China asks banks to go through stress test

NEW YORK, Apr 23: China's monetary policy has fuelled inflation and global rise in food and fuel has aggravated the situation, analysts said. China has instructed its banks to go through a stress test like the banks in the US and Europe had undergone to assess whether they can absorb the shock if property prices fall by 50 per cent. The World Bank had earlier warned China that rising inflation would give rise to social convulsion there. The Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said he is closely monitoring the price level and admitted inflation and corruption are greatest dangers to nation's stability. Meanwhile, China and the US will have their bilateral meeting on Human Rights on Wednesday and Thursday in Beijing. This has been a regular annual feature. This year's meeting is going to be tense. The Americans have said the talks will focus on recent negative trend in China. The dissidents in China have called upon people to emulate the revolution sweeping the Middle-East and north Africa. Response has been poor. In the Arab world, security forces in Syria killed more than 80 people last Friday, the bloodiest day of the five week old uprising. 'Blood for blood and we want revenge we want blood,' pro-democracy activists chanted. About Libya, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said the month of strikes has only destroyed about 40 per cent of Gaddafi's forces. It has become much more difficult to fight. The Public prosecutors in Egypt has charged ousted President Hosni Mubarak with corruption and shody deals to export gas to Israel. Egypt has lost more than $714 million in the deal because of the price which was lower than the international market. Egypt meets 40 per cent of Israel's gas requirements. 4 BD seeks long-term deal with India to ensure food security Dhaka has sought a long-term deal with New Delhi to ensure food security in Bangladesh, reports bdnews24.com. "We've signed deals with Thailand and Vietnam to procure food grains under g-to-g (government-to-government) basis and we want to have a similar agreement with India, too," Food and Disaster Minister Mohammad Abdur Razzak said this after his meeting with Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma Saturday. Mr Razzak said the Indian Minister informed him that all the obstacles had been removed to send 300,000 tonnes of rice and 200,000 tonnes of wheat to Bangladesh. "Some private companies filed a lawsuit against exporting food grains to Bangladesh but the Indian government has received permission from the High Court to export it," he said. "They've told us that they could send the food grains whenever we want," he added. The government would not immediately ask for the food grains as boro harvest has begun, Razzak said. "The price of Indian food grains would be fixed as per the international rate," he said.