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Greenspan warns U.S. trade deficit may be "painful" for world economy
London: Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, has warned that the growth in the United States' trade deficit may be "quite painful" for the world economy if it is not halted.

Addressing the world's finance ministers and central bankers on Friday, as a keynote speaker at the Group of 7 meeting in London, Greenspan called for America to stop the "pernicious drift toward fiscal instability" created by the high current-account deficit.

The United States trade deficit hit a record US$666bn in 2004 and is now more than 6 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Greenspan, said that deficits that "cumulate to ever-increasing net external debt, with its attendant rise in serving costs, cannot persist indefinitely."

Policy makers from the Group of 7 industrial countries were convening in London to assess the outlook for the world economy. The G-7 accounts for two-thirds of the global gross domestic product.

Greenspan's term at the Fed will expire next month.
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Singapore launches share raid on P&O
London: As apprehended, a takeover battle for the control of UK ferries and port operator P&O is set to be joined with the Singapore government yesterday launching a £100m-plus stock market raid on P&O shares. Earlier in the week, P&O had announced that it would be selling out to state-backed Dubai Ports World (DPW).

Temasek Holdings, controlled by the Singapore ministry of finance, revealed it had snapped up a 3.24% stake in the company, sending the shares soaring more than 11% to 494p in heavy trading. The closing was well ahead of the 443p-a-share offer tabled by DPW earlier this week.

In its statement announcing the share purchase, the Singapore investment agency gave no hint of its intentions. However, market operators did note that Temasek's stake was bought well above the market price, which could only signal a takeover attempt.

P&O has been valued by DPW at £3.3bn, and the P&O board has already given its blessing to the Dubai offer. If it materializes, the deal would create the world's third largest ports company.
Temasek, Denmark's Moeller-Maersk and Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampao are seen as possible contenders.

P&O has some 29 container terminals in 18 countries while Dubai Ports World has 22 in 15 countries. A combination of the two businesses would rank behind only Hutchison Whampoa and Temasek.
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UK credit card industry to share customer data
London: With the lending industry facing prospects of having their profits impacted by bad debts, four of the UK's largest credit card lenders have now announced plans to start sharing information on customers who are into financial difficulty.

Barclaycard, The Co-Operative Bank, Egg and Abbey will share 'behavioural' data on how much their customers are spending each month and how much is being repaid. Data on changes to credit limits, bounced cheques and defaulted payments will also be included as lenders look to reduce their bad debt liabilities.

Analysts predict profits at Barclaycard, which fell by 17% during the first half of the year, would be hit further during the second half as a result of bad debt. Barclaycard now plans to discuss the initiative with other credit card lenders through industry body Apacs, in a bid to get more card issuers to join the scheme. HSBC said it would start sharing its customers' information in July, but only with lenders that reciprocate the arrangement.
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Adobe to close Macromedia deal on Saturday
San Jose: Adobe Systems Inc. expects to close its acquisition of Macromedia Inc. on Saturday, the company said.

The US$3.4bn acquisition will see Macromedia shareholders receive 1.38 shares of Adobe common stock for each share of Macromedia common stock they own at the closing of the acquisition. Adobe hopes that by acquiring Macromedia it can expand its business in the Web publishing market.

The deal will combine Adobe's popular Acrobat document creation software and Photoshop imaging software suite with Macromedia's Flash multimedia authoring environment and Dreamweaver development suite.
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Verizon-Qualcomm to deliver mobile TV
New York: Next year Verizon Wireless customers will be able to receive real-time mobile TV over Qualcomm's MediaFLO network, the two companies have said.

The companies said they expect to initially launch the service in roughly half the markets covered by Verizon's 3G EV-DO network with launches in the rest of Verizon Wireless' EV-DO markets later. The companies did not, however, say precisely when the service would be available in those markets, although Qualcomm has said it expects its MediaFLO subsidiary to start offering mobile TV service nationwide next year.

The service will be delivered to compliant phones using the 700 MHz portion of spectrum. Qualcomm holds nationwide licenses for that part of the spectrum.
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NYSE seat fetches US$4mn as merger with Archipelago looms
New York: With the merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Archipelago Holdings just a few days away, into early next week, the market is already showing its appreciation of the proposed merger between the old-time trading institution with the new-economy ArcaEx electronic exchange.

On Friday, one of the 1,365 seats on the NYSE went for a record US$4mn, nearly three times what the spots were fetching just before Archipelago and the historical exchange announced their planned combination earlier this year.

The NYSE has been struggling as nimbler exchanges such as Nasdaq and Archipelago's ArcaEx have slowly gained an edge. The NYSE's share of trades that it oversaw in NYSE-listed securities fell to 75% for the month of October, its thinnest slice of market share on record.
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WHO won't hire smokers
London: The World Health Organisation says it would not hire smokers anymore as an effort to promote its public health campaign against tobacco use.

In a memo circulated to its 8,000 staff on Thursday, the WHO stressed that it had "a responsibility to ensure that this (its campaign) is reflected in all its work, including recruitment practices".

The WHO has taken the lead in the fight against tobacco, which it says, kills 5 million people a year.

WHO's job advertisements now carry the statement "WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or other tobacco users". Applicants will be asked if they are smokers and if so, if they would continue to smoke if employed by the WHO.

The ban will not apply to existing WHO staff or those on temporary contracts who apply for permanent jobs for the next two years. But the agency said it was already offering programmes to help staff to stop smoking.
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