News round-up: 31 Jul 2008

Trade talks collapse frustrates Africa – Fin24 (Africa is the real loser here in a dispute between the EU, U.S. and China and India)

India blamed for Doha collapse by trying to protect poor farmers – Times Online (The finger pointing begins)

Big Bankruptcies Are Piling Up – Deal Book (The real economy is getting hit. We should expect to see a lot more corporate bond defaults, especially in high yield.)

Merrill’s Fire Sale Raises Questions – DealBook (There is a lot of buzz around that the actual value of Merrill’s unloaded assets are even lower)

Central banks boost effort to fight credit crisis – National Post (Interesting that not every major central bank is on board with the liquidity provisions)

Delta Revamps Its Frequent-Flier Program – NY Times (First they close down the lounge and now I need 60,000 for a free ticket?)

Miliband calls for ‘radical’ Labour party change – FT (Things have gone seriously pear-shaped for Labour. Brown is not popular.)

Sweeping Housing Bill Signed by Bush – NY Times (The bailout is a done deal. Now we can get ready for another stimulus package)

UBS Settles State’s Claim Of Deception – WSJ($) (It looks like UBS got off pretty light on this one and they got a fraud thrown out. Defendants 2 – Plaintiffs 0)

Remy Falls Most Since January on Sales Drop, Forecast – (More proof that the global downturn is hitting the rich too. I guess no one’s popping the cork on the Moët — oh, that’s LVMH. What does Remy make again?)

Cadwalader Lays Off 96 Lawyers – WSJ (I guess no one is doing CDOs)

Nomura reports surprise loss of $708m – FT (Further proof that losses from the credit crunch are everywhere)

U.S. Slowdown Hits Mexico as Remittances Drop – Real-Time Economics (The U.S. slowdown may be hurting Mexico but the Mexican Central Bank still hiked interest rates last I saw)

BA-Iberia merger would create biggest airline in Europe – Times Online

Northern Rock scars RAB Capital profits – Times Online

The world cannot grow its way out of this slowdown – Kenneth Rogoff, FT