AAP MARKETS REPORT for Wednesday, December 24, =4 Sydney
INTERNATIONAL NEWS WASHINGTON - The US economy grew at its fastest rate in nearly 20 years in the third quarter,
boosted by robust consumer spending that carried on into the closing months of the year, government reports showed
today. NEW YORK - US consumer sentiment fell in December, but improved in the second half of the month after the capture
of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, market sources said on Tuesday. WASHINGTON - The risk of deflation in the
United States has diminished over the past few months but is not entirely eliminated, the chief economist of the IMF
said in an interview released Tuesday. NEW YORK - Freddie Mac said on Tuesday its investment portfolio, a key driver of
earnings growth, shrank 16.1 percent in November, the largest decline in at least three years. NEW YORK - The Nasdaq
Stock Market on Tuesday denied a report that it approached the New York Stock Exchange to explore a possible merger of
the two marketplaces. LONDON - Italy's biggest food group Parmalat, crippled by a multi-billion-euro accounting
scandal, has valuable milk, yoghurt and juice businesses to interest rivals in any fire sale, analysts and bankers said
on Tuesday. STOCKHOLM - Swedish automaker Saab, a subsidiary of US giant General Motors, will swerve into loss again
this year, but not as steep as last year's, Saab director general Peter Augustsson said Tuesday. OTTAWA -
Canada's economy expanded 0.2 percent in October, pushing economic growth over the past 12 months to 1.7 percent,
Statistics Canada said Tuesday. MOSCOW - Russia's richest man and Kremlin opponent, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, faced
another three months in jail Tuesday after a court ruled he must stay behind bars until March 25, after the presidential
election. WASHINGTON - The US has credible information that al-Qaeda continues to study potential weaknesses in the
revamped national aviation security net looking for ways to strike again through the air. NATIONAL NEWS CANBERRA - Prime
Minister John Howard has touched on the economy, the war on terror and the drought in his Christmas message. CANBERRA -
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone today again urged asylum seekers on Nauru to abandon their fortnight-old hunger
strike. HARARE - Police in Zimbabwe said today they had arrested a man in connection with the murder last week of an
Australian accountant from a tea estate in the east of the country. MORE
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RUSSIA IN FACTS
