perhaps on or around the July 4 US Independence Day.
The North reacted defiantly to the UN Security Council’s decision on June 12 to impose new sanctions, which tighten a ban on arms shipments among other measures.
It vowed on June 13 to build more nuclear bombs from its plutonium resources and to start a separate atomic weapons programme based on enriched uranium.
As part of efforts to curb the North’s weapons programmes, a US destroyer is shadowing a suspicious North Korean cargo ship apparently heading for Myanmar.
The US Defense Department said the Kang Nam 1 was still being monitored but declined to say where it was, or if or when the US Navy might ask to search it.
In the 1950-53 conflict the US headed a United Nations force which fought for the South against North Korean and Chinese troops.
An exhibition was held in the border town of Kaesong to display “hundreds of historical and cultural artifacts” destroyed by the Americans during the war, official Radio Pyongyang reported Thursday.
“Attendants hardened their will for revenge after seeing such evidence,” it said.
source:NST Online
Egypt confirms tycoon to hang for Lebanese diva murder
June 25, 2009
A Cairo court confirmed a death sentence against an Egyptian tycoon and an ex-cop hitman for the murder of a Lebanese pop star after the verdict was approved by the country’s top cleric.
The defendants were escorted out of the courtroom after the judge’s proclamation which was greeted calmly by their friends and relatives, an AFP correspondent said, in sharp contrast to scenes of screaming and fainting during the May court session.
Since his appointment as mufti in 2003, Sheikh Ali Gomaa has received 480 requests to review death sentences and only refused two of them.
Defendants can still appeal the decision, a justice official said.
source:NST Online
UN debate financial crisis with eye on developing world
June 25, 2009
UN member states launched a three-day debate here Wednesday on how to help poor countries weather the global economic crisis amid growing calls for revamping multilateral financial institutions.
“The world institutions created generations ago must be made more accountable, more representative and more effective,” UN chief Ban Ki-moon told the gathering. “We need to work together to reform global rules and institutions.”
He said the world was “still struggling to overcome the worst ever global financial and economic crisis since the founding of the United Nations more than 60 years ago.”
Nearly 120 member states are represented at the parley, with such attendees as the vice president of Zimbabwe, the prime ministers of Bosnia, Serbia, Togo and several Caribbean nations and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim. The presidents of Ecuador and Bolivia were due to join Thursday.
But in an apparent sign of lack of interest, key developed countries sent low-level delegations.
Several participants insisted that the Bretton Woods international financial system that created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in 1944 must be drastically overhauled.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi stressed the need to “continue to improve the governing structure of the IMF and the World Bank, genuinely increase the representation and voice of developing countries.”
“The IMF should be fair, just and balanced in supervising the macroeconomic policies of its members,” he added. “The practice of focusing only on developing countries while forgetting or overlooking the major reserve-issuing economies must be changed.”
South Africa’s new foreign minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, called “for fundamental and far-reaching governance reforms at Bretton Woods institutions, by increasing the voice and participation in the decision-making and norm-setting process for developing countries.”
But Britain’s minister for Africa, Asia and the UN Mark Malloch Brown defended the Bretton Woods institutions, saying they “have never been so necessary” and “overall have responded quickly, flexibly and in a transparent way to the demands we have placed on them.”
He told the meeting in the UN General Assembly hall that tackling the crisis required restoring “global growth through coordinated stimulus and strengthened regulation that restores confidence in the financial system.”
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice chimed in that the focus should be “on finding practical ways to mitigate the development consequences of the current crisis and to see the UN perform its crucial development roles with new urgency.”
She said the United States remained committed to substantially increasing development assistance and would support “new and meaningful investments in food security.”
Developing countries, which make up the vast majority of the 192-member assembly, argue that they are paying the price for a crisis that was created by the developed world.
Ban noted that leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) developed and emerging nations pledged at a London summit in April a total package of more than one trillion dollars to help struggling countries through the turmoil over the next five years.
But Zimbabwean Vice President Joice Mujuru told the meeting: “We believe that issues that affect developing countries do not get the full attention they deserve at the G20.”
“The United Nations is the most appropriate body which can come up with global solutions to this crisis,” she added.
Organizers say a revised outcome document due to be adopted Friday at the end of the three-day meeting has been finalized.
The document is based on recommendations submitted by a panel of economic and financial experts on immediate and longer-term measures as well as practical steps for reforming the international financial architecture.
These include external financing to make up the estimated one to two trillion dollars shortfall in income from reduced exports by developing countries and the outflow of capital caused by the crisis.
The funding would come from new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), an international reserve asset, which could be issued by the International Monetary Fund and would be provided on the basis of need.
Other proposals focused on substantial debt relief for poor countries hobbled by the crisis and the need for donors to fulfill their existing bilateral and multilateral commitments for official development aid.
source:NST Online
Tropical storm kills eight in Philippines
Thursday June 25, 2009 MYT 12:29:00 PM
MANILA, Philippines (AP): A tropical storm whipped up a tornado, triggered a landslide and overturned boats as it cut across the northern Philippines, leaving at least eight dead and 11 missing amid widespread flooding, officials said.
