Swiss 'gigolo' in blackmail trial

08:21 GMT, Monday, 9 March 2009
Swiss 'gigolo' in blackmail trial
Helg Sgarbi prior to trial - 9 March photo

A Swiss man accused of seducing several rich women in order to swindle them out of millions of dollars is due to go on trial in the German city of Munich.

Helg Sgarbi - nicknamed by the media as the Swiss Gigolo - faces up to 10 years in prison for fraud and extortion.

His most prominent victim was Susanne Klatten, the heiress of the German car manufacturer BMW.

Prosecutors say Mrs Klatten gave Helg Sgarbi nearly $9m, but went to the police after he tried to blackmail her.

Mrs Klatten, a married business tycoon who owns a 12.5% stake in BMW, also said he secretly videoed them having sex in a Munich hotel and threatened to make the tape public if he did not receive another $18m.

Susanne Klatten, file pic from 2003 But instead of giving away more of her fortune, the reclusive 46-year-old mother-of-three went to the police.

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Munich says there is a huge amount of media attention on the trial, which is being described as one of the most remarkable and sensational in German judicial history.

It is believed that Mrs Klatten, who normally shies away from publicity, could testify if Mr Sgarbi does not confess to the alleged crimes.

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12:15 GMT, Sunday, 8 March 2009
Pope heading to Holy Land in May
Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI has confirmed the first papal trip to the Holy Land since Pope John Paul II's visit in 2000.

The pontiff will visit the sites of Jesus' life in an 8-15 May trip taking in parts of Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan.

He is expected to visit Jordan's largest mosque in Amman, and stop in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth.

The news follows a row over the Pope's lifting of excommunication on a bishop who denies the extent of the Holocaust.

'Unity and peace'

Pope Benedict confirmed the latest visit in his traditional Sunday noontime blessing.

He said he would pray for "the precious gift of unity and peace for the Middle East and all of humanity".

The Vatican has been embroiled in an international row in recent weeks after Pope Benedict lifted an excommunication order on a British-born bishop who denies the extent of the Holocaust.

The Vatican later said the Pope had been unaware of Bishop Richard Williamson's views and had ordered him to recant.

At the end of February, the bishop said that if he had known the full harm his comments would cause, he would not have made them.

But the Vatican immediately rejected the apology and told him to "unequivocally and publicly" withdraw his comments.

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Conspiracy theorists capitalise on Russia anxiety

By Charles Clover

Published: March 9 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 9 2009 02:00

Analysts and politicians in Russia are increasingly frantic about the political fallout from the country's six-month economic crisis, judging by the number of doomsday scenarios aired recently in the press and in speeches.

Warnings of social unrest, normally limited to small opposition newspapers and liberal commentators, are now aired in the mainstream media - as are comments on the regime of Dmitry Medvedev, the president, and Vladimir Putin, prime minister.

The Kremlin itself is making the most pessimistic noises. A key adviser wrote last week that the economic crisis threatened to unseat the two leaders, whom, he suggested, might be swept away in an uprising financed by the oligarchs.

"The transition of the [economic] crisis into the political arena has already begun happening," Gleb Pavlovsky wrote in the popular Moskovski Komsomolets tabloid.

He warned of a "remake" of the 1991 street protests that helped bring down the Soviet Union, and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. "The sources of social protest should be sought in the corridors of power," Mr Pavlovsky wrote.

His and other gloomy predictions have left some analysts scratching their heads. Alexei Levinson, at the Levada Centre, a research company, said: "Do I see the potential for serious unrest? It is very dangerous to say no, because so many people are saying publicly that this is happening . . . But I simply don't see it."

However, it was "just as true that the number of people saying they see this potential has shot up", he added. "So that must be significant. It shows that the relationship to the authorities is changing."

Speculation has surrounded the relationship between president and prime minister since Mr Putin, head of state since 2000, stepped aside for Mr Medvedev last year. It is widely believed that Mr Putin, who was barred from a third consecutive presidential term by the constitution, plans to return to the Kremlin.

That the prime minister's political future is openly speculated on is, for some politicians, a watershed in Russia's political life.

