When Lipscomb University in Nashville contemplated opening a business ethics institute in 2008, its backers could hardly have foreseen how timely and relevant it would be. Turney Stevens, dean of Lipscomb's College of Business, says he has noticed increasing ethical lapses in business dealings during his career as an investment banker and public company director.

India's long-awaited 3G and Wimax auctions may be delayed yet again, as the government considers doubling the floor price for prospective licensees. Late last month, the Indian government announced that the 3G and Wimax auctions were delayed from January 16 to January 30. But a communications ministry insider has told India's Economic Times that the auction is likely to be delayed again, this time until mid-February.

Senior executives at Satyam Computer Services are working overtime to ensure that top customers do not jump ship to rival tech firms, as the company tries to counter increased risks of customer defections amid concerns over corporate governance issues and a potential change in management. Corporate governance at India's fourth biggest software company firm came under sharp focus last month after Satyam announced and later withdrew plans to acquire two firms run by founder Ramalinga Raju's family for $1.

The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid includes some significant advances in mass production hybrid automotive technology. Although details released by Ford are technically incomplete many of the features announced to date point to the Fusion being the first to market with a second-generation parallel hybrid.

In the last year or so, life appeared to be getting better for Japan's long-suffering workers. Sure, salarymen still toil long into the evening and are expected to guzzle with their bosses after hours. But employers, at the behest of government, have been taking steps to ease workloads, and recent cases suggest Japan's judiciary is more willing to side with employees who sue companies—a trend that could lead to a better balance between job demands and a worker's private life.

As the Philippine software sector looks for new avenues for growth, it needs to be more nimble than China or India in looking for new opportunities. According to the Philippine Software Industry Assn. (PSIA), the industry had $423 million in revenues from both outsourced and product software in 2007, up from $200 million in 2005, and currently employs around 28,000 software developers.

With the world in the grip of an economic downturn, making the most of IT spending has never been more important for business. The Corporate IT Forum recently found that its most senior members are planning to invest in IT but managing costs, careful budgeting and trimming discretionary spending are key priorities.

Global recessions can bring out the worst in trading partners. Plunging domestic demand in both China and the U. S. has left manufacturers in both countries plagued with overcapacity. American companies are now accusing their Chinese rivals of dumping products—selling at below-market prices—in the U.

Anthony Celestine was a latecomer to the Internet Age. The 40-year-old Harlem resident has owned a small Jani-King commercial cleaning franchise since 2004, but until recently, the New Yorker hadn't owned a computer or even surfed the Web or had an e-mail address. "I didn't know what none of that stuff was," he says.

It's a question that has economists worldwide scratching their heads: What will happen to growth in China in 2009? While some are predicting economic expansion in the mainland will slow to less than 7%, others are still hoping GDP gains will be 9%-plus. The optimists assume China will be able to buck collapsing U.

If the last few days of 2008 are a sign of things to come, the prospects for mergers and acquisitions in the new year are certainly bleak. The latest evidence is the trouble facing Dow Chemical's (DOW) proposed $15. 3 billion acquisition of rival Rohm & Haas (ROH). The deal was put in doubt Dec.

Bernard L. Madoff operated on the edge for years. But an early encounter with the Securities & Exchange Commission didn't raise red flags about the financier now accused of running a massive fraud. It's the type of missed opportunity that's further eroding investor confidence and prompting Congress to explore regulatory reforms.

Starbucks (SBUX), once the undisputed leader in premium-price caffeine fixes, has long cultivated a corporate image for social responsibility, environmental awareness, and sensitivity to workers' rights. Now that carefully crafted reputation is under assault, thanks to a messy legal dispute with a group called the Starbucks Workers Union (SWU) (part of the Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW), which started recruiting employees in 2004 and now claims 300 members.

The airline industry should be entering 2009 with a nice tailwind. Airlines spent most of the past year cutting routes, and employees and tacking on a welter of fees to counter record high fuel prices. Then they lucked out when the cost of jet fuel plunged by two-thirds as 2008 wound down. But operating expenses aren't the only thing that has dropped: Passenger traffic tumbled 10.

British retailer Tesco entered the U. S. market only last year but already it has managed to put Wal-Mart (WMT), the world's No. 1 retailer, on the defensive. Tesco (TSCO. L) fired the first salvo, in a battle that retailing analysts expect will intensify, by launching Fresh & Easy, a chain of 10,000-square-foot convenience stores, in cities across California, Nevada, and Arizona in November 2007.

The news from Japan Inc. is far from upbeat these days. Every day brings a steady stream of corporate profit warnings, layoffs, and factory shutdowns. But there is one bright spot: Japan's cosmetics industry. Cosmetics are bucking the downward sales trend thanks to savvy marketing and changing cultural attitudes about makeup.

In a statement issued out of Hyderabad Thursday, Satyam said it is evaluating "all possible options" following the Bank's "inappropriate public statements". The development follows a statement issued by the World Bank on Dec. 23, which said Satyam was banned from receiving direct contracts from the Bank for eight years, as a result of "providing improper benefits to Bank staff and for failing to maintain documentation to support fees charged for its subcontractors".

You would expect gold to be a great investment in 2009 if the U. S. dollar remains under pressure because the Federal Reserve embraces a more accommodative monetary policy than those adopted by other key central banks. But there's a sticking point: The market remains more concerned about deflation than inflation in the near term, weakening one of the more compelling rationales to buy gold.

Having served as president of NEC Thailand and NEC Corporation (Thailand) between 2001 and 2006, his second Asian stint, which started in Singapore in June this year, is a breeze, he told us in a recent interview. Not only is it much easier to find talent with, for example, Cisco certification in Singapore—several hundred certified professionals compared to 30 in a Thai population of about 60 million then—getting to customer sites in the tiny island-state is less of an effort.

Broadcasters and telecom operators will find it challenging to translate the opportunity into revenue, the technology research analyst said in a statement Wednesday. Hong Kong's Commerce & Economic Development Bureau announced earlier this week, the plans for the auction of the mobile TV licenses in the middle of next year.

It's dawn at a Los Angeles apartment overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Laura Sweet, an advertising creative director in her early 40s, sits at a computer and begins to surf the Net. She searches intently, unearthing such bizarre treasures for sale as necklaces for trees and tattoo-covered pigs. As usual, she posts them on a shopping site called ThisNext.

In good times, consumers search out the best places to eat, raise their kids, take a vacation, or pursue a career. But as the recession deepens and more workers lose their jobs, a more germane search may well be the best places to be unemployed. Of course, laid-off workers can't pick which state in which to qualify, but considering the vast differences across state lines, many probably wish they could.

2008 was the year that subprime borrowers and speculators got hurt by the real estate crisis. 2009 could be when everyone else gets hit. Until now, the nation's most serious home price declines have been in low-cost markets that were dominated by subprime mortgages, and in overbuilt markets such as Florida, California, and Las Vegas, where residential values are sliding fast toward pre-housing boom levels.

According to the government agency's annual National Survey of R&D of some 1,000 organizations, the increase was a "significant jump" from the previous year's rise of 9. 3 percent. The country spent S$5 billion (US$3. 4 billion) on R&D in 2006, bringing the spending (as a percentage of the country's gross domestic product) from 2.

Notebooks shipped worldwide between July and September amounted to 38. 6 million, nearly 40 percent more than the same period last year, iSuppli said on its Web site Tuesday. Shipments of desktops, on the other hand, dropped 1. 3 percent year-on-year to reach 38. 5 million units. Worldwide PC shipment in the third quarter of 2008 grew 15.

