GEITHNER ON US FINANCIAL REFORMS
WASHINGTON - TREASURY Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday defended the US administration's vast regulatory overhaul plan as 'essential' in averting or containing future financial crises.
Mr Geithner appeared in Congress a day after President Barack Obama unveiled the wide-ranging program to reform financial market rules in the most sweeping overhaul since the 1930s.
NEW YORK - The US economy sprouted more green shoots of recovery in data released on Thursday, with weekly jobs figures showing unexpected improvement and the slumping factory sector revealing dramatic signs of a rebound.
The data shored up hopes that the US economy, which has been in recession since December 2007, may have hit bottom, but the labour market and hard-hit factory sector clearly are not out of danger yet.
TEHERAN - IRAN'S top clerical body, the Assembly of Experts, hailed on Thursday the mass turnout in the June 12 presidential election but stayed silent on the disputed results.
'We congratulate the excited, epic-making and alert presence of 85 per cent of the revolutionary people in the June 12 election, which was a display of the Islamic republic's greatness and dignity throughout the world,' it said in a statement read out on state television.
LONDON - UNION leaders on Thursday urged British Airways pilots to accept shares in the company in return for a pay cut, in a 'unique agreement' they claim will help save jobs at the troubled airline.
The announcement, confirmed by the airline, comes after BA this week unveiled details of a plan to get staff to work for free.
