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GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Gloomy tone for economy

AFP, Washington
The world economic crisis deepened Friday as U.S President Barack Obama called for urgent action, Britain slumped into its first recession since 1991 and profits at US giant General Electric plunged.
Obama, who came to power this week amid economic turmoil and has pushed for an 825-billion-dollar (641 -billion-euro) stimulus plan for the US economy, said the down turn was "unprecedented" and should be dealt with "rapidly."
"Frankly the news has not been good -- each day brings I think a greater focus on the problems that we are having not only in terms of job loss but also in terms of some of the instabilities in the financial system," he said.
Wall Street joined in the jitters during morning trading, with the Dow Jones index down 1.41 percent and the Nasdaq inching up just 0.34 percent. The broad-market, Standard & Poor's 500 index retreated 0.1 percent.
Obama's comments came after Britain joined the United States, the eurozone and Japan in a recession at the start of what promises to be an extremely challenging year for top world economies reeling from a credit crunch.
Government figures showed that Britain's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with the previous quarter, when it contracted 0.6 percent -- signalling the start of a recession.
Howard Archer, an analyst at IHS Global Insight, warned of worse to come.
"Our current forecast is for UK GDP to contract by 2.9 percent in 2009 ... This would be the sharpest contraction since World War II," he said.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said before the announcement on Friday that he was using "every weapon at our dis-
posal" to fight the economic crisis.
But the report of recession immediately hit the British pound, which has already been trading at historic lows against the US dollar and the euro.
Sterling dropped to 1.3503 dollars during the day in London, hitting its lowest level against the US currency since September 1985.
Meanwhile the crisis showed no signs of respite in other parts of die world.
US software giant Microsoft announced it would have to cut up to 5,000 jobs, Japanese tyremaker Bridgestone said it was shedding hundreds of workers and German computer chip maker Qimonda went bust because of a slump in demand.
Finland said its economy
would shrink by more than 2.0 percent this year, Spain’s unemployment rate surged to 13.91 percent and a top government panel in India warned that economic growth would slow to 7.1 percent this year.
In Russia, new figures showed industrial production falling by 10.3 percent last month compared to December 2007 while the Russian ruble was expected to fall further after the central bank allowed it to devalue by up to 10 percent.
European stocks also posted a poor performance in volatile trading, with London s FTSE 100 index of leading shares closing up 0.01 percent, Frankfurt's DAX showing a loss of 0.96 percent and the Paris CAC 40 shedding 0.71 percent.
In Asian trade, Japanese share prices tumbled 3.81 percent after technology giant Sony forecast its biggest-ever operating loss, as the global crisis saps demand for televisions, cameras and video game consoles.
The Sydney stock market shed 4.1 percent as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned the slowdown in China would slash at least 5.0 billion dollars from Australia’s economy -- a further sign of the fallout from the Asian giant's crisis.
Oil prices also continued a downward march as demand dropped amid the global slowdown. New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for March, slid 1.29 dollars to 42.38 dollars a barrel in trading in London.