This week's In the News chronicles October 1998 Group of Seven (G7) action to remedy world financial crises. The ten resources discussed offer news, opinion, and policy responses from major world financial institutions. Following international criticism of IMF and World Bank measures to aid economies in crisis (described in the October 8, 1998 Scout Report for Business & Economics), the G7, or...

A joint project from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the Debt Initiative for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) consists of an outline for adjustment and reform programs sponsored by these two organizations. The Website contains the framework for the project, which targets the 41 most heavily indebted poor countries, and gives examples as to how the initiative will...

Leaders of the seven largest industrial nations were sharply criticized at the start of their annual economic summit, held this year in Okinawa, for not following through on last year's pledge to write off $100 billion of the $260 billion owed to the West by the most indebted states. Most of the opening discussions have focused on how the debt forgiveness process might be sped up or at least how...

Released in June 2000, this 184-page report from the General Accounting Office reviews the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. Originally undertaken by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in 1996 as a way of providing financial relief to the most indebted countries in the world, the initiative was enhanced in September 1999 as a response to the continuing vulnerability of...

This week's In the News chronicles recent Federal Reserve Board decisions to lower interest rates. The eleven resources discussed provide news, opinion, and consumer information on the FRB BOG action. Following the first US interest rate cut in three years on September 29, 1998, FED Chairman Alan Greenspan caught fire from Wall Street. "Traders were disappointed" in the mere quarter point drop,...

According to this report stemming from the July 2000 Okinawa Summit, 1.2 billion people are estimated to live on less than $1 per day, and nearly 3 billion people, worldwide, live on less than $2 a day. This 23-page report examines the roles which the World Bank, IMF, and Multilateral Development Banks play "at the country level, where they provide policy advice, and financial and technical...