7 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The speaker of India’s parliament said on Sunday democracy had taken deep root in his country a half-century after independence, and all parties would speak the language of economic reform will go ahead,” Purno Sangma, speaker of the Lok…
8 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – India’s main opposition group will block the full convertibility of the rupee, favour foreign investment only if it goes into infrastructure and shake out state firms if it wins power, its chief planner said on Monday. Jay Dubashi, chief…
8 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Global investors cannot afford to ignore India, but Indian companies need to prove that they can compete in developed markets, Fred Steingraber, chief executive officer of A.T. Kearney Inc., said on Monday. “I don’t think anybody is prepared to…
English with an American accent, there were jokes about being the “51st US state”, the US military had a huge presence, and the economy was heavily indebted to a consortium of mostly-American banks. Fifteen years later I was listening to a JP Morgan executive in an office in Makati, the business district in Manila, tell…
9 December 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Dec 9 (Reuters) – India will accelerate its drive to increase electricity generation and is looking for huge funds to meet the nation’s power deficit, Power Minister Yoginder Alagh said on Tuesday. “Between now and March it will be faster and not slower,”…
18 May 2005 Reuters News English (c) 2005 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 18 (Reuters) – India is looking to become a major oil products exporter while it aggressively chases foreign petroleum assets and sharply boosts imports of gas, the “fuel of the 21st Century”, its oil minister said on Wednesday. Mani Shankar Aiyar also…
The Mac II, launched on March 2. 1987, cost $5.500 and was the first computer with a colour graphical interface. Three years earlier Apple had begun selling the LaserWriter. Combined with WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) software, the world was waking up to the marvels of desktop publishing. Steve Jobs, who said…
Spare a thought for Indian business schools’ Class of 2013. These young women and men will be heading out into a world where financial well-being is not guaranteed, the global economy is epileptic, and the view from a management perch is vertiginous. “The bigger question is, how relevant are we in a changing world?” asks…
Song sung blue Everybody knows one Song sung blue Every garden grows one If you are of a certain vintage, you will have been moved by these Neil Diamond lines, sung on a hot August night almost exactly 40 years ago. This steamy August, India has been convulsed by the sudden expelling of decades of…
The day this issue of Business Today went to press, IBM Corporation completed one hundred years. What started as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, manufacturing computing scales, time clocks, and even coffee grinders, quickly grew into Big Blue, a vast global presence in computing under Tom Watson. Senior and Junior, building its power on the mainframe. Like…
Reuter News Agency 18 December 1984 The Globe and Mail BHOPAL, India (Reuter) – More than half the poison chemical remaining at a Union Carbide plant has been neutralized, but thousands of city residents refuse to return home to the site of the world’s worst industrial disaster. Arjun Singh, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh State,…
REUTERS 8 September 1985 The Seattle Times THIMPHU, Bhutan_ “Do not give pens, sweets or medicine to villagers,” warns a Bhutanese government guidebook for tourists and mountaineers. For a country described in official brochures as ‘ ‘perhaps the last of the Shangrilas,” Bhutan is not in a hurry to modernize its tourist image. Called ”Druk…
Reuter News Agency 9 March 1986 The Toronto Star SRINAGAR, INDIA — “The large-scale arson, pillage, plunder and desecration of our temples in last month’s attacks was aimed at creating conditions for the mass exodus of Hindus,” says Hindu Action Committee leader Bal Krishna Handoo. “If we quit Kashmir we will be handing it on…
Reuter 19 January 1987 Sydney Morning Herald MANILA, Sunday: President Corazon Aquino flew to the violence-racked island of Mindanao today, apparently unruffled by a night of tension triggered by warnings that a fanatical military group was plotting a new attempt to topple her Government. In Manila, soldiers, backed by water cannon and armoured cars sealed…
19 January 1987 The Toronto star MANILA, PHILIPPINES — He told a press conference Manila would not resume talks on restructuring $3.6 billion of its $28.6 billion debt until a “better than Mexico” offer was made. Bankers consider the Mexican deal the most lenient a major debtor nation has received from creditor banks. Ongpin said…
I remember back in the 1970s, when a new India was just over a quarter of a century old, Geoffrey Moorhouse, in his foreword to his “Calcutta” wrote: “The imperial residue of Calcutta, a generation after Empire ended. is both a monstrous and a marvellous city. Journalism and television have given us a rough idea…
REUTERS 16 April 1987 The Seattle times MANILA _ Weeks of fierce fighting between government troops and communist insurgents have highlighted a deep rift between radical left-wing priests and conservatives in the Philippines’ powerful Roman Catholic church. Amid some of the worst violence in the 18-year revolt, high Church leaders have moved to sever the…
