An Egyptian man tries to access a website at an Internet cafe during disruption of the Internet service in Cairo, Jan. 31.

CAIRO, Egypt, Feb. 1--South Asian and the Middle Eastern countries experienced slow Internet connections and disruption to international calls to the US and Europe after two submarine cable systems in the Mediterranean Sea were cut on Wednesday.
Repairs to the break, which may have been caused by a ship’s anchor near Alexandria, northern Egypt, will start on Feb. 4.
Operations outsourced to India from the UK and US are badly hit. Some 50 percent of India’s bandwidth was affected. Egypt has about 40 percent of its Internet capacity, following damage to a cable thought to be off its northern coast.
It could take a week or more to restore full services, say experts.
Further disruption has been reported in Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Customers are being provided with alternatives through other cables, a spokesman for Flag Telecom Group Ltd., which operates one of the cables, said by phone from Mumbai to Bloomberg.
The cable breaks have cut capacity by more than half for some web access and telephones companies in the affected regions. They carry 70 percent of voice traffic to the West, according to Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, the biggest mobile-phone company in the Middle East and North Africa.
Stock trading in Egypt and phone calls from as far away as the US have been disrupted.
’Everyone is trying to absorb the shock, and is trying to deal with it’ by using alternatives, said Joseph Metry, network supervisor at Orascom Telecom.
The two cables are 400 meters (1,312 feet) apart and the second is operated by SEA-ME-WE-4, according to Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Co., which is United Arab Emirates’ second-biggest mobile-phone company and is known as du.
“Flag and SEA-ME-WE4 have activated their emergency repair process,“ du said in an e-mailed statement today. “Given the proximity of the two systems, it is likely that one ship will do both repairs.“
Du said it has re-routed international outbound voice traffic on other available routes and secured more capacity for Internet access.

HONG KONG, Feb. 1--Asian stocks rose, led by mining companies, after China’s worst snowstorms in 50 years halted production and drove up prices of coal and zinc.
China’s equities were set for their worst week on record as blizzards paralyzed transport networks and closed power plants. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell, dragged by Sony Corp., after the world’s second-largest maker of consumer electronics cut its earnings target.
BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, climbed and Korea Zinc Co. had its biggest gain in three years after the price of the metal surged the most in nine months, reported Bloomberg.
“The transport bottlenecks in China may lead to a short-term spike in commodity prices and that will benefit some mining companies,“ said Mark Tan, who helps oversee $3 billion in Asian equities at UOB Asset Management in Singapore.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.6 percent to 144.39 at 3:46 p.m. in Tokyo. The measure has fallen 1.1 percent this week, headed for its fifth week of declines, the longest losing streak since the seven weeks to Aug. 14, 2004.
Seven of the index’s 10 industry groups advanced, led by a measure of commodity stocks. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index surged 3.4 percent, the region’s biggest gain. The Nikkei 225 index fell 0.7 percent to 13,497.16. China’s CSI 300 Index slumped 1.3 percent to a six-month low.
TDK Corp., the world’s largest maker of disk-drive heads, had its steepest gain in more than four years after profit beat estimates. Pioneer Corp. advanced the most on the MSCI World Index on higher earnings. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. gained after the world’s largest custom-chip maker said profit increased to a record.
China’s benchmark CSI 300 has plunged 10 percent this week, set for its worst weekly performance since the measure was introduced in 2005.
Zhuzhou Smelter Group Co., China’s largest zinc smelter, halted its main production plants Jan. 29 because of power cuts and snowstorms, the company said today.

