Just suppose the World Bank's major shareholders decided they could use their money better elsewhere. Who would get the mandate to unwind or sell the bank's loan portfolio and how would it be done? One consultant, who prefers not to be named, suggested this as a hypothetical exercise, but colleagues feared it would be biting the hand that feeds them.

Deutsche Bank speaker Rolf Breuer recently boasted that his bank's value-at-risk (VAR) models were the only ones in Germany to be approved by the supervisors in Berlin.

Philosophers have debated ethics for thousands of years and come up with more questions than answers. But now a super-smart Swiss asset manager has launched an ethical fund using a quantitative model to determine how naughty or nice companies are. Their efforts may not impress followers of Plato, Kant and Hume but will they persuade socially-concerned investors to part with their cash?

Management sages are rife but the office is an unenlightened place. Bob McGinnis, head of consumer asset-backed debt at Greenwich Capital in the US, complained to Euromoney that the French windows in his office didn't open and he couldn't practise his golf swing. When his comments found their way into print he was deluged by self-righteous colleagues and clients deploring his waste of valuable time contemplating leisure. For them the best office is one with no windows and the employees locked inside.

Fringe protesters at the IMF/World Bank annual meetings are nothing new. But once they could be easily dismissed as Utopians or religious nutters not worth taking seriously. No longer.

Hyperinflation, a stalled privatization process, a lack of raw materials and a national currency near-impossible to convert have understandably encouraged the view among foreign investors that Belarus is an economic basket-case. But, as Theodore Kim reports, for the adventurous it's one of the cheapest places in the world to do business and it does have an industrial infrastructure so massive that it earned a reputation as the assembly plant of the Soviet Union

When Armínio Fraga quit his job at Soros Fund Management to become Brazil's central banker he was dubbed a "poacher turned gamekeeper". But he is no stranger to the public sector. With stability restored he is now modernizing Brazil's finance sector. Brian Caplen reports

The emerging markets are bouncing back - at least some of them are. While they do, the market is holding its breath as crisis-hit countries implement fiscal and monetary reforms. And while economists believe growth rates will improve, they are also resigned to sovereign defaults on foreign debt. Commentary by Rebecca Cicolecchia, research by Alexa Marx.

When the ministry of finance regulated banks in Japan the watchdog turned a blind eye to foreign banks doing things domestic ones couldn't. Not that there was anything illegal in the lucrative business of creating structured deals for firms intent on disguising losses. The new regulator - the FSA - takes a different view and has imposed an exemplary clampdown on Credit Suisse. There's apparently a limit on the number of times something legal can be done if it's deemed against the public interest. The bankers are bemused by the vagueness of it all and so is our reporter Steven Irvine.

A consolidation wave has broken over the Arab banks. In Bahrain, Gulf International Bank and Saudi International have created a new giant. In Saudi Arabia, Saudi American Bank and United Saudi Bank merged. Years of low oil prices and weak economies are the spur, though banks are still making profits. Commentary by Andrew Beikos and Elena Antoniou

A handful of US congressmen have the IMF and World Bank at their mercy. When it comes to fresh capital or even the subject of US withdrawal, these are the guys who have the casting vote, with a mind to their own re-election. Some, like congressman Sonny Callahan, chairman of the House foreign operations committee, are more supportive than others, who'd prefer the IMF to be shut down and the third world left to market forces. The US Treasury and others with a less parochial view have to tread tortuous paths through Senate and House committees to push through the administration's foreign policy. The multilateral institutions have hung back from lobbying on Capitol Hill, but one day it could be a matter of survival. Brian Caplen reports.

John Reed's pronouncements that Citibank and Travelers Group are not merging fast enough may be too severe. The banking group's merged corporate and investment banking divisions are trying their best to show otherwise.

It's huge, it's teeming with wild creatures, and it's fragile. In 1994 Deutsche Bank began to build an investment bank. In 1998 it restructured itself around corporate and investment banking. In 1999 it totally absorbed Bankers Trust. The result is a behemoth that relies heavily on global securities markets and the charisma of one man. Is this a safe vehicle for the next millennium? David Shirreff reports

Ever thought about dropping out of the City or Wall Street, and setting up your own little business, producing something real and tangible, perhaps even socially useful, and fostering it all the way to an IPO? If you're an investment banker, the answer is probably ... yes.