"It is very conspiratorial," said Vladimir Milov, former deputy energy minister and a leader of the opposition group Solidarnost.

"But, for the first time, they are putting the question that perhaps Putin should go, to prevent him from pulling everyone else to the bottom."

Other observers say the public scaremongering is an attempt by the Kremlin to unite an increasingly divided ruling class. Evgeny Gontmakher, an analyst at a think-tank that advises Mr Medvedev, said Mr Pavlovsky's warnings were in fact "an attempt to consolidate the elite".

Russia's economic crisis, spurred by the global credit crunch and the falling price of oil, its main export, has created economic dislocation not seen since 1998. More than 6m Russians are unemployed, the rouble has lost a third of its value in the past half a year, and forecasts for a 2.2 per cent drop in this year's gross domestic product look optimistic.

The crisis has created intense competition among government factions and business groups over economic policy.

Liberals, led by Alexei Kudrin, finance minister, have been battling against conservatives who want Russia to impose currency controls. For several weeks Mr Kudrin looked to be in a precarious position, but late last month Mr Putin came down on his side and ruled out a return to controls.

Many political analysts say the rifts in the cabinet will put additional strain on the relationship between Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev, as each struggles to avoid the blame for the crisis and is pulled in several directions at once by competing factions.

The two are close friends who started their political careers together in St Petersburg. But those who are forecasting trouble point to recent attacks that Mr Medvedev has made on the government's handling of the economy.

There was speculation last month that Mr Medvedev would become leader of Fair Russia, a party that enjoys Kremlin approval but competes with Mr Putin's United Russia in elections.

Fair Russia's chairman, Sergei Mironov, speaker of the upper house of parliament, denies that Mr Medvedev is to take over the party, though he says the offer is open.

Last week Mr Medvedev called on the government to look into electoral violations by United Russia in regional elections on March 1.

Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think-tank, said that Mr Medvedev was still the junior partner in the relationship and lacked the power base to contemplate taking Mr Putin on, even if he wanted to.

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Expansion of LNG threatens gas glut

By Ed Crooks

Published: March 8 2009 18:44 | Last updated: March 8 2009 18:44

A huge expansion of global capacity for producing liquefied natural gas is set to bring additional volumes on to an already depressed global market.

Plants scheduled to come on stream over the next year will increase global LNG production capacity by 30 per cent, putting downward pressure on natural gas prices worldwide, particularly in the US and Britain.

LNG – gas super-cooled to -160°C so that it can be transported by tanker – has been the fastest-growing fossil fuel of the past decade. It provides only about 7 per cent of global gas supply but plays an increasingly important role in meeting marginal demand.

A wave of LNG projects approved in the middle of the decade – in particular the vast facilities in gas-rich Qatar – is due to come on stream this year and next.

Some of their production has already been sold on long-term contracts but much of it will go into spot markets, where prices have fallen steeply over the past year.

Professor Jonathan Stern of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies said that gas demand had “gone off a cliff” worldwide, with electricity generators and industrial users such as car manufacturers cutting their use sharply.

Prof Stern estimated that Asian and European markets could shrink by 10 per cent this year.

Asian buyers are using flexibility in their contracts to take less gas, leaving sellers to look for markets in the US and Europe.

Several new terminals for receiving LNG are also coming into operation in the first half of this year, including Sabine Pass in Louisiana, South Hook in Wales and Rovigo in north-east Italy.

Much of the surplus gas is likely to head for the US. LNG from Qatar costs about $2.50 per million British thermal units to deliver to America, according to Frank Harris of Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy.

That makes it competitive in the US market, where the Henry Hub benchmark price was at a 29-month low of $3.93 per million BTU on Friday.

Mr Harris said that companies with LNG projects due to come on stream this year “would not be rushing hell for leather to get production at full tilt”, and the additional volumes coming on to the market were likely to be well below the planned increase in capacity.

However, projects under construction cannot be deferred indefinitely. So if the new plants do not reach full production this year, they are likely to do so next year. “2010 may be the really horrendous year,” Mr Harris said.

