The prospects for the economy look much grimmer now than they did a week or two ago. Yet economic policy, rather than responding to the threat, seems to have gone on vacation.

The decline in prices raises the specter of deflation as the U.S. economy contracts and demand for goods and services across the board plunges.

The bank said 90 percent of the loss jobs would be in Hong Kong, where data released last week showed the economy was in a recession.

The Japanese government said Monday that downside risks to the world's second largest economy were growing amidst the global financial crisis.

Japan's economy has been hurt by weak export growth and steep cuts in corporate spending amid the worsening global slowdown.

Zero -- that's the amount of growth five leading economic institutions say Germany can expect in 2009. They recommend more deficit spending, but can that turn around an economy on the verge of recession?

German Chancellor Merkel's coalition is divided over measures to boost investment in specific sectors of Europe's biggest economy as it grapples with slowing growth and the specter of recession, a report said Sunday.

HARARE (Reuters) - Southern African leaders meet in Harare on Monday to try to salvage a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, and rescue Zimbabwe's economy from free-fall.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Band members and music industry professionals cast a wary eye on the slowing economy this week as they gathered at the College Music Journal's annual music festival in New York.

Iceland sought these emergency measures after its banking system collapsed this month under the weight of the global credit crunch - threatening the entire economy.