NEW YORK - THE 40-story skyscraper sits on a prime corner in the country's wealthiest commercial market, steps from the Museum of Modern Art and a few blocks from Rockefeller Center and Central Park.

It recently sold for US$100,000 (S$150,000).

WASHINGTON - THE Federal Reserve expects the US economy to improve in coming months, even as policymakers downgraded their outlook for all of 2009 and said the unemployment rate could approach 10 per cent.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues continue to believe that business sales and factory production will begin to recover gradually during the second half of this year as President Barack Obama's stimulus package and the Fed's aggressive efforts to lift the country out of recession take hold.

THE HAGUE - DUTCH Finance Minister Wouter Bos said on Wednesday that banking group ABN Amro, in which the government is a mayor shareholder, may have to receive state financial support 'at any moment'.

Mr Bos told the lower house of parliament that 'he accepts the state will have to provide financial assistance to ABN Amro at any moment", ministry spokeswoman Lies Weitenberg said. He did not say when or how much.