London - The Bank of England Thursday slashed interest rates by a hefty one-and-a-half percentage points to 3 per cent in its most dramatic effort yet to soften the impact of a looming recession.
The shock cut decided by the bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MCP) followed calls from business leaders for a significant reduction in the key lending rate, but the maximum cut expected had been one percentage point.
Analysts said the decision underlined that as inflationary fears were receding, the risk of deflation was now emerging as a key threat.
Pretoria - Animal rights activists and a renowned conservationist on Thursday slammed the sale by South Africa of 51 tonnes of ivory, calling four recent auctions of tusks to Asian buyers "irresponsible" and a "disservice to conservation."
Brussels- The Polish government must sell off two shipyards which were the cradle of the anti-Communist Solidarity movement in order to claim back hundreds of millions of euros in illegal state aid, the European Union's executive ruled Thursday.
"State aid granted to the shipyards in Gdynia and Szczecin gives rise to disproportionate distortions of competition ... in breach of EC Treaty state aid rules, and must be repaid ," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes told journalists in Brussels.
Cairo - The headquarters of Egypt's opposition al-Ghad party were set on fire on Thursday amid clashes between rival factions in the party, security sources told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.
Twelve fire trucks were called in to extinguish the flames in the party's offices in downtown Cairo.
The clashes involved supporters of the party's chief Ayman Nour and his deputy Moussa Moustafa Moussa, in their ongoing dispute over who should lead the party. The dispute has been going on since September 2005.
Monte Carlo - The IAAF, the governing body of world athletics, has imposed two-year doping bans on eight Russian athletes for testing positive a varied of substances, including the banned blood-booster EPO.
It emerged Thursday that the athletes are mostly from the sport of walking and include Vladimir Kanaykin, the 20-kilometre walk world record holder, and Alexsey Voyevodin, 50km bronze medalist at the Athens Olympics in 2004, who both tested positive for EPO in an out- of-competition test in Saransk in April.
London - The Bank of England Thursday slashed interest rates by a hefty one-and-a-half percentage points to 3 per cent in its most dramatic effort yet to soften the impact of a looming recession.
Pretoria - Animal rights activists and a renowned conservationist on Thursday slammed the sale by South Africa of 51 tonnes of ivory, calling four recent auctions of tusks to Asian buyers "irresponsible" and a "disservice to conservation."
Brussels- The Polish government must sell off two shipyards which were the cradle of the anti-Communist Solidarity movement in order to claim back hundreds of millions of euros in illegal state aid, the European Union's executive ruled Thursday.
Cairo - The headquarters of Egypt's opposition al-Ghad party were set on fire on Thursday amid clashes between rival factions in the party, security sources told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.
Monte Carlo - The IAAF, the governing body of world athletics, has imposed two-year doping bans on eight Russian athletes for testing positive a varied of substances, including the banned blood-booster EPO.
