Canada: Housing starts, home buying intentions rise
9 March 2010 - Canadian housing starts rose a better than expected 6.1 per cent in February, reinforcing views that the residential housing sector is a major force pulling the economy out of recession. (more)

Egypt's Sewedy opens 40 million euro wind plants
9 March 2010 - Egypt's El Sewedy Cables has invested 40 million euros ($54 million) to open two factories making equipment for electricity-generating wind farms, the stock exchange said on Sunday. A wind poles plant in Ain Sukhna on Egypt's Red Sea coast will start operations on 16 March. The firm did not say when it would open a turbines factory in Tenth of Ramadan City, on the outskirts of Cairo. (more)

France's Louvre sheds western light on Russian icons, past
9 March 2010 - Russian icons perplex many western art viewers. The Louvre Museum is seeking to lift that mystery by throwing its influential spotlight on the icons, and nearly 1,000 years of Russian history and art. In an exhibit unlike any ever mounted and tinged with diplomatic ambitions, the Louvre has pulled together artworks that have never left Russia and from around Europe. 'Such an exhibit has never happened before, in Russia or anywhere,' Irina Lebedeva, director of Moscow's Tretyakov Museum and a key contributor to the Louvre exhibit told AP. (more)

Kenya sees stable inflation rate after basket switch
9 March 2010 - Kenya expects a stable inflation rate for the rest of this year thanks to good food harvests, the head of the statistics office said on 3 March. Anthony Kilele, director general the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) spoke about the outlook to Reuters based on a new consumer goods basket. Terry Ryan, a member of Kenya's Monetary Policy Committee, agreed with the assessment that outlook for inflation was benign. (more)

New climate partnership planned to protect forests - interview
9 March 2010 - Governments will seek a new climate partnership in 2010 to protect tropical forests with funds going through the United Nations, the World Bank, or bilateral channels, Norway said on Tuesday. 'The idea is to establish a partnership of everyone who wants to be included' in safeguarding forests, Environment Minister Erik Solheim told Reuters. French President Nicolas Sarkozy will open a one-day ministerial meeting on forests in Paris on 11 March with a follow-up hosted by Norway in May to spur talks on combating climate change after the UN's Copenhagen summit in December. (more)

Oil field found in Egypt
9 March 2010 - Privately held Kuwait Energy Co has found oil in a field in Egypt, the company said on Sunday. The discovery was in Burg El-Arab field in Egypt's western desert, it said. (more)

Senegal: French troops to leave former colony in April
9 March 2010 - French troops will leave Senegal under an agreement to be signed shortly before the West African country celebrates 50 years of independence from France in April, the Senegalese Presidency said. On 4 April, Senegal will mark the 50th anniversary of independence from France. (more)

South Africa February economic confidence up on growth hopes
9 March 2010 - South Africa's economic confidence rose in February on optimism that the economy will grow this year and next. An economic recovery from the country's first recession in almost two decades gathered speed in the fourth quarter of 2009, led by a rebound in manufacturing output. (more)

UN to start troop withdrawals from Democratic Republic Congo in 2010
9 March 2010 - The United Nations could begin withdrawing troops from the western part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the biggest UN peacekeeping mission in the world, as early as June, the peacekeeping chief said on Friday. 'It was a clear request from the government of Kinshasa and from the President that the first draw-down should start around June 2010 at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the independence of the Congo,' UN peacekeeping head Alain Le Roy said. Le Roy said the withdrawals would only involve peacekeepers in the relatively peaceful western part of the country. (more)

US and Russia in final push to clinch new START treaty
9 March 2010 - US and Russian arms control officials began on Tuesday what both sides hope will be a final push to clinch a treaty cutting their strategic nuclear arsenals, officials said. Dozens of negotiators from each country were taking part in the START talks which resumed in Geneva, Switzerland after a 10-day break for consultations in their capitals. The world's two largest nuclear powers are seeking a replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which expired last December. (more)

US: Detroit art museum opening Islamic gallery
9 March 2010 - In the heart of the largest concentration of Muslims in the United States, the Detroit Institute of Arts on 26 February opened a new permanent gallery of Islamic art showcasing exhibits including a rare 15th-century Quran of a Mongol conqueror. The opening comes as several museums worldwide are broadening their collections, including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, The David Collection in Copenhagen, the Louvre in Paris, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Egyptian officials plan to reopen Cairo's Museum of Islamic Art. In Detroit, the gallery of about 170 works of art from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, Central Asia, and India was several years in the making. (more)