WASHINGTON - THE US economy shrank at its fastest pace in nearly 27 years in the fourth quarter, government data showed, sinking deeper into recession as consumers and business cut spending.
The Commerce Department on Friday said gross domestic product, which measures total goods and services output within US borders, plummeted at a 3.8 per cent annual rate, the lowest pace since the first quarter of 1982, when output contracted 6.4 per cent. GDP fell 0.5 per cent in the third quarter.
TOKYO - JAPAN announced a triple slump in key economic data on Friday and said there was no end in sight to the bad news, as some of the country's most high-profile companies announced or forecast massive losses.
The data echoed gloomy reports on the health of the economy in the United States, where President Barack Obama took aim at what he called the 'shameful' bonuses given to Wall Street bankers during the financial crisis.
IMMINGHAM (England) - STRIKES spread to oil refineries across Britain on Friday as thousands of workers protested at the use of foreign labour, at a time when unemployment is soaring amid the global slowdown.
The protest started at Britain's third-largest refinery, Lindsey in Lincolnshire, eastern England, where workers first walked out Wednesday over the use of Italian and Portuguese contractors on a 200 million pound (S$431.7 million) building project.
