Erik Bengoche came to the United States with high hopes, ready to sweat it out as a labourer and short-order cook, and expecting to send home a modest stack of greenbacks.
   But about a year ago, work started drying up. Now he sits in the parking lot of a home improvement store, hoping to pick up odd jobs, and looking forward to Christmas day, when he will fly back to Honduras.
   ‘I owe three months rent. Sometimes you don’t eat,’ he said, sitting on the curb under a shade tree. ‘I want to go back.’
   Low-wage immigrants like 25-year-old Bengoche find themselves on the sharp edge of the US economy slump, and some are packing their bags.
   In October, a study by the Pew Hispanic Center suggested the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States was declining after years of robust growth. It put the current undocumented population at 11.9 million, down from 12.4 million a year earlier. It also tracked fewer new arrivals.
   The data followed the center’s earlier finding that non-citizen immigrants were being hit particularly hard by the crumbling economy.
   In Florida, many had flocked to take advantage of a once bustling construction industry. But it was one of the first economic engines to sputter and stall when the mortgage crisis hit. Others work in hotels and restaurants — businesses which are suffering as tourism dips.
   ‘Everything is about the economy. With the crisis here, there are less jobs, so living here is apparently not as attractive as it was until a few months ago,’ said a Brazilian diplomat who has been monitoring reverse migration to her home country.
   Requesting anonymity, she described those most likely to head home again as people who have been in the United States for two to five years, ‘not fluent in English,’ and ‘unattached.’
   The Pew Center said many factors could be at play. A majority of US immigrants come from Latin America, where economies have remained stable relative to the United States. Another factor could be a ramped-up immigration enforcement.
   Bengoche, for example, said it had become harder to get work in big companies without identification papers proving legal status in the United States.
   Drivers licenses, once considered valid proof of ID, are increasingly out of reach for undocumented immigrants, as officials comply with new federal anti-terrorism laws clamping down on access to such licenses without proper supporting documents.
   Supporters of the restriction note that several 9/11 highjackers managed to obtain licenses, which they used to board the planes used in the 2001 attacks.
   Immigrant advocates say the measure has pushed people like Bengoche further into the shadows, not to mention increasing the difficulty in getting to work in a country known for its car culture. Authorities are also ratcheting up deportations.
   Economic woes are dragging down remittances too — money sent home by immigrants to their families that often serves as a lifeline.
   The Inter-American Development Bank recently reported that three million Latino immigrants stopped sending money home during the last two years. Many Latin American countries are still seeing an increase in remittances, but the increase has slowed.
   ‘The reason remittances are down is because the US economy is slowing down, and because the immigration climate is still very negative,’ said Robert Meins, a remittance specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank.
   In some cases, he added, immigrants are dipping into their savings to keep money flowing to loved ones.
   ‘That’s not to belittle how difficult they’re finding it. Migrants are extremely adept and very resilient,’ he said.
   In the meantime, US patrols are catching fewer immigrants on treacherous desert hikes across the Mexican border, and in overcrowded boats aiming for Florida’s shoreline.
   ‘I’ve lost my time,’ said Bengoche, who originally planned to stay in the United States for at least five years. By Christmas, it will be two. ‘I thought there would be more work.’

