I’m sure you’ve heard the world economy is broken. With so much reporting of the negative it’s easy to obliterate the positives. Here’s a couple of diamonds in the rough for you though:

– Apple finished their fiscal fourth quarter (to 27th Sept) with sales up 35%. All the numbers have gone north which is amazing for a hardware business. 3G iPhone sales are astonishing at 6.9 million for the quarter (more than the first gen did in a year!).

There’s an even bigger cherry on the Jobs’ cake with $24.5 billion in the bank (up nearly 60% on last year) and no debt. When staring at a more-than-possible downturn their rivals must feel it’s an unfair advantage.

– The world’s largest retail park opened this month in, of course, Dubai. With almost 600 retailers trading, the ‘Mall’ is operating at just half capacity.