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Singapore Airlines is hoping travelers will “Scoot” to its new long-haul budget carrier as one of the world’s leading airline brands seeks to muscle in on Asia’s burgeoning no-frills market.

Scoot, as the new carrier is known, will begin service by June 2012 with four Boeing 777-200 jets flying by the end of that year, chief executive Campbell Wilson told reporters Tuesday.

Scoot plans to initially focus on destinations that are five to 10 hours from its base at Singapore’s Changi International Airport and fly to four or more cities in Australia and China.

“This new market segment is growing fast,” Wilson said. “We aim to bring new business to the SIA group.”

Singapore Airlines, which is also known as SIA, has long relied on its top-rated in-flight service _ epitomized by the iconic Singapore Girl cabin crew _ to lead the long-haul first and business class market, especially in popular Asia to Europe routes.

However, Gulf carriers such as Emirates and Etihad and Asian rivals such as Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and Australia’s Qantas have eaten away at SIA’s market share in recent years, pushing the Singaporeans to eye the growing low-cost market.

Scoot will face two main competitors in the region’s long-haul budget market _ Air Asia X, owned by Malaysia’s AirAsia, and JetStar, a unit of Qantas. Analysts expect Scoot will likely seek to provide more frills at a slightly higher price that its rivals.

“This new airline is a poor man’s excuse to fly SIA,” said Shukor Yusof, an aviation analyst with Standard and Poor’s in Singapore. “It will be like luxury budget. When you’re flying 12 to 13 hours, you need to throw in some of the facilities people are used to on intercontinental flights.”

Wilson said Scoot will offer two classes of cabin, with economy tickets up to 40 percent less than full-service carriers. Customers will be able to choose seats, meals and baggage options, he said.

“We’ll offer many other options so people can customize their experience,” Wilson said.

The airline plans to eventually buy several Boeing 777-200ER planes, which can travel up to 13 hours, allowing Scoot to fly to Europe and Africa, he said. Scoot also plans next year to hire about 52 pilots, 250 flight attendants and 40 ground staff with what Wilson called “Scootitude.”

Scoot is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, which invested 283 million Singapore dollars ($227 million) to start the long-haul carrier. SIA already owns SilkAir, which targets popular Asian holiday destinations, and has a one-third stake in Tiger Airways, a short-haul budget carrier.

Growing demand for budget flights has been a bright spot for the airline industry this year as slowing global economic growth and higher fuel costs hurt earnings. The International Air Transport Association forecasts global airline profits will drop to $6.9 billion this year and $4.9 billion in 2012 from $15.8 billion last year.

Asian airline stocks have also taken a hit, with most carriers, including Singapore Airlines, down at least 20 percent this year. Only AirAsia has bucked the trend, jumping 50 percent so far in 2011.

Some analysts expect travel demand in Asia to improve next year. Airline analyst Mark Webb at HSBC forecasts Asian passenger numbers will rise 7 percent this year and 9 percent next year. He upgraded his rating on Singapore Airlines shares to “neutral” from “underweight” last month.

Scoot hopes to ride the low-cost wave that has made budget flights about 25 percent of Changi’s traffic this year from almost nothing a decade ago. The best earners among Asian airlines this year have been short-haul budget carriers Indonesia’s Lion Air, AirAsia and Cebu Air in the Philippines, S&P’s Yusof said.

“Budget airlines are not a fad. They’re here to stay,” Yusof said. “The market certainly has shifted from legacy carriers to discount carriers.”

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Encouraging news from Europe helped ignite stock prices in October. This week, investors will shift their focus to U.S. economic data, which might temper their exuberance.

Three events this week will command attention: the U.S. jobs report for October, the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s quarterly news conference.

A report Thursday showed that the U.S. economy expanded at a solid 2.5 annual rate in the July-September quarter. That helped ease concerns that another recession might be nearing. Yet the news may have also raised unrealistic expectations about the economy. Investors could end up disappointed.

“There’s a big difference between avoiding recession and stronger growth,” said Eric Green, chief U.S. economist at TD Securities. “The economic data will be OK, but it’s not going to be a catalyst to move stocks up” significantly.

