
Paraguay announced this week it has a sincere desire to study in depth the origin and legality of its foreign debt over the last decades, when the landlocked country was ruled by the Colorado party.

The 700 billion dollars bail-out of the US banking system is being carried out without adequate oversight, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO). The Congressional watchdog says that the US Treasury is failing to monitor whether banks have complied with requirements on executive pay.

British Primer Minister Gordon Brown has moved to stem growing repossessions with a £1 billion package to allow struggling homeowners to defer mortgage payments for up to two years.

Wall Street suffered one of its worst days Monday, slicing 680 points off the Dow Jones industrial average as fears of a recession, or even worse, were confirmed by the latest data. Not only did stocks end their last week's five-day winning streak, they erased more than half the gains and the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index one of the broadest market gauges, lost nearly 9%.

Brazilian industrial production fell in October as the global financial meltdown sent shock waves through Latin America's largest economy, the government said Tuesday.It was the largest drop since Decemeber 2006.

The number of people filing for jobless benefits in Spain soared to almost 3 million following a 6% rise in unemployment during November. The Labour Ministry said Tuesday that an additional 171,243 people signed on for unemployment benefits last month, bringing the total to 2.99 million.

Argentina's industrial sector is demanding that the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner lower the value of the peso to improve exports in a move to overcome the economic crisis.
Brazil's trade surplus widened in November as imports fell by more than exports, the trade ministry said on Monday.

British manufacturing fell at a record pace in November as the slowdown continued to take hold, the latest figures have revealed.
United Nations said on Monday the world economy faces its worst downturn since the Great Depression. It expects world economic output to shrink by as much as 0.4% in 2009, due to a slump among developed countries - particularly the US and in Europe.