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US records highest inflation spike in 25 years
New York: With prices at a record-high, the US Govt. has now reported the worst spike in inflation in a quarter-century. According to a government report released Friday, the overall inflation jumped 1.2 percent. A closely watched price benchmark, dubbed the core inflation rate, however was up a scant 0.1 percent.

Energy costs were responsible for 90 percent of the increase in inflation, the Labor Department said in its report. The rise in overall inflation was the fastest increase since March 1980.

Rising prices are showing up on multiple business fronts, including for companies that require a lot of energy, produce items with components of petroleum, or firms that provide building materials.

Still some economists believe consumers could remain shielded from much of the effects inflation for at least a little while. They say that although higher energy prices means significant costs to producers, but because many businesses lack pricing power, the ripple may well have been contained.
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Hilton Group to sell hotels business to sister company in the US
London: The Hilton Group, UK, is in talks to sell its international hotels business after receiving an indicative offer from sister group Hilton Hotel Corporation, which controls the brand in the US.

The deal, thought to value London-listed Hilton at £3.6bn, would split the business from the group's other main division, betting shop chain Ladbrokes.Weak trading conditions in Britain, and in London in particular since July, would need to be reflected in any offer. Industry revenues per available room - an important measure for hotel groups - was down by 10% in August.

In common with other European hotel firms, Hilton Group has been shedding property assets and moving to the kind of management and franchised business model which has long been the norm in the US. Hilton Corporation will be attracted by the international business's lower tax rate of 20%. Marriage talks between the two groups follow a lengthy engagement, which started eight years ago with a marketing alliance. David Michels from Hilton Group and Hilton Corporation chief executive Stephen Bollenbach sit as non-executive directors on each other's boards and have overseen a gradual strengthening in ties between the two firms.

The 500 hotels which operate under the Hilton flag are supported by a unified sales force, reservation system and - most profitably - a single loyalty programme. The ties have benefited all 2,700 hotels within the two businesses.

The Hilton empire was founded in San Francisco by Conrad Hilton in 1919 but did not start expanding beyond America until 30 years later. In 1964, the company split in two, with Hilton Group focusing on growth in what have become known as "gateway cities" outside the US.

In 1987 the international business was acquired by Ladbrokes, which was then made up of a broad conglomerate of leisure businesses. A decade later the two groups signed a marketing alliance - a deal widely seen as a prelude to a merger.
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US, China textile talks fail
Beijing: China and the United States failed on Thursday to find a formula to regulate China's booming textile shipments. The two nations have to reach an agreement before the end of the year, and now the stalemate means US retailers will face uncertainty about just how much they will be able to import from China until the end of 2008, when curbs on its textile exports will lapse.

"We have not come to an agreement that meets the needs of our domestic manufacturers and retailers," David Spooner, the special textile negotiator in the US Trade Representative's Office, said in a statement after two days of talks. This was the fourth round of face-to-face meetings between the two sides.

China has seen sales of clothes to the United States jump 75 per cent in the first seven months to nearly US$10.5bn. Under China's accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001, Washington can impose "safeguards" until the end of 2008 if China's textiles are shown to be disrupting the US market. These cap growth in exports at 7.5 per cent a year.

The United States has already imposed safeguard curbs on imports of Chinese shirts, trousers, bras, underwear, yarn and other textile and clothing products.
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