As Hong Kong’s already-frantic workers cling to their jobs amid the global economic downturn, the hectic and the exhausted are being offered a haven of relaxation in the overcrowded finance hub.
   One of the ubiquitous shopping malls in the city’s most frantic shopping district of Causeway Bay has installed high-tech beds where tired executives and exhausted shoppers can escape the fast lane for a quick snooze.
   Looking like futuristic first-class airplane seats, the pods are designed to provide overwrought Hong Kongers with 20 minutes of down time during which the city’s sounds and sights are blanked out in total darkness.
   And there is whale music, too.
   ‘Hong Kong is a really crazy place – you do not have time to rest at all,’ said Benjamin Lau, founder of Delay No Mall, where the sleep-pods are based, and chief executive officer of trendy style firm G.O.D.
   ‘Lots of people cannot sleep very well at night, there’s so much stress and pressure. We put these sleep pods in the mall because we wanted a place where people could relax.’
   Lau said that at 90 Hong Kong dollars (12 US) a nap, the shut-eye is worth the investment.
   ‘I think there’s always a negative connotation of sleeping, and it shouldn’t be considered sleeping, it is a place to re-energise really,’ said the Australian-educated entrepreneur.
   According to Metronaps, the US-based firm which launched the sleep capsule in New York in 2003, the benefits of a mid-afternoon nap have proven scientific value.
   They cite a 2007 study by the Harvard School of Public Health which found that regular daytime naps can help reduce the risk of heart disease by up to 37 per cent.
   Angela To, a Hong Kong artist and self-confessed shopaholic, emerged from a reclining, bubble-shaped sleep pod and said it provided a welcome break in her hectic retail schedule.
   ‘I feel relaxed. My mind and breath are calm and peaceful. For me a good nap is better than a cup of coffee,’ she said, after being gently woken by the bed’s vibro-alarm.
   But despite the beneficial claims, one trade unionist argued the sleep-pod was just cashing in on a work-hard culture that blights the crowded metropolis.
   ‘I think there is demand for the sleep pods because Hong Kong workers are suffering from the long working hours and without enough rest time,’ said Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Union organiser Tat Mung.
   ‘The problem is that in Hong Kong now, workers do not have any protection for working hours,’ added Tat from his office in Mong Kok, one of the most densely-populated places on the planet.
   ‘More than 40 per cent of the working population are working more than 48 hours a week,’ Tat said.
   He said a study by the union found Hong Kong workers put in the fifth longest working hours in the world behind only Peru, South Korea, Thailand and Pakistan.
   At the Hong Kong offices of the bank formerly known as Lehman Brothers, which collapsed in September during the financial crisis before being taken over by Japanese financial giant Nomura, employees were also unimpressed.
   ‘I simply wouldn’t have the time,’ said one staff member who did not want to be named.
   ‘If we had one in the office I might think about it but even then we have to work all the hours God sends.’

The military-controlled interim government has rejected the proposal for off-loading its stakes in the Unilever Bangladesh Ltd as the Anglo-Dutch company will not sell its own shares in the stock market, official sources said.
   ‘We cannot accept the proposal of off-loading government stakes in Unilever as the multinational company will not off-load its own shares,’ finance and planning adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam told New Age on Tuesday after a meeting of the council of advisers on economic affairs.
   According to the Unilever proposal approved and forwarded by the industries ministry to the finance ministry, the government will offload 20 per cent Unilever shares in the capital market under direct listing regulations.
   The rest of the government shares in the company will be handed over to its parent company Unilever Overseas Holdings BV at the average weighted price of the first month’s trading on the bourses.
   The government has taken a strong stance in favour of an earlier proposal for off-loading five per cent shares of the government and Unilever each, Mirza Aziz said.
   But Unilever Bangladesh board rejected that finance ministry proposal to offload five per cent Unilever shares by the government and five per cent shares by the company.
   The government holds 39.25 per cent or 7,66,601 shares of Unilever Bangladesh Limited.
   Finance ministry sources said the country’s capital market would not be really benefited if the multinational company did not agree to offload its own shares.
   The floating of Unilever Bangladesh shares will certainly make the investors enthusiastic as the company’s annual turnover is around $200 million, market analysts said.
   ‘Unilever shares are already being traded in Pakistan, Thailand and other regional capital markets,’ said economist Abu Ahmed.
   However, he has appreciated the government decision to reject the Unilever proposal to off-load the government shares only.
   He also pointed out that ‘The government could force the multinational company to off-load its shares by imposing extra tax on its income.’
   Formerly known as Lever Brothers, Unilever Bangladesh has been growing at a double-digit rate since the 1990s. The fast-growing Anglo-Dutch Company is holding a firm grip on the country’s expanding consumer market. It sells beauty soap Lux and at least 40 other toiletries and consumer products.

