Singapore - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had warned Wednesday that repeated acts of intimidation and arrests of opposition leaders would make Zimbabwe's runoff presidential elections less credible unless Harare puts a stop to them,

Ban, addressing ambassadors to the UN at a closed-door session in New York, criticized strongly the political atmosphere while Zimbabwe prepares for runoff elections on June 27.

"The current violence, intimidation and the arrest of opposition leaders are not conducive to credible elections," Ban said. "Should these conditions continue to prevail, the legitimacy of the election outcome would be in question."

Fears that rising inflation will thwart Asia's growth have triggered a flight of foreign funds out of regional markets, a Citigroup report said on Saturday.

China has taken the biggest hit, with the funds offloading 2.78 billion US dollars worth of mainland shares between January and mid-June this year.

Foreign fund managers have sold about 4.6 billion US dollars in Asian equities, nearly double the 2.48 billion US dollars they invested during the corresponding period of 2007, the report said.

"For the first time since the 1997-98 Asian crisis, Asia is in a sell-off mode, inspired by developments taking place in its very neighbourhood, namely energy-driven inflation," the Straits Times quoted Merrill Lynch strategist Mark Matthews as saying.

Foreign fund managers sold 254 million US dollars in Malaysian equities, compared to 1.1 billion US dollars pumped in last year, the report said.

The city-state is another underperformer, with 229.8 million US dollars worth of equities sold this year compared with the
1.1-billion-US-dollar fund flow into Singapore equities last year.

The data was not all grim. Taiwan emerged with 2.1 billion US dollars from foreign funds this year, Thailand 109.1 million US dollars, India 34 million US dollars and Indonesia 11 million US dollars, the report said.

"Whether you are selling coiled steel or cut flowers, the cost of transport is a problem," Matthews told the newspaper. "You have to ask whether it still makes sense to ship stuff from China when the price of a sea voyage from Shanghai represents half of the value of the product."

He expressed hopes that high oil prices will encourage Asian manufacturers to embark on more cost-cutting in order to survive and get more market share. (dpa)