If ever there were a technology company known for performing when its back is up against the wall, it's Palm (PALM). In its 16-year history, the company that made handheld computing commercially viable first with its PalmPilot devices, then later with its Treo line of smartphones, has seen its identity and even its name shift several times.

David Furlonger, industry service director for banking and investments at Gartner, pointed out that a lot of innovation usually occurs during periods when organizations are in "significant distress". "[Those companies] do things that they would not otherwise do because they're put in positions that force them to think outside of the box," Furlonger, who is also Gartner's distinguished analyst and vice president for industry research, noted in a phone interview with ZDNet Asia.

From the moment Akio Toyoda joined Toyota's (TM) board of directors in 2000, rumors circulated that the scion of the Japanese carmaker's founding clan was being groomed for the top job. Now the 52-year-old executive vice-president is likely to succeed President Katsuaki Watanabe after winning the board's support, a source close to the Japanese automaker told BusinessWeek.

Get ready for an understatement: This has been a tough year for stock pickers. With just a week left in 2008, only 16 stocks in the broad Standard &Poor's 500-stock index, or 3. 2% of the index, have offered investors a positive return. But there's always next year. Despite market conditions that have disproven prediction after prediction, BusinessWeek asked fund managers for stocks they believe could help investors regroup after the past year's losses and how they go about finding these gems at a time of unprecedented economic and financial turmoil.

Parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe experienced Internet and telephone outages Friday when three undersea cables between Italy and Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged. The affected cable systems, which run from Alexandria in northern Egypt to Sicily in southern Italy, carry more than 75 percent of traffic between the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.

For years, Hyundai Motor studied Toyota's (TM) renowned meticulousness in manufacturing to improve the quality of its own cars. Now the Korean company is setting its sights a lot higher: By 2015 it wants to leapfrog Toyota in green car technologies in the U. S. market. The company's hope is that its strategy will win cachet for the brand in America and other key markets.

Until a year ago, India (India) was the fastest-growing automotive market in the world. Today the $33. 3 billion Indian auto industry has slumped to an eight-year low. November was particularly bruising as passenger car sales skidded 19%, to 83,079, down from 103,031 a year ago. Trucks sales plunged by half, the worst in 10 years, according to the latest data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Chief information officers in the Asia-Pacific region are still not keen to bring Web 2. 0 tools into their organizations, a new survey has found. Conducted by Springboard Research earlier this year, the study found that over 90 percent of the CIO-respondents said they had no plans to use blogs, wikis or social networking tools in the next 12 months.

We've all seen the victims of natural disasters, ordinary people standing in the rubble of their homes, their lives changed forever in mere minutes by a hurricane, tornado, or earthquake. For victims of the Bernard Madoff financial disaster, the shock is much the same—only they still have their homes, for the moment at least, as they try to figure out what has happened to their lives in the wake of Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

HONG KONG—Overcapacity. Looming bankruptcies. Government bailouts. The U. S. automobile industry? No, this is the global semiconductor industry, producers of the chips that power everything in today's economy from cell phones to smart infrastructure. While so much attention has been focused on American automakers, the convulsions in the chips business may have just as broad implications and possibly more strategic significance for countries around the world.

Late in the day on Dec. 16, Satyam Computer Services, the fourth-largest IT-services enterprise in India, announced the $1. 6 billion acquisition of two construction companies, Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties. Ramalinga Raju, the founder and chairman of Hyderabad's Satyam, called the purchase of the companies "a good diversification strategy" and said Satyam had no need to seek approval from shareholders.

A year ago there were reports that Digg had hired investment bank Allen & Co. to put the popular news aggregation Web site on the block with an asking price of $300 million. Bloggers predicted that buyers could "easily justify" the price given Digg's popularity, although no deal was ever consummated.

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin co-founded Google (GOOG) 10 years ago, few people imagined the kind of influence it would wield today—not just on the Internet, but increasingly in such established industries as media and software. Since then, Google has come to dominate the most lucrative piece of online advertising: the text ads placed next to its search results.

For most people, tough times mean tough choices. But here's a really offbeat one—the high profile alumni of India's premier tech schools have decided to lend a hand to grassroots development, as the corporate world is getting buffeted by the worst recession in decades. The old boys of the IITs have opted to focus on the India that lives in villages at their annual jamboree which is being held at IIT-Madras later this week.

As Americans argue about whether to rescue the Detroit automakers, a different kind of bailout debate is under way in Taiwan. Falling demand for consumer electronics has sent chip prices for DRAM (memory chips used in computers and other devices) plunging by almost 70%. That drop has slammed Taiwanese semiconductor companies, which account for one-third of the memory chips used in PCs and other electronics, and has led many executives to talk about getting money from the government.

When Ian Schlueter found out he'd be among the casualties of a layoff announced Dec. 11 by global shipper DHL, he was too shaken up to call friends and family. "I didn't want to talk about it," says Schlueter, an IT manager. "It just kind of sucks. " Instead he reached out to the Web for moral support.

Honda (HMC) had been tipped to weather the storm engulfing the auto sector better than most other carmakers. Analysts cited its penchant for fuel-efficient small cars and the absence of unpopular large models in its lineup. And while Honda trimmed earnings forecasts at its half-year earnings announcement on Oct.

A further slowdown in GDP growth in China and high levels of unemployment will affect the population's propensity to spend, meaning domestic consumption is unlikely to make up for falling exports. As soon as it became apparent that the financial crisis was no temporary matter, the Chinese government was quick to put forward Rmb4 trillion ($585 billion) to bolster its economy.

The Vietnamese funds industry is going through a restructuring, as various fund companies try to placate shareholders that are in the red and facing their own liquidity problems. Most Vietnam funds are listed closed-end products, and therefore don't have to face redemptions. But the funds' share prices are uniformly trading at deep discounts to NAV, in the range of 58-70%.

MUMBAI: India's two largest private airlines, Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, are contemplating another round of fare cut. After reducing fuel surcharge by Rs 550 per ticket last month, both the airlines are likely to reduce basic fares by Rs 600 per ticket in January, industry sources said.

While U. S. automakers struggle to survive after the Senate rejected a bailout for Detroit, one company from China may be showing a way forward for the industry. On Dec. 15, BYD Auto got a jump on General Motors (GM), Toyota (TM), and Nissan (NSANY) by introducing in its home town of Shenzhen the first mass-produced plug-in hybrid, the F3 DM.

At a time when layoff and cost-cutting dominate news space and drive conversations in corner rooms, corridors and staff canteens of India Inc, causing widespread panic and uncertainty, a handful of IT firms including Infosys, Cisco, HP, NIIT and CSC, to name a few, are encouraging their employees to chip in with suggestions to overcome the global economic crisis.

After a set of surprise victories in state and local elections last week, India's Congress Party, which governs the country in a coalition, now enters a period of intense campaigning for the national elections scheduled for April 2009. And although its spirits were buoyed by several unexpected victories on Dec.

Russia and China are protecting gangs of criminals engaged in cybercrimes such as internet fraud, blackmail and money laundering, according to a new study. The annual Virtual Criminology Report, commissioned by McAfee, is based on interviews with staff at organisations such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the United Nations and the FBI, found that a number of countries were providing "political cover" for criminals against attempts at prosecution by other nations.

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) announced on Dec. 12 that it will reorganize its divisions, shift its product strategy away from declining markets, and slash 1,000 management jobs and 5,000 contractors. The move prompted one analyst sarcastically to ask the Franco-American equipment maker's newly appointed chief financial officer, Paul Tufano, whether such restructuring—Alcatel's third in three years—is a trend that can be expected to "continue for perpetuity.

