Group Of 20

A self-described anarchist from New York City has been accused of sending Twitter messages with the location of police officers so that protesters could evade them during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania State Police arrested Elliot Madison, alleging he used Twitter to direct the movement of protesters and inform them about law enforcement actions at last month's summit. The New York Post reported the arrest in Saturday editions. Court papers filed by Madison's attorney say that FBI agents executed a search warrant at the 41-year-old's Queens home.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called on leading economic powers to gather next month and discuss the global consequences of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear threat that have plunged Japan, the world's No. 3 economy, into crisis. An emergency meeting of the Group of 20 economic and energy ministers was proposed by France on Monday night at a session of the Group of 8 powers in Paris. Monday's meeting had been convened to craft a strategy for deterring bloodshed and unrest in Libya.

As the sky threatened rain here, nearly 2,000 protesters gathered in Arsenal Park on Thursday with a variety of grievances, setting off some clashes with police, and moved toward the distant convention center where world leaders are set to meet today. Major economic conferences have become regular targets for protest groups, and it was no different on the eve of the so-called G-20 summit, the meeting of leaders from the world's 20 largest economies. About the time that President Obama and his wife, Michelle, were stepping off Air Force One, protesters started throwing rocks at police and police cars and dragging trash containers into the middle of the street to block traffic.

President Obama appeared to fall short in his attempt to forge a unified approach to boosting the global economy as a frequently rancorous meeting of world leaders seemed set to conclude in Seoul on Friday without agreement on specific steps to avert damaging currency and trade wars. Leaders of the world's biggest economies showed that they were in no mood to compromise during the two-day summit. Instead, they were headed toward broad, general pledges that did little to mask their inability to find common ground for immediate action.

Acting in unison to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis, world leaders pledged Friday to undertake an ambitious and coordinated effort to overhaul banking practices and build a new global economic model. The plan, unveiled at the conclusion of the Group of 20 summit here, would set constraints on executive pay at financial firms, impose tougher standards on banks and launch a process aimed at correcting economic imbalances, such as China's large trade surpluses and the United States' huge deficits.

The People's March had just reached the edges of Steel City's downtown, at the halfway point in the three-mile protest, and Robert Shepherd's feet ached with each step. The gray-haired former bookstore clerk was one of several thousand peaceful demonstrators who took to the streets of Pittsburgh on Friday to call attention to a host of ills they attributed to the economic policies of the world leaders convening at the Group of 20 summit. It had been four decades since he had marched across college campuses to protest the war in Vietnam and to fight for civil rights.

They mingled cordially and dined on Scottish salmon, and not a single person stormed out of the dinner of world leaders at the British prime minister's home late Wednesday. In fact, the place cards even seated President Obama next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who just a few hours earlier had dissed the American plan to rescue the global economy.

Leaders of the world's biggest economies gathering here for the Group of 20 summit have agreed that the organization will replace the Group of Eight as a permanent body for international economic cooperation, the White House announced late Thursday. The change reflects the world's shifting economic powers and a need for the U.S. and the traditional European powers to secure the cooperation of fast-growing economies such as China, India and Brazil to make progress on pressing issues.

At a time when the U.S. and other traditional economic powers are weakening, China is flexing its muscles, signaling it will seek a much more assertive role in shaping the future of the world financial order. The apparent shift in Beijing's approach is likely to be displayed at the Group of 20 nations' summit today in London, as China presses for changes in a global finance system long dominated by the U.S. and Western Europe.

"The Rise of the Nones" is one of 10 trends changing American life, according to Time magazine's March 12 cover story. That's because the "nones" - those who mark "none" on surveys that ask them to identify their religious affiliation - are the fastest-growing religious group in the United States. Not surprisingly, the increase in the unaffiliated comes at the expense of America's mainstream religions, which means that Christianity is taking the biggest hit. Mainstream Protestant churches have lost more than a third of their members since 1960.

Tensions rose ahead of this week's Group of 20 summit as Russia and China on Monday joined in the criticisms of the Federal Reserve's plan to pump billions of dollars into the U.S. credit system ? even as President Obama took the unusual step of defending the central bank's action as good for the global economy. After initially saying he wouldn't comment on specific Fed actions, Obama then jumped into the increasingly testy international spat by saying that the Fed's mandate, like his, is to grow the U.S. economy.

A self-described anarchist from New York City has been accused of sending Twitter messages with the location of police officers so that protesters could evade them during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania State Police arrested Elliot Madison, alleging he used Twitter to direct the movement of protesters and inform them about law enforcement actions at last month's summit. The New York Post reported the arrest in Saturday editions. Court papers filed by Madison's attorney say that FBI agents executed a search warrant at the 41-year-old's Queens home.

Acting in unison to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis, world leaders pledged Friday to undertake an ambitious and coordinated effort to overhaul banking practices and build a new global economic model. The plan, unveiled at the conclusion of the Group of 20 summit here, would set constraints on executive pay at financial firms, impose tougher standards on banks and launch a process aimed at correcting economic imbalances, such as China's large trade surpluses and the United States' huge deficits.

The People's March had just reached the edges of Steel City's downtown, at the halfway point in the three-mile protest, and Robert Shepherd's feet ached with each step. The gray-haired former bookstore clerk was one of several thousand peaceful demonstrators who took to the streets of Pittsburgh on Friday to call attention to a host of ills they attributed to the economic policies of the world leaders convening at the Group of 20 summit. It had been four decades since he had marched across college campuses to protest the war in Vietnam and to fight for civil rights.

Leaders of the world's biggest economies gathering here for the Group of 20 summit have agreed that the organization will replace the Group of Eight as a permanent body for international economic cooperation, the White House announced late Thursday. The change reflects the world's shifting economic powers and a need for the U.S. and the traditional European powers to secure the cooperation of fast-growing economies such as China, India and Brazil to make progress on pressing issues.

As the sky threatened rain here, nearly 2,000 protesters gathered in Arsenal Park on Thursday with a variety of grievances, setting off some clashes with police, and moved toward the distant convention center where world leaders are set to meet today. Major economic conferences have become regular targets for protest groups, and it was no different on the eve of the so-called G-20 summit, the meeting of leaders from the world's 20 largest economies. About the time that President Obama and his wife, Michelle, were stepping off Air Force One, protesters started throwing rocks at police and police cars and dragging trash containers into the middle of the street to block traffic.

Thursday's meeting of the Group of 20 in London is supposed to be an opportunity for world leaders to agree on common solutions to the global financial crisis and come up with ways to prevent another one from happening in the future. Yet as the summit approaches, observers seem to be more focused on the past -- specifically, on two previous international attempts to reorder troubled markets, one a model of success and the other of failure.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called on leading economic powers to gather next month and discuss the global consequences of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear threat that have plunged Japan, the world's No. 3 economy, into crisis. An emergency meeting of the Group of 20 economic and energy ministers was proposed by France on Monday night at a session of the Group of 8 powers in Paris. Monday's meeting had been convened to craft a strategy for deterring bloodshed and unrest in Libya.

Thousands of people were held against their will. Pleading didn't work, neither did shouts or tears. Penned in for hours, some were forced to urinate in public. Others phoned spouses and bosses in mounting frustration as police ignored their requests to be allowed to leave.

They mingled cordially and dined on Scottish salmon, and not a single person stormed out of the dinner of world leaders at the British prime minister's home late Wednesday. In fact, the place cards even seated President Obama next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who just a few hours earlier had dissed the American plan to rescue the global economy.