RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 16--US President George W. Bush warned that surging oil prices threaten the US economy and urged OPEC nations to boost their output. His plea drew little sympathy from oil-rich Saudi Arabia, which said production levels appear normal, AP wrote.
As economic anxiety grows in the US and dominates the presidential campaign, Bush is under increasing pressure.
Meanwhile, Asian markets plunged Wednesday on growing speculation the US economy--a vital export market--is sliding into a recession that could lead to a global slowdown.
Investors dumped stocks after an overnight sell-off on Wall Street and on news that Citigroup Inc. had lost nearly $10 billion in the fourth quarter as it wrote down mountains of bad mortgage assets--the latest fallout from the credit crisis. Weak US retail sales figures also added to the gloom.
“American financial mismanagement has brought us to this economic meltdown,“ said Francis Lun, a general manager at Fulbright Securities in Hong Kong. “Asian stock markets are all suffering; nobody has escaped.“ In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng index sank 5.4 percent to 24,450.85, while Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index fell 3.4 percent to close at 13,504.51 points, its lowest in more than two years.
Markets in Australia, China, India, South Korea, New Zealand and the Philippines also dropped sharply on worries about slower growth in the US and uncertainty about the extent of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Concerns about the US financial system were also felt in the currency market, which sent the US dollar below 106 yen, its lowest since May 2005.
Investors saw more damage from the credit crisis when Citigroup said Tuesday it had written down $18.1 billion in bad assets. That help send the Dow Jones industrial average down 277 points, or 2.2 percent, to 12,501.11.
“The fallout from the Citigroup result is significant, with many saying ... there is more bad news to come,“ said Trent Muller, an ABN Amro Morgan analyst in Sydney.
There is also growing fear that the Federal Reserve hasn’t done enough to keep the US economy going. The central bank has lowered its key interest rate by a full percentage point to 4.25 percent since early August. Now many investors and analysts believe the Fed will cut rates by a half-point at its Jan. 29-30 meeting.

This file photo shows a ship being loaded at a container pier at Tokyo port.

MOSCOW, Jan. 16--Russia needs to do more to deal with inflation, which soared to 11.9 percent last year and could exceed government forecasts of 8 percent this year, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.
Putin, however, told members of Russia’s upper house of parliament that he was confident the problem would be brought under control, and he made wide-ranging calls for improvements to the country’s welfare system, AP wrote.
The remarks appeared aimed at setting a future agenda for Putin, who has said he will become prime minister if his favored successor, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, is elected in the March presidential election.
Although the economy has boomed under Putin’s eight years in office, low-income earners and pensioners have struggled to keep pace with the rise in prices for staple goods.
Inflation reached 11.9 percent in 2007, exceeding the government’s initial forecast of 8 percent. Economic Ministry projections released Monday said inflation could hit 1.8 percent this month, which puts the economy on target to exceed last year’s figures.
Putin expressed concern about the drop in volume of savings accounts, saying that indicated inflation had begun to leave its mark. He also called for pensions and salaries of public sector employees such as teachers and healthcare workers to be raised and urged additional support to be provided for families.
Under Putin, the government has initiated a series of so-called “national projects“ aimed at improving the country’s public health, education, housing and agriculture sectors. The projects are overseen by Medvedev. “We have gained experience in the development of social welfare while implementing the national projects,“ he said.
Government coffers are flush these days with tax revenues from oil and gas pouring in as a result of record high world oil prices. Pressure has grown from some lawmakers to spend the money filling up the Stabilization Fund--a fund designed to sop up extra oil money and keep inflation in check.
But Putin warned against resorting to populist measures. “It is easy to promise everything, and even achieve it formally, but these promises can end up in dashed hopes and negative effects on people’s welfare,“ he said.

