This summit did not ride to the rescue of the euro and the eurozone. In the midst of crises in Greece and Italy, President Obama barely concealed his
exasperation
with European decision-making, saying he'd learnt a lot in the past two days about how laborious it was. This summit also
pushed Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi into
accepting that the IMF should monitor his government's debt reduction programme to reduce the risk of financial catastrophe in one of the eurozone's largest economies. Italy insists it volunteered, but this
amounts to
a public
audit
every quarter by the IMF.
The Liberian opposition presidential candidate Winston Tubman has said he will boycott next week's run-off election against the incumbent, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Thomas Fessy reports.
Winston Tubman told the BBC the current conditions were not acceptable for him and left him with no choice but to
pull out of
the vote. Opposition parties accuse the electoral commission of siding with the ruling party during the counting process of the first round. The head of the electoral body resigned earlier this week. But this wasn't enough for Mr Tubman and his running mate George Weah. They accuse the incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of trying to bring back a one-party state system in Liberia.
The head of Liberia's election commission has said that the run-off vote will go ahead as planned.