Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

It's harvest season and Kent Picht, a long-time farmer in Iowa Falls, Iowa, has just spent the day cutting and hauling in corn from his 800-acre farm.

China has worked out policies to transform two western border towns into key financial and manufacturing hubs linking the country's inland areas with Kazakhstan and Pakistan in particular.

The EBRD is supporting regional economic integration in south-eastern Europe with a loan of up to €35 million to help finance the cross-border expansion of Nectar, one of the region’s leading juice and soft drinks producers.

A loss of computer tapes by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) may have placed TRICARE patient data at risk. There is no evidence that any of the data has actually been accessed by a third party, and analysis shows the chance any data was actually compromised is low, but proactive measures are being taken to ensure that potentially affected patients are kept informed and protected.

Tobacco cultivation is providing prompt cash payments for small scale farmers

Over the next few weeks, European leaders have a big task ahead of them. They have to begin fleshing out that big bailout plan unveiled to so much fanfare in Brussels this week. The plan represents the most comprehensive effort so far to resolve Europe's grinding debt problems, which have done so much damage to the world's financial markets this year, but some issues may require a global effort to solve.

European leaders met through the night in Brussels and finally emerged Thursday with a debt deal they say is wide-ranging. They're hopeful it will guide the continent out of the widening debt crisis that started with Greece. But it's unclear whether they have the political will and economic flexibility to implement it.