Global Watch

* Mario Blejer, new head of Argentina's central bank, has vowed to keep a tight rein on the amount of new money printed to finance government spending, offering himself as a guarantee that the country will not return to hyperinflation.

* US manufacturers are urging the administration of George Bush to send a stronger signal to Japan that it will not tolerate a further weakening of the yen, hoping to place the issue high on the agenda during Bush's visit to Tokyo next month.

* AOL Time Warner, the world's largest media company, widened its net loss in the fourth quarter to $1.8 billion, meeting management's revised forecast of three weeks ago.

* GlaxoSmithKline, the world's special largest pharmaceutical group, will consider selling a large part of its research operations -- six research centres -- if the rate at which they discover new drugs does not improve over the next few years.

* The prospect of a merger between memory chipmakers Micron Technology of the US and South Korea's Hynix Semi-conductor receded when the latest rou-nd of talks ended with a $1 bn gap in the two sides' valuation of the possible deal.

* Bank of America, the third-largest US bank, has fired two executives who oversaw its loans to the bankrupt Houston energy company. The two are the first known casualties in the banking world connected to Enron.

* The Institute for International Finance, which represents over 300 of the world's finance houses, predicts that private capital flows would stage a feeble recovery this year, recovering from an estimated $115.1 bn last year to $144.2 bn in 2002.