Express News ServiceNEW DELHI, July 24:The Works and Housing Ministry and the New Delhi Municipal Committee came under sharp attack from opposition members of Parliament on Friday for allotting plots on instalments to Communist leaders and Congress(I) men on preferential terms to individuals close to the ruling party. The Minister for Works and Housing, Mr…
Manila (Reuter) — The armed forces, the institution that has held the Philippines together over the past year, has emerged at war with itself after Thursday’s face-saving solution to an insurrection by 400 rebel soldiers, analysts said. Western diplomats and military experts said that Tuesday’s coup attempt and its compromise with a rump of 190…
The question is being debated as never before MUCH against his wishes, Dr Manoj Shah may yet become a national hero. He is the polio victim who failed to get a seat in the post-graduate pathology course in Ahmedabad’s BJ Medical College. The reason? There was only one seat in the pathology department and that,…
Manila (Reuter-Kyodo) “Who goes there friend or foe?” That traditional challenge has acquired new meaning here after the recent uprising by elite soldiers who helped President Corazon Aquino to power last year, analysts say. A senior army officer who did not wish to be identified said the coup bid had proved loyalty to an individual…
India’s Public Sector Steel Industry “Our steel industry is gigantic, but still not large enough for our needs. Steel plays a very vital and little understood role in our lives and in our economy. What is steel? How is steel made? Where is it made? Is one steel plant exactly like another? Is the technology…
Return to Bhopal Bhopal: A small, red-painted build-in this centraling in Indian city has become the focus of a grim battle being waged against the after-effects of a poison gas leak that killed 2,500 people last December. In the first weeks after the disaster, the victims were reported to have died as their lungs filled…
Chaitanya Kalbag, Reuters New Delhi -Ten months after the army stormed the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, Amritsar’s Golden Temple, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has run up against his toughest domestic challenge so far in Punjab state. Gandhi has pledged to give top priority to the Punjab problem. Eight leaders of the main Sikh party, the…
India, a land where personality cults spring up overnight, is struggling to find a pedestal on which to put its assassinated leader Indira Gandhi. In the year since her murder last Oct. 31, the woman once portrayed by a leading painter as a Goddess has become mainly a face looking out from old election posters. …
US ‘interference’ charges spur soul-searching in Manila MANILA —The recall of a US military diplomat from the Philippines underlines the love-hate ties between the two countries but also points to a new direction in Manila foreign policy, analysts said Wednesday. The US Embassy’s announcement that assistant army attache Lt Col Victor Raphael would depart this…
The troops and the refugees are two knots in a tangle Indira Gandhi’s son and successor, Rajiv Gandhi, must unravel before peace returns to Punjab state. TWO streets from the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the Golden Temple, a soldier in olive green uniform stands atop a t a tall building, his binoculars trained on the clusters…
Philippine investigators recover millions by seizing funds of ex-leader’s ‘cronies’ MANILA Former President Ferdinand Marcos-and his associates still control vast amounts of funds circulating in the country’s economy, the head of a government panel tracking the ousted leader’s “hidden wealth” said Sunday Ramon Diaz, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, said in an…
The office of Indian politician Arjun Dass, where he was assassinated. AP picture NEW DELHI,— Thurs. Indian security forces rounded. up nearly 300 Sikh extremist suspects today in a race against time to break the back of the extremist movement before elections in Punjab State. Security chiefs, on the defensive after the murder yesterday of…
In New Delhi India, a land where personality cults spring up overnight, is struggling to find a pedestal on which to put its assassinated leader Indira Gandhi. In the year since her murder last October 31, the woman once portrayed by a leading painter as a goddess has become mainly a face looking out from…
