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Charles and Camilla to visit Christchurch

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 15 November 2012 | 23.44

PRINCE Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, will spend the final day of their six-day tour of New Zealand in quake-ravaged Christchurch.

The royals are in the country on the final leg of their Diamond Jubilee tour representing the Queen.

The prince and duchess arrive in Christchurch about midday NZ time (1000 AEDT) on Friday and they'll be welcomed at the Christchurch City Council by mayor Bob Parker, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Agency (CERA) chief executive Roger Sutton.

From there the royals will meet privately with 20 people who were seriously injured in the deadly February 22, 2011 quake and their caregivers.

They'll then visit some of the areas of the city hardest hit by the quake, including the central business district red zone.

In addition to seeing some of the quake's devastating impacts first hand, the couple will also get a sense of the work that's being done to rebuild the city.

The royals will visit the Re:Start shipping container mall on Cashel Street, where they'll meet Sam Johnson, the founder of the student volunteer army which helped with much of the post-quake clean-up.

The final public engagement of the royal tour will be a trip to the 150th Canterbury A&P show with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Minister for Primary Industries David Carter.

Prince Charles and Camilla depart Christchurch bound for Britain on Friday night.


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Spain halts evictions of most vulnerable

SPAIN has announced a two-year halt to evictions of the most vulnerable home owners as a public outcry mounts over suicides linked to desperate people facing expulsion.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's right-leaning government says it has it agreed on the moratorium "for humanitarian reasons" and the new measure is restricted to those most in need.

"These are urgent measures in difficult circumstances linked to the crisis", Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told a news conference on Thursday after a weekly government meeting.

The Spanish Banking Association said Monday it was freezing mortgage-related evictions for two years in extreme cases. Savings banks, too, suspended expulsions while awaiting new government rules.

Many people were shocked by two suicides in 15 days by indebted homeowners facing expulsion in Spain, where both banks and borrowers were hammered by a 2008 property crash.

On November 9, 53-year-old former Socialist politician Amaia Egana jumped out of her apartment window to her death in the northern Basque municipality of Barakaldo as bailiffs were set to evict her.

Her suicide came 15 days after 53-year-old Jose Luis Domingo hanged himself shortly before bailiffs came to turn him out of his home in the southern city of Granada.


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44 killed in Congo fighting

FORTY-FOUR people have been killed in new fighting between the Congolese army and M23 rebels, ending a two-month ceasefire.

Both sides have blamed the other for starting the fighting.

"The M23 has attacked us around 5am this morning," Colonel Olivier Hamuli said on Thursday, adding that the fighting against 700 rebels continued until about 3pm.

Forty-four M23 fighters were killed in the battle, the governor of North Kivu province, Julien Paluku, told The Associated Press by phone.

But the M23 rebels said the Congolese army initiated the hostilities. On Saturday, the political branch spokesman, Bertrand Bisimwa, accused the army of attacking the rebels in Kitagoma, near the Ugandan border.

However, local sources say the attack in Kitagoma was carried out by an armed group allied with the M23 and the rebels are only looking for an excuse to start fighting again.

The spokesman for the United Nations mission in Congo (MONUSCO), Manodje Munubai, also confirmed Thursday's clash.

Since August, members of the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region have been holding talks in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to try to find a solution to the conflict. There had been a de facto ceasefire during the mediation, but tensions mounted on the ground over the past two weeks as the talks seemed to be reaching a dead end.

Troop movements increased on both sides of the frontline, triggering skirmishes between the rebels and the army.

Direct fighting finally broke out Thursday in Rugari, the town between the M23 and the Congolese army positions, only 30 kilometres from Goma, the provincial capital, and around 15km from Kanyaruchinya, a camp where more than 60,000 people have sought refuge from the conflict since June.

More than 250 families fled the fighting on Thursday and arrived at the Kanyaruchinya camp, said a witness contacted by AP in Goma.


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Eurozone slides back into recession

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. Source: AFP

THE 17-country eurozone has fallen back into recession for the first time in three years as the fallout continues from the region's financial crisis.

And with surveys pointing to increasingly depressed conditions across the 17-member group that uses the euro at a time of high unemployment in many countries, there are fears that the recession will deepen, and make the debt crisis - which has been calmer of late - even more difficult to handle.

Official figures overnight showed that the eurozone contracted by 0.1 per cent in the July to September period from the quarter before as economies including Germany and the Netherlands suffer from falling demand.

The decline reported by Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, was in line with market expectations and follows on from the 0.2 per cent fall recorded in the second quarter. As a result, the eurozone is officially in recession, commonly defined as two straight quarters of falling output.

"The eurozone economy will continue its decline in Q4 and probably well into 2013 too - a good backdrop for another debt crisis," said Michael Taylor, an economist at Lombard Street Research.

Because of the eurozone's gruelling three-year debt crisis, the region has been the major focus of concern for the world economy. The eurozone economy is worth around 9.5 trillion euros ($11.6 trillion) which puts it on a par with the US. The region, with its 332 million people, is the US's largest export customer, and any fall-off in demand will hit order books.

While the US has managed to bounce back from its own savage recession in 2008-09, albeit inconsistently, and China continues to post strong growth, Europe's economies have been on a downward spiral - and there is little sign of any improvement in the near-term.

