Imf, International Monetary Fund | featured news

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday shaved projections for global economic growth for this year and next to take into account sharp government spending cuts in the United States and the latest struggles of recession-stricken Europe.

The International Monetary Fund will contribute 1 billion euros ($1.29 billion) over three years to the 10 billion euro bailout for Cyprus, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in a statement on Wednesday.

A lawyer for IMF chief Christine Lagarde says French investigators have searched her Paris home today as part of an inquiry into her role in a $400 million arbitration deal in favor of a tycoon. The laywer, Yves Repiquet (eev ruh-PEE-kay), says Lagarde has nothing to hide and he welcomed Wednesday's search as another step in proving her innocence.

The fund said that growth is hardly expected to snap back to pre-crisis levels of 4.5 to 5.5 percent in the coming years.

The International Monetary Fund, at the urging of the United States, shaped recent research to pressure China over its economic policies, according to a study released Wednesday by the fund’s in-house watchdog.

Former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a New York City hotel maid have signed a settlement of her sexual-assault lawsuit.

The question is whether that’s 10 years from now, or 10 years from 2008, which means we have six more years until the world economy truly recovers from the 2008 housing and derivatives bubble that first exploded in the Manhattan offices of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. That’s the view of International Monetary Fund chief economist Oliver Blanchard.

Turkey and Poland will for the first time hold seats on the International Monetary Fund's executive board under a political agreement reached in recent weeks.

The International Monetary Fund lowered its estimates for economic growth for 2012 and 2013, and urged policy makers to do more to help the housing sector in the United States.

Spain's banks need at least 40 billion euros (about $46 billion) in fresh capital to preserve the country's financial stability, the International Monetary Fund said Friday in an eagerly-awaited report.