Reckless practices and bad management – but rigid transparency rules are not the answer, says Europe's internal market commissioner

  The world's largest financial institutions said they wanted to fashion a response to the credit crisis before policymakers stepped in with regulation

  World economic growth is being jeopardised by environmental degradation, scientists warn, although the rate at which the environment is despoiled may be slowing

  Washington's concerns over the passage of a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia have led to a renewed push to gain support for it, by taking congressmen to Colombia to see the progress made with the help of US funding

  Worries that industrialised nations will impose greenhouse gas cuts will be a stumbling block at the UN climate change talks, officials warn

  Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, threw his weight behind plans to turn Mumbai into an international financial centre in a speech ahead of his first official visit to India later this week.

  US-bound shipments fell in September from a year earlier at the fastest pace in four years but overall exports rose, pushing the trade surplus to a record level

  Eurozone economic growth has lost further momentum this month, according to a closely-watched survey that may reinforce the case for the European Central Bank keeping interest rates firmly on hold.

  Cheap food is an open-ended fiscal commitment – once in place it is politically impossible to withdraw – that can play havoc with a budget

  Acute labour shortages are prompting all governments in Scandinavia to let in eastern neighbours to work – but unions and parties of both left and right are wary

  The fundamental nature of the gas trade between the EU and Russia is changing fast, and both parties should begin to depoliticise what is essentially a commercial relationship that requires confidence, write Daniel Yergin and Simon Blakey

  According to the IMF, the world is in the midst of a period of exceptional growth. While a happy outcome depends on sustained openness and monetary stability, this can no longer be ensured by developed countries alone. Emerging markets have become big players, writes Martin Wolf

  Countries' official blocks on imports have fallen to record lows, although that trend seems to be reversing as complaints against unfair competition from China increase

  Senior Indian government ministers are showing fresh enthusiasm for building an oil and gas pipeline to Iran, in a move likely to add further tensions to US-India relations