Airbone terrorist attacks that toppled New York's World Trade Center threaten to deal a powerful blow to the tottering US and world economies, reports AFP.

US economy generates 25 billion dollars in activity per day. The attacks wrought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of destruction as they demolished New York's towering symbol of US financial might.

They also led to the total shutdown of the US stock markets, which remained closed for three days in the row.

Banks remained open, however. And the Federal Reserve said it would provide liquidity as needed for the financial system.

Analysts said the greatest impact would be on consumer confidence, until now the strongest pillar of the US economy, which grew by just 0.2% in the second quarter.

Experts also fear a full-blown global recession. The best comparison would be with the 1990 Gulf War when consumer confidence plunged, retail sales suffered, the dollar fell and crude oil prices jumped.

US consumer spending accounts for two thirds of US economic activity and sentiment had already taken a hit from figures before the week of the attack showing the jobless rate surged to 4.9% in August from 4.5% in July.

The terrorist attacks would be the costliest man-made disaster in US history, the Insurance Information Institute said.

The French insurance magazine Argus des Assurances reported that British insurance giant Lloyds of London expected the global cost of the attacks to be from 20 billion to 40 billion dollars.

But Sherman Katz, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the events "may accelerate the advent of an economic slowdown (but) there may be a silver lining -- they might spur Congress to give the president trade promotion authority" that would help rekindle global growth.

Global airlines have cut traffic growth forecasts this year amid rising concern over the Asian economies, according to the findings of an annual survey, reports AFP.

The Salomon Smith Barney survey of 17 major airlines outside the United States found their average forecast for traffic growth to have dropped to 5.3 percent from the previous year's figure of 6.7 percent.

Of the 10 companies that gave a more detailed answer, five said traffic was now below earlier forecasts while three said it was in line and only two said it was above expectations.

"Airlines as a group look for a slight slowing in traffic growth," Salomon Smith Barney said in its report.

while the computer industry is suffering a downturn computer maker Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) has announced finalization of a deal to acquire Compaq Computer Corporation for nearly US$ 25 billion under stock swap arrangement creating a giant company almost as big as IBM. Reports say, the latest 12 month sales revenue was US$ 47 billion for HP and US$ 40 billion for Compaq while it was US$ 90 billion for IBM.

HP's CEO Carleton 'Carly' Fiorina is to continue as the CEO of the combined company.

HP and Compaq had earlier announced job cuts of 6,000 and 8500 respectively. Still, their combined workforce remains over 145,000 worldwide.

The economic slowdown, rather than political conflicts or religious extremism is the main threat to regional security in Asia, according to the result of a survey carried out by the Strait Times of Singapore.

Among 100 government official, regional security experts and economic and political analysts in 10 Asian countries interviewed during the survey, 28% reportedly stated that economic slowdown was the main threat to regional security. The next serious threat was polarisation with China, followed by social unstability, military build-up, religious extremism, terrorism and external factors.