Asia's smaller export outfits are struggling as the region's currencies rally against an ever-weakening US dollar

  The International Monetary Fund has cut its estimate for global growth next year but still expects the world economy to grow at 4.8 per cent, according to Italian press reports

  The economies of eastern Europe are vulnerable to a reversal of the surge of private capital that has poured into emerging markets in recent years, the International Monetary Fund says in its latest World Economic Outlook analysis

  A coalition of developing countries has rejected big cuts in industrial goods tariffs in the troubled Doha round of trade talks, a move the US said could spell the end of the round

  Gerhard Ertl, a German scientist, won the Nobel prize for chemistry for his research into the reactions that take place on solid surfaces, which play an essential role in the chemicals industry.

  Notes of alarm have been sounded over free trade three times in recent years, yet among economists it is alive and well, writes Jagdish Bhagwati

  Two Europeans have won this year's Nobel physics prize for a nanotechnology discovery that has led to the miniaturisation of hard disks in laptop computers and music players

  European nations will draw up radical proposals to improve transparency in financial markets in an attempt to prevent any recurrence of the financial turmoil arising from the credit squeeze

  India's stock market boom has catapulted Mukesh Ambani, the country's biggest industrialist, within reach of becoming the richest Indian and one of the world's 10 wealthiest people

  The Chinese trade body for the steel industry has thrown its weight behind an effort to combat global warming by monitoring worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide by steelmakers

  World financial systems have been weakened by the lack of choice between global rating agencies, Jean-Claude Trichet said of their role in the recent market turmoil

  Economic progress is cutting extreme poverty but the region's least developed countries need external help to reach UN development goals, the Asia Development Bank warns

  Kazakhstan's dispute with an Italian-led consortium over delays and cost overruns in developing the Kashagan oilfield can be resolved without rewriting the contract, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has told Italy's visiting prime minister

  Ecuador is to rejoin the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries after a 15-year absence in another sign of the group's growing prestige