A US construction worker holds his unemployment claim. (AFP File Photo)

WASHINGTON,
Dec. 4--A weaker-than-anticipated report on the US labor market Friday, showing just 112,000 jobs added in November, cast fresh doubts over the pace of growth of the world's largest economy, AFP reported.
The slowdown in nonfarm payroll job creation--seen as essential to sustainable economic growth--came after a surge of 303,000 new jobs in October. Economists had been expecting, on average, some 200,000 new jobs in November.
The unemployment rate dipped 0.1 percentage points to 5.4 percent, the Labor Department said.
"The payroll report was unambiguously soft," said economist John Lonski of Moody's Investors Services, adding that it appeared to contradict other surveys suggesting increased hiring in manufacturing and other areas.
"The conclusion you draw is payrolls are growing but at a rate that is well below the rate that is usually associated with the current state of the US economy."
"Today's nonfarm payroll figure was a disappointment, pure and simple," said Merrill Lynch economist Sheryl King, who said recent data point to US economic growth of below 3 percent in the first quarter of 2005.
"A typical payroll gain six months following the first tightening by the Fed is 200,000--today's number fell well short of the mark."
Payroll gains in September and October were revised down by a total of 54,000. October's gains were revised to 303,000 from 337,000. Over the past three months, job growth has averaged 178,000 per month.
Nonetheless, employment is up 2.3 million since its nadir in August 2003.
And some economists say that job growth remains fairly good when averaged over the past few months.
The November report "was a little disappointing," but still reasonably good in the context of the October report, said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors.

MANILA, Philippines, Dec. 4--Philippine President Gloria Arroyo's government on Saturday issued a fresh warning to Filipino job-seekers trying to fly to Iraq despite a government ban, AFP reported.
"We should not gloss over the continuing danger that lurks in Iraq," Arroyo Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement.
"We appeal to those who want to push their luck in that conflict-torn country to abandon their plans and pay heed to the government's warnings."
Manila issued a travel ban in July when Arroyo ordered home a small Filipino military contingent to satisfy the demands of kidnappers who had threatened to behead a Filipino truck driver. While driver Angelo de la Cruz was eventually freed unharmed, gunmen seized another Filipino worker, accountant Roberto Tarongoy,
in Baghdad on November 1. There has been no news on the fate of the captive, whose kidnapped Iraqi and Nepalese co-workers have been released.
Despite the ban, some 6,000 Filipinos attracted by high salaries continue to work in Iraq, mostly at US-run military bases.
Bunye said Filipinos "must wait for the right moment when we are assured of a stable peace and order situation in that country."

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Dec. 4--The European Union executive issued a stern warning to Germany Friday that it must enforce the quick repayment of 4.3 billion euros ($5.7 billion) that was illegally extended to seven publicly owned banks, AFP reported.
German deputy finance minister Caio Koch-Weser and the biggest of the seven "Landesbanken", WestLB, have complained to the European Commission over its demands.
But commission spokesman Jonathan Todd insisted that under EU law, the state authorities that own or control the banks have until the end of this month to be repaid the money after Brussels ruled in October that it was illegal aid.
And Todd warned that the commission had grave doubts about plans by the state authorities to pump the money straight back into the banks in the form of equity to prevent a negative impact on their balance sheets. "The commission has always made perfectly clear that the repayment of illegal subsidies... cannot be offset by new state cash," he told reporters. "A company can't opt out of a state aid decision that has been taken," he said, after WestLB called on Brussels to "take back the additional and in our opinion illegal hurdles for an adequate capitalization of the Landesbanken".
"If WestLB considers that our conditions are illegal, then they can perhaps persuade the German government to take that point of view and challenge the commission in the (European) Court of Justice," Todd retorted.
Koch-Weser reportedly has rejected two of the commission's three core demands: that private investors provide a "significant share" of the recapitalization funds, and that no new investment take place before the state guarantees for the Landesbanken expire next July. "That is clearly too late," the Financial Times Deutschland quoted the German minister as saying.
But Todd said there was "absolutely no reason" why Koch-Weser should be surprised because former EU competition commissioner Mario Monti had explained the conditions when they met last month.
Under legislation introduced at the start of the 1990s, German banks were required to build up substantial capital to maintain new minimum levels of solvency.
WestLB and the six other public banks were lent the money at preferential rates of interest by their regional governments. That prompted a complaint to Brussels from the Association of German Private Banks, which was upheld in October after a lengthy investigation.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Dec. 4--South African banks can look forward to a few more years of high revenue and earnings growth, before gains start to taper off, allafrica.com reported.
Although banks in developed countries, including the US, the UK and Australia, have already seen a flattening in growth rates, professional services firm Ernst & Young said South Africa is slightly behind the curve.
Bob Stein, chairman of Ernst & Young's global financial services, said this means South Africa is reaping the benefits of cost cutting and improved credit quality that banks in other countries experienced a few years ago.
"I think South Africa is experiencing more significant current cost reductions than other countries that have been at it for a time. I think the same is true in the credit loss department," Stein said. "Other countries are ahead in the cycle."
He said while the global banking system remains strong due to positive conditions for the past few years, credit provisions are not likely to get any better.
He said Ernst & Young's research suggests an uptick in nonperforming loans, where customers miss three or more cumulative debt repayments.
"In many markets around the world, we have conditions where it is currently as good as it gets and we have to look at where growth is going to come from," Stein said.
Most of South Africa's larger banks and lenders are still reporting falling levels in nonperforming loans, to record low levels as lower inflation and interest rates make it easier for consumers to meet their debt repayments.
Stein said he does not expect any significant deterioration in this situation for the next 12-18 months. "Then the cycle will begin to turn as consumers begin to get more stretched and you can expect a gentle rise," he said.
Banks globally are finding it difficult to maintain strong earnings growth with no new sources of revenue.
He said one of the solutions in many markets is for banks to buy new market shares. While merger activity is likely to continue among the thousands of US banks, he said other markets are much more protectionist.
Attention is also being focused on South Africa, which Ernst & Young has grouped in the same high growth category as China, India and eastern European countries.

