World suffers worst downturn in post-war period: IMF

September 16th, 2009 Worlds oceans warmest on record this summerWASHINGTON — The world's in hot water. Sea-surface temperatures worldwide have been the hottest on record over the last three months, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.

August 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US economists are generally agreed that America's worst economic downturn since the Great Depression is over, but an average American is unlikely to feel things are significantly better anytime soon. The Wall Street Journal's survey of top economists, published Wednesday, found that 57 percent believe the recession is already over, while another 23 percent believe that the economy will turn in the next month or two.

August 11th, 2009 Clinton: conviction of Myanmar's Suu Kyi wrongGOMA, Congo — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Tuesday for the release of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, saying she "should not have been convicted" on a charge of violating house arrest.

August 10th, 2009 Ahead of the Bell: ProductivityWASHINGTON —Productivity likely surged by a sizable amount in the spring as businesses worked to hold down costs in the face of the worst recession to hit the country in the post World War II period. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect productivity grew at an annual rate of 5.3 percent in the April-June quarter.

July 30th, 2009 Opposition to hold memorial for post-vote victimsTEHRAN, Iran — The Iranian opposition is to hold a "silent memorial" for victims of post-election violence in defiance of a government ban on the gathering. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's Web site says he plans to attend the ceremony on Thursday, along with another pro-reformist candidate, Mahdi Karrubi, who was also defeated in the June 12 presidential election.

June 9th, 2009 Economic downturn hits world's richest foundationSEATTLE — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation may be the world's richest charitable foundation, but that hardly shields them from the economic downturn. Between January 2008 and April 2009, the foundation saw its assets drop from $39 billion to $27.5 billion.

May 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - It might be too early to celebrate but the severest recession in the US economy, impacting the world, is showing signs of losing steam with encouraging signs on various fronts this week. Among positive indicators, the number of first-time jobless claims fell sharply and bargain-hungry shoppers gave a boost to April sales for discount retailers, and a report showed the pace of decline in the service sector slowing, the Washington Post reported Friday.

April 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The outbreak and spread of swine flu has come at a time when the global economy is trying to come out of the worst downturn since World War II and has threatened chances of an early recovery, especially in the US. In recent weeks, economic data suggested a bottoming-out of the global financial crisis, but economists Monday were forced to consider worst-case scenarios in which the recession could become two or three times as painful, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

April 14th, 2009 TOKYO - Japan aims to gather $4 billion in assistance over a two-year period from member states at an international donor conference on Pakistan scheduled for Friday, while planning to make significant commitment, foreign ministry officials said Tuesday. The host of the one-day conference hopes that 30 participating nations and international groups would donate $4 billion over two years.

April 9th, 2009 FRANKFURT - European economies can only expect to begin their recovery in 2010, the European Central Bank (ECB) predicted Thursday. This year, global demand is likely to remain very low since global economies including the eurozone are 'in a serious downturn', the ECB wrote in its monthly newsletter, published Thursday.

April 5th, 2009 LOS ANGELES - The US economic downturn has begun to take its toll on the entertainment industry, with giant Walt Disney Co. axing 1,900 jobs from its theme parks in California and Florida.

March 31st, 2009 CHENNAI/CHANDIGARH - Officials at the India Post Insurance Directorate, the insurance arm of India Post, are upbeat about business prospects, while the rest of the industry is struggling to cope with a slowdown. The two major schemes of the company - postal life insurance (PLI) and rural postal life insurance (RPLI) - are logging good growth despite bad economic sentiments, the officials said.

March 5th, 2009 A country cedes territory to terrorists, sponsors terrorists, harbors them, uses them to attack neighboring countries, possibly shields one of the most wanted terrorist of the world and yet gets billions of dollars of US aid, while the aid giver suffers from potentially the worst economic crisis in history. Do you see anything wrong with this picture? At least one or two things, no? Care to explain it to a layman like me?

January 30th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday said that 'political detachment' was never a quality of Election Commissioner Navin Chawla, whose removal from office has been recommended by Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami.

January 28th, 2009 LONDON - In a further blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the global economic downturn will hit Britain harder than any other rich country. The Washington-based financial institution forecast Wednesday that the British economy would shrink by 2.8 percent this year, twice as much as previously predicted.