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A third explosion in four days rocked the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan early Tuesday, the country’s nuclear safety agency said.

The blast at Dai-ichi Unit 2 followed two hydrogen explosions at the plant _ the latest on Monday _ as authorities struggle to prevent the catastrophic release of radiation in the area devastated by a tsunami.

The troubles at the Dai-ichi complex began when Friday’s massive quake and tsunami in Japan’s northeast knocked out power, crippling cooling systems needed to keep nuclear fuel from melting down.

The latest explosion was heard at 6:10 a.m. Tuesday (2110 GMT Monday), a spokesman for the Nuclear Safety Agency said at a news conference. The plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the explosion occurred near the suppression pool in the reactor’s containment vessel. The pool was later found to have a defect.

International scientists have said there are serious dangers but not at the level of the 1986 blast in Chernobyl. Japanese authorities were injecting seawater as a coolant of last resort, and advising nearby residents to stay inside to avoid contamination.

Tokyo Electric Power said some employees of the power plant were temporarily evacuated following Tuesday morning’s blast.

The accidents _ injuring 15 workers and military personnel and exposing up to 190 people to elevated radiation _ have compounded the immense challenges faced by the Tokyo government as it struggles to help hundreds of thousands of people affected by twin disasters that flattened entire communities and may have left more than 10,000 dead.

The crisis also has raised global concerns about the safety of such reactors at a time when they have enjoyed a resurgence as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Japanese authorities said there have been no large-scale radiation releases, but have detected temporary elevations in levels, and have evacuated tens of thousands of people from around affected reactors. Prevailing winds were pointing out to sea, and U.S. ships assisting tsunami recovery moved further way to avoid potential danger.

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The euro’s two-month rally against the dollar is running into renewed rifts over Europe’s sovereign debt crisis just as optimism about the U.S. economy increases.

Bolstered by the prospect of higher European Central Bank interest rates as soon as next month, the euro has climbed almost 9 percent against the dollar from this year’s low. Bets by futures traders on more strength are at levels that indicated reversals in the past. The euro has gained about half as much versus a group of nine developed-nation peers including the pound, franc and Swedish krona, Bloomberg Correlated-Weighted Currency Indexes show.

While German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have said nothing will allow the single European currency to crumble, investor concerns are rising as European Union leaders meet this month to debate fixes to the region’s fiscal crisis. Portuguese bond yields have risen to levels that preceded last year’s bailouts of Ireland and Greece, both of which are trying to renegotiate terms of their rescues.

“The European crisis isn’t over,” said Andrew Balls, the London-based head of European portfolio management at Pacific Investment Management Co., which runs the $237 billion Total Return Fund, the world’s biggest bond fund. “The euro-dollar exchange rate has been driven more by relative interest-rate outlooks, but the public statements ahead of the forthcoming meetings suggest that hopes for a grand bargain may be overdone.”

Trichet’s Rally

The euro appreciated 1.7 percent last week to $1.3987, and is up from this year’s low of $1.2867 on Jan. 10. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet stoked the gains on March 3 after he said the central bank may boost its benchmark rate from a record low 1 percent when policy makers meet in April because of faster inflation. The Federal Reserve’s target rate for overnight loans between banks ranges from zero to 0.25 percent.

Strength in the euro has focused on the dollar as Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke shows no signs of raising interest rates even though the economy is strengthening.

Growth in the U.S. may total 3.2 percent this year, according to the median estimate of 66 contributors in a Bloomberg survey. The European Commission raised its growth forecast to 1.7 percent last week and said higher oil and commodity prices may keep inflation above the ECB’s 2 percent limit for most of the year.

Correlation Performance

Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indexes show the euro has appreciated 4.6 percent from its low this year against a basket of the most-widely traded currencies. It’s up 3.8 percent versus the pound, 4.2 percent against the franc and 2 percent versus the krona.

“I’m a big buyer of the U.S. dollar” because of Europe’s debt crisis, Laurence Fink, chief executive officer of New York- based BlackRock Inc., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker on March 3. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, overseeing $3.56 trillion.

Bank of America Corp. strategists led by David Woo in New York said March 2 that the euro would likely weaken more than 14 percent to $1.20 by the end of the second quarter as Europe’s fiscal situation worsens, even as the bank raised its longer- term forecasts for the 17-nation currency.

