Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks opened mixed to higher Thursday fueled by lower than expected jobless claims and impressive earnings from General Motors. Just after the open on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 15 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the NASDAQ were both nearly unchanged. Investors were buoyed by the a report from the Labor Department that showed initial jobless claims fell to a near four-year low. Also giving stocks momentum was an earnings report from General Motors. GM reported the largest annual profit in its history on Thursday, even as losses in Europe were a drag on fourth quarter [...] Continue Reading…

Saleem Samad – AHN News Correspondent
Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) – The United States appears to be softening diplomatic pressure on Bangladesh that ensued after authorities forcibly removed Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus from the micro-finance institution he founded 30 years ago. The action irked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last March and she threatened that bilateral relations with Bangladesh would been jeopardized if authorities continued to harass Yunus, a popular advocate of his social business concept. On Thursday, visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake emphasized to reporters in Dhaka the importance of Bangladesh’s finding an eminently qualified successor to Yunus as managing director of Grameen Bank, whose micro-loans are credited with empowering 10 million [...] Continue Reading…

The Media Line Staff
Mogadishu, Somalia David Rosenberg / The Med – Somali pirates did not have a good year in 2011, seizing fewer vessels and hostages than in 2010, but the world still paid a heavy price for their activity because it costs far more to protect ships than to pay ransoms. That is the conclusion of the Oceans Beyond Piracy report released yesterday, which estimated that Somali pirates – by far the world’s leading practitioners of high seas hijackings – cost the global economy just under $7 billion last year. Only $160 million of that was ransom money; the rest was due to higher insurance premiums, security and other anti-piracy costs that remain unchanged whether ships are [...] Continue Reading…

Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks opened lower Monday after closing out the prior week at highs. Just before 10 a.m. on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 61 points, the Standard & Poors 500 Index lost 6 points and the NASDAQ was off 17 points. The markets closed out last week on a high note. The Dow Jones Industrial rose more than 200 points, or 1.6 percent on the week, to close at 12,862.23. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 2.2 percent to 1,344.90 and the NASDAQ soared more than 3 percent to finish the week at 2905.66, its highest close since late 2000. [...] Continue Reading…

AHN News Staff
Singapore, Singapore (AHN) – Singapore and Myanmar on Monday signed a bilateral, economic and trade agreement. Under the Singapore-Myanmar Technical Cooperation Program pact, Singapore will open itself to foreign investment as well as offer training courses on trade, tourism development and central banking to the Southeast Asian nation. The agreement was signed during Myanmarese President U Thein Sein’s first visit to Singapore after becoming president last year. Myanmar had been a secretive military regime in the last decade, but post-2010 elections, situations changed in the country as government released several political prisoners and even legalized the pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy party. This prompted Washington to revive full diplomatic ties with [...] Continue Reading…

AHN News Staff
Singapore, Singapore (AHN) – Singapore and Myanmar on Monday signed a bilateral, economic and trade agreement. Under the Singapore-Myanmar Technical Cooperation Program pact, Singapore will open itself to foreign investment as well as offer training courses on trade, tourism development and central banking to the Southeast Asian nation. The agreement was signed during Myanmarese President U Thein Sein’s first visit to Singapore after becoming president last year. Myanmar had been a secretive military regime in the last decade, but post-2010 elections, situations changed in the country as government released several political prisoners and even legalized the pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy party. This prompted Washington to revive full diplomatic ties with [...] Continue Reading…

Linda Young – AHN News Writer
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Initial jobless claims for the week ending Jan. 21 rose by 21,000 to 377,000, compared with the previous week’s revised figure of 356,000, the U.S. Department of Labor said. The less volatile four-week moving average was 377,500, a drop of 2,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 380,000. DOL figures show that the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Jan. 7, the most recent week for which such data is available, was 7,638,233, down by 188,612 people from the previous week. The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Jan. 14 were: Florida [...] Continue Reading…

The Media Line Staff
Damascus, Syria David Rosenberg (The Medi – As the Arab League agreed to go to the United Nations Security Council early this week with a resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to step down, Russia was reportedly doing a major arms deal with the beleaguered regime. The $550 million agreement to sell 36 Yak-130 combat aircraft will not do anything to tip the balance in favor of the Al-Assad regime, which has been engaged in a 10-month conflict with anti-government opposition. But Russia is almost certainly providing arms Damascus needs to hold back the rebels as well as mounting a diplomatic defense of its friend at the U.N. In a rare glimpse into [...] Continue Reading…

Linda Young – AHN News Writer
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Initial unemployment claims dropped to 352,000 during the week ending Jan. 14, their lowest level in nearly four years. First time claims for jobless benefits dropped by 50,000 from the previous week’s revised tally of 402,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The less volatile four-week moving average was 379,000, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 382,500. However, the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate also dropped. Only 2.7 percent of jobless workers were covered by unemployment insurance for the week ending Jan. 7, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate. The total [...] Continue Reading…

Linda Young – AHN News Writer
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Initial unemployment claims dropped to 352,000 during the week ending Jan. 14, their lowest level in nearly four years. First time claims for jobless benefits dropped by 50,000 from the previous week’s revised tally of 402,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The less volatile four-week moving average was 379,000, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 382,500. However, the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate also dropped. Only 2.7 percent of jobless workers were covered by unemployment insurance for the week ending Jan. 7, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate. The total [...] Continue Reading…