Japanese optical equipment manufacturer Olympus has submitted long delayed earnings reports on Wednesday, only hours before a crucial deadline to avoid being removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The TSE, the world’s second largest bourse, has now removed the company from its watch list for automatic ejection. However, Olympus continues to be at risk of being delisted pending results of an investigation into the group’s accounting practices. The camera maker reported net assets of ¥46bn as of the end of September, according to its surrendered financial report for the second quarter.

Areva, the globe’s largest supplier of nuclear fuel and services, on Tuesday said it is to suspend building work at sites including Africa, the US and France. The news comes a day after it announced it is expecting to post an operating loss of between $1.4 and $1.6bn this year. The French company also unveiled plans of limiting its dividend payout to 25 percent of net profits for the next 24 months, according to CEO, Luc Oursel. Areva will slash up to 1,500 jobs in Germany and has suspended a nuclear plant project in the US to help offset losses, Oursel unveiled in a statement.

German President Christian Wulff criticised efforts by the Group of 20 nations to contain the global financial crisis, saying they were too small in scale and had achieved little. Last month’s summit of G20 leaders in France failed to bring progress which the world urgently needed, Wulff said, citing regulation of the financial sector and setting stricter guidelines for the operations of major banks as examples of the group’s failures. “The approaches that have been tried so far are too modest to match the scale of the problems that the crisis has exposed,” Wulff said in a speech to businessmen on Monday during a visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE. Accompanied by a political and business delegation, Wulff is visiting the UAE as part of a tour to several Gulf states. He has a largely ceremonial role and little direct influence on government policy, but has spoken out this year as the eurozone debt crisis has worsened; in August he questioned the legality of the ECB’s bond-buying programme. Excessive debt, economic imbalances and competitive weaknesses in a number of countries have eroded trust in global financial markets, Wulff said on Monday, adding that the problem was not limited to Europe. “In the context of the G20 and of global responsibility too, I appeal to everyone to start paying far more attention to sound, sustainable economic development and finances.” Wulff said that as Europe worked to repair its economy, Berlin would count on the oil-rich UAE as a major […]

Europe divided on Friday in a historic rift over building a fiscal union to preserve the euro, with a large majority of countries led by Germany and France agreeing to move ahead with a separate treaty, leaving Britain isolated.   Twenty-three of the 27 leaders agreed to pursue tighter integration with stricter budget rules for the single currency area, but Britain said it could not accept proposed amendments to the EU treaty after failing to secure concessions for itself. After 10 hours of talks, all 17 members of the eurozone and six countries that aspire to join resolved to negotiate a new agreement alongside the EU treaty with a tougher deficit and debt regime to insulate the eurozone against the debt crisis.   “Not Europe, Brits divided. And they are outside of decision making. Europe is united,” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said in blunt English on arriving for the second day of the bloc’s eighth crisis summit this year.   ECB President Mario Draghi called the decision a step forward for the stricter budget rules he has said are necessary if the 17-nation eurozone is to emerge stronger from two years of market turmoil.   “It’s going to be the basis for a good fiscal compact and more discipline in economic policy in the euro area members,” Draghi said. “We came to conclusions that will have to be fleshed out more in the coming days.”   German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was very satisfied with the decisions. The world […]

The 2010 floods in Pakistan started late in July, following heavier than normal monsoon rains in Balochistan, the Punjab, Sindh, Pakhtunkhwa and the Khyber; in fact the whole Indus River Basin was affected. At one stage nearly 20 percent of Pakistan’s land area was covered with water, a total of some 307,374 square miles (796,095 square kilometres). According to the Pakistani government the floods affected nearly 20 million people, mostly as a result of destroying infrastructure, property and crops. The death toll was nearly 2,000. Initially, Ban-Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the UN, asked for emergency relief amounting to some $460m, noting that he had never seen a flood of this magnitude before. By August 15 only 20 percent of these funds had been received, which was a huge concern for the UN. The World Health Organisation reported, at the time, that 10 million people had no other choice but to drink polluted water. The damage to the already frail Pakistan economy was immense. Infrastructure damage was calculated to be in the region of $4bn; wheat crops to the value of $500m were destroyed by the floodwaters and the total crop loss was estimated to be in the region of $1bn, much higher according to Pakistan’s own calculations. The impact on the country’s economy could well have been as high as $43bn. More than 100,000 animals died during the floods and 17 million acres of agricultural land was submerged by the raging waters. The last thing Pakistan needed was a disaster […]