The Federal Reserve will resume a key meeting on Wednesday to review options of how to restore U.S. growth, with its traditional interest rate policy tool already lowered almost to zero.
Policy-makers are expected to focus on credit-easing measures that have already doubled the size of the Fed's balance sheet to over $2 trillion, while assuring investors they can keep Fed borrowing costs very low for a long time.

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday took a step toward easing mortgage foreclosures threatening millions of Americans, announcing that it would write down troubled mortgages to keep people in their homes.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the initiative would specifically include $74 billion of assets held in connection with the bailout last year of Bear Stearns and American International Group.

Chinese authorities have launched a security operation in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, running checks on almost 6,000 people and detaining 81, including two with "reactionary music" on their mobile phones, state media reported.
A report in the Tibetan Daily said the "strike hard" campaign was targeting criminals.

The economic stimulus plan that Congress has scheduled for a vote on Wednesday would shower the nation’s school districts, child care centers and university campuses with $150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education’s current budget.
The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students, would amount to the largest increase in federal aid since Washington began to spend significantly on education after World War II.

Their names lack the Dickensian flair of Bernie Madoff, and the money they apparently stole from investors was a small fraction of the $50 billion that Mr. Madoff allegedly lost of his clients’ savings.
But the number of other people who have been caught running Ponzi schemes in recent weeks is adding up quickly, so much so that they have earned themselves a nickname: mini-Madoffs.

Voters are ready to accept a steep rise in air fares to reduce the environmental damage caused by flying, the annual British social attitudes survey reveals today.
The survey found a big change in levels of public concern about the environment since its researchers began monitoring it in 2004.
Each year, they have asked a representative sample of more than 4,000 people whether they agree or disagree that "the price of a plane ticket should reflect the environmental damage that flying causes, even if it makes air travel much more expensive".

Thousands of Greek farmers demanding compensation for low commodity prices have threatened to step up a nine-day protest which has paralysed the country, cutting road links with its neighbours and leaving tonnes of fruit and meat rotting in lorries. Using tractors and trailers, the farmers have blockaded around 70 main roads, cutting Athens off from the second city of Thessaloniki in the north and closing border crossings with Bulgaria, Macedonia and Turkey.

'Women [in Iraq] are being killed simply for being women," says Nadje Al-Ali when I meet her at her home in south London. "In Basra in 2008 a reported 133 women were killed for not 'being Islamic' enough. And these are only the ones that made it to be officially counted. I saw the police photos - they were horrific."

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The radical Islamist insurgents who have seized the provisional capital moved Tuesday to consolidate their control of the town and announced that they were imposing Islamic law there.
Islamists Overrun Somalia City as Ethiopians Leave (January 27, 2009) The Shabab, one of the most militant Islamist militias fighting for control of the country, captured the town, Baidoa, on Monday, hours after the withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops who had been protecting it.

There has been much debate over whether GPs should prescribe contraception to under-16s without telling their parents.
In this week's Scrubbing Up health column, Dr Ann McPherson says doctors have a duty to the patient - not the parent - but that it is not a black and white situation.