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Lula confident Brazil can ride out crisis

By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo

Published: March 9 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 9 2009 02:00

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, is in buoyant mood. "Brazil came into the crisis later [than the rest of the world] . . . and has every chance of coming out of it more quickly," he tells the Financial Times.

It is a message that is playing well with the majority of Brazilian people. A nationwide opinion poll last month showed his approval rating at an all-time high of 84 per cent - an extraordinary level for a president midway through a second term, crisis or no crisis.

Mr Lula da Silva describes 2008 as "an excellent year" and says he remains optimistic about 2009. Most Brazilians have felt much better off under his government as employment and incomes have risen steadily - at least until the crisis began to hit at the end of 2008. Figures for fourth-quarter gross domestic product due out tomorrow are likely to confirm that the economy grew by comfortably more than 5 per cent last year.

But they may also add to concerns about just how resilient Brazil really is. "We will wait for next week's Q408 GDP report before revising and probably paring down our 0.3 per cent forecast for GDP growth in 2009," Unibanco, a big local bank, said in a note to clients last Friday.

Unibanco's forecast is below the 1.5 per cent consensus measured among economists by the central bank in its most recent weekly survey and below the government's target of 4 per cent growth this year.

Unibanco's economists are not alone in becoming alarmed by a run of surprisingly bad indicators. Industrial production in January, for example, slumped by 17.2 per cent year on year.

The month's figures were especially shocking, given that vehicle production - a tenth of all industrial output - rebounded by 41 per cent from December. Yet the recovery in the car sector, where output plunged 46 per cent between November and December, is likely to run out of steam when a vehicle sales tax suspended in January comes back into force next month.

But Mr Lula da Silva argues - and few observers disagree - that Brazil is much better placed to ride out the crisis than it was a decade ago, when the Russian and Asian crises led to a run on the currency that almost forced the country into debt default.

Since the president came to power in 2003, demand for food and industrial commodities, along with high levels of foreign direct investment seeking a share of its fast-growing domestic market, have helped Brazil amass more than $200bn (€158bn, £142bn) in foreign currency reserves - a comfortable cushion against volatility.

Yet Brazil is relatively isolated from the outside world. Exports are equal to just 14 per cent of GDP, and total credit in the economy before the crisis was equal to only about 30 per cent of GDP, with little sourced overseas. This should protect it from falling world demand and from the global shortage of credit.

As concern grows around the world about the true extent of the global crisis, the idea that Brazil can ride out the storm in comfortable isolation is being questioned.

"Brazil is much more sensitive than people realise," says Marcelo Carvalho, chief economist at Morgan Stanley in São Paulo, who forecasts zero growth this year. "The global picture is bleak and the downturn here will be more pronounced than people are prepared for."

He says the recent speed of the fall in Brazil's exports is more significant than their size relative to GDP, that capital outflows are strongly negative, that the shutdown of overseas credit markets has caused crowding out in the Brazilian market and, perhaps most significant, that a slump in business and consumer confidence has caused a sudden stop in activity.

Why, then, is Mr Lula da Silva still so popular? Almir Araújo, who owns a DVD rental shop in a shanty town on the outskirts of São Paulo, has part of the answer. "Crisis, here? No. People are worried but we've had no impact yet."

Employment data suggest this could be about to change. More than 100,000 formal jobs were lost in January, after more than 650,000 in December. But at least two-thirds of those losses were caused by seasonal factors. With many Brazilians only returning to the job market last week after the annual Christmas-to-Carnaval hiatus, the rise in the unemployment rate from 7.4 per cent in September to 8.6 per cent in January - after a drop from 13 per cent since late 2003 - could hit home.

"Our biggest concern is that there should be no reversal of our achievements in terms of employment and income for dozens of millions of the poorest Brazilians," Mr Lula da Silva says.

The masses of Brazilian poor who credit him with the improvement in their lives over the past six years must hope he is right.

Leader's enduring popularity

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is easily the most popular president of Brazil since opinion polling began, writes Jonathan Wheatley . His approval ratings are higher than they were after his victory in the October 2002 election when he became Brazil's first president from outside the country's political and economic elite.

