US treasury secretary says significant risks remained to world economy

"We have done a great deal domestically ... but there is a lot of uncertainty," Geithner told reporters after talks with British Finance Minister Alistair Darling and Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London.

However, he also said major economies largely agreed on the measures that needed to be taken to stimulate economic activity and "I think we have remarkably strong consensus in place on core elements."

Darling said that British economy should return to growth in 2009 although the fate of the global economy remains uncertain.

"I remain confident that our economy will see growth return at the end of the year," Darling told reporters after meeting Geithner who is on a stop in London on his way to visit the Middle East.

Darling announced that London would host a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of 20 nations in London on Sept. 4-5. The meeting will take place ahead of a meeting of G20 leaders in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States on Sept. 24-25.

Source:Xinhua

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Ebay calls on EU to shield small sellers from 'bully´ brands

9 July 2009 | By Will Cooper

Ebay is calling for the EU to protect small businesses from “bullying tactics” by brands trying to prevent the resale of their goods online at a discounted price.

The auction giant says small retailers on Ebay are being unfairly pressurised by brands wanting to keep prices high. It even claims some brands lie about the authenticity of products in order to have them removed from the site.

A survey by Ebay of 900 European small retailers found 49% of those in the UK have been banned by brands from selling certain products online, while 45% have been stopped from offering unauthorised discounts.

Ebay has launched an online campaign and petition to lobby the EU into amending European competition law to, among other things, make it illegal for brands to blanket-ban internet sales and make it illegal to block the resale of previously bought goods.

It’s also calling for the EU to prevent brands from insisting etailers have high street stores in order to sell their goods online as well.

Vanessa Canzini, Ebay’s corporate PR manager, said, “This has worried us for a while but, until now, we’ve only had anecdotal evidence. Some brands abuse our Verified Rights Owner programme, designed to keep counterfeits off Ebay, by claiming items are fakes when they’re not.”

She added that Ebay is hopeful for a change in EU legislation. “The European commission has already agreed to look at the Vertical Restraints Regulation, which covers this, while the Dutch competition commission ruled out investigating only because there wasn’t enough hard evidence. We now have that.”

Canzini asserted that although Ebay has seen quarterly revenues decline, this campaign was to highlight the unfair conditions imposed on small etailers rather than grow Ebay’s bottom line.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

PM confident India can sustain 8-9% growth

He said he was confident that India would come out of this crisis stronger but the road ahead was also going to be difficult to traverse.

"It is not going to be easy but I am convinced that India´s savings rate, which is as high as 35 per cent with a normal capital output ratio of 4:1, we should be able to sustain, with a little bit effort, a growth rate of about 8 to 9 per cent notwithstanding the difficulties on the international front," Sing told reporters accompanying him on his way back home from a four-day visit to Italy.

Against the backdrop of the world attempting a recovery from the recession caused by the financial crisis in the heart of the developed world, he said he had discussions with the leaders of G8 and G5, Egypt and African countries.

"After our discussions, it is my sense that while there are some signs of recovery, the world economy is still a long way from recovering the earlier growth momentum and there must be questions whether that will soon be possible for the global economy," he said.

The Prime Minister said he was returning home convinced that India must continue to strengthen steps at home to regain the 8 to 10 per cent growth path.

The Prime Minister said international environment would not be as supportive as before for some time to come. "I am, however, confident that our domestic economic strengths will enable us to return to our earlier path of rapid and inclusive growth."

He said in his statement in the G8,G5 summit he did mention that all available indicators for 2009 point to a deceleration in the US economy in the European Union economies and, therefore, one can say that the global environment for the development of the countries of the third world has undergone a sharp deterioration.

Singh noted that India´s exports have suffered, capital flows from abroad have declined and international bank lending to the developing countries has declined.

"Therefore the challenge before us is to sustain and revive the growth momentum which we have built up in the last five years notwithstanding the deterioration in the international environment for development," he said.

Answering a question, Singh said he had always viewed his government´s role was to get rid of chronic poverty, ignorance and disease which still afflicted millions and millions of people.

