Economy, G20 | featured news

President Obama's political fate could be decided in the debt-ridden nations of Europe. While praising European efforts to address its potential economic crisis after this week's G-20 summit, Obama also said that problems overseas could damage the economy in the U.S. -- and threaten his re-election.

More than at any time since the depths of the financial crisis, the world's leaders need to pull together today, end their squabbling and divisiveness, and come up with a concrete plan to get the fragile recovery back on track.

President Obama and the G-20 could not agree on how to add resources to the International Monetary Fund so that it can help with the European debt crisis. G-20 members did say that the IMF should have more tools and money, but decisions on exactly how to do that were put off until next year.

Finance Ministers and Central Bankers from members states within the Group of 20 said Saturday they saw no imminent threat of a recession as the European debt crisis unfolds.

The European Union will call on China this week to boost domestic demand and on the United States and Japan to tackle their public deficits as part of global efforts to rebalance growth, an EU document showed.

The world's major nations have put together a new monitoring process that they hope will halt the types of destabilizing economic imbalances that contributed to the worst global downturn since World War II....

The finance ministers from the Group of 20 economic powers reached a compromise, after pressuring China, on how to track imbalances in the global economy.

French hopes for tough curbs on commodities speculation to tame soaring food prices look set to be thwarted as leading producer nations line up to oppose market interference.

President Obama urged other world leaders Wednesday to reduce their reliance on exports to the United States to drive their economic growth, stressing a need to resolve global imbalances such as China's huge trade surplus.

China lashed out at Japan and the US for their stance on territorial disputes in waters off its coast as Asian leaders gathered in Hanoi, hindering talks on currency and trade policies before a Group of 20 ...