Tag: Ease

  GAZA CITY: Officials from the Islamic Hamas group are travelling to Egypt in another attempt to negotiate the easing of the blockade on the...

South Asian leaders ended a summit in the Maldives Friday with pledges to increase regional trade as arch rivals India and Pakistan demonstrated signs...

Owen Hargreaves made a dream debut for Manchester City as the injury-plagued midfielder scored the opening goal in his side’s 2-0 victory over holders...

Fearing an acute shortage of medical and other essential supplies, Libya's rival factions are in talks with the United Nations to ease international sanctions...

Afghanistan is building a vast rail network linking its borders to help attract investors to $3 trillion worth of mining projects, including oil deals,...

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn inched closer on Tuesday to having US sex assault charges against him dropped although a complaint of assault in...

The country’s dollar reserves have slightly contracted to $17.470 billion during the week that ended on June 25, according to the State Bank of...

Half-centuries from Virat Kohli and Parthiv Patel followed up Amit Mishra’s career-best bowling to lead India to a seven-wicket victory over West Indies in...

An informal ceasefire between President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s security forces and a tribal group brought a pause in fighting on Saturday after nearly a...

Thousands of civilians who fled the deadliest fighting in decades on the Thai-Cambodian border have returned home as tensions ease on the disputed frontier,...

KARACHI - Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves eased to $17.31 billion in the week ending on April 9, from $17.64 billion the previous week, a senior central bank official said on Thursday.
Reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) fell to $13.93 billion from $14.26 billion a week ago, while those held by commercial banks were flat at $3.38 billion, unchanged from the previous week, said SBP chief spokesman Syed Wasimuddin.
"The decline in reserves during the week is

LAHORE - Following the record-breaking 14.5 percent surge in the volume of exports in 2010; world trade growth should settle to a more modest 6.5 percent expansion in 2011. The sharp rise in trade volumes last year enabled world trade to recover to its pre-crisis level, but not its long-term trend and WTO economists believe a recent series of important events around the world lend to a greater degree of uncertainty to any forecast.
"The figures show how trade has helped the world

MANAMA - Bahrain's main opposition groups have eased conditions for talks to end a crisis that has drawn in neighbouring Gulf armies and raised tensions in the oil-exporting region.
Led by the largest Shi'ite opposition party Wefaq, they called late on Saturday on security forces to free all those detained in the wake of a month of protests, end their crackdown and ask Gulf Arab troops to leave so talks could begin.
"Prepare a healthy atmosphere for the start of political

DUBAI - Saudi Arabia came under renewed pressure on Wednesday to ease its ban on demonstrations, as Facebook activists called for a "Day of Rage" and a "Saudi revolution" later this week.
With the tightly controlled kingdom's security forces poised to crack down on any unauthorised demonstrations, US-based lobby group Human Rights Watch added its voice to demands for a relaxation of the protest ban. "Saudi Arabia should rescind its categorical ban on peaceful demonstrations," it

NEW YORK - World crude oil prices slipped Thursday as investors digested Venezuela's proposal for averting civil war in Libya. Benchmark WTI light, sweet crude oil for April delivery dipped 32 cents to close at $101.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in April, shed $1.56 to settle at $114.79 a barrel.

ISLAMABAD - UK Cabinet Minister Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, also chairperson of the ruling Conservative Party, called on Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar in the federal capital on Tuesday. "She was accompanied by Damian Green, Minister for Immigration, and the British high commissioner to Pakistan," said a Foreign Office's statement.
The minister of state highlighted the problems relating to the issuance of visa to the Pakistani nationals and also underlined

AMMAN - Jordan is expected to remove restrictions on public gatherings, allowing protests to take place without prior permission as part of political reforms, a minister said in remarks published on Tuesday. Interior Minister Saad Hayel Srur asked the cabinet on Monday to amend the public assembly law and scrap an article that requires in-advance government permission to hold rallies and protests, the state-run Petra news agency said.
"Instead, organisers of such activities have