New Delhi, Mar 11. The Soviet Union has tightened its grip on the Indian arms market by offering an array of sophisticated weapons to a Government worried about growing United States military aid to Pakistan, defence analysts said today. Indian officials said that under an agreement reached during the visit of the Soviet Defence Minister,…
Perhaps the most accurate indicator of how civilised a particular society really is, is the way it treats its social rejects—particularly those who have abandoned their grip on reality and crossed the threshold into the twilight world of the mentally unbalanced. In a poor country like India, which boasts of one of the oldest civilisations…
Bhopal (Reuter) -Investigators probing the world’s worst industrial disaster have uncovered the steel tank from which poisonous gas leaked last December, killing 2.500 people, police said yesterday. Excavation work began last week and the tank has been freed of its casing of concrete, sand and charcoal, police in this central Indian city said. On December…
Public memory is all too amnesic., and the Bhagalpur blinding’s which sickened and shocked the nation when they were exposed in November 1980 have almost become history. Even the dogged legal battle for justice by the blinded has virtually disappeared from newspaper columns, lowering a ‘curtain of silence on one of the most shameful episodes…
Family planning in India has always been dogged by a debilitating combination of moral, sociological, superstitious and even political complexes. Post-1977, however, while the nation’s population control effort has acquired the coy appellation of ‘family welfare’, encouraging work has been done towards adopting newer and safer techniques of birth control. Last fortnight Dr Badri Nath…
Not since Brutus has there been such a stab in such a back. No wonder Indira Gandhi was so “absolutely livid” and her daughter-in-law Maneka so studiously low-key. The culprit: Maneka’s mother Amiteshwar Anand, who fetched Mrs Gandhi a resounding snub by selling her chintzy. down-at-heel magazine Surya India and its Hindi counterpart to two…
ALL GOOD Hindus hope to reincarnate as better Hindus, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be celebrating its second birthday on April 5 with the conviction that it is well on the way to establishing itself as a “nation alternative”. More than anything else, a strident section in the party is anxious to shed…
For centuries, cranes have been held up as auspicious birds in many countries, serving as symbols of long life and happiness. Ironically, however, the graceful Siberian crane (Grus leucogeranus) is in grave danger of being reduced to total extinction only around 250 of these birds exist world-wide today. The crane family, Gruidae, itself is the…
New Delhi (Reuter)—Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s peace pact to end three years of sectarian turmoil in Punjab has won wide support but analysts say he still faces obstacles in curbing Sikh unrest. Gandhi, a former airline pilot with five years in politics and eight months in power, confounded critics Wednesday by defusing an explosive…
By Chaitanya Kalbag NEW DELHI (Reuter): India’s new Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, yet to win his spurs in government, has to quickly take a series of tough political decisions to consolidate his power. He must end squabbles inside his ruling Congress (I) Party, decide by the end of this month on holding general elections…
Leader’s slaying could trigger worst crisis since India gained independence By CHAITANYA KALBAG Reuters News Service NEW DELHI, India – Indira Gandhi’s assassination Wednesday threatened to plunge India into the worst crisis in its 37 years of independence. The prime minister fell riddled with bullets by her own Sikh bodyguards just two months before the…
New Delhi—For the grey-bearded Sikh sitting in a cosy academic study India’s Punjab crisis is no longer a series of grim newspaper headlines. Last week he had to abandon plans to drive through his home state because he feared attacks by angry crowds of Hindu militants roaming the highways. As communal violence continues in Punjab…
By CHAITANYA KALBAG Bhopal, Dec 18—Some of the 250,000 people who fled the central Indian city of Bhopal fearing a fresh leak of poison gas started returning to their homes today but over 12,000 remained in camps set up by the Government. Their return was apparently prompted by the successful neutralization of more of…
