The 'Balkanisation of regulation' lies at the heart of the current financial crisis, says Malcolm Knight, chief executive of the Bank for International Settlements

  Leading gas producers will discuss the possible formation of "a gas Opec" at a summit in Moscow in June, Qatar's energy minister said on Friday.

  Banks and their like need to do more to show they can be trusted, and that the public's gain from hyperfinance is at least as great as their own

  Worried European and US financiers were surrounded by others from Asia and the Middle East flush with cash, writes John Gapper

  Consumer prices in Japan rose in December at 0.8 per cent, double November's pace, as higher oil prices pushed up the index to another near-decade high

  Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime minister, is expected to pledge that Japan will cut carbon emissions by roughly one-fifth by 2020 and earmark $10bn to help developing countries pay for environmental technology

  Singapore, Norway and Abu Dhabi have been asked by the International Monetary Fund to take the lead in drawing up disclosure benchmarks for sovereign wealth funds

  Developments in global markets this year suggest Latin America may be losing its lustre, with stock markets across the region falling faster than most of the rest of the world. Some, but not all, say the gloom is overdone

  As equity investors come to accept that the credit squeeze may endure, faith in the resilience of emerging economies in the face of any US recession is also on the wane

  The IMF should be at the heart of actions we are taking to reform the international financial institutions, writes Gordon Brown

  Reaction to the US Federal Reserve's 0.75 percentage point cut in interest rates ranged from the hostile to lukewarm as policymakers, businessmen and economists chewed over the move at the World Economic Forum

  Arab states could invest more than $3,500bn into the international economy by 2020 as they take advantage of the coming oil windfall, says new research

  Leading oil-importing economies, including the US, Japan and the EU, will meet in Davos amid rising fears that record oil prices are worsening the global economic outlook

  The European Central Bank made clear it would not bow easily to pressure for eurozone interest rate cuts, even as fresh figures showed economic growth losing momentum