e Yugoslavia

Sydney  – Iron ore tycoon Andrew Forrest could finish the week as Australia’s richest man after a 40-per-cent lift in the share price of Fortescue Metals Group since the start of the month.

Wellington  – A committee of the New Zealand Parliament has criticized the country’s banks for failing to cut mortgage interest rates as much as they could in order to maintain healthy profits.

Brussels  – Sweden has nothing to fear from Latvia’s economic meltdown, despite Swedish banks’ massive investments in the troubled Baltic state, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Tuesday.

Luxembourg  – European Union finance ministers were Tuesday debating controversial plans by Brussels for common supervision of the bloc’s financial system amid opposition from Britain and central European countries with a high concentration of foreign-owned banks.

Geneva  – The Swiss Federal Department of Finance said Tuesday it was in talks with various parties about its options for the securities it bought last year from the banking giant UBS AG as part of a bail-out plan for the troubled institution.

London  – Britain’s Lloyds Banking Group is planning a new wave of job cuts by closing nearly 200 branches of a former building society with up to 1,500 jobs at risk, the BBC reported Tuesday.

Berlin  – German exports dropped more than expected in April, data released Tuesday showed, as Europe’s biggest economy battles to emerge from its deepest recession in more than six decades.

Hanoi  – Vietnamese families who climbed out of poverty in recent years are in danger of slipping below the line again because of the global economic crisis, Vietnamese media reported Tuesday.

Tokyo  – Japan’s current account surplus narrowed 54.4 per cent in April, compared with the same month a year before, to 630.5 billion yen (6.4 billion dollars), the Finance Ministry said Monday.

Washington  – The International Monetary Fund, which in many ways has become the globe’s answer to a worldwide recession, has come under some tough criticism in the United States as legislators consider whether to boost US contribution to the crisis lender.