Not long ago the Western world was obsessed with sovereign wealth funds, those fast-growing pools of nationally owned assets fueled by oil money and trade surpluses. The fear was that they and their sometimes controversial owners would gobble up vast troves of trophy assets in the U. S. and elsewhere.

LG Electronics Chief Executive Nam Yong and his chief marketing officer, Dermot Boden, had just wrapped up a stormy strategy meeting. Tempers had flared—a rarity in a Korean company, where consensus and "face" are paramount. After the meeting this autumn, Nam said: "You know, we argue a lot.

The latest capital raising exercise by Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) shows that Japanese banks are weak, although for different reasons than their Western counterparts who have been hurt by their exposure to the subprime crisis. Japanese banks are suffering from a slowing economy, narrow interest margins and excessive exposure to the stockmarket.

According to results of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia-Pacific 2008 CEO Survey released Thursday, 86 percent of the 289 respondents indicated that they were either very or extremely confident in maintaining their company's growth over the next 12 months. The annual survey looks at business challenges faced by, as well as outlook of, enterprises recognized by Deloitte as the fastest-growing companies in the Asia-Pacific region's technology, media and telecom sector.

Even as the fate of the troubled U. S. auto giants dominates the world news, we've been hearing a lot about China's domestic auto champion Chery Auto, based in Wuhu, Anhui province. First the Chinese and Western media reported on Dec. 7 that Chery had won a $1. 5 billion deal with Export-Import Bank of China to help its exports grow.

John Moore is fighting to keep his company afloat. People no longer want to buy the gas-guzzlers sitting on his auto lot in Los Gatos, Calif. , an upscale town that's home to several Silicon Valley pioneers. His sole supplier, General Motors (GM), is begging the government for aid. With sales down 35% over the past 12 months, the 59-year-old Moore, who as a teenager worked at the family-owned dealership, wonders if there will be a business to pass on to his son, Bret.

The housing downturn spread quickly in 2008, pulling down home prices, triggering foreclosures, and forcing builders across the nation to slash prices and scrap new construction plans. But communities—even those within the same state—haven't suffered equally. You'll find relatively healthy pockets even in the most badly damaged states.

Ford Motor (F) has been making a lot of promises lately. On Dec. 4, as Alan Mulally, chief executive of the beleaguered Detroit automaker, sought about $9 billion in government loans, he pledged to limit executive compensation, renegotiate employee contracts, and definitively steer Ford toward making greener cars.

Once China de-pegged the yuan from the U. S. dollar on July 21, 2005, the exchange rate issue faded as a major irritant in U. S. -Sino relations. Since then, the yuan, also known as the renminbi or "people's money," has gradually strengthened by more than 20%, to its present level of 6.

Industry data seem to suggest that the first round of government measures aimed at reviving China's ailing property sector, including the deep cuts in interest rates, are having an impact. The Shanghai city government has reported that the nunber of new homes sold in November was 47% higher than the number sold in September and 36% higher than in October.

This just in: After pushing back the launch date by more than a year, Sony's (SNE) video game division plans to release PlayStation Home, an online 3-D social networking service, on Dec. 11. Like Linden Labs' Second Life, Home will let users interact with others through their own computer-generated characters in a virtual setting.

Shares of Russian companies have lost nearly three-quarters of their value in six months. The price of government bonds is down by almost a quarter. The ruble is sliding, losing 20% of its value against the U. S. dollar since August. The price of oil, Russia's chief export, has fallen by 70% since the summer.

Under withering criticism for its handling of the country's economic slowdown and Mumbai's terrorist attacks (BusinessWeek, 12/4/08), the Indian government fought back over the weekend, announcing a coordinated, two-flanked stimulus plan that could top $8 billion. India's moribund stock market momentarily cheered, rising almost 4% by midday.

As 2008 gradually develops into a bad memory, the focus is shifting towards the coming year. The global economy is on its knees and under continued attack by an array of poor economic indicators, making the future look pretty bleak. As the banks release their 2009 outlooks, one assertion might offer solace to local residents: Asia is where you want to be to weather the storm.

New Delhi/Mumbai - Until Nov. 26 the strongest force pushing India forward was a mix of good fundamentals and that intangible something that industry calls "sentiment. " Forged in the years of 9% growth, this euphoria inspired Indians to economic greatness and lured outside investors eager to be part of the Indian miracle.

McDonald's (MCD) is busily remodeling its U. S. locations, accessorizing interiors with flat-panel televisions and plush chairs—even the exteriors are made of real brick these days (BusinessWeek, 5/15/06). Now the Oak Brook (Ill. ) chain is turning to its packaging. In early November the king of cheap eats began rolling out new packaging across its 13,900 U.

Matthew Boon, managing vice president at Gartner, told ZDNet Asia in a recent interview that the current climate would be opportune for Asian companies to compete with global multinational corporations (MNCs). Sydney-based Boon also noted in a media briefing last month, that while IT spending is expected to continue amidst the slowdown, enterprise users—particularly in the hardware market—will likely exhibit lower brand loyalty and adopt a cost-conscious mindset.

The slowdown in the US automobile industry is likely to impact the growth of select Indian IT companies. Some Indian companies such as Satyam Computer Services, TCS, Wipro and Infosys could be hit by delayed payments and a freeze in contracts as their major customers in the auto sector face threat of bankruptcy, according to analysts.

The economic news from China looks anything but encouraging these days. The export slump is deepening, corporate earnings in the third quarter fell 13% from a year earlier, while industrial output growth has hit a seven-year low and cash-flow problems are plaguing airlines, manufacturers, and beleaguered property companies.

Like most Chinese Internet companies, instant-messaging champion Tencent has never known anything but fat times. It was a mere infant during the dot-com collapse in 2000, so it avoided most of the pain. And since Tencent went public in 2004, it has built on its lead in instant messaging—both on computers and mobile phones—plus or minusto become the most popular online destination for young Chinese, offering games, e-mail, and social networking.

Six years ago, Paul Nelson gave up his long career in the defense industry for what he thought would be a peaceful retirement in Tucson. The weather was mild, the neighbors friendly. He had plenty of time to volunteer and garden. But retirement hasn't worked out the way he planned. In 2006 his wife of 46 years died unexpectedly.

On a recent winter's afternoon, Xin Wen popped into his neighborhood WuMart supermarket to buy groceries for his family. He walked pass the shelves stacked with Coca-Cola (KO), iced tea, and sports drinks to grab two 2. 5-liter jugs of Huiyuan pear and peach nectar fruit juices. "I don't buy Coke much.

New Delhi's Tulip Telecom isn't about to compete directly against big Indian telecom operators like Bharti Airtel and Reliance that focus on voice. Instead, Tulip has carved out a niche for itself as the leading Indian company providing data services to business. Ranking No. 8 on BusinessWeek's annual Asia Hot Growth Companies list, Tulip began designing and developing networks for corporate and rural clients a decade ago and entered the last-mile wireless data connectivity business in 2004.

David Campaña's 90-minute commute from his Springfield (N. J. ) apartment to his job in lower Manhattan—first by car, then by subway, and finally by foot—might sound like an ordeal. But the 37-year-old chief technology officer for the New York City Finance Dept. loves his commute.

Few companies in South Korea are better positioned to benefit from the buzz Apple (AAPL) created with its iPhone than Digitech Technology. The largest touchscreen maker in Korea isn't providing its products to Apple, which doesn't sell iPhones in Korea (BusinessWeek. com, 6/13/08). But the growing popularity of touchscreens generated by the booming sales of iPhones and other smart phones has helped Digitech win a contract this year to supply 200,000 3.