21 May 1987 The San Francisco Chronicle Manila President Corazon Aquino’s ambitious plan to distribute land to more than half the country’s peasants is in danger of falling victim to the Philippines’ return to full legislative democracy. Pressure has been mounting on Aquino to use her sweeping legislative powers and sign the Accelerated Land Reform…
They say nothing sharpens our minds as much as high danger or a threat to our survival. We are prepared to stand and fight when we are cornered. Twenty-two years ago, when we were staring into the abyss, we pulled a reformist rabbit out of our socialist hat. But it took just about five years…
1 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 1- The head of Philippine National Oil Co said the proposed privatisation of Petron Corp, a fully owned subsidiary, would rob the government of a valuable and profit-making asset and suggested reconsideration of what he termed a strategically unwise move. “Petron is PNOC’s…
From the Editor These are extraordinary times and we witness extraordinary phenomena. Three weeks before the Union Budget, when finance ministers customarily crawl under their carapaces, the honourable Member of Parliament from Sivaganga delivered a rousing speech on national security. What he said, with feeling and not a little frustration, was that we Indians seem…
1 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 1 – Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) chairman Jose Romero said he would visit Brussels later this month to lobby against a proposed 100 pct European Community (EC) levy on vegetable oil imports. “I intend to visit Brussels and talk to whoever is…
2 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 2, Reuter – The Philippine economy’s impressive growth in this year’s first quarter suggests the government’s ambitious economic targets are within reach, Central Bank Governor Jose Fernandez said today. “I don’t see anything on the horizon that should cut (growth) short,” Fernandez said…
You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and It is all moving…
Although commerce is older even than the thirty pieces of silver that persuaded Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus Christ, it took humans a long time to start to formally teach, and learn, the elements of business. The oldest business school in the world, ESCP Europe, was set up in Paris in 1819, a pipsqueak in…
2 June 1987 Chaitanya Kalbag/ Reuters English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 2, Reuter – The World Bank’s policies prevent it lending money to the Philippines for the transfer of land from landowners to the poor, but it can help finance subsequent development costs, a bank official said today. “The World Bank by its…
3 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 3, Reuter – The latest draft of the Philippines’ ambitious land reform program delays final land distribution until 1997, details options for compensating landowners, and holds out imprisonment for violators. Teodoro Benigno, spokesman for President Corazon Aquino, told reporters a cabinet meeting today…
3 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 3, Reuter – Japan will expand its assistance to the Philippines and encourage Manila to increase its exports, the head of a Japanese economic mission said today. Former foreign minister Saburo Okita told a news conference the aid would be in line with…
8 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 5 – The Philippines’ interest payments on its foreign debt will increase by 157 million dollars this year if the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) climbs to an average of 7.5 pct, Central Bank Deputy Governor Edgardo Zialcita said. “Assuming that the uptrend…
8 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 8, Reuter – The closure last month of the Manila Banking Corporation, one of the Philippines‘ nine largest banks, highlights the weaknesses still plaguing the country’s financial institutions, bankers and analysts said today. Manila Bank was declared insolvent by the Central Bank of…
8 June 1987 The Toronto Star Copyright (c) 1987 The Toronto Star MANILA — The government is aiming at GNP growth of between 6 and 6.5 per cent for the whole of this year. The first-quarter figure was the best in three years. GNP grew a modest 1.5 per cent last year after contracting more…
10 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 10 – The Philippines’ Omnibus Investment Code was approved by the cabinet and a final draft will soon be prepared for decree by President Corazon Aquino, Trade and Industry Secretary Jose Concepcion said. “The cabinet approved the investment code in principle and within…
10 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 10 – Japan feels the political and economic situation in the Philippines has stabilised and will encourage its businessmen to invest here, a Japanese official said. “Now the appreciation of the yen has added a new element and it is logical for Japanese businessmen…
11 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 11 – Proposed land reforms that would limit all holdings in the Philippines to seven hectares are likely to scare away private entrepreneurs, said Deogracias Vistan, president of the state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines. The government should carefully study minimum land needs…
