Enron to sue bankers for bad advice
Washington: Collapsed energy major Enron Corporation is planning to sue its own bankers for bad financial advice that contributed to its downfall, as seven former executives from its failed broadband unit charged with faking earnings and claiming capabilities the unit did not possess face trial in Houston. The executives accused of inflating the company's stock price, include Kenneth Rice, former Enron Broadband chief, Enron Broadband CEO Joseph Hirko and five others, the Wall Street Journal reported. Meanwhile, the parent company Enron, the target of many suits, said that it was considering bringing legal action against its bankers for giving the company "bad financial advice that helped lead to its downfall." Enron's principal bankers include JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup. Both banks, along with numerous other Enron advisers, already have been sued by the company's shareholders for allegedly helping the company hide debt, and they face investigations from regulators over their involvement.
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S Korea for extra $3.34 bn for infusion into economy
Seoul: South Korea proposed on Wednesday a $3.34 billion supplementary budget aiming at keeping its economy on track, as new data underlined the difficulties facing one of the region's star economies last year. The government hopes the extra budget, together with a recent interest rate cut by the central bank, will restore the health of an economy hit by shrinking domestic spending, concerns over North Korea's nuclear aims and troubles at credit card firms. "The size of the budget is almost the same as the market was expecting and I think this budget will have an effect to push up annual GDP growth by 0.5 to 0.8 percentage points", said Lim Ji-won, an economist at JP Morgan. Earlier, a senior finance ministry official said the government was discussing with the ruling party a proposal for drawing up a supplementary budget of about four trillion won ($3.34 billion).
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German consumers don't see prices falling: GFK
Berlin: German consumers do not expect falling prices in the near future, according to a survey by the GfK market research institute suggesting that consumers don't expect an imminent deflation in Europe's largest economy. A survey conducted by GfK in May showed that less than two per cent of respondents saw prices falling in the coming 12 months. "Consumers don't yet see a danger of deflation," said Rolf Buerkl, consumer affairs expert at GfK, which publishes a consumer climate indicator each month. "Consumers see a calm price climate that is favourable to them." GfK's May consumer climate indicator is scheduled to be released on Friday. Just under a quarter of consumers asked to comment on the price outlook said they expected prices to rise at a slightly slower pace than in the past. Some 36 per cent saw inflation remaining unchanged and six per cent saw inflation increasing.
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US curtails issuance of H-1B visas
Washington: As protests increase in US against outsourcing of jobs to India, especially in the IT sector, the US has cut down issuance of H-1B visas for overseas professionals, and a legislator has asked five companies to reveal how many Indians they are employing. During the first three quarters of fiscal year 2002, 60,500 people were approved to begin employment in H-1B status, while the limit in the period was 195,000, according to a release from the immigration authorities, who now come under the Department of Homeland Security. By comparison, as of June 30, 2001, 130,700 were approved by the Immigration and Natural Services to begin employment in H-1B status.
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Markets get the jitters as Fed talks deflation
Washington: Having declared they have won the war over long-time foe inflation, US Federal Reserve officials are fretting about a potentially more worrisome enemy — deflation — and are weighing measures whose market impact is hard to gauge. The Fed has said the risk of such a broad-based decline in consumer prices is minor and most economists agree.

But with the central bank’s preferred inflation gauge running below 1 per cent, the Fed’s vast economic team is studying it intensively, hoping to avoid the trap that has hemmed in the Bank of Japan for a decade. Some economists think the hand-wringing is overdone, but even they note that problems that can accompany deflation — weak asset prices and falling profits among them — can be particularly hard to combat. The US has not wrestled with a sustained bout of deflation since the Great Depression. That’s why Wall Street ran scared when the Fed, on May 6, raised the issue in a policy statement that warned of the risk of “an unwelcome substantial fall in inflation.”
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Year after 9/11: Global airlines reduce losses
Montreal: The world's airlines reduced their financial bleeding in 2002 following September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but still reported an overall loss, the international civil aviation organisation said. The UN agency's 188 member states reported airlines around the world lost $7.4 billion in 2002. The 2.3 per cent operating loss improved on a 3.8 per cent loss in 2001, when air travel was devastated by the September 11 attacks involving hijacked commercial planes, an ICAO news release said. North American airlines were the hardest hit, reporting operating losses of about 7.6 per cent in 2002, compared with 9 per cent the previous year, while the rest of the world's airlines had operating profits of 0.6 per cent, compared with a 0.6 per cent loss the previous year.

The world's airlines carried 1.61 billion passengers in 2002, a slight decrease from 2001. Freight traffic improved by 5 per cent internationally, even though mail traffic fell substantially for the second consecutive year because of security restrictions in the US.
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