The economy may achieve 6.5 per cent GDP growth in the current fiscal 2008-09 basing on the positive outcome of various reforms and improved performance by many productive sectors and application of better technology and skills in many other fields.
   The Bangladesh Bank made the observation in its annual report 2007-08 released on Thursday. It said based on continued positive development in various productive and service sectors, the country’s GDP growth might also increase to 7.0 per cent next year to reach 7.2 per cent in 2010-2011.
   To attain the targets, it said, what the country needs is to ensure a smooth transition to democracy in the first place while in the economic front, it should be able to keep inflation down.
   The country would also require maintaining better macroeconomic stability, improved business and investment climate, achieving higher growth in industrial and service sectors and accelerated growth in agriculture to ensure food security, diversification of exports, skill development and application of better technology and continuation of financial sector reforms.
   The Bangladesh Bank said all these factors would be able to bring about significant dent on the country’s declining poverty level and improvement in the lot of the common people as envisaged in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, which now stands at the core of the country’s development planning.
   It also mentioned certain risk factors saying much of the growth forecast would depend on how the next government would be able to overcome them.
   Some of these risks are inflationary build up, possible higher prices of fuel and other essentials in global market, impact of floods and climate change related disasters, infrastructure related impediments such as removal of gas, electricity, port and transportation problems.
   They also include possible market shrinkage of apparel products in the USA and other major markets consequent upon the current recessionary trend, slowdown in the flow of development assistance in the backdrop of global economic recession.
   The economy may also face further risks if the forthcoming government fails to ensure food security, improve productivity and diversify exports to reduce dependence on limited number of exportable items.
   The report dwelt on the central bank’s performance in many fronts in running a prudent, cautious monetary policy supportive to economic and business growth, along with various reforms to restructure the country’s banking sector.
   It put emphasis on maintaining a stable monetary and fiscal policy as well adequate subsidy to farm inputs and allocation to social safety net programmes.
   The Bangladesh Bank identified labour unrest in the garment sector as a highly critical issue and emphasized the need for better owner-worker relations to avoid crisis that may bring setback to this highly competitive sector in the global market.
   The report further stressed the need for improving the design and fashion wing of the garment sector, removal of infrastructural problems affecting production and shipments and creating a long term buyer-seller relation to plan its future growth.

Gone are the long lines in Milan’s high fashion streets as top labels revise their sales strategies to cope with the global financial crisis.
   Sales have already begun in the chic district centring on Milan’s Montenapoleone street, and not just for regular customers. Even at Prada, discounts are up to 40 per cent.
   ‘Even major luxury labels have launched more affordable lines,’ said Paolo Fontanelli, managing director of leather goods purveyor Furla. ‘That shows you where the demand is.’
   The venerable company with nearly 300 stores worldwide and a turnover of around 150 million euros ($200m) is not immune to the crisis.
   ‘The business plan that we presented in June 2007 needs to be revised,’ Fontanelli told AFP. ‘Like our competitors, we will work on the basis of two scenarios, one that is very realistic and pessimistic, and the other a bit more optimistic,’ he said.
   ‘We haven’t frozen our investments, we’ve just rescheduled them. We have become more selective about opening new stores,’ Fonanelli said.
   Then, sounding optimistic, he added: ‘That doesn’t make us miss opportunities, because thanks to the crisis we can find good spots that are a lot less expensive.’
   With sales of upmarket ‘Made in Italy’ down by some three per cent over the first nine months of the year, Italy’s textile and fashion federation, together with the employers association, have set off the alarm bells, calling for government support.
   The global financial crisis has not spared the well-to-do in emerging economies despite a recent boom in demand for Italian luxury goods, according to a consultant for Russian retailers.
   ‘It’s a disaster. Russian buyers have abruptly cut off all of their orders,’ he said. ‘They used to pay up front in cash, so clothes companies could go ahead and produce. Now everything is held up.’
   Leading knitwear maker Lineapiu is one of the main victims of the crisis, having sought bankruptcy protection early this month.
   It Holding, with Gianfranco Ferre and Malo among its labels, is negotiating for a partnership with a Chinese company.
   The crisis is inspiring new types of sales strategies, such as online or ‘travel trade’ at airports.
   ‘We can no longer just wait for customers to come into the shop,’ said Michele Norsa of Salvatore Ferragamo at the recent Milano Fashion Global Summit. ‘You have to go where they go.’

