European leaders slapped themselves on the back after picking Belgian premier Herman Van Rompuy as the first EU president, but some doubted that the creation of the post would make the difference they hope.

The Asia-Pacific's top economic club faces intense debate about who else can join its ranks, with India among the nations knocking at the door when a moratorium on new entrants expires next year.

Lack of action on the climate change bill bogged down in the U.S. Senate will not stop Washington from seeking a framework to curb carbon emissions at next month's summit in Copenhagen, experts say.

The jump in U.S. unemployment above 10 percent for the first time since 1983 will pressure President Barack Obama to find additional stimulus to keep a fragile economic recovery on track, analysts say.

Bolstering the world economic recovery and crafting a deal to fight climate change will be top of the agenda for G-20 finance ministers meeting in Scotland from Friday.

Two decades after the collapse of communism, Central European states have undergone an unprecedented metamorphosis from command to market economies that experts say was never guaranteed to succeed.

Twenty years after the Berlin Wall fell, now unified Germany has a far bigger footprint on the world stage, demonstrating an assertiveness that was unthinkable for most of the post-Nazi period.

Asian leaders barely mentioned Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi at a weekend summit, making a mockery of the region's grand claims for its new rights body, analysts said.

Could climate change spark the first worldwide grassroots movement? Even as politicians dial down expectations for the December 7-18 U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen, analysts and activists detect a groundswell of anger, channeled through the Internet and voiced especially by the young, demanding action on global warming.

China has repeatedly said it opposes sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but Beijing could make concessions to protect its wider interests, especially in terms of Sino-U.S. ties, experts say.