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The current global recession is likely to be unusually long and severe and the recovery sluggish since it sprang from a financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.

Hungary's parliament endorsed Gordon Bajnai as prime minister on Tuesday, giving the political independent a mandate for austerity measures aimed at reviving an economy kept afloat by an IMF-led bailout.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Monday that Group of Seven finance ministers will meet in Washington on April 24 and follow that gathering up with a Group of 20 ministerial session.

Stronger emerging economies are likely to pull further ahead from weaker peers following the moves by global leaders to augment the lending capacity of the International Monetary Fund.

European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark on Tuesday criticized the decision made at the G20 summit to boost the IMF's Special Drawing Rights as ill thought through and potentially inflationary.

President Barack Obama's pledge to boost IMF resources to help other crisis-hit economies could prove a tough sell for a Congress suffering from bailout fatigue and worried about mounting U.S. debt.

An agreement reached by the Group of 20 leaders from industrialized and emerging nations said today the supported a new SDR allocation of $250 billion.

World leaders clinched a $1.1 trillion deal on Thursday to combat the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and said financial rules would be tightened to stop it happening again.

World leaders on Thursday clinched a $1.1 trillion deal to combat the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and tightened the rules to stop it happening again.

World leaders agreed a trillion-dollar deal on Thursday to combat the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

World leaders will impose new financial rules on Thursday and triple the war chest of the International Monetary Fund to fight the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, sources at the G20 summit said.

World leaders will impose new financial rules on Thursday and triple the war chest of the IMF to fight the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, monetary sources at the G20 summit said.

World leaders will pledge to regulate major hedge funds for the first time and set up a new oversight board to monitor the global financial system, according to a draft of the G20 communique.

France threatened on Tuesday to storm out of this week's G20 summit if it did not get the results it wanted, despite Britain's call for countries to unite and restore confidence to a broken world economy.

The following is an open letter from Franck Biancheri Director of studies of LEAP/E2020 to the G20.

Most economic data suggest recession in the United States will last for at least a few more months, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said on Thursday.

The Group of 20 nations meeting next week is a make or break event for the global markets, investor George Soros said on Wednesday.

The world has more than enough reserves to help restore financial stability, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday, but a way needs to be found of unlocking the funds.

Zimbabwe should clear arrears and implement sound policies if it is to get badly needed IMF financial and technical help to revive the country's devastated economy, the fund said Wednesday.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday said he is quite open to China's suggestion of moving toward a currency system linked to the International Monetary Fund's Strategic Drawing Rights.

The world is in a dire economic crisis, but no recovery is possible until the financial sector is cleaned up, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Monday. It's chief said the crisis will push millions into poverty and unemployment, risking social unrest and even war, and urgent action is required.

Financier George Soros said the G20 summit next month must support developing nations to prevent further market turmoil.

The European Union on Friday pledged more than $100 billion in new loans to the International Monetary Fund to bail out countries in the global recession and urged the G20 economic powers to help double its funding.

European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide 75 billion euros ($103 billion) in new loans to the International Monetary Fund as part of a G20 effort to boost the lender's firepower for fighting global recession.

More spending will give only a brief sugar high if G20 nations fail to clean up their banks, the World Bank said on Friday as economic powers struggled to agree a response to the worst downturn in decades.

Finance ministers and central bankers from Brazil, Russia, India and China will convene ahead of the Group of 20 finance chiefs' meeting in London on Friday, a Russian delegation source told Reuters on Thursday.

The world's advanced economies are moving too slowly in ridding banks of problem assets, which could jeopardize a global economic recovery in 2010, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.

A drop in Chinese exports and falling prices in Japan and Germany underscored the weakness of the world economy, while the IMF said governments are moving too slowly to rid banks of their toxic assets.

China's exports tumbled in February and Japan's wholesale prices fell by the most in six years, stark illustrations of a bleak world economy even as Citigroup boosted investor confidence in the banking sector.