By CHAITANYA KALBAG New Delhi, Dec 11. India’s ruling Congress (I) Party, which celebrates its centenary next year, is fighting for political survival as much as a parliamentary majority in national elections in two weeks’ time. After years of unchallenged supremacy as India’s dominant political force, the party is being rocked by an internal debate…
New Delhi: The Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi, yesterday denied local press reports that she had accused a US espionage agency of fomenting Sikh secessionist activity. Mrs Gandhi told reporters in Himachal Pradesh state, in the foothills of the Himalayas, that she had merely quoted a Washington-datelined press report. She did not identify the report. Addressing…
Uneasy ties with neighbours By Chaitanya Kalbag NEW DELHI, (Reuter): Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s massive victory in the Indian general election has given him new freedom to tackle his country’s un-easy relations with its neighbours, especially Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Rajiv, armed with a huge parliamentary majority, declared immediately after the election that good relations…
Bitter squabbles divide party By CHAITANYA KALBAG New Delhi, Nov 4—India’s new Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, yet to win his spurs in Government, has to quickly take a series of tough political decisions to consolidate his power. He must end squabbles inside his ruling Congress (I) Party, decide by the end of this…
by Chaitanya Kalbag, Reuter, in Bhopal Hundreds of people stand outside the drab white bungalow, clutching yellow X-ray folders and medical prescriptions in a line stretching down the driveway flanked by dry, leafless bushes. A chorus of dry coughs punctuates the slow progress of emaciated men, ragged children and ghost-like Muslim women covered head-to-toe in…
Thimphu, Bhutan (Reuter) — “Do not give pens, sweets or medicine to villagers,” warns a Bhutanese government guidebook for tourists. The writer has ventured to the secretive Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where less than 2,000 visitors are permitted to visit each year, to report on the country, its people and its young bachelor king. For…
Nothing seems to work right in Manipur, and a combination of corruption, misgovernment, and unemployment, compounded by the continuing presence of the Army and various paramilitary forces, is fuelling the people’s frustration and aiding their drift towards rebellion. At first sight, Imphal is cloaked in quietude. It looks more like a small town than the…
“War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions when they have developed to a certain stage, between classes, nations, states or among political groups, and it has existed ever since the emergence of private property and of classes.” —Mao Zedong Is China helping insurgents in Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram with arms and ideological…
But the people have their ways of making do Close to one-sixth of Iran’s population of 38 million lives in Teheran, the sprawling capital that slides southward from the cold slopes of an Elborz Mountains spur. And Teheran was trying, in the weeks I spent there, with a touch of grouchiness, to look like a…
The violence and the passions that have unleashed a caste war in Gujarat have found sympathetic onlookers in Tamil Nadu. These onlookers may not remain passive: they are already contemplating demonstrations of support for the anti-reservationists in Gujarat. “If it’s necessary, we’ll all go to Gujarat and join the agitation,” bursts out Mrs. Bagalakumari…
Not because it wants to solve the foreigners issue In Assam, a Chief Minister who is unpopular in her own party is being kept on, a minority government is being propped up, and the powers that be seem uninterested in solving the foreigners issue. In Manipur, the Assembly has been suspended while the Congress(I) works…
Iran is ruled by many Shahs today, each wearing Islam’s robes that cloak the terror they replaced The most intense patriotism usually flourishes in the rear lines,” wrote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago about Russia at war with Nazi Germany. Not so in post-revolution Islamic Iran. Four months after “Allah’s victorious forces” locked horns…
The ‘poverty line’ is assumed to be consumption of Rs 65 per capita per month in rural areas and Rs 75 in urban areas at 1977-78 prices. On this basis in 1977-78, 306 million people in India were living below the ‘poverty line’, of whom 249 million were in rural areas and 57 million in…