Vietnam’s consumer prices rose by 23 per cent in 2008, sharply up from eight per cent in 2007, the state-run General Statistics Office said Thursday.
   Food prices almost doubled, the cost of housing and construction materials rose by more than 20 per cent, and beverage and tobacco by more than 10 per cent.
   However year-on-year in December, inflation fell to less than 20 per cent. It has been slowing since August, when it peaked at more than 28 per cent. The fall comes amid lower world commodity and energy prices and domestic fuel price cuts.
   On Wednesday the government announced GDP growth of 6.23 per cent this year, below a target of around 6.5 per cent, according to state television.

Footwear Manufacturing Company Limited, a Korean company, will set up a shoe manufacturing industry in the Karnaphuli Export Processing Zone.
   An agreement to this effect was signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and the Korean company at BEPZA Complex in Dhaka on Wednesday, said a news release.
   BEPZA member (engineering) Md Farhad Uddin and the company managing director, Yang Young Sool, signed the deal on behalf of their respective sides. The BEPZA executive chairman, Brigadier General Jamil Ahmed Khan, was present on the occasion.
   Under the agreement, the company will invest $12.5 million in setting up the industry and will produce to export annually 2.4 million pair of leather footwear and accessories products.
   The company will also create employment opportunity for 2,155 Bangladeshi nationals.

The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, told Ukraine on Wednesday to pay its gas debts ‘to the last ruble’ or face the prospect of sanctions from Moscow against its wider economy.
   His comments came after Russian energy giant Gazprom on Wednesday warned Ukraine it would cut gas deliveries on January 1 if a new contract were not signed for 2009 and the debts for 2008 not paid back in full.
   ‘The money must be paid until the last ruble if they do not want their economy to be hit by demands and sanctions from the Russian Federation,’ he said in an end-of-year interview on Russian television.
   ‘We cannot carry on like this. They should just pay up.’
   Medvedev did not say what sanctions Russia could use against Ukraine’s flagging economy but menacingly warned it had a ‘whole arsenal of possibilities’ at its disposal.
   ‘We do not have any aim to cut off (the gas). Our aim is just to get our money.
   ‘But if Ukraine does not pay we will use a whole arsenal of possibilities and it is completely clear that there can be no illusions there.’
   Earlier Gazprom spokes-man Sergei Kupriyanov told reporters that ‘if a contract for 2009 is not signed then we are not going to deliver gas without a contract.’
   ‘When there is no contract we cannot realise deliveries. The situation is not simple. It is even critical.’
   Gazprom and Ukraine’s state energy firm Naftogaz have for the last weeks failed to agree a solution over the unpaid debts in a conflict that comes amid increasing diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Kiev.
   According to Kupriyanov, Ukraine owes Gazprom over two billion dollars — 805 million dollars for November, 862 million dollars for December and 450 million dollars in penalties for late payment.
   ‘They finally paid for October. But they are not paying for November and December. This became clear today,’ he said.
   ‘To our frank question if they would pay by the end of the year, we received a frank answer — ‘No’,’ he said.
   Ukraine is a major transit country for Russian gas exports to the European Union and a dispute over gas prices led to a brief interruption of gas supplies in several EU countries in January 2006.
   But Kupriyanov said: ‘We will deliver the full volume of gas destined for transit and we will fulfil all our obligations towards European consumers.’ His comments were echoed by Medvedev.
   The complexity of negotiations is exacerbated by Gazprom’s desire to charge higher prices to Kiev under a new contract, something Ukraine is reluctant to agree amid the global financial crisis.
   The deadline for signing the new contract is January 1 and Gazprom has said there cannot be a new contract until the debts have been extinguished.
   Ukraine currently pays Russia 179.5 dollars for 1,000 cubic metres of gas but Gazprom has warned that price could rise to 400 dollars for 1,000 cubic metres from next year.
   The country is expected by analysts to plunge into recession as a result of the economic crisis and is in perpetual political turmoil as a result of the feud between president Viktor Yushchenko and prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Kohinoor Chemical Company (BD) Ltd has announced a 30 per cent dividend for its shareholders.
   The announcement came at the company’s 21st annual general meeting held at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka on Thursday, said a news release.
   The company’s director, Md Ebadul Karim, presided over the meeting, also attended by its managing director, Md Rezaul Karim.
   The audited accounts of 2007-2008 was discussed and approved by the shareholders at the meeting.

