TORONTO (Reuters) – Recession made the G20 the main forum for managing the world economy last year. Now, the recovery is putting to the test the new sense of common cause that united rich and developing countries.

Meeting in Canada at the weekend, leaders from the Group of 20 struggled to maintain the solidarity they showed during the worst of the downturn last year, when they pumped trillions of dollars into the economy to prevent an even deeper slump.

TORONTO (Reuters) – Leaders of the world’s biggest economies will pledge on Sunday to phase out subsidies for “inefficient” fossil fuels, in a statement toughened at the last minute at the urging of the United States, Group of 20 sources said.

The G20 communique in Toronto calls for the “phase out over the medium term of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, taking into account vulnerable groups and their development needs,” said the sources, who provided the language to Reuters.

TORONTO, June 26 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama,
fresh from a win on a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street
regulations, on Saturday urged Congress to take up his proposal
for a $90 billion, 10-year tax on banks as the next step in
reform.

Obama wants to slap a 0.15 percent tax on the liabilities
of the biggest U.S. financial institutions to recoup the costs
to taxpayers of the financial bailout.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The win President Barack Obama racked up on U.S. financial regulation reform Friday will give him a boost at this weekend’s Group of 20 summit in Toronto but probably only a limited one.

In the shadow of the 2007-2009 financial crisis, the United States has often found its regulatory structure the target of fingerpointing by other G20 countries at recent summits.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The win President Barack Obama racked up on U.S. financial regulation reform on Friday will give him a boost at this weekend’s Group of 20 summit in Toronto but probably only a limited one.

In the shadow of the 2007-2009 financial crisis, the United States has often found its regulatory structure the target of fingerpointing by other G20 countries at recent summits.

WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) – World leaders need to take
steps to foster a more durable recovery, White House economic
adviser Lawrence Summers said on Thursday, while emphasizing
that growth strategies did not simply mean deficit spending.

In an interviews with Reuters Insider ahead of a weekend
meeting of Group of 20 leaders, Summers said that building
confidence also was “crucial.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Blunt, brash, brainy and occasionally self-mocking. Larry Summers, the White House economic adviser, is all of these things. In a career spanning academia, government and finance, he has rubbed some people the wrong way and infuriated others.

So when President Barack Obama named him director of the National Economic Council, skeptics could be forgiven for wondering how Summers would fit in with the “No Drama Obama” management style. Eighteen months later, the question persists.

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House economic adviser Paul Volcker has told U.S. lawmakers they should not let his proposed Volcker rule limiting banks’ risky trading be undermined by loopholes.

“He has told several people, including some lawmakers, that he does not want the Volcker rule to look like Swiss cheese,” his office said in a statement to Reuters on Monday.

By Caren Bohan and Jeffrey Jones

WASHINGTON/VENICE, La. (Reuters) – British energy giant BP Plc reached a tentative agreement with President Barack Obama on Wednesday to place about $20 billion in a special fund to pay damage claims from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

A source with knowledge of the agreement confirmed to Reuters the preliminary deal, which followed talks between Obama and top BP executives, their first since the start of the 58-day-old crisis.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, seeking to counter an image of detached leadership of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, will demand on Wednesday that BP Plc set aside billions of dollars to pay damages from the catastrophe.

A day after he vowed to fight the spill “with everything we’ve got,” Obama was to meet at the White House at 10:15 a.m. (1415 GMT) with the energy giant’s executives, the first time he as done so since the crisis began nearly two months ago.