11 June 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, June 11 – Philippine Central Bank Governor Jose Fernandez said he welcomed a compromise reached by Finance Secretary Jaime Ongpin and the Philippines’ bank creditors over Manila’s demand for improved debt repayment terms. “If he (Ongpin) has come to an agreement I accept that…
17 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 17 – The Philippines” Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) has ordered all its reserve stocks and sugar earmarked for the world market to be diverted onto the domestic market in a bid to bring down rising domestic prices, SRA board member Bibiano Sabino told Reuters. Under…
20 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 20 – The speedy and cordial conclusion of a 13.2 billion dollar debt rescheduling package by Philippine officials and bank creditors apparently was intended to pre-empt the country’s new Congress which convenes on July 27, bankers and economists polled by Reuters said. Omar Cruz,…
21 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 21 – The Philippines’ foreign debt was 28.58 billion dollars at the end of March, up from 28.25 billion at the end of 1986 and 26.35 billion a year earlier, Central Bank Governor Jose Fernandez said. In a report to President Corazon Aquino on…
22 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 22, Reuter – Held out as a radical step that would end decades of war and poverty in the Philippine countryside, President Corazon Aquino’s land reform program was instead greeted by a chorus of criticism. Today‘s presidential order, the 229th since Aquino came…
23 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 23 – A row over the proposed privatisation of Petron Corp, a fully-owned subsidiary of the Philippine National Oil Co (PNOC), intensified as the Committee on Privatisation (COP) said overwhelming arguments favour the sale. PNOC’s board of directors last month opposed Petron’s sale,…
23 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 23, Reuter – Protests by both landowners and poor farmworkers mounted today over the Philippines’ land reform program, while the country’s new Congress threatened to review all decrees signed by President Corazon Aquino. Hours after Aquino signed the land reforms into law yesterday,…
27 July 1987 English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 27, Reuter – President Corazon Aquino lashed out at the Philippines’ creditor banks today, charging they coerced her government into signing an unfavorable debt pact, and vowed to fight enemies of both the right and the left. In a State of the Nation speech, one…
29 July 1987 English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 29, Reuter – U.S. military bases in the Philippines are vital to the security of both countries but America would respect any decision by Manila to remove them, a senior U.S. diplomat said today. “The bases are of vital importance,” U.S. Charge’ d’Affaires Philip Kaplan…
30 July 1987 Reuters news (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 30 – Foreign debt has suddenly become a dirty phrase in Manila, but any repudiation of the Philippines’ debt could isolate the country financially, economic analysts said. Spurred by President Corazon Aquino’s scathing attack on creditors in her speech at the opening of Congress…
4 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 4, Reuter – The killing of a top official known for his strong anti-communist views has shocked the Philippines and revived a debate over armed vigilante groups. Local Governments Secretary Jaime Ferrer’s murder by three gunmen on Sunday was the latest in a series…
7 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 7, Reuter – The growing call in the Philippines for a repudiation of some of the country’s 28.4 Billion dollar foreign debt was strongly attacked today by the finance minister and the leader of an influential business group. Finance Secretary Jaime Ongpin told reporters…
7 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 7, Reuter – Extra bodyguards were assigned to top Philippine officials today after a congressional leader and the country’s election commission chief received death threats from Communist and Moslem guerrillas. Amid rising public outrage, police admitted they were no nearer solving the murders…
12 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 12, Reuter – About 500 families were evacuated today from the central Philippine city of Legaspi as Typhoon Betty, threatening to be the strongest to hit the country since 1964, approached with wind speeds of up to 220 km (140 miles) an hour. …
13 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 13, Reuter – President Corazon Aquino was not kept fully Informed throughout a prolonged dispute between the Philippines and a consortium of Western banks, Finance Secretary Jaime Ongpin told Reuters in an interview today. The dispute Involved a commercial debt incurred by a private fertiliser…
13 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 13, Reuter – Typhoon Betty slammed into the central Philippines today, killing a boy, blowing down power lines and damaging crops, but the weather office said the storm was veering away from Manila. A spokesman for the Philippine Red Cross said a six-year-old boy…