Conventional wisdom says the $40 billion gaming industry's fortunes aren't tied to the economy. The rationale goes like this: During a downturn, people go out less and load up on video games for stay-at-home entertainment. But this financial crisis is unlike anything the gaming industry has faced, and the old assumptions might not hold true.

The buzz on the Internet was that Nokia would announce it is building a laptop computer. That was off the mark, but it's easy to see how the rumor got started. The N97 smartphone that the Finnish company unveiled in Barcelona on Dec. 2 looks very much like a laptop, albeit one that fits in your pocket.

In the auto industry, sometimes it pays to avoid the recent fashion. In the late 1990s, when the mantra of auto consultants was that all but the biggest car companies must merge or die, Honda (HMC) remained fiercely independent and flourished. Alliances, including the ill-fated coming together of Daimler (DAI), Chrysler, and Mitsubishi Motors, in most cases didn't pay off.

Chris Wysopal is the head of a four-iPod family. His wife and two kids all carry the pint-size nano music player from Apple (AAPL), while he uses a 2003-vintage device he got as a hand-me-down from his wife. But as much as they love their iPods, the Wysopal family has no plans to buy any new ones in the foreseeable future.

When global oil prices were closing in on $150 a barrel, it looked like a blessing for renewable energy. Not for solar technology, though. Manufacturers of photovoltaic cells were grappling with shortages of a key substance called crystalline silicon and were having to pay through the nose for it—$400 per kilogram, 10 times what it cost just four years ago.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally bombed last month in hearings before the Senate (BusinessWeek. com, 11/18/08) and House of Representatives in which Detroit's Big Three automakers were asking for up to $25 billion in loans. Mulally's performance was hurt in large part by the fact that most members of Congress treated the CEOs of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler as if they were all in the same boat (or corporate jet).

Released Friday, the Digital World, Digital Life study by market research firm TNS showed that the global average for the amount of leisure time spent in cyberspace was nearly 30 percent. Over 27,500 people aged 18 to 55 years were interviewed online for the study. The respondents came from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

President-elect Barack Obama has made a promise: to save or create 2. 5 million jobs over the next two years. Estimates of the cost of his high-powered spending program to rescue the U. S. economy start at $500 billion and go way up from there. But a giant issue lurks: How much of Obama's mammoth fiscal stimulus will "leak" abroad, creating jobs in China, Germany, or Mexico rather than the U.

Investors have every reason to hate the U. S. dollar. The rising deficit. The deteriorating economy. The plunging stock and bond markets. But rather than getting hammered by the financial crisis, the greenback is soaring. Since July the dollar is up 19% against the euro and 24% against the British pound.

The political fallout from the terrorist attacks in Mumbai is roiling India. As funeral pyres burned on live television and mass candlelit vigils turned into sober protests against the government's perceived intelligence failures and mishandling of the attacks that left as many as 175 people dead (BusinessWeek.

Japan's globalisation has so far been outbound only. The next step is to open up the economy to foreign capital and labour—or face another fight with deflation, says Kyohei Morita. In an interview with FinanceAsia, the chief economist at Barclays Capital also notes that unless the global economy recovers, the Japanese economy is in for a double blow with a slowdown in the financial sector as well as the domestic economy.

Flush with cash, credit, and the ambition to become global players, leading Chinese firms are taking advantage of the fear and tumbling stock markets in America and Europe to increase their international presence. While the is certainly slowing, the country has not been wracked by the credit squeeze that has hit the rest of the world, as there is the tacit feeling that the government will bail out any of the big banks in distress.

Jack Tan was a Western marketer's dream. The 24-year-old bank manager from the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen regularly spent a big chunk of his $1,200 monthly salary at Pizza Hut (YUM), McDonald's (MCD), and TGI Friday's. He wears Nikes (NKE), carries a Nokia (NOK) phone, and listens to Linkin Park and Green Day on his iPod (AAPL) nano.

Bernardo Huberman has sifted through reams of data from Facebook, YouTube (GOOG), Digg, and Amazon. com (AMZN) to build mathematical models that can predict how popular information posted to a Web site will become based on the speed at which users discover it. The director of HP's (HPQ) social computing lab, Huberman and his team of social scientists have also modeled how users' attention declines over time.

When Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo said in early November that the company was interested acquiring mid-sized tech manufacturer Sanyo Electric, he envisioned finalizing the deal by late December (BusinessWeek. com, 11/7/08). The path to forming a tech giant with $110 billion in annual revenues seemed clear-cut: Panasonic would start by buying out Sanyo's three biggest investors (BusinessWeek.

As they try to tackle China's economic problems, Beijing leaders are not taking any half measures. Earlier this month the government unveiled a massive $586 billion dollar fiscal package of tax cuts and spending projects. Now in a further attempt to goose growth, China's central bank on Nov.

The economic picture in Britain—Europe's second-largest economy—is getting ugly. The country's GDP growth has started to slow, unemployment levels have risen at their fastest rate in almost two decades, the value of British real estate has fallen 15% in the last year, and the pound has lost a quarter of its value against the dollar since midsummer.

Five years. For a newly minted undergrad, it sounds like a long time. It might be, but it's also roughly the amount of work experience collected before a student enters an MBA program. Which means that if you're planning on going to business school someday, you'll boost your chances of getting into a top school by spending those five years wisely.

The five-story building off one of the hot, dusty boulevards of South Delhi looks little different from others in the quiet residential neighborhood. But descend the steps to the basement apartment, open the heavy oak door, and you'll find a thriving design firm called Desmania. The dozens of employees in the crowded room spend their days designing products, crafting logos, and creating Web sites for clients in India and abroad.

As Somali pirates hold captive the Sirius Star, a Saudi ship with almost $100 million in oil on board, and Indian, British, Russian, and German ships battle pirates up and down the Gulf of Aden, one might imagine that the battle against piracy (BusinessWeek. com, 11/18/08) is the largest crisis faced by the merchant navy industry.

For more than six decades, through oil shocks and terrorist attacks, the world's advanced economies have managed to expand their collective output at least a little bit each year. But that long lucky streak is probably about to end, a victim of the severe global credit crunch. The International Monetary Fund is now projecting that 2009 will bring the first aggregate decline in economic output in advanced economies since at least World War II.

There's never a good time for a company to have its chairman under investigation. But news that Chinese authorities have detained Huang Guangyu, the country's wealthiest tycoon, could hardly have come at a worse moment for his company, consumer electronics retailer Gome Electrical Appliance Holdings.

This year's mortgage meltdown suggests the U. S. standard of living is a house of cards. Mortgaging the nation's future is no substitute for a productive globally competitive society that borrows to invest rather than borrows to consume. The current economic crisis should be a wake-up call that the U.

After holding back Diwali bonus, India's largest private airline Jet Airways has now proposed to slash salaries of its top key executives by 25% in a bid to control costs. The decision has been taken by chairman Naresh Goyal at an internal meeting with employees at Hotel Renaissance, Powai, on Sunday night.

By the autumn of 2001 it looked as if Peter Diamandis' luck had run out. Five years earlier, the wonkish Bronx-born doctor with dreams of being an astronaut had made headlines by promising to pay $10 million to the first privately financed crew to fly into space. He saw the jackpot as a way to spur a private space industry, as well as a means to generate some business for himself and perhaps even a ride to the moon.

