Argentina will spend the equivalent of 16.6 billion USD on infrastructure projects next year in an attempt to create 380,000 construction-related jobs it was announced Monday in Buenos Aires.
Almost all the new jobs created in Britain in the last seven years have gone to foreign workers. Of the 1.3million jobs created since 2001, the vast majority - went to non-UK nationals, official figures show. At the same time the number of UK-born workers in employment fell by 62,000.
The US Federal Reserve has slashed its key interest rate from 1% to a range of between zero and 0.25% as it battles the country's recession. In its statement, the Federal Reserve warned that the outlook for economic activity has weakened further.
United Kingdom consumer price index fell to 4.1% in November from 4.5% in October. As a result, the Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King wrote his third letter of the year to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, explaining why inflation was so far above its target level (2%) and what the Monetary Policy Committee was planning to do to bring it back down again.
Some of the world's biggest banks have revealed they are victims of an alleged fraud which has lost 50 billion US dollars. Bernard Madoff, who was arrested on Thursday, has been charged with fraud in what is being described as one of the biggest-ever such cases.
Electronics giant Siemens AG has agreed on Monday to pay 1.4 billion US dollars to US and German authorities after the company allegedly engaged in bribery, the SEC said in a release.
The discovery and exploitation of new oil and gas wells in the extreme south of Chile has generated a boom for the Magallanes Region which is creating a significant demand for technicians and specialized labour.
A firm that counted itself a client of a broker accused of a 50 billion US dollars Wall Street con has criticised US regulators for what it says are systemic failures. Bramdean Alternatives said the charges against Bernard Madoff raised fundamental questions about the American financial regulatory system.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has ordered halting payment on foreign bonds he calls illegal and illegitimate. If this is the case it would be Ecuador's second default in a decade.
The outgoing George Bush administration said it may be willing to give emergency aid to the ailing US car industry, keeping open the prospects for a bailout the day after Congress failed to approve a deal.