It's not that the risk of the Japan syndrome has receded very much. The risk of a full, all-out Great Depression - utter collapse of everything - has receded a lot in the past few months.

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Governments of the world's major economies announced staggering first-quarter contractions in the past few days, as real indicators of the economic crisis continue to worsen. ***

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It did not take long for the world financial crisis to affect the world's oldest profession in Germany.

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Workers at a French subsidiary of US firm Molex have detained two bosses in protest at plans to close the plant in south-east France. Molex Automotive announced in October they were planning to close the plant and relocate its work to China and the US.

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"What," asked my interlocutor, "is the worst-case outlook for the world economy?" It wasn't until the next day that I came up with the right answer: America could turn Irish.

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Renita Jablonski: Think about all the comparisons we've heard about between The Great Depression and what's happening with the economy right now.

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Several thousand protesters jammed the streets of London's financial district on Wednesday, and a few hundred battled with the riot police in a brief but brutal spasm of violence that reflected a widespread anticapitalist fervor just as world leaders gathered here to try to r …

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At a convention of Hungary's ruling Socialist Party (MSZP) just over a week ago, Ferenc Gyurcsany, the party's leader, announced his resignation as head of government.

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Ten years ago the cover of Time magazine featured Robert Rubin, then Treasury secretary, Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary.

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In a report released this week, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has predicted a drop in global trade this year of 9 percent by volume—the largest decline since World War II. Among developed countries, the fall is forecast to be even higher at 10 percent.

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Amid plummeting exports and a deep recession in Japan, hundreds of thousands of people are facing unemployment and poverty.

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I'm concerned about Europe. Actually, I'm concerned about the whole world — there are no safe havens from the global economic storm. But the situation in Europe worries me even more than the situation in America.

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The debt crisis in Eastern Europe is much more than an economic problem. The wrenching decline in the standard of living caused by this crisis is provoking social unrest.

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The US and world economy are confronted with the greatest crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Amidst the breakdown of the global financial system, industrial production and world trade are falling dramatically. The United States is facing the specter of mass poverty.

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Firemen's delegation at head of march A reporting team from the World Socialist Web Site spoke to a broad range of the workers taking part in Saturday's 100,000-strong protest in Dublin called by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

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A section of the demonstration in Dublin Up to 120,000 marched through Dublin on Saturday, in a massive protest against government attacks on working people.

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A zombie bank keeps draining bailout capital from the government but doesn't respond with any meaningful lending that helps the economy recover. The prevalence of zombie banks made the long Japanese recession of the 1990s especially painful.

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The World Bank warned last week that up to 53 million more people around the world could fall into poverty in 2009 as a result of the global economic slump, and up to 400,000 more children could die each year as a result of rising infant mortality.

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Recession deepens but a few glimmers of hope

Unemployment continues to grow across the globe, with no countries remains unaffected by the global recession. In the Unites States the unemployment rate reached 7.2 per cent in December, its highest level since 1992.

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The international economic crisis is having an ever more devastating impact on Europe. A few weeks ago German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück (Social Democratic Party—SPD) was still speaking of a financial crisis centred in America.

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Global leaders had a simple message for the world on Saturday: Keep trading. If nations instead choose to barricade their economies behind new commercial barriers, they risk making the global economic crisis even worse, leaders said.

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Iceland's Social Democratic Alliance is to lead the country's new government in coalition with the Left Green Party, following negotiations between the parties this week.

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Confidence among the world's top bosses meeting in Davos has evaporated and European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet said on Wednesday a too fragile financial system needed reform.

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Sad news is pouring in from Israel's Holocaust survivors on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

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THE BANKING crisis is back--and it's now so bad that the U.S. government may be compelled to once again nationalize some the country's biggest financial institutions.

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