A day later, Commerzbank AG strategist Ulrich Leuchtmann in Frankfurt said the currency’s gains may end amid investor pessimism that the EU’s leaders will solve the region’s debt crisis. Last week’s rally isn’t the beginning of an “uptrend,” Bilal Hafeez, the London-based head of foreign-exchange strategy at Deutsche Bank AG, said in an investor note on March 4.

‘Like Arthritis’

The median estimate of 44 strategists and economists surveyed by Bloomberg is for it to weaken to $1.34 by year-end.

Europe’s debt “problem is like arthritis,” said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. “It doesn’t always hurt you, but it can flare up.”

Greece had to seek a bailout after its debt reached 127 percent of gross domestic product in 2009. Ireland was next after the economy was devastated by the collapse of a decade- long real estate boom and the demise of its financial system, which forced the government to take over some of the nation’s biggest banks. The EU created the 440 billion-euro ($615 billion) European Financial Stability Facility last year, committing part of the money to finance the Irish program.

Now, austerity measures imposed by the bailout programs are clashing with demands by the citizens of Greece and Ireland to avoid cutting public services Faxless payday loans. Enda Kenny, Ireland’s next prime minister, has asked for an extension on the rescue loans, while repeating a call for lower interest rates on aid that was granted in November.

Too Bullish

Speculators have become so bullish on the euro that past trading trends suggest they may start reversing those bets. The number of contracts that hedge funds and other large speculators hold at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange anticipating a gain in the single currency jumped to 51,308 as of March 4, according to the latest data from the Washington-based Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The last time so-called net longs exceeded 45,000 contracts was in October. The following month the euro depreciated 6.9 percent against the dollar. They also topped the 45,000 mark a year earlier, just before the currency began about a six-month, 21 percent decline.

‘Whatever is Needed’

Two-year German notes yield 108 basis points more than equivalent U.S. debt, the most since December 2008. The ASE Index of Greek stocks has risen 12 percent in 2011. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 5.1 percent.

“I would rather buy euro assets,” said Adrian Lee, who oversees $8.5 billion as chief investment officer at Lee Overlay Partners in Dublin.

Merkel has said she will do “whatever is needed to support the euro,” and promised that meetings scheduled for March 11 and then on March 24 and 25 will produce a “comprehensive” solution to the crisis. Sarkozy said the monetary union is so important “that we will be there whenever it needs to be defended.”

Merkel’s task may have been complicated after Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Feb. 28 that Germany won’t budge on the conditions for euro-area bailouts, rebuffing calls by Ireland and Greece for easier terms.

Position Hardened

The cost of insuring Greek, Portuguese and Spanish bonds against losses using credit-default swaps rose last month, pushing the Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe Index of 15 governments to 188 basis points on Feb. 24, the highest in five weeks. The contracts pay the buyer face value if a borrower fails to meet its obligations, less the value of the defaulted debt. A basis point equals $1,000 annually on a swap protecting $10 million of debt.

Merkel’s position has hardened as her Christian Democratic Union party woos voters wary of supporting the monetary union. Seven German state elections are scheduled this year, including one before and one just after this month’s summit. Her party lost power in Hamburg for the first time in a decade in a Feb. 20 vote she described as a “stinging defeat.”

Resolving the crisis was also complicated when the Irish Fianna Fail government that negotiated the nation’s bailout was ousted in favor of the Fine Gael party on Feb. 25. The new leaders vowed to lower the 5.8 percent rate on the rescue loans.

“Our overall requirement is that there be a reduction in the cost of the package,” Kenny said on March 4 in Helsinki.

Rising Bond Yields

Investors have been driving up Portugal’s borrowing costs. The nation’s 10-year bond yield has closed above 7 percent since Feb. 4. Greece needed a rescue within 17 days of its 10-year yield breaching 7 percent on April 6, while Ireland sought aid about a month after it cracked that level in October.

The gap, or spread, between yields on Portuguese 10-year debt and similar-maturity German bunds was 420 basis points, or 4.20 percentage points, last week, compared with a mean of 53 basis points since the euro started.

The spread illustrates the widening fissures in the euro- region economy. German gross domestic product will expand 2.6 percent this year, trailed by 1.7 percent in France, 0.6 percent in Spain and a contraction of almost 1 percent in Portugal, Bloomberg surveys show.

