Singapore - East Asia should be able to achieve an annual economic growth of 3 per cent to 5 per cent considering the current global financial crisis, Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said, in press reports Saturday.

Giving the assessment, Lee was upbeat about Asian economic growth supported by China and India.

"I would say the rest of Asia might make 3, 4, 5 per cent, which isn't bad for this condition," said Lee, the first prime minister and architect of modern Singapore.

Washington - USB flash drives are hot - and the demand continues to grow. Consumers are snapping up flash drives at a rate of almost 40 million per quarter, according to Santa Clara Consulting Group, and manufacturers big and small - from specialist companies like Lexar to giant electronics behemoths like Toshiba - are getting in on the market.

Beirut - Two years after it decided to provide loans to those seeking plastic surgery, a Lebanese bank is expanding into loans for fertility treatment.

The loan program, a first anywhere, has attracted a fair amount of attention, even though the question of infertility has long been a social taboo in Lebanon and across the Middle East.

"We have received, since the billboards were hanged across Beirut in mid August, between 200-250 calls per day from interested customers," said Mahir Mezher, head of marketing and the campaign's creator at Lebanon's First National Bank (FNB).

Beijing - Asian and European leaders began a second day of talks on Saturday with a focus on measures to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The 16 Asian and 27 European leaders at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) planned to call for new climate change goals through 2012 to be agreed by the end of next year, according to a draft summit statement.

Los Angeles - The moribund Los Angeles River seems to mark a line of indifference. Shops on Cesar Chavez Avenue emit odors of goats' heads, gizzards and tongues, but the scent of the upcoming US presidential election cannot be easily perceived.

East LA has its own rhythm, different from the rest of LA and, indeed, from the rest of the country.

An estimated 96 per cent of the residents have Latino roots. The daily Los Angeles Times once wrote that East LA is to Mexican- Americans what Harlem is to African Americans.

Nairobi - US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama's stern face stares out from the back of a rickety Matatu - a commuter minibus - as it swerves through traffic in Kenyan capital Nairobi, the slogan "The Real Change" plastered alongside the image.

By the side of the road a workman digs a trench, his "Obama 08" cap shading his eyes from the sun, while in a nearby bar, patrons chug down Senator beer, a cheap brew that has been nicknamed Obama beer.