Fitch warns it might downgrade US rating

Fitch ratings agency issued a strong warning to the US today to deal with its recurrent debt-ceiling dramas in a way which strengthens the economy in the long term, saying that its top “AAA” credit rating was at stake. Fitch said that failure to raise the limit in time would lead to a formal revision by Fitch of its ratings of US debt instruments, but the agency also said the risk of a US default was extremely low. 

Remarkable economic transformation in India and China, says Bernanke

Emerging markets like India and China are witnessing a remarkable transformation, despite a slowdown in economic growth, lifting millions of people out of poverty, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said. "In the emerging markets, you have a variety of different stories, but I think the fundamentals there, in the emerging markets, are pretty good, and even if there's some moderation of growth in some countries, we are seeing overall a rather remarkable transformation of places like China and India, which has been the biggest anti-poverty programme in history," he said yesterday.