The first spark flew on 6 June. A Bengali shopkeeper at Lembucchara, 8 km from Agartala, lent a tribal friend of his a dao (sickle) to cut a pineapple with. Joking about the sickle’s blunt edge, the tribal tossed it back to the shopkeeper. It hit another tribal standing close by, wounding him negligibly. But…
The kisans got a free ride, and helped give the Congress(l) a lift Never had so many people gained so little from so heralded an event as the Kisan Rally in Delhi on 16 February. Estimates of the crowd gathered on the Rajpath lawns ranged from 2.5 million by Delhi Police Commissioner PS Bhinder to…
Poorly paid, snowed under by a huge backlog of pending cases, buffeted by the government’s attempts to manipulate judicial processes and appointments, our judiciary has not been able to preserve its independence. At the same time, our Constitution has been considerably tampered with by the legislature. What are the causes of this state of ,…
The ten-week-old agitation against reservations in Gujarat which has so far claimed 30 lives, is the second most serious agitation of its kind in the country since the Constitution was adopted in 1950. The first was in Bihar in 1978; it took 30 lives. Tamil Nadu is preparing to launch a similar agitation soon. While…
Four and a half years after it was struck by a terrible accident in which 375 miners died, the Chasnalla colliery is nowhere near being re-opened. Nor are the dead miners’ families in sight of a lasting solution for their problems. The road to Chasnalla is not an easily forgettable experience. The geography is that…
Rehabilitating the Chasnalla victims families has proved to be an on-going task. The Indian Iron and Steel Company’s welfare officers at Chasnalla wear a perpetually harassed look. Every day their offices are mobbed by complainants: relatives who allege desertion by widows who allege cheating by their dead husbands relatives; it is a noisy scene. fuelled…
“Chasnalla was unique”, said a civil servant in Patna. “The government moved very fast in rehabilitating the victims’ families. There were few delays, little red tape.” Had the government .set up a cell to monitor rehabilitation, to take follow-up action? “No,” said the civil servant, crestfallen. In Ranchi we met the legendary KB Saxena…
How Madras became India’s film capital The next time you are talking about Indian films, don’t let your tongue slip into saying “the Bombay film industry” No longer is Bombay India’s film capital. In 1979, less Hindi films were produced than in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. The Censors in Madras can barely keep up with…
Has anything changed in the two Bihar villages that hit the headlınes? Six kilometres from Harnaut, the jeep broke down in the mud. The slipper-shod lady decided to continue her journey on elephant-back. Perched dangerously behind her and the mahout was another lady, a member of Parliament. It took the elephant three hours to reach…
‘One hears the echoes of the movement for an independent Bangladesh in Assam today’, said a Dacca newspaper recently. The situation in Assam and the north-east is as difficult as it is complex. Although decades of political and economic indifference have pushed the Assamese into their present agitation, the movement has already acquired dangerous colours…
Three documents seem to indicate that the Assam problem is not about to be easily solved. Intractable and increasingly aggressive, the Assam agitation last fortnight edged closer to ugly confrontation. The deadline for a Central government decision on the foreigners issue set by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the Gana Sangram Parishad (GSP)…
It is a war without end, a no-win situation in which nobody can provide answers to some questions: How long will this go on? Which side will eventually prevail? What is the cost to the nation in money, matériel, men?
This was has no name. It is more an endless series of skirmishes than a sustained military confrontation. Yet, this war has been raging intermittently for 26 years in Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.
Dhanbad’s dreaded Mafia gangs were riveting topics of conversation last fortnight, and for different reasons. Film actor Shatrughan Sinha, with the blessings of the ruling Congress(1), launched a film on the Mafia, swamping the town’s hotels with an entourage of 250. Sinha was not being foolish in filming so dangerous a subject-his chief patron is Laliteshwar Prasad Sahi, Bihar’s health and family welfare minister. And Union Irrigation Minister Kedar Pandey travelled all the way to Dhanbad to inaugurate the shooting of the film.