Last week, investors were cheered by the deal European leaders reached Thursday. European banks agreed to take a 50 percent loss on their holdings of Greek government bonds. They will also set aside more money to cushion against future losses.

Leaders also pledged to expand the European Union’s bailout fund.

The announcement catapulted U.S. stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average rocketed 339 points Thursday and appears headed for its sharpest monthly gain since 1987.

Economists caution that European officials must still fill in the details of their plan and implement it. Even then, it might not work. When world leaders meet in France on Thursday and Friday, investors will want to see signs that China and other nations are prepared to help bolster Europe’s bailout fund.

For all that, some stock analysts remain bullish.

“The market was priced for meltdown, and didn’t get it,” Green said. “However inadequate the European package may appear, it is a decisive step in the right direction.”

Stocks had plummeted in September over fears that Europe’s debt burdens would trigger a financial catastrophe. With those fears fading, U.S. stock prices looked cheap last week, analysts said.

The U.S. economy appears more resilient than it did in August, when worries had grown that the United States would fall back into recession. Consumers’ sentiment tumbled that month after Congress fought over raising the nation’s borrowing limit and Standard & Poor’s downgraded long-term U.S. debt.

Yet the economy managed to expand in the July-September quarter at the healthiest pace in a year. Despite their gloomy outlook, consumers spent more. Companies increased their investment in software and equipment.

The focus on Europe “taught us something very important,” said David Kelly, chief market strategist at J.P. Morgan Fund. “Despite all the turmoil in Europe and the drop in confidence caused by it, the U.S. economy is still growing.”

All that makes the Fed less likely to announce any new steps Wednesday at the end of its two-day policy meeting no fax cash loans. Several members of the policy committee have suggested more action may be needed to try to help the economy _ perhaps another round of bond purchases to further cut long-term interest rates. But few analysts expect any such announcement yet.

Three of the 10 members of the policymaking committee have dissented from the Fed’s smaller-scale efforts to boost growth in recent months. Two of the three are scheduled to lose their voting privileges in 2012.

Investors might welcome a quiet Fed meeting, analysts said. It would suggest that the economy might be able to recover on its own.

“Every time the Fed administers medicine to the economy, it convinces people that the economy is sick,” Kelly said. “There would be incredible cheering if the Fed decided that the economy is on the mend and no further action is required.”

Also Wednesday, the central bank will update its economic forecasts, which Bernanke will discuss at his news conference. The Fed is expected to revise down its estimates for hiring and growth from its last forecast in June. Investors will scrutinize how Bernanke explains any such revisions.

The Fed’s meeting will be followed by the most closely watched economic indicator the government releases: the monthly jobs report.

The economy is growing, but not enough to generate many jobs for the 14 million people unemployed. Employers added 103,000 net jobs in September. That wasn’t enough to lower the unemployment rate, which has been stuck 9.1 percent for three months.

Analysts expect roughly 100,000 jobs to be added in October. Anything less could raise concerns that the economy may slow. Stocks might stumble.

A gain of 100,000 jobs is scarcely enough to keep up with population growth. More than double that total would be needed consistently to reduce unemployment significantly.

“The jobs report will be a sobering reminder … that all is not well with the economy,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at brokerage firm BTIG.

This week will bring other economic reports, too. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, will issue its surveys of purchasing managers for manufacturing and service-sector companies. Those will provide early reads of whether growth will accelerate in the final three months of the year or drop back.

And automakers will report their October sales, a gauge of whether consumers are willing to make big purchases. Consumer sentiment has fallen to recession levels. But that doesn’t necessarily mean shoppers will reduce their spending.

The auto sales data, in particular, will show “what the consumer does, not what the consumer says,” said Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds.

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Hundreds of jailed members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA have called for an end to violence as a tool for achieving Basque independence, boosting pressure for ETA to disband and prompting the government on Saturday to call the appeal significant but insufficient.

A group representing the 700 ETA prisoners in Spain and France made the appeal in a statement Friday night, adding that they themselves should be granted amnesty.