Asia’s economic crisis will deepen in 2009 as exports slump to recession-hit
   Western nations, but the region should still outperform the United States and Europe, analysts say.
   Hopes that Asia would be relatively immune to the US-born credit crunch were dashed in 2008 as worsening demand in the United States and Europe was felt in factories across the continent.
   Even China, which until recently was enjoying double-digit growth, has been hit hard, with exports falling for the first time in more than seven years in November.
   ‘The outlook for Asia is going to be very, very tough,’ warned Glenn Maguire, chief Asia economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong.
   Recent data suggested the Asian economy ‘did not just slow over the fourth quarter, it really did appear to fall off a cliff,’ he said.
   ‘We believe that 2009 will be a recession for Asia with the exception of China, which is in a position to use policy more forcefully to support growth,’ Maguire said.
   The first quarter of 2009 could be the toughest for the region as companies reduce production and jobs to cope with the economic slump, experts said.
   But a repeat of the East Asian financial crisis that erupted in 1997 is still believed to be unlikely, they added.
   Asian banks have mostly escaped big losses on toxic mortgage securities, unlike many of their Western counterparts, while nations in the region have built up large foreign exchange reserves to avoid runs on their currencies.
   ‘The region’s economies are likely to get worse before
   they get better,’ Standard Chartered economist Nicholas Kwan said.
   But Asia ‘is unlikely to be the worst-hit among the different regions, nor will this be the worst crisis Asia has ever seen,’ he added.
   ‘In fact, Asia could come out stronger once its cyclical excesses are addressed, and is likely to play a more important role in the world economy as the current crisis forces structural changes to global finance,’ Kwan said.
   In China, many factories in the industrialised south have closed as exports slow and the economy expands at the slowest rate in five years.
   The World Bank has predicted China’s economy will grow 7.5 per cent next year, the slowest pace in 19 years.
   China has announced a 586-billion-dollar stimulus package aimed at boosting domestic consumption to ward off the global crisis, but analysts say the positive effects will take some time to be felt.
   ‘Chinese policy makers announced dramatic measures to support economy, but their impact may come too late to stave off an at least brief recession,’ said Dariusz Kowalczyk, chief investment strategist at CFC Seymour.
   Data suggests the Chinese economy may contract in
   the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, he said.
   ‘Growth should resume in the second quarter, and accelerate in the third quarter, due to massive fiscal and monetary stimulus,’ he added.
   Japan’s economy, which starting contracting in the second quarter of 2008, is expected to remain mired in recession for at least the first half of next year as companies slash investment and exports fall.
   Economists say Asia’s biggest economy may even slip back into deflation briefly next year as energy costs slump and domestic demand weakens.
   Some analysts believe Japan’s central bank will cut its super-low interest rates again to almost zero next year in an attempt to revive the recession-hit economy.
   Morgan Stanley economist Takehiro Sato expects the Japanese economy to shrink 2.0 per cent in 2009.
   ‘We expect the downturn to climax towards January-
   March 2009, and then foresee the economy bumping along the bottom from April-June
   for the rest of the year without a sense of recovery,’ he predicted.

Shockwaves from Bernard Madoff’s alleged fraud spread globally on Monday, as charities, wealthy individuals and banks disclosed losses from the prominent Wall Street trader’s investment management business.
   HSBC Holdings was the latest bank to join the growing list, saying it had exposure of around $1 billion (663 million pounds), making it one of the biggest victims of the alleged $50 billion fraud.
   Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Man Group, Japan’s Nomura Holdings Inc and France’s Natixis SA also said they were hit by the worldwide scandal.
   In the United States, no major banks have said they were exposed. But Sterling Equities, which owns the New York Mets professional baseball team, acknowledged it had accounts managed by Madoff – one of hundreds of private investors, pension funds and charities believed to have been bilked by companies tied to his investment advisory business, part of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC.
   The Securities Investor Protection Corp, a nonprofit organisation funded by the brokerage industry that provides limited insurance on investors’ accounts, named a trustee to oversee the firm’s liquidation.
   The trustee, Irving Picard, said in a statement he would ‘work with SIPC to do what the law allows to ameliorate the losses to customers.’ SIPC steps in to help investors at brokerage firms, but does not cover individuals who are sold worthless securities or help them recoup losses on investments.
   In a sign that suspicions are growing that others may have been culpable in the alleged fraud, the auditing firm that Madoff used, Friehling & Horowitz, is now the focus of a criminal probe by the district attorney in Rockland County, New York.
   ‘We are in the very early stages of our investigation,’ district attorney Thomas Zugibe said. ‘Our focus is on whether the independent auditor reports that were prepared by Friehling were fraudulent.’
   A message left on the auditor’s voice mail was not immediately returned.
   Among big losers from Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme were the state of Massachusetts, which said it lost $12 million. Multiple charities also reported big losses, including about $30 million in a charitable trust funded by real estate mogul Mortimer Zuckerman, who also owns the NY Daily News tabloid.
   ‘I’m going to be a lot more risk-adverse,’ after the Madoff losses, Zuckerman, told CNBC Television, adding that he was mulling his legal options.
   Madoff’s lawyer, Ira Sorkin, declined comment on the case on Monday. The 70-year old trader’s two sons, who worked at the firm, said Monday through their lawyer they had no knowledge of the alleged fraud.
   US prosecutors and regulators have accused Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, of running the fraud through his investment advisory business.

The newly elected directors of Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry in a board meeting on Monday elected MA Latif, the Awami League-led grand alliance candidate for Chittagong-10 constituency, president of the chamber.
   The meeting also elected MA Salam, a former first vice-president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association, senior vice-president and SM Shafiul Hoque, a director of Choice Group and Republic Insurance Company, vice-president for a two-year term.
   Earlier, on Sunday, all the 24 directors of the CCCI were elected uncontested.