Any rise in interest rates may increase Europe’s disparities and investor concern about the euro, rather than highlight the region’s strengths, according to Daragh Maher, deputy head of global foreign-exchange strategy at Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank in London.

“Normally, when interest rates go up the currency starts to strengthen,” he said in an interview on March 4. “If policy makers don’t come up with a solid solution, the periphery may not be insulated from rate rises and then hikes by the ECB may start to be viewed as a euro negative.”

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Federal regulators say the number of banks on their confidential “problem” list increased by 24 in the final quarter of last year, even as the industry continued to heal with the recovering economy.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported Wednesday that banks earned $21.7 billion in the fourth quarter. That compared with a net loss of $1.8 billion a year earlier. The agency said bank earnings were buoyed in the latest quarter by reduced charges for soured loans.

The FDIC called 2010 a turnaround year for the banking industry, with net income reaching a three-year high of $87 bad credit payday loans.5 billion. It contrasted with a loss of $10.6 billion in 2009.

The FDIC said the number of troubled banks rose to 884 in the quarter from 860 in the third quarter. That was the slowest rate of increase to the problem list since the first quarter of 2008.

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There have been plenty of hockey fights started because of beer. Now there

Winter weather kept job seekers home and offices closed in January, getting the year off to a disappointing start, while the unemployment rate took a surprising tumble.

The economy added just 36,000 jobs in January, falling far short of expectations. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate unexpectedly sunk to 9%, down from 9.4% the month before.

Economists surveyed by CNNMoney were expecting the economy to add 149,000 jobs during the month, and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5%.

After the report was released, economists weren’t quite sure what to make of the numbers, and used a mix of colorful adjectives like "lousy," "mysterious," and "confounding."

But one thing was clear — weather played a large role in January.

"It’s a disappointing employment report, with a touch of skepticism because of the weather’s impact on the overall number," said John Silvia, chief economist with Wells Fargo.

Major storms across large swaths of the country had a huge impact on businesses. According to the Labor Department’s household survey, which calculates the unemployment rate, severe winter weather kept 886,000 people from going to work during the week of January 9.

All those snow days kept a lot of companies from hiring, said economist John Canally with LPL Financial. It’s possible that nasty weather could have reduced the overall payroll number by about 100,000, he said.

The Labor Department also announced that job growth last year was weaker than originally stated. After 2010 revisions, there were about 900,000 jobs created during the year — 215,000 fewer than previously reported cash advance loans.

The labor market typically needs at least 300,000 job gains each month to make a difference in the unemployment rate, economists say, and at least 150,000 to keep pace with population growth.

Headed in the right direction?

While the sluggish growth to payrolls was disappointing, the drop in unemployment was interpreted in different ways.

Some economists thought it was a result of people dropping out of the labor force, though others pointed to a once-a-year population adjustment based on census data that skewed the numbers.

Almost all of the drop was due to unemployed people finding jobs again, said Zach Pandl, an economist with Nomura Securities.

"This part of the report deserves a positive interpretation," he said.

Overall, the unemployment rate has had its largest two-month decline since 1958, he said.

The two parts of the report sometimes differ, because they’re derived from separate surveys. While the payroll number stems from a survey of employers, the unemployment rate comes from a different survey of American households.

Canally said he expects the job market to show a spike in payrolls in February, and then resume a gradually improving trend. Any improvements though, are still likely to be at a very slow pace.

"People should not be too fearful of losing a job they have," Canally said. "But if they don’t already have a job, it’s still tough. Companies are still reluctant to hire." 

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Maple Leaf Foods Inc. has agreed to bring the CEO of West Face Capital onto its board of directors in a move to satisfy complaints about some of the directors

Toyota Canada, which is trying to recover from a dent to its longstanding reputation for quality and durability, took another hit Wednesday when the company sent notices to owners of 11,700 Lexus luxury cars about possible fuel leaks.

The automaker announced it will conduct a voluntary recall of three 2006-2009 mid-size sedans here to inspect whether the company improperly installed fuel pressure sensors that could eventually cause leaks.

It is Toyota

Moody’s Investors Service is looking at the sustainability of Portugal’s export performance as part of a review of the country’s government-bond ratings.

