Tokyo - Japan's core consumer price index (CPI) rose in September from a year before due to rising oil and food prices, and the nation's average household spending declined as people spent less on food, the government data showed Friday.

The nation's core CPI, excluding fresh food prices, rose 2.3 per cent in September, compared to a year before, as energy prices grew 14.7 per cent and non-perishable food prices rose 4.2 per cent, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said.

Berlin - European inflation edged down in October, data to be released Friday is forecast to show, adding to the likelihood of the European Central Bank delivering another hefty cut in interest rates next week.

Analysts expect the European Union's statistics office to say in its preliminary estimate for October that inflation in the 15-member eurozone edged down to 3.2 per cent or even 3.1 per cent from 3.6 per cent in September.

San Salvador, El Salvador (dpa) - Latin America and Spain on Thursday at the 18th Iberian American Summit in San Salvador demanded a greater presence in global financial decisions at a time of crisis.

Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina, among other countries, called for a fairer multilateral world order that would take into account the views of emerging countries in the face of a crisis that developed in industrialized nations and threatens to hit developing countries particularly hard.

New York - The UN General Assembly should establish better ties with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in order to resolve some of the problems deriving from the global financial crisis, the top UN economist said Thursday.

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz called for reform in the relationship among the three institutions so that the assembly can assume a leading role in monitoring financial organizations and their decisions that will have impacts on economic growth, unemployment and poverty.

Berlin - Key industrial employers in Germany offered 800,000 workers in and near the carmaking city of Stuttgart a wage rise of 2.1 per cent Thursday as pay bargaining hung in the balance.

The militant IG Metall trade union announced weeks ago that it was seeking a hike of 8 per cent, prompting an indirect rebuke from the European Central Bank, which said it feared a wage-price spiral.

San Salvador, El Salvador