FINANCE: World Bank, NGOs Exhort G20 Not to Forget the Poorest

The World Bank and major non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are calling on leaders who will gather for next week's Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Pittsburgh not to forget the needs of the world's poorest countries, which have been severely affected by the last year's financial crisis.

Q&A: "Political Elites Ensure Continuing Flight of Dirty Money"

Illegal capital flight in the form of corrupt, criminal and illicit commercial proceeds out of developing economies could be as high as one trillion dollars a year.

ECONOMY-US: Obama Presses Reforms Ahead of G20 Meet

U.S. President Barack Obama called Monday for stricter regulation in the financial industries and warned firms that are considering large bonuses for their executives to remember the debt they owe to taxpayers and the federal government for bailing them out last year.

DISARMAMENT: No Slowdown for Weapons Industry

The United Nations is surprised at the continued rise in global military spending - particularly at a time when the international community is grappling with a spreading financial crisis which threatens to undermine the poverty reduction goals of the world body.

ECONOMY: "Africa Is Paying Most for a Crisis Not of its Making"

The global economic crisis has hit the African continent especially hard despite not being involved in its making, civil society organisations gathered in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo heard at the fifth people’s summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

CENTRAL AMERICA: Crisis Chews Women Up, Spits Them Out

Vanessa Madrigal was working as a secretary for a private clinic in the Costa Rican capital, but only a month after returning from maternity leave she was fired, struck by one of the waves of layoffs that have swept across Central America in the wake of the global financial tsunami.

ECONOMY: Speculators Undermining Recovery, Report Says

The current economic meltdown will continue for years if the world community does not take firm and coordinated action to regulate the flow of capital, say researchers who have just concluded a new study for the United Nations.

AFRICA: "Have Your Own Policies, as Long as They’re Like Ours"

The controversial conditionalities attached to World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans over the past 20 years may, from the World Bank’s point of view, no longer be necessary as African countries are of their own accord imposing similar policy restrictions on themselves.

ECONOMY-US: Activists Demand Real Change as Foreclosures Mount

Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. continue to lose their homes each month in an ongoing crisis that is wreaking chaos on communities, advocates say.

G20: Moving Up BRIC by BRIC

Every one of these 'G' meetings becomes now an occasion for the developing countries - say the emerging economies - to turn that extra energy into a louder voice in the business of global decision-taking.

TRADE: Will Obama Steer New Course in Delhi and Pittsburgh?

A "mini-ministerial" meeting has been convened by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Delhi to help member countries draft a roadmap to conclude the troubled Doha round and set the stage for the G20 later this month and the WTO ministerial in Geneva in November.

ECONOMY-US: Still as Good as Ever to Be the Boss

Only 12 months after the meltdown of the U.S. financial system and the ensuing taxpayer-sponsored government bailout, the pay of the nation's top Wall Street chief executive officers (CEOs) is beginning to bounce back to pre-crisis levels, according to a new study on executive compensation released Wednesday.

EUROPE: Socialists Sinking Between Left and Right

The rise of The Left party in regional elections in Germany may signal a rearrangement at the cost of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), political analysts say.

VENEZUELA: Alarm over First Contraction of GDP in Five Years

The Venezuelan economy, which has grown steadily for more than five years, contracted by 2.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, heightening fears of stagflation, an unwelcome combination of recession and high inflation.

BALKANS: Strike Wave Sweeps Serbia

A very hot summer of workers' discontent has taken over Serbia. Some 33,000 people go on strike daily in 40 to 45 firms, according to union statistics. They are mostly employees of privatised companies who have not been paid salaries or social and health security benefits for months now.

Q&A: "Regional Cooperation Is the Challenge" for the Economy of Latin America

Exports by Latin America and the Caribbean will fall 11 percent this year – the worst performance since 1937, according to a new United Nations report.

MIGRATION-PORTUGAL: Pitfalls in the Path to Paradise

Some 200 million people, three percent of the world's population, have left their country of origin to pursue happiness elsewhere, according to the International Organisation for Migration. But their dreams are often shattered by human trafficking rings and unscrupulous employers.

EUROPE: Small Farmers Lost in Transition

"Our country would have gone through the economic crisis much smoother had we invested more in agriculture over the past 20 years, and had we not wasted so many resources on consumption," Romanian President Traian Basescu declared Aug. 7. That remark has drawn attention to serious questions whether countries like Romania are wasting their potential for agriculture.

BALKANS: Back to Arms, if not War

The arms industry in Serbia is seeing record growth amidst the economic slum that has hit other industries.

BRAZIL-MEXICO: Free Trade to Reduce Dependence

Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Felipe Calderón of Mexico agreed Monday to explore the possibility of a free trade agreement as part of a strategy to reduce their dependence on the industrialised world.

FRANCE: Taking the Beach to the People

It could almost be the French Riviera: women basking in the sun on wooden deckchairs; toddlers rolling in the sand or building castles; young people in colourful kayaks and sailboats on the water; elderly men playing a game of pétanque on the beach.