The former metalworker has enjoyed solid support among the mass of Brazilian poor, who have benefited most from the low inflation brought about in the mid-1990s by his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and from the rapid expansion of income distribution programmes under Mr Lula da Silva himself.

His popularity slumped during a scandal in 2005, when senior members of his Workers' party were implicated in a cash-for-votes scandal. But he shrugged off the scandal to win a second solid victory in 2006.

The problem for his ruling coalition is Mr Lula da Silva cannot stand in October 2010 and they have yet to find an obvious successor.

Critics say the president has failed to grasp the opportunity of his huge political capital to enact difficult reforms of Brazil's antiquated labour, pensions and tax systems to deliver greater dynamism to the economy. Yet the slow pace of modernisation has left Brazil relatively isolated from the outside world - and therefore, it is hoped, safe from the worst effects of the global crisis.

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Iceland closes Straumur Burdaras investment bank

14 mins ago
AFP Svanborg Sigmarsdottir

* Print Story

Investment bank Straumur Burdaras, the last of Iceland's big banks left independent after the state seized control of three others in 2008, said Monday it had been shut down due to liquidity problems.

"In spite of its strong capital position and the support of funding banks, Straumur Burdaras Investment Bank believes that its liquidity position is no longer enough to sustain its activities," the bank said in a statement.

"The Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority (IFSA) has therefore decided to assume the powers of a meeting of the shareholders of Straumur and immediately suspend the board in its entirety," it said.

"Further, the IFSA hereby appoints a resolution committee, which will take over all authority of the board of directors," it said.

"As a result of this Straumur is closed."

The government took control of Iceland's three biggest banks -- Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir -- in October after the over-extended financial sector collapsed in the wake of the global credit crunch.

The main shareholder in Straumur was Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfsson, a wealthy and influential businessman who was also one of the main shareholders in Landsbanki, once the country's second-biggest bank.

Straumur, ranked fourth, noted that all deposits of Icelandic commercial banks were fully secured following the government's move last year.

Straumur chief executive William Fall has resigned, effective immediately, the bank said.

Straumur posted a net loss of 574.5 million euros in the fourth quarter, registering client-driven income of just 35.9 million euros.

In February, it took over bankrupt rival Baugur's holdings in Danish department stores Illum and Magasin du Nord, as well as a several other investments in Denmark.

According to the financial authorities, the bank was to have paid 33 million euros in debt due Monday but had only 15.3 million euros available.

The Nordic stock exchanges suspended Straumur.

Iceland, a North Atlantic island of 320,000 people that is not a member of the European Union, saw its centre-right government resign at the end of January amid massive public protests over the country's economic crisis.

An interim left-wing government has been in power since early February and elections are expected to be called soon for April 25.

Icelandic business daily Vidskiptabladid said the fall of Straumur may in the short term weaken the Icelandic currency, the krona.

However, it speculated that in the long term, it may strengthen the currency as capital outflows to cover Straumur's foreign debt may be less.

Business Affairs Minister Gylfi Magnusson said it "was clear late last year that Straumur's situation was difficult. They lost a great deal then.

"They have, on the other hand, survived until now and people had some hope that they could continue."

He said he did not believe the bank's collapse would lead to an increase in public debt as there were no state guarantees, except on deposits, and no state claims.

He said he hoped the bank's assets would cover deposits.

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Anger Over Bonus Move As Bank's Shares Slump

46 mins ago
SkyNews Sky News

* Print Story

Lloyds shares have opened 14% down after the company was given a £260bn bail-out over the weekend.

Analysts said the share price was down because there was disappointment about the amount Lloyds' Banking Group was paying to safeguard £260bn of its toxic assets.

Meanwhile, Lloyds staff are set for a £80m bonus payout despite the handout.

The payments were authorised by the Government as part of the deal for it to take a controlling interest of at least 65% in the company.

Gordon Brown's spokesman confirmed that top bosses would not receive bonuses but junior staff would receive a payout.

Around 40,000 junior staff, who earn around £17,000 a year, are expected to be paid around £1,000, making up half the payment.

More senior managers could have to wait three years before receiving cash linked to their performance last year, UK Financial Investments, which manages the Treasury's stake, says.