The New York Times Co, in the latest bad news for the struggling US newspaper industry, reported on Wednesday that both print and online advertising revenue declined in November.
   The Times said total company revenue fell 13.9 per cent in November compared with the same month a year ago while advertising revenue decreased by 20.9 per cent.
   It said advertising revenue for the New York Times Media Group declined 21.2 per cent in November from a year ago as national, retail and classified ad revenue all fell amid the general economic slowdown.
   Print advertising revenue has been declining steadily at newspapers across the United States and the Times and other dailies have been looking to online advertising to help offset the losses on the print side.

China will use the yuan in transactions with neighbouring economies on a trial basis, state media said Thursday, calling it a potential first step to making it an international currency.
   The government will allow the yuan to be used in settlements between the Pearl and Yangtze river delta regions – both major industrial areas – and Hong Kong and Macau, the China Daily reported.
   Similarly, southwest China’s Yunnan province and Guangxi Zhuang region in the south will be permitted to use the yuan in settling trade with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
   The initiative emerged from a meeting Wednesday of the State Council, or cabinet, but no details were available on when it would be implemented, according to the paper.
   ‘The move will... increase the yuan’s acceptance in Asia, which will help it become an international currency in the long run,’ Zhao Xijun, a finance professor at the People’s University in Beijing, told the paper.
   The vast majority of China’s foreign trade deals are currently settled either in euros or US dollars.
   In 2007, China’s trade with Hong Kong, Macau and the 10 ASEAN nations equalled nearly $403 billion, about 20 per cent of the country’s overall foreign trade, the paper said.
   ‘The yuan settlement trial between China and neighbouring regions and countries is an important step for China towards internationalising its
   currency,’ said Lu Zhengwei, a Shanghai-based economist with Industrial Bank.
   ‘But it’s still in the infancy stage, and China will need to take other measures to facilitate its development such as maintaining a stable exchange rate between the dollar and the yuan,’ he told AFP.
   Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan warned earlier this month that settlements using the US dollar would be problematic if the dollar’s value fluctuated drastically.
   There has been growing pressure over the past year within China to make the yuan an international currency, but the government has so far been cautious as it would require making it fully convertible, the paper said.
   The yuan is not yet convertible on the capital account, meaning funds cannot freely enter the country for purposes such as investment in stock or real estate.
   The Chinese government is concerned that liberalising this type of fund flow would make the economy more vulnerable during times of regional or global turmoil.