The call endorsed a groundbreaking agreement reached late last year by pro-independence Basque political parties _ chiefly the remnants of ETA’s banned political wing, Batasuna _ and civic groups that said Basque independence should be achieved through peaceful means, not by shooting people or setting off car bombs.

But the prisoners stopped short of calling on ETA to dissolve, as demanded by Spain, and reiterated traditional demands that the government also rejects, such as letting the Basque people decide whether to break away or remain part of Spain.

ETA declared a cease-fire in September 2010 and went further in January by calling the truce permanent and saying it was prepared to let international observers verify it.

ETA has killed 829 people since the late 1960s in a campaign of bombings and shootings aimed at forcing the government to allow creation of an independent Basque homeland straddling the Basque provinces of northern Spain and southwest France. But the group has been decimated in recent years by arrests of its leaders and members, and has not killed anyone in Spain in more than two years.

Government spokesman Jose Blanco said Saturday the prisoners’ appeal was unprecedented.

“It is an important step, a significant one. But it is not the one that society in general and the government wanted because it is not definitive, nor is it the one that announces the end of ETA,” Blanco said.

Debate among ETA prisoners _ seen as holding much sway in the organization _ on whether to renounce violence has been under way for months.

The appeal comes now with a general election due in Spain in November. The governing Socialists, who negotiated with ETA in 2006, are expected to lose badly to the opposition conservatives, in large part because of the dismal state of Spain’s economy.

While many in Spain see Europe’s last major armed militancy as being on its last legs, one big question mark is whether ETA will make some kind of big announcement before the voting on Nov. 20.

Some in Spain say ETA’s demise _ the golden ring that successive Spanish governments have sought in vain for decades _ might conceivably be enough to save the Socialists by letting them claim credit for what would be a historic event.

Meanwhile, Basque police said some 10,000 protesters marched through the region’s main city, Bilbao, Saturday evening to protest a 10-year jail term given Sept. 16 to activists who include Arnaldo Otegi, the former Batasuna leader who has been credited with leading the pro-independence community to reject violence as the way to achieve a Basque state.

A court in Madrid convicted Otegi and four others of forming an organization to replace Batasuna and serve as a political tool for ETA. Many Basques reacted angrily, saying the conviction dashed hopes for peace just as momentum toward it seemed to be building.

At the march, protest leaders hailed the decision by the ETA prisoners as setting the stage for a settlement. Many demonstrators waved the red, white and green Basque flag and chanted slogans calling on the government to transfer ETA prisoners scattered around the country to prisons in the Basque region _ a long-standing ETA demand.

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Europe’s largest retailer Carrefour SA Wednesday posted an unexpected net loss in the first half and abandoned its growth target for the year amid the economic slowdown.

The French retailer reported a net loss of euro249 million ($359 million) in the first six months of the year, compared with a profit of euro97 million a year earlier.

Carrefour said it expects its operating profit to decline this year, reversing a target the retailer set in March when it said an ongoing and expensive “transformation plan” would raise profits this year.

The company’s share price slumped on the Paris stock exchange as investors took fright at the suddenly worsened outlook for the giant retailer, which which operates chains of grocery stores and hypermarkets across Europe as well as in Latin America and Asia.

By mid-morning Carrefour shares were down 4 percent at euro17.88.

As it did last year, Carrefour booked what it calls “significant one-off charges” again in the first half. They amounted to euro884 million in the first half, over half of which went to writing down the value of Carrefour’s Italian assets.

Worringly for Carrefour, after years of failed attempts to turn-around profitability in its core French market, earnings fell 40 percent in the first half. The company blamed a reorganization of its processes and systems which caused large inventory shortages, as well as rising raw commodity costs and sharpened price competition among retailers fighting to draw in increasingly budget-minded consumers.

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Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis poured into the streets of major cities and towns across the country on Friday, keeping the pressure on the nation’s embattled president to step down.

The mass demonstrations in the capital, Sanaa, and at least 17 other cities and towns, including Taiz and Ibb, were the largest since President Ali Abdullah Saleh left a hospital in Saudi Arabia, where he was recovering from wounds suffered in a June attack on his palace compound, and signaled he intends to return home soon.

