arbitration
. It is not yet clear if Sudan will order its soldiers to stop in Heglig or look to continue the offensive.
The group of 20 leading economies, the G20, has pledged more than $430bn to boost the emergency resources of the International Monetary Fund, effectively doubling its lending capacity. Europe and Japan earlier offered to contribute more than $300bn for the intervention fund. As the G20 finance ministers meeting in Washington, Russia and China also promised to make money available. Andrew Walker reports.
The statement said the resources will not be
earmarked
to any particular region; they'll be available for any member country of the IMF; they're intended to safeguard global financial stability. But in practice, the reason for this initiative is the crisis in the eurozone.
The aim is to ensure that the IMF has the resources to deal with a substantial deterioration in the European financial situation. The IMF could, in most circumstances, be called on to help countries in the eurozone or those outside if they were severely affected as a result.
Reports from Bahrain say there have been clashes between police and protesters who are angry that Sunday's controversial Formula 1 Grand Prix is going ahead in the country. Eyewitnesses in the capital Manama said demonstrators
hurled
petrol bombs at the police, who responded with tear gas. The daughter of Bahrain's best-known opposition activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who's on hunger strike, said her father had now stopped drinking as well and wanted a lawyer to write his will.