Japan’s government has forecast that the country’s economy will have zero growth in the year ending March 2010.
   It is the first projection of no growth from the world’s second largest economy in seven years.
   It follows a revised projection for the current fiscal year that the economy will shrink by 0.8%, instead of the 1.3% growth forecast in July.
   The Bank of Japan has cut its key interest rate to just 0.1 per cent, down from 0.3 per cent, taking it lower than US rates.
   The BOJ also announced that it would increase its purchase of Japanese government bonds to 1.4 trillion yen ($15.7bn) a month, up from 1.2 trillion yen.
   ‘A small rate cut alone would not help the economy much,’ said Norio Miyagawa, economist at Shinko Research Institute.
   ‘And with Japan’s interest rates at nearly zero, the central bank will likely continue to adopt other measures to provide ample liquidity to help the economy.’
   To boost recovery after a prolonged recession, Japan kept rates at virtually zero until 2006.
   A survey earlier this week indicated business confidence in Japan was at its lowest in 34 years.
   Last week the government increased its economic stimulus plan by 23 trillion yen ($255bn).
   The world’s second-largest economy — and Asia’s largest — shrank by an annualised rate of 1.8% in the third quarter.
   ‘The economy is worsening very quickly and the BOJ and the government will need to keep working closely. But there is still no guarantee that announced steps will be able to stop the economy from collapsing,’ said Hideo Kumano at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.Some analysts think the government’s forecast of zero growth next year was overly optimistic.
   ‘Politically, the government couldn’t forecast a contraction,’ said Hideki Matsumura, a senior economist at Japan Research Institute.
   ‘A recovery is unlikely in the next two years,’ he said.
   In recent years, Japan’s economic growth was driven by exports due to high demand for cars, cameras and other goods.
   After 2001, it enjoyed its longest period of economic growth since World War II until the sub-prime crisis started a year ago.
   Since then the global downturn has led to global demand falling significantly, while a rising yen has also hit exporters.
   Japan’s economy has slipped into its first recession in seven years after two quarters of negative growth in a row.

Natural gas produced from the Shwe Field off Myanmar’s Rakhine coast will be exported to China’s south-western region under a new export gas sales and purchase agreement signed between companies from China, Myanmar and South Korea.
   The three parties are the China National United Oil Corporation, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, and a consortium led by the Daewoo International Group Corporation, sources with the CNUOC said Thursday.
   Under the agreement signed on Wednesday evening, the Shwe gas will be transmitted through pipeline and partly tapped along the route in Myanmar’s territory to promote the economic development of the region, the sources said, adding that the contract agreement is effective for 30 years and it is estimated to start supplying gas in 2013.
   The Shwe gas project, located at A-1 block in the Rakhine offshore area, has been developed by the Daewoo consortium comprising South Korea Gas Corporation, India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd and Gas Authority of India Ltd.(GAIL).
   The Shwe field holds a gas reserve of 4 to 6 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) or 113.2 to 170 billion cubic-meters (BCM), while the Shwephyu 5 TCF and the Mya 2 TCF with a combined proven reserve of5.7 to 10 TCF of gas being estimated by experts.
   Myanmar has abundance of natural gas resources in the offshore areas. With three main large offshore oil and gas fields and 19 onshore ones, Myanmar has proven recoverable reserve of 18.012 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) or 510 billion cubic-meters (BCM) out of89.722 TCF or 2.54 trillion cubic-meters (TCM)’s estimated reserve of offshore and onshore gas, experts said, adding that the country is also estimated to have 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve.

Japan and Vietnam signed an economic partnership pact Thursday with a promise to cut tariffs on some 92 per cent of goods and services traded between the two nations within a decade.
   Japanese foreign minister Hirofumi Nakasone and Vietnam’s minister for industry and trade, Vu Huy Hoang, signed the deal which still needs final approval by the Japanese parliament.
   ‘The agreement will strengthen the mutually beneficial economic collaboration between our two countries by facilitating freer flows of goods, services and investments,’ the two ministers said in a joint statement.
   ‘We are convinced that such economic cooperation will contribute to the economic development of our two countries, promote well-being of our peoples, and expand opportunities and benefits for our business sectors,’ it said.
   The agreement allows for freer bilateral trade than a wider trade agreement between Japan and the whole of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Vietnam, Japanese officials said.
   Under the new agreement, Vietnam will get duty-free access to the Japanese market for shrimp, durian and okra, among other farm and marine products.
   Japan will be able to send duty-free its auto parts, steel and electronic goods for assembly in Vietnam, particularly parts that require high skill and have to be brought from Japan, Japanese officials said.
   Japan, the world’s second largest economy, has been seeking a growing number of bilateral trade deals amid the collapse of global liberalisation talks.

