Kathleen Moore is the director of RFE/RL's Central Newsroom.
Finance ministers from the world's biggest economies have pledged to take "whatever action is necessary" to restore growth in the face of the global downturn. But there were few details at the G20 meeting in England, and members appear still to have different priorities ahead of a summit of world leaders in two weeks' time.
Going through a difficult period but in some ways better off than Western Europe. That, in a nutshell, is the view of Eastern Europe from Erik Berglof, the chief economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. But there's no reason for complacency, and Berglof says it's crucial that Western parent banks continue to support their subsidiaries in the East and that Europe could still do more to help.
They've been accused of helping drive down bank shares at the most intense period of the financial crisis last year. Hedge funds have been portrayed as predatory speculators -- one fund chief was even described by a British newspaper as a "greedy pig" who brought a bank to its knees. Now momentum is building internationally to subject them to tougher rules.
Central banks in Central and Eastern Europe have criticized reports that lump their countries together in one stricken region. They're referring chiefly to warnings that Western European banks are at risk because of lending to the east. Such warnings, they claim, represent a "high risk" in themselves.
Greedy bankers, lax regulators, complex financial instruments, irresponsible borrowers. When it comes to who was responsible for the economic crisis, there's plenty of blame to go around. Now there's another group under scrutiny, particularly in Britain -- the media.
Over the past few months, the world's major central banks have been slashing interest rates to record lows in a bid to get lending flowing again and help their economies weather the global downturn. Today, it was the turn of the Czech and the British central banks. But now that rates are nearing zero in some places, what options do central banks have?
The figures were slightly better than expected -- but still shocking nonetheless. The U.S. economy shrank at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the period October to December.
As if the economic news wasn't already depressing enough, this week has brought two more gloomy warnings. The UN's labor agency says more than 50 million jobs could be lost worldwide by the end of the year. And the International Monetary Fund says it expects the global economy to come to a "virtual standstill" -- its weakest since World War II.
A "triple whammy" is exacerbating what were already high deficits and debt levels in some countries.
In 2009, the EU Presidency passes from one of the bloc's founding members, France, to one of its newest, the Czech Republic. But one of the country's leaders, President Vaclav Klaus, is already grabbing much of the spotlight for views that are decidedly critical of Brussels.
2008 was the year the financial crisis would go truly global, knocking the economies of the United States, Europe, and Japan into their first simultaneous recession since World War II.
Millions of people across the postcommunist world rely on the money sent by relatives working abroad. But as Western markets strain under the global financial crisis, migrant workers and the families who depend on them are also feeling the pinch, from Central Europe to Central Asia.
Czech writer Milan Kundera, the author of acclaimed novels such as "The Unbearable Lightness Of Being," has been accused of informing the communist police about a Western agent while he was a student in the 1950s.
The euro has lost 14 percent of its value against the dollar. That trend accelerated once the financial storm sweeping from the United States landed with a crash in Europe.
Until very recently, many in Europe thought the continent could avoid the worst of the financial crisis sweeping the United States. No need for a U.S.-style bailout, sniffed an EU commissioner, because Europe's situation is "less acute." But big lenders in Belgium, Germany, and elsewhere have since run into trouble, and governments have come to their rescue. And now, as the EU looks to strengthen its financial system, the idea of a U.S.-style rescue is no longer unthinkable.
Sixty years ago, Soviet leader Josef Stalin cut off all access to West Berlin. Over the next year, hundreds of U.S. and British planes supplied the city's needs -- the biggest operation of its kind in history.
Delegates from more than 100 countries are meeting in Ireland to try and negotiate a landmark treaty on cluster bombs.
About one-fifth of corn grown in the United States goes into making ethanol. Brazil is the world's largest exporter of the biofuel, in its case producing it from sugar cane. The European Union wants to get one-tenth of its transport fuel from biofuels by 2020. And in Britain a law came into effect on April 15 that means all gasoline and diesel must include 2.5 percent biofuels.
Skyrocketing food prices have sparked protests around the world, as well as riots in places like Egypt.
A new report by the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) warns of a "democracy charade" in which Western governments allow autocratic leaders to get away with masquerading as democrats, mastering the art of democratic talk while indulging in distinctly undemocratic practices like electoral fraud and media censorship.
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