STOCKS AROUND THE WORLD THIS WEEK

* IRELAND: Times have been tough on the Irish stock market this year. So much so that the value of stocks traded on the Irish Stock Exchange was down 32 per cent in the first half of the year compared with a year earlier. Average daily turnover was also sharply lower.

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* PERU: Falling commodity prices weighed heavily on the Peru Lima general index, which slipped 7.8 per cent over the course of the week. Among the losing issues was Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA, the world's seventh largest gold producer, which gave ground as the price of gold tumbled from $856.60 (U.S.) to $792.10 in just five sessions.

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* HONG KONG:

Investors didn't take kindly to the news that growth in Hong Kong's economy in the second quarter slowed more than expected. Gross domestic product grew at the slowest pace since the third quarter of 2003 when Hong Kong was recovering

from the SARS epidemic. The big drops recorded in some Chinese commodity producers added to the downward

pressure on the Hang Seng index.

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* VIETNAM:

The Vietnamese stock market has had the distinction of being one of the worst performers this year. But every so often there is a break in the downward trend and it happened this week when the Ho Chi Minh stock index jumped 10.05 per cent, but that still left it with a 47.26-per-cent decline on the year. By way of comparison, the Shanghai Stock Exchange composite index has slumped more than

53 per cent.

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* RUSSIA: On Friday, Aug. 8, the Micex index sank to its lowest level on a closing basis since the fall of 2006. It followed that up with an intraday low on Monday but since then, stocks have rallied, giving the Micex a 7.4-per-cent gain on the week.