"We have made some important gains in the last five years. We managed to impart to our country a stronger growth momentum. We strengthened the forces which make for inclusive social and economic development," he said.

He mentioned that the government had put in place social safety nets which soften the harsh edges of extreme poverty substantially.

"But this is a long and arduous journey and our challenge is to take full advantage of the instrumentalities which are now now in place for inclusive growth to plug loopholes, to reduce leakages and to ensure that these instruments become more effective instruments of social and economic change, accelerated growth, more inclusive development and more emphasis on rural development and agriculture."

Sing said it was a continuation of the journey they undertook for five years with renewed commitment and determination even though it must be recognised that the international environment was not as supportive as was imagined at one time.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

US Economy: Consumer Sentiment Falls on Job Losses

By Shobhana Chandra and Bob Willis

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Sentiment among U.S. consumers, whose spending is critical to an economic recovery, dropped in July after four months of gains as unemployment approached 10 percent.

The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment fell by more than forecast to 64.6 from 70.8 in the prior month. A separate report from the Commerce Department showed the trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in May to the lowest level in almost a decade.

Unemployment is rising even as economists predict an end to the recession in coming months. Consumers in the survey said they are less likely to buy cars or appliances, suggesting that the recovery may be weaker than anticipated.

“There’s a lot of concern about job losses, and people think they won’t be able to earn more,” said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse Holdings Inc. in New York. “Until the employment picture clears up, we can’t anticipate persistent gains in consumer spending.”

The confidence index was forecast to dip to 70, according to the median of 59 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. A gauge of expectations for six months from now, which more closely projects the direction of consumer spending, plunged to 60.9, the biggest drop since October, from 69.2.

The report helped send stocks lower, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index falling 0.4 percent to 879.13 for its fourth straight weekly loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.5 percent to 8146.52

Trade Deficit

The trade deficit narrowed 9.8 percent to $26 billion, the smallest gap since November 1999, from a revised $28.8 billion in April, today’s Commerce Department report showed. The gap was projected to widen to $30 billion, from an initially reported $29.2 billion in April, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 71 economists.

A shrinking deficit signals trade will add more to U.S. gross domestic product as exports to emerging economies such as Brazil increase. U.S. demand for imported auto parts was held down by production cutbacks and factory shutdowns by Detroit- based General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, two of the three largest U.S. automakers.

“Demand in the rest of the world is stabilizing sooner than in the U.S.,” Basile said. “If it continues like this, trade could wind up adding to growth.”

A Labor Department report today showed prices of goods imported into the U.S. rose 3.2 percent in June, the fourth monthly gain, as oil costs jumped by the most in a decade.

Inflation Outlook

Consumers in the University of Michigan survey said they expect an inflation rate of 3 percent over the next 12 months, compared with 3.1 percent in the prior month’s survey. Over the next five years, the figures tracked by Federal Reserve policy makers, Americans expected a 3.1 percent rate of inflation, compared with their 3 percent forecast last month.

An index of current conditions, which reflects Americans’ perceptions of their financial situation and whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items like cars, fell to 70.4 from 73.2.

Employers reduced payrolls by 467,000 last month, more than anticipated, government figures showed last week. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg this month predicted the unemployment rate will surge to 10 percent by the end of the year, from 9.5 percent in June.

The same survey said the economy will expand faster than previously forecast in the second half of this year and in 2010. Growth will average 1.5 percent in the July-to-December period, compared with last month’s 1.2 percent projection, according to the median of 57 forecasts taken from July 2 to July 8.

Retail Sales

Sales reports at retailers reflect caution among consumers, who are shifting purchases to discount stores.

June sales at stores open at least a year rose at Ross Stores Inc., the Pleasanton, California-based owner of the Ross Dress for Less discount chain, and Framingham, Massachusetts- based TJX Cos., owner of T.J. Maxx stores.

Same-store sales fell more than forecast for clothing retailers Abercrombie & Fitch Co., based in New Albany, Ohio, and Gap Inc., based in San Francisco.