MANILA, March 15, Reuters – A 288 million dollar syndicated loan for the Philippines Long Distance Telephone Co marks a major initiative by Manila’s commercial bank creditors to recycle existing debt, bankers said. BOT International (HK) Ltd, Citicorp International Ltd and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp are lead managing the loan. Syndication started…
Eighteen hours after Haryana Governor Ganapatrao Devji Tapase committed the most undemocratic faux pas in India’s political history, he was cowering on a sofa in the Chandigarh Raj Bhavan’s large reception hall. “This is Haryana!” yelled apoplectic Lok Dal MLAs, eyes blood-shot, neck veins bulging, pressing around the diminutive Tapase in a knee-touching, eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation.…
Violence is an unfortunate fact of life in Delhi University. That was bloodily emphasized on February 16 when Dilip Simeon, 32, history lecturer at Ramjas College, was savagely beaten up by six men on his way to work. The lecturer’s multiple fractures came as the flash-point of an acrimonious feud between college Principal Dr. Kartar…
Union Home Minister Prakash Chand Sethi has elevated the art of governance to a fine degree of pettifoggery. Political interference in the bureaucracy is not unusual, but Sethi is exhibited a penchant for intervention in personnel promotions. In the process, he has heightened the siege mentality of the Central Secretariat Service (CSS), which is constantly…
6 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 6 – The options available in solving the global debt crisis had broadened dramatically with U.S. government backing of a Mexican plan to retire a large part of its foreign debt, Philippine Finance Secretary Vicente Jayme said. “I feel that the Mexican package…
7 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 7 – The Philippine government will issue treasury bills and notes totalling 29.8 billion pesos in 1988 and depend mainly on domestic resources to finance its projected budget deficit of 27.1 billion pesos, Finance Undersecretary Victor Macalincag said. The government planned to float…
17 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 17, Reuter – Monday’s local elections are billed as President Corazon Aquino’s last step in returning the Philippines to democracy, but bloody campaigning has left many here wondering if there has been genuine change. Analysts polled by Reuters said the elections would bring…
19 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 19, Reuter – The Philippines has emerged from a tumultuous year with democracy apparently firmly in place after Monday’s local elections, but there is no euphoria among analysts over the country’s economic prospects. The economy has turned in its best growth in seven…
20 January 1988 The Globe and Mail B24 English All material copyright Thomson Canada Limited or its licensors. All rights reserved. The Philippines has experienced its best growth in seven years, but it still faces a daunting array of problems. Analysts say President Corazon Aquino must now demonstrate that she can manage the economy. …
22 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 22, Reuter – The United States is committed to helping the Philippines achieve economic recovery by stepping up investments, keeping its doors open to imports, and maintaining the flow of aid, Ambassador Nicholas Platt said on Friday. He told a meeting of American…
22 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 22 – Sugar industry officials said the Philippines might not be able to sell extra sugar to the U.S. because the U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) was delaying the issue of guidelines for a re-export plan approved by the U.S. Congress. Sugar Regulatory Administration…
25 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 25 – Developing nations are more likely to attract foreign investment by easing curbs on share ownership and employment of expatriates than through incentives such as tax holidays, said William Ryrie of the International Finance Corp, a soft-loan arm of the World Bank. …
27 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 27 – The yen’s rapid appreciation has led many Japanese companies to step up investments in the Asia-Pacific region, but the expansion has been tempered by a variety of obstacles in host countries and Japanese fears of an unchecked outflow of capital, a…
1 February 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Feb 1, Reuter – The Philippines is exploring ways of reducing its massive foreign debt burden and the two U.S. military bases in the country could be a possible bargaining lever, Finance Secretary Vicente Jayme said on Monday. Jayme told Reuters in an interview…
8 February 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Feb 8 – U.S. Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng is in a quandary over a sugar re-export plan passed by the U.S. Congress doubling the Philippines’ sugar exports to the United States this year, a senior U.S. official said. Philippine officials said at the weekend…
10 February 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Feb 10, Reuter – A sword poised over a Gordian knot is the official symbol of the Philippine body charged with selling about 6.8 billion dollars in bad debts accumulated by the country’s two major government banks. “That’s an appropriate symbol for the work…
