The US Federal Reserve has moved to pump $1.2 trillion into the country’s financial system, hoping to spur lending to beat the recession. Concluding a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, the central bank said it would buy up to $300bn in longer-term government bonds called treasuries to bring down borrowing costs. The surprising move to [...]

 Madagascar’s military has given its backing to Andry Rajoelina, the opposition leader who has declared himself in control of the country. The military handed power to Rajoelina on Tuesday just hours after Marc Ravalomanana stepped down as president and ceded authority to the armed forces. Rajoelina, who had been locked in a power struggle with [...]

Madagascar’s president, under mounting pressure from troops who have occupied one of his palaces, has vowed to fight to the death. Marc Ravalomanana’s spokesman, Andry Ralijaona, said the president had no intention of fleeing. “The president plans to stay in Madagascar. He said this to the presidential guard, who told him he should be placed [...]

Pakistan’s government has announced the reinstatement of Iftikhar Chaudhry, the deposed chief justice, in a bid to defuse the country’s political crisis and end a protest march that was threatening to turn into a violent confrontation. Yusuf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, said Chaudhry would be reinstated as Pakistan’s supreme court chief justice on March [...]

The White House has reassured China that its $2 trillion stockpile of US investments are safe, despite the global economic crisis. Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for Barack Obama, the US president, said on Friday: “There’s no safer investment in the world than in the United States.” Gibbs was responding to comments by Wen Jiabao, China’s [...]

China has “adequate ammunition” to fend off the worst effects of the global economic slowdown and is ready to add to already announced stimulus measures if needed, the country’s premier has said. Speaking to reporters at the end of the annual National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing on Friday, Wen Jiabao outlined a four point [...]

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has called the killing of 15 people by a teenager an incomprehensible crime that has left her nation in mourning. Her comments came in the wake of a shooting rampage by a teenage former student on Wednesday in southwest Germany. Tim Kretschmer opened fire at the Albertville high school in [...]

Iran has not decided whether to build a nuclear weapon bomb and does not have any highly enriched uranium to create one, senior US intelligence officials say. But Tehran is continuing to enrich uranium and is investigating how to build long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads, Dennis Blair, US director of intelligence, told the [...]

North Korea’s military has gone on full alert and threatened “merciless retaliatory blows” just hours before US and South Korean forces began annual military exercises. Pyongyang has also warned of war if what it calls a satellite launch – but what intelligence analysts believe is cover for a long range missile test – is shot [...]

The United States and Russia plan to have a new disarmament agreement by the end of the year, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said. Clinton said the two countries had “agreed on a work plan” after she met Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, for a two-hour working dinner on Friday in [...]