Washington - The United States economy grew at 3.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2008, the government said Thursday in revised figures that further eased fears of a recession.

Tokyo - Japan's financial sector has been plagued by a series of bankruptcies of real-estate firms, giving rise to worries about Japan's economic outlook and having an impact Thursday on the stock

Manila - The Philippines' economic growth slowed to 4.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2008, dragged down by high inflation, the government said Thursday.

Growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) from April to June was down from 8.3 per cent in the same period last year, the National Statistical Coordination Board said.

The gross national product (GNP), which includes income from abroad, such as remittances by overseas Filipinos, grew by 5.5 per cent, compared with 9.8 per cent in 2007, the board said.

"The high inflation regime that prevailed during the second quarter ... took its toll on the Philippine economy," it said in a statement.

Madrid - Spain's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.8 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2008, down from the 3.8 per cent annual rate for 2007, the National Statistics Institute said

Denver, Colorado/Washington - Democrats hope to position Barack Obama as the best candidate to restart a sluggish US economy, in an effort to convince skeptical working-class voters whose support could prove key in November's presidential election.

State governors from the battlegrounds of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa on Tuesday took to the convention stage in Denver, Colorado, on the second day of the opposition party's nominating convention.

Washington - Consumer confidence improved in the United States in August as a decline in the cost of petrol heartened consumers, a private survey released Tuesday said.

The New York-based Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence rose to 56.9 from 51.9 in July, as the US economy struggles to come out of a sharp slowdown stretching back to the last quarter of 2007.