Storm Nangka, with winds of 34 miles (55 kilometers) per hour and gusts of up to 56 mph (90 kph), moved into the South China Sea west of Manila overnight and was expected to track northwest toward the Taiwan Strait this weekend, forecasters said Thursday.
Nearly 10,000 people were stranded aboard hundreds of ferries and motorboats, which were ordered to stay docked for safety.
Two people died when a landslide buried their house in southern Cagayan de Oro city after days of heavy rain, the national disaster agency reported.
In mountainous Quezon province, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) southeast of Manila, a tornado struck a fishing boat that had taken cover in a cove, killing four fishermen and injuring two others late Tuesday.
All six were sleeping on the boat near Perez township when the tornado hit, Mayor Pepito Reyes said.
Two people drowned in central Cebu province Tuesday. Eleven others, including five fishermen, disappeared in floodwaters and rough seas in eastern Samar Island and nearby provinces, officials said.
Huge waves overturned a passenger boat off central Mactan Island on Tuesday, but a coast guard ship rescued all 13 aboard who swam for hours waiting for help, officials said.
A passing ferry reportedly refused to come to their aid, and the crew could face criminal charges, the coast guard chief, Adm. Wilfredo Tamayo, told Radio DZBB, adding the ferry crew told him their ship was too far away and they did not notice the capsized boat.
Classes in Manila and neighboring areas remained suspended for the second day Thursday.
source:The Star Online
Poor countries want greater role in world economy
Published: Thursday June 25, 2009 MYT 1:34:00 PM
UNITED NATIONS (AP): Developing countries have joined U.N. officials in calling for more money and a greater role in regulating the world economy in the wake of the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression, which has taken a disproportionate toll on poor nations.
At Wednesday’s opening of a three-day U.N. financial summit, country after country laid blame for the crisis on financial liberalization and deregulation in the United States and other rich nations and said it was time to reform the world financial system under the auspices of the United Nations.
“The reforms based on the belief in the efficiency of the market and the diminution of government did not work,” said Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, speaking on behalf of the world’s poorest nations. “Reforms are needed to enhance productivity and capacity to cope with risks.”
Nobel Economics Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who headed a Commission of Experts on Financial and Monetary Reform that developed recommendations for the conference, said that “as globalization has proceeded we haven’t created global financial institutions.”
He called for the creation of a Global Economic Coordination Council to deal with the fallout wrought by the crisis that began in 2008, although the council is not mentioned in the 15-page draft final document agreed upon by rich and poor nations prior to the conference.
Instead, the draft calls for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other lending institutions to be flexible in imposing conditions on developing countries so they can take action to deal with the economic crisis, including adopting stimulus packages. The draft also calls for measures to avoid a new debt crisis and new approaches to restructuring debt.
“It needs to be an inclusive process of decision. Not the G-8, not the G-20, but the G-192,” Stiglitz said referring to the Group of Eight major industrialized nations, the Group of 20 key economic powers, and the U.N.’s 192 member nations.
He also argued that funds used to aid developing nations must come in the form of grants, rather than loans, “because we don’t want to end up with another debt crisis further along.”
The draft document calls for donors and financial institutions to consider “grants and concessional loans as the preferred modalities of their financial support instruments to ensure debt sustainability.”
The Group of 20 key countries that account for over 80 percent of the global economy agreed at a summit in April on a substantial package of financial support totaling $1.1 trillion, with US$50 billion targeted for low income countries.
Neither the U.S. or the European Union directly addressed the idea of a global economic council or increased regulation on Wednesday. But the draft document says the “current crisis has revealed many deficiencies in national and international financial regulation and supervision.”
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told the summit “the U.N. is a unique forum where all voices - small and large countries alike - can be heard.”
“We also believe that we should use every instrument at our disposal to tackle different dimensions of the crisis,” she said
“We are working through the G-20, for example, to coordinate policy and build consensus as part of an overall strategy for addressing the worst economic and financial crisis the world has seen in decades. We have done so with participants from developed and emerging economies, from all regions, and already have seen considerable success,” she said.
Rice also said the U.S. was “committed to substantially increasing our own official development assistance” despite the “challenging times.”
Chinese officials seemed especially concerned about the financial situation in the U.S., where it holds over 1 trillion dollars in debt and called for wide ranging reforms
“Countries across the world have suffered heavy losses from the ongoing global financial crisis and economic recession.
One important consensus we have reached upon reflection is that it is important to keep the exchange rates of major reserve currencies relatively stable and promote a diversified and rational international monetary system,” China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said.
“This will enable developing countries to have more choices, better avert risks, and make more effective use of external funds for their development,” he said.
The crisis has also taken a terrible toll in the developing world in human terms.
World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said growth forecasts for developing countries in 2009 stood at only 1.2 percent compared to 7.7 percent in 2007. And she said current projections indicate that 84 of 109 developing countries would face financing gaps that in most cases couldn’t be covered by tapping reserves.
She said if the crisis continues this could mean an additional 200,000 infants dying each year between now and 2015 from malnutrition and other diseases.
“This was not a crisis caused by developing countries,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala said the World Bank has increased lending and backed those calling for urgent efforts to “quench the burning fires of the financial crisis.”
source:The Star Online