Yemen is reeling from nearly six months of protests by activists calling for an end to Saleh’s 33 years in power. The crisis has sparked armed conflict between Saleh’s forces and heavily armed tribesmen who have turned against him, further destabilizing the already fragile and impoverished country. And there are fears that Yemen’s al-Qaida offshoot will gain from the turmoil and have a freer hand in plotting attacks on the West.

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters defied the scorching summer weather and the dawn-to-dusk fasting hours during the holy month of Ramadan to renew their demands for Saleh’s resignation, waving Yemeni flags and chanting anti-regime slogans, according to witnesses.

Protest organizer Abdel Handi al-Azazi said that the high turnout for Friday’s demonstrations sent a clear message to Saleh that “you will not return to the country whatever you do.”

Al-Azazi said if Saleh does indeed return, the protest movement will push to have him put on trial.

“We want to see Saleh in cage, to be the second Arab president to be tried by his own people,” he said.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled by a popular uprising in February, went on trial earlier this month in Cairo.

Since Saleh left Yemen, the country has been in limbo, with both the protesters demands and the question of who will succeed Saleh unresolved. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have pressured Saleh to remain in Riyadh since his return is likely to spark renewed violence in the country.

Yemen’s opposition parties and the country’s most powerful tribal confederation have endorsed a U.S. backed power-transfer deal which would give Saleh immunity from prosecution if he steps down.

On Thursday, Saleh told his top ruling party officials in a meeting in Riyadh that he objects to key issues in the deal and has made ambiguous demands for changes.

Pro-democracy youth groups and Yemeni protesters however reject the deal and demand prosecution of Saleh and his regime members.

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China’s state news agency says 10 families of the victims of a high-speed train crash have agreed to accept compensation from the government.

Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday that 10 families will receive about $142,000 each for their relatives who died in a train accident in the eastern city of Wenzhou that killed 40 and left more than 190 injured.

Public anger toward the government over safety concerns has grown after a high-speed train rammed into another a week ago.

In the latest attempt to assuage public anger, authorities nearly doubled the amount of compensation for each victim this week from an initial $78,000 to $142,000.

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Hundreds of new website suffixes should begin appearing by late next year after the organization that oversees the Internet address system voted Monday to greatly expand domain names.

The new domains could be categorized by subjects including industry, geography and ethnicity and include Arabic, Chinese and other scripts, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said at a meeting in Singapore.

“This is the start of a whole new phase for the internet,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN’s board of directors. “Unless there is a good reason to restrain it, innovation should be allowed to run free No teletrack payday loans.”

ICANN’s decision culminates six years of negotiations and is the biggest change to the domain name system since .com was introduced 26 years ago.

ICANN will receive applications for new domain names _ the fee is $185,000 and the form is 360 pages _ for 90 days beginning January 12.

ICANN said in a statement that it will embark on a global communications program to raise awareness of the opportunities to new domain names.

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German health authorities say locally-grown beansprouts have been identified as the likely cause of an outbreak of E. coli that has killed 18 people and sickened hundreds in Europe.

Lower Saxony agriculture ministry spokesman Gert Hahne has told The Associated Press an alert will be sent out later Sunday warning people to stay away from eating the sprouts, which are often used in mixed salads.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) _ Germany’s health minister is defending his country’s handling of the E. coli outbreak that has killed 18 people and sickened hundreds as he tours a hospital in Hamburg.

Minister Daniel Bahr has admitted that hospitals in northern Germany were struggling to provide enough beds and medical care for patients stricken by the outbreak. But on Sunday he visited the University Medical Center in Hamburg-Eppendorf and defended the efforts of German medical workers.

Bahr told reporters that hospitals have done “everything necessary” to help their patients.

One E. coli survivor told The Associated Press, however, that sanitary conditions at that hospital were horrendous when she arrived with cramps and bloody diarrhea.

German researchers have been unable to pinpoint exactly where or what food was responsible for the deadly outbreak.

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