A trio of Britons traveling the world in a black taxi cab said in New York they have driven more than 51,499 kilometers.Image from itsonthemeter.comPaul Archer, Leigh Purnell, and Johno Ellison left London in the cab in February 2011 and are currently passing through New York, the Sun reported Monda

Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was charged on Monday with involvement in an organised vice ring that procured prostitutes for top-class clients, lawyers said.Former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn (AP-Yonhap News)Prosecutors said the 62-year-old former Soci

Australian carrier Qantas, China Eastern Airlines will launch a new H.K.-based low-cost airlineSYDNEY (AFP) ― Australian flag carrier Qantas and China Eastern Airlines said Monday they will launch a new Hong Kong-based budget airline next year aimed at cashing in on China’s booming aviation market.The new low-cost Asian carrier, Jetstar Hong Kong, will fly short-haul routes, including in China, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia, the partners announced.The move marks a major expansion of Jets

The good news: China’s government will engineer a soft landing. The bad news: Even a soft landing is painful for industries that have become dependent on the world’s fastest-growing major economy as their main profit engine. Analysts at Deutsche Bank AG, Nomura Holdings Inc. and Daiwa Capital Markets raised forecasts this month for 2012 expansion to as high as 8.6 percent, partly on anticipation of looser monetary policy. The projections, still below last year’s 9.2 percent rate, offer little co

EU’s Rehn expects debt-crisis firewalls to be reinforcedItaly’s Prime Minister Mario Monti warned that Spain could reignite the European debt crisis as euro-area ministers this week prepare a deal to strengthen the region’s financial firewall. Monti pointed to Spain’s struggle to control its finances ahead of a finance ministers meeting in Copenhagen starting on March 30, where officials will seek agreement to raise a 500 billion-euro ($664 billion) ceiling on bailout funding. “It doesn’t take

YANGON (AP) ― Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has fallen ill while campaigning for Myanmar’s upcoming by-elections and has suspended her extensive tour of the country a week ahead of the polls, her party said Sunday.Kyi Toe, deputy information officer for her National League for Democracy party, said that Suu Kyi’s personal physician advised taking the break after she fell ill with vomiting while campaigning in the Mergui archipelago in southernmost Myanmar.The doctor, Tin Myo Win, who was accom

PARIS (AFP) ― The brother of an Islamist gunman whose grisly murder spree shocked France was charged Sunday with complicity in the attacks, but his lawyer said he should not be made a scapegoat.Abdelkader Merah denied any involvement in the shootings of three French soldiers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a trainee rabbi ― attacks claimed by his younger brother Mohammed Merah, 23. Merah, who said he had links to al-Qaida, died Thursday in an exchange of gunfire ater a prolonged stand-off with

Magnitude 7.1 quake strikes northwest of Talca, no tsunami alert issuedSANTIAGO (AP) ― A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck central Chile Sunday night, the strongest and longest that many people said they had felt since a huge quake devastated the area two years ago. There were no immediate reports of deaths or major damage.The quake struck at 7:30 p.m. about 27 kilometers north-northwest of Talca, a city of more than 200,000 people where residents said the shaking lasted about a minute.Buildings