
World trade talks entered a second week on Monday in Geneva with the United States representative accusing India and China of endangering the success of the discussions for having rejected a compromise painfully worked out by WTO Director General Pascal Lamy.

The People's Bank of China, (central bank) in a summary of its second-quarter policy meeting, pledged to keep a consistent monetary stance, the same word used on Friday by the top leadership of the ruling Communist Party to describe the planned thrust of economic policy for the rest of 2008.

The next United States president is expected to face a record federal budget deficit of almost half a trillion dollars. The White House is tipped to lift its deficit forecast for 2009 to 490 billion from 407 billion US dollars.

Brazilian president Lula da Silva underscored the good indicators of the Brazilian economy in spite of the world crisis and soaring food prices and said his administration's policy is to increase production to combat inflation.

Argentine former Economy minister Martín Lousteau spoke to the press about his brief period in office for the first time and while maintaining his continued faith in President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, made some criticisms of the national government and called for the removal of Domestic Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno, who he described as unerringly inefficient and with whom he admitted having had a significant conflict.

Chile, Spain and Uruguay launched on Monday a new electronic money transfer service which links their countries, using technology developed by the United Nations Universal Postal Union (UPU).
Mexico and Brazil risk ratings dropped six and nine points respectively while Argentina's climbed ten, according to the EMBI index from the US JP Morgan bank reported on Monday the Mexican Finance ministry.

Cuban President Raul Castro has warned that Cubans must be prepared for the consequences of the current global economic crisis.

The current ministerial summit in the framework of the WTO Doha Round of world trade talks has been extended until Wednesday in an effort to save the negotiations from collapse.

Congress passed a housing rescue bill Saturday aimed at sparing 400,000 struggling homeowners from foreclosure. President Bush is expected to sign the measure quickly.