Observers will be scrutinising London's contemporary art scene closely next week, to determine whether one of the fastest growing markets in the world is about to flounder

  The French government has unveiled its plans to boost Paris as a financial centre, proposing a more lightly regulated market for companies and funds on the Euronext exchange

  The UN agency that manages international treaties on patents, copyrights and trademarks was in turmoil after industrialised countries blocked approval ot its budget

  The World Bank set its sights on cracking one of the most intractable problems in global emerging markets: developing local-currency bond markets to allow countries to fund their long-term needs, such as infrastructure

  The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has cautioned against ignoring the inflation represented by rising food and energy prices

  Robert Zoellick revamped the top management structure of the World Bank, bringing in Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance and foreign minister, as one of his top deputies

  Europe's largest energy group says its will go to Germany's constitutional court if member states approved EC proposals to split power generation from distribution

  The credit turbulence that began in the US mortgage market put European policymakers on the spot as the European Central Bank all but dropped plans for an interest rate rise

  European business joined the growing number of politicians demanding rapid action to halt the euro's rise, warning the currency had 'attained a pain threshold' for companies

  German chancellor Angela Merkel will tell the African Union that the group is committed to meeting its aid pledges in an attempt to counter scepticism among some governments

  A price war aimed at Japan's 100m mobile phone users could have an impact on the core consumer price index, potentially prolonging the country's brush with deflation

  The backlash against organised retailing by Indian companies bodes ill for further loosening strict FDI rules, writes Jo Johnson

  Eurozone policymakers will call for a strong stance against exchange rate volatility at the next G7 meeting in an effort to halt the greenback's decline against the euro

  International investor confidence in US markets will be damaged unless regulators rethink plans to give shareholders only limited powers to change the make-up of US company boards