A unit of Japanese mega bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group said Tuesday it will buy a trust banking body of embattled Citigroup for 25 billion yen ($277m).
   Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking will purchase all outstanding shares of NikkoCiti Trust and Banking around April 1, pending regulatory approval, it said in a statement.
   Mitsubishi will also keep the 136 workers of NikkoCiti Trust, an official said.
   ‘By taking the entire stake in NikkoCiti Trust and Banking, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking... shall further expand and strengthen its customer base,’ Mitsubishi said in a statement.
   Citigroup has been hit hard in the global financial crisis. The US government stepped in last month to guarantee more than 300 billion dollars in potential losses at Citigroup and pump 20 billion more into it.
   Citigroup’s reorganisation amid the global financial crisis has already hit Japan.
   Nikko Cordial Securities, a major Japanese securities house also under the umbrella of Citigroup, has decided to trim jobs through early retirements schemes.

US consumer prices plunged a record 1.7 per cent in November, the second consecutive record-breaking decrease, led by plummeting energy prices as recession deepens, government data showed Tuesday.
   It was the second straight month of record declines in the seasonally adjusted data consumer price index since 1947, when the Labor Department began recording the figures.
   The November headline plunge far exceeded analysts’ consensus forecast of a drop of 1.3 per cent.
   Core CPI, excluding energy and food prices, held unchanged from October.
   The year-over-year inflation rate plunged to 1.1 per cent from 3.7 per cent a month earlier and the core inflation rate rose 2.0 per cent after falling 0.1 per cent in October.
   The Labour Department noted that the November annual inflation rate compared with July’s 5.6 per cent, when crude oil prices hit record highs above 147 dollars a barrel.
   ‘Falling energy prices, particularly gasoline, drove the decline in the overall index. Excluding energy, the index was virtually unchanged,’ the department said.
   The energy index fell 17.0 per cent in November, roughly twice the October decline. Energy prices are now 32.4 per cent below the July peak earlier this year, it said.
   The petrol index fell 29.5 per cent in November and gasoline prices are now 47.0 per cent below their July peak.
   The natural gas index declined for the fourth month in a row and was down 21.7 per cent from July to November.

Six Southeast Asian nations signed three trade agreements in Singapore on Tuesday, paving the way towards a single market, despite the postponement of a regional summit.
   The economic ministers of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore and Malaysia signed three agreements including trade in goods, investment and services at a signing ceremony.
   Then Singapore’s trade and industry minister Lim Hng Kiang, also the chairman of the meeting, handed the deals to Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the Association of South-east Asian Nations.
   The three agreements were originally to be signed at the annual ASEAN summit in Thailand this month, but the summit was postponed by the Thai government to late February next year due to recent unrest in the country.
   ‘The economic ministers felt that we should proceed to sign the trade deals without delay,’ Lim told reporters after the signing ceremony, adding, ‘we felt we should have a meeting, sign and press on because if you postpone everything till end February we lose two months.’
   Lim also said the deals signed on Tuesday would make the region more attractive to domestic investments and foreign investments, especial during the global economic crisis.

