Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping said on Friday the Chinese economy would experience stable growth and avoid a hard landing this year, dispelling a scenario economists fear may upset the global economy.
Some European leaders have expressed optimism that the next round of rescue financing for debt-scarred Greece will be approved by Eurozone finance ministers at a crucial meeting in Brussels on Monday.
The market capitalization of U.S. equity markets has increased by $3 trillion since last October.
The latest fourth quarter 2011 global consumer confidence report by Nielsen has found that India is the most optimistic market in the world.
Economists have factored the payroll tax cut extension into forecasts that the U.S. economy will grow 2.5 percent in 2012.
Greece’s finance minister Evangelos Venizelos has suggested some countries in the bloc want Greece to leave the eurozone.
In 1972, the Chinese economy was a shadow of the modern powerhouse it would blossom into.
Cynicism towards Greece abounds across Europe.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday he plans to step down when his term ends on June 30, raising questions whether the United States will insist on holding on to a job that has always gone to an American.
The economic output of the 17-nation Eurozone declined by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 when compared to the previous quarter, a more-optimistic-than-expected data point that is raising hopes Europe will be able to avoid falling into a technical recession.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, saw that its gross domestic product fall 0.2 percent from the third quarter even as France grew 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter.
President Barack Obama, in his new $3.8 trillion budget proposal for 2013, called for taxes on the wealthiest Americans, a reduction in the national deficit and adequate funding for education.
Stock index futures pointed to a higher open for equities on Wall Street on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq 100 rising 0.5 to 0.6 percent.
Eurozone finance ministers Wednesday scrapped a planned meeting to be held in Brussels that they had called to approve the new bailout and a related debt restructuring plan.
China's defense budget is set to double by 2015, which will be more than the combined spend of all other key defense markets in Asia Pacific, a global think tank has said.
Euro zone finance ministers dropped plans on Tuesday for a special face-to-face meeting on Greece's new international bailout, as the cabinet in Athens argued up to the last minute on plugging a 325 million euro ($427 million)gap in its austerity plan.
GDP dropped by 6 percent for 2011 as a whole, the fifth consecutive year of economic decline.
The European Union is likely to take action against Spain's newly installed government by May for delaying austerity measures ahead of a regional election next month, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Output at factories in the euro zone tumbled in December, reflecting a sick European economy that probably shrank at the end of 2011 but it is hoped will recover this year.
India's headline inflation slowed to its lowest level in more than two years in January as food prices fell, sparking hopes that the RBI will start cutting interest rates sooner rather than later to battle the country's economic slowdown.
There is another element to this ongoing drama – Greece’s resentment of Western Europe and the feeling that Greeks don’t feel like they are a part of Europe.
Despite all the dissent, the austerity program won a clear cut majority in the Greek parliament.
