(06-11) 06:13 PDT BEIJING, China (AP) —

Red-faced organizers of the Beijing Olympics threatened Monday to cancel the contracts of companies using child labor and violating minimum-wage rules to make Olympic-licensed products.

In a report released Sunday, PlayFair 2008 Д an alliance of global trade union and labor groups Д cited four factories in southern China for labor violations and accused the International Olympic Committee of doing too little to monitor the production of products carrying the official Olympic five-rings logo.

“We have very clear requirements and specific rules and regulations to manage the manufacturing,” said Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing organizing committee, speaking Monday in Hong Kong.

“If they breach our regulations, then we will tackle this problem seriously. If they very seriously breach this regulation, they will no longer work as our manufacturer.”

Officials of the organizing committee said they had not seen the 30-page report until Monday. It details the use workers as young as 12 and accuses companies of falsifying employment records and coercing workers to lie about their terms of employment.

The Beijing Olympics are expected to be the most profitable in the games’ history, attracting 500,000 foreign visitors. Corporate sponsors have swarmed to BOCOG, hoping to use the event to crack China’s rapidly growing consumer market.

Beijing is spending about $40 billion to rebuild the Chinese capital for the games, a sharp contrast of the legal minimum wage in southern China of $90 monthly.

“BOCOG attaches great importance to the production and sales of our licensed products,” Jiang added. “We have specific and explicit, very clear requirements on the manufacturer of our licensed products. Right now, BOCOG is investigating and if the issue really exists, BOCOG will tackle it very seriously.”

“To use child labor is also against the government’s laws and regulations,” Jiang added.

BOCOG confirmed the four companies named in the report, entitled, “No medal for the Olympics on labor rights,” received contracts to produce officials Olympics merchandise including caps, bags and stationery products.

The companies are:

_ Lekit Stationery Company, Ltd.

_ Yue Wing Cheong Light Products (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd.

_ Eagle Leather Products Ltd.

_ Mainland Headwear Holdings Ltd.

Officials at Mainland Headwear could not be reached for comment. The other three companies, contacted earlier by The Associated Press, said they had not violated labor laws.

The Switzerland-based IOC said it does not have direct control over all official products that carry the Olympic label. It said it has created policies on fair labor standards that it expects Olympic host cities and licensed manufacturers to follow.

“The IOC is committed to being a socially responsible leader of the Olympic Movement that takes care of the Olympic brand in the best way possible,” IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said in a prepared statement. “It matters to us is that sourcing is done ethically.”

Davies did not commit to additional monitoring. She said the IOC already works with associations of sporting goods makers and retailers on codes of conduct.

“Licensing of the Olympic brand is a major source of income for the IOC and national Olympic committees,” said Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, a PlayFair campaign member and worldwide union association which is headquartered in Brussels.

“It brings shame on the whole Olympics movement that such severe violations of international labor standards are taking place in Olympic-licensed factories.”

(09-14) 06:59 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) —

Production at the nation’s factories, mines and utilities edged up in August at the slowest pace in three months.

The Federal Reserve reported Friday that industrial production was up just 0.2 percent in August. That was slower than the 0.3 percent gain that analysts had been expecting.

It was the poorest performance in three months and reflected a 0.3 percent drop in output at U.S. factories, the first decline in manufacturing after five straight increases.

The 0.3 percent gain in industrial output followed much stronger increases of 0.5 percent in July and 0.6 percent in June.

The drop in manufacturing output was accompanied by a decline of 0.6 percent in mining, the category that includes oil production. These declines were offset by a 5.3 percent surge in output at the nation’s utilities, reflecting a hotter-than-usual August.

(09-14) 06:51 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) —

Consumer confidence tumbled to its lowest point in nearly 1 1/2 years as a deep housing slump and a credit crunch made people more worried about the country’s economic health as well as their own.

The RBC Cash Index showed consumer confidence clocking in at 71.1 in September, a sharp drop from August’s reading of 89.3. It marked the worst showing since May 2006, when sticker shock from high gasoline prices rattled peoples’ sense of economic well-being. The index is based on the results of the international polling firm Ipsos.

“It’s ugly,” Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research, said of the latest confidence reading. “Consumers are rattled to the bone.”

The deterioration comes as Wall Street has been suffering through a mood swing of its own, sending stock prices careening wildly. The deeper consumer angst also comes after troubling news last week that the economy lost jobs for the first time in four years.

Against this backdrop, analysts say the chance the economy might fall into a recession is growing.

Still many hope that can be avoided and are counting on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates next week.

Such a move could give people and companies an important psychological boost. It also might make them more inclined to spend and invest, which would help energize economic activity.

President Bush, meanwhile, is continuing to get low marks for his economic stewardship. Just 37 percent approve of his handling of the economy in September, down from 41 percent in August, according to a separate AP-Ipsos poll. Only a third of the public is satisfied with the president’s overall job performance, the poll found.

Individuals’ feelings about the economy’s prospects and their own financial fortunes plunged to 14.4 in September, compared with 43.9 in August. The new reading was the fourth weakest showing on record.

Credit problems in mortgage and other markets make it likely that the worst housing slump in 16 years will persist well into 2008. Foreclosures and late payments are spiking. Lenders have been forced out of business. The carnage Д especially in the “subprime” mortgage market involving borrowers with spotty credit histories Д has wreaked havoc on Wall Street.

Peoples’ feelings about current economic conditions sank to 90.5 in September, down from 105.6 in August.

A measure looking at peoples’ attitudes about investing, including their comfort in making major purchases, fell to 88.3, from 97.9.

Economists keep close tabs on confidence barometers for any clues about consumers’ willingness to spend. Consumer spending accounts for a big slice of overall economic activity. Analysts, however, caution that there can be a big difference between how consumers feel and what they actually do in terms of spending.

Consumers showed sufficient energy in August to give the nation’s retailers a modest gain in sales. A government report Friday said that retail sales rose 0.3 percent last month, down from 0.5 percent in July. August’s gain, however, was smaller than analysts were expecting.

The overriding worry is that consumers will cut back on their spending, dealing a blow to the economy.

“There are definite risks if people get sufficiently spooked,” said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services Group. “If you believe the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, well, we got the fear, so we better fear it,” he said.

Economic growth in the current July-to-September quarter is expected to slow to an annual rate of around 2 percent. That would be half the pace logged in the April-to-June period and would constitute a subpar performance. With growth cooling, the job market Д and wage growth Д also could lose ground.

The first major crack appeared in what had been a mostly sturdy employment environment when the government reported last week that employers cut 4,000 jobs in August. It was the first monthly decline in national payrolls in four years.

A measure tracking consumers’ sentiments about employment conditions dropped to 113.6 in September, the weakest reading in nearly 1 1/2 years.

The overall confidence index is benchmarked to a reading of 100 in January 2002, when Ipsos started the survey.

The RBC consumer confidence index was based on responses from 1,000 adults surveyed Monday through Wednesday about their attitudes on personal finance and the economy. Results of the survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.