Ratings agency Standard and Poor's (S&P) has claimed the lawsuit filed against it by the US Justice Department was retaliation against its decision to downgrade the US's credit rating.
“A recent decision by a United States appeals court threatens to upend global sovereign-debt markets. It may even lead to the US no longer being viewed as a good place to issue sovereign debt. At the very least, it renders non-viable all debt restructurings under the standard debt contracts.
Advanced economies led by the United States will increasingly drive global growth while emerging countries are at risk of slowing due to tighter US monetary policy, the IMF said in a note according to Reuters news agency.
Brazil's lower house has voted on Wednesday to end the system of secret voting in the national legislature. That's been a main demand from anti-government protesters who've taken to streets since June. And it was one of the five specific reform items that President Dilma Rousseff told lawmakers to pass to meet demonstrators' demands.
Chile's central bank cut its forecast range for 2013 GDP growth but maintained inflation and domestic demand predictions as the effects of a slowdown hitting copper demand are moderated by consumer spending.
A prominent backer of the 1973 military coup against elected President Salvador Allende said that General Augusto Pinochet betrayed those who supported the putsch out of patriotic sentiments. Roberto Thieme, a founder of the nationalist Homeland and Freedom movement, known as PyL, spoke out a week before the 40th anniversary of Allende's bloody ouster in an interview with Radio Cooperativa.
Microsoft has agreed a deal to buy Nokia's mobile phone business for 5.4bn Euros. Nokia will also license its patents and mapping services to Microsoft. Nokia shares jumped 35% on the news, whereas Microsoft's fell more than 5%. The purchase is set to be completed in early 2014, when about 32.000 Nokia employees will transfer to Microsoft.
Chile's judges issued a long-awaited apology on Wednesday to relatives of those who sought missing loved ones under the military regime of Dictator Augusto Pinochet only to have courts shrug them off.