House prices are sliding in countries around the world, reviving concerns of a double dip.
Forty-one per cent of the countries tracked by the Knight Frank Global House Price Index reported negative growth in the fourth quarter of 2010. That compares to 31 per cent in the second quarter, when many analysts were hailing signs of a recovery in property prices.
"It looks increasingly likely that Asian markets will escape a crash in prices, but in many of the previously hot markets price falls later this year seems a realistic assumption," said Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank.
Hong Kong continues to lead the world's property markets, showing a 20 per cent increase from the fourth quarter of 2009. But the growth from the third quarter was a relatively modest 3.7 per cent, Knight Frank found.
Dubai prices fell 10.1 per cent in the second half of 2010, the largest drop of the 49 countries tracked by Knight Frank.
Overall global prices rose by 2.8 per cent for the year, with Asia Pacific posting 7.5 per cent growth for the year. The laggard was North America, which saw no change in values in 2010, according to Knight Frank's data.
The end of stimulus incentives in the United States and Europe slowed enthusiasm for housing purchases, Mr Bailey said.
"Across Europe and the US the lack of bank lending is likely to extend the recent period of price reversals," Mr Bailey said.
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