DUBAI, UAE, Feb. 1--Persian Gulf Arab oil producers, barring Oman, dropped interest rates on Thursday, mirroring a US cut, in a move likely to fuel near record inflation and add pressure on them to revalue their currencies or even drop their dollar pegs.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, lowered its reverse repurchase rate by 50 basis points to 3 percent, matching Wednesday’s cut in the United States.
The US Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark five times since September 18 by a total 2.25 percentage points. The total to date for Saudi Arabia, which pegs its currency to the dollar, is 2 percentage points.
“These countries are doing the bare minimum to try to sanitize money supply and signal to the market that they want no speculation on the currencies,“ John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Saudi Arabia’s SABB bank, an affiliate of HSBC Holdings told Reuters.
Saudi Arabia, like most of its neighbors, continued with a policy of leaving its benchmark repo rate, which guides bank lending rates, steady at 5.5 percent, to prevent lower borrowing costs from fuelling inflation.
After an emergency Fed cut of 75 basis points last week, the kingdom and neighboring Bahrain raised bank reserve requirements to force lenders to keep more money in their vaults.
“The central bank will have to rein in on banks eventually,“ Sfakianakis said.
Kuwait--the only Persian Gulf oil producer not pegged to the dollar--and the United Arab Emirates each lowered their repurchase rates by 50 basis points to 3.5 percent on Thursday.
Kuwait left its benchmark discount rate unchanged at 5.75 percent, having cut it for the first time in 18 months last week following the Fed move.
The repo is the rate at which the central bank lends to commercial banks, thus guiding the rate at which the banks lend on.
Persian Gulf states are reaping a windfall from oil prices that rose to a record above $100 per barrel this month, and that have more than quadrupled during the last six years, fuelling economic growth and inflation.
“These rate cuts are just adding to the stimulus,“ said Monica Malik, Middle East economist at Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes. “It will get to a point that interest rates get so low they could push the Persian Gulf to currency reform.“

HONOLULU, US,
Feb. 1--FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday that the agency is committed to investigating and prosecuting companies involved in mortgage fraud and other violations in connection with home loans made to risky borrowers.
Mueller said probes were being conducted across the country, including in Hawaii, where he stopped on his way back from a trip through Asia, said AFP.
“There is not a state that does not have some investigation,“ he told reporters at the FBI office in Honolulu. “It is a substantial problem but we’ve been through problems like this in the past.“
The FBI said Tuesday it was working with the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate 14 companies, from mortgage lenders to investment banks, for possible accounting fraud, insider trading or other issues connected to subprime mortgage lending.
Mueller declined to identify the companies.
The FBI allocated substantial manpower and resources to address the savings and loan crisis in the early 1990s and corporate fraud earlier this decade and Mueller said he was prepared to do the same to address fraudulent lenders.
“I anticipate that we will see the same extensive investigations that we saw then with successful prosecutions following those investigations,“ Mueller said.
As the nation’s housing crisis worsens, there has been a dramatic spike in the number of mortgage fraud cases under investigation. An FBI spokesman said 1,210 such cases are open, up from roughly 800 a year ago.
The bureau is looking into the practices of so-called subprime lenders, as well as potential accounting fraud by financial firms that hold subprime loans on their books or securitize them and sell them to other investors.

SAO PAULO, Brazil, Feb. 1--While the United States teeters on the edge of a recession, an economic boom and easier credit terms have sent Brazil hurtling into a consumption frenzy as millions of people qualify for loans for the first time.
With a stable economy, falling unemployment, booming exports and low inflation, banks are seeking a much wider customer base, AP wrote.
Well-heeled Brazilians and international corporations are pouring billions of dollars into Latin America’s largest country, which most experts believe is well prepared to weather any global slowdown.
Gross domestic product for Brazil--also home to the region’s biggest economy--rose an estimated 5 percent for 2007 and the nation’s economy is expected to grow another 4.5 percent this year.
Underlying the boom is the high global demand for Brazil’s vast natural resources--the country is the planet’s top exporter of beef, chicken, ethanol, iron ore, sugar, coffee and orange juice. Brazil comes in a close second to the United States for soybeans exports.
And two major offshore finds by state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the last three months could turn Brazil into an oil and natural gas exporter and a prospective member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
So many apartment buildings are going up that cement sales are expected to rise 11 percent over last year’s record-setting total. Flights to Disney World are packed, as upper-middle-class Brazilians take advantage of their nation’s strong currency to make trips abroad. The Brazilian real, one of the planet’s fastest-rising currencies, last year gained 17 percent against the dollar and 7 percent against the euro.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is trumpeting a trickle-down economic impact for the working class as evidence of vast social change. He also expanded a social safety net of food money for the poor, and is promising jobs through a big increase in government-sponsored infrastructure spending.
Experts agree that Brazil’s traditional boom-and-bust economic cycles may be a thing of the past, but are divided over whether five years of slow and sustainable growth will help give masses of Brazilian have-nots their first real shot at advancing in society.

