VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Germany, France and Italy said on Tuesday they had agreed to join a new China-led Asian investment bank after close ally Britain defied U.S. pressure to become a founder member of a venture seen in Washington as a rival to the World Bank.

Australia expects to make a decision within weeks on whether it will seek to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Saturday.

Chinese workers mingle with Ethiopians putting the finishing touches to a metro line that cuts through Addis Ababa, one of a series of grand state infrastructure projects that Ethiopia hopes will help it mimic Asia's industrial rise.

International donors pledged $7.5 billion on Tuesday to immunize 300 million children in poor countries against deadly diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia.

Women in poor countries lose out on $9 trillion a year - more than the combined gross domestic products of Britain, France and Germany - because they are paid and employed less than men, ActionAid said on Friday.

Unease over the global economy engulfed commodities and dented Asian equities on Wednesday, while the euro loitered near nine-year lows as investors bet the European Central Bank was just a week away from launching a new stimulus campaign.

Oil prices fell more than 1 percent on Wednesday after touching their lowest in nearly six years the previous session, extending losses alongside a sell-off in other commodities.

The head of the World Bank said on Friday the idea of establishing a global emergency fund that could quickly respond to a health crisis has received interest and funds for it could be raised on the international bond markets.

Tajikistan made the greatest strides in business-friendly reforms in the past year, part of an overall trend of improving business regulations across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the World Bank said in a report released on Tuesday.

President Dilma Rousseff narrowly won re-election by spending heavily and promising to extend the fight against poverty but she will need to restore order to public finances in her second term to get Brazil's stalled economy back in gear.

Policymakers scrambling to keep the world economy from settling into the "new mediocre" of sluggish growth can no longer rely on global trade to do the heavy lifting.

The chance of a hard landing for China's economy is very small in spite of worries about the country's real-estate sector, the chief economist of the People's Bank of China said on Saturday.

The World Bank cut its 2014-2016 growth forecasts for developing East Asia, noting that China was likely to slow due to policies aimed at putting the economy on a more sustainable footing, and it also cautioned of capital-flight risks to Indonesia.

World policymakers gather in Washington later this week to ponder how to sustain economic recovery at a time when the United States is about to turn off its money taps.

Yemen will destabilise its economy if it delays reforms such as cuts to energy subsidies, the International Monetary Fund said in a report released after the government rolled back some fuel price rises in the face of political unrest.