“We identify the outlook for growth as one of the key considerations,” Anthony Thomas, Moody’s analyst for Portugal, said in an interview in Lisbon yesterday. “We have noted that in the last several quarters we have seen good export performance. Is that sustainable? That is one of the questions we will have to answer as part of the review process.”

Moody’s on Dec. 21 said Portugal’s bond rating may be downgraded one or two levels because of concerns that budget cuts may worsen the country’s “sluggish” economic growth. Moody’s had cut Portugal’s creditworthiness two steps to A1 on July 13. It aims to complete the ongoing review by the end of March, Thomas said.

The government of Prime Minister Jose Socrates is counting on exports such as paper and wood products to support economic expansion as it carries out the deepest spending cuts in more than three decades. The austerity moves are aimed at convincing investors that Portugal can narrow its budget gap further after the Greek debt crisis led to a surge in borrowing costs for the most-indebted euro nations last year.

No Bailout

The difference in yield between Portuguese 10-year bonds and German bunds, Europe’s benchmark, reached a euro-era record of 484 basis points on Nov. 11. The spread was at 395 basis points yesterday.

Portugal’s borrowing costs fell and demand rose at a sale of 750 million euros ($1 billion) of 12-month bills yesterday, adding to a string of auctions this week that signal Europe’s high-deficit countries can still finance their debt. Portugal’s borrowing costs also fell and demand rose at a Jan. 12 auction of 599 million euros of 10-year bonds.

Last month, Portugal said it intends to sell as much as 20 billion euros in bonds in 2011 to finance its budget and redemptions, and plans to sell a new bond through banks in the first quarter. Portugal doesn’t face any bond redemptions until April, with repayments that month and in June worth about 9.5 billion euros. Its debt agency estimates this year’s gross financing needs will be 3 billion euros lower than in 2010.

Funding Costs

“The important point to make is that we don’t rate on the basis of any one bond auction outcome,” Thomas said. “We certainly take notice of them. We notice that last week’s and indeed this morning’s ones went well. It’s really the funding costs over the medium- to long-term that count, not literally on a weekly basis.”

Socrates on Jan. 11 said austerity measures helped reduce the 2010 deficit to less than the forecast 7.3 percent of gross domestic product and that Portugal won’t need a bailout. Ireland in November became the second euro country to seek aid after Greece and the first nation to request it from the European Financial Stability Facility, the region’s rescue fund.

“What we have said is that we don’t view negatively per se a country seeking external assistance,” Thomas said. “Any judgment would depend on the conditions associated with the loan, if it happened.”

The Portuguese central bank forecasts exports will grow 5.9 percent this year and 6.1 percent in 2012, after an estimated 9 percent increase in 2010. Still, it sees the economy shrinking 1.3 percent in 2011 as consumer demand drops and the government cuts spending. The budget forecasts GDP growth of 0.2 percent in 2011, slower than last year’s estimated 1.3 percent pace.

Downgrade

With its economy facing a “deteriorating” outlook, Fitch Ratings on Dec. 23 cut Portugal’s creditworthiness one notch to A+, the fifth-highest level. Fitch said the outlook for that assessment is negative, meaning it is more likely to worsen than improve. Standard & Poor’s said on Nov. 30 that it may lower Portugal’s rating, having already cut it to A- from A+ in April.

Portugal’s government is trimming the wage bill by 5 percent for public-sector workers earning more than 1,500 euros a month and freezing hiring. It’s also raising value-added sales tax by 2 percentage points to 23 percent to help narrow a deficit that amounted to 9.3 percent of GDP in 2009, the region’s fourth-biggest after Ireland, Greece and Spain.

The government has set a target for a budget deficit of 4.6 percent in 2011 and aims to reach the European Union limit of 3 percent in 2012.

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Laverl “Nick” Nicholson used to look out of his kitchen window at the weeping willows that mark the burial place of two of his two daughters. Then a debilitating car wreck left him unable to pay the $220,000 he owed on his northwestern Montana home.

He tried for a year and a half to lower his mortgage payments through a loan modification, but the government-insured loan that he took out three years ago came with restrictions. The best the bank could offer him was a reduction of $124 per month, leaving Nicholson with a $1,585 payment that he still couldn’t afford.

The bank foreclosed last April, forcing him to move next door into a mobile home on two of the original property’s 10 acres that he had given his daughter a few years before.

