Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

As Nigeria’s university lecturers continue a nearly four-month-old nationwide strike, teachers at technical schools across the country have joined the fray, saying they won’t teach again until their demands are met.

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved two grants totaling US$25 million to the Government of Samoa to help rebuild critical roads and bridges and to restore agricultural and fishery livelihoods for thousands of subsistence farmers whose crops and farms were damaged during Tropical Cyclone Evan (TCE).

Over half of EU citizens feel that banks should be regulated by the EU, rather than national governments. Half also believe that they would be better protected against the economic crisis if their countries coordinated anti-crisis measures with other EU member states, suggests a Eurobarometer poll published on Friday.

The U.S. government is open for business again after budget bickering in Congress closed many government operations for 16 days. But the budget deal is just temporary. Congress has set up a group to quickly forge a broad, long-term budget agreement. But the two parties remain far apart on spending and savings priorities, and experts say similar efforts to work out a budget deal have failed in the past.

Development of the robust and reliable energy sector, stable transit of energy, promotion of sustainable energy solutions and energy efficiency are key topics of a high-level conference organized by the Ukraine’s OSCE Chairmanship and the Government of Turkmenistan that started in Ashgabat.

The Budgets Committee approved on Thursday €840,000 in European Globalisation Adjustment Funding to help 300 workers who lost their jobs in the construction sector in Valencia get back on to the labour market. The decision still needs to be endorsed by Parliament as a whole and Council.

The Government of Solomon Islands and the World Bank launched a major research report outlining the key causes and consequences of disputes in rural communities and the experiences of citizens in managing their problems and seeking justice.

Fighting foreign bribery is not a priority in Belgium. Together with the flagrant lack of resources for Belgian law enforcement authorities, this has resulted in very few foreign bribery investigations and prosecutions. In the 14 years since the entry into force of the foreign bribery offence in Belgium, only one case of bribery of foreign public officials has been concluded.

Congress has put an end to three weeks of drama, deadlock and danger to the global economy as both the House and Senate passed a bill to re-open the federal government and extend the government's credit limit just hours ahead of a possible default. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law in the early hours of Thursday as yet another U.S. budget crisis was resolved on the brink of disaster.