Last year's Russian crisis had one unexpected spin-off. For the first time investors started to differentiate between Russian risk and that of Kazakhstan. It was good news for Kazakhstan as Ted Kim reports.

Bankers tossed out of jobs in last year's emerging markets crisis should now be brushing off their CVs. Quietly and cautiously banks are rebuilding their emerging markets teams - primarily in Asian and Latin American equities - in the hope that this year's momentum in the asset class will be sustained. ING Barings which was heavily criticized for radically downsizing a tip-top team is leading the way back.

The great and the good have come up with a seven-point plan to stave off financial crises and benefit the developing world. Are they building castles in the air or laying the basis of a new financial architecture? James Smalhout reports

Plummeting oil prices, turmoil in world markets and natural disasters: José Angel Gurría's first months as Mexico's finance secretary were a baptism of fire. But his legendary powers of persuasion enabled him to make vital budget cuts to keep Mexico on track. By Brian Caplen

Credit and swap spreads have already risen in anticipation of the world's financial markets clamming shut this December. Borrowers and bankers talk nervously about the disappearance of liquidity and short-term funding in the run-up to year 2000. Central banks are on standby. So are some traders who hope to take advantage of illiquidity and mispricing. The frustration for many is that it is their own contingency plans, not their computers, that threaten chaos. But no-one knows how fierce the full millennium effect will be. Marcus Walker reports

The 17 superchefs of the European Central Bank who sit on its governing council have 17 ideas about how to set rates, and how transparent the process should be. From the orthodox toughness of Duisenberg and Issing to the softness on the Nordic and southern fringes. Here are the two Germans, two Frenchmen, two Dutchmen, two Finns, two Spaniards, two Italians, the Austrian, Irishman, Portuguese, Belgian and Luxembourgois who rule euroland. By David Lanchner

Nothing surprises crisis-hardened Desmond Supple any more, but even he was left slightly baffled by Malaysia's bid to resurrect talk of a single south-east Asian currency. Supple, head of research at Barclays Capital in Singapore, deftly reeled off reasons why, in his opinion, such a concept would not work, at least for the foreseeable future. Variations in development levels between the countries and differences in business cycles are top of Supple's list.

There can be no stronger sign of progress in Russian financial structuring than the news of the revival of Inkombank, one of the institutions worst hit in the crisis.

As the risk of a round of sovereign bond rescheduling looms, bondholders are dusting off the documentation to see what it says. By Christopher Stoakes

The Asian crisis delivered a devastating blow to the region's sprawling conglomerates. For years they diversified and grew rapidly, feeding on a rich diet of debt, much of it in foreign currencies. Then suddenly their markets collapsed and their debt service costs soared. But the bad times are ending and after drastic restructuring the best companies are on the move again. Alex Mathias reports.

A new advisory science has been born this year in Europe: how to launch and defend hostile bids. The aggression and free-flowing finance are straight out of America, but the old continent's politics add an extra level of difficulty. The latest landmark battle, following the struggles for Telecom Italia, Gucci and Société Générale, is raging in the French oil sector. TotalFina's raid on Elf Aquitaine, and Elf's counter-attack, highlight once again the primacy of politics in shaping French business. The battle also provides Europe-wide lessons for the M&A tactical manual.

Richard Deitz didn't realize how provocative his new firm's name would be when he set it up in Moscow after the crisis. VR Group, the snipers say, stands for "vozrozhdenie or vozkrezenie Renaissance" - Russian for Renaissance revival or resurrected. Others claim it means virtual Renaissance.

After eight years of campaigning, Germany's private-sector banks finally won a judgment in Brussels against WestLB's contentious capital-raising scheme, striking a blow at the financing privileges of state-owned banks. But WestLB chairman Friedel Neuber barely missed a beat: in less than a month he had demonstrated his political shareholders' loyalty by arranging yet another capital increase. Cowed by an angry government, the private banks dare not take the challenge to its logical conclusion. They fear losing more than they would gain, says Laura Covill.