Russia’s foreign exchange reserves grew last week by 15.4 billion dollars, the central bank said Thursday, in the first rise for several weeks amid a fall in the value of the ruble.
   The central bank has been selling foreign currency to buy ruble to prop up the national currency, which has been under pressure due to the global financial crisis and fears for the Russian economy.
   The forex reserves rose to 450.8 billion dollars as of December 19 compared with 435.4 billion dollars as of December 12, the central bank said in a statement.
   The bank had spent tens of billions of dollars over recent weeks supporting the ruble to prevent it suffering a major devaluation in the face of the financial crisis.
   But it has recently allowed 10 minor devaluations of the ruble.

Americans were already defaulting on home payments when Gertrudes Capili mortgaged her modest farm near Manila to help send her two granddaughters to Taiwan.
   There they worked in a factory making microchips for appliances sold to an American consumer market on the verge of collapse.
   Little did the 90-year-old grandmother know that the US subprime meltdown and subsequent financial crisis would come home to roost in Angono, a lakeshore town east of Manila where she lives with a daughter and two granddaughters in a cramped 34-square-metre (366-square-foot) plywood and sheet iron home.
   A nearby river often overflows and floods the ground floor in the rain, and the warped furniture, bought with the granddaughters’ earnings, has to be replaced every year.
   ‘Huge debts and a splitting headache,’ 24 year-old Bernadette Cortas told AFP when asked what she earned from her stint at the ASE semiconductor factory near Taipei, which serves electronics giants such as Motorola and Epson.
   Both she and her cousin Cristina de Borja now wear horn-rimmed glasses, the result of working long hours in front of tiny circuit boards.
   Just eight months after the cousins got their jobs, which netted them about 20,000 Taiwan dollars (600 US) a month after food and lodging expenses, they were shipped back home along with 103 other Filipinos as the company cut staff amid plunging global electronics demand.
   Cortas would be an apt poster child of the Philippines economic diaspora.
   Once a giggly, leggy teenage schoolgirl, she is now a college dropout who had worked in a fast food restaurant to put herself through high school.
   The oldest of five children of an unemployed bus driver who lives with another woman, Cortas single-handedly fed, housed and put her siblings through school.
   Her mother works as a maid in Saudi Arabia but has a new boyfriend and no longer gives money to the family, Cortas said. When she (Cortas) lost her job the siblings also had to quit school.
   Jobless, penniless and deep in debt, she is staring down a bleak Christmas, unable to pay back the 50,000-peso ($1,048) loan she and de Borja had secured with grandma’s 2,000-square-metre (21,500-square-foot) farm as collateral.
   The loan only covered part of their ‘job placement fees’ of 85,000 pesos ($1,782) each, which was mainly paid for by commercial money lenders that charge interest rates of two per cent a month.
   Cortas does not even have money to go home to Rosario town south of Manila for Christmas and is temporarily staying at her grandmother’s.
   Their desperation has seen them line up overnight outside a Manila television station last weekend for a game show that offered a house and a million pesos in prizes.
   Both missed out because ‘they appeared to favour domestic helpers,’ de Borja said.
   The cousins are just two among some eight million Filipinos – 10 per cent of the population – who have joined an economic diaspora.
   The government says several hundred ‘overseas Filipino workers’ have lost their jobs due to the global crisis, which the International Labour Organisation has warned could see as many as 20 million people put out of work by the end of 2009.
   The two cousins have filed a suit to get a refund of part of their placement fee, which had guaranteed them contracts for two years in Taiwan.
   While no one can be jailed in the Philippines for failing to pay a debt, they need to repay the loans to avoid becoming blacklisted by labour recruiters.
   De Borja, 30, a former Manila pharmaceutical company worker, said a job in the Philippines is not appealing because of the low pay.
   Two in five Filipinos live on two dollars or less a day and a third of the labour force is either out of work or underemployed at any one time.
   De Borja said she had pawned or sold most of her jewellery to try and pare down debts.
   The Taiwan job helped tide things over before the subprime crisis blew up early this year. They worked seven days a week and padded their wages with overtime.
   But the factory stopped the extra shifts in June, and by September as electronics demand plummeted, their take-home pay was down to about 2,000 Taiwan dollars a month.
   De Borja’s younger sister has since left for Dubai to work as a shopping mall clerk.
   President Gloria Arroyo received the laid-off chip workers at Malacanang palace three days after they flew home on December 2, but real help was not forthcoming.
   ‘It was obvious that her smile was faked. It was plastered on her mug,’ de Borja said.
   ‘Plastic,’ Cortas agreed.

