- The Group of 20 (G20) major economies on Friday pledged further actions to shore up growth while watching for monetary easing effects.
- Reports that Cyprus could sell a significant volume of gold may have triggered the sharp drop in prices, but we believe the fall represents a changing sentiment towards the metal," said Fitch
- Dutch unemployment increased to 8.1% in March from 7.7% in February. This is the highest number of unemployed people since the CBS started measuring unemployment in the 1980s.
- The IMF predicts the Spanish economy would shrink 1.6% in 2013, and the country's unemployment rate would peak at 27% this year before dropping to 26.5% in 2014 when its economy is predicted to grow 0.7%
- German car sales fell 17% in March.
- The indicator of economic sentiment for Germany fell by 12.2 points and stood at a level of 36.3 points.
- U.S. housing starts were at an annual rate of 1.04 million - 7.0% above the revised February estimate of 968,000, and up 46.7% YoY. This represented the highest level since June 2008.
- Fitch has downgraded the United Kingdom's Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings to 'AA+' from 'AAA'. The Outlook is Stable.
- Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) has raised its quarterly dividend 7%, marking the 57th consecutive year that the world's largest consumer-products company has boosted its payout.
- (Guardian) Frank Rijsberman, head of the world's 15 international CGIAR crop research centers, which study food insecurity, said: "Food production will have to rise 60% by 2050 just to keep pace with expected global population increase and changing demand.
- From the great State of Texas Republican congressman Joe Barton comes this quote "I would point out that if you are a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the great flood was an example of climate change," Barton told a congressional hearing "That certainly wasn't because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy."
- (Pritchard) Portugal's leading elder statesman has called on the country to copy Argentina and default
(Telegraph)
- The Dutch government is to postpone some austerity measures, in a significant break away from EU policy that risks angering Germany.
- (FT) Haruhiko Kuroda has announced his arrival as governor of the Bank of Japan by introducing a “new phase of monetary easing”, doubling Japan’s monetary base through aggressive purchases of long-term government bonds and risk assets.
- (Science Daily) A genetic analysis of the avian flu virus responsible for at least nine human deaths in China portrays a virus evolving to adapt to human cells, raising concern about its potential to spark a new global flu pandemic…the new strain could be treated with another clinically relevant antiviral drug, oseltamivir
- (NZH) A 17-year-old girl has exposed Islamic sex tourism in India where Muslim men from the Middle East and Africa are buying one-month wives for sex.
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