Economy

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 20:39 UTC

  US unemployment benefit claimers dropped last week for the first time since April

  

  The number of US citizens claiming new unemployment benefits last week dropped below the 400,000 level for the first time since early April, a hopeful sign for the US economy which has struggled to regain momentum.

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 20:30 UTC

  Second rescue plan “too tough for Greece, too light for private creditors”

  

  Representatives of leading emerging market countries at the IMF have warned the Fund's management against pouring more large sums of money into Greece's second bailout, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 20:23 UTC

  Top IMF official joins White House as special assistant on international economic affairs

  

  International Monetary Fund's external relations director Caroline Atkinson resigned Thursday after being appointed the as a White House special assistant to the president for international economic affairs.

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 11:32 UTC

  Venezuela remains committed to compensate oil companies, says minister

  

  Venezuela said it remains committed to compensating Exxon-Mobil and Conoco-Phillips for nationalized oil assets, as long as the amount is reasonable and either settle by mutual agreement or set by the World Bank’s arbitration panel.

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 11:27 UTC

  US economic recovery slowed down in June says Fed’s Beige Book

  

  The pace of United States economic growth slowed last month in eight of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts, the central bank said Wednesday in the latest edition of its Beige Book report.

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 11:21 UTC

  Santander Latam’s profits insufficient to compensate EU poor performance

  

  Spain's Banco Santander CEO Alfredo Saenz announced Wednesday its second-quarter net profit fell 38% as growth in Latin America was offset by weaker results in crisis-hit Europe and a one-time charge in Britain

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 06:27 UTC

  China, Japan, UK, oil countries and Brazil, top holders of US Treasury bonds

  

  While US politicians remain divided on how to raise the government's ability to borrow, with a key deadline less than a week away, how is the current 14.29 trillion dollars in federal debt split, according to stats from the Treasury Department?

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 06:22 UTC

  The US government debt ceiling: what did Eisenhower do back in 1953?

  

  Should the US follow the example of President Dwight Eisenhower back in 1953, asks Alex J Pollok, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Anne Canfield president of Canfield & Associates, Washington, D.C. in an article published in The American Journal of the AEI.

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 06:19 UTC

  Lower House to vote on (doomed) Republican proposal to raise US debt ceiling

  

  US House of Representatives speaker John Boehner is urging Republicans to back his plan to cut the US budget and raise the debt limit. Boehner's appeal to conservative House Republicans came despite a White House veto threat and rejection from Democratic leaders in the Senate.

• Wednesday, July 27th 2011 - 19:28 UTC

  Brazil intervenes the derivatives markets in a bid to weaken the Real

  

  Brazil imposed on Wednesday a tax on bets against the US dollar and warned it may boost intervention in the nation’s derivatives market in a bid to weaken a currency that reached a 12-year high this week. The Real declined by the most in almost three months at times loosing up to 2% to the US dollar.