Real Word Bank - Banking News and Articles
  World Bank Banking News and Articles | Contact
Latest Banking News and Articles


World Banking in Deep Trouble

BRAZIL dropped a line to its friendly international bankers the other day. It told them that Brazil would not be paying them the current installments due on the roughly $90 billion that it owes them. Instead, Brazil would keep that money in its own banks. Consider them as your deposits here, Brazil said. If the bankers refuse to go along, Brazil added, then as of March 1 Brazil will consider itself insolvent.

TULSA _ Current Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion Jimmy Connors heads the field for the sixth annual Bank of Oklahoma Tennis Classic to be played at the Shadow Mountain Racquet Club May 11-15.Connors, currently ranked second in the world, will join seven other pros in the $100,000 round robin tournament.Others in the field include defending champion Shlomo Gilkastein, Dick Stockton, Roscoe Tanner, and Vince Van Patten.

Chief Judge Barnard F. Jennings of the Fairfax Circuit Court set a Feb. 28 trial date yesterday for Alain Paul de Cock, 21, on charges that he murdered his parents in their McLean home last month.A Fairfax County grand jury indicted de Cock on charges of murdering his father, Romain Paul de Cock, 52, a World Bank official, and his mother, Simone Irene de Cock, 50. He also was indicted on two charges of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Should the United States provide any money to help developing countries reschedule the debts they ran up over their heads, when federal spending is being cut for vital human services at home? When more than 10 million Americans are unemployed, should U.S. taxpayers bail out the international banks that imprudently allowed the countries to amass those huge debts?

Staff reporter of The Wall Street Journal KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Long before the Valentine's Day collapse of Jake F. Butcher's United American Bank of Knoxville, critics charged that the freewheeling Butcher often used his regional banking empire to advance his own business interests and those of his associates.Even Butcher, a politically prominent, 46-yearold entrepreneur whose feats included bringing the 1982 World's Fair to Knoxville.

Topic A, even among those politicians whose attention span for economic issues is no more than 30 seconds, is whether or not President Reagan will reappoint Paul A. Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.After all, according to most polls, Volcker is rated the national figure second in power to the president of the United States because he manages the independent central bank of the biggest nation in the world.

Albert F. Ryder, 65, of East Boston, a retired clerk of the Post Office in Boston's Post Office Square, died of a heart ailment Monday in Winthrop Community Hospital. He retired in 1977 after 32 years of service. Mr. Ryder was born and educated in Cambridge. He served in the Army during World War II at Fort Banks in Winthrop. Mr. Ryder was a member of the Disabled American Veterans, National Post.

A major initiative of Mayor Green's last year in office will be the promotion of a $191 million development plan for Penn's Landing, the historic Delaware River site that is considered one of the prime urban waterfront locations in the world.Its potential has been discussed, debated and promoted for almost 20 years. It has been compared favorably with such urban maritime projects as Baltimore's Inner Harbor, Boston's Faneuil Hall.

Some international bankers said they expect strong opposition from European and Mideast banks to a new financial aid package for Brazil, the third world's most heavily indebted nation. But many other bankers, interviewed by Reuters as Brazilian central bank President Affonso Pastore tours world financial centers to build support for the deal worked out last week.

Gaspar Gomes da Silva, a militant unionist with 18 years' experience in Brazilian factories, didn't join Brazil's first general strike in 19 years of military rule last week.Silva, 43 and father of six, doesn't have a job to walk out on.But he says he was in full agreement with the strike's major demands: an end to Brazil's three-year-old recession and an immediate moratorium on Brazil's $90-billion.

Edward S. Redstone left the movie business for the world of banking 10 years ago when he bought the $9 million First Bank in Chelmsford. Last week he proved he still likes banking. Surprising even his personal bankers at Citicorp, Redstone laid down almost $500,000 for 9576 shares of the $29 million Martha's Vineyard National Bank. His bid of $47.25 per share, which topped Bank of Boston's offer by $1.50, was the product of foggy ruminations.

A federal judge today temporarily barred the federal government's planned sale of oil-drilling leases on millions of acres of ocean floor off the New England coast.U.S. District Judge David Mazzone issued a preliminary injunction against the sale of about 500 plots on the environmentally sensitive Georges Bank, one of the richest fishing grounds in the world.The Massachusetts Attorney General's office and the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation.

Bessie D. Thrasher, 89, a real estate agent in Washington who was an editor with the General Services Administration from 1946 until she retired in 1962, died of pneumonia March 15 at George Washington University Hospital.Miss Thrasher, who was born in Nashville, came to Washington in the early 1930s. She worked briefly for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and, during World War II, for the Navy Department.She then joined the GSA.

CLEVELAND COUNTY Civil Cases City National Bank & Trust Co. of Norman vs. George Moore, Don Moore and Wonder World Inc., replevin.Dorothy Owens vs. Jere Daly, Brenda Miller and Young Real Estate Co., money judgment.William C. Wynn vs. State of Oklahoma ex rel Department of Public Safety, modification of revocation.Glen S. Cecil vs. J.B. White Jr., replevin.Randy L. Sossamon vs. State of Oklahoma ex rel Department of Public Safety.

The Third World debt problem is now manageable, and will improve significantly over the next few years as the global economy recovers, according to a new study of 19 of the largest debtor countries.In the study, economist William R. Cline, like International Monetary Fund Managing Director Jacques de Larosiere, says that the problem of Third World debt "is one of temporary illiquidity, not fundamental insolvency.

The government rejected suggestions Friday it would declare a moratorium on paying the interest on its $90-billion foreign debt, the world's largest."I strongly reject the possibility the country will have to declare a moratorium," said Antonio Chagas Meirelles, area director of the Central Bank after a highly placed government source suggested he did "not see any other way out."

The dollar resumed its climb to near-record highs on foreign-exchange markets yesterday as U.S. interest rates rose. The dollar climbed to a record 129.70 on the Federal Reserve Board's index that measures its value on the basis of trade with 10 other countries. The previous high was 129.50 Monday. The index uses March 1973 as 100.Concerted intervention by leading central banks, including the Fed, to sell dollars in world currency markets had helped stabilize foreign-exchange.

The United States has announced a record cash grant to an African country--a $30 million economic-assistance package for Kenya.A statement issued by the U.S. Embassy here said the money had been granted following a special appeal by Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi to President Reagan.The bulk of the grant will be used to help meet Kenya's balance of payments requirements and to finance development projects, the statement said.

A far-reaching measure to deregulate Maryland's banking industry, which swept through the Senate over a week ago, was greeted with skepticism in the House today as opponents subjected it to a barrage of hostile questions and motions designed to stall it.House leaders said that the bill, pushed by Gov. Harry Hughes, the banking industry and key members of the legislature, could come up a few votes short of the 71 needed for passage.

Related Articles

1977-A

Newsnipits