Morning Briefing

By the end of this year, an additional 64 million people will fall into extreme poverty as a result of the global economic downturn that started in 2008, the World Bank said in a study on "member banks' response" to the situation, Reuters reports. The bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than $1.25 per day. The report is based on the findings of a group, created "to appraise the effectiveness of its response to the global downturn," the news service writes.