A tired show goer takes a rest in front of an image of new Motorola phones, Jan. 8 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

CHICAGO, Feb. 1--Less than two years past the most successful stretch in its 80-year history, Motorola Inc. is considering a sale or spinoff its now free-falling cell phone business.
Even a breakup of the troubled company may not head off another proxy fight with billionaire financier Carl Icahn, AP said.
Motorola, which fought off Icahn’s bid for board seats and a drastic overhaul just a year ago, said late Thursday it would consider separating the handset unit from its other two businesses.
The announcement drove its shares more than 10 percent higher in after-hours trading and touched off a round of speculation about what form a makeover might take--and whether it can reverse the company’s steep slide.
The Schaumburg-based company said it is looking at ways to “better equip its mobile devices business to recapture global market leadership and to enhance shareholder value.“ It wasn’t clear whether that means a spinoff, sale or joint venture is more likely.
“It sounds like everything’s on the table,“ Morningstar analyst Jordan Zounis said.
The revised strategy comes just one month after Greg Brown succeeded Ed Zander as CEO and a year and a day since Icahn initiated a proxy fight to shake up a company that was already in the throes of a severe decline in sales and profits. After grabbing world market share of 23 percent in 2006 on momentum led by its Razr phone, the company has lost nearly half that as rivals outpaced it with successful new products.
Motorola prevailed in last year’s proxy battle. But with the end of its slump nowhere in sight, it has dropped its opposition to splitting off or shedding its core business.
Motorola said separating the mobile devices business, which is dominated by cell phones, would “permit each business to grow and better serve its customers.“
Its two smaller businesses are home and network mobility, which sells TV set-top boxes and modems, and enterprise mobility solutions, which sells computing and communications equipment to businesses.

Chinese soldiers shovel snow from the main shopping street of the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, Jan. 31.

BEIJING, Feb. 1--China’s President Hu Jintao called on the coal industry to ensure supplies reach power stations in regions affected by the worst snows in more than 50 years, as storms hit central and southern regions Friday.
``Having coal means we can produce electricity and having electricity means our citizens can begin to get their lives back to normal,’’ Hu, wearing a denim jacket and red hardhat, told miners Thursday after descending down a 400-meter (1,300-foot) shaft, in footage shown on state-run China Central Television.
According to Bloomberg, snow and frozen rain began falling early Friday in Hunan province and other parts of central and southern China, after clear weather yesterday eased traffic congestion, state television said.
Ice forced airports in Changsha and 10 other cities in the region to shut for at least part of the day, the General Administration of Civil Aviation said on its website, reported Bloomberg.
The heaviest snowfalls since 1954 have caused power outages in at least half the nation’s provinces as ice damaged cables and disrupted coal shipments to electricity generators. China generates 78 percent of its electricity by burning coal.
Power shortages also shut down control systems for the nation’s railways, stranding millions of migrant workers preparing to return home for Chinese New Year next week, the nation’s most important holiday.
Premier Wen Jiabao on Jan. 30 visited the railway station in the southern city of Guangzhou, where disrupted services stranded more than 200,000 people, Xinhua reported at the time. Rail services have since resumed, with capacity to transport as many as 500,000 passengers a day, Ministry of Railways spokesman Wang Yongping said Friday in an interview on state television.
Snows and frozen rain are forecast to hit southern and eastern China for the next three days, the weather bureau said today. Blizzard conditions may affect parts of Hunan, Anhui, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces, it said.