TOULOUSE, France, Jan. 16--European plane maker Airbus said Wednesday it received 1,341 orders in 2007, slightly less than its US rival Boeing, which won 1,413. The combined orders for the two companies, which share the market for large passenger jets, are the highest in the history of the industry, AFP reported.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for Boeing said Tuesday that US jet maker is unlikely to reach a negotiated agreement with European rival Airbus in a long-running subsidies dispute between the companies.
The World Trade Organization is set to rule on the Airbus case in April. “I would be surprised that we see a negotiated settlement before the ruling against Airbus is issued,“ said Robert Novick, a lawyer from the Washington-based WilmerHale firm which advises Boeing in the dispute.
A fresh round of hearings began on Tuesday at the WTO headquarters on the European Union’s own complaint against Boeing subsidies. A ruling is expected on the Airbus case around April, with a Boeing verdict seen six months later.
The EU claimed last September that US subsidies between 2004 and 2006 to Boeing had caused Airbus to lose $27 billion (19 billion euros) and were illegal under world trade rules.
The EU cases focuses on research and development support it says the US Defense Department and NASA provide to Boeing, as well as support from the states of Illinois, Kansas and Washington.
Novick rejected their claims as “grossly inflated.“ “The money coming from the DoD and NASA is not a subsidy but money paid for services rendered,“ he said.
For its part, the US claimed in July that the overall benefits of support Airbus receives from European government loans for the launch of new models amounted to $205 billion.
Both companies have said they still want to settle their dispute through negotiations.
New French President Nicolas Sarkozy has laid great stress on improving relations with the United States, and the Boeing lawyer said this could help pave the way for an amicable settlement. However, Novick cautioned that “we have seen no evidence of progress“ so far.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Jan. 16--Indonesia was on Tuesday forced to take emergency action to calm street protests over record soyabean prices triggered by US farmers reducing the crop to grow more corn for biofuel.
Rising Chinese demand for soyabeans and bad harvests in Argentina and Brazil have also contributed to the jump, which saw Indonesia suffer the biggest food-related protests since last year’s Mexican tortilla crisis, FT wrote.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president, was forced on Tuesday to announce measures to boost local soyabean supply.
The move came a day after 10,000 people took to the streets in Jakarta to complain about the rising cost of one of the country’s staple foods.
The government had already responded to the protests by lifting import controls on a commodity that hit an all-time global high of $13.20 a bushel this week, an increase of almost 90 percent on last year’s level. Indonesian prices have risen even higher.
Henry Saragih, the head of the Indonesian farmers’ union, warned, “I think the social situation with soyabeans will probably get worse before it gets better.“
The UN has warned that global food inflation could trigger social unrest and force governments to reintroduce price controls to maintain stability.
The social tensions in the world’s most populous Muslim country follow unrest this week in Pakistan after shortages of wheat and Egypt’s ban on rice exports to maintain local supply.
The rising use of agricultural commodities to make fuel last year unleashed a wave of food inflation and triggered mass protests in Mexico where corn is a staple food.
Indonesia, which imports two-thirds of its soyabeans, has suffered from the impact of rising shipping costs and the long-term neglect of its agriculture sector. Meanwhile, many Indonesian farmers have switched to corn cultivation and other more lucrative crops.
Yudhuyono said he would offer incentives such as free seeds to farmers in a bid to increase production by a half this year to 900,000 tons.
Chris de Lavigne, an analyst with research firm Frost & Sullivan in Singapore, said that soyabean prices were likely to keep rising this year.

Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 16--Europe is poised to make it easier for people looking for consumer credit to shop all over the continent for the best deal with a key vote at the EU parliament on Wednesday.
EU lawmakers are due to vote on plans to make it easier to compare terms and rates of loans across the European Union in hope of boosting competition in the EU’s 800-billion-euro ($1.2 trillion) consumer credit market, AFP wrote.
“We need to seize this opportunity to move forward,“ EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva stressed on Tuesday during a debate at the European Parliament before the vote. “It’s clear that the status quo is not working. The figures speak for themselves,“ she added.
Currently, average consumer credit interest rates vary widely across the 27-nation bloc from as low as 6 percent in Finland to as high as 12 percent in Portugal, Kuneva lamented.
Under the new rules, lenders will have to make all key facts and figures about a consumer loan available to a prospective client presented in a standard format across the region.
In addition to requiring greater transparency, the plans also aim to increase the rights consumers have when they contract such loans, which are often used for things such as holidays or cars.
Consumers would be able to pull out of a loan without having to justify why or pay an additional fee and they would be able to repay a loan early at any time.
“Above all, we want a well regulated market where consumers feel confident in accessing that market,“ conservative British EU lawmaker Malcom Harbour told the assembly. “Good regulation actually encourages market activity.“
Credit markets have been in the focus in recent months as the financial service industry struggles to cope with the far-reaching consequences of the meltdown in the high-risk home loan market in the United States.
“Credit is going to be a difficult issue for the foreseeable issue, difficult for borrowers and legislators alike,“ said British Liberal MEP Diana Wallis. “We need to do something to stimulate the EU market in financial services,“ she added.
If EU lawmakers approve the package, it will still need to be rubberstamped by EU governments before it can take effect.

Vladimir Putin

TOKYO, Jan. 16--Japan said Wednesday that its machinery orders slipped and its current account surplus rose by less than expected in November, raising fears that a US economic slowdown could crimp growth.
The data contributed to a fall in share prices on the Tokyo bourse, where the mood was already soured by rising fears that the United States, Japan’s key export market, is heading into recession, AFP reported.
But analysts also said that the damage was expected to be contained by rising trade with emerging economies, particularly China, which is Japan’s largest single commercial partner.
Japan’s machinery orders, a key gauge of corporate capital spending, fell by 2.8 percent in November from the previous month, suggesting companies were curbing investment in anticipation of slower US growth, the Cabinet Office said. The figure reversed a 12.7 percent rise in October, although it was less severe than a drop of 5.0 percent predicted by the market.
“Due to a slowdown of corporate profits, Japanese companies are already beginning to curtail spending on new labor or capital investment,“ RBS Securities chief economist Mamoru Yamazaki said.
But some analysts stressed that the figures were not dramatic considering the anticipated US slowdown and predicted that the Japanese economy would be pulled forward by a robust hi-tech sector.
“Semi-conductors and telecommunications equipment like cell phones continue to be strong and are expected to continue expanding. The Japanese economy will continue to expand moderately,“ said Keiji Kanda, economist at Daiwa Research Institute, echoing recent views of the Bank of Japan. “We expect the US economy to slow down but the Japanese economy will continue to be supported by exports, mainly led by China and the Asian region,“ he said.
Norinchukin Research Institute senior economist Takeshi Minami added, “Altogether, machinery orders continue to recover thanks to brisk exports to emerging markets.“
Separate data released Wednesday showed Japan’s current account surplus rose by less than expected in November as exports were hit by lower demand from the United States.
The world’s second-largest economy had a surplus of 1.78 trillion yen ($16.8 billion) in the current account, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, the finance ministry reported.

Kuwait CITY, Jan. 16--OPEC member Kuwait posted 11.66 billion dinars ($42.7 billion) of revenue in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, well above budget estimates, the finance ministry said on Tuesday.
The figure is 140 percent more than projected revenues for the whole 2007-2008 fiscal year of 8.3 billion dinars ($30.4 billion) which was based on an ultra-conservative oil price of $36 a barrel. Spending is projected at 11.3 billion dinars ($41.4 billion), AFP wrote.
However, actual figures for up to the end of November posted on the ministry’s website show that Kuwait, OPEC’s fourth largest oil producer, has achieved a surplus of 7.43 billion dinars ($27.2 billion).
Oil income was 10.94 billion dinars ($40.1 billion), accounting for about 94 percent of total revenues, the figures show. Kuwait’s fiscal year extends between April 1 and March 31.
National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) forecast in an economic report this week that the emirate could end up the year posting record revenues and surplus as well. NBK estimated that revenues could exceed 19 billion dinars (about $70 billion) while actual spending will be five to 10 percent lower than projections, thus resulting in a record surplus of $33 billion.