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UK prime minister Tony Blair is facing the biggest test of his political career as he tries to persuade the British public to support military action against Iraq in alliance with the US. But his government is not just dealing with a major foreign policy problem. The UK economy is also under scrutiny.

President Arroyo took office in the Philippines with ambitious plans to increase revenues, curb corruption and cut the state deficit. But after two years in office little has been achieved on these fronts. Now pessimistic country analysts are making worrying comparisons between Asia's busiest sovereign borrower and Argentina.

The Indonesian banks that best coped with the 1997 crisis were focused on retail and small business customers. Now those banks that are restructuring are intent on the same sector.

Jochen Friedrich arrived at DZ Bank last year to become head of fixed income. This bank, along with WGZ Bank, is one of the two central institutions linking Germany's mutual banking network. Consolidation is under way among the cooperatives as well as the Landesbanken. DZ itself is the product of a difficult merger between DG Bank and GZ Bank, and expects the total number of German cooperative banks to fall from about 1,600 today to roughly 800 by 2008.

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Foreign exchange

Asian recovery belies slack global growth

If you can make it here, so the song goes, you can make it anywhere. But New York hasn't been that accommodating to Duncan Goldie-Morrison. The towering Scot, head of global markets for Banc of America Securities, only moved there from Chicago last year.

Impending full liberalization of Malaysia's banking system is encouraging local players to grow their investment banking business, with RHB Sakura and CIMB taking the lead.

Maarten Henderson, CFO of Dutch telco KPN, ended 2002 on a high note. On December 5, Standard & Poor's upgraded the company from BBB- to BBB, praising its deleveraging efforts. It had cut net debt from e22 billion at the end of September 2001 to e13.9 billion in just a year and had improved operational performance. By December 30, Henderson was celebrating the birth of a new baby daughter. And 2003 also got off to a promising start when, at a time when Deutsche Telekom was being punished by a two-notch downgrade by Moody's in January, the rating agency changed the outlook on the KPN's Baa3 rating to positive.

For years companies leveraged up to boost shareholder returns. When the boom burst the disappointment of stockholders was as nothing to the wrath of creditors who have pushed companies to the brink. Some have pulled back, others are still teetering, only a few have steered well clear of trouble.

Some points to consider before you dabble in the yellow metal.