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Annual growth in China's gross domestic product (GDP) slowed in the first quarter of 2009 to 6.1%, the National Bureau of Statistics has announced. This is the weakest growth since quarterly records began in 1992, but some analysts see signs of a recovery.

Growth was 6.8% in the last quarter of 2008, but the first quarter GDP figure dropped as exports fell 17% in March. China's government has said it is determined to achieve annual growth of 8%, and to expand its domestic demand.

There has been a recognition among Chinese state officials that too sharp an economic slowdown could lead to growing unemployment and may fuel social unrest.

Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that the economy is worse than at any time since the end of World War II. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman says the chancellor herself is partially to blame.

On Tuesday, the Federal Statistical Office announced that German exports, the motor behind the country's traditionally strong economy, have shrunk rapidly. Numbers for January show that, compared with the same month a year ago, exports are down by 20.7 percent. The drop is the steepest seen in 16 years.

In an interview with the newsmagazine Stern to be published on Thursday, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman takes Germany, and Europe, to task for not doing enough. Europe, he said, is stumbling. "I don't see any signs of unified activity, especially when it comes to financial policy," he said in the interview, which was only available in German. He was even more critical when it came to Germany's role in crisis management thus far: "Germany has so far been a huge stumbling block, a major hindrance." He pinned the blame on Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, who he said is much too orthodox in his approach to economic stimulus. When it comes to Merkel, Krugman said her response has not spoken well for her intellect.

the accusations and the insults that Ahmadinejad directed at some of the most senior politicians such as Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammed Khatami and even Natiq Nouri – who is one of the most senior advisers to the Supreme Leader whose children Ahmadinejad accused of accumulating wealth illicitly – not only deepens divisions between different branches of the government but also brought these divisions into public view for the first time and in an unprecedented manner.

In the letter, Rafsanjani requested that Khamanei break his silence but what happened on Saturday morning, a few hours after the elections, and even before the final results were announced, was that Khamanei rushed to congratulate Ahmadinejad and endorsed the results. That was not normal at all because usually after elections the Council of Guardians and the Ministry of Interior await complaints that may be raised by parties taking part in the elections, expecting there to have been irregularities. Presidential candidates have the right to raise complaints before the results are verified but the Supreme Leader did not wait for this process to take place and he quickly congratulated Ahmadinejad who in turn called on his supporters to celebrate in Vali Asr in Tehran and Iranian state television began to broadcast messages of congratulations from various leaders and presidents to Ahmadinejad on his reelection.

if the results weren’t final and the candidates could raise their complaints how could the Supreme Leader declare his support for the results? The Supreme Leader’s behavior caused a lot of serious questions to be raised by the grand Ayatollahs in Iran and members of the Assembly of Experts headed by Rafsanjani, which has the right to dismiss the Supreme Leader according to the Constitution. It raised many questions about the Supreme Leader’s validity.

Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project -- the Defense Department's costliest weapons program ever -- according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks.

Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force's air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft.

The latest intrusions provide new evidence that a battle is heating up between the U.S. and potential adversaries over the data networks that tie the world together. The revelations follow a recent Wall Street Journal report that computers used to control the U.S. electrical-distribution system, as well as other infrastructure, have also been infiltrated by spies abroad.

Mr. Mituletu, who is planning to return to Romania next month, is one of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa who have flocked to fast-growing places like Spain, Ireland and Britain in the past decade, drawn by low unemployment and liberal immigration policies.

But in a marked sign of how quickly the economies of Western Europe have deteriorated, workers like Mr. Mituletu are now heading home, hoping to find better job prospects, or at least lower costs of living, in their native lands.

While unemployment is also rising in the Czech Republic, “it is much easier to be at home with family and with friends and not to have a job,” she said, “than to be here and not to have a job.”

Over the past few weeks, workers and public employees have been calling strikes across the country. Last Thursday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Greece's major cities, paralyzing public life. Trains, buses, and ferries stopped running. Hospitals offered only emergency services. Public schools were closed.

Crisis? The situation in Greece is not all that bad, insists Panos Livadas, the government's secretary general of information. The shops and cafés are full of customers, he points out. The Greek economy is "really indestructible. I don't understand these international situation assessments."

He explains that in 2008 his country's economy expanded by 3.2 percent, "one of the highest growth rates in the euro zone." Over the past four years, he says, economic growth in Greece has been twice as high as the overall average in the currency union countries.