Washington  - President George W Bush said he was concerned about Friday's report of more than 500,000 US jobs lost in November and insisted his administration was making the right moves to address the credit crisis at the heart of the downturn.

The rise in unemployment to 6.7 per cent "reflects the fact that our economy is in a recession," Bush said. US economists this week officially declared the world's largest economy has been in a recession since December 2007.

Tokyo  - Japan's foreign reserves topped 1 trillion dollars in November for the first time in four months, buoyed by sharp gains in US Treasury bond prices, the Finance Ministry said Friday.

Japan held 1.002 trillion dollars in foreign reserves by the end of November, up 25.14 billion dollars from the previous month.

The country holds the most foreign reserves worldwide after China.

Manila  - The Philippines' inflation rate eased to 9.9 per cent in November as price increases of food and fuel products slowed down, the government said Friday.

The National Statistics Office said the November inflation rate was lower than the 11.2-per-cent rate posted in October. The inflation rate in the same month a last year was 3.2 per cent.

"The continued deceleration in the annual rates of the heavily weighted food, beverages and tobacco index, together with those of fuel, light and water and services resulted to the downward trend," the agency said in a statement.

"The inflation rate for food alone continued a downward trend as it settled at 14.5 per cent in November from 15.6 per cent in October," it added.

Washington  - The last time the United States' three top automotive executives travelled from Detroit to Washington to plea for a federal bail-out, they flew each in their own corporate jets.

It was a public relations nightmare. One legislator noted the "delicious irony" of living the high life while asking for billions in emergency federal assistance.

Taking their case before Congress a second time on Thursday - seeking 34 billion dollars to help stave off bankruptcy - it appeared the group had learned its lesson.

"I'm proud to say that I drove a hybrid here from Detroit, and it performed - the technology performed extremely well," said Rob Nardelli, Chrysler chief executive.

Washington  - US carmakers General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC Thursday said they would be willing to consider a merger as a condition for receiving a federal bail-out.

The idea was suggested by US lawmakers during a committee hearing on the three US carmakers' request for 34 billion dollars in federal aid to avoid bankruptcy in the midst of an economic recession.

Chrysler chief executive Rob Nardelli said he would accept the requirement if it meant saving his 80-year-old company.

Harare/Johannesburg  - The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) on Thursday dissolved an entire board and its management of a commercial bank, accusing it of illegally trading in foreign currency.

Announcing the dissolution of the CFX Bank to the media, Gideon Gono the RBZ governor said: "None of them can serve again on a bank board, they have been declared unfit and improper to work in a bank or to sit on any financial institution for the next five years."