The eurozone had managed to avoid returning to recession for the first time since the financial crisis following the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, mainly thanks to the strength of its largest single economy, Germany.

But even that country is now struggling as confidence wanes and exports drain in light of the economic problems afflicting large chunks of the eurozone.

Germany's economy grew 0.2 per cent in the third quarter, down from a 0.3 per cent increase in the previous quarter. Over the past year, Germany's annual growth rate has more than halved to 0.9 per cent from 1.9 per cent.

Perhaps the most dramatic decline among the eurozone's members was seen in the Netherlands, whose economy shrank 1.1 per cent on the previous quarter.

Five eurozone countries are in recession - Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus. Those five are also at the centre of Europe's debt crisis and are imposing austerity measures, such as cuts to wages and pensions and increases to taxes, in an attempt to stay afloat.

As well as hitting workers' incomes and living standards, these measures have also led to a decline in economic output and a sharp increase in unemployment.

Spain and Greece have unemployment rates of over 25 per cent. Their young people are faring even worse with every other person out of work. As well as being a cost to governments who have to pay out more for benefits, it carries a huge social and human cost.

Protests across Europe on Wednesday highlighted the scale of discontent and with economic surveys pointing to the downturn getting worse, the voices of anger may well get louder still.

"The likelihood is that this anger will continue to grow unless European leaders and policymakers start to act as if they have a clue as to how to resolve the crisis starting to unravel before their eyes," said Michael Hewson, markets analyst at CMC Markets.

Europe has no doubt made some progress this year in allaying some of the worst fears in the markets, notably through the announcement of new bond-buying program from the European Central Bank. However, with Greece still teetering on the edge and the eurozone in recession, the economic storms are never far away.

Mario Draghi, the ECB's president has been widely credited for helping foster the more optimistic tone in the markets but he admits there's still a long way to go.

"The year that is about to end will be remembered not only for the effects the European sovereign debt crisis has had on the euro and for the significant weakening of the European economy, but also for the responses to these challenges by the ECB, national governments and the European Union," he said in a speech at Univerisita Bocconi in Milan.

"Ultimately, it is up to governments to dispel once and for all the persistent uncertainties that markets perceive and citizens fear," Mr Draghi added.

The wider 27-nation EU, which includes non-euro countries, avoided the same recession fate as the eurozone. Eurostat said the EU's output rose 0.1 per cent during the third quarter, largely on the back of an Olympics-related boost in Britain.

The EU's output as a whole is greater than the US It is also a major source of sales for the world's leading companies. Forty percent of McDonald's global revenue comes from Europe - more than it generates in the US General Motors, meanwhile, sold 1.7 million vehicles in Europe last year, a fifth of its worldwide sales.


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Star Wars, dominoes in Toy Hall of Fame

LUKE Skywalker and Princess Leia have outmuscled little green army men for a spot in the US National Toy Hall of Fame.

Star Wars action figures have joined centuries-old dominoes in the class of 2012.

The hall in Rochester, New York, announced the inductees on Thursday. A committee chose them from among 12 finalists.

Star Wars action figures went on the market in 1978, following the 1977 release of the 20th Century Fox movie.

The 10cm figures of Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and company were sold until 1985 and again from the mid-1990s to today. Dominoes originated in China in the 1300s.

The toys beat out Clue, the Fisher-Price Corn Popper, Lite-Brite, the Magic 8 Ball, the pogo stick, sidewalk chalk, Simon, the tea set and Twister.


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BP agrees to pay over $A4.36b fine

BRITISH energy giant BP says it has agreed to pay more than $US4.5 billion ($A4.36 billion) in US fines related to the devastating 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, including $US4 billion in criminal claims.

"The aggregate amount of the resolution is approximately $US4.5 billion, with payments scheduled over a period of six years," BP said in a statement on Thursday.


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US shares open higher; Walmart sheds 4%

US stocks have zig-zagged around the break-even line in volatile early trade after a sharp fall the previous day, with Walmart's disappointing revenues in its third quarter report pushing its shares lower.

After an hour of Thursday trade, shares were mixed following two sharp direction reverses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 8.76 points (0.07 per cent) to 12,577.79.

The broad-market S&P 500 added 2.02 (0.15 per cent) to 1,357.51, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite lost 2.05 (0.07 per cent) at 2,844.76.

Walmart's shares fell four per cent to $US68.39 on quarterly earnings that showed a nine per cent rise in net income to $US3.63 billion, but revenue at stores climbed only 1.5 per cent, below expectations.

The company also admitted in a document filed to the SEC that in addition to the US investigation into allegations the company bribed Mexican officials, that probes were under way on possible corruption act violations in Brazil, China and India.

Also on the Dow, Bank of America and Caterpillar were both up 1.5 per cent, while Procter and Gamble fell 0.9 per cent.

On the Nasdaq, Apple shares fell 1.1 per cent.

Facebook edged 1.4 per cent lower after surging nearly 13 per cent Wednesday amid a rush of short-covering linked to previous expectations the shares would sink when restrictions on insider share selling were lifted this week.

United Airlines shares were off 1.2 per cent amid reports of widespread flight cancellations due to a computer glitch.

Bond prices were slightly lower.

The 10-year US Treasury yield rose to 1.60 per cent from 1.59 per cent, and the 30-year rose to 2.74 per cent from 2.73 per cent.

Bond prices and yields move inversely.


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