Washington  - The US Senate was to begin debate Monday on an unprecedented 888-billion-dollar spending package designed to help pull the US out of recession, but lawmakers remain divided over both its size and scope.

President Barack Obama, who has staked his economic recovery hopes on the stimulus' passage, urged legislators to iron out their differences swiftly. He planned to meet with Democratic congressional leaders later Monday.

Washington  - US consumer spending dropped 1 per cent in December, a record sixth straight monthly decline and rounding out the country's worst year for consumers since 1961, the Commerce Department said Monday.

The drop from a month at an annual rate was larger than economists had predicted, according to Bloomberg News, and compared to a revised 0.8-per-cent drop in November.

Harare -

Singapore  - Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has assured Singaporeans that his government would help the needy tackle the economic crisis, media reports said Monday.

"We will make sure that everyone who needs help will get help, and everyone who makes the effort to help himself and his family, we will make sure he is all right," Lee said Sunday night at a Chinese New Year dinner in his ward in Ang Mo Kio.

Davos, Switzerland  - The World Economic Forum will launch in the upcoming weeks an initiative to focus on reshaping the global financial systems, its founder Klaus Schwab announced Sunday in the closing hours of this year's Davos meeting.

"We will start a Global Redesign Initiative in next few weeks," Schwab said in an impromptu statement.

"It has the support of almost every political leader who was here" at Davos in the past five days, said Schwab, naming specifically UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao as backers.

He said the upcoming meeting in April of the Group of 20 industrialized economies (G20) would not be enough to solve the global economic crisis.

Davos, Switzerland  - World leaders spoke out against protectionism in their speeches at Davos, warning that putting restraints on trade would only worsen and prolong the global economic crisis.

But there were few signs that a sideline meeting Saturday of trade ministers from about 20 countries had managed to push ahead the long-stalled Doha Round of trade talks, meant to create freer markets.

"Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is not right," said World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy. "Trade is not the cause of crisis."