16 February 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Feb 16 – A stream of unsettling news from the Philippines has held back many potential small and medium-sized European investors, European Chamber of Commerce secretary-general Christian Roehr told Reuters. Roehr said several large European multi-nationals had long been in the Philippines and “are…
16 February 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Feb 16, Reuter – West German Minister of Economics Martin Bangemann is expected to explore ways of expanding trade and investment ties with the Philippines in talks here this week, a West German diplomat said on Tuesday. Hans-Wilhelm Verbeek, First Secretary in the West…
19 February 1988 Reuters News (c) 1988 Reuters Limited English MANILA, Feb 19 – The Philippines plans to speed up its sluggish debt/equity swap program, Central Bank Governor Jose Fernandez said. “Our policy is to get rid of the large backlog,” he told a news conference. “We think the people who have applied deserve to…
19 February 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Feb 19 – The Philippines’ 27.8 billion dollar foreign debt makes it a bit player in attempts to find solutions to the debt crisis and Manila prefers to let large debtors take the initiative, Central Bank Governor Jose Fernandez said. “I think anybody who…
8 March 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, March 8, Reuter – The Philippines will have a 1989 deficit of 28.5 billion pesos on a projected budget of 190 billion, Budget Secretary Guillermo Carague said. He told Reuters this compares with a projected deficit of 27.1 billion pesos for the 1988 budget…
9 March 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, March 9, Reuter – Fewer staff members taking fewer siestas may help the Philippines boost South-East Asia’s poorest tax-collection effort, Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Bienvenido Tan said on Wednesday. Tan told Reuters the country’s tax revenues as a ratio of gross national product…
18 March 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, March 18, Reuter – Volatile penny oil stocks have raised trading on Manila’s two exchanges to fever pitch this year, and analysts said the trend seemed likely to continue. “Rumours are the heart and soul of the (oils) market. It’s a casino,” Noel De…
22 March 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, March 22, Reuter – Falling sugar and coconut production is expected to lead to little or no overall growth in Philippine agriculture in 1988, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in its annual report on the Philippines. It forecast overall growth of 0.5 pct…
25 March 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, March 25, Reuter – Philippine banks have largely recovered from years of crisis, but high intermediation costs still constrain lending, bankers and analysts say. The industry’s total assets grew to 259.9 billion pesos at end-1987 from 236.4 billion a year earlier, according to a…
3 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 3, Reuter – Coup leader Colonel Gregorio Honasan’s escape from captivity on Saturday has dramatically revived threats to Philippine President Corazon Aquino’s power, analysts said. “Honasan’s escape couldn’t have occurred at a less convenient moment for Aquino,” an Asian diplomat said. Aquino is…
4 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 4, Reuter – The Philippines’ gross national product (GNP) is expected to expand by 6.1 pct in 1988 after 5.1 pct growth in 1987, the Central Bank said in its annual report. Key sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, mining, construction and services are…
18 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 18, Reuter – China is negotiating with the Manila-based Asian Development Bank for six loans this year, a Chinese official said on Monday. Li Dongqun, alternate executive director on the ADB board, told Reuters in an interview that Peking wanted to move slowly…
18 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 18, Reuter – Filipino and foreign businessmen have launched a sharp attack on the Philippines’ 20-month-old debt/equity swap program, charging it is too restrictive and arbitrary and actually deters investors. “Disillusioned investors are the worst possible advertisement for the Philippines,” said a statement…
20 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 20, Reuter – Japan’s attempt to use the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to recycle part of its 30 billion dollar private-sector surplus is not meeting with much success, banking officials and diplomats said. Japan, with 15 pct of the 47-member ADB’s 22.8…
20 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 20, Reuter – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is still awash with funds, with liquid assets of 4.5 billion dollars, 74.2 pct of its undisbursed loan balances, at the end of 1987, Treasurer Alan Gill said in an interview. This compares with liquid…
26 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 26, Reuter – The Philippines has received pledges of aid totalling 66 million dollars from the United States, the Netherlands and Italy to support its ambitious land reform program, Agrarian Reform Secretary Philip Juico told Reuters. The broad outline of the program was…
