A look at economic developments around the globe

A look at economic developments and stock market activity around the world Tuesday:

___

BEIJING _ Hundreds of workers at a textile factory in southern China blocked roads in a second day of protests over unpaid wages, an employee said. The protests come as a collapse in demand for Chinese exports has closed factories and wiped out at least 20 million jobs. Communist leaders worry that more job losses and unpaid wages could result in mass protests.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index climbed 13.48 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 2527.18, an eight-month high. Elsewhere in Asia, the Hang Seng closed 678.75 points, or 4.6 percent, higher at 15,580.16, but Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average lost 81.75 points, or 0.9 percent, to 8,842.68.

___

MOMBASA, Kenya _ Undeterred Somali pirates went on a hijacking spree, brazenly capturing four more ships and taking over 60 crew members hostage in the Gulf of Aden, the waterway at the center of the world's fight against piracy. Pirates have vowed to retaliate for five colleagues slain by U.S. and French forces in recent hostage rescues.

___

WARSAW, Poland _ Poland asked the International Monetary Fund for a flexible credit line of around $20 billion to help combat the economic crisis. Jacek Rostowski, the finance minister, said the money will boost the Polish central bank's reserves by about a third and stressed that the country's economy remains fundamentally sound.

___

FRANKFURT _ German discount retail chain Woolworth Deutschland filed for bankruptcy protection amid falling sales and increasing competition. The Frankfurt insolvency administrator's office said business would continue as normal at the Frankfurt-based DWW Woolworth Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG's roughly 300 branches in Germany and 20 in neighboring Austria.

Meanwhile, German manufacturing sales slid a record 23.3 percent in February compared to a year earlier, the Federal Statistical Office said.

Germany's DAX closed up 65.89 points, or 1.5 percent, at 4,557.01. Elsewhere in Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed up 5.28 points, or 0.1 percent, at 3,988.99, while France's CAC-40 rose 26.04 points, or 0.9 percent, to 3,000.22.

Banking stocks across Europe did particularly well.

___

BANGKOK _ Standard & Poor's cut one of Thailand's credit ratings, saying investor confidence has been "damaged significantly" by violent political unrest in the country's capital. The international ratings agency lowered Thailand's local currency rating to "A-" from "A" and said the outlook for the rating was negative, meaning it could be downgraded again. Leaders of anti-government demonstrations that plunged Bangkok into chaos called off their protests following rioting and clashes that left two dead and more than 120 injured.

___

SYDNEY _ Qantas Airways slashed its annual profit forecast and will cut up to 5 percent of its work force as the carrier grounds some aircraft in the face of a slump in business and first-class travel. The Australian national airline dropped its full year pretax profit outlook to between 100 million and 200 million Australian dollars ($73 million and $146 million), from its previous forecast of AU$500 million.

Despite Quantas' problems, Australia's index returned from the Easter holiday with a 2.2 percent rise.

___

SINGAPORE _ Singapore's economy plummeted nearly 20 percent in the first quarter, its biggest contraction ever, flagging a miserable start to the year for other export-dependent Asian nations grappling with the worst global slump in decades. Gross domestic product in this wealthy Southeast Asian city-state plunged an annualized, seasonally adjusted 19.7 percent in the first quarter from the previous quarter and fell 11.5 percent from a year earlier, both record drops.

___

AMSTERDAM _ Royal Philips Electronics NV, the Dutch lighting and consumer products maker, posted a first quarter net loss of euro59 million ($78 million) and said it would recall millions of defective coffee makers that may pose a safety risk.

___

MOSCOW _ Russia may next year have to borrow money from international markets for the first time in a decade, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said, as the government seeks to conserve cash amid a severe recession.

___

LISBON, Portugal _ Portugal's economy will contract by 3.5 percent this year amid the broader global economic crisis, the country's central bank predicted.

___

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina _ The International Monetary Fund started negotiating a standby loan with Bosnia that would help the country deal with the global economic crisis. Bosnia's quota with the IMF was euro200 million ($265.52 million) and could be doubled in one year.

___

BRUSSELS _ Fortis Bank reported a loss of euro20.6 billion for 2008 due to the forced sale of its Dutch business and write-downs of securitized debt and other investments. The bank, once the largest in Belgium and the Netherlands, was carved up into separate units to avoid collapsing from a heavy debt burden during the credit freeze last September and October. It is now waiting for shareholders to approve its sale to France's BNP Paribas. It was bailed out and sold to the Belgian government in October.

___

SUVA, Fiji _ Fiji's central bank slapped tough new exchange controls on the economy to prevent money from flowing out of the country as it struggles with a political crisis, which deepened further when some top officials lost their posts.