While the scramble to raise capital by most major banks over the past few months has left no doubt about the seriousness of the financial crisis, the current wave of layoffs gives a clear indication that the banks expect it to last for some time yet. The percentages vary from bank to bank, but the cutbacks announced so far have all been significant as the firms position themselves for another slow quarter—at least.

When Jun Aoki's new building, SIA Aoyama, opened in Tokyo earlier this year, it wasn't immediately obvious who the tenants were. Standing 60 meters tall, the smooth all-white tower looked as if it might be apartments or offices or a hotel. And there was something slightly off-kilter about its design: Instead of conventional wraparound windows, Aoki had created large, square punch-out windows of varying sizes that didn't seem to line up.

After going to Capitol Hill and begging for a $25 billion bailout, the three chief executives of General Motors (GM), Ford (F), and Chrysler have been sent away with a request for a "plan" by members of Congress. And if they want to get the taxpayers' money they so desperately need, they had better come up with something good.

As China's economy boomed during the past few years, dozens of Chinese companies jumped into the car business, setting up factories to produce autos for the growing middle class. Thanks to those new automakers, many of them backed by local governments, today there are more than 100 Chinese auto manufacturers with a combined production capacity of over 9.

The number of résumés being e-mailed to Jobinfo, a leading Israeli high-tech recruitment company, has jumped by more than 50% in the past few weeks. Most are from recently laid-off workers in an industry that until not long ago was facing a manpower shortage. Several thousand have lost their jobs since the beginning of this month, and the number grows daily as the global recession starts to bite into Israel's largest export industry.

Imagine you were offered a dream job that required you to relocate to your favorite city. Which city would it be? And why? If you're like most Americans, you might select New York, San Diego, or San Francisco, according to a soon-to-be released survey of 2,500 employees and entrepreneurs across the nation by the Human Capital Institute, a Washington-based think tank and professional association largely made up of human resources professionals.

At first blush, the election of Barack Obama as President raises the specter of policy clash between the U. S. and its ally South Korea over a nuclear-armed North Korea. During his campaign, Obama expressed his willingness to hold direct talks with North Korea, including a possible summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.

Considering the home states of some of the Republican Senators opposed to a $25 billion bailout of Detroit, a cynic might concede that they are doing Asian automakers' work for them. After all, Republicans who have criticized the planned aid package for (GM), Ford (F) and Chrysler include those from states where Japanese and Korean automakers have factories.

It sounded like a compelling story. During a visit to South Africa in October, I saw a news report in which a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo described in wrenching terms how demand for a metal used in consumer electronics is fueling a new outbreak of bloodshed in the mineral-rich region.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd has a simple credo: Follow the numbers. His insistence that employees focus on the bottom line is beginning to pay off. On Nov. 18, the tech giant countered a spate of recent dour warnings from tech bellwethers, saying fiscal fourth-quarter results would beat analysts' forecasts.

The weekend seizure of a Saudi supertanker called the Sirius Star off Africa's east coast marks a costly and potentially dangerous new development in the escalating wave of pirate attacks against shipping in the waters off Somalia. The pirates are said to have seized the vessel some 420 nautical miles offshore, about 100 miles farther out to sea from previous attacks.

At a time when customers in the US and Europe are tightening their IT budgets, leading Indian tech firms are betting on their huge pile of cash to steer through the global economic crisis and also to explore M&A opportunities in a world reeling under severe liquidity crunch. Each of the top six Indian software services firms—TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, HCL Technologies and Cognizant—have cash reserves in excess of $500 million, with Infosys topping the list at $1.

Kuala Lumpur - This might be a good time for investors to pick up a copy of the Koran. Stocks and other investments that adhere to sharia, or Islamic law—though hardly unscathed—have fared better than the broader market. That's thanks largely to rules that forbid investing in collateralized debt obligations and other toxic assets that have caused the carnage in conventional financial circles.

These days when KPMG's Mumbai corporate finance head Rohit Kapur meets Indian chief executives, he finds a marked difference in the corner suite talk. Until recently, Indian bosses were still firming up their mergers-and-acquisition shopping itinerary. No longer. "Now they talk of rationalizing their business portfolio and monetizing assets to expand their core businesses," he says.

Most people in the U. S. and elsewhere in the West think of China and India largely as sources for inexpensive products and services. Few know that China, India, and other developing countries are taking center stage in the global war for innovation and talent. Consider some important benchmarks: Scientists and engineers in China, India, and Russia are now producing an estimated 150,000 scientific and technical papers annually, more than many Western European nations.

Democrats may have been the big victors on Election Day. But the Republicans still in charge in the White House and representing a possibly immovable minority in the Senate may keep the U. S. auto industry from getting the help it needs before Barack Obama is inaugurated as President in January. To convince wary Republicans to go along with a rescue package, a House bill being crafted would give the government stock warrants, an equity stake in the automakers.

Twenty years ago, an American needing knee surgery probably wouldn't think of jetting off to India for the operation. But times keep changing, health insurance costs keep rising, and Kumar Jagadeesan can cite a statistic that has led many patients to jump aboard a plane. "A knee surgery operation in the U.

Finance minister P Chidambaram assured real estate developers that government will impress upon banks to accelerate lending to realty, which is facing one of the worst slowdown in the recent times. A delegation of builders under the Confederation of Real Estate developers' Association of India (CREDAI), met Chidambaram on Wednesday to complain against banks' reluctance to disburse loans to the real estate companies.

The election is finally over, and as the dust settles, it's time for some accounting. How will small businesses fare under an Obama administration? Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein asked three experts—Bill Rys, tax counsel for advocacy group National Federation of Independent Business; Jay Sumner, labor law attorney with the law firm of Littler Mendelson; and John Arensmeyer, executive director of advocacy group Small Business Majority—to comment about issues important to entrepreneurs, including taxes, labor policy, and health care.

No doubt Beijing's massive $586 billion stimulus package, announced with much fanfare on Nov. 9 (BusinessWeek. com, 11/9/08), is aimed at combating China's slowing economy. But even as growth continues to show signs of weakness—on Nov. 11 China reported 4. 6% consumer price inflation growth, the slowest in 17 months—there is an equally compelling reason for the planned huge expenditure: meeting the needs of the largest urbanization in human history.

For more than two years, Ruth Lycke made little progress recovering from a stroke she suffered in November, 2001, when she was 42. Lycke, a former nurse and paramedic from Green Mountain, Iowa, was left with limited mobility on her right side and difficulty in speaking. She underwent extensive occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy, all paid for by her insurance company, but she didn't get well.

The management at Citic Pacific is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief after being thrown a lifeline by its controlling shareholder, state-owned Chinese investment company Citic Group. Having shocked shareholders a few weeks back with the revelation that contracts entered into by its finance chief to hedge an exposure to the Australian dollar had turned sour and cost the company close to $2 billion in losses, Citic Pacific has struck an agreement to sell the majority of the "toxic" contracts to Citic Group, effectively eliminating any further losses from this exposure.

Like many medical centers in Asia, Bangkok's Bumrungrad Hospital had big expectations for a global trend known as medical tourism. Administrators were especially eager to attract more patients from the U. S. (BusinessWeek. com, 3/17/08) keen on saving money by having hip replacements, cosmetic surgery, and other operations overseas.

It's a breezy fall day and the trees lining the parking lots at IBM's (IBM) corporate campus in Hawthorne, N. Y. , are turning bright red. But the leaves aren't the only things changing here. The site is the first client briefing center where meetings, essentially day-long technology demonstrations and sales pitches for potential customers of Big Blue's consulting services, have been newly structured.

