Based on its regular economic and monetary analyses, the Governing Council decided at its meeting on 4 April 2012 to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged.

Commodity prices have fluctuated substantially over the past few years. The controversial question is, are financial speculators to blame?

BEIJING – At the opening of the annual session of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), Premier Wen Jiabao announced that the government’s target for annual economic growth in 2012 was 7.5%. With the global economy still struggling to recover, Wen’s announcement of such a significant dip in China’s growth rate naturally sparked widespread concern around the world.

Last week, Egypt's interim government renewed negotiations with the IMF to secure a $3.2 billion loan to alleviate its liquidity crisis. The loan will come with conditions, and will only partially address the projected $11 billion in financing that Egypt will need over the next two years. Subsidies will be front and center in negotiations.

SANTIAGO – During a visit to Rio de Janeiro last year, US President Barack Obama told a cheering crowd that Brazil is the country of the future no more. “For so long, you were...told to wait for a better day that was always just around the corner,” Obama said. “Meus amigos, that day has finally come.”

Turkey has one of the world’s zippiest economies, but it is too reliant on hot money

No one could have predicted that oil prices would rise to today’s levels.

James Carville famously remarked of the 1992 election that “It’s the economy stupid!” and the same will be true of the 2012 election. When President Obama came into office, he embraced the challenge of turning the economy around. The policies he followed to stabilize the banks and provide stimulus to a tumbling economy were the correct ones and succeeded in stopping the collapse.