U.S. regulators plan to probe how the major credit-rating agencies are paid and their independence from Wall Street firms that issue bonds, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Friday.
Employers cut 4,000 jobs in August, the first time in four years that monthly hiring contracted, the government said on Friday in a report certain to boost pressure on Federal Reserve policy makers to cut interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the current market turmoil is identical in many ways to that which occurred in 1987 and 1998, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Friday.
European Central Bank kept options open on a future rate move on Thursday, stressing his anti-inflation commitment but saying volatile markets meant the ECB needed more time to think.
Asia-Pacific ministers agreed on Thursday to accelerate global free-trade talks, saying that negotiations were at a crucial and probably final phase.
Twenty-one years after Chernobyl, the industry says nuclear power is clean, safe energy alternative.
Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Thursday that Beijing took product safety very seriously, as Asia Pacific ministers agreed to set up a food safety taskforce to ensure the health and safety of the region's population.
China has been overwhelmed by the storm of criticism and level of interest in recent product safety problems, but it will be a good learning experience, a public relations executive said on Thursday.
Leaders at an Asia-Pacific summit appeared deadlocked on Thursday over what their Sydney Declaration on climate change and cutting greenhouse gas emissions should say.
The Bank of England kept official interest rates steady for a second month running on Thursday, and said it was keeping a close eye on financial markets to see how turmoil there would hit companies and consumers.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Thursday his country took food safety very seriously, echoing comments by President Hu Jintao in Sydney.
Pending sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell by a surprising 12.2 percent in July as credit tightened up amid troubles in the housing and subprime mortgage sectors, a real estate trade group said on Wednesday.
More than half China's drug factories will have to improve their waste disposal or face shutdown under the first pollution standards for the industry to be unveiled this year, state media said on Wednesday.
U.S. President George W. Bush says nuclear power is a key to tackling climate change, along with new energy technologies, but green groups want Asia-Pacific leaders meeting in Sydney to commit to greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Business leaders in the Asia-Pacific region said on Wednesday they will ask governments to put a price on carbon emissions as soon as possible to combat climate change.
Asia-Pacific nations are trying to map out a more robust approach to strengthening the region's food and product safety standards as ministers from the 21-member bloc opened their annual meeting on Wednesday.
Hyping China's food and product safety problem is a sickness in itself, the country's new health minister said on Wednesday, a day after Mattel announced a third global recall of Chinese-made toys.
China on Wednesday relaxed a recently introduced regulation that many exporters say would have added greatly to their cost of doing business.
U.S. President George W. Bush said on Wednesday China could help reduce trade imbalances by floating its currency, and a White House aide said Bush may discuss the thorny issue in a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Manufacturing expansion slowed in August as a decline in new orders led factory managers to opt for caution, while construction spending unexpectedly fell in July, according to data released on Tuesday.
After a lightning visit to Iraq where he hinted at possible U.S. troop cuts, President George W. Bush arrived in Australia on Tuesday for an Asia-Pacific leaders' meeting amid heavy security and anti-war protests.
Millions of commuters in London endured travel chaos on Tuesday as a 72-hour strike by maintenance workers closed most of the underground rail network.
Hurricane Felix slammed into Nicaragua and Honduras on Tuesday as a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm, lashing remote coastal villages with violent winds and torrential rains.
Growing dependence on cheap coal to power rapid economic growth in the Asia-Pacific could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that is blamed for harmful changes in the world's climate, experts said on Tuesday.
Usually derided as teetering on the tip of irrelevance, this year's Asia-Pacific leaders' summit in Sydney hopes to rise above its reputation for glacial action and have a real impact on the course of climate change. Leaders gathered for the meeting hope to build on June's G8 summit, in which nations agreed to consider a 50 percent cut in emissions by 2050 and build momentum ahead of a U.N. climate change meeting later this month.
President George W. Bush hopes to spur momentum for a world trade pact and a global target on climate change at this week's APEC summit in Sydney, but host Australia has warned not to expect binding greenhouse targets. The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit will draw 21 leaders including Bush.
Trade diplomats returned to the negotiating table on Monday for practical and business-like talks about the compromises needed to clinch a new global free trade accord this year.
Iraq's parliament must overcome major disagreements over control of the world's third biggest oil reserves before it can pass a vital oil law to lure billions in foreign investment, Iraqi officials said on Monday.
China said on Monday none of its massive foreign exchange stockpile was invested in the teetering U.S. subprime mortgage sector, while a top EU official predicted the crisis would not choke off economic recovery.
Lawmakers returning from their summer break are expected to consider patent law changes that have pitted two of America's most invention-dependent industries against each other.
