ECONOMY-US: Congress Blames Treasury as Foreclosures Mount

A congressional banking leader Tuesday blew hot air and blame at the U.S. treasury secretary about the ongoing home foreclosure crisis, but neither made a commitment to help stressed homeowners.

FINANCE: The Poor Will Pay Too

Developing countries are not safe from the damaging effects of the current financial crisis, as had initially been forecast, but so far the impact has not been "dramatic," according to UNCTAD economist Michael Herrmann.

ECONOMY: Don’t Bank On Them

Public confidence in Belgian banks has eroded considerably over the past few months. A series of multi-billion euro rescue plans, reports of lavish executive bonuses and investigations into whether shareholders were misled about solvency levels have fuelled fears that the savings of the hard-pressed ordinary citizen are anything but safe.

ECONOMY: Scepticism Greets G20 Attempt to Make History

Leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies emerged from weekend crisis talks with an apparent sense of historical accomplishment but key audiences seemed sceptical.

FINANCE-BRAZIL: Payback Time?

This is a good time for all those who resisted the "neoliberal" free market economic model of the past few decades, often as lone voices preaching in the wilderness. Politicians, experts and social activists want to take advantage of the current financial crisis to bury this model once and for all, together with all forms of speculation.

Q&A: "Wanted: A New Global Deal"

A United Nations conference on Financing for Development (FfD) is scheduled to take place in Doha, Qatar, next week against the backdrop of a devastating global economic crisis that has threatened to undermine the basic foundations of Anglo-Saxon capitalism.

ECONOMY-US: Weeks After Bank Bailout, No Help for Homeowners

Nearly five weeks after Congress gave the nod to a 700-billion-dollar bailout fund, and as the economy sinks deep into a recession, no definite plan is in sight for struggling U.S. homeowners.

DEVELOPMENT: U.N. Seeks Bailout Package for World’s Poorest

The buzzword in the international community these days is "bailout" - the multi-billion-dollar economic rescue packages aimed at helping a rash of faltering investment banks and insurance companies, mostly in the United States and Western Europe.

ECONOMY: Crisis Talks to Confront Dueling Demands

Leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies will confront dueling demands for action when they gather here Saturday in the highest-level acknowledgement so far that the global economy is in crisis.

HEALTH: Europe Ignoring TB Research

Funding from the European Union's Brussels headquarters for research into tuberculosis stands at about a fifth of what it should be given the EU's enormous wealth, a new study has found.

ECONOMY: China May Decide That Charity Begins at Home

Internal concerns are beginning to supersede China’s ambition to play the role of responsible international stakeholder and spearhead demands for the establishment of a new global financial order.

DEVELOPMENT: Two Summits to Focus on Financial Crisis

As the financial meltdown continues to spread to the far corners of the globe, over 30 world leaders are scheduled to participate in two key international conferences aimed at seeking short- and long-term solutions to the economic crisis worldwide.

ECONOMY: Emerging G20 Consensus on Solutions to Crisis

For now, a consensus seems to prevail in the Group of 20 (G20) major industrialised and emerging nations, whose finance ministers and central bank presidents ended their 10th annual meeting Sunday, which took on a high profile due to the global financial crisis.

ECONOMY: G20 in New North-South Battle

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for "a pact between governments to create a new global financial architecture," while stressing the need to open up the global financial bodies controlled by the industrialised world to emerging economies.

ECONOMY: Another G20 Takes Centre Stage

The Group of 20 (G20) that will meet this Saturday and Sunday in Brazil could have a more defining role in shaping a new global order than any of the alliances forged in past international negotiations - like the other G20 formed by developing countries in the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks.

US: Don't Be Afraid to Spend, Economists Tell Obama

President-elect Barack Obama will inherit an ailing economy and the way to help right it is to spend - and spend some more, independent economists say.

FINANCE: China Cements Partnership with Latin America

China's evolving commercial and political affiliations with Latin America and the Caribbean are once again in the spotlight, with the entrance of China to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in late October.

VIETNAM: Good Harvests Don’t Bring Good Sales

Farmers in the Mekong Delta, who produce most of the rice responsible for making this country a top exporter of the staple, are unable to negotiate good prices for their produce.

ECONOMY-BRAZIL: Crisis Delays Threat of ‘Venezuelan Disease’

The global financial crisis has corrected the extreme overvaluation of Brazil's local currency, caused by the policies of its Central Bank, thus temporarily chasing away fears of "Dutch disease", which in the developing world could well be called "Venezuelan disease".

ECONOMY-US: Congress Gives a Nod to Anxious “Main Street”

U.S. consumers are in no mood to spend, and that calls for action, Congress and the George W. Bush administration said this week.

ECONOMY: Global Crisis Should Spell End of Laissez-Faire Doctrine

The real question to ask about the global financial crisis is whether ‘‘it will go deep enough for the big economies to realise that the market should be controlled more. The philosophy of laissez-faire simply does not work’’.