Oil prices fell sharply on Wednesday as investors and officials said the global financial crisis could slash demand for energy. The price of crude oil for future delivery dropped more than 4 USD or more than 5%, to 74.50 USD a barrel during trading in New York.
Financial markets in Asia have risen sharply, with Japan's Nikkei gaining 10% in early trading Tuesday, and Sydney up 5%. The gains came after Wall Street shares rocketed 11% on Monday as investors welcomed fresh moves to deal with the worldwide financial crisis. Japan was closed Monday because of a national holiday.
British-Hungarian financier and philanthropist George Soros warned in an interview with Budapest's Nepszabadsag newspaper that it is too early to say if markets will stabilize after last week's panic and described the current situation as the crisis of a lifetime.
Up to £50bn of taxpayers' cash is to be injected into four of Britain's biggest banks through the government's rescue package, the BBC has learned. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), HBOS, Lloyds TSB and Barclays is to sell off shares, the majority of which the government is expected to buy.
Asian markets have reacted positively to efforts by world leaders to end the recent financial turmoil. Sydney's benchmark index leapt 5.5%, as markets in South Korea and Singapore opened up around 3%. Tokyo's market was closed for a public holiday.
EU leaders earlier said no big bank would be allowed to fail, as they agreed a plan to tackle the crisis.
United States economist Paul Krugman, a well-known critic of the President George Bush administration for policies that he argues led to the current financial crisis, won the 2008 Nobel Prize for economics on Monday.
China's trade surplus widened to a record 29.3 billion US dollars in September as exports withstood the global economic slowdown and falling commodity prices reduced the import bill.
Scientists started on Monday reviewing some everyday and industrial chemicals used in such products as carpets and medical equipment to determine whether they should be added to a United Nations-backed major treaty banning hazardous chemicals.
Coordinated global action is starting to reverse the tide of the financial crisis, but governments also need to deploy all instruments to limit damage to the real economy, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told world financial leaders meeting in Washington.
The 35.000 tonnes Liberian cargo ship, built in 1977 Fedra lies in two pieces adjacent to the Lighthouse at Europa Point, Gibraltar.