Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing is in talks with lenders to change terms of debt due after 2010 as the global recession hurts earnings. Chartered Semi has S$3.9 billion (US$2.7 billion) of loans and bonds outstanding, including US$390 million of bonds due August 2010.

China's unprecedented growth in recent years has come at a terrible price. Ahead of most forecasts, China in 2008 passed the US to become the world's largest source of greenhouse gases.

"It looks to me now as if the markets are now pricing in a rapid recovery, that they're pricing in a V-shaped recession, which I consider extremely unlikely," said Krugman at a forum in Shanghai on May 12.

Verizon Communications has agreed to spin off parts of its business that deliver phone service to mostly rural areas in 14 states in an US$8.6 billion deal with Frontier Communications.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a recall of 70,000 lithium-ion batteries used in Hewlett-Packard and Compaq notebook. Apparently, there have been two reported cases where the batteries caught on fire.

Sanyo Electric, the rechargeable-battery maker being acquired by Panasonic, forecast an increase in annual operating profit, beating analyst estimates.

Sony on Thursday announced its first annual loss in 14 years and warned it would stay in the red this year as the global economic downturn inflicts heavy damage on Japan's high-tech giants.