French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants Europe to play a stronger role in international financial markets regulation to strengthen governance rules and boost confidence, his office said in a statement on Tuesday.
With Hurricane Gustav on course to hit the US Gulf of Mexico coast, the damage it does to the region's oil facilities could be a worst case scenario.
More than one billion people still lack access to safe drinking water, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said on Monday, calling for greater efforts to achieve the water and sanitation targets set by world leaders in 2000.
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.
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
Chile's former Finance minister Nicolas Eyzaguirre was named to head the International Monetary Fund Western Hemisphere Department that oversees Latin America, the United States and Canada.
Since its historic reunification almost two decades ago, Germany has been easily the European Union's most populous nation, with 20 million more inhabitants than its closest rival.