A fresh batch of gloomy economic news from around the world suggests the global recession is still deepening, with scant indication yet of any light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. In a sign that the economic crisis may now be threatening lives as well as their livelihoods, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that as many as 90 million more people would be forced into extreme poverty this year, defined as living on less than $1.25 (Dh4.60) per day. In their annual Global Monitoring Report, released yesterday in Washington, they found that most of the Millennium Development Goals, such as eradicating preventable diseases and alleviating hunger by 2015, may now be unattainable. But the developing world is not alone in its pain, as nations everywhere grapple with their worst economic problems in decades. Britain's economy shrank at its fastest rate for 30 years in the first three months of this year, and more dramatically than expected, according to new UK government figures that showed a 1.9 per cent drop in GDP for the quarter. "It's early days yet, but the drop opens up the possibility of GDP in 2009 as a whole falling by even more than the four per cent we currently expect," said Vicky Redwood, an economist at Capital Economics, the UK research consultancy. Even the UAE is struggling, with the IMF predicting last week that GDP would fall this year by 0.6 per cent. However, that is less than half the 1.3 per cent shrinkage the IMF forecast for the global economy in its biannual World Economic Outlook, which predicted the world would post its worst economic performance since the Second World War. "The economic prospects for the UAE remain robust," Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, the UAE Minister of Foreign Trade, said yesterday, during an official visit to China to promote bilateral trade. She said the UAE was continuing to pursue its long-standing plans for infrastructure development, and remained attractive to foreign investors. But gloom prevailed almost everywhere else. In the world's biggest economy, government statistics released on Thursday showed US job losses continuing to mount last month. There were 2,933 mass layoffs, affecting 50 or more workers, the highest number since 1995. The labour department said the number of people drawing unemployment benefits in the United States reached a new record of 6.14 million. American Express, the US financial services company, said yesterday it would cut more jobs in coming months as part of another round of cost reductions aimed at offsetting losses from souring credit-card loans. The company had already cut 7,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of its workforce, in October. Elsewhere, Spain, Brazil, Russia and Sweden were among a number of countries reporting higher unemployment rates. The ranks of the unemployed in Spain have almost doubled in the past year to four million, bringing that country's jobless rate to 17 per cent, according to official data released yesterday. That is by far the highest in the 27-nation European Union, for which the average unemployment rate was 7.9 per cent in February. "It is a terrible figure," said the Spanish secretary of state for social security, Octavio Granado. "We are at the worst point of the crisis, in the very eye of the storm." Adding to the darkening economic picture, the US commerce department said sales of new homes fell by 0.6 per cent in March, showing that the country's housing market continues to struggle. The National Association of Realtors, a US real estate industry group, said on Thursday that sales of existing homes in the US fell by three per cent last month, resuming a slide that was briefly interrupted in February. Stora Enso, the Finnish-Swedish papermaker, announced it would cut 2,000 jobs owing to weakening worldwide demand for its products. tcarlisle@thenational.ae