G20

The Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, championed infrastructure investments across both the emerging markets and developed nations as a key part of maintaining a global economic recovery.

In a wide-ranging and rambling speech during a luncheon at the G20 Business summit in Seoul, Korea, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel called for a “sensible” exit strategy from the global credit crisis.

A big point of contention at the G20 Business Summit is how to reconcile the need for growth with the need to address environmental problems.

One of the most interesting – and perhaps under-reported -- aspects of the G20 summit in Seoul is the four female political leaders in attendance. According to press reports, no prior G20 summit has had this many women heads of state.

The G20 Seoul summit has agreed the BASEL III recommendation on reducing reliance on credit rating agencies (CRAs) but the onus of effecting rules relies on individual nations, said a spokesperson at the summit media centre on Thursday.

The president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, has called for more corporate investment into Africa and other poverty-stricken regions of the world, as part of a comprehensive program to encourage the private sector to spur sustained global economic growth.

The Group of 20 (G20) leaders in Seoul could not thrash out any agreement on contentious forex and currency issues though talks ran through past midnight on Wednesday, said a spokesman at the summit media hall on Thursday morning.

Two things are always present at G20 summits: the gathering of the most powerful international elites and the gathering of common citizens and workers to protests against them.

Goods and services trade deficit in the U.S. narrowed in the month of September from the previous month, but still remained high with China, according to a report released by the U.S. Commerce Department.

The CEO of Vestas, a major supplier of wind turbines, is asking for heads of state to meet for an hour to help come up with methods of weaning the world from fossil fuels.

One of the greatest challenges facing the developing world lies with their limited access to quality healthcare, a situation that threatens to jeopardize or undermine economic growth in these nations.

The Korean government is using the G20 as a chance to boost prestige, using the concept of branding.

South Korea will raise the North Korean nuclear program when President Lee Myung-bak holds bilateral talkswith the heads of six nations which are party to Six-Nation Talks, on the sidelines of the G20 Seoul summit.

China is not too pleased with America's plan to inject more capital into its economy in the form of a second round of quantitative easing.

Behind the scenes, China and the U.S., two major combatants, may already have already struck an agreement, said Douglas Borthwick, head trader of Connecticut-based Faros Trading.

For big U.S. banks, Basel III will likely have limited impact in the short-term because of its generous phase-in timeline

IBTimes interviews Euh Yoon- Dae, the chairman of PCNB to learn more about the committee's main function and its purpose.