US Moves Ahead...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[View Slideshow: More Gloom President Barack Obama's $825 billion stimulus plan and his pick for U.S. Treasury chief cleared key hurdles in Congress, a step forward in efforts to contain the global economic crisis that is battering businesses from banks to tech firms. Samsung Electronics chalked up its first ever quarterly loss on Friday, joining a host of tech giants such as Microsoft, Nokia and Sony suffering from slumping demand amid recessions in the United States, Japan and much of Europe. The crisis born out of a U.S. housing slump has pushed some banks over the edge, left U.S. carmakers on the brink of collapse and drove the world's major economies into recession, and was now ravaging the technology sector. &quot;The consumer electronics sector is following the housing market and car industry into negative territory,&quot; said Strategy Analytics' Neil Mawston. Washington moved forward in its campaign to revive the world's biggest economy as a House of Representatives panel rushed through $304 billion in tax breaks and aid to the unemployed, paving the way for a vote on the full stimulus package next week. Timothy Geithner, the head of the New York Federal Reserve, won backing from Senate Finance Committee on Thursday and looked poised to clinch final approval on Monday to lead the new administration's efforts to stabilise the economy. Yuan Manipulation? Even before the final confirmation, Geithner may have stirred up international controversy, saying Obama believed Beijing was &quot;manipulating&quot; its yuan currency. China's central bank merely said it has taken note of the comments, which signalled a hardening tone on China's huge trade surplus with the United States. Chinese analysts expect Beijing to express its displeasure at the accusations but hold its anger in check in the belief harsh words will not lead to action. In another step in Obama's economic team-building, the Senate approved veteran securities regulator Mary Schapiro as the new Securities and Exchange Commission chief. In Britain, however, the government's renewed push to shore up its struggling banks may have hit a snag, with the Guardian newspaper reporting the European Commission is threatening to veto plans to allow nationalised mortgage lender Northern Rock to lend more. Another newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, reported the British government was considering pumping up to 10 billion pounds ($13.80 billion) into the first British casualty of the credit crunch. Worries that the U.S. stimulus plan could get delayed have weighed on stock markets in recent days, but signs of progress failed to outweigh the impact of grim corporate reports and economic data. China reported its slowest growth in seven years in 2008, U.S. jobless claims spiked again while housing starts hit another record low and Japan, the world's second-biggest economy, predicted two years of recession and a spell of deflation. The Bank of Japan said it expected economic conditions to keep worsening and warned the positive effect of its ultra-low 0.1 percent interest rate was wearing off. South Korea's Samsung, the world's top maker of memory chips and LCD screens, posted a fourth-quarter operating loss of 937 billion won ($682 million), more than twice as big as expected. &quot;Samsung will likely bleed more, if not suffer wider losses as the global economy is expected to slump further well into the first half of this year,&quot; said Lee Jeong, an analyst at Hana Daetoo Securities. Tech Pain Sony's shares tumbled 7 percent on Friday after the electronics and entertainment conglomerate reported a record annual loss on Thursday and Microsoft shocked Wall Street with a profits miss and plans to cut up to 5,000 jobs. In Finland, top cellphone maker Nokia warned the market for mobile phones would shrink 10 percent this year. In a rare piece of good news, Internet search giant Google beat Wall Street quarterly earnings forecasts and joining Apple and IBM as one of the few bright spots in the battered tech sector. Google shares rose 2.6 percent in after-hours trading, but that was not enough to cheer up investors. Stock markets in Asia followed Wall Street down with shares in Tokyo losing 3.8 percent to close at a two-month low. There was no clear sense of direction for European markets after four days of losses with London stocks seen dipping further but shares in Frankfurt edging up. With each day bringing fresh evidence of what shapes up to be the worst global economic downturn since the World War Two, Geithner has a job cut out for him. Considered by many as an ideal candidate because of his involvement as the New York Fed chief in government rescues of financial institutions, Geithner stumbled over revelations that he underpaid $34,000 in taxes earlier this decade. But U.S. lawmakers, eager to see Obama's economic team in place quickly, are expected to look past Geithner's tax errors, which he has since corrected. (Reuters)