AFP- Germany posted Friday its best quarterly growth since reunification, driving Europe past the US in the recovery stakes as the continent recorded its best economic performance in four years.

Accelerating recoveries in Britain, France and even Spain also helped nudge Europe's main stock markets upwards, with only debt-laden Greece slipping deeper into recession as savage cuts scythe through spending.

However, with a growth rate of 2.2 percent between April and June, Germany was "playing in a league of its own," said senior ING economist Carsten Brzeski.

Jennifer McKeown of London-based Capital Economics noted that the 1.0 percent expansion across the 16 eurozone nations and the 27-member European Union as a whole was "the sharpest in four years."

It beat a 0.7-percent forecast and outpaced that of the US, which posted a quarterly gain of 0.6 percent -- down from 0.9 percent between January and March.

The NHS in England faces a total bill of £65bn for new hospitals built under the private finance initiative (PFI), it was reported today.

Figures obtained by the BBC show that some NHS trusts were left with annual "mortgage" repayments accounting for more than 10% of their turnover.

he "Stuttgart 21" project is one of Germany's and Europe's largest urban renewal projects. It will see the train tracks that cut through the center of the southern German city placed underground, creating entire new neighborhoods. But many Stuttgart residents are deeply opposed to the multibillion euro undertaking.

"Stuttgart 21" is a massive -- and massively controversial -- railway and urban-development project for this southwestern German city famous for being the home of Daimler, Porsche, Bosch and other major German manufacturers and the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg.

First conceived in 1988, the project has gone through several permutations, but three key elements remain: creating a high-speed railway connection to the city's airport; transforming its main railway station from a terminus station to a through station; and creating a 60-kilometer high-speed rail line between Stuttgart and Ulm, nearly halving travel times between the two cities to only 28 minutes and also connecting to the city's international airport.

This last element is part of a larger European project related to the high-speed railway corridor stretching from Paris to Budapest, which city and regional officials hope will transform Stuttgart into "the new heart of Europe."

Methinks an underground through station connected to the high-speed lines would make eminent sense. As an addition to the existing surface station. As is, the project seems to be a real estate speculation masked as infrastructure investment.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

INTERNATIONAL: The first eastbound ECO freight train is due to arrive in Islamabad on August 13, having left Istanbul on August 2 with cargo for Tehran and Islamabad. Six container flats each carried a 40 ft container destined for Pakistan, while five vans had consignments for the Iranian capital.

Operations over the 6 300 km route are being promoted by the regional Economic Co-Operation Organization, and the trip marked another stage in efforts to establish regular services on what is destined to become part of the Trans-Asian Railway.

An initial demonstration train ran from Islamabad to Istanbul in August last year, taking 14 days. The eastbound train was expected to take just 11 days 8 h. The time spent at the break of gauge at Zahedan was cut from 14 h to 8 h thanks to transhipment and customs procedures taking place simultaneously...

Also see Another Great Gameand later comment with report of the Westward run.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

EMD: Progress Rail Services announced on August 3 that it had completed the acquisition of Electro-Motive Diesel from Berkshire Partners and Greenbriar Equity Group. The Caterpillar subsidiary paid $820m in cash plus a net working capital adjustment estimated at $108m. EMD is now a subsidiary of Progress Rail.

EMD is one of the two big diesel locomotive makers in the USA, originally a subdivision of GM.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Companies sold junk bonds in record volumes this week as investors favoured the credit markets over equities in an environment of rising uncertainty over economic growth.

Companies with credit ratings below investment grade sold $14.3bn of new high-yield or "junk" bonds, compared with the previous record week set in March, when low-rated companies issued just under $14bn, according to Thomson Reuters.

With more than $170bn priced this year, sales of junk bonds look likely to eclipse the annual record of $185.4bn set in 2006.

Legislation to protect US consumers against defective foreign products could violate international trade rules and scare overseas companies out of the American market, a top European official has warned.

In a letter to Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, João Vale de Almeida, the European Union's ambassador to Washington, said it was "questionable" that the foreign manufacturers legal accountability bill was compatible with World Trade Organisation rules. He signalled that it imposed an unfair burden on foreign companies and "could hamper transatlantic trade".

The measure was drawn up in the wake of a scandal in which US homeowners struggled to get compensation for the effects of a Chinese-made drywall linked to respiratory and electrical problems. It would ban the import of goods ranging from drugs and pesticides to consumer products unless the manufacturer registered with a US agent, in effect consenting to US jurisdiction.

"Establishing a registered agent in the US for any potential damage claim of a US consumer seems disproportionate in terms of costs, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises," said Mr Vale de Almeida.