French Red Cross worker abducted in Darfur

Several armed men Thursday abducted a French national working for the Red Cross in Sudan’s volatile Darfur region, the agency said. China has also become the biggest vehicle market in the world this year and car sales expanded an extraordinary 78 per cent last month from a year ago.

Share

Comics confess their nightmares

King says Britain’s Main Street banks should be separated from their risky investment arms to dissolve a culture in which some banks can fall back on the knowledge that they are “too important to fail” and thus can keep gambling with vast amounts of public cash. The governor’s comments come as leading financial houses — including recipients of taxpayer-funded bailouts — prepare to pay out large bonuses, angering many who fear this signals a return to pre-economic crisis rewards for reckless profit-seeking

Share

Doing business in North Korea

As the chairwoman of South Korea’s Hyundai group, Jeong-eun Hyun faces business challenges few other executives can imagine. Subsidiary Hyundai Asan has led efforts to build economic ties between the North and South, so Hyun is not only managing a multinational through a recession but also through global tensions over the North’s nuclear program.

Share

Goldman Sachs profits crush estimates

Goldman Sachs reported on Thursday that it had nearly quadrupled its profits in the third quarter compared with a year ago, driven by a jump in trading revenues and strong returns on its own corporate investments. Meanwhile, Citigroup defied expectations of a third-quarter loss, reporting profits of $101m on the strength of its customer deposits

Share

Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland

Finland has become the first country in the world to declare broadband Internet access a legal right. Starting in July, telecommunication companies in the northern European nation will be required to provide all 5.2 million citizens with Internet connection that runs at speeds of at least 1 megabit per second

Share