Singapore - In the wake of the world-wide financial crisis consumer confidence has turned pessimistic across the Asia Pacific region, according to a survey released Wednesday by MasterCard.

From India to China, and Japan to New Zealand the urban middle class were more pessimistic for the first half of 2009 than six months ago, according to the latest bi-annual Consumer Confidence survey by MasterCard Worldwide released in Singapore.

MasterCard found that only Vietnam, China, India and Singapore of the 14 markets surveyed are optimistic about the first half of next year.

Bangkok - To reduce carbon dioxide emissions - blamed for global warming - Asian cities of the future should grow vertically instead of horizontally, a leading transport expert said Wednesday.

"In many Asian cities, people are building new housing developments 20, 30, 40 or 60 kilometres out of town and this means people are taking longer to get to work," said Charles Melhuish, technical director with the UK government's Transport Knowledge Partnership.

Bangkok - Shi Han Min, who led the Beijing's effort to clean up its air for the 2008 Olympic Games, on Wednesday won the first Kong Ha Award for excellence in air quality management.

The award, which included a 10,000-dollar purse, was granted to Shi at the Better Air Quality 2008 workshop in Bangkok, which has drawn 900 delegates from the region.

Shi, director of Beijing's Environment Protection Bureau, was credited for introducing many initiatives to clean up the Chinese capital's notorious air pollution for the Olympics which were later institutionalized and replicated in other Chinese cities.

Peshawar, Nov 12: The tribesmen in Pakistan living in villages along the Afghan border are caught between the devil and the deep sea, as, one the one hand, the Government wants them to form Lashkars to fight back the Taliban, and, on the other hand, they continuously run the risk of being beheaded by the Taliban, as happened around three weeks ago when a couple of tribal leaders beheaded and their bodies tossed on the roads setting an example for others.

Tokyo - Asian stock markets staged strong rallies Monday, with Japan's key Nikkei 225 Stock Average closing above the 9,000-point threshold, following the announcement of an economic stimulus packa

Hong Kong  - Some of Asia's wealthiest people were Sunday preparing to shrug off the slump by spending hundreds of thousands of US dollars on a small, pungent, edible fungus.

The super-rich, including nine Hong Kong tycoons, were gathering in Tokyo to take part in the 10th Annual World Alba White Truffle Auction.

The Hong Kong bidders have a rich history in the annual charity auction and are favorite to win Sunday night's auction for the delicacy which is nicknamed "white gold" because of its rarity and high price.

Last year, the winning bid at the Alba Truffle Auction came from a consortium of property developers from Hong Kong who paid bid 208,000 US dollars for a comparatively small 750 gram truffle.