World stocks markets were mixed on Tuesday as investors awaited the outcome of a US Federal Reserve meeting that some analysts forecast would see interest rates cut close to zero.
   The US central bank was expected later on Tuesday to cut the base rate by at least 50 basis points to 0.50 per cent, which would be an all-time low, although some analysts forecast a 0.75 percentage point cut to tackle a recession.
   In late morning trading in Europe, the Frankfurt stock market advanced 1.59 per cent, London gained 0.96 per cent and Paris added 1.52 per cent in value.
   In Asia, Tokyo closed 1.12 per cent down and Sydney lost one per cent owing to caution over the weak economy and the massive Madoff fraud scandal, dealers said.
   But Hong Kong finished 0.6 per cent higher as investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of the Fed rate call. Wall Street reopens at 1430 GMT.
   'European equity markets are set to find a degree of optimism ... despite falls being seen in both US and Asian markets as exposure to the Madoff scandal grows and traders worry about another panic rate cut from the Fed later in the session,' said CMC Markets dealer Matt Buckland.
   'However a reversion in oil prices - crude is now trading back below 45 dollars a barrel - could weigh on the energy sector,' he warned.
   The financial sector also remained under pressure on Tuesday after news that HSBC, Europe's biggest bank, and other major lenders faced heavy exposure to the alleged 50 billion dollar pyramid scheme said to have been run by one of the biggest names in US investing.
   'The tone is reasonably positive but that could change quickly,' said Byron Burke, a broker with ABN Amro Craigs in New Zealand.
   The US Federal Open Market Committee was meanwhile expected to cut its base lending rate from the current level of 1.0 per cent when its two day meeting concludes later Tuesday, even if the move would be largely symbolic.
   Ian Shepherdson, at High Frequency Economics, said: 'It would be surprising if the Fed were to do anything other than cut the funds rate by 50 basis points.
   'We think the case for cutting even further is very strong but (Fed chairman Ben) Bernanke and his colleagues may want to keep something in reserve.'
   However, futures market trading suggests a strong likelihood of a cut to 0.25 per cent, below the super-low Japanese rate of 0.3 per cent.
   While some dealers thought the pre-Christmas lull was kicking in, sentiment was affected by the seemingly endless string of bad news coming out of the United States.
   The allegation of a pyramid fraud against Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff took on new dimensions overnight as some of Europe's biggest banks said they had exposure to his firm, which US authorities said would be liquidated.
   European and US stock markets had fallen on Monday as a host of major global banks declared massive exposure to the worsening Madoff scandal.
   HSBC said it had exposure of about one billion dollars, while Europe's second-biggest bank Santander said it had a three billion dollar exposure to Madoff Invest Securities.
   Fortis Bank Netherlands said it could lose one billion dollars from the alleged scam, even though it had no direct exposure to Madoff's company.
   Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.75 per cent while the Nasdaq tumbled 2.1 per cent.
   The gloom mounted on Monday as Japan's central bank said business confidence had suffered its sharpest drop for three decades.
   Meanwhile there has been no firm progress on a possible bailout for the struggling Big Three US automakers - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. The White House said Monday it was still studying its options.
   Lawmakers have said time is running out for the auto giants, and traded blame with union chiefs over last week's collapse in the Senate of a short-term 14-billion dollar rescue.
   The White House has now said it is ready to consider dipping into a 700-billion dollar Wall Street bailout agreed earlier this year.
   The global financial crisis and the economic slowdown have hit share markets worldwide hard this year, and every major market has suffered big losses.
   The Dow Jones is off 35 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng is down 46 per cent and the Nikkei in Tokyo has lost almost 44 per cent since the beginning of 2008.

OPEC should cut oil output by much more than 1 million barrels per day as inventories were very high, OPEC president Chakib Khelil said in remarks published on Tuesday.
   ‘I believe the meeting will take such a decision,’ al-Hayat newspaper quoted Khelil as saying. ‘OPEC should take a decision to cut production by more than a million barrels per day because global stocks are very high.’
   ‘Even a million barrels is not enough, it should be much more for the stability of markets,’ he said, adding that the $75 a barrel price target set by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah was a ‘fair price’.
   OPEC ministers could make their deepest oil supply cut ever when they meet on Wednesday to combat shrinking demand, bulging stocks and a $100 collapse in prices.

German industrial giant Siemens agreed to pay nearly one billion euros (1.4 billion dollars) to US and German authorities on Monday to settle a sprawling corruption scandal.
   Acknowledging the legal problems could have proved far more costly had it gone to court, company chief Peter Loescher said he was ‘happy and relieved to have negotiated this fantastic outcome in record time’.
   ‘This is for everyone at Siemens the best Christmas present,’ he told Tuesday’s issue of the mass-market daily Bild.
   Under the German settlement, prosecutors said Siemens would pay 395 million euros, on top of a fine of 201 million euros last year over charges it had run an elaborate bribe-and-kickback system to secure foreign contracts.
   Under a separate US court settlement Monday, Siemens pleaded guilty to corruption charges and agreed to pay 800 million dollars to avoid prosecution.
   The group was fined 450 million dollars and agreed to a 350-million-dollar settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to court documents.
   The scandal could have cost the company even more dearly, however, with speculation running rampant for months that the SEC alone could levy fines of several billion euros.
   The 161-year-old conglomerate with activities from nuclear power stations to trains and light bulbs has acknowledged that up to 1.3 billion euros may have been used illegally to win foreign contracts.
   Siemens, which employs some 400,000 people worldwide, found in an exhaustive internal investigation that the practice was widespread across its numerous divisions.
   US authorities said Siemens had used slush funds, off-book accounting and delivered suitcases full of cash to bribe officials to secure contracts in Argentina, Bangladesh, Iraq and Venezuela.
   ‘Today’s filings make clear that for much of its operations across the globe, bribery was nothing less than standard operating procedure for Siemens,’ acting us assistant attorney general Matthew Friedrich said in a statement.
   Prosecutors have investigated around 300 people in connection with the affair and US authorities refused to rule out charges against Siemens executives.
   ‘This investigation continues,’ Friedrich told a news conference when asked if some company officials could be indicted.
   He added it was not unusual for a company to be charged for corruption first before individuals in the firm were charged.
   The case far surpassed the amount of money involved in similar corruption cases prosecuted by US authorities, said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
   ‘This pattern of bribery by Siemens was unprecedented in scale and geographic reach,’ she said, saying the company had sought to bribe officials in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.
   The German group recently took provisions of one billion euros against potential fines in both Germany and the United States.
   Since it erupted in late 2006, the scandal led to the resignation of a string of top managers, including chief executive Klaus Kleinfeld and his long-term predecessor and chairman of the board, Heinrich von Pierer.
   Siemens has turned against its former management, in particular von Pierer, who ran the company from 1992 to 2005 and then headed its supervisory board for two years.
   The company has already decided to claim compensation from former executives, who allegedly looked the other way as the company paid bribes to obtain foreign contracts.
   Germany’s biggest industrial union IG Metall called on the former managers to ‘assume responsibility and guilt for the situation in which they put the company with bribes and corruption.’
   Under the US settlement deal reached Monday, Siemens agreed to the appointment of a former finance minister, Theo Waigel, as an anti-sleaze ombudsman at the company.
   He is to report progress in the implementation of a so-called compliance programme to prevent the company from breaking corruption laws and investigating violations if they do occur.
   Supervisory board chief Gerhard Cromme said US and German authorities had praised Siemens for an exemplary internal housekeeping in the wake of the affair.
   Cromme said US and German authorities had been willing to settle the case because they recognised that ‘Siemens is a different company today than it was two years ago.’