"Lloyds have agreed that there will be no discretionary bonuses paid in 2009 except to the most junior staff, earning an average of £20,000," the Prime Minister's spokesman said.

He said ministers wanted to see a situation in which "where there are bonuses, these reflect long-term performance" and where there are "clawback clauses so that, should performance not materialise, people's bonuses will be reduced".

Unions have insisted that staff from the former Lloyds TSB deserve to receive bonuses because that side of the business remained in profit. On the other hand, its merger partner HBOS lost billions of pounds.

Meanwhile, the group confirmed this morning that it will take part in the Government's asset protection scheme.

The premium for insuring against losses on £260bn of bad assets will be £15.6bn, or about 6%.

By comparison Royal Bank of Scotland, which has struck a similar deal, is being charged £6.5bn on the £325bn of assets it has insured.

Lloyds will also have to take an initial hit of £25bn on any losses before the insurance kicks in - whereas protection for RBS starts after £19.5bn.

Chairman Sir Victor Blank and chief executive Eric Daniels are under pressure to quit from shareholders angered by the rescue deal.

Roger Lawson, chairman of the UK Shareholders' Association (UKSA), which represents private investors, said Lloyds investors were left paying the price for a "disastrous" move to buy troubled HBOS.

"The general view of Lloyds investors is that Sir Victor Blank and the rest of the board should go," he said.

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Brit Insurance Goes Dutch Over Tax

1 hour 13 mins ago
SkyNews Sky News

* Print Story

Brit Insurance is expected to confirm a plan to move its headquarters out of the UK for tax reasons.

The insurer and sponsor of the Oval cricket ground is thought to be making the move because of what many consider is an unfavourable tax regime.

Last summer, Brit Insurance confirmed it was looking to relocate its tax base, and hired a number of advisers, including Ernst & Young to find a favourable location.

The company has decided on the Netherlands and will put detailed proposals to shareholders in the coming months.

Brit Insurance will join a number of companies who have set up domiciles in the EU to take advantage of lower corporation tax.

The firms include pharmaceuticals company Shire, advertising group WPP, and publisher UBM.

The expected move comes as the company reports its annual results, which saw pre-tax profits more than halve to £89.2m.

However, the figure was substantially higher than market forecasts of £32m.

Brit Insurance's chief executive Dane Douteil said: "Market conditions are improving further in most areas, our strong balance sheet and the subscription nature of much of our business are attractive to risk buyers and stand us in good stead for 2009."

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Buffett says economy fell off cliff

1 hour 36 mins ago
Reuters Jonathan Stempel

* Print Story

Warren Buffett said on Monday that the U.S. economy had "fallen off a cliff" and eventually would recover, although a rebound could rekindle inflation worse than experienced in the late 1970s.

Speaking on CNBC television, the 78-year-old billionaire also said the economy was mere hours away from collapse in September, when credit markets seized up, Lehman Brothers Holdings went bankrupt and insurer American International Group got its first bailout. "The world almost did come to a stop," he said.

Buffett also called on banks to "get back to banking" and said an overwhelmingly number would "earn their way out" of the recession, even if stockholders don't go along for the ride.

"A bank that's going to go broke should be allowed to go broke," but customers should not worry about their insured deposits, he said. Buffett said there was a "paralysis of confidence" in banks, which he called "silly" because of safeguards such as deposit insurance.

Buffett spoke nine days after telling shareholders of his Omaha, Nebraska-based insurance and investment company Berkshire Hathaway that the economy was in a "shambles" likely to persist beyond 2009.

On Monday, Buffett said the economy was experiencing "close to the worst-case" scenario, with business activity declining and unemployment rising, and that the economy "can't turn around on a dime."

He said Americans, including himself, did not predict the severity of the decline in the housing prices, which then led to problems with securitizations, complex debt and other instruments whose value depended on home prices continuing to rise, or at least not plummet.

"It was like some kids saying the emperor has no clothes, and then after he says that, he says now that the emperor doesn't have any underwear either," Buffett said.

Maintaining his long-term optimism, Buffett said that "five years from now, I can guarantee you that the machine will be running fine," although he hoped it would not take that long.

