NEW DELHI, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) — India’s food inflation rose to 12. 21 percent — the highest in nine months, at the week ended on Oct. 22, reported Indo-Asian News Service Thursday.

Prices of pulses, vegetables and milk and poultry all rose as compared with the previous week ended Oct. 15, which saw a food inflation rate of 11.43 percent.

Meanwhile, the headline inflation based on the wholesale price index was recorded at 9.72 percent in September in India, said the report quoting latest official data.

The headline inflation also includes manufactured goods.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) — Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived at a hospital in Sao Paulo Monday morning for his first chemotherapy session to treat his laryngeal cancer.

Lula was diagnosed with cancer Saturday, and his doctors decided to start treatment right away. The former leader chose not to undergo surgery but instead go through a series of chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions in the next four months. Continue Reading

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) — Brazil will become the world’s sixth largest economy in 2011 due to the global financial crisis that has affected the main economic powers including Britain, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and several other organizations said Sunday.

According to the data, which was quoted by local newspapers, Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011 will surpass Britain’s, reaching 2.44 trillion U.S. dollars against Britain’s 2.41 trillion and making Brazil the world’s sixth largest economy. Continue Reading

NEW DELHI, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) — India Monday welcomed the world’ s first symbolic “seven billionth” citizen, named Nargis, born to a family in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The girl baby was born to 23-year-old Vinita and her husband Ajay at a community health centre about 7:20 a.m. near the state capital Lucknow, according to Bhagyeshwari, executive director of NGO Plan India, which is conducting the exercise. Continue Reading

NEW DELHI, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) — A 27-year-old poor government clerk, who hails from an impoverished village in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, has become the country’s first person to win 50 million rupees (1 million U.S. dollars) on a TV gameshow, said local TV reports Friday.

Sushil Kumar correctly answered a final question to take the jackpot of the popular local edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” — “Kaun Banega Crorepati” (KBC) hosted by Indian film icon Amitabh Bachchan. Continue Reading

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) — A Brazilian official on Wednesday criticized a report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which predicted Brazil’s GDP growth will slow down in the next two years.

“The OECD looks back and underestimates Brazil’s capacity to respond to the challenges today,” said Brazil’s Economic Policy Secretary Marcio Holland.

Holland said the OECD is “underestimating the Brazilian economy’s capacity to recover from shocks” caused by external events.

“Maybe it is contaminated by the difficulties of the industrialized countries’ narrowness of reaction,” he noted. Continue Reading

BEIJING, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) — China on Tuesday underscored its commitment to consolidating ties with India after an Indian leader spoke positively of the relations between the world’s two most populous countries.

“We’ve noticed the recent comments by Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh. China would like to work with India to consolidate and enhance our bilateral strategic and cooperative partnership,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a daily press briefing. Continue Reading

BEIJING, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) — President Hu Jintao and top legislator Wu Bangguo respectively met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Wednesday in Beijing to exchange views on the development of the strategic relations of cooperation and partnership between China and Russia.

Hu Jintao welcomed Putin’s visit, calling the Russian prime minister “an old friend of the Chinese people.” Continue Reading

BEIJING, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) — China and Russia are committed to expanding cooperation in economic, trade and energy, said a joint communique inked by the two countries as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made a two-day official visit to China.

The two sides will take joint action to optimize trade structure, increase the proportion of electromechanical and high-tech products in bilateral trade volume and realize the goal of lifting bilateral trade to 100 billion U.S. dollars by 2015 and 200 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, said the communique. Continue Reading

BEIJING, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing Tuesday soon and started a two-day official visit to China.

During the visit at the invitation of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Putin will attend the 16th regular meeting between the two countries’ premiers.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) Wu Bangguo will meet with Putin. Continue Reading

KIEV, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) — Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been found guilty of exceeding her power in a 2009 gas deal with Russia, according to local media Tuesday.

The Interfax-Ukraine News Agency quoted Judge Rodion Kireev as saying that, in January 2009, then Prime Minister Tymoshenko had “used the power granted to her for criminal purposes and, acting intentionally, committed acts that clearly went beyond the rights, which have led to serious consequences.” Continue Reading

BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) — China and Russia discussed expansion of economic cooperation on Monday, paving way for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s upcoming visit to China.

In a nearly two-hour discussion Monday morning, Vice Premier Wang Qishan and his Russian counterpart Alexander Zhukov expressed willingness to explore new directions for bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

“In the next phase, China and Russia will make efforts to maintain the rapid growth of bilateral trade and improve trade structure,” Wang said at the 15th meeting of the Joint Continue Reading