Grameenphone Ltd launched its first corporate social responsibility report at a simple ceremony at a Dhaka hotel Sunday.
   Grameenphone Ltd chief executive officer Oddvar Hesjedal unveiled the report in presence of senior representatives from both the public and private sectors, said a press release.
   In his presentation, Hesjedal said, ‘The company is geared to invest beyond business through its CSR initiatives and committed to work hand in hand with the government of Bangladesh and other development agencies in meeting the Millennium Development Goals of the country.’
   While the report is focused on the most significant issues and goals, through the report, Grameenphone would like to stress that transparency and corporate responsibility are embedded in every single aspect of the company’s operations i.e. business, people, products, environment etc, the release said, adding ‘Grameenphone recognises the enormous potential for social and economic benefits to Bangladesh through telecommunication. It has a role to play in ensuring that these benefits are accessible to as many sections of the society as possible. This belief is crystallised as one of the key priorities in Grameenphone’s CSR strategy.’

British electronics group Laird on Tuesday announced the loss of 5,000 jobs, or nearly half its staff as it predicted fourth-quarter revenues would be 25-30 per cent below last year on a drop in demand. The company, which makes electromagnetic interference shielding devices and antennae, said the jobs will have gone by the end of the final quarter.
   Laird also said the closure or downsizing of three of its US facilities, alongside previously announced plans to close its Hungarian factory, would lead to ‘further labour and overhead reductions during the first half of 2009.’
   Laird, whose products are used in consumer electronic devices manufactured by companies such as Nokia and Panasonic, warned last month the worsening economic conditions would hit both revenues and profits in the fourth quarter of 2008.
   It said on Tuesday it sees no further market recovery during 2009. ‘Our planning assumption is that global unit handset volumes will decline by 10 per cent from 2008 levels.’
   As a result of the cost-cutting actions, Laird will incur exceptional charges of up to 20 million pounds in 2008, with annualised net benefits of at least 12 million pounds to be gradually realised during 2009.
   It said underlying performance for 2008 will be within expectations and that currency movements will mitigate the reduction in sales when expressed in sterling. Analysts are currently forecasting full-year pretax profit of 45.9 million pounds, down from 51.5 million last year.
   Shares in Laird, which touched their lowest level in over a quarter of a century in Nov, spiked 5 per cent lower in opening trade but recovered some ground to trade down 1.8 per cent at 8:24am.

HSBC bank said Tuesday it would cut 10 per cent of its staff in Taiwan, about 300 jobs, through a voluntary redundancy program amid slower loan growth in the global recession.
   HSBC Taiwan chief executive Nicholas G Winsor said some 150 of HSBC’s 3,000 employees in Taiwan had so far signed up for the programme.
   He added however that the bank would in later months hire more people again to work in new branches that it plans to open in the country. The cuts come as Taiwan faces a recession and HSBC integrates operations of The Chinese Bank, which it took over in late 2007.
   As of October, HSBC Holdings’ Taiwan operation had about 167 billion Taiwan dollars’ (about five billion US) worth of loans outstanding, more than 50 per cent higher than 110 billion Taiwan dollars a year earlier, according to data compiled by Taiwan’s regulator, the Financial Supervisory Commission.