Talks could be concluded by the end of the year, according to Mohamed Thiam, the country's minister of mines, on billions of dollars of financing for infrastructure and minerals projects

  Economics cannot hope definitively to decide large swathes of the subject. The subject is blindingly complex, as well as relatively young, and much of the data incomplete and unreliable

  Carry trading is hot again but it will end in tears just like last time as exchange rates rebalance

  Latvia's decision to cling to its currency peg to the euro has at least bought time for other countries in the region

  There has turned out to be a significant downside to having a global financial centre, but the industry can still facilitate growth

  Imagine a world with a small current account deficit in theUS, a somewhat larger deficit in the eurozone and a not too excessive Asian surplus. In the long run, such a world would require significant reform of the monetary system. But in the short term, a fall in the dollar would help, writes Wolfgang Münchau

  America's leaders should commit now and in detail to implement deficit reduction once the economy has strengthened. Vague promises will not work, says Roger Altman

  Talks designed to pave the way for a comprehensive climate deal in Copenhagen this year ended on Friday with little progress and the gap between developing and industrialised nations seemingly no closer

  In its most violent mission so far, the US space agency Nasa slams two probes into the moon, in the hope of detecting lunar ice in a vast plume of moondust

  As corporate golden handshakes go, awarding $1.4m to a chief executive barely nine months into the job merely for giving his shareholders hope is actually quite modest. But before the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Barack Obama's head, the Foundation should take a leaf out of the G20's guidelines on bankers' bonuses and apply a few constraints

  The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission says the US remains committed to one global accounting standard for public companies

  Asian central banks intervened heavily in the currency markets on Thursday to stem the appreciation of their currencies against the US dollar amid fears that their exports could be losing ground against China

  Romanian-born German writer Herta Müller, who charted the hardships and humiliations of Nicolae Ceausescu's brutal regime, has won the 2009 Nobel Prize for literature

  Global trade tensions ratcheted up as the US opened an investigation into Chinese steel imports and clashed with the European Union over chickens.