18 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 18 – Foreign companies will be allowed to list their stock on the two stock exchanges In Manila in a move expected to attract foreign investors, Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commissioner Monico Jacob told Reuters. Jacob said the decision followed an Inquiry by…
20 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 20 – Last week’s 20 pct rise in the prices of petrol, diesel and fuel oil in the Philippines is likely to cause a small increase in inflation, analysts told Reuters. Omar Cruz, a senior economist at the independent Center for Research and…
21 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 21 – Elders Finance, a division of (Elders IXL Ltd), is interested in buying a minority stake in either Union Bank of the Philippines or the Philippine Commercial International (PCI) Bank as part of a major thrust into the country, banking sources said. They…
25 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 25, Reuter – A major coalition of Philippine landowners today labelled President Corazon Aquino’s land reforms “communistic” and said violence might erupt if the program was pushed through. “This is a polarisation of classes,” Eduardo Hernandez, chairman of the Council of Agricultural Producers,…
28 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 28, Reuter – Buildings blazed and streets shook in Manila today in the capital’s heaviest fighting since World War Two. “Advance, advance,” civilian spectators shouted to soldiers backing Corazon Aquino as they moved on comrades-in-arms dedicated to overturning the president’s government. Gunfire cracked and…
28 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 28 – The Philippines’ latest coup attempt, the most violent in President Corazon Aquino’s 18 months in office, will severely affect business confidence and create renewed uncertainty for investors, analysts said. Finance Secretary Jaime Ongpin, asked for his reaction to the takeover of parts of…
31 August 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Aug 31 – Manila’s stock markets held steady in the first session after Friday’s coup attempt, but businessmen and analysts polled by Reuters said the most serious threat so far to President Corazon Aquino’s rule was a warning to her to quickly assert control of…
1 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 1, Reuter – “Who goes there — friend or foe?” That traditional challenge has acquired new meaning here after last week’s uprising by elite soldiers who helped President Corazon Aquino to power last year, analysts said on Tuesday. A senior army officer who…
4 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 4, Reuter – President Corazon Aquino said on Friday democracy had taken one step forward and two steps back since she took power in the Philippines but vowed to continue fighting for her ideals. Ringed by tight security, the embattled leader visited military…
4 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 4, Reuter – Low pay and poor working conditions have fuelled unrest in the Philippine military and laid the ground for further coup attempts, analysts said on Friday. “Most soldiers barely manage to survive,” a Western military attache told Reuters. “Housing is almost…
9 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 9, Reuter – The Philippine cabinet resigned on Wednesday, giving President Corazon Aquino a free hand to reorganise her government as she faces the worst domestic crisis of her 18-month rule. The mass resignation by 26 government ministers mirrored an identical move last…
10 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 10 – Philippine President Corazon Aquino has been given a final chance to cobble together a cohesive government thanks to the resignation of all 26 of her cabinet ministers, bankers, businessmen and stockbrokers said. They said the turmoil of the past two weeks,…
16 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 16 – A veteran development banker and the former head of one of the Philippines’ five biggest commercial banks are tipped to occupy the country’s two top economic posts, bankers and officials polled by Reuters said. They said Public Works and Highways Secretary…
17 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 17, Reuter – Philippine President Corazon Aquino, under pressure from a disgruntled military, dropped two of her closest friends and advisers on Thursday as she continued to rebuild her battered government. Fighting to contain the after effects of a coup attempt three weeks…
18 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 18, Reuter – President Corazon Aquino’s shake-up of top posts in her government will restore waning investor confidence in the Philippines, Trade and Industry Secretary Jose Concepcion said on Friday. “The new team will be a rallying force. It will bring investments in,” Concepcion…
22 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 22 – Philippine food and beverage giant San Miguel is doing “magnificently well” despite de facto governmental control, executive Vice-President Ramon del Rosario told Reuters In an interview. “We will have a banner year — there is no question of that,” del Rosario…
