US to build $245 m highway in Indonesia
Indonesia: The US has signed an agreement to build a $245 million road along Aceh's western coast, to rebuild the Indonesian province after the devastating December 26 tsunami.

The 240-km (150-mile) highway will connect Aceh's provincial capital, Banda Aceh, with the city of Meulaboh, almost wiped out by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the biggest tsunami ever recorded.
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IBM cuts more than 30 per cent jobs outside Europe
Raleigh: Even as IBM plans to streamline its operations in Europe, as many as 4,500 job cuts could happen at other locations of the company.

While changes at IBM's offices in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom will be through voluntary departures 30 per cent to 35 per cent of the planned personnel cuts will take place outside Europe adding upto between 3,000 and 4,500 jobs.

These could include locations in Raleigh, US where IBM employs 11,000 people the company's biggest operation in the world.

The biggest changes are likely to happen in IBM's Global Services division, the unit that oversees technology needs of other businesses. That division employs about a quarter of the company's Raleigh-area workers.
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S&P puts junk rating on GM, Ford bonds
New York: Standard & Poor's have cut its ratings on about 290 billion of General Motors and Ford Motor bonds.

The downgrades, which reduce the bonds to junk or speculative grade bonds, are the largest ever of their kind and may not be the last for the automakers. The move sent stocks through the financial world and the dollar lower, while safe-haven treasury bond prices jumped.

With the junk ratings, GM and Ford have fewer avenues for raising funds because many large institutional investors cannot buy speculative-grade debt.

The companies' shares and bonds dropped about 5 per cent and the cost of protecting Ford and GM debt against default surged. Both the automakers are struggling with high health-care, pension and materials costs. Foreign car manufacturers have captured a growing share of the US auto market from the 'bigtTwo'.
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