Stock traders watch prices on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York in this file photo.

NEW YORK, Jan. 5--US stocks tumbled on Friday, with the Nasdaq logging its sharpest decline in nearly a year, after data showing rising unemployment stoked expectations of a recession.
Technology shares were the worst performer in a broad-based decline. The Nasdaq logged its sixth straight day of declines, after Intel Corp fell 8.1 percent on concerns that businesses are unlikely to upgrade computer equipment in the face of an economic slowdown, Reuters wrote
The US Labor Department reported job creation nearly ground to a halt in December and unemployment rose to a two-year high of 5 percent.
In a sign investors were hunkering down for hard economic times, the market’s rare gainers were from defensive sectors such as electric utilities, drug makers, food and other products seen as essential to daily life.
“The payroll numbers are showing that we don’t have the jobs, and if you don’t have job income you don’t have consumers doing any spending,“ said Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co. of Springfield, New Jersey. “I don’t think there’s much question we’re in a recession now.“
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 256.54 points, or 1.96 percent, at 12,800.18. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 35.53 points, or 2.46 percent, at 1,411.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 98.03 points, or 3.77 percent, at 2,504.65.
Also, oil prices slipped Friday after a shockingly weak US employment report fanned worries about recession and demand in the world’s biggest energy consumer.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, dropped $1.27 to close at $97.91 a barrel.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for February shed 81 cents to settle at $96.79.
The US Federal Reserve increased the amount of money available to banks as it seeks to help financial markets hit by the global lending squeeze. It said that banks could bid for $60 billion worth of credit this month, instead of the $40 billion it had earlier promised, BBC reported.
Fortnightly auctions will continue for as long as necessary, the Fed said.

BEIJING, Jan. 5--China’s rapid growth should boost annual output per person to $3,000 by 2010, nearly 3 1/2 times its level of a decade earlier, according to a government report cited Friday by an official news agency.
The estimate by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, or CASS, shows the country quadrupling year 2000 output levels earlier than expected. The official goal was to quadruple per capita gross domestic product by 2020.
China’s economy has expanded by more than 10 percent in each of the past five years, and 2007 growth is expected to top 11 percent once final figures are compiled.
The CASS report said economic output per person should reach $6,000 (Û4,000) by 2020 if China maintains its current growth rate, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
The report gave no figures in China’s currency, the yuan. The yuan has been rising against the dollar, which would raise China’s economic output when measured in dollar terms.
China wants continued rapid growth to reduce poverty, but it is also trying to restrain an investment boom in real estate and some other industries that leaders worry could ignite a financial crisis.
The government is promising to spread the country’s prosperity to hundreds of millions who have been left behind by its three-decade-old boom.
Big eastern cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have already surpassed the national per-person income level forecast by CASS for 2010.
CASS said rural incomes rose by an estimated 8 percent last year, the fastest rate in 11 years, although this lagged behind the growth rate in cities by five percentage points.

LONDON, Jan. 5--Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom is eyeing a “mindboggling“ stake in Nigeria’s energy reserves in a bid to trump US, Chinese and Indian interests, AFP reported.
In a dispatch from Abuja and Moscow, the Financial Times quoted a senior Nigerian oil industry official as saying Gazprom was offering to invest in energy infrastructure in return for access to the country’s vast gas deposits.
“What Gazprom is proposing is mind-boggling,“ the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They’re talking tough and saying the west has taken advantage of us in the last 50 years and they’re offering a better deal... they are ready to beat the Chinese, the Indians and the Americans.“
The FT assessed that Gazprom’s move--on the heels of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts to seek energy co-operation with his Nigerian counterpart Umaru Yar’Adua--would cause concern among European governments.
Europe is dependent on Russia for about a quarter of gas imports and has been troubled by Moscow’s readiness to cut off supplies, it added.
Any inroads made by Gazprom would challenge Western dominance by companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil in Nigeria, which is Africa’s biggest producer of crude oil, the newspaper said.
Gazprom’s representative Ilya Kochevrin was quoted as saying, “We made a decision to go global in terms of acquiring assets and developing strategy outside Russia. Africa is one of our priorities.“
The Nigerian official said Gazprom executives had visited Nigeria in mid-December to outline proposals to overhaul the under-performing gas sector.
The FT said it had seen a Russian document, which promised to offer “strong technical expertise and financial resources“ to Nigeria and work with the country on projects, including gas gathering in the oil-producing Niger Delta.

