WASHINGTON - THE US trade deficit widened in September by an unexpectedly large 18.2 per cent, the most in more than 10 years, as oil prices rose for the seventh straight month and imports from China bounded higher, a US government report showed on Friday.
The monthly trade gap grew to us$36.5 billion (S$50.6 billion), from a slightly revised estimate of US$30.8 billion in August. Wall Street analyst had expected the shortfall to grow modestly in September to around US$31.65 billion.
TOKYO - MR BARACK Obama insisted on Friday that the United States was a 'Pacific' power and vowed to deepen engagement in the region as he set foot in Asia for the first time as US president.
'The United States will strengthen our alliances, build new partnerships and we will be part of multilateral efforts and regional institutions that advance regional security and prosperity,' he said in Tokyo as he launched his four-nation tour.
SIEM REAP - SCORES of Thai opposition politicians poured into Cambodia on Friday to meet their fugitive leader, raising the prospect of a more aggressive push to topple the Thai government.
Supporters of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra headed to the Cambodian town of Siem Reap to meet the former telecoms billionaire, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup and later convicted of graft in absentia and sentenced to two years in prison.
BRUSSELS - EUROPE'S deepest recession since World War II officially ended on Friday as the world?s biggest single trading bloc returned to growth after 15 months of economic retreat.
Both the 16 countries that use the euro currency, its continental engine, and the 27-nation European Union as a whole, home to half a billion people, posted collective growth of 0.4 and 0.2 per cent respectively after five quarters of economic decline.
