Annitta Underlin is the Director for Europe with IFRC (the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies). Her section combines 52 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. In a report called 'Think differently,' published on Thursday (10.10.2013), they warn that Europe's response to the economic crisis will push the continent into social and economic decline.

The head of the US Federal Reserve is the most important job in the financial world. The Fed decides the interest rate for the US dollar, the world's leading currency, and is a significant influence on the markets' money supply. It's an office with great power and even greater responsibility.

For the first time in its 100-year history, that post will go to a woman when Janet Yellen, with a doctorate in economics, takes over from current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The news out of Washington has already inspired some journalists to comment on how the financial world is being run by three influential woman. With German Chancellor Angela Merkel, IMF Chairman Christine Lagarde and now Yellen, there are now "three women who influence the markets," wrote the German news agency dpa.

BRUSSELS - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) will decide later this month whether to set up an arbitration panel on what the EU has described as an "illegal measure" by Russia against the bloc's car industry.

Speaking with journalists in Brussels on Thursday (10 October), John Clancy, the commission's trade spokesman, said that the EU executive had "been left with no other choice but to pursue WTO arbitration" in response to a measure he described as "a clear discrimination against EU motor vehicle exports."

BRUSSELS - At $241trillion, global wealth has reached an historic high as the gap between income disparities widen.

"We expect global wealth to rise by nearly 40 percent over the next five years, reaching $334 trillion by 2018," noted the 2013 Credit Suisse Wealth Report on Wednesday (9 October).

Half the world's population own less than 1 percent of the global wealth while over 86 percent of global wealth is in the hands of the richest ten percent.