Tokyo - Asian stocks took a big dive Thursday, reacting to a sharp fall overnight on Wall Street and wiping away gains from earlier in the week.
The largest falls in Asia were seen in Hong Kong and Seoul. Hong Kong shares plunged 7.08 per cent as the blue-chip Hang Seng Index lost 1,050.12 points to close at
13,790.04.
The losses came 24 hours after the index surged by more than 3 per cent on news of Barack Obama's win in Tuesday's US presidential election.
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government promised it would repay an international donor organisation 6.5 million US dollars that was meant for the country's anti-malaria campaign but disappeared, a local newspaper reported Thursday.
The money was part of a 103-million-dollar grant from the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, 28.5 million dollars of which was destined for the health ministry for prevention and treatment of malaria.
Beirut - Lebabon's Shiite House speaker Nabih Berri, who is also close to the radical Shiite Hezbollah, hailed Thursday the election of Barack Obama as the next US president, urging him to push forward Middle East peace process.
"The new president should start by resolving the Middle East crisis," Berri was quoted as saying in a statement.
Berlin - German factory orders plunged in September, official data released Thursday showed, as the global financial crisis hits Europe's biggest economy.
The Ministry of Economics and Technology said new orders tumbled by a dramatic 8 per cent month on month in September to record their biggest drop since records began about 17 years ago.
The fall was led by an 11.4-per-cent slump in foreign orders with domestic orders dropping by 4.3 per cent.
Kabul - At least two civilians were killed in a US airstrike in western Afghanistan, the latest in a series of incidents in which non-combatants have died in anti-insurgency operations, officials said Thursday.
The latest airstrike took place on Wednesday in Ghormach district of the western province of Badghis after a group of Taliban militants attacked US military troops in the area.
Moscow- At least five people were killed in the explosion of a mini-van on Thursday in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, just across the border from South Ossetia where Russia fought a war with Georgia in August, news agencies reported
Another five people were injured in the blast outside the entrance to a movie theater and market on Kuibysheva street in the populous southern Russian city, a police source told Interfax.
Tokyo - Asian stocks took a big dive Thursday, reacting to a sharp fall overnight on Wall Street and wiping away gains from earlier in the week.
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government promised it would repay an international donor organisation 6.5 million US dollars that was meant for the country's anti-malaria campaign but disappeared, a local newspaper reported Thursday.
Beirut - Lebabon's Shiite House speaker Nabih Berri, who is also close to the radical Shiite Hezbollah, hailed Thursday the election of Barack Obama as the next US president, urging him to push forward Middle East peace process.
Berlin - German factory orders plunged in September, official data released Thursday showed, as the global financial crisis hits Europe's biggest economy.
Kabul - At least two civilians were killed in a US airstrike in western Afghanistan, the latest in a series of incidents in which non-combatants have died in anti-insurgency operations, officials said Thursday.
Moscow- At least five people were killed in the explosion of a mini-van on Thursday in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, just across the border from South Ossetia where Russia fought a war with Georgia in August, news agencies reported
