Business

New research revealed earlier this week indicates that some 257m camera phones were shipped worldwide in 2004. The survey carried out by Strategy Analytics showed that camera phone sales have soared over 200% from 84m in 2003 to the 257m last year. The huge surge in sales means that camera phone sales now outnumber digital camera sales four to one. The mobile phone market ended the year as follows: Nokia - 18 percent market share, Motorola - 17 percent, Samsung - 13 percent, Others - 52.1 percent. Despite the astonishing growth last year, th

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has penned a stiff reminder to drug giants Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC: pull your 15-second “reminder” ad for the erectile dysfunction drug, Levitra, off TV. FDA said there is no evidence Levitra is better than rival drugs Viagra from Pfizer, or Cialis, owned by Eli Lilly and Co., in producing results that make female partners happy. Levitra and Cialis together control about 30 per cent of the market for such drugs, but Pfizer takes the majority share. Reminder ads can only call

The National Forecast Committee of Romania today released its economic predictions for the country in the period 2005-2008. The report predicted that the Romanian economy should increase steadily over the next three years, with a rise in gross domestic product (GDP) of about 6.2% per annum until 2008. By the end of 2008, this should lead to Romania's gross domestic product being nearly 30% larger than it was at the end of 2004. For 2005, the prediction is that the economy will grow by 6%, after last year's impressive growth of 8.3%. The reason

India and China have settled long-time border disputes, and with freed up cross-border traffic look to creating what would be the largest trading bloc in the world, between the two most populous nations on the planet. During a recent visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to the Indian capital of Delhi, a border was finally agreed on paper. "India and China can together reshape the world order," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday. "China has a large manufacturing base. I believe it is the world's factory. And India with its develop

Mugur Isărescu, the governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) predicted yesterday that Romania would adopt the euro sometime between 2012 and 2014, possibly joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism II as early as 2010. In July 2004, Romania will revalue its currency, the leu, so that 10,000 old lei will equal 1 new leu, with 1 euro being equal to approximately 3.6 new lei. Dual pricing, in both the old leu and the new leu, has already been introduced from March 2005. The transition to the new leu is expected to stabilise the Romanian currency

Al-Jazeera TV has released video of an American, 47 year old Jeffrey Ake of LaPorte, Indiana, in the custody of three machine-gun wielding masked men. A US Embassy official said the video did not have an audio track, but Al-Jazeera reports the man is asking that American troops be removed from Iraq so that he may live. Ake is posed behind a wooden desk holding what appears to be his passport and a photo ID. His family had no comments on the situation, nor did those at Ake’s business. He is the president and founder of Equipment Express of Rol

Trades unions are to ballot members on strike action following the announcement of 4,000 job cuts at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Formal notice of the strike ballot was sent to the public service broadcaster today by BECTU, the technicians' union, the manual workers' union Amicus and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), after the Director General, Mark Thompson failed to rule out compulsory redundancies. The job cuts announced last month, amounting to approximately 20% of the BBC's staff, are part of £355 million of savings

Hassan Hashash, a Palestinian aged 15, was detained by the Israeli military on Tuesday, April 12, at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus in the West Bank. Hashash had been hiding five explosive charges under a winter coat before attempting to ignite one in the presence of Israeli soldiers, the military said. In the sweltering 26°C (78°F) heat, the teenager's incongruous attire caught the attention of an IDF paratrooper nicknamed Muli. "The boy pulled out a matchbox, held up a pipe bomb, and attempted to detonate it," said Muli. "We aimed our

At the recently held 22nd ICANN International Conference in Mar del Plata, Argentina, the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), officially designated three new top level domain names: .jobs and .travel and .eu. Tralliance will operate the new .travel domain and Employ Media will operate the .jobs. domain. Registration will start in a couple of months. Prices have yet to been determined. .jobs was created for the use of personnel businesses, .travel for the travel industry, and .eu will be used by organizations based in

The Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) officially launched the new Irish Enterprise Exchange (IEX) this morning in Dublin, Ireland. The exchange is aimed at smaller firms seeking to raise capital without the hindrances and additional costs associated with a full listing on the main exchange. At the moment eight companies are listed on the exchange - all having been previously quoted on the Exploration Securities Market (ESM) and the Developing Companies Market (DCM). However it is hoped that many small Irish firms listed on the Alternative Investment

The U.S. Commerce Department released new figures on Tuesday, showing an imbalance of US$61.04 billion as of February. The figure was up 4.3 percent from the US$58.5 billion deficit last January. "While we imported the necessities, we didn't sell a lot to the rest of the world," Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors told Bloomberg. "As for the Fed, this report would likely mean more measured rate hikes," he said. "We are sucking in more products faster than we can sell abroad. It will reduce GDP growth a bit, but not a lot," Davi

The Romanian government has drafted legislation pertaining to tax evasion that makes it a criminal offence on the same level as crimes against individuals. Developed with the aid of Romania's business community, the new law is expected to reduce corruption and tax evasion. According to the new law, the maximum jail term for tax evasion will be boosted up to 20 years. This sentence, however, will only be passed in circumstances of large-scale fraud. For evasion of up to the equivalent of 10,000 euro, the punishment will be either a fine or up to