Washington  - The United States will push for aggressive action to halt the global economic slide at an international financial summit next month, President Barack Obama said Wednesday, emphasizing the interconnectedness of the global economy and again warning against protectionist moves.

Ahead of April's Group of 20 (G20) gathering of the world's leading economies, Obama acknowledged that developing countries were being "hard hit" by the fallout from an economic crisis that largely began in the United States.

Kiev  - Ukraine's government has met International Monetary Fund (IMF) demands by making politically-painful changes to monetary and fiscal law, a move opening the way for more emergency credits, a senior official said Wednesday.

Ukraine's cabinet in morning a morning session passed resolutions drastically limiting where future IMF loans to Ukraine might be spent, among other Fund pre-conditions for further loans, said Vice Minister Hryhory Nemyra, according to an Interfax news agency report.

Brussels  - The European Union is ready to bail out Romania, the latest European victim of the global credit crunch, the bloc's finance ministers said after a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

"In view of the adverse effects of the global financial turmoil on the economic and financial situation in Romania, the (EU's) Council Presidency and the Commission express the European Union's readiness to support Romania in avoiding risks of increasing market pressures and in achieving the orderly unwinding of imbalances," ministers said in a statement.

Washington - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday outlined a broad overhaul of how US financial institutions should be regulated, calling on policymakers to begin remaking the system even as they battle the current economic downturn.

Bernanke said the focus should be on financial firms of "systemic" importance to the entire system and whose failure could lead to a complete collapse of the economy.

Brussels  - European Union finance ministers Tuesday agreed to allow member states to permanently reduce VAT rates in labour- intensive sectors such as catering or cleaning, diplomats said.

The deal, brokered by the Czech presidency of the EU with the help of the European Commission, was expected to end months of wrangling about the effectiveness of such a measure.

While some member states had insisted it would help create new jobs at a time of economic crisis, others had argued it would merely result in a fall in tax revenues.

Geneva  - The sub-prime mortgage crisis has exposed the crisis in governments' housing policies and could still hit the middle classes, the United Nations' expert on urban planning said on Monday.

Sub-prime mortgages, given by lenders to people who could not afford them, are widely blamed for triggering the meltdown in US banks and the global liquidity crisis and economic downturn.