Despite the government’s push to forestall foreclosures through mortgage modifications, situations like Nicholson’s have become common. Loan modifications often don’t work out because the homeowner doesn’t understand what’s out there, the lender is reluctant to write off part of the loan or, as in this case, the terms of a government-back loan limit what the bank can offer a borrower.

Today, the house near the small town of Thompson Falls is being sold in a sealed-bid process by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The asking price: $87,000.

Nicholson, 50, is galled to see something so dear being advertised so cheaply.

“I’ve been a blue-collar worker all my life and I worked hard for what I had. For it to be thrown back out there for this price and our family not given first option…,” Nicholson paused. “Things aren’t supposed to be this way in America. A man isn’t supposed to lose his home for $220,000 only to sell it again for $87,000.”

Nicholson, like many Americans, was drawn to a Federal Housing Administration loan to refinance his home because it offered good terms like a 3.5 percent down payment. He used the $268,000 he borrowed against his home to invest in his business as a sawmill maintenance contractor working in the Northwest and across the country.

But with the car accident in 2008 that broke two vertebrae in his neck and a pre-existing degenerative disc disease in his back, he became unable to work. He began to miss mortgage payments, and the agency that bonded his business discovered his delinquency, causing him to lose his bond and his business.

Foreclosure proceedings began and it became necessary for Nicholson to seek mortgage relief, but the FHA-loan modification terms were limited. Loan servicer Wells Fargo was only able to offer him a 5.375 percent interest rate, the going market rate, and unlike non-FHA loans, his terms could only be extended 30 years instead of 40 years.

The offer would have dropped Nicholson’s payments from $1,709 to $1,585.71. He asked for additional relief that would have lowered his payments to under $1,000 a month. He was denied.

“I’m lost. I’m a mechanical-type individual,” Nicholson said. “My knowledge in this field is not good. So I’m going on what I’ve been told.”

Wells Fargo spokesman Tom Goyda said the bank followed FHA guidelines in offering Nicholson a loan modification.

“We worked for more than a year in an effort to prevent the foreclosure. Under the guidelines available under FHA we were unable to find an option that would let him stay in the home at a price he could afford,” Goyda said. “At that point, there were no other options left for modification payday loan online.”

Wells Fargo had previously sold Nicholson’s mortgage through Ginnie Mae, the Government National Mortgage Association, to an investor that buys those securities, such as a mutual fund or a pension fund. When the house went into foreclosure, Wells Fargo bought back the loan to pay the investor the unpaid balance.

The bank filed a claim with the FHA, which provides insurance on loans made by approved lenders. FHA reimbursed Wells Fargo for the $220,000 unpaid principal and approved expenses.

That left the federal government to unload the house for about a third of Nicholson’s unpaid principal.

“Who’s going to eat the difference between $220,000 and $87,000?” said Julie Hope, a counselor for NeighborWorks Montana, a nonprofit housing group helping Nicholson. “The lender’s out of it because they’ve turned in their claim on it and gotten their money.”

FHA says it’s costing the taxpayers nothing because the money used to pay the claims comes from the mortgage insurance payments by the homeowners who borrow under the program.

FHA paid about $12.8 billion on nearly 100,000 such claims on foreclosed homes in 2010, an average of $128,000 per claim, said Department of Housing and Urban Development spokesman Lemar Wooley.

The year before, FHA paid 70,000 claims at an average cost of about $117,000, for a total of nearly $8.2 billion.

The loans have become very popular in the last four years, up from 2 percent of the mortgage industry’s volume in 2006 to about 30 percent today.

FHA loans have a lower foreclosure rate than non-FHA loans. At the end of the third fiscal quarter of 2010, the foreclosure rate for all loans was 4.39 percent compared to 3.32 percent for FHA loans, Wooley said, citing Mortgage Bankers Association delinquency data.

Wooley said banks can’t simply foreclose on a person with an FHA loan to save themselves the hassle and possible monetary loss of a loan modification. FHA-approved lenders are required to try to help the borrowers avoid foreclosure or they face penalties, he said.

“Lenders that do not engage in loss mitigation and are paid a claim by HUD are subject to administrative action, including penalties in the amount of three times the amount of the claim paid to that lender,” Wooley said.