Just a year ago he was the third-richest man in the U. S. , with a net worth topping $36 billion. Today, gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson is scrambling to save his Las Vegas Sands (LVS) from financial collapse. On Nov. 10, the company reported that Goldman Sachs (GS) had successfully arranged $2. 1 billion in new capital, including an as-yet-undisclosed investment from Adelson himself.

(Editor's note: this is the second in a series of articles on the lack of broadband access in the U. S. ) When Debra and Lee Sherbeyn first moved to rural Virginia 14 years ago, they didn't own a computer, much less fret over access to the Web. It wasn't long before they had a machine and were logging onto the Internet using a dial-up modem.

President-elect Barack Obama radiates a cool, steady calmness. Watching him from afar, you cannot imagine him coming down hard on people to get things done; this is not his style and he knows it. That's why he chose as his chief of staff a man who according to NPR's Morning Editio loves to "win.

Early and enthusiastic adopters of 3G phones, Japanese are some of the world's most sophisticated consumers of cellular services. But Japan is not a growth market. It's now almost saturated, with nearly 82% of the country's population of 127 million toting cell phones. Struggling with moribund sales at home, Japan's NTT DoCoMo (DCM) is now looking to a very different type of market, India.

ihub Media announced the partnership Tuesday, saying it will market a range of additional advertising formats to customers that are not available to "walk-in" advertisers in the region--those who create "DIY" advertisements via Facebook's site itself. These include banner advertisements and embedded videos in the site's side bar.

President-elect Barack Obama may stand for change, but he's turned to some powerful Washington insiders to help him staff the nation's top communications regulator, the Federal Communications Commission. Picking the FCC chairman may not be the top priority for the Obama transition team, which is focused on naming a Treasury secretary tasked with ending the economic crisis, and appointing foreign policy leaders who will need to navigate two wars and other pressing diplomatic issues.

Long-term players like pension funds and endowment funds from foreign shores continued to get registered with the Indian market regulator even as FIIs have pulled out over $10 billion from the Indian markets so far this year. Nearly 238 new FIIs have got registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) since January this year and 24 of them came in the last month alone when the market witnessed sharp sell off.

Stevenson University President Kevin J. Manning recently got bad news from the college's financial adviser at Bank of America (BAC). The suburban Maryland school, which had sold $122 million worth of bonds chiefly to pay for a second campus and new dormitories, had set aside $8. 5 million to cover its interest payments.

If you have to be a banker during the global financial crisis, the best place to be is Asia. The region is home to a thrifty and conservative population that already holds 60% to 80% of its wealth in bank deposits. And Asian bankers can expect even more deposits as investors flee equity markets in the continuing credit crisis.

On Nov. 15, finance ministers from the 20 wealthiest countries are scheduled to convene in Washington, D. C. , to discuss what could amount to a comprehensive overhaul of the global financial system. The alarming speed with which the credit crisis has spread from toxic mortgage-backed assets in the U.

BANGALORE, INDIA The Hard Rock Café in downtown Bangalore used to be a swinging place, with free-flowing booze, loud music, and dancing into the wee hours. But on a recent Thursday night, George Phillip and his friends watched woefully as a waiter made off with unfinished drinks a half hour before midnight.

"Larger deposit guarantees do not affect sovereign ratings in Asia," says Aninda Mitra, a vice-president at Moody's Investors Service, who published a report last week on the major regional banking systems and the effects of government guarantees on the fiscal positions of Asian countries.

The U. S. election is over. The die is cast. The Democrats have won the White House. In addition, the party has increased its majority in Congress, even though it fell short of the filibuster-beating level. While some worry about a single-party government with a blank checkbook and little oversight, history reminds us that, contrary to popular opinion, political unity has actually been good for stocks.

Opponents of a planned search advertising deal between Google and Yahoo! may have little cause to celebrate the proposal's demise. Advertisers fretted the alliance, announced in June, would make Google even more dominant in the most lucrative corner of online advertising. The deal unraveled Nov.

In the auto sector, the bad news just keeps coming. On Nov. 6 in Tokyo, Toyota Motor (TM) announced results that were grim even in comparison to rivals Honda Motor (HMC) and Nissan Motor (NSANY), which recently cut their full-year earnings forecasts and now expect operating profits to plunge 42% and 51%, respectively.

After job cuts and pay cuts, India Inc is now wielding the axe on dividends. Several companies are expressing inability to pay dividend at the proposed rate, attributing it to factors like liquidity crunch, earnings slowdown and capex plans. They are either reducing the rate of dividend from the proposed level or even deciding not to pay any dividend, causing a double whammy for shareholders who have already suffered a huge capital loss since the start of this year.

As the U. S. faces a serious economic downturn, many Americans are seeking out the cheapest possible option when buying necessities. Enter ultra-discounters like Dollar Tree (DLTR), 99 Cents Only (NDN), and Family Dollar Stores (FDO). All three retail chains have seen their stock prices surge this year, a rare bright spot in a stock market beaten down by the financial crisis and recession worries.

With 11 operators now doing business in Indonesia, the surge in competition has served its purpose—to reduce mobile tariffs sharply from just a year ago. But the question now becomes -- is there too much competition and how many can survive as mobile penetration passes 60% and subscriber growth starts to slow? PT Excelcomindo president Hasnul Suhaimi said during a panel discussion yesterday in Jakarta that consolidation may or may not come.

The king of good times has flown into fresh turbulence. Liquor baron Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines has defaulted on payment of lease rentals to GE Commercial Aviation Services (GECAS) for four A320s, according to a complaint filed by the US company with India's aviation regulator. Upset at the default, GECAS, one of the world's top aircraft lessors, has asked the Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) for permission to repossess the aircraft and has demanded that the aircraft be de-registered from the airline.

India's textile and apparel export industry may not be as high profile as most of its tech companies. But it is the country's second-largest exporter after IT and the largest employer. A year ago, when the Indian rupee was strong, local textile players were fighting for survival (BusinessWeek.

Investors will be spending the morning after the election of a new U. S. President figuring out what it means for their investments and the stock market as a whole. (At just after 11 p. m. ET on Nov. 4, media outlets projected that Barack Obama would be elected the 44th U. S. President. ) Some minimize the importance of the man in the White House, putting more emphasis on the state of the U.

Nokia executives have long maintained that customers in emerging markets will get on the Internet primarily through their mobile phones. On Nov. 4 the company announced a series of new devices and services designed to prove the assertion by extending the benefits of the Web to rural Indians, including crop information for farmers and mobile e-mail for people who don't have access to a personal computer.

Throughout the world, people have welcomed President-Elect Barack Obama. The reaction was especially enthusiastic in the Japanese city of Obama, located in Fukui prefecture, 300 miles west of Tokyo. On Nov. 5, as election returns showed the city's namesake heading toward a big victory over rival John McCain, locals celebrated by chanting the Illinois Senator's name, dancing Hawaiian-style dances, and eating specially prepared "Obama"-branded hamburgers and sweets.

The most heated, high-stakes, and divisive Presidential election in recent memory is now over, and on Jan. 20, 2009, the U. S. will welcome Barack Obama as our next President. Even the most diehard Republicans would have to agree that President-Elect Obama ran an outstanding campaign, but Obama's greatest challenges lie ahead: preventing our teetering economy from collapsing, ending a war that most U.

KT CEO Nam Joong-soo has been questioned by federal prosecutors over bribery allegations. The prosecutors will shortly be seeking an arrest warrant for the executive. Nam was summoned for questioning last week, over allegations he received around 300 million won ($236,000) under-the-table for selecting personnel and subcontractors from KT affiliates.