Yukos says the authorities are seeking its destruction

MOSCOW, Dec. 4--Russian oil firm Yukos has lost an appeal against the sale of its Yuganskneftegas production arm, Russian media have reported, BBC reported.
Yuganskneftegas, which accounts for three-fifths of Yukos's output, was put up for auction after being seized to pay a tax bill totaling up to $25 billion.
Yukos argued that tax officials could raise the money in other ways than selling its production unit.
The auction now seems likely to go ahead as planned on 19 December.
Tax officials have priced Yugansk at $8.65 billion--hugely undervaluing it, according to the company's board.
Prosecutors searched Yugansk's offices on Friday.
Russian gas firm Gazprom is seen as the leading contender to buy Yugansk. The Kremlin is thought to want to tighten government control over Yukos, and to favor a sale to state-controlled Gazprom.
India's oil minister has said that Russia's President Vladimir Putin had "welcomed bids by Indian firms, either on their own or in collaboration with Russian firms".
Earlier in November, Yukos accused the Russian government in a statement of seeking to bring about the firm's "total destruction".
The entire management board has left Russia in the wake of a summons from prosecutors wanting to interview Yukos's finance chief.
The sale of Yugansk comes after more than a year of tension between the Kremlin and the company, which began with the arrest of its chief executive Mikhail Khordokovsky on a Siberian airstrip in November 2003.
Khordokovsky is on trial separately for tax evasion and fraud. He stood down as chief executive shortly after his arrest.

Manmohan Singh

NEW DELHI, India,
Dec. 4--Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged Saturday to try to shield the poor by keeping down prices of essential goods amid rising inflation, AFP reported.
"Holding the price line is a priority for our government," Singh said, adding his Marxist-backed Congress government would seek to ensure "the poor are not hurt by market forces."
The main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which lost power in May elections, has declared inflation will be one of the key issues it will raise during the winter parliamentary session.
The wholesale price index is at over 7 percent, up from just 4.32 percent in late April. While inflation is down from an August peak of 8.74 percent, analysts warn prices are not yet under control.
The increase has been driven by high global oil prices and a patchy monsoon in the agriculture-dependent country.
India cannot insulate itself "from the impact of movements in world oil prices," Singh told a meeting with an advisory panel of industrialists.
At the same time, he said the economy was "in capable, competent and caring hands" and the government was committed to the principles of fairness.
State oil firms, which need to import oil to meet the bulk of the country's requirements, have been forced to absorb much of the rise in global prices since raising domestic prices is a political hot potato.

NEW YORK, USA, Dec. 4--International Business Machines Corp.'s possible exit from the personal computer business would be the latest move in what amounts to a long goodbye from a field it pioneered and revolutionized, AP reported.
Armonk, NY-based IBM helped bring personal computing to everyday users with its introduction of the IBM PC in 1981. But as prices fell and competition mounted from the likes of Dell and Hewlett-Packard, IBM started selling its factories in the late 1990s.
And in 2003, it sold the last PC plants it owned alone--a factory in Scotland and the lease on a plant in Mexico. IBM contracted with other companies like Sanmina and Great Wall Technology to assemble the PCs and ThinkPad laptops carrying the IBM name.
The company's new focus is its services and outsourcing businesses, which it calls Business Transformation Services, a market IBM CEO Sam Palmisano says is worth $500 billion a year. For example, it signed a $300 million, 10-year technology outsourcing deal with the government of British Columbia Friday. Under the deal, 170 provincial employees will be offered jobs at IBM.
The New York Times reported Friday that IBM is in serious discussions with the Lenovo Group, China's biggest maker of personal computers, and at least one other unidentified prospective buyer for a sale that could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion. Other possible buyers could include Japan's Toshiba Corp., analysts said.
The newspaper cited anonymous sources close to the negotiations; the Wall Street Journal online also reported the company was in talks with Lenovo, and Chinese papers had reported the story as early as June.
IBM spokesman John Bukovinsky refused to comment Friday. Spokesmen at Lenovo's Beijing headquarters and Hong Kong offices did not return calls Friday.
In the wake of the reports, IBM shares rose $1.32, or 1.4 percent, to close at $97.08 Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia Dec. 4--The Slovenian parliament Friday approved a center-right coalition government that Prime Minister Janez Jansa promised would spearhead a campaign to privatize the country's state-owned industries, AFP reported.
Jansa has set the government's main priorities as privatizing state-owned companies, improving the tax system and creating the conditions for continued economic growth, with the aim of taking Slovenia into the European single currency in 2007.
"My government will work for Slovenia's wealth, "Jansa said in presenting his 16-member, four-party coalition, as well as for a healthy environment.
Jansa acknowledged he had a tough job getting experts for his cabinet "since many of those I spoke to prefer to work in (state-owned) companies where the salary is much better."
Slovenia, which joined the EU in May, is among the most prosperous of the Union's 10 newcomers although it has been criticized for delaying the privatization of state-owned companies and for its relatively high inflation rate.
"Slovenia's transition is over, therefore Jansa's government will have every chance of success," outgoing prime minister Anton Rop said.