Ranjit Roy of Panchagarh won a brand new car after buying a television from a Singer outlet in Panchagarh under a campaign — ‘Panchti TV Protidin Sathe Gari
   Jite Nin (win five TV sets everyday as well as a car), a news release
   said on Wednesday.
   The Singer Bangladesh Limited marketing director, Sajidur Rahman Khan, handed over key of the car to the winner at a function in Dhaka on Wednesday. Under the campaign, apart from the 30 grand prizes including the brand new car the customers won five colour televisions everyday.

The Prime Bank Limited opened its 70th branch at Swadeshi Bazar in Mymensingh town on Wednesday.
   The bank’s managing director, M Ehsanul Haque, inaugurated the branch at a ceremony as chief guest.
   Earlier a discussion was held with eminent businessman of the town Md Mahtab Uddin in the chair.
   Professor Md Shahidullah of the agriculture faculty at Bangladesh Agricultural University, Dr Md Mizanur Rahman, Ekramul Haque Titu, panel mayor of the Mymensingh Municipality, addressed the inaugural session as special guests.

The Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited opened its 64th branch at Mirpur Circle-B of Senpara Parbata in Dhaka on Wednesday.
   The DBBL managing director, Md Yeasin Ali, inaugurates the branch at a simple ceremony. He also opened an ATM booth on the branch premises to facilitate 24-hour banking services, said a news release.
   In his address, Ali said since its inception, the DBBL extended financial support to the businessmen and industrialists to develop the socio-economic structure as well as for economic growth of the country.

The United States fell deeper into recession, data showed on Wednesday, as the number of people filing for jobless benefits hit a 26-year high last week and consumers cut spending for the fifth consecutive month.
   Elsewhere, Japan and Germany became the latest countries to approve new spending programmes to jolt their own economies out of recessions brought on by the worsening global credit crisis.
   In Tokyo, the government approved an 88.5 trillion yen (£663.3 billion) budget, its biggest ever, to help finance a 12 trillion yen fiscal stimulus programme.
   Germany announced plans for a second stimulus package, to be capped at $25 billion euros, to help Europe’s biggest economy weather a growing recession.
   So far, however, increased spending in economies around the world has yet to boost confidence among businesses, investors or consumers.
   Data on Wednesday showed US consumers cut spending in November as their incomes shrank, pointing to a prolonged recession for the world’s largest economy.
   New orders for long-lasting manufactured goods fell 1 per cent in November, following a steeply revised plunge of more than 8 per cent the prior month, while the number of US workers filing for jobless benefits for the first time soared by 30,000 to a 26-year peak in the week ended December 20.
   Nearly 2 million US workers have lost jobs this year, driving the unemployment rate to 6.7 per cent.
   ‘I don’t think we are going to have a major reassessment of the US economic situation based on today’s data,’ said Daniel Katzive, director of global foreign exchange at Credit Suisse in New York. ‘All in all, the scenario remains pretty weak.’
   Many leading companies are also struggling to keep their businesses afloat, resorting to cutting jobs or work days, or reducing benefits to counter weakening demand.
   For others the crisis has become too powerful.
   Stock markets in Japan and Europe fell in thin, pre-holiday trade, while Wall Street edged higher.
   Developed and developing countries alike have taken drastic measures to fight the deepening crisis, with increased spending at the forefront of their efforts.
   Central banks have cut interest rates sharply and flooded their economies with cash in hopes of kick-starting spending and preventing a deflationary spiral.
   The US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan have both cut interest rates to near zero, and more rate cuts are expected in Britain and the 15-country euro zone in early 2009.
   Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Japanese prime minister Taro Aso said, ‘Japan cannot avoid the tsunami of the world recession, but it can try to find a way out.’
   ‘The world economy is in a once-in-a-hundred-years recession. We need extraordinary measures to deal with an extraordinary situation,’ he said.
   Germany’s intended stimulus plan was smaller than the 40 billion euro measures originally reported for new projects and was unlikely to ease pressure on chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been attacked by politicians and economists who want her government to do more to boost the economy.