But that doesn’t make it any easier for borrowers like Nicholson trying to wade through their options with a foreclosure deadline hanging over them.

“We encourage borrowers in distress to get in touch with a HUD-approved counseling agency as soon as possible in the process,” said Marietta Rodriguez, NeighborWorks America’s national director for home ownership and lending.

Nicholson and NeighborWorks are investigating whether he has a viable wrongful foreclosure claim, but he said primarily wants to get word out as a warning to others who also may be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

He hopes, though, that he might see his daughter and her husband one day move into the home where she grew up.

“I would never move back into the home, but it would be nice to have my children near me. Eventually my health is going to give out and I’ll be in a wheelchair. It would be nice to have them nearby to help,” he said.

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Asia-Pacific leaders endorsed a blueprint for future growth Sunday that calls for pushing ahead with free trade agreements and rolling back protectionist measures put in place during the financial crisis.

Wrapping up the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the leaders of 21 economies put aside differences over currency policies to voice a strong commitment to increasing the trade and investment crucial to the region’s growth and resilience.

Leaders representing the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and other regional economies also agreed on the need to reduce trade imbalances and government debt and avoid sharp, potentially disruptive fluctuations in exchange rates.

While many participants remained at odds over currency policies and other issues, they appeared to agree on the vital role freer trade can play in sparking growth.

“We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to achieving free and open trade and investment in the region,” the leaders said in a declaration released after the talks ended Sunday.

The leaders also agreed to take “concrete steps toward realizing a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific,” but set no timetable. The declaration said this goal should build on regional groupings such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a U.S.-backed free trade agreement that nine APEC members are negotiating.

At APEC, where congeniality usually trumps conflict, leaders of the world’s three largest economies pledged Saturday not to backslide into retaliatory trade tactics, after discord over such issues marred the meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Seoul, South Korea, late last week.

The 21 APEC members, whose economies account for more than half of all world commerce, have agreed to refrain from imposing any fresh barriers to trade and investment, or measures to stimulate exports, until the end of 2013.

“We commit to take steps to roll back trade distorting measures introduced during the crisis,” said the declaration titled “Yokohama Vision” after the Japanese port city where the summit was held. The statement acknowledged that some economies may have resorted to emergency tactics to blunt the impact of the global slowdown.

Asia’s robust and resilient growth has hinged on trade, and APEC, founded in 1989, has made knitting the region closer together its main objective.

The document also notes a need to reduce trade imbalances and government debt to help ensure stable and sustainable economic growth. In a rare reference to contentious currency issues, it includes a pledge to move toward more “market-determined exchange rate systems.”

Washington contends that China’s currency, the yuan, is significantly undervalued, giving Chinese exporters an artificial advantage in overseas markets and contributing to the huge U.S. trade deficit. China and some other countries have slammed the U.S. for printing money to help spend itself out of recession, a policy they say is driving the value of their own currencies higher, flooding their markets with excess cash and fueling inflation.

But APEC’s focus is mainly on long-term goals, such as working toward a vast region-wide free trade zone that would encompass all its member economies, from giants China and the U.S. to tiny Brunei and Hong Kong.

Forging such a free trade area, an idea first floated by the U.S. in 2006, would happen outside the confines of APEC, which is not a negotiating body. One possibility would be to build on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which currently includes only four small economies _ Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. The U.S., Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Peru are in talks to join them.

Other countries such as Japan are exploring the possibility of joining these trade talks _ although Japanese farmers are vehemently opposed because they worry an influx of cheaper agricultural goods would ruin them.

For the first time, the leaders also approved a growth strategy calling for balanced, sustainable and innovative growth both in the region and within their own borders. Countries should provide better access to credit and social services for women, the poor and other vulnerable groups, it said. They also intend to improve energy security and reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.

Although APEC’s focus is mainly economic, it noted the need to combat terrorism and other threats to security and stable growth, such as corruption, food shortages, disease and natural disasters.

APEC also said that 13 of its member economies had made “significant progress” toward a goal set out in 1994, in Bogor, Indonesia, to achieve free and open trade and investment by 2010 for industrialized economies, while conceding more work was needed.

Developing economies in the region were given until 2020 to reach these so-called “Bogor goals.” However, eight such members volunteered to be evaluated along with five industrialized ones, the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

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