"We do have the greatest economic machine that man has ever created," he said.

But he said an economic rebound could trigger higher inflation once demand rebounds. "In economics there is no free lunch," he said. "We are going to attempt to have a lunch that to some extent we're going to pay for later."

Buffett also urged Democrats and Republicans in Washington to work better together, and to communicate bipartisan efforts to fix the economy to voters. "You can't expect people to unite behind you if you're trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat," he said.

Buffett also said the ailing Citigroup , which Berkshire does not own, would probably keep shrinking, but that depositors should not be worried.

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Swiss, others demand a say in tax blacklist talks

Yesterday, 08:45 pm
AFP Veronique Poujol

* Print Story

Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria on Sunday fought off attempts to include them on an international blacklist of tax havens over their banking secrecy rules, demanding a say in talks on the issue ahead of a G20 summit next month.

"Debates about bank secrecy are conducted in fora to which we do not belong, like the G20 for example," Luxembourg Treasury Minister Luc Frieden said after hosting discussions with the Swiss and Austrian finance ministers.

"We demand that the doors to these debates are opened to see how lists of tax havens are drawn up," he told journalists.

Concern is growing in Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland about growing international pressure on them for practicing bank secrecy, with the G20 summit in London on April 2 due to reveal a list of uncooperative tax havens.

"We regret that some countries are talking about tax havens without having led debate about the criteria that define a tax haven," Frieden said, adding that the three countries did not meet those criteria.

"Our aim is to be included in the process of establishing a blacklist" of tax havens, said Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz.

Switzerland has come under particularly strong pressure from the United States and big European countries to yield on banking secrecy, which has made the Alpine country an international financial centre.

In February, Swiss bank UBS handed over information on up to 300 clients to the US government and paid a fine of 780 million dollars to settle a case in which it was accused of abetting tax fraud by US clients.

The US government has filed a separate lawsuit to try to force UBS to disclose the identities of 52,000 US customers who allegedly evaded taxes.

France and Germany last week proposed that G20 members punish countries deemed to be "uncooperative" tax havens by breaking off bilateral fiscal conventions with them.

Facing such pressure, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg are showing a new willingness to help authorities in other countries combat tax fraud while also insisting that they will not entirely pull off the veil of bank secrecy.

"We are ready to have a dialogue to find joint ways of stepping up the fight against tax fraud," said Frieden.

The G20 summit will be focused on boosting global regulation of the financial sector and in particular infusing more transparency into it, partly by clamping down on offshore tax havens.

"Bank secrecy has nothing to do with the financial crisis," said Austrian Finance Minister Josef Proell. "Lifting bank secrecy is not the solution to resolve the crisis."

The Swiss minister said last week that his government could extend an existing withholding tax arrangement with the European Union to other countries as well.

Under the arrangement, Swiss authorities apply a withholding tax on interest on the savings accounts of EU bank clients rather than revealing their identities to European authorities.

The arrangement is also used among EU member states in the case of Austria, Luxembourg and Belgium.

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電通の日本の広告費調査　景気後退で５年ぶりに前年割れ　ネットが躍進
2009.2.23 22:18
このニュースのトピックス：景気

　電通が２３日発表した平成２０年の日本の広告費調査によると、景気の急速な悪化で総広告費は前年比４・７％減の６兆６９２６億円と５年ぶりにマイナスに転じるなか、インターネット広告が同１６・３％増と躍進して、平成８年に統計に登場して以来初めて、構成比が１０％を超えた。ネットが今年、新聞を抜き、テレビに次ぐ“第２の広告媒体”に躍り出る可能性が高まった。

　北京五輪など広告出稿に追い風もあったが、リーマン・ショックのあった秋以降、自動車や金融、不動産などを中心に企業の広告費が大きく落ち込んだ。

　新聞に雑誌、テレビ、ラジオを加えた既存のマスコミ４媒体の合計は、４年連続で減少、昭和２２年の統計開始以来初めてシェアが５０％を切った。なかでも活字媒体の落ち込みが顕著で、新聞は同１２・５％減、雑誌が１１・１％減と、いずれも最大の落ち幅となった。