Russian energy giant Gazprom Wednesday signed a controversial accord to take a majority stake in Serbia’s oil monopoly NIS, in a deal that strengthens Russian access to lucrative southern European energy markets.
   Agreements worth at least one billion dollars on the sale of a 51-per cent stake in NIS to Gazprom and other deals were signed in the Kremlin following talks between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Serbian counterpart Boris Tadic.
   ‘This is the beginning of large, serious and I am certain mutually beneficial work,’ Medvedev said.
   Tadic said the agreements had strengthened Russian-Serbian relations that ‘until now have been characterized by an idea of beautiful intentions’ rather than actions.
   The price of the 51-per cent stake NIS was 400 million euros (560 million dollars), Serbian officials have said, with analysts suggesting Russia has bought the stake for a knock-down price.
   Independent consultants Deloitte valued the whole company at 2.2 billion euros in September.
   ‘Naturally, this is a political deal,’ said Vyacheslav Bunkov, an oil and gas analyst at Aton brokerage.
   The agreement, which has provoked a rift in the Serbian government, comes as Russia continues to offer unstinting support to Belgrade over its opposition to the independence of its ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo.

China on Thursday published guidelines for mainland companies to invest in Taiwan, in a bid to further strengthen ties with the long-standing rival that it considers part of its territory.
   A joint statement by China’s National Development and Reform Commission and the Taiwan Affairs Office publicly outlined three criteria for companies registered on the mainland who wish to invest in Taiwan.
   They said such companies would need approval for Taiwan-bound investment from the Chinese economic planning agency with adequate proof of financing, according to a statement posted on the government’s website late Wednesday.
   They must also abide by laws and not harm China’s aim of bringing about unification with Taiwan, it said.
   Chinese companies still cannot invest directly in the island without approval from Taiwan’s government, but the release of the guidelines pushes forward the issue of tightening ties, which Beijing has been pursuing.
   China still regards Taiwan as a renegade province that must eventually come back into Beijing’s political fold, by force if necessary.
   But relations have improved rapidly since the election in March of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who has promised closer ties. His election ended eight years of rule by Chen Shui-bian, whose pro-independence rhetoric inflamed China.
   This month direct daily flights and postal and shipping services were resumed between the two sides.
   Taiwan announced plans to lift a ban on Chinese banks investing in their counterparts on the island in June, and allowed Chinese investors to buy Taiwan shares in October.

Pakistan has offered to Iran that it could buy the Indian share of gas from the proposed $7.5 billion pipeline project involving the three countries, a media report said on Thursday, claiming that New Delhi apparently lost interest in the venture after signing the nuclear deal with the US.
   A team of energy experts led by adviser to the prime minister, Asim Hussain, will travel to Iran on December 29 to discuss the proposal, the Dawn newspaper quoted sources in the petroleum ministry as saying.
   The team is visiting Iran on the directives of president Asif Ali Zardari and it had thoroughly discussed the deal with him and prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the sources said. During its two-day visit, the delegation will try to persuade Iranian authorities to sign an agreement to transfer the Indian share of gas to Pakistan in the next few months.
   ‘We will try our best to convince the Iranian side of the need for starting work on the project as early as possible,’ an official said.
   The paper claimed that New Delhi appears to have lost interest in the India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project after signing the civil nuclear deal with the US.