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Blair plays the statesman: rich nations must end trade deadlock
London: Tony Blair, in his annual foreign affairs speech, has tried to break the logjam over a world trade agreement by calling on rich nations to set a date for ending their export subsidies.

Tony Blair appealed to France and the United States not to squander a chance to seal a historic agreement on global trade that has the potential to allow millions of people in the poorest countries to escape poverty. In his speech, Blair issued a detailed list of proposals aimed at reviving the process ahead of a critical meeting in Hong Kong next month.

He said: "The European Union and the US must go further, within the negotiations, on agriculture. We must reduce trade-distorting subsidies; we must see a credible end date for export subsidies; we must put an ambitious limit on the number of sensitive products that can be afforded extra protection.

"In return Brazil, India and others must move on cuts in industrial tariffs, services liberalisation, with proper flexibility for developing countries that need to sequence their commitments in line with their development needs."

He said: "Agriculture accounts for under 2 per cent of the GDP of rich countries and roughly the same share of employment. Can we afford to allow differences over support for agriculture in rich countries to block an agreement that could give renewed hope to the 1 in 5 people in the world living on less than $1 a day? And can we afford to weaken an international trading system on which future employment and prosperity in rich countries depends?"

The Prime Minister said that a one per cent increase in Africa's share of world trade would benefit Africa by over US$70bn, three times the aid increase agreed at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July.

Blair warned rich nations that they would enjoy "no security or prosperity at home" unless they "deal with the global challenges of conflict, terrorism, climate change and poverty."
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Tunis meet: showdown over control of the net
Tunis, Tunisia: With third world countries and the European Union pushing to strip the US of control of the Internet, a network it invented, at a United Nations "World Summit on the Information Society" meet in Tunisia in the coming week, the scene is set for a stormy meeting.

Backed by the EU, third world countries want the control taken from the US and handed to the UN. At stake is the US Department of Commerce's grip on the Internet through its agreement with the Los Angeles-based ICANN, a private company it contracted to run the domain names system.

ICANN operates the domain name and root server system through an agreement with the US Department of Commerce that expires next year. The organisation answers to elected representatives from the Internet community.

While countries from the Middle East, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, are concerned about content on the web, and US control, African nations have joined together to seek more financial support for developing countries that have been left behind in the online race.

Russia and the former Soviet states are more concerned about US control.
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General Motors: deep discounts to boost lagging sales
Detroit: In a bid to boost lagging sales, General Motors has introduced an extensive new incentive program under the "Red Tag" banner which provides customers with a fixed, bottom-line price for vehicles from the world's largest auto company and deep discounts on some 2006 models.

The initiative comes after two months of falling sales. According to sales figures published by the company, GM sold 23 percent fewer cars and trucks in October than it did a year ago. Year-to-date sales are down 3.5 percent and the company's market share has slipped to about 22 percent of cars sold in the U.S.

Its recent initiatives, such as the successful "employee discount for everyone" promotion, have also caused what analysts call a "payback problem." These summer sales didn't bring new customers into the market, according to analysts, but attracted people who would have bought a new car or truck in November and December earlier in summer, causing a drought in sales at the end of the year.

High benefit costs, an SEC investigation into the company's finances and a dimming sales picture have many analysts questioning GM's ability to survive in its current form. Analysts are increasingly pointing out that the chances of GM filing for bankruptcy are increasing even as it tries to make a turnaround.
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Sara Lee sells off European clothing unit
Chicago: As part of an ongoing overhaul, food and apparel manufacturer Sara Lee Corp. said Monday it is selling its European clothing unit to an affiliate of the Sun Capital Partners Inc. investment firm for more than US$117mn.

Sara Lee said it will be paid 100 million euros (US$117.2mn) cash plus potential contingency payments based on future performance from the affiliate of Boca Raton, Florida, based Sun Capital.

The clothing unit consists of marketing rights for such Sara Lee-owned brands as Dim, Playtex, Wonderbra, Abanderado, Nur Die and Unno in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom and throughout Eastern Europe. The brands generated almost US$1.2bn in sales in fiscal 2005.

Sara Lee had launched a restructuring programme early this year to focus on its food, beverage, and household and body-care operations. It retains Playtex and Wonderbra as part of its U.S. apparel business, which a company spokesperson said, it still intends to dispose off between June and September 2006.

Sara Lee Courtaulds, the British-based division that manufactures private-label clothing for retailers, is not part of the transaction announced Monday. Sara Lee said it will continue to explore options for that business, which recorded about US$560mn in sales last year.
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Telstra to cut thousands of jobs
Melbourne: New Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo on Tuesday outlined plans for a massive overhaul of Telstra's operations, saying the telco needs to cut costs and grow revenue. As part of the restructuring exercise the company will cut up to 12,000 jobs over the next five years.

Telstra plans to reduce the number of its 52,000 full time equivalent (FTE) positions by between 6,000 and 8,000 positions over three years and by 10,000 to 12,000 over five years.

Trujillo said Telstra's current business model would not get it where it wanted to go and it required a "new economic model".

Telstra says its strategy for improving its business involves deploying a company-wide, market-based management system, adopting a "one factory" approach to managing operations and delivering integrated services to customers.

Telstra on Tuesday updated the market on the outlook for its earnings in the current financial year, saying it expected earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to fall between 19% and 24% as it implements it strategy to turn around the company. However, if redundancy costs are included, the declines will be greater.
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Siemens to build 60 high-speed trains for China
Berlin: Siemens AG the German diversified group, will supply 60 high-speed trains to China in collaboration with its Chinese partner. China plans to lay 12,000-km-long rail track for passenger trains in the next 15 years.

The high-speed trains, named CRH3, will travel at a speed of 300 kilometres per hour and will be first put into operation on the Beijing-Tianjin route starting in 2008. The trains, with more than 600 seats, will be 200 meters long.

The first three of the trains and the key locomotive parts will be designed and manufactured in Siemens' plant in Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany. The rest of the trains will be built in the Chinese plant in Tangshan, north China's Hebei Province.

Siemens is a major supplier of subway cars, signal, power supply and telecommunications systems to the cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen in China.

The Shanghai Transrapid Maglev Line undertaken by Siemens started operation in Shanghai last year.

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IBM machine again tops supercomputer list
New York: A computer built by International Business Machines Corp (IBM) has again topped the list of the world's 500 most powerful supercomputers. The computer named Blue Gene/L, deployed at Lawrence Livermore national laboratory, has doubled its performance to 280.6 teraflops (trillion calculations per second), up from 136.8 teraflops from the list released in June.

The system used to study the US nuclear stockpile and do other research was officially completed this year. The computer is expected hold the top spot for the foreseeable future.

IBM built the top three and 43.8 per cent of the systems on the list of the fastest computers released by the top 500 projects, an independent group of university computer scientists who release supercomputer rankings every six months.

Hewlett-Packard co is the no. 2 manufacturer, with 33.8 of the machines on the list.
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Volkswagen withdraws Phaeton from US market
New York: Volkswagen (VW), Europe's biggest car maker, is planning to withdraw its luxury Phaeton model from the United States market next year. This will put an end to VW's venture into the top-end segment in the US.

The company has been recording poor sales in the US and feels it should concentrate first on its core business and on models such as the Passat, the Jetta and the New Beetle, that have shown good performance in the North American market.

VW registered a loss of 907 million euros (one billion dollars) in the US and Canada last year and is expected to again show a similar loss this year.

Sales of the Phaeton have been poor despite price discounts. Last year, VW sold 6,000 units of the Phaeton, much short of the targeted goal of 13,000 units.
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