The preliminary Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence report reflects about 300 responses, compared with 500 households for the final survey.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Funded to the tune of half a million Euros and co-ordinated by the European Science Foundation’s COST programme, ‘Living in Surveillance Societies’ (LISS), will be conducted by a network of more than 90 researchers based in 15 countries.

Its aim is to raise awareness of the issue and help inform related policy and practice across Europe. It will also look at the experiences of the impact of surveillance on people, businesses, technology and governance.

The team will be led by Webster, who is a Senior Lecturer in Stirling Management School, and is a recognised expert on closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras, e-government and electronic public services.

‘Surveillance takes place on an unprecedented scale, with vast amounts of personal data collected, analysed, processed and stored for reasons ranging from national security, e-government and market research,’ stated Webster. ‘The programme is about facilitating a better understanding of what it is like to live in a society where technologically mediated surveillance is so prevalent – both for the surveyor and the surveyed.’

COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) does not fund research itself, but supports networking activities such as meetings, conferences, scientific exchanges and outreach activities. It works on the principle that there will be economic benefit deriving from the collaborative academic activities of the researchers, which in this case is estimated to be 80 million Euros.

Web site: www.external.stir.ac.uk .

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Governments and companies should limit the snooping they do on web users.

So said Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, who said that growing oversight of browsing could have a pernicious effect.

A greater part of the value of the web lay in the lack of constraints on what people could do with it.

He also warned that attempts to censor what people could say or what they could do online were ultimately doomed to failure.

Open triumph

"When you use the internet it is important that the medium should not be set up with constraints," he said.

The internet, said Sir Tim, should be like a blank piece of paper. Just as governments and companies cannot police what people write or draw on that sheet of paper so they should not be restricted from putting the web to their own uses.

"The canvas should be blank," he said

While governments do need some powers to police unacceptable uses of the web; limits should be placed on these powers, he said.

If people know that where they go online and the terms they look for are under scrutiny it could have all kinds of pernicious effects, he warned.

Repressive regimes, such as China and Iran, that work hard to limit what people can do online would struggle to maintain that control over time, he said.

"The trend over the years is that the internet in the end goes around censorship and openness eventually triumphs," he said. "But it is by no means an easy road."

Sir Tim made his comments during a speech at an event that helped to launch the BBC Two series Digital Revolution.

The four-part series aims to explore the history of the World Wide Web and generate debate about how it is changing the way people live their lives. It aims to debate how the web is changing the nation state, how it affects identity, freedom and anonymity.

Over the next eight months as the programme is being produced, viewers will be encouraged to get involved by sending in questions for interview subjects and being able to produce their own clips using the rushes generated during filming.

Social media researcher and broadcaster Aleks Krotoski will present the series of programmes.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Venezuela's Chavez Moves to Tighten Control Over Private Media

By DARCY CROWE

CARACAS -- President Hugo Chavez´s administration is moving to tighten its grip over Venezuela´s media industry by expanding its oversight of private broadcasters, pledging to take off the air 154 FM radio stations and threatening to shut down cable-television providers.

It´s the latest step in Mr. Chavez´s decade-long battle with the country´s private media that has already cost one of the country´s most popular television networks its broadcasting license and could take Venezuela´s only nationwide private 24-hour news channel, which is critical of the president, off the airwaves.

Public Works Minister Diosdado Cabello, who is also head of the government´s broadcasting regulator, announced Thursday the government´s new blueprint for the media industry.

The new regulations will bring under government oversight private Venezuelan channels that only broadcast through private cable providers.

The new law is sure to hit the RCTV network, which locked horns with Mr. Chavez and saw its broadcasting license expire without renewal in 2007. Since then, RCTV has survived through cable broadcasts.

Now RCTV, like other cable channels with 70% or more locally produced programming, will likely be required to carry Mr. Chavez´s nationwide TV appearances, just like other channels and radio stations.

Mr. Cabello, one of Mr. Chavez´s top aides, also targeted cable providers, warning that the government would seize them if they interfere with broadcasts by state-run news channels. Mr. Cabello accused some of the cable systems of boycotting the state news network and Telesur, a regional news channel financed by Venezuela.

