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Peruvian President Alan Garcia has accepted a $2m (£1.4m) German donation for a museum to victims of Peru's civil conflict - weeks after rejecting it.
The about-face came at the request of Peru's most famous author, Mario Vargas Llosa, after he held a private meeting with Mr Garcia.
The president has now asked Mr Vargas Llosa to head up the project.
Some 70,000 people died during the conflict between state forces and Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.
© 2009 Asnycnow15 English
South Africa prosecutors have dropped graft charges against African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma.
Chief prosecutor Mokotedi Mpshe said phone-tap evidence suggested political interference in the investigation.
Mr Zuma, who is expected to become president after elections this month, has always denied claims of graft over a multimillion dollar 1999 arms deal.
The ANC welcomed the outcome but the opposition said it left democracy in peril ahead of the 22 April polls.
Security forces in Bangladesh have arrested the head of a UK-based charity who had been sought after weapons were found at a school it funded.
Officials said Dr Faisal Mostafa, who runs the Manchester-based Green Crescent, was arrested with a local aide on Monday.
Security officials raided the Islamic school, or madrassa, last month in the southern district of Bhola.
A large cache of weapons and bomb making equipment was found, police say.
Kenya's Justice Minister Martha Karua has resigned from the coalition government, saying that her reform agenda was being undermined.
She said judges were being appointed without her knowledge and her position as minister had become untenable.
Mrs Karua was a key ally of President Mwai Kibaki and was his negotiator for the power-sharing deal to end the bloodshed after disputed polls in 2007.
Correspondents say it is the latest sign of tensions in the coalition.
© 2009 Asnycnow15
The Pakistani coach driver praised for his actions in last month's attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore has been honoured at a ceremony in Colombo.
Meher Mohammad Khalil sped away from the attack as bullets rained down and reached the safety of the stadium.
New Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara said: "We will always have a special place for you in our hearts."
Six policemen and a driver died in the attack and seven Sri Lankan players and a British assistant coach were hurt.
© 2009 Asnycnow15
The U.S. trade gap in February probably held at a six-year low as the worst global slump since World War II caused exports and imports to collapse, economists said ahead of a government report this week.
A deficit of $36 billion, the same as in January, is the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before the Commerce Department’s April 9 report. Other figures the same day may show the cost of imported goods increased in March for the first time in eight months as fuel prices rebounded.
Flagging sales overseas will keep depressing U .S. economic growth as manufacturers, already in a yearlong freefall, cut payrolls, output and inventories. The gloomy outlook prompted world leaders, meeting in London last week, to pledge more than $1 trillion to stem the slump in world trade .
“The combination of a global recession and the global credit crunch are causing worldwide trade to dry up,” said Jay Bryson, a global economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The worst part for the trade deficit will be here in the first half of the year.”
While consumer spending has shown signs of stabilizing this year after plunging in the last six months of 2008, the improvements may not be enough to lead to a pickup in import purchases, economists said.
Any gain would probably be caused by the rebound in fuel costs. The price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange averaged $48.11 a barrel in March, up from $39.26 the month before.
Prices Up
Rising oil probably contributed to a projected 0.9 percent gain in the cost of imported goods, the first increase since July, according to the survey median ahead of a Labor Department report on April 9.
Forecasts are calling for a decline in global trade , sapping overseas demand for American-made goods. The World Bank last month projected trade will fall 6.1 percent worldwide. Earlier in March the World Trade Organization predicted a 9 percent drop.
Another report from Commerce this week is likely to show inventories at U .S. wholesalers fell in February for a sixth straight month, indicating companies may trim orders going into the second quarter.
Weak sales are contributing to job cuts as firms rein in labor costs to weather the recession, now in its second year. Employers cut 663,000 workers from payrolls in March, and the jobless rate surged to 8.5 percent, the highest level in more than a quarter century, the Labor Department reported last week.
FedEx Corp., the second-largest U .S. package-shipping company, said last week it is eliminating 1,000 jobs as part of a plan to save $1 billion as sales drop.
The “global economic reality” made the job cuts “unavoidable,” Maury Lane, a FedEx spokesman, said in an April 3 telephone interview.
HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank, said investors ordered 97 percent of the shares in its 12.5 billion-pound ($18.5 billion) rights offer.
HSBC sold the shares to existing investors for 254 pence each, 41 percent less than the close on April 3 in London. The sale was the U.K.’s biggest ever rights offer.
“As a result of the rights issue, HSBC is well-positioned for the uncertain economic environment and for growth opportunities,” HSBC said in an e-mailed statement today.
HSBC will use the money to increase capital and finance acquisitions that fit with the company’s strategy of expansion in emerging markets. The bank is closing consumer finance operations in the U.S., the biggest source of the bad loans that forced HSBC to take $53 billion of provisions over three years.
The stock sale lifts London-based HSBC’s tier 1 capital ratio to 9.8 percent from 8.3 percent, HSBC said. The bank targets a range of 7.5 percent to 10 percent.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. were lead underwriters for the share sale. BNP Paribas SA, Credit Suisse Group AG, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Citigroup Inc., Societe Generale SA, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, Nomura and ING Groep NV, also underwrote the offering, according to a note sent to clients and obtained by Bloomberg.
Billionaire Li Ka-shing and a group of Hong Kong investors are underwriting at least $1.1 billion of the offering, which closed at 11 a.m. on April 3 in London.
HSBC said it met with more than 350 institutional investors to promote the sale.
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