Tokyo - The Japanese parliament on Thursday approved a supplementary budget of 1.81 trillion yen (17.85 billion dollars) for the 2008 fiscal year through March, mainly to finance the government's economic stimulus package amid the global financial crisis.

The stimulus package allocates 446.9 billion yen to measures to support small businesses and 188.1 billion yen to promote energy-saving efforts and to help the agriculture and fisheries industries deal with higher oil prices.

About 351.8 billion yen of the extra budget will go to reduce the financial burden on the elderly under a medical insurance programme introduced last April, while 729.6 billion yen will be spent for disaster prevention measures.

Dublin - Banks participating in the Irish government's deposit guarantee plan will contribute a total of 1 billion euros (1.34 billion dollars) to make the scheme work, according to national broadcaster RTE.

The state, which announced specifics of the plan on Wednesday, will raise the money over two years, RTE reported.

Any bank that made use of the guarantee would also be expected to eventually repay the government.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said the move will take the Irish government deep into the banking system, RTE reported.

The original plan called for 440 billion euros in deposit guarantees at the six Irish-owned banks.

Reykjavik - Iceland was set to continue talks with Russia over a loan to ease its financial situation, the Icelandic central bank said in a statement Thursday.

During the two-day talks in Moscow that ended Wednesday, delegates from the Icelandic Finance Ministry and central bank met with, among others, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Dimitri Pankin.

Pankin said in the joint statement there was need for "further exploration of the issues before we can reach a final decision."

Iceland earlier has mentioned the sum of 4 billion euros (5.4 billion dollars).

The Icelandic central bank on Wednesday lowered key interest rates from 15.5 to 12 per cent.

Melbourne, Oct 16 : Due to the shaky global economic situation, businesses of all kinds are suffering, except for one – brothels.

Brothels in Australia haven’t yet felt the jitters of the fiscal crisis, with sex workers still raking in the moolah.

According to the brothel owners, sex is a consumer need like tobacco, for which demand remains strong despite an economic slump.

Dhaka - The number of Bangladesh's poor, who make up nearly half its 153 million population, are rising because of high food prices, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday.

Although Bangladesh's macroeconomic growth has been "remarkably resilient" amid last year's repeated natural disasters and global increases in food and fuel prices, life has become more difficult for a large segment of its population, the international lending agency said in a report published Wednesday from its headquarters in Washington and Thursday in Dhaka.

Manila - Before flying back to California after a short vacation in Manila, Raymond Gornis visited the site of a condominium project in the bustling Araneta Center in Quezon City, where he plans to buy a unit.

Gornis, 36, has been shuffling between two jobs as a school teacher and storekeeper in a video store in California for the past four years to save money to invest in properties and to start a small business in his eastern home province of Sorsogon.