
Less than two weeks after the start of a European dairy farmers’ strike, Sweden’s agriculture minister said that he would meet with other European agriculture ministers in Luxembourg on 5 October to discuss the ongoing milk crisis.

The European Union and Mercosur have suspended negotiations for an association agreement, basically on trade issues, admitted Geoffrey Barrett head of the European Commission delegation for Uruguay and Paraguay.

Britain's five biggest banks have signed up to new internationally-agreed curbs on bonuses, it has been announced. Chancellor Alistair Darling welcomed the decision by the banks to accept the principles agreed last week at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.

The collective wealth of the richest 400 US citizens has fallen by 300 billion US dollars over the past year, according to the latest Forbes 400 rich list. With downturn in the financial markets and wider economy taking its toll, this is an annual decline of 19%.

Argentina's economy is recovering from the global financial crisis in step with the international community, Augusto de la Torre, chief economist of the World Bank, said during a conference in Miami.

Primate Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio blasted the Argentine government saying the social debt violates all the rights of the citizens to develop a full and active life. Argentina's leading bishop added that human rights are not only violated by acts of terrorism, but also by extreme poverty.

The International Monetary Fund lowered its estimate for global write-downs for banks and other financial institutions to roughly 3.4 trillion US dollars but warned that loan losses could rise in the face of stubbornly high unemployment and associated delinquencies.

Argentina surrendered to the IMF during the last G20 summit having admitted that the international multilateral organization will be monitoring the country’s economic program during the next fiver years, said economist Jose Luis Espert.

The recession in Britain was not as deep as previously feared between April and June, official figures have confirmed. UK output shrank by 0.6% during the quarter - the second upward revision to official figures since July - the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

The World Bank forecasts that about ten million people will join the ranks of the poor in Latin America this year as a result of the global economic slowdown, reversing social gains since 2002.