Alistair Darling took to the airwaves to clarify his comments in a newspaper interview, saying that he was referring to global economic conditions rather than those in Britain.

Chile's central bank policy makers voted unanimously to increase interest rates at their last meeting by half a percentage point for the third straight month.

The Japanese government unveiled on Friday a policy package worth about 107 billion US dollars in an effort to stimulate the country's faltering economy by easing the negative impact from rising energy and raw material costs.

Current falls in commodity and food prices could be temporary and have not reduced concerns over their impact on developing nations, the head of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Friday.

Separate figures have shown as easing of inflation in the Euro zone, but a fall in economic confidence. An initial estimate from EU statistics agency Eurostat showed that the annual rate of inflation eased in August to 3.8% from a record 4% in July as oil prices cooled.

Land Rover has announced plans to cut production at its Solihull plant in England, including the introduction of a four-day week on some lines. Discoveries and Land Rover Sport models will no longer be manufactured on Fridays

Britain's Standard Chartered Bank has been authorized to open a representation office in Chile, according to an official release from the country's banking regulator, Superintendencia de Bancos e Instituciones Financieras, SBIF
The US economy grew at a revised 3.3% annually in the second quarter of 2008, said on Thursday the Commerce Department, much higher than the original estimate of 1.9%.

The Argentine Central Bank president Martin Redrado said that there's no floor on sight for the international financial markets crisis, but in recent months for the first time in decades, Argentina managed to stop a run on the bank's reserves.

Latin America and the Caribbean have posted positive economic gains for the sixth year in a row, despite the global downturn, with gross domestic product (GDP) rising nearly 5% this year, according to the most recent estimates of the United Nations office in the region.