It is an oft-repeated refrain in the 2008_election season that even while America remains torn between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, the rest of the world has overwhelmingly chosen Obama. Poll after poll shows how the invasion of Iraq, the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo, and the sagging popularity of President George W.

(Editor's note: This is an updated version of the story. ) The eyes of motor sports were on São Paulo on Nov. 2 for the final grand prix of the 2008 Formula One season. At stake wasn't just the F1 World Drivers' Championship—the crowning moment in a global sport whose annual revenues rank behind only the National Football League and Major League Baseball.

Anyone who was looking for China somehow miraculously to save the world economy is going to be terribly discouraged by the latest signs of a economic slowdown in the Middle Kingdom. The CLSA China Manufacturers Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) showed that factory activity contracted sharply during October, with the index falling to its lowest level since the surveys began in June 2004.

Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer bristles every time he gets the question: Why can't the Japanese electronics giant be more like Apple? The maker of the iPod, iPhone, and Mac computers consistently delivers supercool gadgets that are easy to use, while Sony sells music players, TVs, and cameras that get mixed reviews and often don't even work well with other Sony (SNE) products.

As General Motors and Chrysler carry on talks about a merger that could turn the Big Three of Detroit automakers into the Big Two, the other player, Ford, remains a major employer in Asia. FinanceAsia talks to John Parker, executive vice-president Asia-Pacific and Africa, about operations in Thailand.

In what may the biggest sign yet that banks are getting serious about attacking the nationwide wave of home foreclosures, giant JPMorgan Chase (JPM) announced on Oct. 31 that it is sharply ramping up its efforts to restructure the loans in its massive mortgage portfolio. For the next 90 days, JPMorgan will not place any new homes into foreclosure.

These are heady times for Wal-Mart (WMT). The Bentonville (Ark. ) retailer has been enjoying double-digit profit growth and strong sales as bargain hunters crowd its aisles. Its stock is up about 20% since the start of the year. And shoppers like Sal Garcia of Downey, Calif. , are joining the growing ranks of loyal customers.

Back in 2002, Scott Chatel's business remodeling brownstones and apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan was so good that he set a goal to increase annual sales from $2 million to $5 million by 2005. He signed a three-year lease and renovated new office space, expanded his staff, and printed four-color brochures.

Employees with IT firms are spooked by fear of layoffs as demand for IT services slows down. At some of the top IT firms, talk of layoffs among employees and repeated management clarifications are becoming a regular feature. The latest layoff buzz is coming from Wipro, the country's third largest IT exporter.

At age 27, the winner of BusinessWeek's annual search for Asia's best young entrepreneur is already on his third startup. Delhi resident Vivek Pahwa launched DesiMartini. com, a social networking site, in 2006 and sold it to HT Media, owner of the Hindustan Times, last November for an undisclosed sum.

Video games are recession-proof. That has been the conventional wisdom among gaming industry executives for years. But faced with the worst financial crisis in decades and the prospect of a global slowdown, will consumers see games as a frivolous expense? Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata doesn't think so.

As the food safety crisis in China escalates—the latest news reports suggest that fish, pork, and chicken, along with milk and eggs, could be contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, which has already sickened tens of thousands and killed at least four (BusinessWeek. com, 9/26/08)—multinationals are beginning to realize that simple reassurances are no longer sufficient.

No one said Ben Verwaayen's job would be easy. But the difficulties facing the new chief executive of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) were underscored on Oct. 30 when the French-American telecommunications-equipment maker reported quarterly results below analysts' already low expectations. Operating profits fell 43% year-on-year, to $51 million, as revenues from its core business, sales to fixed-line and mobile-phone carriers, slumped 13%, to $3.

For a certain kind of golfer, owning a course is a romantic dream—like running a bar or investing in a Broadway production. After all, what could be better than waking up, deciding where the pins on each green should be set for the day, and collecting cash from all the other golf fanatics in your town who are just lining up to play? But it isn't quite that simple.

Give Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao credit for looking on the bright side. Visiting Moscow on Oct. 28 for a summit with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Chinese leader opened a conference on Sino-Russian cooperation by trying to dispel any doubts about the health of China's economy. Conceding the global credit crunch has "caused a certain degree of impact," Wen nonetheless said: "We are full of confidence in China's economic development and financial stability.

In the wheat fields of Washington State's Klickitat County, the blades of 133 wind turbines spin rhythmically in the breeze. Built in 2006 near the town of Bickleton, the installation—known as the Big Horn Wind Project—produces enough electricity to power 60,000 homes and is one of hundreds of renewable energy projects that have sprung up across the U.

As the financial crisis spreads across the globe, businesses are recasting plans to deal with uncertainty. Recessions tend to shuffle the deck: When business slows, the opportunities to make mistakes or take advantage of weaker players increase. Companies make more dramatic gains and losses in recessions than in boom times, and those that make major gains are more likely to sustain them.

On a recent Monday morning, the eighth graders in Chris Malanga's technology class at Riverhead (N. Y. ) Middle School were hard at work constructing Web pages. Scattered across computer screens in this classroom about 75 miles east of Manhattan were Web pages reflecting students' distinct personalities and interests.

The launch of diesel Nano has been postponed due to demand slowdown and capex crunch owing to the shift from Singur to Sanand. According to auto industry sources, diesel Nano, which was scheduled to rollout sometime in 2009, has now been delayed with the focus on first launching the gasoline version in the first quarter of the next calendar year.

The spectacular surge in Volkswagen's share price has burned speculators who had bet on a fall in the stock of Europe's largest carmaker in the financial crisis. Hedge funds lost up to €15 billion in just one day on Monday as VW stock prices skyrocketed, the Financial Times reported. Those funds had entered into short-selling of VW shares—selling borrowed VW stock hoping the price would fall so they could repay with lower-priced shares and pocket the profit—and scrambled to buy VW stock when they saw the share price rise in the wake of sports car maker Porsche's announcement that it had increased its VW stake.

So much for the renaissance at Sony (SNE). On Oct. 23, the Tokyo electronics and entertainment company issued a profit warning for this year, blaming the yen's sudden surge and lower expectations for TV and digital camera sales. Sony officials now concede that it's unlikely the company will achieve some of the ambitious targets set by CEO Howard Stringer less than four months ago (BusinessWeek.

With financial markets crumbling and capital for startups harder to find, what should would-be entrepreneurs do? For a growing number, this might be just the time to head back to the classroom. Judy Olian, head of the business school at the University of California at Los Angeles, says that applications typically increase during bad times.

The recession we are heading into promises to be brutal and long-lasting. Once the pink slips start piling up—as they surely will—the workplace will become increasingly Darwinian. In times like these, the default setting for many people goes something like this: I'm going to keep my head down, avoid drawing attention, and hope to be standing when the destruction passes.

At 6:30 p. m. on a Friday, Park Sang Pil and three of his colleagues at South Korea's BCcard rush to play a round of golf together. Although their tee time is just 10 minutes away, they still haven't decided on which course they will be playing. Not to worry: With just the click of a mouse, they can choose from more than 50 courses, including the Old Course at St.

The global credit crunch and market rout are clearly scaring Japanese officials. On Oct. 27, Tokyo took the unusual step of rallying the world's richest nations to warn investors that the Japanese currency's rise to its highest level in years poses a threat to the global economy. In a statement, the Group of Seven specifically singled out the yen's "recent volatility" as a possible factor in undermining "economic and financial stability.