"The national government, through the ministry, will take over these companies" if the broadcasts by these channels are interrupted, Mr. Cabello said. Telesur has become a key public and foreign relations tool for Mr. Chavez: the state-run news channel broadcasts throughout the region with a decisive leftist tilt.

The government will also take off the air 154 FM radio stations for failing to submit the required paperwork to keep the broadcasting licenses up to date.

Mr. Cabello´s plans to "democratize" the airwaves involve turning over the frequencies to community groups that back Mr. Chavez.

A trade group representing the broadcasting industry said that taking the stations off of the air was "an extreme and disproportionate" response to any bureaucratic problems they may be facing with the regulatory body. They labeled the measure as a "direct attack on freedom of expression."

Another media outlet that is being targeted by the government is the Globovision news channel, the last television network over public airwaves that is still openly critical of the government.

The Chavez administration accuses Globovision of "media terrorism," and is mounting a legal offensive against the network to revoke its license before it expires in 2015.

"The country can´t tolerate that channel any longer," Mr. Chavez said recently during a nationwide broadcast. "It´s a matter of public health," he explained. "That channel poisons the mind."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

IMF more upbeat on global recovery in 2010

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

The Job Market's Grim Picture

WASHINGTON -- Employment figures released Thursday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that the economy is taking a big step toward an ugly milestone.

In June, 467,000 jobs were eliminated, meaning 131.7 million people are working in the U.S.--fewer than in May 2000. If another 900,000 jobs disappear by the end of the year--likely, without unexpected improvement--an entire decade of employment gains will have been wiped out. In January of 2000, there were 130.8 million jobs in the country. "It´s not that those jobs weren´t needed," says Heidi Shierholz, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute. "The labor force has grown by nearly 13 million people."

Overall, the unemployment rate rose to 9.5% from 9.4% in June. That figure does not include so-called marginally attached and discouraged workers, who want jobs, but have given up searching at least temporarily. Including these workers, the rate rose to 10.8% from 10.6%. Including people who work part-time but want full time jobs, the broadest measure of underemployment in the economy, the rate rose to 16.5%.

The report was an unwelcome shock for forecasters. The consensus forecast expected 363,000 lost jobs, a miss of over 100,000. In May, only 322,000 jobs were lost, meaning job losses were considerably worse in June than in the prior month.

"On the whole, this was a very ugly labor market report, and there is no amount of lipstick that can improve its image," says Millan Mulraine, an economist for TD Securities, in a note reacting to the report. "Indeed, not only does it suggest that the pace of job losses in the U.S. remains very high, it bucks the trend of four consecutive months of improvement in the pace of job losses."

The losses were spread across the economy, with 136,000 jobs lost in manufacturing, 118,000 lost in professional and business services, 79,000 lost in construction. Even 52,000 jobs were lost in government, a sign that the stimulus package has been unable to plug the holes in local government budgets that are hemorrhaging from lost tax revenue.

The report is also a sign that the economy´s "green shoots" have a way to go before things really start improving in the job market. Recent data "paint a picture of a gradually healing economy that is in the loosening grip of a major recession," says Stuart Hoffman, chief economist for PNC Bank. He pointed out that a major index measuring manufacturing in the U.S. improved for a sixth consecutive month; that the most-watched home price index showed that while home prices are still falling, they are doing so at a slowing pace; and that an index of pending home sales has been stable above its lows.

But economists´ worst assumptions about employment are being surpassed monthly. In December, the Blue Chip consensus, a survey of many leading economic forecasters, pegged unemployment for 2009 at 7.8%. Even the 10 most pessimistic Blue Chip forecasters had an estimate of only 8.3%. By March, even the pessimists´ estimates for the entire year had already been shredded, when unemployment reached 8.5%.

Economists were wondering whether unemployment could possibly reach 10%, says Shierholz. But 10% is all but certain at this point. The question has changed to: "Are we going to pass the peak in 1983 that was 10.8%?" says Shierholz, which would be the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. "I hope it doesn´t happen," she says, "but it is a possibility."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.