　一方、インターネット広告は、同１６・３％増の６９８３億円と伸長、新聞の８２７６億円に肉薄した。新聞の落ち込み、ネットの伸びのペースがそれぞれ今年も続けば、両者のシェアは逆転することになる。

　ネット広告は、検索キーワードに応じて広告を表示する「検索連動型広告」などが消費行動に直結するとされている。電通総研コミュニケーション・ラボの北原利行部長も「企業が広告費を絞り込むなかか、広告効果が見えやすいネットに異動している」と分析、高い費用対効果を求める企業の出稿を後押ししていることがうかがわれる。

　また、携帯電話向けのモバイル広告も通信料定額制の普及や端末の機能向上を追い風に同４７％増となり、新たな広告媒体として存在感が高まっている。

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投資顧問の契約残高9.6％減　12月末、株安・円高で評価損

　年金基金などから資産運用を請け負う投資顧問会社の2008年12月末の契約資産残高は、9月末に比べて9.6％減の141兆498億円となった。日本証券投資顧問業協会が9日発表した。国内外の株価下落や円高で評価損が膨らんだ一方、公的年金からの資金流入などがあり、減少は比較的小幅にとどまった。

　顧客別に見ると、国内の公的年金は3％増えた。半面、海外の年金基金など海外顧客が27％減少したほか、国内の私的年金も15％減った。

　運用環境の悪化から契約を見直す動きも広がっている。契約件数は6.5％減の5万296件だった。特に個人顧客から資金を預かって一任運用するラップ口座の解約が目立った。投資顧問業協会は「年明け以降も株価が下落しており、厳しい状況が続く」とみている。(20:54)

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ニチレイ冷凍野菜、中国産の輸入拡大　今夏メド年３万トン

　冷凍食品最大手のニチレイフーズは今夏をメドに、中国産冷凍野菜の輸入量を、昨秋発生した冷凍インゲン中毒問題前の年約3万トンに引き上げる。問題発覚後、中国からの調達は約25％減っていたが、消費不振で国産より割安な中国産の需要が回復し始めていることに対応する。冷食最大手が中国産の輸入拡大に動くことで、他社にも追随の動きが広がりそうだ。

　ニチレイフーズは2008年10月の問題発生前は中国から年約3万トンの冷凍野菜を輸入し、うち問題の製品を納入した煙台北海食品（山東省）の製品が最多の約7000トンを占めていた。煙台北海食品は対日輸出を停止しており、ほかにも食の安全を揺るがす事件、事故が相次いだため、中国からの輸入量は年2 万3000トンまで落ち込んでいた。

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コシヒカリ苦戦、消費者の節約志向で　他銘柄との価格差縮小

　銘柄米の代表的存在であるコシヒカリの販売が苦戦している。景気後退で安いコメを求める消費者の節約志向が鮮明になったためだ。2008年産が豊作だったことも重なり需給は緩和。コシヒカリ人気の低下を反映し他の銘柄米との価格差は縮小した。販促の重点を他の低価格米にシフトする量販店も出始めた。

　需給を敏感に反映する米卸会社間の取引市場（東京地区）では、今月に入って福島中通り産コシヒカリが60キロ当たり1万4900円前後と1カ月前に比べ 200円値下がりした。計画通りに販売が進まないため処分売りが出たという。コシヒカリの筆頭、新潟産も最高級銘柄の魚沼産を含め昨年に値下がりしてから卸価格の基調は弱い。(18:46)

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全国のホームレス、１万5700人　厚労省１月調査

　公園や河川敷などで暮らすホームレスは1月時点で1万5759人に上り、昨年調査（1万6018人）と比べて1.6％減のほぼ横ばいだったことが9日、厚生労働省の調査で分かった。近年減少傾向が続いていたが、同省は「景気悪化の影響もあり下げ止まった。今後増加に転じる恐れもある」と話している。

　内訳は男性が1万4554人、女性は495人、性別不明が710人だった。

　都道府県別では、大阪が4302人（前年比31人減）と最多。増加幅は福岡が1237人（同155人増）と最も大きく、神奈川の1804人（同84人増）、愛知の929人（同78人増）が続いた。(20:15)