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 As part of a historic shift that recognizes the rising influence of China, Brazil and India the G20 is to take on an expanded role. The leaders of the world's top 20 wealthy and developing nations meeting in Pittsburgh, US, decided that the G20 will take over the role of pre-eminent council on global economic cooperation.
That function for more than three decades had been performed by a smaller club of leading industrial countries known as the G8.
On Thursday, September 24, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had asked that the G20 replace the G8 as the main forum for the world leadership. He argued that it was time that the emerging countries have their say at the table with the richer nations.
"I believe there is no reason for a G8 or any other G except the G20," said Lula in a TV interview in the United States with Jim Lehrer in his PBS Program "The News Hour."
"I believe that we should assure that the G20 should be from now on an important forum to discuss the world's main economic decisions," he added.
Brazil, China and India should have a bigger voice on world issues because they are large consumers and producers and "we are better prepared than the rich countries for this crisis," continued the president.
Brazil, China and India belong to the G20, but not the G8 which is made up by the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia. The G20 is represented by the 19 world's largest economies plus the European Union.
Lula also asked the G20 leaders to hasten the review of the global financial rules, strengthen the banks capital standards and get rid of fiscal paradises.
"We need to use this crisis and to things the right way,"he concluded.
The G20 also agreed on a 5 percentage point shift in International Monetary Fund voting power from controlling developed countries to underrepresented countries, G20 sources said. The move is part of efforts to give emerging economic powers more say in the IMF to recognize their growing influence in the world economy.
World leaders closed in on a statement urging new restraints on bankers' pay, a flashpoint for outrage in the global financial crisis. The statement, however, was not expected to include specific monetary caps on pay, accommodating the United States' insistence that such limits would be a deal-breaker.
G20 policy experts are urging their leaders to approve measures such as clawing back salaries for poor performance and paying some bonuses in stock, an official said.
High levels of compensation, such as giving multi-million dollar bonuses to executives even at money-losing financial firms, have outraged political leaders and become a target for advocates of tighter oversight of banks and capital markets.
"Europeans are horrified by banks, some reliant on taxpayers' money, once again paying exorbitant bonuses," said European Commission President José Manuel Barroso.
"In Pittsburgh, the EU will call for coordinated action to stop this, building on measures already taken in Europe and elsewhere," he said in a statement before the summit opened.
A storm of controversy erupted in March over millions of dollars in bonuses paid to executives at bailed out insurance giant American International Group, prompting President Barack Obama to call out-sized bonuses "just not acceptable."
Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs further inflamed the issue in July by saying it had set aside 11.3 billion USD for compensation in the first half of 2009, just months after getting a 10-billion taxpayer bailout, which it has since paid back.
G20 officials were focused on finding ways to link a bank's bonus pool and executive compensation more closely to the health of its balance sheet and overall profitability.
Bzz/Mercopress
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
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Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
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A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
He said 50 or 60 people now remain, including Mr Zelaya's wife and other relatives, who are receiving food deliveries from the UN.
"It is a delicate situation," said Mr Catunda.
"We support Mr Zelaya, but we are unable to accommodate so many people."
Milton Benitez, a Zelaya supporter inside the embassy, said the deposed leader was sleeping on an inflatable mattress while many people were spending the nights on the floor.
I will submit myself to any trial because my hands are clean and my chin is up
Manuel Zelaya
Zelaya speaks to BBC
Transcript:Micheletti interview
Views from Honduras
"We are living in inhuman conditions," Mr Benitez told the AP news agency.