In Tuesday's Europe papers

20 November 2007 06:00  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--These were the top stories at 06:00 GMT in the following European newspapers’ online versions on Tuesday. ICIS has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. To go to the individual websites, click the links below:

Financial Times
Front page

China voices alarm at dollar weakness
China on Monday expressed concern at the decline in the dollar, joining a growing chorus of global policymakers alarmed by the weakness in the world’s main reserve currency.

Asian stocks slump as banks hit
Asian stock markets fell 2%-4% to two-month lows on Tuesday as investors dumped bank shares amid escalating worries about credit losses, with the drop in risk appetite boosting the yen and Japanese government bonds.

Companies and markets

Shares fall globally on new fears for banks
Fears that banks could still be feeling the impact of the credit squeeze by Christmas next year drove down shares globally on Monday after Goldman Sachs predicted a further $48bn (€32.6bn) of writedowns by the end of 2008.

Wall Street falls amid credit fears
US stocks fell sharply on Monday after Goldman Sachs warned that Citigroup could be forced to make $15bn (€10.2bn) in credit-related writedowns and told investors to sell the shares.

International Herald Tribune
Front page

Hints of normalcy as Baghdad security improves
Five months ago, Suhaila al-Aasan lived in an oxygen tank factory with her husband and two sons, convinced that they would never go back to their apartment in Dora, a middle-class neighborhood in southern Baghdad.

Somalia worst humanitarian crisis in Africa, UN says
The worst humanitarian crisis in Africa, several United Nations officials said, may not be unfolding in Darfur, but here, along a 20-mile strip of busted-up asphalt.

Marketplace

Swiss Re takes $1bn subprime hit as crisis spreads beyond banks
Swiss Reinsurance, the biggest reinsurer in the world, said Monday that it had taken a $1.07bn (€727m) write-down for the value of some derivatives, making it the latest casualty of the US subprime crisis that is now spreading beyond lenders and investment banks.

Amway has new product line: Hollywood
It peddles a way to sell entertainment. Amway, the door-to-door peddler of vitamins and soap, wants to reinvent how Hollywood sells entertainment.

The Moscow Times
Front page

Kudrin deputy faces fraud charges
Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak will be charged by next week with attempting to embezzle $43.4m (€29.5m) from the federal budget, the Investigative Committee said Monday.

Doctors hit the rails to plug medical gaps
There is a line to board the train at Yemtsa, an isolated village in the far north, and a crowd of people stand in the thick mud below the door. Once inside, instead of putting on slippers they pull on blue plastic footwear covers that medical institutes make visitors wear.

Business

World Bank urges action on inflation
Russia must control inflation and allow for appreciation of the ruble if it wishes to see its robust economic performance stay on course, the World Bank said in a report released Monday.

Sibir sues millhouse over fields
An affiliate of Sibir Energy is seeking billions of dollars in damages in a London lawsuit against billionaire Roman Abramovich and his company Millhouse Capital, arguing that it was cheated out of its Russian assets.

Der Spiegel
Front page

Sarkozy mounts showdown against the unions
Four million flyers have been printed, the slogans have been approved and strategists are already contemplating the march routes and rally locations. At the headquarters of the country's ruling party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), in Paris's 8th Arrondissement, plans are underway for a confrontation "with the France of the strikers.

Aid begins to reach Bangladesh storm survivors
Aid arrived in regions of Bangladesh devastated last week by a violent cyclone as the death toll from the storm reached 2,400 people.

Turkish Daily
Front page

New rules in new 'Great Game'
The leaders of Greece and Turkey inaugurated a natural gas pipeline yesterday, the first to bypass Russia, in a bid to reduce Europe's dependence on Moscow for energy supplies.

Political bickering lands northern Cyprus in 'Kamhi shock'
The Turkish Cypriot government is nowadays pondering how to make a U-turn and reinstate the citizenship of some prominent Turks without losing face.

Business and finance

'N Iraq may affect Turkey's rating'
A possible military incursion into northern Iraq may affect Turkey's rating negatively, said Japan Credit Rating Agency's (JCR Ratings) Chairman and CEO Makoto Utsumi, who was in Turkey for a partnership agreement.

OPEC divided over politics
Hardliners and moderates were deeply divided about whether oil should be used as a political weapon at a rare summit of the OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) cartel yesterday, with Venezuela and Saudi Arabia at loggerheads.

Warsaw Business Journal
Front page

Parents and pupils to get greater power over schools
According to Dziennik, the Civic Platform (PO) and the Polish Peasants Party (PO) have agreed to introduce an educational voucher system.

Government lays foundations for better Poland-EU relations
Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Defense Minister Bogdan Klich yesterday in Brussels presented Poland's new policies in relation to the European Union, hoping to ease the tense relations.

By: Staff Reporter
+44 20 8652 3214

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