27 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 27, Reuter – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has found it difficult to identify suitable projects to assist in China because of Peking’s centrally planned economy, bank president Masao Fujioka told Reuters in an interview. China became the 47-member bank’s newest member in…
27 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 27, Reuter – Taipei has ended a two-year boycott of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) but its dispute over a name-change by the bank continues, Central Bank Governor Chang Chi-Cheng said on Wednesday. The boycott was triggered in 1986 when China was admitted…
27 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 27, Reuter – The Asian Development Bank annual meeting starting on Thursday is likely to be dominated by a power-struggle between Japan and the United States, officials said on Wednesday. ADB officials said the three-day meeting would also be marked by the presence…
28 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 28, Reuter – South Pacific island nations want to form a new regional development bank to increase their access to financial resources, a Western Samoan official said on Thursday. The idea was put to the management of the Asian Development Bank on the…
28 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 28, Reuter – The Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting opened with a call from Philippine President Corazon Aquino to keep the bank’s leadership Asian and to temper its policy prescriptions. “(The bank) must continue to view banking, especially development banking, as a relationship…
29 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 29, Reuter – The Soviet Union’s interest in joining the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is part of Moscow’s move to restructure its economy, a senior official said. “The ADB’s major field of cooperation with its members bears a relation to Soviet efforts to…
29 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 29, Reuter – The Asian Development Bank’s lending policies came under fire at its annual meeting and there were calls for a re-examination of its role. Indonesian Finance Minister J.B. Sumarlin said he was concerned that although loan approvals rose to a record…
29 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 29, Reuter – Taiwan delegates to the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting continued to cover their badges saying “Taipei, China” on Friday, defying the Bank’s efforts to change the island’s name in deference to China. Such protests by the Taiwanese, who have also…
30 April 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, April 30, Reuter – Afghanistan appealed on Saturday for the Asian Development Bank to help resettle refugees and repair its war- damaged economy. Afghan Finance Minister Mohamad Kabir urged the Manila-based bank to resume lending to Kabul, suspended after Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan…
1 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 1, Reuter – India is loosening controls on industry, investment and imports but liberalisation must take account of existing conditions, Finance Minister Narain Dutt Tiwari told Reuters in an interview. Tiwari, in Manila for the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, denied…
9 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 9, Reuter – The Philippine government said on Monday it was awaiting information about a reported U.S. move to unveil a Marshall Plan-like aid package for this cash-strapped country. The Washington Post reported on Sunday the multinational plan involved aid of up to…
11 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 11, Reuter – The Philippine Senate has ended a six-month lull by taking some tough steps on the country’s debt. It has proposed limiting debt service limit and suspending payments on a 1.2 billion dollar nuclear plant loan. The Senate also unanimously passed…
12 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 12, Reuter – The Philippine Senate is apparently softening its stand on a tough anti-nuclear bill, with some legislators saying on Thursday, they back amendments that would tone down the measure. The “Freedom from Nuclear Weapons Bill” aims to ban port calls by…
17 May 1988 Reuters News (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 17, Reuter – Former Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile said on Tuesday that the Philippine military had a file of evidence on ambushes by communist rebels “financed by foreign journalists in exchange for media coverage”. Enrile, defence chief for 17 years until 1986 and…
13 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 13, Reuter – The U.S. bases in the Philippines have sparked a superpower slanging match and stirred passionate debate about self-respect, alms-giving, sovereignty and subservience. Since April 5 when Manila-Washington talks on the future of the bases began, Philippine talk shows and newspaper…
17 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, May 17, Reuter – The Philippines needs a U.S.-sponsored multi-billion dollar aid plan immediately if it is to grow economically and reduce its heavy debt repayments, Economic Planning Secretary Solita Monsod said. The Washington Post said last week the U.S. will try to put…