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Pattaya One – Pattaya News, Thailand News, World News, updated 24 hours a day » Local News

Regional shares followed a global rally on easing fears of a credit crunch that has been aggravated by the European debt crisis.

Hong Kong surged 5.85 percent by the break, Shanghai was up 3.34 percent and Tokyo was 2.44 percent higher, while Sydney jumped 2.83 percent, Seoul climbed 3.95 percent and Taipei was 4.13 percent up.

In a surprise move on Wednesday the central banks of the United States, the eurozone, Britain, Japan, Canada and Switzerland said they would cut the cost of providing dollars to banks.

“The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity,” they said in a statement.

European banks have for months found difficulty raising dollars on the markets after US investment funds pulled out over concerns about the eurozone debt crisis.

However, Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa warned that the move was not enough on its own to solve Europe’s fiscal woes.

“The European debt problem can’t be solved by liquidity provisions alone,” he told a press conference, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Eyes will now be on a European summit next week, where pressure will be on leaders to come up with a plan to tackle the region’s two-year-old sovereign debt crisis, which has roiled markets.

The arrangement allows the central banks to lend dollars to commercial banks that might be finding it hard to borrow directly from other banks.

They said they would reduce the interest rate on this operation by half a percentage point from December 5 until February 1, 2013.

“The move intended to help short-term funding at financial institutions (amid Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis) came as a surprise,” said Yoshihiro Okumura, general manager at Chibagin Asset Management.

“This illustrates how urgent the situation might be.”

Also on Wednesday Beijing said it would cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 50 basis points in a bid to boost liquidity, the first such move by China since the global downturn amid expectations of a bout of monetary easing.

On Thursday official data showed that manufacturing activity in the world’s second biggest economy contracted in November for the first time since February 2009 after more than a year of rate hikes and RRR rises aimed at curbing inflation.

The figures backed up a similar report by HSBC last week.

Global markets surged on Wednesday. On Wall Street the Dow soared 4.2 percent, the broader S&P 500 jumped 4.3 percent and the Nasdaq Composite added 4.2 percent.

And London’s FTSE 100 was up 3.16 percent, the German Dax added 4.98 percent and Paris’s CAC 40 gained 4.22 percent.

The euro received a much-needed boost in New York, jumping more than a cent to $ 1.3438 and to 104.25 yen from 103.66 yen.

In afternoon Asian trade the common currency fetched $ 1.3460 and 104.55 yen. The dollar was at 77.68 yen against 77.58 yen late in New York.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in January, gained 22 cents to $ 100.58 a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for January delivery shed 19 cents to $ 110.33.

And dollar-priced gold jumped as the US unit weakened. The precious metal was trading at $ 1,746.47 an ounce at 0440 GMT, from $ 1,705.75 late Wednesday.

Pattaya today newspaper

A lecture on the state of Thai education by David Goldsack, principal, Rayong English Programme School, was followed by a workshop featuring a delegation from Fontys University of Applied Science, The Netherlands. Participants evaluated instructional techniques, noting that they should alternate every 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the age of the students, to keep their attention.
The Anuban Chonburi School has 212 teachers, 176 of whom are Thai, and take care of 3,311 kindergarten and primary school students. Three teachers teach in the Chinese language, the others in English.

Pattaya today newspaper

After 10 hours of painstaking talks in Brussels, banks holding Greece’s mountain of debt agreed to to take a 50 percent “haircut”, breaking a deadlock many hope will go towards solving the two-year-old crisis.

The summit also established a deal that will force lenders to increase their defences to absorb any losses on the Greek debt writedown while more than doubling a rescue fund aimed at protecting other economies from Greece’s fate.

Tokyo added 0.54 percent by the break, Hong Kong rose 1.35 percent, Shanghai was 0.64 percent higher and Seoul climbed 1.07 percent.

Sydney was closed indefinitely due to a technical glitch.

The agreement by holders of Greek bonds to write down 50 percent of their debt — much more than the 21 percent they agreed to at a summit in July — will see help Athens slash 100 billion euros ($ 140 billion) from the 350 billion euros it owes.

Lenders agreed to the move after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy broke off from long-running talks to speak directly to the head of the banking lobby.

Convincing banks to erase billions in Greek debt is a key part of a grand deal leaders had pledged to deliver, along with the bank recapitalisation and beefed-up rescue fund.

Banks had earlier agreed to a recapitalisation to protect themselves against a Greek writedown.

The declaration on recapitalisation, which came after a meeting of all 27 European Union members, lacked any details but sources said it would amount to 108 billion euros.

That had been contingent only on a full package being agreed to protect the euro.

Soon after the talks wrapped up in the early hours, Sarkozy announced that the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) rescue fund would be increased to one trillion euros from the 440 billion agreed in July.

The EFSF, the main weapon against the crisis, has already been used to help Portugal and Ireland, and would be tapped in a new Greek rescue. However, it would be too small for bigger endangered economies, such as Italy and Spain.

Global powers, from the United States to Japan and China, had been pressing European leaders to come up with a lasting solution to the debt crisis before a G20 summit in France on November 3 and 4.

The crisis has sent markets spinning amid fears that it could spill over onto the global economy and lead to another financial meltdown.

On currency markets the euro was higher, buying $ 1.3976 in Tokyo trade against $ 1.3908 late Wednesday in New York, while it rose to 106.27 yen from 105.98.

The dollar was at 76.03 yen, compared with 76.21 yen, after hitting a fresh post-World War II low of 75.71 yen in New York on Wednesday.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, gained $ 1.11 to $ 91.31 per barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for December delivery added 70 cents to $ 109.61.

By 0230 GMT, gold was up at $ 1,726.55 an ounce, against $ 1,713.50 late Wednesday.

Pattaya today newspaper