This could well be an early sign of contagion from the US said Ross Walker at Royal Bank of Scotland

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"This could well be an early sign of contagion from the US," said Ross Walker at Royal Bank of Scotland.This is likely to be used by those members of the Monetary Policy Committee who believe the threat of a knock-on effect from the US justifies an immediate cut in UK interest rates.But some economists said the surplus with the EU indicated there was little sign of a downturn in the real economy.The UK posted a surplus of £169m in November, reversing a deficit in October and the third month of surplus out of the last five. It helped narrow the global trade deficit to £2.1bn from October's £2.5bn and beat the City forecast of £2.4bn. "The fact that the trade sector as a whole acted as a healthy boost to the economy is unlikely to be overlooked by the hawks," said Michael Hume at Lehman Brothers.Meanwhile a separate report warned that excessive rate cuts risked triggering a re-run of the boom-bust of the late 1980s. The London Business School and Oxford Economic Forecasting said: "There is a danger that if the MPC follows the US in reducing interest rates aggressively, it will stoke demand even further, repeating the policy errors that fuelled inflation in the late 1980s.".

TVT Records, one of the largest American independent record labels and home to acts such as rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, yesterday dropped $1.5bn (£1bn) in copyright infringement claims against the renegade internet song-swap service Napster. TVT Records, one of the largest American independent record labels and home to acts such as rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, yesterday dropped $1.5bn (£1bn) in copyright infringement claims against the renegade internet song-swap service Napster. Instead, TVT will now lend its support to Napster. The move was seen as a further sign of Napster moving closer to the music industry.Steven Gottlieb, the record label's president, said the basis for its decision to end the lawsuit was the new service Napster is evolving under the alliance it recently announced with Bertelsmann.Bertelsmann, the parent of BMG music group, was one of five record companies suing Napster for billions of dollars for copyright infringement. Napster, which enables users to swap songs for free, has attracted 45 million users.In October, Bertelsmann broke ranks with the major labels and said it would drop its suit once Napster was transformed into a fee-charging service that pays royalties.As BMG is still party to the litigation, TVT becomes the first record label fully to settle with Napster. TVT filed its suit in June in US District Court in the Southern District of New York.

The suit sought $150,000 per infringement: 10,000 separate copyrights were involved.. The contrast with a year ago could hardly be greater. The mood then among business leaders as they assembled for the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, was still one of high excitement. Dot madness reigned, the Nasdaq and other technology indices were testing new highs, the US economy was roaring away with annualised growth of more than 6 per cent, and there seemed no end in sight to the boom times The contrast with a year ago could hardly be greater. The mood then among business leaders as they assembled for the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, was still one of high excitement. Dot madness reigned, the Nasdaq and other technology indices were testing new highs, the US economy was roaring away with annualised growth of more than 6 per cent, and there seemed no end in sight to the boom times. This time a more sober, subdued atmosphere pervades the streets and hotels of this famous Swiss mountain resort, immortalised by the German novelist Thomas Mann in Magic Mountain. Some delegates might even feel the need to turn to the town's still-functioning cluster of sanatoriums, for growth and the business cycle seem to have run out of puff.The turnout is smaller too, in part because the organisers have decided to limit numbers, and in part because of the change of administration in the US.