Oil prices fell after the US Senate rejected a $14bn bail-out plan for the carmakers' sector, a move that weighed heavily on sentiment towards commodities.
Since Ratan Tata , the patriarch of India's Tata Group, decided to splash out $13.1bn early in 2007 on Anglo-Dutch Corus, he has spent a lot of time with smooth-talking Frenchman Philippe Varin , who has run Corus for five and a half years.
The top executives at Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, led by their chief executives John Thain and John Mack, will not receive bonuses this year amid growing pressure on Wall Street leaders to share the pain of the financial crisis.
Global oil demand will collapse next year and commodities will not return to the highs they reached this summer in the foreseeable future, two authoritative reports said on Tuesday as they forecast a long and painful worldwide recession.
The airline industry will suffer a $2.5bn net loss next year despite the big fall in the oil price, as carriers are overtaken by falling demand for air travel amid the deepening recession in several leading economies.
Over the weekend, the Bombay high court quietly published a 160-page court order detailing its decision to dismiss a petition by Vodafone of the UK against the Indian tax department.
In the corridors of Washington, the dominant metaphor in discussions about President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy is baseball.
The world economy will consume in the next five years far less oil than previously assumed, the western countries' energy watchdog said on Friday in a further sign of the impact of the global economic crisis on commodities markets.
The prospects for ministers pushing through an outline deal in the so-called Doha round of trade talks hang in the balance, with the US struggling with scepticism from Congress and its business and farm lobbies.
Merrill Lynch warned that oil prices could fall as low as $25 a barrel next year if the recession affecting the US, Europe and Japan extended to China, the main driver of demand growth in commodity markets in recent years.
2008 is possibly the worst year of violence in India. There have been terrorist attacks and blasts in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and now in Mumbai. The Indian government is merrily going around boasting of economic growth as ordinary citizens reel under attacks by terrorists.
So clear are the signs of a US downturn that the National Bureau of Economic Research, the most prestigious US independent economic authority, said the country has been in recession since December 2007.
The siege of Mumbai is over. Now the hand-wringing and the finger-pointing begins -- a dangerous period that needs desperately to be turned to advantage, regionally and internationally.
There are no easy answers to this crisis. But governments should consider whether they ought to become the insurer of last resort.
If India cannot industrialise, it will never be prosperous
Ranbaxy's shares jumped almost 10 per cent, having long been depressed by escalating investigations from the US Food and Drug Administration, triggering a ban, which is still in place, that stops the US importing or purchasing the company's drugs. Daiichi Sankyo, the Japanese drugmaker, reiterated on Wednesday that it would stick to its June offer to buy Ranbaxy in spite of its recent troubles.
Gold prices will rise next year as the financial crisis pushes more investors into the precious metal safe haven, according to delegates polled on Tuesday during the London Bullion Market Association annual meeting in Kyoto.
Gazprom, Russia's gas monopoly, on Tuesday predicted oil prices would reach $250 a barrel in 2009. The prediction came as the developed world's energy watchdog warned that record high oil prices were needed to choke off demand in order to balance the oil market.
India 's threat to impose a blanket ban on agricultural commodities futures trading would not ease food prices, analysts, traders and food executives warned, describing the measure as political posturing.
Rice prices surged to a fresh 34-year high on Tuesday as the Philippines awarded a tender for the staple at an average price of $708 a tonne, up almost 50 per cent from the price it paid in late January. The sharp rise reflects a market suffering from tightening supply after key producers India and Vietnam this month both imposed further restrictions on rice exports. Supplies from Thailand are also low, traders said.
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