For most people, this feels like a very uncertain and dangerous time to be invested in the stock market. Even as the U. S. government becomes more clear about the capital infusions earmarked for a growing number of banks, and credit spreads show encouraging signs of narrowing, equity market volatility continues to head skyward.

Autumn is usually the busiest time for real estate salesman Wang Yaodong. Last September and October, for instance, he sold more than a dozen luxury townhouses in western Shanghai, but this year he has sold only one. "Everybody is waiting for prices to fall," Wang says. Wang's lament is a common refrain in China these days.

Posted on Edge Economy: October 21, 2008 1:11 PM How should boardrooms respond to the macro crisis? Is it just a case of recession-as-usual: budget-paring, personnel-slashing, and portfolio-trimming? Not a chance. The tactics of recession-as-usual are neither necessary nor sufficient for firms to weather the global economic superstorm—because it's no ordinary squall, but a once-in-a-lifetime gale ripping up the very foundations of the global economic order.

Metrobank Group, the Philippines' largest bank in terms of assets, last week formally announced its intention to take over Philippine American Life and General Insurance Company (Philamlife), making it the latest participant in the race for American International Group's (AIG) Asian assets.

The focus is always on who is the richest among Ambani brothers and Lakshmi Mittal but Mukesh and Anil are ahead of the India-born steel tycoon in terms of losses suffered due to the global stock meltdown. But in terms of loss in percentage terms, realtors Ramesh Chandra of Unitech and K P Singh of DLF are among the top losers, an analysis of group market capitalisation and shareholding value of the 10 richest Indians reveals.

India's third-largest IT services exporter, Wipro, on Wednesday posted better-than-expected sales and profit for the second quarter, but much of the sheen was clouded by the plunge in client additions, which fell to its lowest in a year-and-a-half and the company's expectation of poor revenue growth in Q3.

Samsung Electronics executives are putting on a brave face after the company posted disappointing quarterly results. On Oct. 24 the Korean giant announced net profit for the third quarter was down 44% from a year earlier, to $1. 15 billion. But, they say, they have reason to stay optimistic about their future.

Since its founding in 2003, Elon Musk's Tesla Motors has been a proud creature of Silicon Valley. That's to say a startup with outsize ambitions and a public disdain for business as usual—or at least as practiced by the dinosaurs in Detroit. On a tight budget, Tesla built an electric car, the Roadster, that's acclaimed for its harmonious balance of greenness, beauty, and performance.

If Wal-Mart (WMT) is to be believed, the world's biggest retailer's latest slogan, "Saving people money, so they can live better," will soon need to be replaced with a greener, more socially conscious one. At a gathering of top company executives, nongovernmental organizations, and more than 1,000 suppliers in Beijing on Oct.

These are tough times for Macau as its growth story finally starts to slow down. Government figures released this week show that in the third quarter of 2008, Macau's gross gaming revenues were down 10% from the second quarter, a much bigger quarter-on-quarter decline than the 3. 3% drop in the second quarter versus the first.

At first glance, third-quarter results from telecom giant AT&T (T) appear strong. The Dallas-based phone service provider posted net income of $3. 23 billion, or 55¢ a share, a 5. 5% increase from $3. 06 billion, or 50¢ a share, a year earlier. Revenue gained 4%, to $31. 3 billion, led by a notable 15.

When Daniel Ion bought his first home last year, his monthly mortgage payment was $704. Now it's $939—and rising. "We wanted so much to have our own house, but now we are really starting to feel the burden," says Ion. Soon, he frets, his salary as a manager at a toy factory may not be sufficient to cover the payments.

Jack Ganssle, chief engineer at The Ganssle Group, has been developing embedded systems since the early 1970s. In the last three decades, he has managed more than 100 embedded products, ranging from deep-sea navigational gears to security systems for the U. S. White House, and sold off three electronic companies.

On Oct. 20, Swiss drugmaker Novartis (NVS) reported strong third-quarter results and announced a major management shakeup, its second in a year. Novartis tapped new managers for three of its four core businesses and announced plans to cut 550 U. S. sales representatives. The changes are part of a new strategy to focus marketing efforts on the people who are actually paying for drugs instead of simply prescribing them.

Recent news from China might be causing jitters among tourism industry executives counting on a surge in business from China's newly wealthy travelers. With gross domestic product growth slowing to 9% for the third quarter, the slowest rate in five years, the Chinese economy is starting to feel the effects of the global downturn.

In a little less than a decade, the story has come full circle. Faced with a downturn in the economy and failing companies, the Land of Opportunity, America, is now wooing Indian firms and business groups to come and set up facilities. Once hated for sending large number of technology workers on H1-B visas, US states recently competed with each other to win the favour of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to set up a campus-like facility in their state.

In a further sign that full-electric drive vehicles are headed for the mainstream, BMW BMW Group will showcase a lithium-ion battery powered version of the MINI at next month's Los Angeles Auto Show Detroit-Auto-Show-2008 ahead of a pilot project that will see 500 of the cars evaluated on US roads in 2009.

Among China's many troubled banks, the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) has long given Chinese officials the biggest headaches. Established in 1979 to provide financial services to peasants, the Beijing-based bank has accumulated more bad loans—$120 billion at the end of 2007—than any other Chinese state-owned bank.

After taking over as Toyota (TM) president in June 2005, Katsuaki Watanabe regularly warned of the dangers of complacency creeping in at the Japanese automaker (BusinessWeek, 3/5/07). But until recently, it was a tough message to get across. The company was doing too well: In the year through March 2008, Toyota sold 8.

Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) is looking to buy out the Asian insurance business of AIG. If it goes through, the deal—which would exclude AIG's Indian businesses—would make Reliance South-East Asia's largest life insurer. It could well be the second-largest overseas buyout by an Indian firm.

Starting a few months ago, the $24 million import bill for Pakistan's Conductor & Cables, a Lahore-based steel business that employs 300 workers, became a drain on the country's most precious resource—the U. S. dollar. As the global credit crisis has intensified and Pakistan has steadily seen its foreign reserves dwindle, privately held Conductor & Cables is facing its toughest challenge yet.

Cathay Pacific Airways announced Friday that it is suspending all recruitment activities, its first official move to cut costs in the intensifying credit crunch. In a notice to employees, Cathay Pacific stated: "We will begin by suspending all recruitment at both Cathay Pacific and Dragonair. Controlling our headcount will play an important role in helping us keep our costs under control.

"All our indicators are better than those of Ningbo [in Zhejiang province], except per capita income," said Wang Mang, then-mayor of the city of Suzhou in China's Jiangsu province, in 2004. He was contrasting the performance of two well-known provinces in China, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. These two provinces, often lumped together in China and referred to as Jiang-Zhe in Chinese, on the surface look remarkably similar.

The economy will likely suffer a moderate, but long recession, and a sluggish recovery, according to S&P Economics. From the December 2007 peak to a trough in May 2009, this expected 17-month recession would be longer than the 50-year average of 10. 7 months, and near the longest recessions of 1975 and 1982.

Bram Cohen's brain works differently from most people's. He has Asperger's syndrome, a condition that keeps him rooted in the world of objects and patterns, puzzles and computers, but leaves him floating, disoriented, in the everyday swirl of human interactions. When Cohen was in his late twenties he sat on a wooden chair with a Dell (DELL) keyboard on his lap for the better part of nine months writing a software program.

Tune in to Anderson Cooper on CNN and watch as he counts down the "10 Most Wanted Culprits of the Collapse. " Pick up the New York Post and read about FBI investigations of top financial firms under the headline "Fraud Street. " With a bewildering and frightening financial crisis in full swing, the new national pastime is finding someone to blame.