Sao Paulo - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, an optimist to the bone, keeps repeating his mantra that Brazil, the world's 10th largest economy, will emerge from the turbulence rattling the global economy with only minor scratches.

"We will do everything to achieve a 4-per-cent growth [of gross domestic product] in 2009," Lula says optimistically, not wasting a thought on recession.

Washington  - Just days before inauguration, president-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress have taken their first steps on the long road to restoring the struggling US economy.

Democratic legislators, who hold majorities in both houses of Congress, offered the first detailed look Thursday into an 825- billion-dollar economic stimulus package, a key plank of Obama's plan to save or create as many as 3 million jobs.

Washington  - The US Senate on Thursday agreed to release the second half of a 700-billion-dollar bail-out package passed last year to keep the finance industry afloat.

Some lawmakers had tried to block the second 350 billion dollars from being approved, which would have put Congress on a collision course with president-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration.

Obama, who takes office on Tuesday, has reportedly threatened lawmakers that he will use his first veto if Congress failed to appropriate the funds. The House will take up the bill next week.

Moscow - Falling energy prices and the ongoing financial crisis have pushed the Russian rouble to an historic low against the dollar, according to the Russian central bank.

As reported by Interfax, the bank moved Thursday for the fourth time since the start of the year to broaden the range for currency fluctuations versus a basket of currencies comprised of the dollar and the euro.

The official exchange rate was posted at 32.21 roubles to the dollar, a rate 65.19 kopeks higher than on Wednesday.

The previous low of 31.88 roubles to the dollar was hit six years ago, according to Interfax.

Dubai, Jan. 15 : Work on the world''s tallest building in Dubai has come to a halt for at least a year thanks to the global financial crisis.

A Scotsman report says that developer Nakheel''s decision to shelve the project, which it unveiled only in October, came as a leading credit rating firm warned that falling property prices leave the outlook for the country''s banking sector looking negative.

A report this week showed home values in the Emirate tumbling eight percent in the past three months from the previous quarter, marking the first such decline in years.

The skyscraper - billed as at least two-thirds of a mile tall - was designed to top a rival''s nearly complete tower that will be the world''s highest.