G-8 climb down: agrees to cut subsidies
St Petersburg: The world's top eight industrial nations have climbed down from their positions on farm subsidies, reviving hopes of resumption of the failed WTO talks.

A statement issued at the G-8 Summit here said that, it is "fully committed to the development dimension of ongoing WTO talks."

The heads of government of US, UK, France, Japan, Canada, Italy, Russia and Germany said, "We commit ourselves to substantial improvement for market access in trade in both agriculture and industrial products and expanding opportunities in trade in services."

The statement said, "In agriculture we are committed to substantially reducing trade-distorting domestic support and to the parallel elimination by the end of 2013 of all forms of export subsidies a well as establishment of effective disciplines on all export measures with equivalent effect as agreed in Hong Kong.
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Chinese economy grows 10.9 pc in first half
Beijing: China's economy grew a scorching 10.9 percent in the first half of the year compared with a year earlier and by 11.3 percent in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. Economists said the robust growth reinforced the case for a further tightening of policies sooner rather than later, with higher interest rates and an increase in banks' reserve requirements among the possibilities.
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US crude futures down to $75
Tokyo: U.S. crude oil futures fell to $75 on Tuesday, extending the previous session's 2 percent drop, due to relief that the conflict in Lebanon had not spread to the Middle East oil producing countries.

Crude was trading at a record high at $78.40 hit on Friday and settled down $1.73 on Monday partly because of a report earlier in the day, denied by Israeli officials, that the country would soon end its offensive against Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.
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