From the Editor When I stepped into this role in mid-2010, it seemed India was unstoppable. Gross Domestic Product growth had averaged 8.5 per cent since 2004, when the United Progressive Alliance won power. The financial markets in the United States and Europe were in disarray after the US sub-prime crisis laid down a napalm…
From the Managing Editor An early breakfast is something that most journalists don’t care for. Most of my tribe skip it and among those who don’t, very few sip their coffee before 10 am. Like Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, we finish our days late and start them late, you see. It was, therefore, unusual for…
From the Editor Raghuram Govind Rajan is a lucky man. Two weeks into his new job as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India his friend Ben Bernanke, who he calls “cautious and nuanced” in his book Fault Lines, handed him a big gift- a delay in the “taper” in the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative…
24 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 24 – Any ceiling on debt repayments imposed by the Philippines would cut off trade credits, drive up inflation and halve the exchange rate of the peso, an independent Manila research organization said. Sergio Andal, a forecaster at the Center for Research and…
From the Editor Once every year, we pay obeisance to the best and strongest companies in India. It is not grudging admiration. Our corporate icons deserve every bit of their applause. No management school, or case study, or how-to hardback that you pick up at an airport bookstore can teach you how to plot a…
28 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 28 – The Philippines is poised for a risky showdown with its creditors that could take the global debt crisis into new territory, bankers and economic analysts polled by Reuters said. Over the past week, a combative Congress has made a series…
25 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 25 – The Philippines’ recent debt restructuring hangs in the balance after a Senate panel ruled that an executive order issued by President Aquino in July should be repealed. That order allowed the government to take over a loan made to a private…
At Business Today we write about companies all the time. Often, it is a top-down view. We meet the Chief Executive Officer, the senior members of the management team, the stock-market analysts whose job it is to keep a gimlet eye on their wards, the suppliers, the competitors, the regulators. But it is very important,…
30 September 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Sept 30, Reuter – Charges of widespread human rights violations in Asia met silence or official denials on Wednesday but a Reuter poll showed personal liberty is still a prized possession across much of the sprawling continent. The charges were made by the London-based…
1 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 1, Reuter – The Philippine Congress on Thursday pushed forward an ambitious program to break up estates and give the land to peasants, filing two bills ahead of a presidential deadline. The legislature also proposing setting up a panel to shape a new…
Exactly two years ago we ran a cover story on India’s skills crisis. This was just after Subramanian Ramadorai was named Adviser to the Prime Minister in the National Council on Skill Development. How quickly have we moved down the skilling highway? Glacially slow, and frighteningly so. For a nation where tens of millions of…
1 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 1 – Members of the Philippine Congress want to set up a commission to shape a new national debt policy. Six senators, all members of the ruling coalition, have introduced a bill saying economic growth should dictate debt repayments. “Growth, equity and social…
In 1908, when Henry Ford began making his revolutionary Model Ts on an assembly line in Detroit, there were 241 carmakers in the United States. (In comparison, India has 20 carmakers in 2013). “I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the…
Sometimes India’s economy resembles a rambunctious teenager brought up short by a finger-wagging headmaster. Our finance minister can now recite with his eyes closed a string of figures that seek to prove that India has not done badly at all in comparison with the rest of the developing- and indeed the developed- world. P. Chidambaram…
2 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 2, Reuter – The number of strikes in the Philippines is down this year, but analysts say rising labour militancy promises a confrontation that could hobble economic recovery and scare off badly-needed investments. In the eye of the storm is the aggressive left-wing…
8 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 8 – The Philippine peso plunged to a record low of 20.850 against the dollar on Thursday from 20.697 on Wednesday in its biggest single-day fall in President Corazon Aquino’s 19-month rule. A Bankers’ Association of the Philippines spokesman said only one million dollars…
From the Editor Business Today’s team of reporters was putting finishing touches to the BT-YES Bank Best CFO Survey starting on page 57. The 14 men and one woman who have won this year’s awards, chosen by a stellar jury after a rigorous nationwide search, bring to life the satisfaction of making those numbers on…