LONDON, Jan. 5--British energy firm Npower announced Friday a double-digit rise in energy price with electricity prices for its domestic customers increasing by 12.7 percent and gas prices by 17.2 percent.
Npower, Britain’s fourth-largest energy provider, said in a statement it had been “forced to put up prices“ because of soaring wholesale energy costs. It expected rival energy providers to follow suit with their own price rises “very shortly“.
Npower’s 4 million customers will pay the higher prices from Jan. 5, Xinhua wrote.
“Today’s decision was not an easy one. We always try to protect our customers for as long as possible but sadly higher energy prices are a fact of life,“ Giuseppe Di Vita, managing director of Npower’s residential business, said. Npower said wholesale energy prices for 2008 had increased from last year by 66 percent for electricity, and 60 percent for gas.
Earlier, British Gas parent Centrica announced in December that it was increasing the price of its market tracker tariff, which follows movements in energy market prices.
British Gas went on to warn that rising wholesale prices meant the energy industry was facing a “difficult environment“ in 2008.
According to analysts, wholesale gas prices have risen on the back of the record cost of oil, as any increase in the price of crude has a knock-on effect on gas.
The higher cost of gas means increased electricity bills because gas accounts for 40 percent of electricity production in the country.
British household energy bills rose strongly in 2006, with most suppliers increasing their bills to counter higher wholesale prices.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Jan. 5--European inflation stayed at the highest in more than six years in December as food and energy costs soared, heightening concern among central-bank policy makers that rising prices will fuel bigger wage increases.
The inflation rate in the euro area was 3.1 percent, unchanged from November and the highest since May 2001, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said on Friday. The rate has never been higher since the launch of the euro in 1999, Bloomberg wrote.
Inflation in the euro region may remain above the European Central Bank’s 2 percent ceiling for a ninth year in 2008, even as economic growth slows, according to ECB staff forecasts. Food-price inflation reached a five-year high late last year, while oil prices topped $100 a barrel this week for the first time, extending last year’s 57 percent surge.
“It’s hard to imagine the hawkish party within the council willing to concede anything in terms of policy relaxation,“ said Aurelio Maccario, an economist at UniCredit MIB in Milan, referring to the ECB’s Governing Council. “We stick to our idea that rates will remain at 4 percent for the foreseeable future with a slight tightening bias left in place.“
The ECB last month raised its 2008 inflation forecast to about 2.5 percent from 2 percent, according to staff projections published on Dec. 6. Inflation in Spain accelerated to the highest in more than a decade in December, while Italy’s consumer prices rose the most in more than four years.
Overall inflation in the euro area will remain around 3 percent in the first quarter as food-price inflation accelerates to above 5 percent for the first time in six years, according to BNP Paribas economist Eoin O’Callaghan in London.
Oil prices will also “remain elevated because of base effects related to the fall in energy prices this time last year,“ O’Callaghan said today.
While some of the ECB’s Governing Council members wanted to increase borrowing costs last month to curb inflation, according to ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, slowing economic growth is restraining their capacity to raise interest rates. Europe’s service industries grew at the slowest pace in two and a half years in December, and French consumer confidence unexpectedly dropped to a 19-month low.

ANCHORAGE, USA, Jan. 5--A major Canadian oil and gas company has beat out four competitors in a bid to build a natural gas pipeline out of Alaska that would supply energy to millions of consumers throughout North America, state officials announced Friday.
TransCanada Alaska Company, LLC/Foothills Pipelines, Ltd. is the only company to meet a long list of business terms set forth by the state, which is moving aggressively to bring its natural gas to market as energy prices continue to rise, AP wrote.
“We have long stated that it only takes one good application. We’re thrilled to have a project sponsor willing to build a pipeline on terms that benefit all Alaskans“, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said at a news conference.
TransCanada is proposing to root the gas line in Arctic oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope, the bedrock for the state’s robust oil industry since the 1970s. From there, natural gas would flow 1,715 miles (2,760 kilometers) southeast to a pipeline hub in Calgary, Alberta, that connects to all the major markets on the continent.
About 35 trillion cubic feet of proved natural gas reserves are believed to lie beneath the North Slope permafrost, and energy analysts believe that figure will rise in the future.
At a projected cost of $26 billion, the proposal could become the largest, most expensive energy facility ever constructed, or simply the largest private-sector project ever undertaken, in North America.
TransCanada owns one of the largest natural gas pipeline networks in the world, tallying 36,500 miles of pipe that ferries nearly 30 billion cubic feet of gas each day. The company has long had an interest constructing an Alaska gas line.

DUBAI, UAE, Jan. 5--The dirham’s peg to the dollar means that when interest rates are cut in the US, the UAE must follow by making borrowing cheaper. The United Arab Emirates will keep its dirham currency’s peg to the US dollar for at least 12 months, the Persian Gulf oil exporter’s central bank governor told Bloomeberg on Thursday.
“In 12 months I can say to you that the UAE will maintain the peg,“ Bloomberg quoted Sultan Nasser Al-Suweidi as saying. “We have come to the conclusion that the inflation problem does not lie with the peg against the dollar,“ he said.
The UAE dirham hit a 17-year high in November after Suweidi said he was under mounting social and economic pressure to sever the dirham’s peg and track a currency basket.
Suweidi backtracked on his remarks after Persian Gulf Arab rulers agreed at a summit in Qatar in December to retain dollar pegs and keep any talks on currency reform secret.
Persian Gulf Arab countries are struggling to control surging inflation, without being able to raise interest rates.