G20

A global finance industry group on Wednesday urged regulators to withdraw plans for a capital surcharge on the world's largest banks, saying it would put economic recovery at risk.

General Motors and LG Group will jointly design and engineer future electric vehicles.

Recent strikes in Indonesia by gold miners, pilots and supermarket staff over pay signal that workers have started to push for a greater share of profits in a booming economy that has drawn foreign investors partly for its low labor costs.

U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the eurozone crisis and financial-market turbulence on Saturday and vowed action to bolster the global economy, the White House said in a statement.

France wants concrete results for a controversial international tax on financial transactions at November's G20 summit of leading economies, Finance Minister Francois Baroin said in remarks published on Sunday.

China hopes that Europe will take steps to protect China's investments there, Chinese President Hu Jintao told the French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday, nonetheless voicing confidence in the euro and vowing to keep investing in it.

Banks must report a minimum set of data on their derivatives trades from the end of next year to help regulators monitor financial stability and spot abuses, a draft plan from market supervisors and central bankers said on Wednesday.

The Group of 20 leading and emerging nations has not done enough to correct global imbalances, and this could provoke more financial instability, a top Bank of Canada official said Wednesday.

The Group of 20 leading and emerging nations has not done enough to correct global imbalances and this could provoke more financial instability, a top Bank of Canada official said on Wednesday.

During Vice President Joe Biden's visit to China, Beijing and Washington confined their brawling to the basketball court, and for now economic and political needs should keep tensions in the diplomatic arena from spiraling into fully-fledged feuds.

The World Bank chief Tuesday called for national governments to seek long-term debt curbs to solve the current sovereign debt crises in Europe and the United States, but said it was too early for special action by the Group of 20 nations.

Miliband links the rioting and looting to other lapses in morality, including the banking crisis and the recent scandal involving MP?s fraudulent expenses.

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron promised Thursday to crack down on street gangs, saying "the fightback has well and truly begun" against those who rioted across Britain.

August's dramatic financial shock, which is now both feeding off and risks fueling another economic downturn, may well introduce a third phase of the four-year-old global credit crisis -- the infection of the ultimate creditors.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has assured President Obama he will keep his position through the current term, despite calls for him to resign in light of the S&P downgrade.

South Africa's Reserve Bank sees no reason at this stage to make any significant changes in the make up of its foreign currency reserves, the Bank said on Monday, after Nigeria and Mauritius announced plans to diversify their own holdings.

The crises at the heart of the international financial and political system go beyond the debt woes currently gripping the Western world and to the heart of the way the global economy has been run for over two decades.

Financial markets look set for another bout of turbulence, with Italy under fire and the United States' debt downgraded, after $2.5 trillion was wiped off the value of world shares last week.

South Korean policymakers on Sunday played down any likely impact on the economy following the downgrade in U.S. credit ratings and told local investors not to panic when financial markets reopen.

Deputy finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading economic powers will hold a conference call on Saturday to discuss the crises in Europe and the United States, a Brazilian finance ministry official said.

Finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations will confer by telephone on turmoil in the financial markets later on Saturday or on Sunday, a senior European diplomatic source said.