12 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 12 – Short-term speculators have switched their attention from Manila’s once bullish stock markets to a suddenly booming illegal trade in dollars, brokers and analysts said. They said the black market rate of the U.S. currency has risen alongside a progressive fall in…
13 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 13, Reuter – The Philippine peso has been battered over the past month as speculators moved from once- bullish Manila stock markets to a booming illegal trade in dollars, analysts said on Tuesday. They said the black market rate of the U.S. currency has…
14 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 14, Reuter – The Philippine government is considering setting up a special police force to enforce return-to-work orders at strike-hit companies, Secretary of Labour Franklin Drilon said. Labour unrest had declined this year but was still simmering because workers were testing their new-found…
From the Editor I remember sticking an aluminium one-yen coin and a copper one-US-cent coin to my computer screen in Tokyo around the mid-1990s and watching in fascination Las they became equal in value, with the yen appreciating to 100 to the dollar. It was nice for frequent travellers like me- when I paid my…
14 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 14 – The Manila International Futures Exchange Inc (MIFE) hopes to start trading coconut oil, copra and coffee contracts later this month to enhance its sugar and soybean trading base, the president of the company which manages the exchange, Uisdein McInnes, said in an…
From the Editor Looking down at my bowl of gazpacho at dinner one recent night. I realised that I do not own a single moustache spoon, with guards, so that guests with resplendent whiskers could eat soup and not leave any trace behind- the kind made for Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner around 1900. Nor…
19 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 19, Reuter – Philippine President Corazon Aquino can expect a volley of anxious questions about her government’s economic direction when she faces members of 13 major business groups on Tuesday, analysts said. It will be her first economic speech since she came close…
From the Editor We need to place the AgustaWestland helicopter “kerfuffle”- as a former defence minister put it- in context. The 12 AW101s were headed for the Indian Air Force’s Communication Squadron, which flies VVIPs around. to replace its ageing Mi-8 fleet. The new helicopters are strictly not combat craft-they are personnel carriers and can…
22 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 22 – The Philippine Central Bank and creditors of a private fertiliser firm are racing to finalise a new compromise over a 56.5 million dollar debt that is holding up the country’s recent debt rescheduling agreement, sources close to the talks said. A…
22 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 22 – The Philippine government has made major changes in its debt-to-equity conversion program to take into account a sharp drop in value in the country’s debt paper, Central Bank Senior Deputy Governor Gabriel Singson said. He told reporters at a news conference…
From the Editor Within the space of a week, I met N.R. Narayana Murthy for a long and friendly conversation at his airy venture-capital office in Bangalore’s Jayanagar suburb and then conducted telephone interviews with the company’s Chairman, K.V. Kamath, who was in Mumbai and its CEO, S.D. Shibulal, who was attending the World Economic…
28 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 28, Reuter – Gunmen shot dead three Americans, including two airmen, and a Filipino near an U.S. air base on Wednesday and authorities immediately urged tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen and dependents in the Philippines to stay indoors. The four were killed…
28 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 28, Reuter – The recall of a U.S. military diplomat from the Philippines underlines the love-hate ties between the two countries but also points to a new direction in Manila’s foreign policy, analysts said on Wednesday. The U.S. Embassy’s announcement that Assistant Army…
From the Editor Most of us are lucky if we get fifteen minutes of fame. You can be famous, but not rich. Fame is fleeting, and unless you are V.S. Naipaul, your best shot at fame is when you are young or Amitabh Bachchan, in good health, good to look at, and very good at…
28 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 28, Reuter – The United States said on Wednesday it was withdrawing a military attache from the Philippines following accusations that he interfered in a failed coup attempt in August. A U.S. embassy statement said assistant army attache Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Raphael would depart…
29 October 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, Oct 29, Reuter – Philippine Communist guerrillas appear to have launched a major offensive with the killings of 14 people in two days, political analysts said on Thursday. For the first time in the 18-year-old Communist insurgency, the victims included U.S. servicemen, two serving…
From the Editor Many, many moons ago, I used to visit a cousin pursuing his B.Tech. programme at IIT Madras. The campus was beautiful; of an early Sunday morning you saw deer darting past drowsy students who had lolled around the amphitheatre the night before watching a movie after consuming a special dinner in the…